rocksinmypath
Warlord
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2022
- Messages
- 248
As almost a carbon copy of its counterpart from Civ 6, the Civ 7 pantheon currently feels out of place.
My biggest problem with the current system is with the first-come-first-served nature of most beliefs. I wasn't a fan of this aspect of the pantheon feature in the previous game, and I think it makes even less sense in Civ 7 due to balancing issues. In Civ 6, it somewhat skewed the balance toward God King over Urban Planning as your first policy, but that was no big deal compared to how disproportionately urgent Mysticism feels compared to the other 2-4 (including uniques) civics in most games of Civ 7. This, in turn, has the effect of making culture-providing narrative options basically no-brainers in the early phase of the game. Maybe the first-come-first-served design was initially motivated by the desire to make the player work to unlock potentially very powerful abilities that some beliefs offer in certain situations, but Civ 7 beliefs only apply to settlements with Altars, which are big investments to make in the early game, so I don't see why beliefs still need to be exclusive to players who select them first.
Now, I think the devs are already aware of this problem, which is why they recently added new beliefs that can be selected by multiple players. I've also noticed that the Deity AI now tends to not rush Mysticism like before, and quite often, most beliefs are still there even when Mysticism isn't the very first civic I unlock. It's entirely possible that the remaining beliefs will also become non-exclusive at some point, so I wanted to actually focus on other potential improvements to the pantheon system.
Another gripe I have with the pantheon system is that it just doesn't integrate too well with other parts of the game. Specifically, I would like to see the pantheon play a bigger role in governance and diplomacy. Right now, the pantheon feels like it's just a way to amplify certain yields, and it relates to the governance and diplomacy systems the same way warehouse buildings do.
A solution I have in mind starts with the introduction of belief categories. Instead of choosing a single belief that applies to every single settlement you have, you would instead choose a group of beliefs. Whenever you build an altar in a settlement, you select one belief from your category. In other words, instead of worshipping a single god, different settlements in your empire can worship different gods, as long as they belong to the same category. (Exceptions to this rule are discussed later.)
We can group existing beliefs into categories, perhaps the same set of categories that apply to leaders, civs and independent powers (e.g. Cultural, Expansionist, Economic), or invent a new set of categories. Here's an example grouping:
Science
- God of Wisdom: Science on quarters
- God of the Forge: Production toward buildings (similar bonus is found in the science leader attribute tree and science city states)
Culture
- Goddess of Festivals: Culture on quarters
- Monument to the Gods: Production toward wonders
Militaristic
- God of Healing: Faster healing
- God of War: Production toward military units
Expansionist
- Oral Tradition: Production to settlers
- Fertility Rites: Increased growth
- Goddess of the Harvest: Food on farm/pasture/plantation
Economic
- God of the Forest: Gold on camp/woodcutter
- Stone Circles: Production on mine/quarry/clay pit
- God of the Sea: Production on fishing boat
- God of Revelry: Happiness on resource
Diplomatic
- City Patron Goddess: Influence
- Trickster God: Influence toward endeavours and sanctions
Ungrouped
- God of the Sun: All yields
- Sacred Waters: Altar adjacency from water
- Earth Goddess: Altar adjacency from mountain/natural wonder
The belief selection is currently a little sparse for a 6-way split. Regardless of how the beliefs are grouped, I think around 4 beliefs per group would be ideal.
Belief categories are not exclusive, which implies that two different players can select the same belief category. This could open up some interesting possibilities in terms of diplomacy. Similar to how government types affect relationships, worshipping the same set of gods as another leader can help improve your relationship with them. Belief compatibility could potentially also unlock new diplomatic endeavours. For instance, I think it would be thematic to add a new endeavour that allows two civs to join each other during celebrations. Some ideas have along this include:
- When you enter a celebration, you can offer (for some influence) another leader to join. For you, the bonus selected for the celebration is magnified. The other leader receives the same (but reduced if the endeavour is not supported) bonus that you receive for the duration of the celebration. The other leader is a mere "guest" in the celebration, so joining has no effect on the other leader's own ongoing celebration or their celebration cycle.
- When you enter a celebration, you can offer another leader to join by also going into a celebration, overriding the other leader's celebration cycle. As the initiator, you get to choose which celebration bonus you will both enjoy, and the bonus is magnified for you (and for your friend if they supported the endeavour).
Speaking of celebrations, I think the celebration mechanism feels a little hollow in general. Right now, your government choice is all about which pair of yields you want to boost during future celebrations, but what if the government type was instead about your attitude toward faith both during and outside of celebrations? Celebration bonus types are tied to belief categories rather than government types (e.g. Cultural category provides a choice between +20% to culture per turn and +15% toward wonders), and government types instead affect how the chosen bonus is applied. Example changes to government types:
Despotism
- Base: Settlements you conquer maintain the belief category of the original owner. If the settlement already has an altar, it maintains the existing belief. Otherwise, you can choose one from the original owner's category when you build one.
- Celebration: The selected celebration bonus only applies to settlements that follow your belief category. For every other settlement, +5% to all yields.
Classical Republic
- Base: +1 influence per turn for each one of your settlement that follows a different belief from your capital. When you capture a settlement with a different belief category, it converts to your belief category and incurs -2 influence per turn.
- Celebration: The selected celebration bonus only applies to settlements that follow the same belief as your capital. For every other settlement, +5% to all yields.
Theocracy
- Base: Receive a free altar in the capital. Conquered or not, every settlement with an altar follows the same belief (not just category) as the capital. +5 happiness in each settlement with an altar that naturally follows the capital's belief. Each settlement that is forced to convert to the capital's belief uses up two settlement slots instead of one. The same applies when a theocratic settlement is captured by another player and is forced to convert to another belief.
- Celebration: You don't have to choose between the two bonuses as you get both.
Before I wrap up, I want to list some other miscellaneous pantheon-related ideas, particularly ones that relate to interesting unique abilities that can work in this proposed framework.
Maurya's ability to choose two beliefs will obviously need a rework. Some proposals:
- Maurya can choose two belief categories, meaning each settlement has a wider selection of beliefs to choose from. (A straightforward transcription of the original ability, but probably way too weak.)
- Each Mauryan settlement chooses two beliefs from Maurya's belief category. In Theocracy, this implies the same pair of beliefs selected for the capital are applied to every other settlement as well.
- If it already has a belief, a settlement conquered by Maurya retains it and can choose a second belief from Maurya's category. In Despotism, the second belief must be chosen from the owner's category instead. (Appropriate if we want Maurya to lean more toward the militaristic side.)
Other ideas about the pantheon and celebrations:
- Instead of tying celebration bonuses to government types or belief categories, create beliefs that grant access to certain types of celebration. For instance, it makes sense for a settlement with lots of floodplains to worship the God of Floods. With this belief, whenever this settlement (or any other settlement with the same belief) gets flooded, the player is given a choice to immediately enter a special celebration, overriding any ongoing celebration, that provides a significant production bonus in flooded settlements.
- It would be nice to find ways to link the pantheon to the crisis system, which also clearly needs some love. We can introduce the "Appease the Gods" mode, which protects settlements from impact of crises. For example, in a plague crisis, the plague cannot spread to a settlement on Appease the Gods. While in this mode, a settlement forfeits the usual bonuses provided by the altar. In addition, when even one settlement is put on this mode, any ongoing celebration is immediately cancelled, any excess happiness collected toward the next celebration in queue is set to 0, and the empire-wide happiness per turn drops to 0 until Appease the Gods is de-activated in every settlement.
My biggest problem with the current system is with the first-come-first-served nature of most beliefs. I wasn't a fan of this aspect of the pantheon feature in the previous game, and I think it makes even less sense in Civ 7 due to balancing issues. In Civ 6, it somewhat skewed the balance toward God King over Urban Planning as your first policy, but that was no big deal compared to how disproportionately urgent Mysticism feels compared to the other 2-4 (including uniques) civics in most games of Civ 7. This, in turn, has the effect of making culture-providing narrative options basically no-brainers in the early phase of the game. Maybe the first-come-first-served design was initially motivated by the desire to make the player work to unlock potentially very powerful abilities that some beliefs offer in certain situations, but Civ 7 beliefs only apply to settlements with Altars, which are big investments to make in the early game, so I don't see why beliefs still need to be exclusive to players who select them first.
Now, I think the devs are already aware of this problem, which is why they recently added new beliefs that can be selected by multiple players. I've also noticed that the Deity AI now tends to not rush Mysticism like before, and quite often, most beliefs are still there even when Mysticism isn't the very first civic I unlock. It's entirely possible that the remaining beliefs will also become non-exclusive at some point, so I wanted to actually focus on other potential improvements to the pantheon system.
Another gripe I have with the pantheon system is that it just doesn't integrate too well with other parts of the game. Specifically, I would like to see the pantheon play a bigger role in governance and diplomacy. Right now, the pantheon feels like it's just a way to amplify certain yields, and it relates to the governance and diplomacy systems the same way warehouse buildings do.
A solution I have in mind starts with the introduction of belief categories. Instead of choosing a single belief that applies to every single settlement you have, you would instead choose a group of beliefs. Whenever you build an altar in a settlement, you select one belief from your category. In other words, instead of worshipping a single god, different settlements in your empire can worship different gods, as long as they belong to the same category. (Exceptions to this rule are discussed later.)
We can group existing beliefs into categories, perhaps the same set of categories that apply to leaders, civs and independent powers (e.g. Cultural, Expansionist, Economic), or invent a new set of categories. Here's an example grouping:
Science
- God of Wisdom: Science on quarters
- God of the Forge: Production toward buildings (similar bonus is found in the science leader attribute tree and science city states)
Culture
- Goddess of Festivals: Culture on quarters
- Monument to the Gods: Production toward wonders
Militaristic
- God of Healing: Faster healing
- God of War: Production toward military units
Expansionist
- Oral Tradition: Production to settlers
- Fertility Rites: Increased growth
- Goddess of the Harvest: Food on farm/pasture/plantation
Economic
- God of the Forest: Gold on camp/woodcutter
- Stone Circles: Production on mine/quarry/clay pit
- God of the Sea: Production on fishing boat
- God of Revelry: Happiness on resource
Diplomatic
- City Patron Goddess: Influence
- Trickster God: Influence toward endeavours and sanctions
Ungrouped
- God of the Sun: All yields
- Sacred Waters: Altar adjacency from water
- Earth Goddess: Altar adjacency from mountain/natural wonder
The belief selection is currently a little sparse for a 6-way split. Regardless of how the beliefs are grouped, I think around 4 beliefs per group would be ideal.
Belief categories are not exclusive, which implies that two different players can select the same belief category. This could open up some interesting possibilities in terms of diplomacy. Similar to how government types affect relationships, worshipping the same set of gods as another leader can help improve your relationship with them. Belief compatibility could potentially also unlock new diplomatic endeavours. For instance, I think it would be thematic to add a new endeavour that allows two civs to join each other during celebrations. Some ideas have along this include:
- When you enter a celebration, you can offer (for some influence) another leader to join. For you, the bonus selected for the celebration is magnified. The other leader receives the same (but reduced if the endeavour is not supported) bonus that you receive for the duration of the celebration. The other leader is a mere "guest" in the celebration, so joining has no effect on the other leader's own ongoing celebration or their celebration cycle.
- When you enter a celebration, you can offer another leader to join by also going into a celebration, overriding the other leader's celebration cycle. As the initiator, you get to choose which celebration bonus you will both enjoy, and the bonus is magnified for you (and for your friend if they supported the endeavour).
Speaking of celebrations, I think the celebration mechanism feels a little hollow in general. Right now, your government choice is all about which pair of yields you want to boost during future celebrations, but what if the government type was instead about your attitude toward faith both during and outside of celebrations? Celebration bonus types are tied to belief categories rather than government types (e.g. Cultural category provides a choice between +20% to culture per turn and +15% toward wonders), and government types instead affect how the chosen bonus is applied. Example changes to government types:
Despotism
- Base: Settlements you conquer maintain the belief category of the original owner. If the settlement already has an altar, it maintains the existing belief. Otherwise, you can choose one from the original owner's category when you build one.
- Celebration: The selected celebration bonus only applies to settlements that follow your belief category. For every other settlement, +5% to all yields.
Classical Republic
- Base: +1 influence per turn for each one of your settlement that follows a different belief from your capital. When you capture a settlement with a different belief category, it converts to your belief category and incurs -2 influence per turn.
- Celebration: The selected celebration bonus only applies to settlements that follow the same belief as your capital. For every other settlement, +5% to all yields.
Theocracy
- Base: Receive a free altar in the capital. Conquered or not, every settlement with an altar follows the same belief (not just category) as the capital. +5 happiness in each settlement with an altar that naturally follows the capital's belief. Each settlement that is forced to convert to the capital's belief uses up two settlement slots instead of one. The same applies when a theocratic settlement is captured by another player and is forced to convert to another belief.
- Celebration: You don't have to choose between the two bonuses as you get both.
Before I wrap up, I want to list some other miscellaneous pantheon-related ideas, particularly ones that relate to interesting unique abilities that can work in this proposed framework.
Maurya's ability to choose two beliefs will obviously need a rework. Some proposals:
- Maurya can choose two belief categories, meaning each settlement has a wider selection of beliefs to choose from. (A straightforward transcription of the original ability, but probably way too weak.)
- Each Mauryan settlement chooses two beliefs from Maurya's belief category. In Theocracy, this implies the same pair of beliefs selected for the capital are applied to every other settlement as well.
- If it already has a belief, a settlement conquered by Maurya retains it and can choose a second belief from Maurya's category. In Despotism, the second belief must be chosen from the owner's category instead. (Appropriate if we want Maurya to lean more toward the militaristic side.)
Other ideas about the pantheon and celebrations:
- Instead of tying celebration bonuses to government types or belief categories, create beliefs that grant access to certain types of celebration. For instance, it makes sense for a settlement with lots of floodplains to worship the God of Floods. With this belief, whenever this settlement (or any other settlement with the same belief) gets flooded, the player is given a choice to immediately enter a special celebration, overriding any ongoing celebration, that provides a significant production bonus in flooded settlements.
- It would be nice to find ways to link the pantheon to the crisis system, which also clearly needs some love. We can introduce the "Appease the Gods" mode, which protects settlements from impact of crises. For example, in a plague crisis, the plague cannot spread to a settlement on Appease the Gods. While in this mode, a settlement forfeits the usual bonuses provided by the altar. In addition, when even one settlement is put on this mode, any ongoing celebration is immediately cancelled, any excess happiness collected toward the next celebration in queue is set to 0, and the empire-wide happiness per turn drops to 0 until Appease the Gods is de-activated in every settlement.
