supracseduch
Warlord
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2015
- Messages
- 206
I'm not completely comfortable with the new religion mechanics yet, but the only reason for this is that I'm imagining some insane hypothetical scenarios that are unlikely to happen, but are indeed insane if they do.
Just a fun thought: Byzantium can now theoretically found multiple religions with extra beliefs. It's possible for their beliefs to be exactly the same. In general, religions founded by the same player will have a pantheon belief in common.
Thematic considerations:
Military players are likely to find themselves controlling at least one Holy City in their attempt at world conquest. They are thus bound to have an 'official religion' even if they don't want to. Is this okay? There were powerful empires in history who did not actively endorse one particular religion, and most nations today are secular states. They upheld/uphold religious tolerance.
On the other hand, it's possible in-game for an initially small theocratic state to suddenly switch its official religion just by conquering a holy city. The argument can be made here that you should have established a firm majority for your religion first before invading their holy city. But this might not always be doable if you plan to steamroll through a bigger civilization's cities in one big campaign. As their cities fall to your hands one by one, more of your empire's citizens would belong to that civ's religion. And when you finally conquer their holy city (often the capital), your empire as a whole may suddenly switch to that religion if they even slightly outnumber your own religion's followers. Why would a warlike fundamentalist state suddenly change their beliefs like that? In reality, they'd probably sack that city upon conquering it, or at least treat it as nothing special.
I mean, it's great that religion and state has been decoupled. A civ is no longer bound to the religion it founded. But the way it works right now, global superpowers are likely to have an official religion by the modern era, which is the opposite of reality. This is a very minor detail, almost trivial, but I think we should call it something other than 'official religion'. Can't think of a name right now though. Better yet, leave it as a player's decision whether or not to marry their own nation to a particular religion, and provide some minor bonuses for not doing so.
I think capturing Holy Cities (and maybe capitals as well) should be historic events. Apart from the thematic appeal, we need more historical events for warmongers (winning wars is not exactly a common event in the game.). Also may attract a more religion + war playstyle for Arabia, instead of the same old Tradition + Wonder-whoring.
The social policy requirements for wonders are a bit too high. The Great Library, an early classical era wonder, requires the equivalent of an entire policy branch. The rationale for adding these extra requirements to wonders was to offset the advantage of players with disproportionately high tech. Disproportionate (relative to their culture) is the keyword here. There was something wrong with a player beelining to Writing just to construct the Great Library, then proceeding to construct everything else using his tech lead. There's nothing wrong if a player with normal levels of science and culture is able to immediately construct it upon researching Writing. However, having a policy branch completed upon researching Writing is definitely not normal (at least it shouldn't be). So for now, I think it's best if we reduce SP requirements by 1 across the board.
Balance
God of Commerce is quite weak. It gives +1
and 
to quarries and stone works, same yields that Earth Mother gives to mines on resources. In all likelihood, the mines on resources will outnumber quarries and stone works combined, so the yields from the latter should be a bit better. Maybe replace gold with production.
Goddess ofNature's the Hunt's bonus from camps (+1 
, 
, and ) is better than Spirit of the Desert's bonus from improved desert resources (+1 , , and ).
Barracks science is a bit too powerful. Maybe 1 point of it should be moved elsewhere. Walls don't make sense thematically, but can work for balance. City connections might also work.
City-States' warriors have the 'Brute Force' promotion as well. Is this intended? It might be better if they did not have this bonus, so they're less effective at fighting barbs.
It's still viable to just mindlessly PtP every CS, as soon as you catch up in military strength.
Just a fun thought: Byzantium can now theoretically found multiple religions with extra beliefs. It's possible for their beliefs to be exactly the same. In general, religions founded by the same player will have a pantheon belief in common.
Thematic considerations:
Military players are likely to find themselves controlling at least one Holy City in their attempt at world conquest. They are thus bound to have an 'official religion' even if they don't want to. Is this okay? There were powerful empires in history who did not actively endorse one particular religion, and most nations today are secular states. They upheld/uphold religious tolerance.
On the other hand, it's possible in-game for an initially small theocratic state to suddenly switch its official religion just by conquering a holy city. The argument can be made here that you should have established a firm majority for your religion first before invading their holy city. But this might not always be doable if you plan to steamroll through a bigger civilization's cities in one big campaign. As their cities fall to your hands one by one, more of your empire's citizens would belong to that civ's religion. And when you finally conquer their holy city (often the capital), your empire as a whole may suddenly switch to that religion if they even slightly outnumber your own religion's followers. Why would a warlike fundamentalist state suddenly change their beliefs like that? In reality, they'd probably sack that city upon conquering it, or at least treat it as nothing special.
I mean, it's great that religion and state has been decoupled. A civ is no longer bound to the religion it founded. But the way it works right now, global superpowers are likely to have an official religion by the modern era, which is the opposite of reality. This is a very minor detail, almost trivial, but I think we should call it something other than 'official religion'. Can't think of a name right now though. Better yet, leave it as a player's decision whether or not to marry their own nation to a particular religion, and provide some minor bonuses for not doing so.
I think capturing Holy Cities (and maybe capitals as well) should be historic events. Apart from the thematic appeal, we need more historical events for warmongers (winning wars is not exactly a common event in the game.). Also may attract a more religion + war playstyle for Arabia, instead of the same old Tradition + Wonder-whoring.
The social policy requirements for wonders are a bit too high. The Great Library, an early classical era wonder, requires the equivalent of an entire policy branch. The rationale for adding these extra requirements to wonders was to offset the advantage of players with disproportionately high tech. Disproportionate (relative to their culture) is the keyword here. There was something wrong with a player beelining to Writing just to construct the Great Library, then proceeding to construct everything else using his tech lead. There's nothing wrong if a player with normal levels of science and culture is able to immediately construct it upon researching Writing. However, having a policy branch completed upon researching Writing is definitely not normal (at least it shouldn't be). So for now, I think it's best if we reduce SP requirements by 1 across the board.
Balance
God of Commerce is quite weak. It gives +1
and to quarries and stone works, same yields that Earth Mother gives to mines on resources. In all likelihood, the mines on resources will outnumber quarries and stone works combined, so the yields from the latter should be a bit better. Maybe replace gold with production.Goddess of
, , and ) is better than Spirit of the Desert's bonus from improved desert resources (+1 , , and ).Barracks science is a bit too powerful. Maybe 1 point of it should be moved elsewhere. Walls don't make sense thematically, but can work for balance. City connections might also work.
City-States' warriors have the 'Brute Force' promotion as well. Is this intended? It might be better if they did not have this bonus, so they're less effective at fighting barbs.
It's still viable to just mindlessly PtP every CS, as soon as you catch up in military strength.
