[R&F] Religious Victory without Yerevan is a nightmare because of broken Apostles promotions

[leandrombraz]

Yerevan is not only OP because it's powerful to choose any promotion you want, but also because it fix the completely broken apostles promotions that can make it considerably more time consuming to win a religious victory. When you start creating apostles it seem to be working, then the barbarian and medic promotions start to show up almost every time you got a promotion, like this:

Considering that both promotions are useless for religious victory, this mean you don't have a choice, you have to go with whatever is the third option and hope it will be useful. Then it gets worse:

Only two options now, often the useless ones. It's like it recorded the promotions I was trying to avoid then started spamming it over and over again, then I started getting only two promotions and I still have a huge map to convert with.... this.


Religious Victory without Yerevan is broken and painful to play. Please, tell me there's a mod that fix this nonsense, I couldn't find one. Also, please tell me that will be fixed in Gathering storm.


I hope they also give some love to passive spread, it would be nice if religious victory wasn't all about spamming religious units and passive spread had a bigger role on winning.

 

[nzcamel]

I don't think the religious game is broken without Yerevan; but I agree there are bugs that are long overdue addressing.

 

[Siptah]

Apostle promotions can run out. You've used up the good ones. I think this is an intentional, albeit horrible, decision.

 

[darkace77450]

I hope they also give some love to passive spread, it would be nice if religious victory wasn't all about spamming religious units and passive spread had a bigger role on winning.

I agree. With religious combat being a thing Religious Victories feel too much like a Military Victories for my tastes.

Two more points:
1. As I've said in regards to Spies, I loathe the idea of random promotions.
2. Your screenshots reminds me how much I want the option to toggle map pin display on and off.

 

[nzcamel]

Apostle promotions can run out. You've used up the good ones. I think this is an intentional, albeit horrible, decision.

Wasn't that a bug that they fixed? If so Yerevan would slowly stop giving you some options. But it doesn't.

2. Your screenshots reminds me how much I want the option to toggle map pin display on and off.

This a million times!!! @FXS_Sarah @FXS_MisterKevin
Pleeeeease?

 

[leandrombraz]

Apostle promotions can run out. You've used up the good ones. I think this is an intentional, albeit horrible, decision.

I'm pretty sure they "fixed" this in a patch then unfixed it in another patch, so it isn't intentional.

 

[Siptah]

I'm pretty sure they "fixed" this in a patch then unfixed it in another patch, so it isn't intentional.

i thought since they unfixed it, it would be intentional but I hope you are right, since this would mean we can hop it will be fixed again.

 

[leandrombraz]

i thought since they unfixed it, it would be intentional but I hope you are right, since this would mean we can hop it will be fixed again.

Considering that almost every patch had something unfixed unintentionally that was again fixed later, it's more likely that it was unintentional. They would also tell us in the patch notes if it was an intentional change. This bug wouldn't make sense as an intentional mechanic either, since no other unit in the game run out of promotions, aside from completing the promotions tree (military) or running out of levels (spies, limited to 3). It's too random and illogical to be a mechanic too. If it was something like you can't have more than 3 debaters in a game at given time, then it would make sense.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

All that faith wasted on apostles! I'd have taken the initial chaplain option as both a boon and sign from my respective deity that I should instead faith summon a bunch of Winged Hussars and go on a conquering spree .

PS, you're right. The religious VC is a grind and a half without Yerevan.

 

[TomKQT]

Religious combat (and religious victory) would be much more fun for me if apostoles were getting exp. for victories just like combat units and you would be able to choose the promotion from a similar tree like for melee/ranged/siege etc.
Some of the promotions that exist now would not work well with this system because now you can get for example +3 promotions right from the start (if you go to a natural wonder) even when you don't really have any religious enemies to gather your exp on.
But maybe something like one random promotion at the start and then a promotion tree?

 

[Josephias]

It is a bug? I tought it was "intended" in terms of how promotion selection was working (with game tracking the ones already picked and dropping their % of appearance).
If they run out, it is clear it cannot be a feature (never really confirmed, as apostles get quite expensive at later stages).

I agree it would be much more fun if apostles won experience for additional (selectable) promotions. Right now, the way apostles and spies Works in terms of promotions is kind of lame. Unless you have Erevan (and only for apostles), it is Little you can do to get the promotions you want, which is even worse because the number of available promotions for each of these units is capped.

 

[leandrombraz]

All that faith wasted on apostles! I'd have taken the initial chaplain option as both a boon and sign from my respective deity that I should instead faith summon a bunch of Winged Hussars and go on a conquering spree .

PS, you're right. The religious VC is a grind and a half without Yerevan.

I could do that but I always plan my victory condition before I start then stick to it. I also play peaceful when I'm not going for domination... Relatively peaceful, I already had to explain to Korea that she can't settle north and that declaring war on me isn't a good idea. She understood and praised me for having such a good science after I took her city with a campus

 

[Archon_Wing]

It's not OP because going religious victory is inherently a handicap. It is indeed a pain and boring at best.

That being said this is often a CS I kill if I'm not going religion.

 

[leandrombraz]

Praised be the Crab God!!!

Now excuse me, I have a protectorate war to prepare...

 

[TomKQT]

Now excuse me, I have a protectorate war to prepare...

OT: I've never noticed you could make map pins with a specific district icon :-o
Or is it a mod?

 

[nzcamel]

OT: I've never noticed you could make map pins with a specific district icon :-o
Or is it a mod?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1122081356

 

[leandrombraz]

OT: I've never noticed you could make map pins with a specific district icon :-o
Or is it a mod?

It's a mod that I'll miss dearly when GS is released if it take too long to be compatible.

 

[Disgustipated]

I admit I "brute force" religious victories with just mass apostle rush and convert cities manually. At best, I usually only kill 2 apostles per civ, maybe more for the religious leader. I think relying on killing apostles to convert only works on emperor and above difficulties. Otherwise there just aren't enough apostles to kill. And I admit I am impatient. Most times AI apostles are clear on the other side of the world, not where I need them to be. I don't like relying on the ai. I'd rather mass produce apostles and manually flip those cities. I've done it several times without Yeravan. Build enough holy sites and it can be done. Moshka's final promotion helps.

As for the bug, seems like it only happens to me occasionally. Though I build so few apostles in my games I am unlikely to notice. I don't remember having any problems when I did religious victories in a few of my civ of the week games.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

And I admit I am impatient.

On higher difficulty levels, you don't need much patience. There are plenty of targets, and if those dry up before a civ is fully converted, it's usually only a few cities remaining that need a "push" through spending a spread.

I can see that on regular difficulty levels that the balance could be different.