Opinions needed on Faith monopoly!

[Deadstarre]

+2 Faith monopoly (pearls, incense, tobacco, wine)

I don't have much sense for how good this monopoly actually is. I've found amazing use out of it as Ethiopia when I take 2x building beliefs, fealty monasteries, and go wide quickly but admittedly this is a really niche scenario. Even when you found a religion Faith in general tapers off in power quickly, era inflation and the diminishing returns on great people purchase power quickly make it a thing that just piles up to large sums before you get a use out of it, where by comparison you could have had a monopoly yield that was directly benefiting you on every turn of the game like the other yield resource monopolies would.

1) Does this monopoly greatly help you found a religion when you wouldn't have otherwise? or does connecting a monopoly generally come online too late to be of much use for the religion race?

2) Rank these in order of power:

a) +2 Culture
b) +2 Science
c) +3 Gold
d) +3 Food
e) +2 Faith

3) Rank these in order of power:

a) +2 Faith on resource tiles
b) %10 Food in all cities
c) %10 Production in all cities
d) %10 Gold in all cities

 

[DarkZero]

Faith monopoly is extreme tricky to balance, we dont want them to guarantee a religion but if you fail, its bad, unless you ignored the attempt at religions and instead made an army to conquer your neighbor religion, the other problem of this monopoly is the resources its tied to, they offer no food , so if you work them early game, wen that faith really matters, you cripple your empire to the point of a loss, so you are in this weird position where you either work these weird tiles whit all sorts of random yields in the time where you really want food and production, not to mention how 3 of the 4 are on plantation and it takes a good long while to get the techs and the workers to get all those plantations up, I often find that by the time these monopolies are up the religions are already funded, and I either have extra faith on top of my religion or am stuck whit an very bad monopoly.

Pearls may be an exception to the rule...but I got to admit I never played a game whit a pearl monopoly.

 

[Deadstarre]

Faith monopoly is extreme tricky to balance

so, I get the impression if you had done rankings Faith would have been last in both cases (2 and 3)? if the word "power" throws you off, please list in order of your preference =)

 

[DarkZero]

so, I get the impression if you had done rankings Faith would have been last in both cases (2 and 3)? if the word "power" throws you off, please list in order of your preference =)

My problem was not whit the world "power", the problem of monopolies is that they are tied to resources, the better and the faster the resource is to conect, the better the monopoly becomes, even if it only gives gold, faith would be extremely powerfully on a camp resource you can get from the very first tech you research, on the other hand, locked away at at plantation, on resources that lack early game strenght, where faith is the strongest, really put a blown in its power.

 

[Grabbl]

I think the faith monopoly is fine. To make it help found a religion, I usually have to be quite focussed on workers and the appropriate tech, so it comes with an investment, and it doesn't seem overpowered for founding. In my games, it brings the Great Prophet only a few turns earlier.

2) My order would probably be science/culture, then faith, then gold, then food.
3) That's tricky as the multipliers are clearly better in lategame and the raw yields early-on. When looking at my start, I think it would be production/gold/food, with faith between production and gold for a civ with no advantage in founding, and between gold and foot for a civ that is already good at founding.

But I think, those monopolies are well-balanced now, I don't see a strong necessity to buff or nerf something.

 

[Deadstarre]

the problem of monopolies is that they are tied to resources

well then lets do a hypothetical. if they were not tied to specific improvements, as in suddenly every monopoly can be made available to every improvement type, objectively what would be your order of ranking?

 

[Enginseer]

Isn't the faith monopoly really good on smaller maps where it is easier to get monopolies compared to large maps? It is nonetheless still a good monopoly yield to fight religious unrest([high faith yields used to fight religious unrest] i wonder if that got removed, I forgot)

 

[pineappledan]

well then lets do a hypothetical. if they were not tied to specific improvements, as in suddenly every monopoly can be made available to every improvement type, objectively what would be your order of ranking?

Well that seems like a pretty pointless exercise doesn't it? That's just not the case.

 

[Deadstarre]

Well that seems like a pretty pointless exercise doesn't it? That's just not the case.

dude... theyre 3 really simple questions about 1) does it help you found and 2) 3) objective power rankings for a monopoly. they came with an explanation for my ignorance and some thoughts to consider when doing the exercise. I literally just said lets imagine for a moment these monopolies are available to every luxury to help you be objective in answering the questions, and youre now talking about the difference in luxuries... thats some next-level uselessness homie.

 

[DarkZero]

well then lets do a hypothetical. if they were not tied to specific improvements, as in suddenly every monopoly can be made available to every improvement type, objectively what would be your order of ranking?

In these absurd circumstances,then the faith monopoly is the best in the game by far, as it almost guarantees first pantheon and religion, no matter the civ ( barring weird cases like having a ghandi in your game)

 

[Deadstarre]

i thought it goes without saying im not talking about Tiny maps.... but a standard game. even if faith was on camps, you cant expand quickly enough to get 5 luxuries improved (and keep them improved, safe from barbarians) to guarantee yourself the first pantheon...

 

[pza]

this question is simple, as someone already pointed out. It comes down to whether it helps you significantly win the religion race most importantly. having the monopoly before a pantheon is basically impossible.

by the way: this is one of the cases where it's essential to say what (real*) mapsize and gamespeed you're referring to when argueing.
- the bigger the map, the further away are the monopolies resssources, the more turns it takes to settle and annex them.
- the quicker the gamespeed the more weight lies on each turn, that means since workers and settlers move at the same rate, it takes them more time (in relation to slower speeds) to get somewhere and do their jobs. 2 movement in quick is slower than 2 movement in marathon.

both these things must be considered very highly in this topic. if you get a super small continent, where you can get the monopoly with just 2 cities and it happens to be a faith monopoly ressource, you'd obviously go for a quick capture on those. on larger maps, with the same game speed, it's hardly possible to get the monopoly in time to make a real difference. early faith generation through pantheon, shrines and unqiue buildings and ruins are way more important.



here's an example: on a fairly standard sized , standard paced map without barbs you have about an even chance to be able to found a religion on turn 95-105, lets say 100. depending on your start, you'll be gathering about 10-20 faith a turn when founding, lets say 15. the monopoly would give you 10 faith per turn (2 faith for each tile, most commonly there are 9 tiles in total, that means you have a monopoly with 5 or more.). that means: in this case, for every turn you have the monopoly you'll save 2/3rds of a turn on the religion.

so the questions are: a) how long do you have to have the monopoly for it to make a significant difference, and under what circumstances is this possible? and if the mod is balanced around standard size, standard speed, how often will this be possible?

in our case that means, in order for it to be imbalanced, you'd need to save at least 20-30 turns on your great prophet. that means without the monopoly you would otherwise only target turn 125. that'd mean you'd be eligible for a religion even if you had a bad start, a bad pantheon or simply focused on other things. 20-30 turns earlier prophet means you would need to have the monopoly for at least 30-45 turns. so you'd need to have the monopoly established in turn 55-70. so far the facts, but in my opinion that's not feasible, or very difficult to say the least. and you'd need to have an extremely good map.

for the question if the monopoly is relevant after founding of the religion: as long as those 10-14 faith per turn are relevant in relation to your total faith aquisition, yes. that's roughly around renaissance, with the building of temples, when your faith starts cranking above the three digit mark. until then, you can expect quicker missionaries, prophets and faith buildings. after that, the bonus disappears.

for the question if the monopoly is better or worse than other monopolies: culture is a more important ressource after founding a religion but the numbers inflate quicker than faith. so it's a tradeoff: the culture monopoly has more value, but is less strong in total number. that's dependent on your civ and playstyle of course, but it's the tendency.


* real mapsize means size of the continents and therefore space to settle, in addition the options tiny, small, huge.... etc.

 

[DarkZero]

i thought it goes without saying im not talking about Tiny maps.... but a standard game. even if faith was on camps, you cant expand quickly enough to get 5 luxuries improved (and keep them improved, safe from barbarians) to guarantee yourself the first pantheon...

Epic and marathon game speeds say : hi

To get an monopoly you need 5 resources, most of the time 2 spawn really close to your capital, and its not rare you can get the other 3 from a second city, especially whit say, the shoshone.

 

[CrabHelmet]

They're heavily contextual. On higher difficulties, they've made the difference between me getting and not getting a Religion. Back when the AI was getting that ridiculous capital bonus, I managed to get the second religion as Morocco on Deity using an Incense monopoly - we are talking t65. The last religion went t72.

On the other hand, if you're not planning to go religious, or you have to prioritise something aside from settler/worker rushes, it's totally useless.

Difficult to balance, really. I do feel it ought to be more heavily associated with Luxuries giving Production where possible, to allow use of the monopoly slightly more easily.

 

[bigcat88]

they are good if you go tradition and able to grab 5 of them with 3 cities. so they are fine, nothing to change