Reformation Beliefs - Proposal

[psparky]

Having tried to answer questions in the Quick Questions thread regarding which Reformation belief applies in various circumstances and seeing people posting counter-examples, I've pretty much given up trying to understand how it currently works.

I would like to propose the following new rule:

You benefit from the reformation belief of your majority religion. For city-based benefits, the city must also follow that religion. If you have no majority religion, you get no reformation benefits.

This is, I believe, how it already works if you never found or become a founder by the conquest of a holy city. Once you do become a founder, the situation becomes much more complicated however, and there seems to be considerable doubt about the rules.

This new rule would also give a way of taking advantage of a conquered religion's reformation belief, which seems to be something that some people would like to be able to do.

If you conquer many cities following other religions, you may need to convert these or risk losing access to any reformation belief. Also, you may need to defend your majority religion against conversion or again you could lose reformation benefits.

Any thoughts?

Moderator Action: Moved to General Balance. - Recursive

 

[CrazyG]

The current system was done with the intention of making religion vs non-religion more balanced.

As a specific example, back when only the religion owner got the reformation belief, it was really tough for a civ with no reformation to match the science of a civ with Jesuit Education. Note that this change was done years ago, and back then reformation beliefs were considerably more powerful (I think Jesuit Education was worth up to 15 per city).

For today, could reformation beliefs just be applied like follower beliefs? You get whatever the majority of the city follows. I think that would be even simpler than the proposal (there isn't an easy way to check what your majority religion is when you aren't a founder).

 

[psparky]

Thanks for the reply.

Well, it would be easy to add majority religion to the Religion Screen, the top Panel religion tooltip and the civ tooltip on the notification panel (it already shows primary religion).

Currently, all follower beliefs have local city effects only. Reformation beliefs often have a global effect, so the situation is more like some of the pantheons, or part of pantheons, where a majority religion is needed (for example the +10 HP healed per turn in friendly territory part of Goddess of Protection).

Do people think you should be able to benefit from more than one reformation belief at the same time? I think you currently can (although I don't have a suitable game with the latest version to test - it would be great if someone could confirm this!) For example, if you have a majority of cities following a religion with Jesuit Education and capture the holy city with Glory of God, you continue to benefit from the former whilst gaining the ability to faith-buy GP in the new holy city (as long as it stays in that religion).

 

[Noob Fanboy]

I confirmed it, it's possible, i like to use an strategy of creating an orders syncretism pagodas religion, try to get reformation (normally the one that allows you to buy great people) with possibly prophet help (to help spreading to city states) then conquer a holy city with reformation. Last game i did it was with Babylon, i was able to do that while conquering a holy city with god of the masses reformation (the one that allows you to build culture buildings using faith). That was on Deity Epic btw, lol

 

[psparky]

I confirmed it, it's possible, i like to use an strategy of creating an orders syncretism pagodas religion, try to get reformation (normally the one that allows you to buy great people) with possibly prophet help (to help spreading to city states) then conquer a holy city with reformation. Last game i did it was with Babylon, i was able to do that while conquering a holy city with god of the masses reformation (the one that allows you to build culture buildings using faith). That was on Deity Epic btw, lol

Thank you! It does seem like quite a boost for warmongers as it is.

So peoples, which of these applies:

a) It's working as intended and it's fine
b) It's working as intended, but it should be changed so you can only benefit from one at a time
c) It's not supposed to work like that (bug)

 

[CrazyG]

Do people think you should be able to benefit from more than one reformation belief at the same time? I think you currently can (although I don't have a suitable game with the latest version to test - it would be great if someone could confirm this!) For example, if you have a majority of cities following a religion with Jesuit Education and capture the holy city with Glory of God, you continue to benefit from the former whilst gaining the ability to faith-buy GP in the new holy city (as long as it stays in that religion).

I can confirm that this worked at some point (can't say with confidence for recent patches though).

Personally I don't do the thing where you intentionally use two religion at the same time, since I'm assuming the AI can't and it feels like a bug to me (answer c to your question). With that said from reading after action reports there appear to be a few players who really enjoy doing it.