November 7 livestream - religion

[Vitruvian Guar]

People are forgetting that Pantheons are Antiquity and the game is explicitly designed to allow single-Age games. If you were to start in Exploration, you would need to choose a Pantheon...when? At Advanced Start?

If you start in Exploration you don't have pantheon, just like you do not have tradition policies from Antiquity.

But if you start in Antiquity and go to Exploration, why not preserve the pantheon in some way, just as tradition policies are preserved?

 

[Siptah]

If you start in Exploration you don't have pantheon, just like you do not have tradition policies from Antiquity.

This isn't clear yet. In one of the interviews with streamers, the devs said that the advanced start menu lets you choose a lot of things. While not confirmed, I understand that this means that you can choose your previous civ - and otherwise, you would start with no policies at all.

In case of the Pantheon, this is irrelevant, as the Pantheon plays no role in the exploration era.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

This isn't clear yet. In one of the interviews with streamers, the devs said that the advanced start menu lets you choose a lot of things. While not confirmed, I understand that this means that you can choose your previous civ - and otherwise, you would start with no policies at all.

In case of the Pantheon, this is irrelevant, as the Pantheon plays no role in the exploration era.

Well in this case nothing is preventing FRX from adding pantheons to the same menu as well.

And yes, they've specifically designed pantheons to not work without shrines, but this was a choice. They could've made pantheons to work with temples as well.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Having had a couple of days to think about the stream, I am slightly more positive about religion, and it's largely because it doesn't have its own win condition. I think it synergises well with the other mechanics and feels like quite a natural addition to the whole process of engaging with the DL. I can see why they kept the spread as an active process.

I would still have done it a bit differently, I think.

- instead of everyone founding a religion, I would have much preferred it if everyone was able to choose a state religion. With everyone founding their own, it means that religion plays no part in diplomacy, which is sad. I don't know exactly how it would work, but maybe there should only be 3 religions per standard game, and the benefit of founding one is you can choose the beliefs, but otherwise there is no advantage to founding vs converting. The beliefs themselves should not be tied to the number of followers, but empire wide bonuses that do not snowball

- I would have made it possible to spread your religion to other cities but impossible to convert a rival city without either conquering it or spending influence to encourage that civ to adopt your religion

- I would get rid of missionaries and just give scouts the ability to spread religion, no need for a separate unit

 

[Krikkit1]

Having had a couple of days to think about the stream, I am slightly more positive about religion, and it's largely because it doesn't have its own win condition. I think it synergises well with the other mechanics and feels like quite a natural addition to the whole process of engaging with the DL. I can see why they kept the spread as an active process.

I would still have done it a bit differently, I think.

- instead of everyone founding a religion, I would have much preferred it if everyone was able to choose a state religion. With everyone founding their own, it means that religion plays no part in diplomacy, which is sad. I don't know exactly how it would work, but maybe there should only be 3 religions per standard game, and the benefit of founding one is you can choose the beliefs, but otherwise there is no advantage to founding vs converting. The beliefs themselves should not be tied to the number of followers, but empire wide bonuses that do not snowball

- I would have made it possible to spread your religion to other cities but impossible to convert a rival city without either conquering it or spending influence to encourage that civ to adopt your religion

- I would get rid of missionaries and just give scouts the ability to spread religion, no need for a separate unit

Actually, that last bit is an interesting point missionaries taking production to build is a little strange….faith made sense as a resource to buy them (but was too much like gold itself) perhaps if they were purchased with influence that may make sense . After all you are influencing people to adopt a religion.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Actually, that last bit is an interesting point missionaries taking production to build is a little strange….faith made sense as a resource to buy them (but was too much like gold itself) perhaps if they were purchased with influence that may make sense . After all you are influencing people to adopt a religion.

The way I see it, Civ has always had a problem with scouts ever since introducing them. They're a good early unit, and a fun part of the early game, but they become entirely redundant by the mid game, and who ever bothers to upgrade them to Skirmishers in VI? Why not have them automatically upgrade to "Missionary Scouts" (or just Missionaries) at the start of the Exploration Age so that they can continue to be useful but operate still primarily as a scouting unit. And then perhaps they could become something else in Modern - spies perhaps?

 

[Krikkit1]

The way I see it, Civ has always had a problem with scouts ever since introducing them. They're a good early unit, and a fun part of the early game, but they become entirely redundant by the mid game, and who ever bothers to upgrade them to Skirmishers in VI? Why not have them automatically upgrade to "Missionary Scouts" (or just Missionaries) at the start of the Exploration Age so that they can continue to be useful but operate still primarily as a scouting unit. And then perhaps they could become something else in Modern - spies perhaps?

Well exploration age they could still be useful (exploring the DL interior)
I could see modern spies/recon special ops

 

[chaosprophet]

If you don't get any progress towards the cultural legacy (i.e., no relics at all), you'll get a cultural dark age in the modern age - whatever that means.

From what I remember, you get a dark age legacy to choose if you want (don't think they are picked automatically), and apparently they may be interesting / maybe be something to aim for de pending on your strategy. You already have the negative point of not getting any currency to pick bonuses for that legacy for next age after all.

Here, I found the part when they say it on the Antiquity stream:

"(...) if you do not complete any progress in a legacy path, you do get a Dark Age perk that you can choose, which changes your gameplay a significant amount in a really interesting way. Those are different from every legacy path."

The way I see it, Civ has always had a problem with scouts ever since introducing them. They're a good early unit, and a fun part of the early game, but they become entirely redundant by the mid game, and who ever bothers to upgrade them to Skirmishers in VI? Why not have them automatically upgrade to "Missionary Scouts" (or just Missionaries) at the start of the Exploration Age so that they can continue to be useful but operate still primarily as a scouting unit. And then perhaps they could become something else in Modern - spies perhaps?

The modern scout... stalkers!?

 

[moondog385]

All of those founder beliefs tied to the religion’s spread to other civilizations is interesting. I guess it makes sense (gameplay-wise) considering religion is associated with the cultural victory now rather than a religion on its own.

I think the problems with religion in Civ, and by the looks of it Civ7 in particular, is that religions belong to civilizations. It's a specific civ that founds religions, gives it beliefs, spreads it, and reaps benefits (both yields and legacy progress) from it. This is great for player agency because it makes them a complete theological autocrat. But I think it's bad for historical flavour, and it's bad in making religion something distinct from existing game systems (specially in the way missionaries mimic military units). An alternative would be to have religions be something that civilizations have to harness, rather than create.

One way, suggested elsewhere, is to make IPs found religions. The player then has a choice: adopt the religion of the closest holy IP? Or the religion that's already popular with neighbours? Or the one that's spreading the most to the new world? To add beliefs to a religion you'd have to be the suzerain of the holy IP. This offers even more choice: do you become close to many religious IPs in the ancient age so you're well positioned once they start founding religions in the Exploration era? Do you invest in one religion super early? Or do you wait before backing a winner? Or do you try to monopolize suzerainty of multiple holy IPs to try to lock other people out of developing a religion? Finally, to get the legacy progress that requires religion you'd have to diplomatically annex that holy IP. Religions could spread passively outwards from a city to its neighbours and along its trade routes. Rather than being built, missionaries would be replaced by an off-map "conversion charge" that would increase passively at a rate that increases with the number of buildings and relics associated with a religion; and be used to either convert cities (only if connected by a trade route or close to a city already of this religion), or to inoculate a city against foreign conversion.

Such a system is not fully fleshed out here of course, and there are obviously countless details to pin down. But it would make religion something that civs fight over to control, rather than something they give birth to. It would make it that one civ could (indirectly) control multiple religions, or that multiple civs share one religion. It would make religion central to diplomacy for the exploration age, and make it as much about the influence yield as culture. It would get replace religious unit micromanagement with meaningful high-level decisions.

I’d have to agree. Not a fan of continuing the tradition of making the religions state-founded. Claiming victory once “your religion” spreads to enough civs is kind of an odd concept. Civilizations adopted religions and religions adapted to cultures.

 

[Atlas627]

If you start in Exploration you don't have pantheon, just like you do not have tradition policies from Antiquity.

But if you start in Antiquity and go to Exploration, why not preserve the pantheon in some way, just as tradition policies are preserved?

Because it would nearly require you to get a Pantheon every game? If the Pantheon and Pantheon mechanics are age-limited, they are able to be balanced appropriately, just like all the other mechanics that are age-specific.

 

[Krikkit1]

Because it would nearly require you to get a Pantheon every game? If the Pantheon and Pantheon mechanics are age-limited, they are able to be balanced appropriately, just like all the other mechanics that are age-specific.

Not necessarily, if the Pantheon was preserved in a minor way (a bonus to your first relic)

 

[Atlas627]

Not necessarily, if the Pantheon was preserved in a minor way (a bonus to your first relic)

Sure, but then you'd have to get a Relic (which probably entails getting a Religion, again forcing your hand a bit). Are people asking for their Pantheon to last all game because they want the flavor, or because they want the gameplay implications?

 

[AriochIV]

The new Scout functions look like they will help to keep them more useful throughout the Antiquity Age, but it doesn't appear that they have an Exploration Age upgrade, so I'm not sure how useful they will be in the second Age. That seems unfortunate given the emphasis on exploration in the second Age.

 

[Disgustipated]

"(...) if you do not complete any progress in a legacy path, you do get a Dark Age perk that you can choose, which changes your gameplay a significant amount in a really interesting way. Those are different from every legacy path."

That's disappointing. I wish I could just ignore religion like I did in Civ 6 and even Civ 5. I don't like being "forced" into certain playstyles. As I mentioned above, I love to sandbox my games, and just focus on building a large empire without any specific victory condition in mind. I hate to be forced into victory conditions in the first 2 ages.

 

[Atlas627]

That's disappointing. I wish I could just ignore religion like I did in Civ 6 and even Civ 5. I don't like being "forced" into certain playstyles. As I mentioned above, I love to sandbox my games, and just focus on building a large empire without any specific victory condition in mind. I hate to be forced into victory conditions in the first 2 ages.

? You absolutely can ignore religion. If you ignore it, you'll get a possible perk to choose at Age transition. That's going to be true for all the Legacy Paths for the first 2 Ages. You've got it all backwards.

 

[Disgustipated]

I certainly hope so. It's just Civ 6's dark age cards never really interested me, and very rarely could I get any value out of them. I wouldn't ignore religion every game of course. It would depend on who I'm playing. If I'm playing something like the Inca, I don't want to focus on a religion. Same with the Mongols of course.

 

[Josephias]

This isn't clear yet. In one of the interviews with streamers, the devs said that the advanced start menu lets you choose a lot of things. While not confirmed, I understand that this means that you can choose your previous civ - and otherwise, you would start with no policies at all.

In case of the Pantheon, this is irrelevant, as the Pantheon plays no role in the exploration era.

Well, the point @Vitruvian Guar was trying to make is Pantheon does not have need to be irrelevant, and could play a similar role to traditions.

if you start in Antiquity and go to Exploration, why not preserve the pantheon in some way, just as tradition policies are preserved?

Indeed, we were not shown the Theology menu. Probably it has to do with relics, but it might also have an option to develop religion-based traditions (the "echos" in Modern era).

If that is true, ¿why do not make your Ancient-era Pantheon a tradition as well?. It will be a clean solution, and it does not seem there is much Policy competition at the start of an Age, so it could bring some decision on this area.


Advanced starts need to be checked, btw, with regards to both Traditions and other policies: a third thing to consider is policy slots are increased with golden ages. So, ¿how many policy slots is the "standard" in an avanced era start? Will it take into account an average number of golden ages in the past eras? or will it reset to a very small number? (making less need for traditions)

 

[Atlas627]

Indeed, we were not shown the Theology menu. Probably it has to do with relics, but it might also have an option to develop religion-based traditions (the "echos" in Modern era).

Yeah, no idea what this is yet. If it were Modern Age only I wouldn't expect it to be on the UI during Exploration, and maybe replace the Religion screen in Modern, so I doubt that's it.

Advanced starts need to be checked, btw, with regards to both Traditions and other policies: a third thing to consider is policy slots are increased with golden ages. So, ¿how many policy slots is the "standard" in an avanced era start? Will it take into account an average number of golden ages in the past eras? or will it reset to a very small number? (making less need for traditions)

When getting a Celebration, Policy slots are increased for current Age only. So there is no need to account for this.

 

[Siptah]

Do we actually know the pantheon bonuses already? I don’t remember right now if we do, and it would be good to know these before arguing whether it’s worth keeping the pantheon around. What if some of them work with outdated buildings, e.g. more happiness from shrines or extra science from codices?

Also, at the beginning of the exploration age, there are already tons of bonuses applied or available: a civ ability, 4 traditions, a leader ability, 5+ leader attributes, upgraded commanders with military bonuses, bonuses from buildings and techs. Pantheon bonuses would need to be quite interesting to really have reason to keep them active. I don‘t think +1 food on floodplains is worth keeping around with how buildings and techs improve tile yields.

Edit: we know them. I don’t think they are interesting enough to keep. And they would have to be changed in some way. E.g., applied to cities with temples and/or settlements with the religion. Otherwise they are not worth keeping in any case, as altars will be oberbuilt.

 

[Evolena]

Edit: we know them. I don’t think they are interesting enough to keep. And they would have to be changed in some way. E.g., applied to cities with temples and/or settlements with the religion. Otherwise they are not worth keeping in any case, as altars will be oberbuilt.

The effects of the Pantheons could vanish as you replace the Altars with something else, ensuring a smoother transition. But of course that does not work with an Exploration Age advanced start.