New religion beliefs "warrior monks" not synergistic

[Ticio]

At first I was very happy with some of the chances to the beliefs made in NFP.

But after actually playing it, I noticed that burial grounds are merged with warrior monks as a belief and not as an enhancer beliefs.

I think that is not very appealing this way, because I don't see the "flow" between the 2.
As it was before, Burial ground was my favourite enhancer beliefs because it allowed you to take enemy terrain in multiplayer (and extra points for Spain as it allowed you to build missions sourrounding the holysites inmediatly and for free) and then you could choose Choral music or jesuit education to balance the late scientific or cultural districts.

Now you are forced to choose the warriors monks + burial grounds in detriment of the other 2, making difficult to stay competitive on science and culture and forcing you to choose 2 ideas not very symbiotic (what "burial grounds" gives to "warrior monks" and viceversa?) and that are not very appealing.

Would it make more sense to add to "warrior monks" the enhancer belief "defender of the faith" that gives you +4 CS?

This way it would become a beliefs that help you defend yourself at the start of the game:

You invest a lot on religion but you are not exposed to early attacks as you have warrior monks and the +4 CS to compensate for the lack of investment on military and science (lagging military tech.).

I think these 2 are a lot more synergistic that burial grounds. They also give you the option to use burial ground as an enhancer if you desire so.

I also think this may increase the interest on this belief, and his utility.

what do you think?


P.S: Defender of the faith only apply to your own cities, or to City states and allied cities too?

 

[Buktu]

I agree that monks and culture bombs from holy sites have just a little synergy together. I'd say little because if you want to buy monks you need a holy site to do so, also you will need lots of faith - which most likely comes from more holy sites. Therefore another way to buff the monk belief was better imo. Something like a UI you can just build with this belief and also give those monks a builder charge to build it once (like the Toa or the Legion). The monastery would fit nicely imo but you needed another bonus for Armagh then.

Anyway monks don't come early since you need a temple to buy them. The temple comes in the late classic and you need at least 6 civics to unlock it (skipping political philosophy on the way!). By the time you get there you are already dead by an AI rush or you had the time to build up some archers to defend yourself. If you want to combine monks and a "war" belief I preferd crusade since monk have a promotion to spread their religion from combat victories.

Defender of the faith just applies to your own cities afaik.

 

[Ticio]

I agree that monks and culture bombs from holy sites have just a little synergy together. I'd say little because if you want to buy monks you need a holy site to do so, also you will need lots of faith - which most likely comes from more holy sites. Therefore another way to buff the monk belief was better imo. Something like a UI you can just build with this belief and also give those monks a builder charge to build it once (like the Toa or the Legion). The monastery would fit nicely imo but you needed another bonus for Armagh then.

Anyway monks don't come early since you need a temple to buy them. The temple comes in the late classic and you need at least 6 civics to unlock it (skipping political philosophy on the way!). By the time you get there you are already dead by an AI rush or you had the time to build up some archers to defend yourself. If you want to combine monks and a "war" belief I preferd crusade since monk have a promotion to spread their religion from combat victories.

Defender of the faith just applies to your own cities afaik.

You have very good points! I think that "crusade" could be better indeed, thanks to the warrior monks abilities.

I was also concern about making "Crusade" or "Defender of faith" a Founder beliefs as it would allow the founder to have both (one as founder and the other as enhancer),
but I realized that the other converted civs would benefit of this extra CS too... so it would be balanced.

Another concern I have is that right now, burial ground has lost a lot of his "power".

Before, the strenght of this ability was to make Holy sites to take strategic ressources if you were lacking them and your adversaries had monopolized them.
As it is now, they just have to build another Religious district to recover the tiles, and thus winning them as you only can use it once per city.

So you, somehow, lose the power that burial grounds had as it was strong for taking important tiles, but now the Civ that has the advantage already will maintain such tiles (as being the first one to take the tiles and being able to put the holy site the last).

This would only happend if the other civ is converted to your religion, but I think it really diminish burial ground power and maki it less attractive.