India

[Stalker0]

It's ludicrous to think the passive pressure mechanics simply being left like this is a satisfactory state of affairs, and it's not something to be papered over.

you cannot look at a civ that makes large changes to the way it’s religion spreads and use that to say the way religion spreads is broken...that is ludicrous.

Shall we nerf pillaging because the Vikings are “too good” at it?

do we use Mongolia as the rationale for making changes to the entire tribute system...or...you know..change Mongolia?

I can easily generate triple digit pressure using the normal mechanic (I just did a convert the world game with Portugal so I know for certain this is possible). It’s not the core system...it’s India. So fix India

 

[pineappledan]

you cannot look at a civ that makes large changes to the way it’s religion spreads and use that to say the way religion spreads is broken...that is ludicrous.

Shall we nerf pillaging because the Vikings are “too good” at it?

do we use Mongolia as the rationale for making changes to the entire tribute system...or...you know..change Mongolia?

I can easily generate triple digit pressure using the normal mechanic (I just did a convert the world game with Portugal so I know for certain this is possible). It’s not the core system...it’s India. So fix India

all India does is add a scaling % modifier to passive spread; it is not a radical departure. Once you start adding new passive spread abilities only to India, or unique conversion mechanics to give India a push, now you have made large changes to religious spread.

What a bunch of malarky. of course the underlying mechanic could be the problem; it often is. G already implemented caps on heavy tribute because of feedback on that mechanic using Mongolia, so that example of yours literally already happened. Was it India’s fault that you could just create infinite crime in a city by growing too large? No, the crime system didn’t make sense, so G got rid of it. it’s perfectly reasonable to change a mechanic based on a civ that emphasizes and is sensitive to those changes.

The religion game is the only aspect of VP that has gotten WORSE since I first downloaded this mod 3 years ago. The community has declared open season on India for over a year, trying to get inquisitors to block passive pressure, nerfing passive spread’s scaling into the ground, a dozen threads complaining about orthodoxy and faith buildings % spread boosts. Enough is enough. Passive spread is a good mechanic and a legitimate way to spread no matter how many screeds are written about it. The nerfs to passive spread were uncalled for and should be rolled back, because it’s a bigger problem than just India being unplayable.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

How about we first try a slight change to UA by adding: "Gets xyz free missionaries when founding a religion"? Let's say it would get 2 or 3 free missionaries. That would mean that India could quickly spread its religion to its main core of cities?

 

[InkAxis]

I agree with pdan, just looking at that image it seems weird that there is only ~6 pressure in that city.
It should do much more.

 

[Melchizedek]

I agree that passive spread has been overnerfed. That being said, in case the community doesn't agree and wants to just buff India back to playability, I also think there is a tool already in existence that would be well suited to India. The Spanish UA used to prevent all conversion of their citizens to another religion. I think as a backup plan to resurrecting passive pressure, it would make sense, gameplay wise, to add that to India's kit.

 

[Stalker0]

all India does is add a scaling % modifier to passive spread; it is not a radical departure. Once you start adding new passive spread abilities only to India, or unique conversion mechanics to give India a push, now you have made large changes to religious spread.

What a bunch of malarky. of course the underlying mechanic could be the problem; it often is. G already implemented caps on heavy tribute because of feedback on that mechanic using Mongolia, so that example of yours literally already happened. Was it India’s fault that you could just create infinite crime in a city by growing too large? No, the crime system didn’t make sense, so G got rid of it. it’s perfectly reasonable to change a mechanic based on a civ that emphasizes and is sensitive to those changes.

The religion game is the only aspect of VP that has gotten WORSE since I first downloaded this mod 3 years ago. The community has declared open season on India for over a year, trying to get inquisitors to block passive pressure, nerfing passive spread’s scaling into the ground, a dozen threads complaining about orthodoxy and faith buildings % spread boosts. Enough is enough. Passive spread is a good mechanic and a legitimate way to spread no matter how many screeds are written about it. The nerfs to passive spread were uncalled for and should be rolled back, because it’s a bigger problem than just India being unplayable.

If you want to argue that passive spread is too weak with a standard civ, fine let’s have that debate...in general balance. Doing it with a civ that doesn’t use normal rules...sorry there’s no leg to stand on.

 

[DeAnno]

The problem India has with passive spread is that cities contribute to it linearly and India is often trying to passive spread with just a single city. When the AI surrounds you with 20 cities in range of your 5 city empire I assure you passive spread is very much a thing and you will drown in it to such an extent you'll need to either use inquisitors or spam missionaries to keep religious majority.

I think I might try an India game where instead of enhancing with the 2nd prophet I use it to spread, having picked Churches initially. It'd be a Faith setup something like:

1) First Prophet->Found
2) Build Capital Church
3) Second Prophet->Quad Spread to my own cities
4) Build four Churches
5) Third Prophet->Enhance, or maybe Quad spread to four more cities.

India probably has problems now, but if you're playing it you should recognize that Enhancing with your second Prophet is going to set you back pretty massively in the Religious wars.

 

[CrazyG]

As is, you probably want to put a settler down after getting your religion and lock growth until he converts, that can about double your pressure.

How about we first try a slight change to UA by adding: "Gets xyz free missionaries when founding a religion"? Let's say it would get 2 or 3 free missionaries. That would mean that India could quickly spread its religion to its main core of cities?

I think 1 might be enough. In a game I have, once I spread to 2 additional cities that had temples I had 20 pressure in my other cities. That's enough to get going, India works if you get started.

On a side note, AI India has taken God of the Sun in the last few games he was there, which is nearly the absolute last pantheon I would ever take as India.

 

[DeAnno]

Maybe it would work if when founding India's pantheon followers automatically flipped to its religion? It's an extra line in the UA but fixes the whole issue without needing a missionary.

 

[azum4roll]

What if India gets flat pressure bonuses on his own cities of his own religion, scaling on the number of citizens?

So when he founds, his 5-pop second city gets a constant +10 pressure (plus whatever pressure it gets from the holy city), a new 1-pop city gets +2, etc.

 

[pineappledan]

If you want to argue that passive spread is too weak with a standard civ, fine let’s have that debate...in general balance. Doing it with a civ that doesn’t use normal rules...sorry there’s no leg to stand on.

Naw, I’m busy. Why don’t you start a game with a “Normal” civ and try to convert your first few cities using passive pressure, and let me know how it goes though? Report back what you find, ok?

 

[Gazebo]

Gandhi things:

• There's currently a cap on his pop modifier of 350% per pop (i.e. 35 converted citizens in a city), and each citizen is worth 10%, effectively. This is an easy place to adjust his strength.
• His growth bonus is also tied to a fixed % value per pop, which we could adjust.

Easy tweaks:

• We could spawn a few followers of Gandhi's religion in every new city and at founding, to speed up conversion.
• We could spawn a few missionaries to get Gandhi started post-found
• We could spawn a single missionary for Gandhi every time he converts an owned city

 

[CrazyG]

Easy tweaks:

• We could spawn a few followers of Gandhi's religion in every new city and at founding, to speed up conversion.

I like this one the most

 

[stii]

Yeah that seems reasonable. India is meant to have an advantage not a disadvantage. Having cheaper GP but then having to use one to spread is just miserable.

 

[pineappledan]

There's currently a cap on his pop modifier of 350% per pop (i.e. 35 converted citizens in a city), and each citizen is worth 10%, effectively. This is an easy place to adjust his strength.

could you clarify?

I recall it used to be 2% pressure per follower. Are you saying that 10% per follower is already how it works or that will be in the next version? My test was done with the May 24, no hotfix. If it’s already 10% per follower in that version, then it’s evidently not cutting the mustard.

We could spawn a few followers of Gandhi's religion in every new city and at founding, to speed up conversion.

this would be preferable to anything that spawns missionaries, IMO.

I would prefer a fix that involves making base passive spread scale more aggressively; if India’s per-follower spread also needed to be increased slightly to “meet in the middle”, that would be fine, but passive spread is currently too reliant on base city numbers with too little scaling, and too small overall.

 

[Stalker0]

Naw, I’m busy. Why don’t you start a game with a “Normal” civ and try to convert your first few cities using passive pressure, and let me know how it goes though? Report back what you find, ok?

so I am curious, what would be your thought if I had said the following to you?

“everyone I think X is broken, but I’m busy, so PAD why don’t you test it, and let me know how it goes, ok?”

I’m debating your ideas not attacking your character, no reason to get snippy.

 

[pineappledan]

Because I (and @Gizmoman and @amateurgamer88) already tested X under optimal conditions with a civ optimized for X and chose a pantheon and follower belief optimized for X, and under those conditions it didn't work.

You saying that I need to repeat the test under arbitrarily different conditions where the only possible outcome is it working less well to prove the same point is asinine. You're just making more work for someone else to prove a point that has already been made, and that you are perfectly capable of proving to yourself. You and I both know perfectly well it won't convince you though, because stronger evidence already failed to convince you.

So you aren't "debating ideas", you're just moving the goalposts and wasting people's time.

 

[DeAnno]

So I played a Deity India game to check out my idea. No ruins, Terra Oval, Milae difficulty mod. I picked Craftsmen as my pantheon, Churches/Theocratic as my first beliefs, Progress as my tree. Then with my first new prophet I spread to three of my own cities and one nearby CS (Wellington in the north) to get a Quest.



Turn 152, I have Churches in 6/7 Cities and just got my Enhance Prophet. As you can see I'm having some pressure troubles in the South but nothing too major, I'll probably just use an Inquisitor on that city to get it in gear if it isn't converted after my second round of buildings. Really this doesn't seem that bad as long as you spread with a Prophet before enhancing.

One key I think is getting your road network up quick and solid, and having a semi-dense network of owned cities, which is why I was encouraged to play Progress instead of the normal India Tradition.

EDIT: To be fair I haven't had to deal with opposing missionaries, I fought a war against Babylon and Denmark earlier and since I battered them off everyone's been very respectful of me.

This is going better than I expected it to, kind of regret Theocratic now should've gone Holy Law, it'd fix my tech troubles.

 

[pineappledan]

I’m trying to recall how much the first 3 GPs cost? 1100, 1700, and?? So with India 715, 1105, and ??

If you are converting your own cities without competing religions, a GProphet spread is indistinguishable from a regular missionary, because you are not clearing other religions and only G-prophet can clear other religions from foreign cities, which makes them special. So at 1105/4 spreads, you are paying 276 faith for each spread action. A missionary costs (200/2) 100 faith per spread action.

Thank you @DeAnno for running that example. So it is possible to get India off the ground but he is doing it at a huge cost relative to other civs. At that cost, I would probably just pick a different faith civ.

 

[DeAnno]

I’m trying to recall how much the first 3 GPs cost? 1100, 1700, and?? So with India 715, 1105, and ??

You forgot the first one is 800. I think its base 800/1100/1700. So to enhance and spread four times India spends 2340 and other civs would pay 2300. India will be one more prophet spent after that but still have the cost reduction, so maybe that part about works out to a wash?

The thing is the starting pantheon is very powerful in terms of yields, and choosing your pantheon and religious beliefs first is powerful too in consistency, similar to the way Byzantium is consistent. You can also delay your shrines a little more than usual, which is good because has a pretty bad interest rate payoff very early in the game, you just need to stomach it to found at all usually. I think if this problem India has with initial spreading is "fixed" it will become a very powerful civ, even though the UU is kind of garbage the UB is quite good.