New Beta Version - August 6th (8/6)

[RyesDaile]

Fun fact: every AI game that has had a massive runaway in it (conqueror or not) on the past few patches has been running imperialism. It's too strong right now.

I have to agree with G on this one, although I've seen this more so with militaristic civs that have large amounts of puppets. In a few of the recent games I've played, it's the aggressive conqueror with imperialism policies that is leading in science over rationalism civs. I feel it has to do with the scaling benefits of puppets vs. penalties. A small change to science benefits would be welcomed by me.

 

[CrazyG]

G, I want to point out that everyone on the forum seems to really like the Hagia Sophia. Its yields and great prophet alone would make for a good wonder.

What if you gave that missionary strength to the Taj Mahal instead? It does come a bit late, but I don't think Hagia Sophia needs that at all.

 

[Gazebo]

G, I want to point out that everyone on the forum seems to really like the Hagia Sophia. Its yields and great prophet alone would make for a good wonder.

What if you gave that missionary strength to the Taj Mahal instead? It does come a bit late, but I don't think Hagia Sophia needs that at all.

I personally felt it was too late to put it on the Taj Mahal. The Hagia is a big pick for religious AI, and that class of AI aren’t doing as well right now as they used to. Thought it would be a decent buff to them.

G

 

[Gazebo]

That would actually make more sense than some might think, in the "postmodern" world: just rename the warrior-clones to "ISIS-terrorist" .
Since Taj Mahal IRL includes a mosque, it fits .

Feels like a very weird wonder...one will want to get it to prevent AI from getting the bonuses but I think the situations where it would really be worth it to lose units on purpose like that are fairly rare. Now...with the addition of the ISIS-terrorist unit...that would be another matter

Not even remotely funny.

I very much agree with that, for example i almost never build Himeji Castle, just don't get, i always feel that there more important thing to focus on. However the problem is that Taj belongs to Fealty so it is not equal. That makes Fealty relatively weaker for human than for AI. Otherwise it is fine and funny

Fealty is already a very very strong branch. Finisher wonders help balance that. Taj being weaker is part of that balance.

G

 

[Owlbebach]

Fealty is already a very very strong branch. Finisher wonders help balance that. Taj being weaker is part of that balance.

You didn't understand. I mean that with this change Fealty becomes better for AI compared to human.
If we aassume that some overal "power" of medieval policies is the same then proportion of this "power" is Fealty/Statecraft/Artistry = 1/1/1 for both AI and human. Now after the change relative power of policies for human remain the same but for AI it becomes like F/S/A=1,2/1/1

 

[Owlbebach]

I personally felt it was too late to put it on the Taj Mahal. The Hagia is a big pick for religious AI, and that class of AI aren’t doing as well right now as they used to. Thought it would be a decent buff to them.

Why don't you just put flat +25% on Church? It is very simple and will do the work perfectly. It will make it worth spending first 200 faith on Church cause after that you can convert 2 cities instead of 1 with single missionary. Elegant and easy. No need to be so fancy

 

[tu_79]

I personally felt it was too late to put it on the Taj Mahal. The Hagia is a big pick for religious AI, and that class of AI aren’t doing as well right now as they used to. Thought it would be a decent buff to them.

G

No wonder religious civs are doing worse after the extra religion per map size.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I agree with @tu_79 .

 

[CrazyG]

No wonder religious civs are doing worse after the extra religion per map size.

Yea my guess is very few religion are reforming, but there is a high correlation between taking veneration and reforming. Reformation beliefs are powerful and most of the founders do very little if you spread, so even though veneration itself isn't all that powerful, the AI who take it are getting a belief and a half more than their competition.

 

[Mad Madigan]

In my games since the number of allowed religions per map size was increased, every game where I haven't planned to go warmonger I have rushed to get St. Basil's Cathedral in order to ensure a Reformation Belief. If I'm playing a more peaceful game as a non-religious powerhouse then it seems nearly impossible to reach the required follower population in order to reform, especially if you don't focus your belief choices on spreading. I like to play on large Communitas maps with 12 Civs, and even then it's difficult to reach that Reformation follower goal unless you actively conquer the closest opposing Holy City.

Now, don't get me wrong, as I actually LIKE that it's more work to get a Reformation belief, but I wonder if the religion-focused AIs are being hamstruck by this.

 

[Stalker0]

I will also note that its pretty tough to get a reformation by spread now a days unless you have a civ next to you that doesn't have a religion. But converting a civ with its own holy city without conquest is doable....it just takes too much work to be worth it in many cases.

 

[CrazyG]

I will also note that its pretty tough to get a reformation by spread now a days unless you have a civ next to you that doesn't have a religion. But converting a civ with its own holy city without conquest is doable....it just takes too much work to be worth it in many cases.

I've been attacking a neighbor quite often just to reduce his odds of founding a religion and give myself a chance of founding a religion.

 

[Gazebo]

Why don't you just put flat +25% on Church? It is very simple and will do the work perfectly. It will make it worth spending first 200 faith on Church cause after that you can convert 2 cities instead of 1 with single missionary. Elegant and easy. No need to be so fancy

Nope. A) the code is player level not city level b) gets right back to the church’s prior issue with 3 spreads where you only need it in one city.

No wonder religious civs are doing worse after the extra religion per map size.

Perhaps. I think the bigger issue was nerfs to tall play.

Yea my guess is very few religion are reforming, but there is a high correlation between taking veneration and reforming. Reformation beliefs are powerful and most of the founders do very little if you spread, so even though veneration itself isn't all that powerful, the AI who take it are getting a belief and a half more than their competition.

And at prior levels it was too easy to reform. Maybe we need to drop max religions by one but increase reformation criteria to 25%?

 

[CrazyG]

And at prior levels it was too easy to reform. Maybe we need to drop max religions by one but increase reformation criteria to 25%?

We could try it. We could also try making spreading less important for founders, or making reformation beliefs less game changingly strong. Even if everything else is equal, a civ who takes something like faith of masses is going to trample a civ who doesn't reform.

Another thing happening is the AI always tries so hard to spread. Human players don't find a balance problem here because we know to just bite the bullet sometimes and save our faith for something else. It seems like most of the humans are making a beeline for either Hagia Sophia or Basil basically every time they get a religion.


Related question, what map size do you test at?

I think the extra religion works alright for bigger maps, but its rough on standard and brutal on anything smaller. Like the two strategies on a small map are warmongering and building the Cathedral of St. Basil.

 

[Owlbebach]

b) gets right back to the church’s prior issue with 3 spreads where you only need it in one city.

Was it even an issue? I liked it. I thought the problem was that 3 spreads are to strong fot the follower. Once upon a time you still buy all of them because having more faith is still better and passive spreading is never a bad thing.

And at prior levels it was too easy to reform. Maybe we need to drop max religions by one but increase reformation criteria to 25%?

Is it possible to tie it to number of players? I'm sure that 1 religion per 2 players is the right number. 5 religions for 8 players is too much. But for 10 players on the same map it is okay.

Or at least is it possible to change trashold for Reformation manually? I personally like how it works right now.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I find the Reformation weird from a flavour perspective. Reformationist movements like Protestantism and Wahhabism are disliked by their 'founders'. I struggle to think of a Reformationist movement supported by the hierarchy of the existing church. The requirement for Reformation being pop never made sense to me. "Our Religion is really successful! Therefore we must reform it!".

Probably too late to do radical changes, though. I would support dropping the number of religions to Civs/2 and raising the population requirement % to 200%/Civs.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Wouldn't it be better to keep the religion number as is, but decrease the number needed for reformation? Granted, removing one would probably be fine since Founders were nerfed since.

 

[CrabHelmet]

If you keep the same number of religions but reduce reformation, everyone who founds reforms, which makes religious conflict and the conversion game less interesting.

 

[Owlbebach]

Wouldn't it be better to keep the religion number as is, but decrease the number needed for reformation? Granted, removing one would probably be fine since Founders were nerfed since.

I agree, i think having more religions is more fun

If you keep the same number of religions but reduce reformation, everyone who founds reforms, which makes religious conflict and the conversion game less interesting.

Well thats a matter of numbers. It might as well make it more interesting when those who founded try to convert those who didn't in order to get that 1 additional city needed to reform.

Right now requirement is 20%, which means that theoretically for 5 religions on Standard every religion should have 1/5 of population to reform. However 1/5 from 8 civilizations is actually 1,6 civs, which means that theoretically (assuming all civs are equal), you need to convert 60% of other civ, which is more that half of their cities, almost impossible to do if you are not the first in their land. If we set it on 15% it would be 1,2 of average civ, which means that you need to convert yourself and couple of cities of your neighbour, but not all of his cities.

I think that would be a right move really.

 

[ElliotS]

So the way I see it there are two balance issues caused by poor AI play that may be factoiring into G's opinion on what beliefs are OP.
1- It's so hard to reform right now that Veneration giving an edge and allowing an AI to reform seems OP, despite players unanimously not feeling that way.
2- The AI doesn't seem to understand that sometimes it's better not to spread. Throwing endless missionaries at your neighbors isn't optimal play in many cases.

These facts combine to a meta that makes certain beliefs seem better than they are. There's really good counter-play potential already, the AI just isn't using it.