Piety Suggestion: Rework Religious Tolerance to give a bonus Pantheon

I'd remove Religious Tolerance entirely and make it a different policy. Piety really wants to play wide to enhance religious pressure, so I'd make it "50% faster building of settlers and all new cities start with your religion". Call it Religious Settlements and remove the pantheon with that name because if you're taking that pantheon you're doing it wrong anyways.

 

This is the only thing I agree with. It has to be a pantheon already chosen by another civ, not just any pantheon. Having two pantheons of your own choice can be quite overpowered. However, I am not sure how the mechanics gonna work. Since a pantheon is attached to your religion, if your religion spreads to another civ, does he get both of your pantheons? If another religion takes over your own city, do you get to keep your bonus pantheon in that city?

No free missionaries. Else other people wont even have a chance at spreading their religion. Id like to see how you feel when AI comes to your city with a missionary on turn 40 and wipes out your pantheon.


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That would be too much like Liberty, really.

Personally, I think pressure should be based on number of followers rather than number of cities...or perhaps some mix of the two.

I don't like the mechanics of a Pantheon already chosen by another player, since it punishes you for getting the policy sooner.

Wouldn't founding a religion revert the conversion in the Holy City, or is that not how it works?

It may make more sense to keep a free missionary on the finisher instead, but Piety could use more of an upper hand in religious dominance.

 

I think that's a very unlikely scenario. It's quite rare even for AI to found a religion that early, and normally you would prioritize spreading your religion to your own secondary towns first instead of spending the misionary on spreading it to someone else who will be likely to stamp it out again before too long. Plus Missionaries, given that they suffer attrition in foreign lands, are fairly easy to counter even without an Inquisitor if you have a couple of units to block them off.

That is arguably a dilemma. This could at least partially be solved by arranging the policy tree so that Religious Tolerance is place in a side-branch (like Theocracy currently), which would allow you to postpone it without delaying the other policies until at least you want to finish the tree. As you would assume most pantheons were founded by the time you have enough culture to finish the Piety tree, this would at least give you a fair selection to choose from.

And fully agree, religious pressure should be +1 for each follower instead of the flat +6 imo.

 

If AI picks pilgrimmage or world church, they have a tendency to send missionaries abroad instead of to its own cities. Some civs can found a religion very early and if they spread to your city and wipe out your pantheon, and your pantheon is something that gives you faith bonus to push for a religion, then you are in a very bad situation.

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Considering the fact that every game mechanic ever favors going tall over going wide I really don't think we need to give tall players another advantage.

The problem with Piety is that you have to go wide. Taking Collective Rule before going into Piety is the best way to play the tree right now. Putting a Settler bonus in Piety is how to remedy that.

 

Piety can go wide without collective rule. Tradition can go wide without collective rule why not piety? Each branch should be specialized. Thats how this game should be. It allows us to choose what we want to sacrifice.

 

You sacrifice EVERYTHING to go Piety though. Tradition and Liberty both have huge upfront bonuses - nothing in Piety is as strong as Collective Rule or Monarchy. The absolute best thing about the tree is boosted Holy Sites, and you only get that at the very end!

Tradition can go wide without Collective Rule because Tradition can afford to start off tall. That doesn't work for Piety. Piety similarly cannot "start off tall" because they don't get any growth bonuses that a Tradition civ played the exact same way only with a different policy tree can't get.

 

Piety needs a complete overhaul and Religious Tolerance is indeed the weakest policy of the tree by far.

In one hand, I like the Topic Creator's suggestion because it boost an extremely weak policy while keeping its flavour (punishing the use of inquisitors, religion enhancing bonuses).

In the other hand, to just flat out adding another Pantheon for your religion has a series of drawbacks:

1- You need to have your religion founded in the first place, thus preventing you from picking this SP early

2- It disminishes the initial importance of the Pantheon rush, making your pantheon-picking a less existential issue


I would propose an alternative effect for it:

Religious tolerance: You gain +15% science in cities with another religion present other than your own

That way:

- You preserve the flavour of the SP, and it has a realistic outlook to it (supressing religious freedom will set your civilization scientific and social advancement backwards)

- You strenghten the weakest link in the SP tree

- It is a less random, more manageable and long term type of bonus

- It makes the picking of rationalism SP tree a less of a "no-brainer" since there would be a diofferent SP tree proving scientific boost

 

That still makes Piety a crappy start social policy tree, because you will likely not have any other religions present in your cities by the time you unlock religious tolerance. Unlocking an extra Pantheon Belief wouldn't require having founded your religion yet, and seems like the easiest way to make Piety viable while staying within the intended theme of Religious Tolerance.