New Beta Patch - 2/4

[dostillevi]

Byzantium can always found a religion and can use beliefs in other religions. The Celts have a unique pantheon and neither give nor receive religious pressure.

Are the beliefs first chosen by Byzantium not removed from the common pool? I think they should be; a big part of the religion game is denying your chosen beliefs to your opponents. For this reason, I don't agree.

I think Byzantium's beliefs should be removed from the pool (and I believe they are) and their religion should count against the religious limit. I'm specifically talking about Celts, who as you say are neither limited by nor are denying beliefs to others. They are denying an entire religion currently, but given how the Celts religions cannot spread, I'm hard pressed to think this improves game play.

As far as what happened in your game, the other X factors that may have helped your opponent's found.

1) Religious NW
2) Early Religious CS friend or ally
3) Ancient Ruins
4) Ethiopia and Aztecs often found very quickly.

What's Religious NW stand for?

Ancient ruins could account for some early jumps in faith, but not much. Those are something like 45 faith each and I think you can see Polynesia and the celts maybe getting a hut bump early on (but oddly, their faith total declines again too, no idea why). Poly might get two more after claiming a Pantheon. If Ethiopia were in my game, I'd have expected them to found right after Ghandi. I'm continuing to play so I'll report back on them. I don't think the Aztecs would have taken God of the Open Sky given their starting bias, but they could have been the other unknown founding civ.

 

[Recursive]

I think Byzantium's beliefs should be removed from the pool (and I believe they are) and their religion should count against the religious limit. I'm specifically talking about Celts, who as you say are neither limited by nor are denying beliefs to others. They are denying an entire religion currently, but given how the Celts religions cannot spread, I'm hard pressed to think this improves game play.

What's Religious NW stand for?

Ancient ruins could account for some early jumps in faith, but not much. Those are something like 45 faith each and I think you can see Polynesia and the celts maybe getting a hut bump early on (but oddly, their faith total declines again too, no idea why). Poly might get two more after claiming a Pantheon. If Ethiopia were in my game, I'd have expected them to found right after Ghandi. I'm continuing to play so I'll report back on them. I don't think the Aztecs would have taken God of the Open Sky given their starting bias, but they could have been the other unknown founding civ.

That only applies to the Celts' pantheon belief. Their other beliefs - founder, follower, enhancer, reformation - function the same as everyone else's beliefs (except Byzantium).

Religious NW = A Natural Wonder that provides Faith points.

 

[Legen]

About the side note, the Celts are not guaranteed to found, that's Byzantium. The Celts only have a separate pantheon list. Neither have unique founder or follower beliefs.

When going for Goddess of Springtime, the first question is how many workers you have. Pantheons that are based on improvements require heavy investment on workers to pay off. Progress should be able to do it fine if you go for Liberty -> Organization (a.k.a. free worker into 25% worker production). It usually pays off to delay Fraternity with this pantheon due to plantations becoming a +5 yield improvement with Springtime, close to GPTIs, who usually give +6 yield at Ancient Era.

Polynesia picked God of Expanse, which synergizes well with their unique Council from 34UC and the Moai. This pantheon works great for civs with a good source of early culture, and Polynesia fits this description. Polynesia's faith jumps are expected from Expanse.

The Huns had no major jumps, but show a large curvature grow, suggesting they founded/conquered a lot of cities and proceeded to spam shrines. Poland had two major jumps in total faith, which could be luck with ruins or city-state quests, but they also show a fast faith growth; that suggests they also spammed cities for shrines.

Note that their large faith output increase could also come from them securing a faith-related Natural Wonder (NW). The Huns could also have secured a religious CS alliance by gifting their captured units, alongside quests and killing barbarians near the CS.

India with Goddess of Home. This is no particular characteristic or synergy of the pantheon, it is all about the civ's UA. Free pantheon upon founding the Capital and 35% cheaper prophets means the civ generates 330 less faith than other civs in order to found. Their 34UC UU also gives them some extra faith upon leveling, but it shouldn't be a major factor here.

The Celts's UU generates faith upon killing an unit, and they are very good at intimidating city-states. Large faith spikes from them could come from killing a lot of units in a short amount of time, such as in a war or a city-state related thing (quest, tribute, barbarian siege).

 

[dostillevi]

About the side note, the Celts are not guaranteed to found, that's Byzantium. The Celts only have a separate pantheon list. Neither have unique founder or follower beliefs.

When going for Goddess of Springtime, the first question is how many workers you have. Pantheons that are based on improvements require heavy investment on workers to pay off. Progress should be able to do it fine if you go for Liberty -> Organization (a.k.a. free worker into 25% worker production). It usually pays off to delay Fraternity with this pantheon due to plantations becoming a +5 yield improvement with Springtime, close to GPTIs, who usually give +6 yield at Ancient Era.

Polynesia picked God of Expanse, which synergizes well with their unique Council from 34UC and the Moai. This pantheon works great for civs with a good source of early culture, and Polynesia fits this description. Polynesia's faith jumps are expected from Expanse.

The Huns had no major jumps, but show a large curvature grow, suggesting they founded/conquered a lot of cities and proceeded to spam shrines. Poland had two major jumps in total faith, which could be luck with ruins or city-state quests, but they also show a fast faith growth; that suggests they also spammed cities for shrines.

Note that their large faith output increase could also come from them securing a faith-related Natural Wonder (NW). The Huns could also have secured a religious CS alliance by gifting their captured units, alongside quests and killing barbarians near the CS.

India with Goddess of Home. This is no particular characteristic or synergy of the pantheon, it is all about the civ's UA. Free pantheon upon founding the Capital and 35% cheaper prophets means the civ generates 330 less faith than other civs in order to found. Their 34UC UU also gives them some extra faith upon leveling, but it shouldn't be a major factor here.

The Celts's UU generates faith upon killing an unit, and they are very good at intimidating city-states. Large faith spikes from them could come from killing a lot of units in a short amount of time, such as in a war or a city-state related thing (quest, tribute, barbarian siege).

Thanks for the solid explanations. I don't think shrine spamming is likely to be it. If you look at my curve vs other curves that did not found, they're quite similar and I basically shrine spammed myself. I agree about Polynesia, no real question about them founding, nor with India or the Celts (while not guaranteed, they almost always found early in my experience). Thanks @Recursive for highlighting they take founder and follower from the common pool, I was not aware of that). /The Huns I think must have tributed several religious city states/ nevermind they had no bumps, just rapid growth. Could well have been a faith NW. Does the AI actually gift units to City States with the intention of gaining standing, and is it smart enough (or lucky, I guess) to do that with religious CS to found early?

So I want to take the conversation away from my particular experience and discuss how many pantheons are not viable for founding religions, and whether that is positive or negative regarding game play. Taking Goddess of Springtime as an example, with this pantheon being challenging to found with due to the delay in creating plantations and herbalists, is it ever worth taking? Note that all of it's benefits take longer to kick in, not just faith, so if I don't found with it, and then my cities adopt other religions, should I expect to get enough benefit from it for it to be a competitive pantheon? I think this question applies to all pantheons that are challenging to found with. The second dynamic here is pantheons that synergize with specific civilizations: in this case Springtime is again a good example, because Indonesia will always have many plantations, but taking the synergistic pantheon means I don't found and don't realize the long term benefits of that pantheon. That seems counterproductive and forces me to play counter-intuitively.

 

[Legen]

My experience with Springtime is that it is viable for founding, at least if your monopoly luxury isn't on forest/jungle tiles. Since the pantheon gives plenty of yields in general, you can give a heavier focus on workers than usual. I don't think it is a weak pantheon by any means, given favorable luxury availability. Rather, it seems on par with other terrain/improvement based pantheons out there, which are the majority of the pantheon list.

Certain pantheons are feasible, but demanding, like Goddess of Protection. Barracks and Walls are expensive, both in production and maintenance, so you need a good reason to prioritize them. Japan and Babylon have it in the UA and UB, respectively, with the former also getting bonus faith. Japan can also focus on Authority, which makes good use of those buildings and the extra culture (Tribute, easing the costs). I include Beauty, Commerce, War and Wisdom as other demanding pantheons as well.

Pantheons that are unlikely to found, in my opinion, are God of all Creation, God-King, Goddess of Festivals on certain setups (Continents map, low civ count) and Tutelary Gods. Very low faith scaling, if at all, they are mainly for big early benefits or a high-risk-high-reward strat. If you are going for these pantheons, you either don't plan to found (conquer a holy city instead) or have some religiously powerful unique to secure founding (India, Byzantium).

 

[dostillevi]

Pantheons that are unlikely to found, in my opinion, are God of all Creation, God-King, Goddess of Festivals on certain setups (Continents map, low civ count) and Tutelary Gods.

Agree.. two of those 4 founded in my game

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Well, I'm kind of upset, and I'm posting this because I am starting to think something isn't right regarding early faith gain.

I played Indonesia and I got the Springtime Pantheon (it took many restarts to get it). I started with oranges as my resource, I built Stonehenge (barely, someone *started* building it 5 turns before I was going to finish, after I had invested, and was going to win it 1 turn ahead of me. I had just enough hills nearby to edge out an extra turn by buying and working tiles), I built a shrine as second building in my first city and first building in all others, and prioritized construction of Plantations and Herbalists. I missed founding the last religion by 1 turn, and several were founded much earlier. Look how early these other civs are founding, even civs like Poland and The Huns who have no early religion boosters.

Side note: I do not think the Celt's religion should count against the 7 allowed in the world, since they can always found and do not pull from the common pools of founder and follower options.

Epic, Huge, Emperor, 16 civs. I am playing with 4 UU/UA, but this pattern of founding has been typical in prior recent games without that mod.

Me: Would have been able to found on turn 154. Pantheon: Goddess of Springtime: +1 faith from plantations, +2 faith from Herbalists. Stonehenge: +2 faith. Progress.
Unknown Civ: Turn 152 Zorastrianism. God of Craftsman. +1 faith from Quarries and Stone Works, +2 faith from the Palace.
The Huns: Turn 147 Tengriism. Pantheon: God of All Creation. +1 faith from monuments. Authority.
Unknown Civ: Turn 143 Dodekatheism. Pantheon: God of the Open Sky. +1 faith per 2 worked plains or grassland, +1 faith from pastures.
Polynesia: Turn 131 Puata Tupuna. Pantheon: God of the Expanse. +25% border Growth, 20 faith on border expansion scaling with game speed. Progress.
Poland: Turn 128 Catholicism. Pantheon: Ancestor Worship. +1 faith for every 4 citizens in a city, +1 faith from councils. Tradition.
Celts: Turn 108 Duidism. Pantheon: Curnunnos. +1 culture from camps and plantations, +2 faith from Ceilidh Hall. Tradition.
India: Sometime much earlier Vaishnavism. Pantheon: Goddess of the Home. +1 faith from shrines, +8 faith when a building is constructed scaling with era. Tradition.

My faith gain should have been far stronger than God of Craftsman, God of All Creation, and Ancestor Worship and possibly God of the Open Sky, similar in power to Curnunnos, and likely weaker than God of the Expanse. Not sure about Goddess of the Home, but it may have been stronger than mine.

So what could I have done differently? I was already forced into Stonehenge which I would not have built otherwise. I could have been forced into Tradition for the extra faith. I could have been fortunate to have religious city-states near me and build up an army to bully them (further sacrificing other areas of development, and bad practice for Indonesia who wants to save military supply for Kris Swordsmen). What else am I missing?

The biggest factor seems to be tradition, but even with all this and the possibility of religious city state bullying, I can't account for what I'm seeing in the charts below:

Spoiler Images :

The founding civilizations:
View attachment 587090

Their faith gain (mine is 4th from top on the far right):
View attachment 587092

Total faith. What the $^#$ is going on here?
View attachment 587093

We play on pretty much the same settings besides i play 8 civs, on emperor if you don't manage to found before turn 150 epic it means you are definitely lagging behind.
The plantation pantheon generates reasonable amounts of faith but it's very slow to start kicking; requiring a T2 tech, a T2 building and it's even slower on Jungle/Forest starts that make improving the resources take even more time tho it should be easier to found with it if you go progress .... you will just need more early workers that your normal 1 for each city.
To make it even worse the loss of production from chopping forest/jungle until you unlock Bronze and Iron working made those production starved starts even slower and harder to get Herbalists up.
I suggest trying again with a plantation luxury that does not spawn on jungles/forest (Ideally wine but Coffee or Tea work as well) and see if you can found before T150

 

[RedHotTomato]

Anyone mind to explain what is CTD and also how to perform a clean installation? my understanding for clean installation is to delete the cache, what other steps did i miss?
i really wanna complete my playthrough that i've reached near t500 on epic speed. thank you in advance

 

[brutalz]

Anyone mind to explain what is CTD and also how to perform a clean installation? my understanding for clean installation is to delete the cache, what other steps did i miss?
i really wanna complete my playthrough that i've reached near t500 on epic speed. thank you in advance

CTD = Crash To Desktop

Clean install would be complete file deletion of everything CIV5 related

 

[Barra]

CTD = crash to desktop
A clean install means deleting the cache, as you already mentioned, but Im unsure if some users here also delete the whole game and reinstall it afterwards, because that would be fitting the term aswell.
I for myself just delete the caches folder, had so far no real issues, regarding to CTD´s or similiar
Every now and then you could not hit next turn, this is usually caused by a building queue, not receiving what to build next. In this case you could check your cities manually or if it is not clear what preventing beeing able to hit next turn, just load a autosvae from a few rounds ago and try slightly changing your orders. This way I was almost every time beeing able to follow up on the game.
BTW.: I recently played a few games and was wondering how good loading a game from within a running game worked now, as I remember there were once stated that the CTD issue when loading a modded game is a firaxis bug (dont know if this is still deemed true or actual at all). I was happy that it seemed solved, till I found I was playing without haveing IGE activated.
Last game I had it activated and the game crashed almost every time I tried to reload a save from within a running game.

 

[CyberPhy]

CTD = crash to desktop
A clean install means deleting the cache, as you already mentioned, but Im unsure if some users here also delete the whole game and reinstall it afterwards, because that would be fitting the term aswell.
I for myself just delete the caches folder, had so far no real issues, regarding to CTD´s or similiar
Every now and then you could not hit next turn, this is usually caused by a building queue, not receiving what to build next. In this case you could check your cities manually or if it is not clear what preventing beeing able to hit next turn, just load a autosvae from a few rounds ago and try slightly changing your orders. This way I was almost every time beeing able to follow up on the game.
BTW.: I recently played a few games and was wondering how good loading a game from within a running game worked now, as I remember there were once stated that the CTD issue when loading a modded game is a firaxis bug (dont know if this is still deemed true or actual at all). I was happy that it seemed solved, till I found I was playing without haveing IGE activated.
Last game I had it activated and the game crashed almost every time I tried to reload a save from within a running game.

You should report this on GitHub
https://github.com/LoneGazebo/Community-Patch-DLL/issues

 

[vyyt]

@Barra, loading from within the game should not cause any problems if you play with bare VP. Adding some other mods may cause problems (IGE? But this one is save compatible, so you can turn it on and off mistake)

 

[Stickerbrush]

@Recursive @Gazebo I submitted a pull request for a fix I implemented related to the events engine

 

[Rafs]

Well, I'm kind of upset, and I'm posting this because I am starting to think something isn't right regarding early faith gain.

I played Indonesia and I got the Springtime Pantheon (it took many restarts to get it). I started with oranges as my resource, I built Stonehenge (barely, someone *started* building it 5 turns before I was going to finish, after I had invested, and was going to win it 1 turn ahead of me. I had just enough hills nearby to edge out an extra turn by buying and working tiles), I built a shrine as second building in my first city and first building in all others, and prioritized construction of Plantations and Herbalists. I missed founding the last religion by 1 turn, and several were founded much earlier. Look how early these other civs are founding, even civs like Poland and The Huns who have no early religion boosters.

Side note: I do not think the Celt's religion should count against the 7 allowed in the world, since they can always found and do not pull from the common pools of founder and follower options.

Epic, Huge, Emperor, 16 civs. I am playing with 4 UU/UA, but this pattern of founding has been typical in prior recent games without that mod.

Me: Would have been able to found on turn 154. Pantheon: Goddess of Springtime: +1 faith from plantations, +2 faith from Herbalists. Stonehenge: +2 faith. Progress.
Unknown Civ: Turn 152 Zorastrianism. God of Craftsman. +1 faith from Quarries and Stone Works, +2 faith from the Palace.
The Huns: Turn 147 Tengriism. Pantheon: God of All Creation. +1 faith from monuments. Authority.
Unknown Civ: Turn 143 Dodekatheism. Pantheon: God of the Open Sky. +1 faith per 2 worked plains or grassland, +1 faith from pastures.
Polynesia: Turn 131 Puata Tupuna. Pantheon: God of the Expanse. +25% border Growth, 20 faith on border expansion scaling with game speed. Progress.
Poland: Turn 128 Catholicism. Pantheon: Ancestor Worship. +1 faith for every 4 citizens in a city, +1 faith from councils. Tradition.
Celts: Turn 108 Duidism. Pantheon: Curnunnos. +1 culture from camps and plantations, +2 faith from Ceilidh Hall. Tradition.
India: Sometime much earlier Vaishnavism. Pantheon: Goddess of the Home. +1 faith from shrines, +8 faith when a building is constructed scaling with era. Tradition.

My faith gain should have been far stronger than God of Craftsman, God of All Creation, and Ancestor Worship and possibly God of the Open Sky, similar in power to Curnunnos, and likely weaker than God of the Expanse. Not sure about Goddess of the Home, but it may have been stronger than mine.

So what could I have done differently? I was already forced into Stonehenge which I would not have built otherwise. I could have been forced into Tradition for the extra faith. I could have been fortunate to have religious city-states near me and build up an army to bully them (further sacrificing other areas of development, and bad practice for Indonesia who wants to save military supply for Kris Swordsmen). What else am I missing?

The biggest factor seems to be tradition, but even with all this and the possibility of religious city state bullying, I can't account for what I'm seeing in the charts below:

Spoiler Images :

The founding civilizations:
View attachment 587090

Their faith gain (mine is 4th from top on the far right):
View attachment 587092

Total faith. What the $^#$ is going on here?
View attachment 587093

The spikes you see are from ruins I'd wagger, you get big faith from ruins after founding a pantheon (if you are playing huge maps this can happen easily, I know because I almost always play huge or large highlands, which are very very big maps).
Aside from that, Goddess of Springtime is quite hard to found with if you have no extra faith gain sadly, you'll probably need monopolies or faith natural wonder if the AI has taken beliefs that help them with faith. How many cities did you have? How soon did you expand? How fast did you manage to get your shrines and improvements online? Religion is often a race to see who can get things done faster, and with 16 players trust me it's not easy to get ahead, this means more religious civs which will take a spot.
I know trying to get springtime with Indonesia is very tempting, but you must realize this is quite the hard task without any extra help, plantations take a while to research, and your luxuries can spawn in jungle/forest/marsh. Also, while progress might seem like a good idea (faster improvement for luxuries and bonuses to building) you are very often forced to start with a monument in their cities to help with the low cultural output, which means delaying your shrines even more. Getting a religion with a low faith pantheon and no monopolies is a bit risky on emperor, you never know what the AI has got around and how focused they will be on religion, I honestly recommend going all in if you don't have any religious advantage, be it your civ's UA/UB/UU, luxury monopoly or natural wonder.

 

[pineappledan]

Looking forward to a new version!
Goths are on standby for a new DLL release

 

[CrazyG]

Taking Goddess of Springtime as an example, with this pantheon being challenging to found with due to the delay in creating plantations and herbalists, is it ever worth taking?

Tobacco, wine, and incense are all plantations all give +2 faith to each tile once you have a monopoly (which requires connecting 5 of them on a standard map). Goddess of Springtime works very well on these resources.

 

[pineappledan]

Just played through the first 150 turns on a Communitu map with Cocoa monopoly jungle (Bananas) start. Was first to found sub 100 turns; streamlining herbalist for this pantheon makes it far more viable that it was with markets. You don't need to make Calendar your 3rd tech choice, but it should be at least your 5th, obviously

Ancestor Worship still untouchable tho...

 

[2506]

Just played through the first 150 turns on a Communitu map with Cocoa monopoly jungle (Bananas) start. Was first to found sub 100 turns; streamlining herbalist for this pantheon makes it far more viable that it was with markets. You don't need to make Calendar your 3rd tech choice, but it should be at least your 5th, obviously

Ancestor Worship still untouchable tho...

Tobacco, wine, and incense are all plantations all give +2 faith to each tile once you have a monopoly (which requires connecting 5 of them on a standard map). Goddess of Springtime works very well on these resources.

I've had the same experiences. Founding witn Springtime works for me almost every time, going shrines first iin the satellites.

 

[John.B.C]

I just got CTD trying to load the two latest 'auto saves'. I then deleted the cache and it worked. Why would this be so?

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I just got CTD trying to load the two latest 'auto saves'. I then deleted the cache and it worked. Why would this be so?

Reloading autosaves almost always crashes my game; it's not new or unique to this version izn my experience.