More Religions?

[Lemminkäinen]

I would love to see a couple of more religions. The current ones are nice enough, but new ones would add so much dimension to all the civs, basically. Are there any in the works?

 

[Iceciro]

I actually wouldn't mind another evil religion if it can be made to work. Veil spikes the AC up too high and OO is poor if you're inland (as well as not thematic for a lot of civs, like the Cabalim.) Not sure what the coding costs/requirements are of having more than seven religions are though.

 

[Valkrionn]

At the very least, I'd like to see the White Hand as an unadoptable religion like the CoD used to be.

 

[WarKirby]

I'd really rather see the existing religions worked on first.

Empyrean is very powerful militarily, but lacking in variety, and flavor, seeing as it has only one hero, no unique wonders, civics or techs, and almost nothing that actually "fits" flavorwise, as it's supposed to be a religion of thought and reasoning, not of action. It could do with a unique building or two, that gives nice benefits to a city, stronger UUs, and an alternate hero. Perhaps someone not necessarily as combat oriented as chalid. Maybe more utility oriented, like Pelemoc Goldtongue.

Similarly, CoE. I haven't played with it much in FF, because I'm mainly turned off by the lack of a priest unit. Cure disease and medic are essential things. Not having priests is kind of crippling, especially if your hero picks up the plague from a random lair. And gibbon, while a certainly good hero, is killed by his unique ability, making him somewhat less useful than I'd like. As well as being the only hero CoE has, which is disappointing. A religion of stealth should have some unique legendary asassin type guy, I think. heroes with Marksman aren't too common, and a herolike that would give a reason to take it as state if you're anything but svart/sidar/cualli

Other than that, I think the 5 religions that don't have one (all but RoK and AV) need some sort of super lategame massive shiny unit, like Meshabber and the Mythril golem.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

You should check a few of the unique promotions of CoE in FF. It is a killer religion.

 

[Gwythur]

Actually, I'd like to see some expansion of the current "agnostic religions". It seems to me that the two lizardfolk religions and that of the Scions would gain a lot of flavor if they were spreadable and adoptable by other civs. It seems reasonably in theme, since the elven religion can be adopted by anyone. Perhaps they should only be foundable by the proper civ, but then could be spread.

 

[Iceciro]

Can't see the Scions religion being taken as a state religion by other civs, because then you'd be worshipping the leader of another civ and all of your citizens would want to be members of Patria Reborn. It'd be like religious vassalage to the Scions.

 

[Valkrionn]

Can't see the Scions religion .... like religious vassalage to the Scions.

That...... Would be an amazing use for Pelemoc. Allow him to spread the Scion 'religion' to other civs only. Would be a positive buff for them, and would be inaccessible to you, but would, over time, increase their diplomacy modifier towards you, allowing you to safely open borders and gain your reborn bonus. Make it cost a certain amount of gold to balance it.

 

[notque]

Another religion would be nice.

 

[feydras]

I agree that Empyrean doesn't yet feel right. Too similar to Order and the hero is too a great crusader.

I'd really like to see CoE switched over to a guild. It just doesn't fit as a religion. I don't think it is weak at all however. If you can build the shrine it is the best defense against the huge stacks of AI assassins. Also build Gibbon early and promote him up to Mind III and Metamagic III (decrease defense). He doesn't need the SoW tech to cast tier 3 spells. I've gotten many great units from his domination. It's great taking a unit you can't even build yet, or ever, like a paladin. If you loose Gibbon just switch to a different religion as you keep all the benefits except the ability to spread CoE to cities outside your civ. Great religion to found and later discard if you want to. But i think it should be a guild.

 

[MrUnderhill]

I agree that Empyrean doesn't yet feel right. Too similar to Order and the hero is too a great crusader.

I'd really like to see CoE switched over to a guild. It just doesn't fit as a religion. I don't think it is weak at all however. If you can build the shrine it is the best defense against the huge stacks of AI assassins. Also build Gibbon early and promote him up to Mind III and Metamagic III (decrease defense). He doesn't need the SoW tech to cast tier 3 spells. I've gotten many great units from his domination. It's great taking a unit you can't even build yet, or ever, like a paladin. If you loose Gibbon just switch to a different religion as you keep all the benefits except the ability to spread CoE to cities outside your civ. Great religion to found and later discard if you want to. But i think it should be a guild.

I agree that Esus is too guild-like at the moment, but I don't think making it a guild is a good idea. Instead there ought to be more benefits for actually adopting it as a religion. One thought I had was a spell that would allow any recon unit to adopt CoE at the cost of some gold, as long as you had it as a state religion. All those CoE promotions are nice, but the way it works now, in order to get them you pretty much have to spam Hunters, hope some of them get CoE, upgrade them and disband the rest. No other religion has this sort of micromanagement, and the Council suffers greatly for it.

 

[Niveras]

Unfortunately, while it would be nice to see more religions (or a couple of the civ-specific 'religions' actually made into religions), I vaguely recall Kael lamenting the fact that Civ4 is hard coded to only have so many religions and corporations, which is why Cult of the Dragon became a corporation when they implemented CoE/Empyrean (though it was eventually removed completely for being a bit of an annoyance to manage, on both sides). It's also why they never attempted to implement the White Hand as a religion.

Or am I remembering that incorrectly?

Re CoE: Being able to 'buy' your way into the religion, for any unit that is not CoE and in a city with CoE, sounds perfectly fitting with them, really. Though I don't think it should be limited to recon units only, but I haven't played the new CoE much and not sure how powerful their promotions might be on T3-T4 melee/mounted units. You might even be able to expand it into ranks, but I think that would be too much micromanagement and the normal unit-level promotion system works fine for the more powerful CoE promotions.

 

[Tarquelne]

Just to make sure there's no misunderstanding:

For the new FF CoE promotions you just need CoE as your state religion. They aren't restricted to Recon units or units individually marked as followers of Esus.

 

[Valkrionn]

CoE is plenty strong in FF. The only thing I'd like to see is the ability to pay to have it 'spread' to your recon units, so you can use mask.

 

[zbelg]

Similarly, CoE. I haven't played with it much in FF, because I'm mainly turned off by the lack of a priest unit. Cure disease and medic are essential things. Not having priests is kind of crippling, especially if your hero picks up the plague from a random lair. And gibbon, while a certainly good hero, is killed by his unique ability, making him somewhat less useful than I'd like. As well as being the only hero CoE has, which is disappointing. A religion of stealth should have some unique legendary asassin type guy, I think. heroes with Marksman aren't too common, and a herolike that would give a reason to take it as state if you're anything but svart/sidar/cualli

I agree the Empyrean need to probably be fleshed out more but CoE should be left alone. If you use him right, Gibbon Goetia can effectively destroy almost any civilization despite how much more advanced or how much stronger they may be- and you suggest it's underpowered? It also makes sense thematically, it's a religion of deception and impersonating a leader to manipulate an entire nation is probably the highest deception I can think of, and most importantly, it's fun as hell. This is the biggest issue for me, CoE is my favorite religion simply because it's so unique and gets you to change your playstyle, I'd be very disappointed if it became just like every other religion for the sake of 'balance'. The lack of priests is weird, but it's not impossible to get around, I've played games without even adopting a state religion on Emperor and it hasn't been too much of a problem. It also makes spreading your religion a bit easier. I don't understand where you get the idea that it's limited to 'svart/sidar/cuall'- (not to mention that the cualli can't even adopt it) with hidden nationality units, a very cool hero, the ability attack from open borders, and their other tricks, it benefits any civilization to that playstyle.

Anyway, as for more religions, I think a couple more would make things more interesting, but I've heard similar stories about problems adding more than the set number of religions/corporations. It's a shame, I think the White Hand would be cool.

 

[xienwolf]

There are mods which allow as many as 150 different religions. So the limitation certainly isn't in the engine's ability to handle it, so much as in having to decide when you have "too many" and need to stop.

Remember, every religion you add means it is less likely for any single religion to be founded/spread, and thus there will be less benefit from their Holy City Shrine. And since in FfH the religions are all much more different than just a new icon, you have quite a bit of flavor and decision to handle with each one that you add.


Given the unique nature of Gibbon (sacrifices himself) it could be fitting to allow CoE followers the ability to ressurect him. This would be a VERY unique capability amonst the religions, and make up for the lack of a second hero in an interesting fashion.

 

[Honor]

Similarly, CoE. I haven't played with it much in FF, because I'm mainly turned off by the lack of a priest unit. Cure disease and medic are essential things. Not having priests is kind of crippling, especially if your hero picks up the plague from a random lair. And gibbon, while a certainly good hero, is killed by his unique ability, making him somewhat less useful than I'd like. As well as being the only hero CoE has, which is disappointing. A religion of stealth should have some unique legendary asassin type guy, I think. heroes with Marksman aren't too common, and a herolike that would give a reason to take it as state if you're anything but svart/sidar/cualli

I agree with this. Enabling CoE units to buy Healing Salves would also solve the priest problem to an extent.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

if Impersonate Leader allowed you to play both yours and the other civ hotseat-style, not THAT would be awesome

and being able to buy healing salves would be nice indeed.

 

[WarKirby]

I don't understand where you get the idea that it's limited to 'svart/sidar/cuall'- (not to mention that the cualli can't even adopt it) with hidden nationality units, a very cool hero, the ability attack from open borders, and their other tricks, it benefits any civilization to that playstyle.

Yes, you didn't understand at all.

All three of those civs have a marksman hero.
No religion gives a marksman hero at present, which means if you're not one of them, you cannot get a marksman hero.

See where I'm going with this?
CoE is by far the most thematically suitable religion, to have a legendary asassin as a hero.

 

[feydras]

Gigori can also get a marksman hero as well of course.

For the lack of priests with CoE i'm always able to dominate a few with Gibbon pretty easily. I keep them around for cure disease and if i get too many of them i use them to found temples. I don't think CoE needs any buff but agree the ability to buy into it for recon would be great, both flavorwise and functionwise.