Religion and Alignment Questions

[kamandi]

I have been playing the FFH2 mod a lot lately trying out different startegies and 1 thing really has been bothering me. Why is it that a civ's alignment changes with their religion, and why will any civ (except the agnostic) adopt any religion they are introduced to. This creates balance issues as when I play on some maps, everyone ends up the same religion, and because the good religions tend to be founded first, everyone ends up good or neutral.

What usually happens after that is if a civ that was originally evil founds the viel, then they pretty much get their butts kicked when they convert because no one else does.

I think balance would be greatly improved if 1 of 2 changes were made:

1. Limit religous options based off a civ's tendencies

2. Allow any religion for any civ, but don't change their alignments...this is probably the better option as historically their are lots of examples of a single religion being used for good (sacraments, disaster relief, etc), questionable (crusades) and evil (Inquisition) purposes. This is not limited to christianity, but it has some of the easiestly recognized traits. Another reason this make sense is that 2 civs could be the same alignment and offset some of their animosity so they could maintain decent relationships with different religions.

 

[Silverkiss]

I don't know from a gameplay point of view, but from a flavor point of view that's impossible. How could anyone worshipp Agares and demons through the Ashen Veil and remain Good ? How would that be possible ?

 

[Kael]

We do have religion weighting in FfH2. Meaning that individual leaders can be weighted to prefer or dislike different religions. Set high enough a leader will never adopt a given religion.

Most of the leader prefer certain religions, and that keeps them from converting to the first religions into their empire (if it isnt one they like). Basically for every city that holds a religion the leader gets so many points towards adopting it, once that value is above 0 (and higher than any other religion) the leader converts.

For example Sabathiel is +40 towards the order and -20 towards the Veil (or somrthing like that). So when he considers religions he gives 1 point to each religion for each population point that follows each religion. So he will need more than 20 population in his empire worshipping the veil before he will consider switching to it. Likewise if he gets any influence form the order he asts as if he had 40 additional population of order worshippers in his empire when choosing a state religion.

For hard limits Basium will never adopt the Veil and Hyborem will never adopt the Order. Likewise Cassiel and Auric won't adopt any religion.

So from a technical layer we are already doing everything you mentioned. I suspect you may want us to change our design to hardcode the religious preferences further than we already do, but we actually like it the way it is.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

What I would like to see more is research weighted more by a leader's alignment. It never seems right when a Runes Einion Logos rushes for Malevolent Designs (Good civs in my games always seem to go for this) . I would rather the techs to have an alignment value that makes civ with the proper alignments more likely to research them, and vice versa.

Also, the inability to research or trade for religious techs should be removed. Their value should also decrease significantly once their respective religions are founded. The founder should want to give away the tech to spread his religion, and those who can't found it really shouldn't want it so much. Decreasing the AI's value of techs that allow for wonders and world units once they have already been built would also be a good idea.

Also, I think that a civs current religion should be able to modify their opinions of certain mana types (an AV capria shouldn't mind Entropy), and of other religions (both in terms o adopting and diplomacy). A good order civ should hate an evil AV civ more than an evil Leaves one, and an order civ shouldn't blame an Empyrean one for being heathen (although they still shouldn't get an extra boost from it). I realize that a lot of this is handled by alignments, but with multiple good and evil religions more specific penalties than the current heathen religion one would be nice.




Eventually I would like to see alignments determined more by actions that religion (especially responses to random events, but also civic choices, techs researched, wonders built, city razing, etc), but thta may have to wait for a modmod

Its hard to imagine anyone converting to AV still being good, but perhaps some unfortunate good souls were born into an AV worshiping family and tried their best to do what they thought was good, even if not abandoning their heritage. Thinking of good AV or OO civs always makes me think of C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle, where one of the people from that land to the south of Narnia (I forget it's name) was honestly trying to learn the truth of and serve his people's evil deity (I forget his name too), and Aslan tells him that because he was seeking to do what was right that he had in fact been serving him instead all along.

It should be very hard to be good and AV, but I think there should be a reward if you pull it off (perhaps a very powerful Hero that requires AV religion and good alignment.)

 

[thomas.berubeg]

What I would like to see more is research weighted more by a leader's alignment. It never seems right when a Runes Einion Logos rushes for Malevolent Designs. I would rather the techs to have an alignment value that makes civ with the proper alignments more likely to research them, and vice versa. Also, the inability to research or trade for religious techs should be removed.

Eventually I would like to see alignments determined more by actions that religion (especially responses to random events, but also civic choices, techs researched, wonders built, city razing, etc), but thta may have to wait for a modmod

Its hard to imagine anyone converting to AV still being good, but perhaps some unfortunate good souls were born into an AV worshiping family and tried their best to do what they thought was good, even if not abandoning their heritage. Thinking of good AV or OO civs always makes me think of C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle, where one of the people from that land to the south of Narnia (I forget it's name) was honestly trying to learn the truth of and serve his people's evil deity (I forget his name too), and Aslan tells him that because he was seeking to do what was right that he had in fact been serving him instead all along.

It should be very hard to be good and AV, but I think there should be a reward if you pull it off (perhaps a very powerful Hero that requires AV religion and good alignment.)

that sounds really good. (calormen, by the way.)

Maybe alignment should be based on a certain number of "alignment points" that would go up or down based on your actions, religion, and the AC. different civs might start off at different levels, relfecting the basic mindset, and, if one is good enough, one could adopt AV without affecting one's standing to much.

The way i see it, Sheim would start off the lowest, as almost pure evil, as would hyborem. the elohim, on the other hand, would start off at high good rankings, as would bannor.

Thatway, I can see the bannor, while still being an order worshipper, slipping into evil tendancies. on the other hand, why should Perpentach who in a fit of insanity decides to give freedoms to his people, but still want to worship OO to keep saverous, loose out.

That really was a collection of loose ramblings, and is probably incoherent, and the idea deathly hard to code


Ohh: more ideas.

Hell terrain could spread into your land based on your goodness ranking, and different benefits or penalties could be applied at different rankings. (eg Sphener joining your civ at a high ranking, while amrdero will leave you if you go to high up, or civs with a low good ranking will have unhappiness in their cities, but civs with high good rankings wil have lower production.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Alignment systems have been suggested before (in fact, I did in my first thread here). Kael's position, and I think he's probably right, is that it is more fun to design than it is to play around, and ends up confusing and frustrating people.

Weighting ai tech decisions by their alignment or religion would be nice, though, but low priority at the moment.

Thinking of good AV or OO civs always makes me think of C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle, where one of the people from that land to the south of Narnia (I forget it's name)

Tash. Remember the ape was having people worship "Tashlan".

 

[thomas.berubeg]

The land was calormene, the god Tash.

 

[kamandi]

Most of the leader prefer certain religions, and that keeps them from converting to the first religions into their empire (if it isnt one they like). Basically for every city that holds a religion the leader gets so many points towards adopting it, once that value is above 0 (and higher than any other religion) the leader converts.

OK, It still seems tro me that a lot of games end up with almost all the civs converting to runes or leaves as they invariably get discovered first....Maybe doing as was suggested elsewhere in this thread of making the techs weighted would work, just trying to see more flavor from the ai. I guess the basic problem is nearly everyone opens their borders to everyone else, so as soon as a religion is discovered, the world gets flooded with umots spreading that religion...I know that the game was designed that way and it's even one of Sid's tips, but until the advent of Christianity, most religions were regional, even where there were clear cases of mixing and overlap, the religions weren't identical.

Anyhow, I guess coding some adaptive religions that appear in certain civs based off existing religious influence would be too difficult, I just hate playing in a world where everyone is a leaf or stone even if I founded one of the religions.

I do love the overall flavor and gameplay of the mod though...only other suggestion would be to broaden the random game events as I seem to get mines falling down continuously, although I got a very cool surprise the other day when a scout spontaneously became a hero unit....Can't wait till you add equipment.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I knew Tash was one of them, but I couldn't remember whether it was the country or the god. ( I didn't mention it since I wasn't sure which.)

I know that new alignment systems have been suggested before, and what Kael's position and reasoning were. That is why I said it would probably be best in a modmod. Actually though, I think variable, action-based alignments would not have worked well in vanilla FfH, but the event system in BtS seems almost designed for such a change.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I knew Tash was one of them, but I couldn't remember whether it was the country or the god.

Ah, okay, must have been skimming your post.

 

[xienwolf]

Ya know, one thing I would LOVE to see changed is the dang AI ALWAYS doing open borders agreements. They love them, most players abhor them. It would be nice if at the least, certain favorable Civics would make the AI decide to close their borders to EVERYONE.

Sorry for minor derail, but 2 posts up got me on it.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

OK, It still seems tro me that a lot of games end up with almost all the civs converting to runes or leaves as they invariably get discovered first...

Well, leaves wont make civs change their alignment at least. However you got a point there. Often many civs will adopt leaves or runes early on. This may change later as they all have their favorites religions (one of my favorite trick when playing Ljosalfar have been to get Vicky to adopt the leaves, then try to "unite" all elven nations. It never worked in the long run, cause sooner or later the veil will reach her, and she will adopt it )
However, often the Order and most importantly the veil are founded waaayyyy too late in the game. It's especially bad for the veil since a civ has to adopt it before it can summon Hybo. In my last game as Cassiel, when hybo showed up at my borders, i already had 3 100xp adventurers. I made them Dragon Slayers, and poof, goodbye Hyborem, thank you for showing up
I'm not sure, maybe it has nothing to do with already having a religion, but it looks like an AI civ with a religion won't put the same value on founding a new one. It's even worse when the evil civs become runes as they will then turn neutral.

I guess the basic problem is nearly everyone opens their borders to everyone else, so as soon as a religion is discovered, the world gets flooded with umots spreading that religion.

Mhh, maybe the chance to actually spread a religion could be modified by the civs alignment. Currently, only the number of religions will influence that (at least i think so), but it should be harder to spread the order (or the runes) in calabim lands, than the veil or the OO.
Another issue however is priests. Their ability to found temples bypasses every obstacle. They ALWAYS succeed and put their religion in the city. I found this trick useful when going for religious victory. Maybe priests should only be able to found temples in friendly territory. So they couldn't be used as super-preachers.
I know they come later, but it's a trick that can be (ab)used by human players, while AI won't be able to use it.

 

[DeaExMachina]

How do you people play your games that you get such dominance of single religions? I typically play with 9 Civs (including my own) on Random and I rarely see more then 3 people on the same religion and while yes, that does tend to be Runes or Leaves which gets the rare case of 3 my religions always play a focal point in aligning politics.

Reminds me of a terrible game where I was the Sheim, founded the Veil and spread it to all of Cardith Lorda's cities before summoning Hyborem. My only other ally was actually Sabathiel(Order) who I was on good trade terms with while Perpentarch (oo), Alexis(runes) and the Khazad(runes) all hated me and Lorda (especially Lorda, is it just me or does the AI always like to war with him?). The world was really polarized like that and thats typical of my games, I never see a hippy love fest with everyone the same religion!

 

[Vittra]

I was playing a 21 player Arboria the other day, 16 civs following Runes of Kilmorph in it.

 

[Mailbox]

I think the major problem with early religions spreading so fast is that open borders comes too early. This allows every civilization to get connected quickly, and religions spread like wildfire as soon as they are founded, especially if it is the first religion.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I'm curious what later open borders will do too; I think I'll change mine with the editor to trade, perhaps, and see how that plays out.

 

[SwordofStriker]

I think the major problem with early religions spreading so fast is that open borders comes too early. This allows every civilization to get connected quickly, and religions spread like wildfire as soon as they are founded, especially if it is the first religion.

There is a very simple solution for this. Purge the Unfaithful.

Honestly, I like going up against large religious blocs. It makes the game more fun for me knowing that if I want to take on civ A, I will probably have to be ready to fight civ's B, C, and D as well.

 

[Mailbox]

There is a very simple solution for this. Purge the Unfaithful.

That does absolutely nothing to stop the spread of religion and subsequent adoption by foreign countries however, not including the fact it's far from an early game wonder.

Note: I'm for religious power blocs but it's never fun when the entire world becomes one religion and stays that way the whole game.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Well, i never saw the entire world stay with one civ for the whole game! However, i often saw large blocks of leaves or runes worshipping civs. It nearly never happen with OO, order or the veil.

 

[kamandi]

I'm curious what later open borders will do too; I think I'll change mine with the editor to trade, perhaps, and see how that plays out.

Curious as to your results with this, I think it may be a viable solution to simulate the isolation of civs early on, shouldn't affect scouting units as there is usually plenty of space to go around cultural borders early on.