POLL: Permanent Pantheons.

[ridjack]

The mod in question: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/religion-permanent-pantheons.670446/#post-16101455

I've been using this mod for some time now, and I personally think it enhances the Vox Populi gameplay without dramatically shifting balance. It also seems to get a lot from interest whenever I mention using it. I believe the mechanics it introduces should be rolled into the core of VP, and would welcome opinions from others and hopefully some help in swaying the Gods of Vox Populi to this way of thinking.

Let me run down what it does and answer some questions I've received when I tell people I play with it. The forum thread for it contains very little info, so all of this comes from personal experimentation:

• Number one thing to know is that you always keep your pantheon, in all circumstances, period. No exceptions.
• If you get a pantheon but do not get a religion and get converted, you will benefit from your pantheon and the pantheon of the religion your city is converted to.
• If you get a pantheon but do not get a religion and conquer a holy city, you benefit from your pantheon and the pantheon of your stolen religion.
• I actually don't know how pantheons that scale per follower are affected. I've never paid enough attention to see what the specific interaction ends up being.

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I think the benefits to this are that failing to found, or choosing not to found, become punished far less if you keep your pantheon. You can take something like God of War or Goddess of Springtime and enjoy their economic benefits even if you don't end up with a full-on religion. It helps equalize the playing field between founders and non-founders; you lose the ability to get a Founder or Enhancer belief, and you have little to no control over what religion ends up in your cities, but you get the benefit of two pantheons.

On the development side, I think this opens a huge creative space for changing pantheons around. With some of the pressure taken off of founding, pantheons can be stronger at doing something else and not lose their appeal. Founding-focused pantheons can be weakened in other aspects and have their founding abilities increased accordingly.

What do y'all think? I'll try to answer any questions you might have.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE.

 

[Stalker0]

My issue here is the weird complexities of stolen cities and the like.

If your going to do this, it should be dirt simple:

A city has the pantheon of its owner.

full stop, no exceptions, no getting to milk two pantheons through various side plays.


That I could get behind. But not this Frankenstein

 

[ridjack]

My issue here is the weird complexities of stolen cities and the like.

If your going to do this, it should be dirt simple:

A city has the pantheon of its owner.

full stop, no exceptions, no getting to milk two pantheons through various side plays.


That I could get behind. But not this Frankenstein

Sorta negates what I see as one of the biggest benefits: levelling the playing field between founders and non-founders.

I do think an argument could be made that getting your religion by capturing a holy city means you only get one pantheon or the other, not both. I would personally prefer to see the double-pantheon for converted non-founders stay.

 

[InkAxis]

I like the idea. I do think that if you conquer a religion then you should probably have that become your permanent pantheon though.

Because as I understand this it's basically just a boost for non founders. So that when they get converted, they don't loose whatever local religion they had. Meanwhile founders only get their created religion, but get the much more powerful founders, enhancers, etc.
So seeing as conquering a holy city makes you no different from a founder in most respects, and we don't want to buff warmongering, I would make conquered religions override your permanent pantheon.

 

[Rekk]

I like this proposal, but I agree that if a player ever becomes the leader of a religion, they must go down to one pantheon.

Even @Stalker0 's proposal is a boost to the nonfounder, as the religion they get stuck with is almost always worse for the receiving player then the pantheon they started with.

 

[pineappledan]

I agree with @InkAxis. If taking over a religion gives you both double-pantheons AND all the bonuses of being a founder then I don't want it. Allowing non-founders to benefit from 2 pantheons and 2 followers is more than fair, since founders benefit from 1 Pantheon/founder/enhancer/reformation And 2 Followers And religious authority WC votes And Majority Religion diplo/culture bonuses.

So seeing as conquering a holy city makes you no different from a founder in most respects, and we don't want to buff warmongering, I would make conquered religions override your permanent pantheon.

I would do it the opposite way from this. Conquerors could make the conquered religion lose its pantheon. So instead of losing their own pantheon, conquerors replace the religion's underlying pantheon.

Maybe I would simplify it this way:

• Pantheons in cities are permanent until a Civilization founds a religion
• If a Civilization founds a religion, their Pantheon loses its permanent protection. It can spread, but can be removed from any city by:
  • deconverting (inquisition, converting to another religion)
  • Being conquered

So that city conquest stipulation, under any circumstance, shakes out fairly well if your goal is to weaken taking a religion over:

• if a founder’s city is conquered by a non-founder, that city loses its pantheon.
  • That religion can be spread to the non-founder’s core cities, who still enjoy their permanent pantheon, so conquerors get the same number of beliefs they have now, but the conquered, unrooted cities are permanently made a bit weaker.
• A conquered city can get a pantheon again by being converted to a new religion, so conquer/convert is unaffected, but conquest syncretism play is weakened

 

[Stalker0]

I think the other part of this proposal that gets me is this is a real balance change dressed up as a QoL change.

I think most people see it as "yeah I like my pantheon, keeping it would be cool".... but I don't think most people are calling for founder/non-founder rebalances (the last several times those discussions were brought up they didn't go anywhere), and probably aren't thinking of the ramifications this version of a change would have.

If people really want to consider a rebalance there....then we should do the usual, have a thread (in general balance) where we debate ideas, including this one.

But if the goal is we want people to keep pantheons because it feels crappy when you lose yours....then the answer is extremely simple.... the city keeps the pantheon of its owner, no exceptions.

 

[4CV]

If this mod works well, why not just keep it as is? Anyone who likes it can use it. I see no need to include it.

 

[InkAxis]

I think the other part of this proposal that gets me is this is a real balance change dressed up as a QoL change.

It is a balance change, I don't see it as a QoL change.
Even the change you are suggesting isn't QoL.

If we need a discussion, then this thread will do. The mod is playable as a test if needed.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I like the idea of keeping your own pantheon regardless of what religion you end up with. It works like real-world religions adapting or mixing with local beliefs.

 

[abulafia77]

A city has the pantheon of its owner.

full stop, no exceptions, no getting to milk two pantheons through various side plays.

I would prefer this - no double-dipping, no "foreign" pantheon being forced on my poor peasants, probably simple to code. AI knows how to deal with its chosen pantheon.

 

[ridjack]

@Recursive @Gazebo Is it worth making another poll with the iterations suggested so far in this thread? Is this something likely to see a roll-out into VP proper?

 

[Arizael]

The idea is good, but you should never benefit from more than one pantheon. Simply make everyone keep their original pantheon, regardless of final religion. There is still race to those after all.

 

[Forsti]

Sorta negates what I see as one of the biggest benefits: levelling the playing field between founders and non-founders.

I do think an argument could be made that getting your religion by capturing a holy city means you only get one pantheon or the other, not both. I would personally prefer to see the double-pantheon for converted non-founders stay.

The founders already pay a price for their religion, since they must focus on faith generation instead of something else in order to found a religion. It's already a viable strategy to build shrine only in your capital and pick a pantheon that has the most short term benefit for you such as tutelary gods. You can then use that advantage to conquer a religion from another player. If this strategy got a buff of an extra pantheon, basically making the stolen religion a lot stronger than one you have found, I would never try to found a religion. I mean, why would you?

 

[notaspambot]

Pretty much this. Founding comes with an opportunity cost; if people want to argue for this change, then we need to see some reasons as to why non-founders should be buffed compared to founders, because I'm not seeing any right now.

 

[Rekk]

Pretty much this. Founding comes with an opportunity cost; if people want to argue for this change, then we need to see some reasons as to why non-founders should be buffed compared to founders, because I'm not seeing right now.

Non-founders must conquer another civilization's religion or very likely will not win the game. Being able to keep their own pantheon makes it slightly more likely that they gain enough yields to do so.

If this strategy got a buff of an extra pantheon, basically making the stolen religion a lot stronger than one you have found, I would never try to found a religion. I mean, why would you?

The other proposal gaining traction is that the leader of a religion can only have one pantheon. That the current mod allows the conqueror of a religion to have two pantheons seems more of an unintended consequence, or just deemed acceptable given the simplicity of the mod.

 

[ridjack]

Pretty much this. Founding comes with an opportunity cost; if people want to argue for this change, then we need to see some reasons as to why non-founders should be buffed compared to founders, because I'm not seeing any right now.

Do non-founder AIs win games without ever capturing a religion?

 

[notaspambot]

Do non-founder AIs win games without ever capturing a religion?

No- although I blame this mostly on me for not playing out AI victories. But I'm fairly sure that if a civ was able to ignore an entire mechanic, including the tools provided to help it catch-up on said mechanic, and was still able to consistently win victories despite that, that would be more of a problem then it would be otherwise.

There might be a problem if founding provided enough benefits that it effectively prevents other civs from being able to take over their religion, but I've seen civs take over another civ's Holy City before in multiple games so I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

 

[Hinin]

Beautiful.

 

[ridjack]

No- although I blame this mostly on me for not playing out AI victories. But I'm fairly sure that if a civ was able to ignore an entire mechanic, including the tools provided to help it catch-up on said mechanic, and was still able to consistently win victories despite that, that would be more of a problem then it would be otherwise.

There might be a problem if founding provided enough benefits that it effectively prevents other civs from being able to take over their religion, but I've seen civs take over another civ's Holy City before in multiple games so I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

But should getting a religion be required, or nearly so, to have a chance of winning? Should it be the case that if you're playing a peaceful Tradition game and fail to get a religion that you might as well just drop the game then and there? Because that sounds crappy to me. That means that in any game, of any size, only 7 civs (max) have a real chance at victory. That makes the remaining non-founders into little more than roadblocks to the other sevens' victory and railroads them into conquest if they want to change that fact.

Personally, I don't think a single mechanic should have that much sway over your chances of victory. I would like to see the field be a little more even; part of what makes Vox Populi more fun and, IMO, better than unmodded Civ V is the possibility of a come-from-behind story. I know a lot of people never bother playing to the late game, but I try to and the fact that the game is able to stay competitive right up until the end is amazing. Why should a single mechanic, established at the very beginning of the game, be able to override that so thoroughly and determine my chances for the entire thing?

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Also, just to clear something up that I feel maybe is missing from this conversation: founders are still stronger than non-founders. Founders still dominate the top of the scoreboard:

Spoiler :

You're still fighting an uphill battle if you don't found. You're still far less likely to win if you don't found. I've played hundreds of hours at this point with this mod enabled, and that dynamic has still stayed more-or-less the same. It just makes it less miserable to not found, and gives you a small edge to help with closing the gap.