New Version - April 20th (4/20)

[Gazebo]

Could we try 250 without production?

We could, but it does tarnish the simplicity of the belief description/functionality a bit.
Another idea would be to have it scale with the number of cities following instead of just a flat value. So '25 of every yield per city following, scaling with era.'

G

 

[Txurce]

Could we try 250 without production?

That's overkill, in my opinion. It's debatable (as per above) whether any change at all is needed.

 

[Txurce]

We could, but it does tarnish the simplicity of the belief description/functionality a bit.
Another idea would be to have it scale with the number of cities following instead of just a flat value. So '25 of every yield per city following, scaling with era.'

G

How does that affect tall vs wide?

 

[ElliotS]

How does that affect tall vs wide?

It's better for wide, which I think it good. None of the founder beliefs scale well for wide over tall other than theocratic rule, which always has annoyed me.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

We could, but it does tarnish the simplicity of the belief description/functionality a bit.
Another idea would be to have it scale with the number of cities following instead of just a flat value. So '25 of every yield per city following, scaling with era.'

G

Doesn't it outright obsolete council of elders? It's a better version of it that not only provides better yields, it can also proc X times per city - sure, the effect is not instantaneous, but I can't see myself ever considering CoE. It's better to just reduce the WoT value to 200-250 and call it a day.

 

[CrazyG]

That's overkill, in my opinion. It's debatable (as per above) whether any change at all is needed.

My question for those who think a change isn't needed, have you played a game using it, where you founded your religion in ancient era?

I just don't see what argument the other side of the debate has. Right now its almost outright better than council of elders (which has support for being a strong belief).

Its much stronger than it looks on paper, when you factor in how it fuels bonus yields and really consider how powerful a free wonder every era advance is. Its actually more than just 1 wonder, Temple or Artemis or Mausoleum of Hali only have a base cost of 180, you get an extra 120 to grab a watermill or something. Ceremonial Burial needs to expend 7 great people before it matches faith and culture, even then it only matched faith and culture, and culture now is worth much more than culture later. It seems to me that a strong Ceremonial Burial or Council Elders at best matches like 2/5 of the current WoT.

Build a wonder every era advance might be strong enough to be a founder belief by itself.

 

[Txurce]

My question for those who think a change isn't needed, have you played a game using it, where you founded your religion in ancient era?

I just don't see what argument the other side of the debate has.

Yes... and it really helps. It gave me a rare good start on Emperor, which for me is now the old Immortal. And to get it, I had to hustle like crazy in order to found a religion, because I don't usually play with religious civs. And it does not guarantee a victory for me, so it's not OP in my dictionary.

I don't see how you could be arguing so vehemently now, when as far as I remember, this belief has been unchanged for ages. You are also a relatively poor barometer, because your play is strong enough to make WoT OP for you.

 

[intelli]

Definitely doesn't give a free wonder every era advance in my experience, nowhere near in the later eras. Maybe I'm whoreing the wonders a bit heavily.

I'm not against it being lowered to 250 at all though.

 

[Txurce]

I just finished my last game with the 3/7 version, and realized it was the first time I won the space race using Order. That ideology was great for generating science, but it was curiously weak in actually building the SS parts. Assuming that no matter how you're playing, you have a couple of cities with around 300 hammers, speed in building comes down to Freedom's gold edge vs Order's GE's... and man, are those GE's not just infrequent (even with Glory to God), but also only speed up a build by 3-4 turns.

Does Order's science edge over Freedom justify the difference between using gold vs GE's for a build?

 

[CrazyG]

Does Order's science edge over Freedom justify the difference between using gold vs GE's for a build?

In terms of a quick spaceship I don't think anything really compares to buying the parts via freedom. Order has other good advantages though, two free techs is great and its other policies can be better for surviving until the information era. GEs on spaceship parts is actually really weak in my experience

I don't see how you could be arguing so vehemently now, when as far as I remember, this belief has been unchanged for ages. You are also a relatively poor barometer, because your play is strong enough to make WoT OP for you.

It has been changed recently. The belief for a very long time did not include food or production. I tried to casually suggest it was too strong, but it seems unless there is disagreement, discussion tends to get overlooked. The thread about this had several people supporting a nerf with no one offering a counter opinion.

Lets math this out, Council of Elders that converts 10 cities per era yields 300 science, and 300 production. Making it drastically worse than Way of T, as it would be 300 faith, culture, gold, food, and GAP behind. You would need to convert 30 cities before Medieval to match raw yields with WoT's first bonus (not including GAP). Early on its very possible to hit more than 10 cities, but 30 would be really exceptional, and you aren't going to able to keep that up. WoT's long term is actually better than many beliefs, and its short term is better, its just stronger overall, the yields it provides are much larger than its competition's

So it seems to me that either WoT is far too strong, or Elders is far too weak. And I don't think Elders is weak, I would say its towards the top of the spreader bonus beliefs. As for your playing with it and not finding it that strong, did you play tall? Did you rush towards the next era ASAP? Did you take cooperation? If its too strong when played optimally, but balanced when played without maximizing its potential, its still too strong.

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

I just had the same experience - spending a GE only got my like 1/4 of the part, which was disapointing at least.

 

[Txurce]

It has been changed recently. The belief for a very long time did not include food or production.

Good to know, for comparison's sake.

WoT's long term is actually better than many beliefs, and its short term is better, its just stronger overall, the yields it provides are much larger than its competition's

So it seems to me that either WoT is far too strong, or Elders is far too weak. And I don't think Elders is weak, I would say its towards the top of the spreader bonus beliefs. As for your playing with it and not finding it that strong, did you play tall? Did you rush towards the next era ASAP? Did you take cooperation? If its too strong when played optimally, but balanced when played without maximizing its potential, its still too strong.

Thanks for mathing it out, but the only math I employ when playing is to maximize trading. I play with intuitive concepts, and by distilling the perceptions of excellent numbers-focused players like you. Playing like that -- successfully on Emperor with the 3/7 version -- I find Elders to be average, and WoT notably better... but not a game-breaker.

Lately I've won SV's with the Shoshone going tall, and Indonesia and the Dutch going wide. In 2 games I had WoT. I didn't rush for the next era because I had more immediate fish to fry, and took Cooperation once (the only time it was available). So I can't comment on playing it optimally.

 

[Stalker0]

Is it possible to make wot only start working beyond classical?

The issue seems to be in the ancient to classical transition, where the bonuses are really really good.

If you only got the bonus from classical to medieval and onward, how does it stack up?

 

[Txurce]

Is it possible to make wot only start working beyond classical?

The issue seems to be in the ancient to classical transition, where the bonuses are really really good.

If you only got the bonus from classical to medieval and onward, how does it stack up?

Great idea.

 

[ScooterDWiebels]

Awesome work, I'm excited for this long awaited patch.

However, I am disappointed to see Way of Transendence remain unchanged. There hasn't been too much discussion on it (maybe players haven't used it yet?) but its really out of line

I know what you mean I try really hard to get an early religion just to get that founders belief. It is really overpowering.

 

[randomnub]

Civ is a snowballing game and WoT is simply put the best snowballing effect out there atm, and as written above synergizes damn well with Tribute. I aborted two games with celts/aztecs on deity/standard/standard because WoT in ancient gave me such huge headstart the game lost appeal. It might have been an issue of the civs, or Authority, or lucky circumstances... but when I play a weak faith civ and still rate my chances to get a pick at WoT I halt techs in order to stay into ancient and it always pays off very well.

Not having to work on spreading makes it a solid pick when your faith output is not going to allow for many missionaries either, so it might be that it proves more useful at higher difficulties when the religious opposition starts earlier.

 

[CrazyG]

Lately I've won SV's with the Shoshone going tall, and Indonesia and the Dutch going wide. In 2 games I had WoT. I didn't rush for the next era because I had more immediate fish to fry, and took Cooperation once (the only time it was available). So I can't comment on playing it optimally.

Keep in mind if you rush the next era, you can use your bonus science on the older tech. The strategy I used was Aztec, God of War, and timing masonry so it completed right after i got my religion. This can result in crazy stuff like opening rationalism before AI complete their first policy tree, or winning tourism on turn 165. I think the issue is WoT not the Aztec. I maybe shouldn't say optimal, because I'm not perfect by any means, but I'm confident its a broken strategy

I'm curious if you also find the other "gain X for spreading" beliefs to be weak/ middle tier? Elders seemed like the strongest to me

Is it possible to make wot only start working beyond classical?

The issue seems to be in the ancient to classical transition, where the bonuses are really really good.

If you only got the bonus from classical to medieval and onward, how does it stack up?

I had the same idea for Poland's UA. It makes sense since the classical era isn't really a separate era from ancient; yields don't change.

I think it can be worth choosing in its current form even if you are already in the classical era, so it would be a decent belief. Probably only worth choosing if you have some synergy, but that sounds like better design to me

 

[randomnub]

And fwiw imo it was a cool idea even for the Poland's UA Ye, yelds not changing between ancient-classical support such nerf for WoT as well.

 

[Txurce]

Keep in mind if you rush the next era, you can use your bonus science on the older tech. The strategy I used was Aztec, God of War, and timing masonry so it completed right after i got my religion. This can result in crazy stuff like opening rationalism before AI complete their first policy tree, or winning tourism on turn 165. I think the issue is WoT not the Aztec. I maybe shouldn't say optimal, because I'm not perfect by any means, but I'm confident its a broken strategy

I'm curious if you also find the other "gain X for spreading" beliefs to be weak/ middle tier? Elders seemed like the strongest to me.

I would agree that is a broken strategy. Jesus!

In those three wins I mentioned earlier, I spread my religion purely thanks to being the only one around, and benefited from Pacifism. (In those games, that was the key -- not WoT, by the way.) The problem with spreader Founder beliefs is that I can almost never beat an AI competitor in spreading (with me using a non-religious civ), so choosing them for me is a pretty bad roll of the dice. It's why I go Wot followed by HL whenever possible.

 

[CrazyG]

I would agree that is a broken strategy. Jesus!

In those three wins I mentioned earlier, I spread my religion purely thanks to being the only one around, and benefited from Pacifism. (In those games, that was the key -- not WoT, by the way.) The problem with spreader Founder beliefs is that I can almost never beat an AI competitor in spreading (with me using a non-religious civ), so choosing them for me is a pretty bad roll of the dice. It's why I go Wot followed by HL whenever possible.

I've accepted that I will never understand the appeal of HL

Pacifism is great, but I woulnd't compare enhancer and founder. Different roles, enhancers do more in general. Don't overlook how impactful an early 300 food and hammers were either (600 more in medieval!). That holy city was far more developed than it otherwise would have been.