Religious tenets mod updated with 5th tier

(AOM)

Chieftain
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Feb 25, 2018
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This mod adds 16 new religious tenets and alters the bonus of one of the existing ones. All four tiers now have 10 tenets to choose from. This is our first effort to improve Humankind religion, and we'd really like to hear what the community thinks about the balance of these tenets and ways to improve religion. We're thinking of adding new tenet tiers if possible, the ability to limit the number of tenets/tier per game (with randomization possibly), and religious infrastructures, deeds, and events, among other things. There is a full list of the tenets we added on the download page HERE.

Also, we were finishing this mod up when the beta patch dropped. We know that the Rainbow mod was busted, and fixing that is a top priority given that the color picker feature that was added did not include new color slots for Personas. Our Resource mod was also rendered awkward as people who have it installed with the new patch have two interfaces for altering resource distribution. That will get fixed too, as the new resource feature did not accomplish what we had hoped it would.

Please note, the More religious tenets mod will work whether you have the beta patch installed or are still using the previous version of the game. It was tested in single and multiplayer games without issues.

 
This looks great! Excited to see religious content and eager to try this out.

One quick thought from looking over the new tenets: I think Tier 2/Observe Fasts would better capture the practice of fasting if it reduced food consumption per pop rather than added food to administrative centers.
 
Thanks for the feedback, it's great to know you're interested in the mod! That's a great idea for Observe Fasts, it makes more sense with the name of it, for sure. We can change it. I'd like to know what you think of the balance of the tenets after playing with it for awhile, if you have time to post again :)
 
So, from my current play-through, I can already tell you Tier 2 / Be Constant As Water is very strong (so strong, it reversed the effect of my neighbors going with the Teutons). I suggest halving it to +1 on rivers.

It's quite like Tier 1 / Shelter the True Oracles. I often take it for extra influence if I have some mountains around, but it doesn't feel like too much of a boost. Doubling it to +2 on mountains would probably go too far.

Last question about Be Constant As Water, how exactly is the faith on rivers exploited? It seemed to be present on every river tile with a district or exploitation, but then placing a new district threatened to take away the faith.

As for the other tenets, Tier 4 Relinquish Worldly Goods and Donate Generously both stand out to me. For the tenet you added, do the holy sites give a +2 adjacency to market quarters or does the tenet just increase market quarter adjacency by +2? For the original tenet, it strikes me as one of many flat, ineffectual bonuses where perhaps a percentage boost would be better. It also occurs to me that the number of holy sites could be increased earlier than Tier 4.

Other tenets seem ripe for balance, but I'll wait until I can play some more to see whether my hunches play out. One plus is certainly seeing multiple religions all advance in tiers!
 
About Be Constant As Water: we can reduce the faith bonus by one. The idea was to give a religious bonus but not to completely overwhelm a neighbor with religious bonuses to their culture. When you say placing a new district threatened to take away the faith, do you mean that it notified you that placing a district next to the river tile would remove faith as part of the district placement effect? We'll look into the problem.

Q: "For the tenet you added, do the holy sites give a +2 adjacency to market quarters or does the tenet just increase market quarter adjacency by +2?"
A: Every market quarter you place next to a holy site will place +2 gold on the holy site itself if you pick the Relinquish Worldly Goods tenet. When the first adjacent Market Quarter construction is complete, you should see +2 gold appear on the Holy Site, with increasing amounts as more Market Quarters are built next to it.

About Donate Generously: Yes, I completely agree with you. I think most (if not all) of the Tier 4 tenets are pretty uninteresting. Someone else indicated that our new Tier 4 tenets were lackluster, and, I agree. We made them that way to match the existing ones. Maybe the better route would be to buff all the Tier 4 tenets instead so they aren't so dull.

About Holy Site number: When do you think the number should begin to increase? We are thinking of making a mod that explicitly ties the tiers to the eras and adding two new tiers so there is a tier per era. If we did that, we'd want to make it so the tenets made sense for the era to which they correspond. For example, we were thinking of having a tenet that gave bonuses to Holy Sites near Hamlets. Obviously, we'd want that tenet to match up with the Medieval or Early Modern so the player would have researched it or will be researching it soon. Given a plan like that, do you think maybe the Medieval era (third tier) would be the right time to increase the Holy Site number? We're also interested in looking into making the historical religions actually do something like provide a collection of bonuses unique to that historical religion. If we did that, would it make more sense for the religion itself to allow a greater number of Holy Sites, should that bonus be retained only in the tenet system, or should both mechanisms allow for more Holy Sites?
 
I really want to try this mod, but I'm also playing with the TSL mod. Do you think they are compatible?
 
I can't think of a reason it would be incompatible, but you will probably have to start a new game after installing the mod to have the new tenets show up.
 
It's tricky about rivers because that depends partly on map generation, but on Gedemon's huge earth map in India, the tenet pretty much sealed the world religion. Plus one faith should be fine on its own, but maybe others will play and have a different experience. I attached the map bug here, or at least the breakdown. It appears that placing a district will lose the +2 faith on river, but then the tile shows the yield after building the district anyways. On a side note, I think all per river bonuses could probably be halved and turned into on river bonuses and make the whole world happier!

Spoiler :
Constant as Water.png


Thanks for clarifying the adjacency question! I think it's fine the way you matched the original Tier 4 tenets. Raise Monuments, for instance, is just baffling. If anything, it would be more useful in the beginning, but then it's Tier 4... That said, Develop the Faith would be useful if you were struggling in the late faith game. I'm happy to think about it and give some feedback on all the tenets, because I have a feeling that buffing all and then balancing would help make the tenets competitive.

About Holy Site number: When do you think the number should begin to increase? We are thinking of making a mod that explicitly ties the tiers to the eras and adding two new tiers so there is a tier per era. If we did that, we'd want to make it so the tenets made sense for the era to which they correspond. For example, we were thinking of having a tenet that gave bonuses to Holy Sites near Hamlets. Obviously, we'd want that tenet to match up with the Medieval or Early Modern so the player would have researched it or will be researching it soon. Given a plan like that, do you think maybe the Medieval era (third tier) would be the right time to increase the Holy Site number? We're also interested in looking into making the historical religions actually do something like provide a collection of bonuses unique to that historical religion. If we did that, would it make more sense for the religion itself to allow a greater number of Holy Sites, should that bonus be retained only in the tenet system, or should both mechanisms allow for more Holy Sites?

This is full of interesting points. I guess it depends partly on how attached everyone is to holy sites. One option could just be doubling the number and halving the faith. I'm curious, for instance, whether the AI would be able to better guard their religion if they had double the normal number of holy sites. As for specific age-related bonuses, it's a cool idea. Maybe ancient holy sites could provide adjacency for monument-raising industrial sites and medieval ones, research quarters. What bonus would you have in mind for hamlets? Medieval would make sense to me, as it's hard to just come up with 125 followers until then anyway. I'm partial to tenets or bonuses tailored to historic religions, but I'm also cognizant of the mutability of strategy games and the desire to escape historic bounds, much like Civ VI's Religion Expanded mod. One option might be that choosing a historic religion grants more holy sites as a general rule, to illustrate the transition away from earlier practices.
 
for the late game, i'd love to see something related to televangelism and the prosperity gospel... or the new age pseudotheology, but the thing is there's only radio and cinema in the tech tree and no reference to soft power
 
@Saxo Grammaticus, we reduced the faith per river as you described above, and that change will be in the updated version of the mod. I think you are right and +2 was too much. If I'm understanding you correctly, the UI indicates that you will lose faith from placing a district, but that isn't what really happens when the district is placed. Please correct me if I'm wrong, so I understand your observation correctly. If that is the case, we can look into what is causing an incorrect report from the UI in these instances. I'm not sure what you mean by "all per river bonuses could probably be halved and turned into on river bonuses and make the whole world happier." Do you mean that only things built on the river tiles themselves would get the bonus, that even river tiles with no adjacent exploit deliver a bonus, or something else? Yes, it is difficult to be sure what the best route is for historic religions. At this point, while I think the game should probably include them, the best way to incorporate them is not entirely clear to me. Should they have a unique flavor, or when picking them should you select from a list of possible benefits to develop the religion yourself, should a religion be "closed" once one Persona has selected it? My list of questions goes on. :p

@NombreyApellido, yes! We must have televangelism and pseudotheology. There has to be a way to make them fit this game.
 
@Saxo Grammaticus, we reduced the faith per river as you described above, and that change will be in the updated version of the mod. I think you are right and +2 was too much. If I'm understanding you correctly, the UI indicates that you will lose faith from placing a district, but that isn't what really happens when the district is placed. Please correct me if I'm wrong, so I understand your observation correctly. If that is the case, we can look into what is causing an incorrect report from the UI in these instances.

Great! The other two tenets I was thinking of are Tier 1 / Be Virtuous as Water, and Tier 3 / Seek the Earth's Bounty. I love both concepts of stability and food on river, but the issue I'm referring to is the confusion over "on river" and "per river." It appeared the Tier 1 tenet was only per river, much to folks' dismay. What I'm suggesting is to make both "on river" like Tier 2 / Be Constant as Water and for them to be +1 instead of +2.

And yes, it's just a UI bug I wanted to bring to your attention, nothing serious.

Yes, it is difficult to be sure what the best route is for historic religions. At this point, while I think the game should probably include them, the best way to incorporate them is not entirely clear to me. Should they have a unique flavor, or when picking them should you select from a list of possible benefits to develop the religion yourself, should a religion be "closed" once one Persona has selected it? My list of questions goes on. :p

And yes, no need to rush to define the historic religion question. I'm happy for that to be in another thread so we aren't blowing up your mod feedback beyond the tenets. Just want to say, it's so cool for you and your wife (right?) to be brainstorming and coming up with all the mods! Many thanks!
 
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We've been working more on this mod, and have now added two new tiers, albeit empty tiers right now ^^. Ideas for some possible tier 5 tenets include:

- food on stone/rock fields
- Natural wonders act as holy sites (idea from Arphenix at the official forums)
+1 Industry per worker on Holy sites
+1 Industry per adjacent MQ on Holy sites
Faith affect on unit industry cost
Faith affect on unit maintenance cost
Faith-related discount on buyouts

We've also successfully matched eras to tiers by making the ability to unlock a tier a research item in the relevant era. Two goals that could be relevant to tier 5 are allowing faith to increase production or decrease production costs (allowing the cultural pursuit of faith to minimize the overwhelming bonus that production oriented cultures receive) and making faith a relevant thing to pursue in the first place. Thoughts?
 
One idea would be to unlock earlier tiers up to the medieval era and then match tiers to each of the early modern, industrial, and contemporary eras, to represent the drastic changes that occurred in modern history. Tenets then would be religious positions, adaptations, reactions, or rejections of these changes, from the printing press to new media. The problem, as I see it, is the snowball already takes off in the industrial era especially, so would the goal be to compound the late-game snowball? I would phrase the relevance question also as what incentive does late-game religion offer to not secularize or adopt state atheism?

Some other ideas for tenets in general:
- +2 food on sterile terrain
- general FIMS adjacency boost along the lines of Relinquish Worldly Goods
- something along the lines of the faith as food mechanic from Angkor Wat
- something along the lines of the coreligionist mechanic for Stonehenge
- for Observe Fasts, swap in a -15% food consumption per population modeled on microbiology

+1 industry per worker on holy sites seems interesting. Having 9 holy sites could nearly double worker productivity. Still, it seems like exploitations are responsible for more production than workers, so I'm not sure how much impact it would have.

For what it's worth, the AI absolutely loves Tier 3 / Improve Your Settlements.
 
The goal is definitely not to compound the late-game snowball. I guess an important question is what causes that to happen? I'm not sure religion can really solve that problem because, in its current form, religion is basically over and done with by the time the late-game begins. Everyone has their Tier 4 tenets selected by the end of the Medieval era typically, and the tenets aren't really game-changing monsters anyway (nor should they be IMO). Over at the Steam forum there is a thread about game balance with some people stating that the entire premise of changing cultures and stacking culture bonuses is at the root of the issue; thus, it can't really be solved without changing this fundamental feature of the game. I don't necessarily agree with that position, but it's an interesting point of view.

Right now, religion doesn't offer much in the way of incentive to not secularize or adopt state atheism, but we'd like to change that. However, we didn't want to start adding incentives before we added ways of maintaining one's religion. It would be frustrating to have incentives to keep and strengthen your religion without any clear means of doing so if you wanted to pursue them. Right now, we're still working on Tier 5 tenets, so I haven't had a chance to try them in the game to see if the balance is optimal. Your ideas are interesting, I especially like the ones based on the wonder mechanics.

Given the recent change to district production costs (the increased exponential growth in cost with additional districts), I guess I'm not surprised that the AI likes Improve Your Settlements. ^^
 
in all this time playing humankind, i only felt invested in religion back when somebody else built one of MY holy sites... that was a nice incentive to push to get them earlier

i do like the proposed changes but then again, i feel they might not click with the theme like for instance tithe does

i'm not confident enough to suggest a more historically accurate approach, but i love those details that help anchor the narrative in the real world and at the same time address some of the players concerns

many people say they don't like to build infrastructure. just want to place quarters

well, perhaps some tenets could be linked to the city improvements to make them seem more enticing

say, linking an ancient tenet with

-granaries, referencing the temple economy of mesopotamia
-pottery, figurines from almost everywhere
-forge (should be a smelting and casting house, damn it!) bronze idols from anatolia
-barns, animal pantheons from mesoamerica and egypt
-stoneworks, calling on the carvings of southeast asia
-lumberyard, woodworks again almost everywhere
-irrigation canals (?), celestial, elemental and climate deities
-palisades (?) gods of order and chaos, war and peace
-fishery, fantastical creatures such as dragon, flying serpent and kraken
-scribe house, allegories and symbolism, sagas and epics

perhaps just a tiny bonus of faith and a discount on the building cost and nothing much. just a tiny detail not to draw too much attention to a system that isn't that great :)

not sure if many people would appreciate it though. i'm usually quite disconnected from what most people seem to like
 
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The goal is definitely not to compound the late-game snowball. I guess an important question is what causes that to happen? I'm not sure religion can really solve that problem because, in its current form, religion is basically over and done with by the time the late-game begins. Everyone has their Tier 4 tenets selected by the end of the Medieval era typically, and the tenets aren't really game-changing monsters anyway (nor should they be IMO). Over at the Steam forum there is a thread about game balance with some people stating that the entire premise of changing cultures and stacking culture bonuses is at the root of the issue; thus, it can't really be solved without changing this fundamental feature of the game. I don't necessarily agree with that position, but it's an interesting point of view.

Right now, religion doesn't offer much in the way of incentive to not secularize or adopt state atheism, but we'd like to change that. However, we didn't want to start adding incentives before we added ways of maintaining one's religion. It would be frustrating to have incentives to keep and strengthen your religion without any clear means of doing so if you wanted to pursue them. Right now, we're still working on Tier 5 tenets, so I haven't had a chance to try them in the game to see if the balance is optimal. Your ideas are interesting, I especially like the ones based on the wonder mechanics.

Given the recent change to district production costs (the increased exponential growth in cost with additional districts), I guess I'm not surprised that the AI likes Improve Your Settlements. ^^

Yes, the snowball is definitely controversial in its origins. I guess I don't have much to offer on that at this point, but I will say the diversity of options is something at the core of the "richness" I see in both Humankind and Civ VI.

For me, any religion I have control over is vastly superior to secularizing or adopting State Atheism with its whopping shift toward the authoritarian. In fact, in my current game, my aesthete ally, the Italians, have adopted State Atheism and it's a massive headache. It's due to convert my first territory in 12-15 turns and that's just unacceptable, so I guess I'll have to bite the traitor bullet and backstab 'em. This is the first time that's happened to me (on humankind difficulty, go figure) but it reminds me that if State Atheism converts influence into faith (as it appears to) then more faith is needed as an option to compete in the late game.
 
I've also had some time to put together some thoughts on the tenets. In particular, I'm thinking back to how much of a delight it was when Civ V ditched the tech as religion conceit in favor of faith as a pre-religious yield. Civ VI and Humankind have carried on this interpretation with the latter having more of a sociological commitment, in my view. The richness of this appears to be the anthropological honoring of human culture and the flourishing of localized cults and pantheons. Especially for the early eras, my preference would be to focus on three eras: neolithic cultural practices, material exploitation of the environment, and social organization.

Neolithic cultural practices would include proto-urban "universal" practices unrelated to the environment. I particularly like NombreyAppellido's idea of tying tenets to infrastructure for this idea.
-Individual burials: perhaps adding faith to farmers quarters to simulate the advent of distinct ancestor worship
-Death masks: gold and influence from forges
-Corded wares: faith and production on pottery workshop
-Oral epics: percentage conversion of faith to influence ~5%?

Material exploitation of the environment could extend the existing tenets that focus on local adaptation/environmental inspiration.
-Manna: +1 food on sterile, wasteland, stone field, and rocky field.
-Rain God: +1 food on woodland, forest, cave, and crater (to represent non-river adjacent Maya)

Social organization would address the role of religion in organizing early societies, as epitomized by the Mesopotamian priest-as-irrigator role as seen in the Astronomy House.
-Divine calendar: +2 stability on farmers quarters, doubled if on river

That's not a ton, but hopefully illustrates a bit of what's on my mind for the early ages. I also wanted to give some feedback on current and expanded tenets as part of the mod.


Tier 1

These are good, but can be balanced to +1
-Respect the Seas' Bounties
-Abstain from Intoxicants

These are in a good place and have nice flavor
-Shelter the True Oracles
-Seek Inspiration (AI puts this one to good use to maintain a religion, but I think it could be more aptly renamed Desert Fathers)

These plain don't make sense to me and probably need new flavor
-Seek Wisdom
-Reject Luxury

I like this as an on river, rather than per river bonus, but would prefer the Divine Calendar idea above
-Be Virtuous as Water

Likewise, maybe rename this to something like Temple Levies?
-Volunteer your Strength

Not only do these seem anachronistic for the neolithic transition, but there effects also seem ineffectual.
-Hunt the Infidels
-Smite Unbelievers


Tier 2
For these and future tenets that apply to discrete factors, I'll provide a minimum-medium-maximum range.

Misnomers (but effect can probably belong here or elsewhere)
-Bear Not False Witness
-Give Alms
-Undertake Pilgrimage

OK
-Yield to None

Does not make sense.
-Protect the Weak

With adjustments these are good to go.
-Observe Fasts (pop consumption)
-Be Constant as Water (reduced to +1)

These three scale poorly, in my opinion. Most of the per alliance, wonder, holy site tenets do in my opinion. I would be open to how to rectify the scale.
-Elevate the Faith (0/18/66 influence)
-Be Industrious (0/6/15 workers)
-Welcome Unbelievers (0/12/30 influence)

Anyhow, this is already a lot to share. I have thoughts about the later eras and tenets, but would love to hear your collective thoughts on the early direction of tenets and whether any of these ideas resonate. And, let's be honest, even when I'm not posting, I always enjoy when a new insight comes to me about modifying the religion mechanism.
 
Thank you both for the feedback :)

While I like the idea of adding tenet bonuses on a per infrastructure basis, I have some reservations about how this would function gameplay-wise. First, if these are given in the Ancient era (which the examples above seem to indicate), they would be applied to, at most, two or three infrastructures. This would make these tenets much weaker than the base-game tenets and the ones we've already added. Second, and I wouldn't have thought of this if it hadn't just happened to me while testing the updated tenet mod, there are times when someone doesn't get their first tier choice until sometime in the Medieval era. At that point, a bonus on a structure that can only be built once in any city definitely seems a bit weak unless the bonus per infrastructure is quite large. So, I'm of two minds on this.

I love the idea of connecting religion to the environment. The manna idea is really great, as is the rain god concept. One reason we've named the tenets as we have is to match the way the base game tenets are named. Each is a direction for the follower to adhere to. While I'm not against altering that convention, if we altered some, I think we should probably alter them all for consistency. So, for example, instead of naming the tenet "Manna" it could be called "Seek Manna" or something like that.

I also really like the idea of religion as a force of social organization, and we've tried to reflect that in the fifth tier tenets. First, we attached the fifth tier to the "Nationhood" tech, so that must be researched before the fifth tier becomes available to those with a sufficient number of followers. Second, we tried to make each tenet reflect the correspondence between religious aspiration and nationalism. For example: "Toil Joyfully - Your labor will build a faithful nation - + .10% industry per state religion follower" and "Be Vigilant - Defend your religious homeland - increased levy strength." We could definitely apply the same kind of thinking (religion's role in societal organization as it fits in each era) to the earlier tiers as well.

Specific issues in the tiers mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus:
Tier 1 - we can alter base game tenets accordingly if Respect the Seas and Abstain are perceived as too powerful. I completely agree Abstain is a bit much compared to other tenets. Does Respect the Seas work on all tiles or just those adjacent to a harbor?

Really like the idea of faith to farmers quarters.

Really like the percentage conversion of faith to influence here too, although that tenet really won't begin to pick up steam until after people can build more than two holy sites.

Yeah, Seek Wisdom and Reject Luxury both seem a bit out of place in the first tier. Frankly, I think Seek Wisdom seems out of place until you get to the Medieval (flowering of science in Islamic countries) or later (Scientology [arguably not even a religion]). Those can just be replaced with something more fitting.

I looked back and I can't tell for sure what Divine Calendar is. Can you point me in the right direction?

I hear you about Smite Unbelievers, but I think some players might hate us if we altered it. It's basically part of the Mycenean bonus. Hunt the Infidels is as you say not fitting and ineffectual (could be replaced).

Tier 2
Bear Not False Witness is a misnomer indeed. And, I also have a tough time with science as a religion bonus in the Classical era. It's another one though that I feel if we replaced it, players would hate us. :p
Undertake Pilgrimage, yeah, also a misnomer. Also sort of ineffectual in my opinion. I would not mind seeing that one go entirely to be replaced by something else.
I'm sort of torn on the Give Alms tenet. Compared to the others it seems a bit overpowered. But, I think people would hate us if we change/replaced it.
Protect the Weak - completely agree. This one just needs to be replaced.
Observe Fasts - We changed this one to reduce population consumption by 10% as you indicated earlier.
Be Constant as Water - This one has been changed to +2 faith per exploited waterfall tile and +1 exploited river tile
Elevate the Faith - based on your earlier comment, we changed this one to +7 influence per wonder. Is that still too weak/not scaling well?
Be Industrious - If I understand you correctly, this tenet is too weak. I am not sure I understand the fix you are suggesting though. Could you clarify this?
Welcome Unbelievers - Same as Be Industrious

We're doing final testing on the updated mod with tier 5 tenets, techs that must be researched in each era to obtain the next tier, and a new religious deed (called Renaissance, gives 100 fame to the first person who selects a tier 4 religious tenet). We hope to get it posted this weekend (we're very interested to hear what people think!).
 
new mod sounds great, AOM. love the idea of a deed linked to tiers! i will play it as soon as posted

going back to idea bouncing for future posibilities

-tier 1; the source (as previously described)
-tier 2; social org as institutions, norms, practices (ie caste system vs class, tithe vs offerings) system linked to quarters
-tier 3; state building (ie a tool for war making, peacebuilding) system linked to attitude, crisis and relations
-tier 4; consolidation (ie role in education, health care, legal system, military) system linked to infrastructure again
-tier 5; schism, decay (secularism or to perhaps explore new forms of religion)
 
Yes, I see your point for infrastructure. I suppose I would address this with scaling. For example, Fashion Urns for the Dead: +3% influence and industry on Pottery Workshop per territory. This way, no matter when you select it, there should be a sizable buff. What your comments reveal to me, however, is that the neolithic transition flavor may not make as much sense to late adopters of religion. Even for TCL, a late-emerging culture may not want death masks in the medieval. I'm not really sure how to go about addressing that--maybe tiers that swap out with each era?

The environmental angle I would assume is the underlying warrant behind Abstain from Intoxicants and other tenets in Humankind as well as many of the Civ pantheons. I've always enjoyed the high flavor of developing beliefs in conjunction with local conditions. And yes, I realize I didn't adhere to the naming conventions at all, sorry! For instance, Manna could be Look to the Heavens: A divine promise sustains us, and Rain God, Listen to the Frogs: We shall collect the rain. Those aren't perfect, but I agree the name is big part of the flavor!

With social organization and religion, I really see it peaking in the Medieval Era and waning thereafter. I like, for instance, tying the fifth tenet to Nationalism, because it hints at the subsuming of religion by states. Toil Joyfully resonates with the Protestant Work Ethic, which is a great example of religious influence on society. But even the concept of holy war got a lot more complicated post-industrialization. Russia had long had a state church leveraging the concept of holy war to justify conflict with the Ottomans, but that didn't hold up so well when the French and English took their side.

--

Tier 1

My issue with Abstain from Intoxicants (which has a lovely Rishi nod) is that it's double the effect of the lumber yard. As for Respect the Seas, I believe it applies beyond the harbor.

Yes, it may be tricky to convert influence on a 5% basis. When I think of it, 50% wouldn't be so bad, and you could even consider higher, though then it's like an Angkor Wat replacement for a Tier 1 tenet...

Totally agree that science has its place in the Medieval (or even Classical with the Serapeum), but the Ancient seems a bit of a stretch.

Divine Calendar would be like the Zhou legacy of +2 stability on district, but applied only to farmers quarters, and then doubled to +4 stability if the farmers quarter is placed on a river. If that makes sense, maybe you have an idea how to phrase that more cleanly.

As for Smite Unbelievers, I did not realize how popular it was! Perhaps we can rename it, then, as the Ancient Era often features religious differences but the tenet is unrelated to those. Something like, Raise the Temple Guard.


Tier 2
Bear Not False Witness would be a great candidate for renaming, in that case! How about Debate in the Serapeum?
Undertake Pilgrimage--interesting, I kind of like the discounts, but influence is one of the yields you're most likely to end up with a glut of. I would prefer Undertake Pilgrimage to have a bonus related to trade routes, as pilgrimage typically has had in our history.
How about we rename Give Alms to Welcome Strangers? This way it could hint more at the inhibiting power of stigma in history, and the economic revolution of not holding prejudice in the market. I'm glad you have your finger on the pulse of which tenets players live and die by!
Glad to hear about Observe Fasts and Be Constant as Water--sorry for rehashing it. I was most recently going off the mod page.
Elevate the Faith--this one is tricky. I don't think +7 would scale all that well either. I'm wondering whether a flat 10% wouldn't be better. One of the problems is it's just a matter of time before DLC or modded wonders join the rank, so it's probably doomed to be revisited.
Be Industrious--Yes, it seems too weak to me, but I'm thinking a little about how to buff it, as I have a separate tent in mind for the medieval. Maybe we could honor the Egyptian practice of corvée Leave the Floodwaters: plus one worker slot per farmers quarter.
Welcome Unbelievers--I might change this from influence to stability, just a flat +20 stability on Holy Site, as tolerance has a historical reputation tending toward prosperity and stability.

Very much looking forward to the update! Thanks for including our input!

--

Also, in answer to my previous question about stopping State Atheism... In my last game, where one ally and then another adopted State Atheism amidst my Zoroastrian religious bloc, I did manage to stem the tide.

Invading and conquering all but one of the Italians' territories did absolutely nothing to stop State Atheism from surging onward; however, desperately evolving into the Indians and building an Ashram in every territory did in fact generate a cordon sanitaire that returned Zoroastrianism to my core territories and to many allied territories but did not touch on the core State Atheist territories.
 
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