Poll: Founders vs. non-founders, a few ideas to discuss

[LifeOfBrian]

Hello. Lately there's been a lively discussion on the balance of founders vs. non-founders (for example https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/poll-how-strong-should-founder-beliefs-be.670264/), with many expressing a desire for non-founders to be a bit stronger compared to founders, i.e. making the game a bit more winnable even if you don't found or conquer a holy city. I personally agree with that sentiment, I wish non-founders were a bit more competitive compared to founders. Not much, but at least a bit stronger. I also understand that many don't wish to change this balance and think that non-founders shouldn't get any stronger compared to founders, so I'll include that option as well.

Anyway, a few options to discuss:
1.) Making Pagodas exclusive for non-founders

Pagodas imho are one of the strongest elements of the religious game, in fact I think they're OP. Every single game I play I'll take Pagodas because unless you're playing on some land-fractured settings (such as archipelago map), you'll very quickly get at least 3 different religions in your cities, and if you're playing on a single-landmass map, you'll often get 4-5 different religions, meaning Pagodas get a lot of yields. So while we could try to nerf Pagodas (for example limiting which yields Pagodas give), I'd instead prefer making Pagodas exclusive to non-founders. That would mean that once the final religion has been founded, all non-founders could purchase Pagodas with faith (similar to Monasteries). If a non-founder came into possession of a holy city (conquest, Byzantium, holy city flipping), then all Pagodas would be removed from its cities (using the removal of franchises/offices from cities), ensuring there's no "double dipping". Besides the yields this would also mean they'd struggle considerably less with unhappiness from religious unrest.

2.) Have a world wonder for non-founders

Currently we have a few world wonders that can only be built in a Holy city, which means they're limited to founders. We don't have any world wonders that can only be built by non-founders, so that would be a way to strengthen (one of the) non-founders. We could make an existing world wonder exclusive (for example the Taj Mahal that gives yields for each different religion in the city) or we could make a new one.

3.) Give non-founders back the option of faith-purchasing inquisitors

A while ago, the ability to faith-purchase Inquisitors was removed for non-founders, making it much harder for them to retain a majority religion in a single city and in the empire as a whole. This lead to a general worsening of their strength, because it made it harder for them to retain the follower&reformation benefits and it made it much harder, sometimes impossible, to faith-purchase great people after entering the Industrial era, because they had no cities with a majority religion (Gazebo mentioned in a recent thread that allowing faith-purchasing great people in a city with no majority religion is a no-go due to game mechanics). Allowing non-founders to purchase Inquisitors would represent a significant buff to non-founders that were nerfed by removing that ability in the past.

4.) Have a national wonder for non-founders

Currently founders have a "national wonder" in the form of the Reformation wonder their religion can build. We could introduce a national wonder exclusive to non-founders. For example, if we don't like the idea of non-founders regaining the ability to purchase inquisitors, perhaps this national wonder could at the start of each era give a free inquisitor and a free missionary (of the religion that has the most followers in the city), allowing the non-founder to much easily address the problems described above in 3.) than by having to have a lot of missionaries waiting around to re-convert a city once it loses the majority religion. Again, if the non-founder came into control of a holy city, that national wonder would be destroyed.

5.) Have Fealty give exclusive benefits to non-founders

If we wanted to, we could tie certain exclusive benefits to a social policy in one of the social trees, for example Fealty. Fealty is currently a social tree least useful for non-founders because three of the elements are geared towards founders (1.) discount for faith purchases - founders do much more faith-purchasing than non-founders, especially in cases where non-founders get a majority religion with no buildings; 2.) increased religious pressure to foreign cities and 3.) the Fealty finisher granting yields to each city following the majority religion - this is much more useful to founders who through inquistiors can much more easily have their cities following a/the majority religion). So we could slightly rework Fealty to give a bit of a bonus to non-founders.

Thanks for your replies and votes (you have up to 6 votes in the poll so you can vote for/against each idea and also the general sentiment of the topic), and for any other ideas on how to potentially address this!

 

[youngsteve]

I agree with what you have written, as it always seems to me non founders are at a real disadvantage in game, as someone is always going to found a new religion & gain its benefits. Lots of good ideas there, in particular the National Wonder idea. Don't like the world wonder idea as only one civ/player would get it,

 

[tothePAIN]

So I really dislike the idea of buffing nonfounders.
In a standard game, 5 of 8 civs found… That’s more than half. Non founders can still get religion and then use follower and reformer beliefs.

If nonfounding gets enough advantages, then God of All Creation becomes the right play, followed by building these non founder buildings / wonders, followed by taking a holy city (because why not have it all).

 

[Bryan317]

So I really dislike the idea of buffing nonfounders.
In a standard game, 5 of 8 civs found… That’s more than half. Non founders can still get religion and then use follower and reformer beliefs.

If nonfounding gets enough advantages, then God of All Creation becomes the right play, followed by building these non founder buildings / wonders, followed by taking a holy city (because why not have it all).

Dang it... You're convincing me. So I voted for changes to everything but fealty. Then I read the OP's comments and was like maybe fealty could use a change, it's too linear. But then I read yours. Ok, we don't like the idea of automatic and obvious choices for social policies and such. But it's not like somebody on a domination run will choose freedom for its glorious benefits to help them win domination. If you Don't found a religion... Why would you want fealty?

 

[Fluffball]

Bit of a mish-mash of ideas...How about allowing changing Organised religion to +50% Pressure in all nearby Cities without your majority Religion if owner of a holy city / can purchase inquisitors if don't own a holy city and +1 Faith from Specialists.

If you don't found but want to be a religious empire this then gives you options to both exploit multiple religions by changing your majority religion to gain extra buildings from multiple religions or to ensure you keep the religion you really want.

Could also add the ability to build a none founder national wonder if taking all policies in fealty where you choose one religion and if that religion is your majority religion you get the enchancer belief from it but can only build inquisitors for that religion.

 

[pineappledan]

There is a high cost for prioritizing religion early game at the cost of other things you could be building, and even if you don’t found, you can get the full benefit of all follower beliefs with almost no investment, save perhaps faith buying some buildings.

There are even some enhancers (eg mendicancy) that give you exactly the same benefit as the founder, and some that benefit you almost as much as the founder (eg. orthodoxy). There is also a founder belief that non-founders get full benefit from: theocratic rule. There are also several reformation beliefs for which non-founders get at least partial benefit (Jesuit education, faith if the masses, defender of the faith, and more)

So, your postulation that non-founders even lose anything vs founders is not consistently applied or even true. We could enforce and codify founders and enhancers to ensure they DON’T benefit followers (In fact, I have advocated for that many times in the past), but we haven’t, and I have been roundly shut down whenever I suggest that maybe they should. That would require some guiding principles for what kinds of bonuses founders/followers/enhancers/reformations can provide, but The community has rejected the notion that founders should uniformly benefit only the founder. as such, I can’t take any of these proposals seriously, because your premise simply does not reflect reality.

Any of your proposals could end up in a situation where you get to spread someone else’s theocratic rule, XY followers, Orthodoxy, and DotF religion through all your cities, saving yourself thousands of faith and no opportunity cost incurred on any other investment in your empire, and be no worse off than the founder, save for 2-3 WC votes and access to a few wonders they may not get to build anyways. And THEN you get to build pagodas, or an extra wonder etc. I’m not on board.

Lastly, You lost a part of the game. I fail to see why you should be rewarded for that.

 

[Stalker0]

There is also the diplomatic advantage of non-founding. Generally I find that AIs are friendlier to you because you aren't opposing their religion, and often several AIs will just faith fight over you, giving you access to multiple faith buildings. I think founding has an advantage but its not as strong as it appears at first glance.

I do think some of the founders could use tweaks, which we are debating in other threads.

 

[pineappledan]

Last thing I will say is we already have too few follower beliefs at 16. Removing pagodas puts us down to 15 followers, only enough for 7 religions in a game. We already have a problem where the religion game can only follow the half+1 religions per player rule up to 15 players (8 religions total).

we don’t need fewer followers, we need More, so unless this proposal comes with a replacement belief proposal it is a complete non-starter.

 

[CrazyG]

I've played this mod for a long time, nearly 5 years, and thousands of hours. Across 5 years of massive balance changes I strongly believe there have been exactly zero patches where getting a religion was even remotely close to a weak strategy (risky at times, but never weak if you get it). Missing religion has always felt devastating and accentuates an inherent problem to civ, that being that civs without early game are naturally weaker.

That includes patches ranging from a spaceship was easy to do in less than 250 turns, to a spaceship without winning tourism by accident first was nearly impossible. Where Deity AI would reach medieval era before turn 80, or not until turn 120. Patches where there was still 4 ancient era policies trees (who else was here way back then?).

In that range of experiences, I've never felt that founding a religion was close in power level to not founding (or if I did, I learned that I picked the wrong beliefs). I think you could just completely delete founder or enhancer beliefs entirely and this would still be true. If it ever came close, it was because snowballing being crazy (and probably due to exactly God of All Creation being a nutty good pantheon). The games I've won without religion were generally on patches that were just pretty easy in general. Also waiting for the AI to spread to you sucks, it's too inconsistent, it often arrives late, and often the beliefs won't match your playstyle at all.

I've done several challenge runs and the only loss I can distinctly recall was trying to win without a religion and no war at the same time. Not growing beyond 3 pop, one city challenges, even allowing an AI to just conquer my capital with no defense, these were all very easy in comparison to trying to win without religion.




All this is to say that I fundamentally disagree with the premise that pursuing a religion has a high cost relative to rewards. It doesn't even come close. Religion is consistently extremely powerful and beliefs are probably the most actively discussed element in terms of balance (especially pantheons). Many beliefs constantly being accused of being OP constantly, the argument they aren't OP is usually that another belief is even better (both can be true). As an example in this thread, I almost never take pagodas and think it's at best slightly above average, but it's still super OP relative to not getting a religion. Council of Elders is pretty bad compared to other choices, but still it's like 2 techs for free at a crucial part of the game, that's incredible compared to not getting a religion.

One recent patches if I play Celts, Spain or Ethiopia I feel like I've won by around turn 130-ish provided my start isn't absurdly bad in some absurd way. Screw this 'war is best' idea, have y'all played Byzantium and taken two founder beliefs? You just blow away the AI.

I intentionally reroll high faith starts, skip certain pantheons (like God of the Expanse) and take weaker founder beliefs just to avoid getting bored when I enhance my religion by turn 115 and blow out the AI. Even a crap religion (like Pagodas that only ever reach 1 religion and mosques with 0 golden age synergy) are easily worth spending the production on shrines in most games.

Sorry for the wall of text, I feel passionate about this one.

TL;DR
I really cannot exaggerate how strong I find founding a religion compared to not, it's like playing on a much lower difficulty. I'd happily support providing a couple bonuses for missing a religion (though I'd rather just tone down a few beliefs).

 

[Bryan317]

Current playthrough: Built a shrine first everytime, while spammimg 3 Settlers at Tradition Adoption. Had access to Mt. Sinai with my second city. And, got a CS faith reward.

With this I became first founder on Diety/Marathon. I'm not sure how much I really sacrificed to make this happen. Maybe I could have built the monument first? Or a unit? Either way when founding a religion it's usually so early it takes little to no effort. On a lower difficulty you usually don't even have to try, you'll found one just making shrines, whenever you get around to it...

 

[pineappledan]

I sympathize with the founder having access to yields earlier. That is all I will say on that.

For you to have a coherent grievance, all founders need to behave the same way as council of elders or Holy Law, with on-empire yields in the holy city, and maybe scaling with followers. That’s just not the case. I wish it were, and I have raised this issue in other belief threads. I wish we could have this conversation productively, but the mechanics within the same belief category are so inconsistent and contradictory that this entire discussion is dead on arrival.

For example, maybe we could talk about non-founders being compensated for no access to a founder belief if theocratic rule gave instant yields in the holy city whenever a city following this religion started a WLTKD. But instead, it gives % bonuses for WLTKD for any city following the religion, regardless of whether you are the founder or not. Until all local city bonuses are removed from founders, there is nothing to discuss.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Pineappledan, as far as I know, founder beliefs and enhancer beliefs don't apply to non-founders at all?

 

[pineappledan]

That is testable.

start a game, found a religion with theocratic rule as a founder and spread it to another civ. Then switch to that civ, bulb a great merchant, and check if they get % yield modifiers.

 

[tothePAIN]

I've played this mod for a long time, nearly 5 years, and thousands of hours. Across 5 years of massive balance changes I strongly believe there have been exactly zero patches where getting a religion was even remotely close to a weak strategy (risky at times, but never weak if you get it). Missing religion has always felt devastating and accentuates an inherent problem to civ, that being that civs without early game are naturally weaker.

That includes patches ranging from a spaceship was easy to do in less than 250 turns, to a spaceship without winning tourism by accident first was nearly impossible. Where Deity AI would reach medieval era before turn 80, or not until turn 120. Patches where there was still 4 ancient era policies trees (who else was here way back then?).

In that range of experiences, I've never felt that founding a religion was close in power level to not founding (or if I did, I learned that I picked the wrong beliefs). I think you could just completely delete founder or enhancer beliefs entirely and this would still be true. If it ever came close, it was because snowballing being crazy (and probably due to exactly God of All Creation being a nutty good pantheon). The games I've won without religion were generally on patches that were just pretty easy in general. Also waiting for the AI to spread to you sucks, it's too inconsistent, it often arrives late, and often the beliefs won't match your playstyle at all.

I've done several challenge runs and the only loss I can distinctly recall was trying to win without a religion and no war at the same time. Not growing beyond 3 pop, one city challenges, even allowing an AI to just conquer my capital with no defense, these were all very easy in comparison to trying to win without religion.




All this is to say that I fundamentally disagree with the premise that pursuing a religion has a high cost relative to rewards. It doesn't even come close. Religion is consistently extremely powerful and beliefs are probably the most actively discussed element in terms of balance (especially pantheons). Many beliefs constantly being accused of being OP constantly, the argument they aren't OP is usually that another belief is even better (both can be true). As an example in this thread, I almost never take pagodas and think it's at best slightly above average, but it's still super OP relative to not getting a religion. Council of Elders is pretty bad compared to other choices, but still it's like 2 techs for free at a crucial part of the game, that's incredible compared to not getting a religion.

One recent patches if I play Celts, Spain or Ethiopia I feel like I've won by around turn 130-ish provided my start isn't absurdly bad in some absurd way. Screw this 'war is best' idea, have y'all played Byzantium and taken two founder beliefs? You just blow away the AI.

I intentionally reroll high faith starts, skip certain pantheons (like God of the Expanse) and take weaker founder beliefs just to avoid getting bored when I enhance my religion by turn 115 and blow out the AI. Even a crap religion (like Pagodas that only ever reach 1 religion and mosques with 0 golden age synergy) are easily worth spending the production on shrines in most games.

Sorry for the wall of text, I feel passionate about this one.

TL;DR
I really cannot exaggerate how strong I find founding a religion compared to not, it's like playing on a much lower difficulty. I'd happily support providing a couple bonuses for missing a religion (though I'd rather just tone down a few beliefs).

Which beliefs would you tone down?

You’ve referenced your belief of the imbalance of the beliefs in a few threads. I’d be interested to hear it.

 

[Gazebo]

What about a building that converts faith to science at the local level, and only works if the city has no majority religion?

 

[DeAnno]

The World Wonder is the most intriguing of these ideas to me, just because Civs who don't found religions are generally behind, and civs that are behind generally don't get chances for a lot of WWs. I also don't see why non-founders should be denied Inquisitors if a religion has enhanced already, I mean it's still your Faith which you fairly earned, you should be able to build what you want with it, it's not like Inqs are OP at all these days with the unrest turn. Pagodas I originally liked the idea of, but the argument that there are too few follower beliefs already is a good one, maybe leave that be.

(and probably due to exactly God of All Creation being a nutty good pantheon)

Maybe this is actually a sign of a better way to balance this. Maybe the really extremely low faith pantheons like GoAC should just be stronger, with more of them on GoAC's level! I think going GoAC is actually semi-viable compared to religion just because early yields matter more and it's quite a lot of yields, it'd be nice if some of the other low Faith pantheons offered such compelling jump-starts.

 

[Bryan317]

I think it's ok to leave some things in the realm of "a pro challenge" And not founding a religion is exactly that. At it's current state, I'm sure it would be quite difficult to win without ever allowing a majority religion. I've always thought about someday trying and absolute no faith challenge. It doesn't mean I HAVE to win. It's a test to see how well you can do.

So the consensus seems to be that if they don't found one the civ is going to be behind. Is this so bad?? On the higher difficulties if you're looking for a challenge, it's not all about creating perfect balance so every AI does well. You want some civs to be gobbled up by others that are more powerful so that you have an even greater set of contenders to deal with.

P.S. Funny observation in my current game. Even though it's AI Deity, Songhai has taken over the complete other side of the huge map and did not found a religion lol But they certainly control it now. They've taken over all of it, CS included. The large continent and a smaller one that they started on. They've made vassals out of whatever is left. This is going to get interesting...

 

[azum4roll]

Current game Assyria is top civ without founding or conquering. It could be a special case though.

There's no reason for a non-founder to be unable to train inquisitors.

 

[Bryan317]

Current game Assyria is top civ without founding or conquering. It could be a special case though.

There's no reason for a non-founder to be unable to train inquisitors.

Agree. Historically it makes sense. Spain didn't "found" Catholism yet they have one of the most known inquisitions... But even for gameplay I'm not sure I understand why it's blocked. At least controlling a holy city should grant them. Your reward for conquest perhaps?

 

[youngsteve]

That is testable.

start a game, found a religion with theocratic rule as a founder and spread it to another civ. Then switch to that civ, bulb a great merchant, and check if they get % yield modifiers.

I didn't know you could switch & play another civ in a game. How do you do that?