Passive Religion Pressure Dominance

[Enginseer]

Passive Religion Pressure seems to be very powerful especially when one religion has many cities that can out-pressure even a holy city. What does the rest of the religious civs do? Little to nothing based on my observation. They don't train inquisitors. They don't train missionaries to counteract the strong pressure that threatens their own founded religion. If their Holy City succumbs to foreign religion pressure itself(which is a noticeable danger), the AIs have no way of reviving that religion without a Great Prophet which is very critical in combating a dominant religion.

What can be done about it? Religion in Civ 5 should be as competitive as possible, but with a strong passive pressure mechanic, little can the AI understand what they can do against it on a larger scale. Should foreign pressure be capped, so minor religions can still remain impactful or should they all succumb to the dominant and true religion of one?

This isn't a balance issue, since all these problems can be circumvented due to map settings(of course Pangaea is gonna create one dominant religion while islands are going to create powerful religious civilizations which are isolated and spread only by trade)

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I agree. The passiv pressure is too strong.
In a pure multiplayer game, it might be ok, but the AI is too passiv in their religious behavior. And missionaries have only a little impact to religious cities, especially those with +conversion range or + conversion strenght.
I also ask myself, why i should pick such spread help beliefs. I spend my hammers to found an early religion and get the boni I want. Spamming my religion to other civs and get nothing for it while other Civs with only pantheons benefit from my religion sounds a bit mad.

 

[CrazyG]

Just throwing an idea out there, give the AI free inquisitors on higher difficulties. They just appear in a holy city at era advance or something like that, no faith spent. This would be a decent buff to all civs in terms of religious defense, but also would massively help AI India, as currently abusing their UA to spread your own religion is too easy. You also can't really not not abuse it, because if they hold their own religion they become such a threat

 

[Txurce]

I also ask myself, why i should pick such spread help beliefs. I spend my hammers to found an early religion and get the boni I want. Spamming my religion to other civs and get nothing for it while other Civs with only pantheons benefit from my religion sounds a bit mad.

I often wonder whether I'm better off with a spreading belief, or sticking with the direct-benefit types. I always go the latter way, and do well despite usually not being able to spread my religion very far on Immortal. When is it better to choose an aggressive belief?

 

[Zymos]

When you want to control the World Council.

 

[Txurce]

When you want to control the World Council.

You would always prefer to control the WC. And I do control it at least half the time, using passive beliefs. So in my case, I would never pick an aggressive belief for that reason.

What I'm asking about are the relative benefits of passive vs aggressive beliefs.

 

[CrazyG]

One way to think of it is that spreader beliefs give you faith by you not having to purchase missionaries. You also gain resources by reforming earlier, and by not building Cathedral O'Basil (national wonders are cheaper, buff holy sites, provide more yields and grant world congress votes). Basically even though scripture doesn't directly provide any yields, it still boosts your economy. Ideally your beliefs should benefit you much more than others (like Cooperation as a growth civ). You can also be in a situation where your neighbor is an ally or vassal who you don't mind increasing the strength of. Generally your pantheon should be worse for them than their pantheon. I can remember a game where I lost god of stars and sky when inca spread god of sun, and it halved my per turn culture.

There are definitely times you don't want it spreading though, like if you plan on conquering don't spead orders and diligence. But even then its not a terrible problem to have. Help I'm dominating the worlds religion too much? I have all these votes but wanted to win another way?

 

[Txurce]

One way to think of it is that spreader beliefs give you faith by you not having to purchase missionaries. You also gain resources by reforming earlier, and by not building Cathedral O'Basil (national wonders are cheaper, buff holy sites, provide more yields and grant world congress votes). Basically even though scripture doesn't directly provide any yields, it still boosts your economy. Ideally your beliefs should benefit you much more than others (like Cooperation as a growth civ). You can also be in a situation where your neighbor is an ally or vassal who you don't mind increasing the strength of. Generally your pantheon should be worse for them than their pantheon. I can remember a game where I lost god of stars and sky when inca spread god of sun, and it halved my per turn culture.

There are definitely times you don't want it spreading though, like if you plan on conquering don't spead orders and diligence. But even then its not a terrible problem to have. Help I'm dominating the worlds religion too much? I have all these votes but wanted to win another way?

Thanks. I almost always choose Sainthood. It just occurred to me that the decision comes late enough that I ought to have a sense of whether I can compete (don't go Sainthood) or don't compete and turtle (go with Sainthood).

Related question: do you need an aggressive enhancer to generate major pressure, or does simply getting a jump on the nearby civs and spreading to them before they get rolling do it? I used to do this all the time on Emperor, but on Immortal I often find my gains rolled back by civs that generate pressure (mine tend to generate negligible amounts).

 

[Enginseer]

Related question: do you need an aggressive enhancer to generate major pressure, or does simply getting a jump on the nearby civs and spreading to them before they get rolling do it? I used to do this all the time on Emperor, but on Immortal I often find my gains rolled back by civs that generate pressure (mine tend to generate negligible amounts).

You just need a lot of cities and trade routes to start spreading incredibly fast. Soon one after another, religion pressure will snowball to make sure all others become irrelevant.

 

[ElliotS]

I'm on the opposite end: The diplo bonus for vassals and WC votes are enough reasons to spread my religion, but I'm greedy and love Tithe or the +1s/c one over spreader beliefs.

The spreader beliefs are better if you're not going to war though than if you are, because conquest is very helpful in spreading your religion. (Gimme that holy city! Boom!)

 

[Galbias]

I think it's been fine after the Ritual nerf (pre-nerf, whoever enhanced first pretty much always took Ritual and their religion frequently turned into an unstoppable tidal wave on Pangea maps).

I'm on the opposite end: The diplo bonus for vassals and WC votes are enough reasons to spread my religion, but I'm greedy and love Tithe or the +1s/c one over spreader beliefs.

The spreader beliefs are better if you're not going to war though than if you are, because conquest is very helpful in spreading your religion. (Gimme that holy city! Boom!)

Yeah, the downside to the spreader beliefs is that the Enhancer beliefs that do help you will help only you and you're giving one of those up. To state that slightly more clearly, Inspiration + Ritual will help spread your religion while also helping you with Culture, but then everyone you've spread to gets the full benefit of Inspiration. But with Sainthood, only you get the Culture/Science bonuses. Churches are kind of flawed because Open Borders coming so late nerfs the extra spread, but I still like them anyways because they help you spread without really giving up any benefit that wouldn't have also gone to anyone that you spread your religion to.

 

[Txurce]

Yeah, the downside to the spreader beliefs is that the Enhancer beliefs that do help you will help only you and you're giving one of those up. To state that slightly more clearly, Inspiration + Ritual will help spread your religion while also helping you with Culture, but then everyone you've spread to gets the full benefit of Inspiration. But with Sainthood, only you get the Culture/Science bonuses. Churches are kind of flawed because Open Borders coming so late nerfs the extra spread, but I still like them anyways because they help you spread without really giving up any benefit that wouldn't have also gone to anyone that you spread your religion to.

This is more or less what I was asking about in a different thread. I only took a spreader in my last game as an experiment (Ritual, surprisingly weak). You lose a domestic benefit by choosing a spreader belief. Building a lot of cities can make up for not having a spreader, but if you go Tradition, that won't work. Maybe the bottom line is that if you're a small civ, you're going to spread enough to get a Reformation belief only if you get lucky with your neighbors, or gun for the Reformation GW.

 

[Bromar1]

Side note, I noticed something weird with controlling holy city and the extra delegates received from "religious authority."

I captured the enemy holy city but they kept the extra delegates. So after annexing the holy city and then rebuilding the NW for that religion, I then received the religious authority votes but the original civ did not lose them! Is this working as intended?

 

[ElliotS]

Side note, I noticed something weird with controlling holy city and the extra delegates received from "religious authority."

I captured the enemy holy city but they kept the extra delegates. So after annexing the holy city and then rebuilding the NW for that religion, I then received the religious authority votes but the original civ did not lose them! Is this working as intended?

Pretty sure there's a benefit that goes to the founder, and an additional one from the NW. I know I've taken a holy city, inquisitored it, vassalized and converted the civ's remaining cities and they still got votes for a 3rd civ who had their original religion.

I think that's either unintuitive or a bug.

 

[tu_79]

Churches also increase passive spread to +50%. I once aggressively spread a religion with Pacifism and churches (you need to place peacefully, for obvious reasons). I never had so high a happiness ever!

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

I too think that religion needs a bit of tweaking to prevent the (early) snowballing, especially via too powerful passive pressure. There are some great suggestions in this thread. Some other potential options (don't know how hard it would be to code/train AI,...) that would perhaps improve the gameplay and be a bit more realistic (considering history, religions,...):
1. Make holy cities much more immune to being converted, especially in times of peace. I think from a historical point of view it's very rare that holy cities have been converted in a short period of time unless "by fire and sword", where the original religion was oppressed and exterminated by the conquerors. So I'd consider making holy cities similar to Spain's UA, i.e. unable to be converted by missionaries/great prophets/pressure as long as the city is controlled by its founder. Or at least make it much much much more resistant to a peaceful conversion.
2. Change the Piety opener from giving 100% religious pressure to perhaps 30%, and then add to the scaler 10-15% increase in religious pressure. Add stuff to the opener to somewhat compensate. That would help stop the first religion to get piety to snowball before the others open Piety (due to perhaps slower culture).
3. Include in the Piety tree a strong element of increasing religious resistance of your (founded) religion.
4. Increase the number of available religions to be founded. In a game of 8 civs, only 4 can be founded (5 if Byzantium). That means the other four civs are basically lame ducks for the predominant religion. I don't see a persuasive gameplay reason for that, I'd rather all/most civs can found a religion, but those that do it later are simply "punished" by having to select among fewer beliefs, are slower to start spreading it etc. Kind of like ideologies, the first ones get free policies, but it doesn't prevent others from taking it. And historically speaking, basically every civilization developed its own religion, even the smaller ones. If all/most civs could found their religion, it would make it much harder for any one religion to snowball and it would take much more work etc. to become the predominant one, and it would involve lots of wars (as in history, where today's major monotheistic religions spread mostly through conquest).
5. Change the missionaries/great prophets to make it harder to waltz into another civs territory and spread the religion. Again, historically it's contrary to the vast majority of history, where plenty of rulers actively worked again other religions spreading in their territory. Yes, there are already negative diplo modifiers, but basically negligent compared to the benefits of doing it. So I'd recommend considering whether to change it so that you can't send them unless you have open borders with them, or at least make them vastly less powerful in comparison to when you do have open borders. That would make open borders much more valuable than they are now (where it seems to me that unless the AI is very hostile it will gladly give open borders even if you don't give them open in return). That wouldn't affect city states.

Anyway, just some ideas, not really that well thought out. But religion seems to me like it needs a bit more tweaking to be truly awesome, which it could be in the hands of the Vox Populi team, just as for example warfare has become. Thnx for the replies.

 

[tu_79]

1. Then India would be really unstoppable.
2. I like it. Sometimes I would pick just the opener and the first policy.
3. Not really needed. Inquisitors prevent such actions, and increased pressure makes recovering easier.
4. I like how it is now. It makes bonus from converted foreign cities a fair option. It makes usurping religion a need for many civs. So no more religions, please.
5. This already happens. Missionaries strength is reduced every turn they stay in not opened territory.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Thnx for the reply.

1. I doubt it'd be unstoppable, but it would put more impetus on stopping its religion by conquering the capital. it would also mean that it'd be harder for india to snowball religiously.
3. By the time some civs put up (enough) inquisitors the snowball is in some games already rolling. Perhaps that's another reason why I like the idea in this thread of gaining a free inquisitor (perhaps upon founding?). Also, it's much much slower to regain your followers due to pressure than to preserve them by having high resistance, and while you are trying to regain, the acquired followers further the snowball and help the founder.
4. I see your points and agree to a great extent, but I think it's very unrealistic and needlessly punitive for civs that haven't founded a religion. Differences in religions (or at least perceived differences) were one of the main drives/excuses of conflicts throughout history. In the current system with 8 civ AIs, you can quickly convert a non-founding civ to your religion, almost arcade-like. Usurping religions should, imho, be hard work, both from a gameplay point of view and from historical/realistic point of view. Conquering cities is hard, as it should, and spreading your religion to other civs should also be hard/er than it is now.
5. It does, but not enough. With the movement points and a very gradual loss of strength it's still not, imho, enough of a difference. Again, I don't really agree with how permissive the current system is to your cities being "attacked" by foreign religions, as opposed to how hard it is to conquer cities, to become culturally influental etc.

A few more things, though I'm not sure if that's already in effect:
6. Do open borders increase the religious pressure/decrease resistance vis-a-vis to the cities of the civ with which you have open borders? If not, imho it should.
7. Do denouncing, being at war, ..., influence pressure/resistance? I hope they do...
8. Temples imho only increase religious pressure and don't increase religious resistance (I have to double check that), I would consider this a potentially beneficial change if they increased resistance to conversion/passive pressure as well.

Again, the system is very very very good, but imho allows too much snowballing to the first founders, makes religion in many ways a non-factor to half of the civs (those that can't found) and in general doesn't make the religious "battles" as difficult as the warfare, cultural,..., (unless you're on the receiving end of the religious snowball, in which case it's much/too harder than the aformentioned. With some tweaks, I think it could become awesome, just as warfare has become, for example.

 

[tu_79]

You have a resilience religious belief, and some buildings that can be faith purchased give some resistance. So if you want to play it like this, you can. For the other questions, I don't have the answers, sorry.

 

[Txurce]

I too think that religion needs a bit of tweaking to prevent the (early) snowballing, especially via too powerful passive pressure.[/QUOTE]

I think all your suggestions are interesting, involving adjustments that Gazebo could test pretty easily. But one idea is more conceptual, and it's the one that caught my eye.

Increase the number of available religions to be founded. In a game of 8 civs, only 4 can be founded (5 if Byzantium). That means the other four civs are basically lame ducks for the predominant religion. I don't see a persuasive gameplay reason for that, I'd rather all/most civs can found a religion, but those that do it later are simply "punished" by having to select among fewer beliefs, are slower to start spreading it etc. Kind of like ideologies, the first ones get free policies, but it doesn't prevent others from taking it. And historically speaking, basically every civilization developed its own religion, even the smaller ones. If all/most civs could found their religion, it would make it much harder for any one religion to snowball and it would take much more work etc. to become the predominant one, and it would involve lots of wars (as in history, where today's major monotheistic religions spread mostly through conquest).

I see your points and agree to a great extent, but I think it's very unrealistic and needlessly punitive for civs that haven't founded a religion. In the current system with 8 civ AIs, you can quickly convert a non-founding civ to your religion, almost arcade-like. Usurping religions should, imho, be hard work, both from a gameplay point of view and from historical/realistic point of view. Conquering cities is hard, as it should, and spreading your religion to other civs should also be hard/er than it is now.

Again, the system is very very very good, but imho allows too much snowballing to the first founders, makes religion in many ways a non-factor to half of the civs (those that can't found) and in general doesn't make the religious "battles" as difficult as the warfare, cultural,..., (unless you're on the receiving end of the religious snowball, in which case it's much/too harder than the aformentioned. With some tweaks, I think it could become awesome, just as warfare has become, for example.

This is a different way of saying what I've been saying elsewhere: that having a religion is the single biggest competitive differentiator in VP. Consequently, there is a strong argument for expanding them to as many civs are in the game. For me, the biggest argument against it is that the race to become one of the four is fun in its own right, as well as a long-established part of the game.