Runner up 'prize' for not reasearching a religion first

[subanark]

Currently reasearching a religion second is almost useless. I've had plenty of times of reasearching a religion only to have another civ beat me by a couple of turns.

I have two ideas to give those who were in the middle of researching it something for their efforts:

1. Refund:
When a religion is founded, all other civs who have tech points in that religion are given gold equal to the tech points they've invested. All civs then recieve that religion tech for free (you can't benifit from it without cities with that religion). Similar mechanics to how wonders work.

2. Religion for all:
Simply, when you recieve a religion tech one of your cities gets that religion, it just won't be the holy city (and you don't get a free diciple?).

 

[Silverkiss]

Misa likes #2

 

[loki1232]

Misa likes #2

As do i.

However, I don't think that this particular strategy needs changing. Why do you want to encourage people who try to found every religion?

 

[Silverkiss]

Well, maybe, if it is possible to code this, they don´t get the religion if they alredy have a religion in one of their cities or if they have a disciple.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I'll take option number two (though a free disciple in the capital instead of free religion in a city), but change the way religious founding works. I really don't like the idea of being able to found more than one or two religions, especially not two of the first three. If you've already sought out the blessings of Kilmorph, I don't think you're going to be looking to become the servants of octopi, too.

 

[Sureshot]

ya, should only be able to research a religion tech if you have no state religion and can choose it (annoying when the grigori found religions). then if you have a state religion and want to found another one you have to remove your state religion and go godless while you research.. would definately stop most people from founding multiple religions.

personally i favour getting a disciple

 

[Nero's fire]

I don't see the problem, in order to found one religion you should have to go out of your way in the first place. Therefore getting two of the starting three will be you took a lot of handicaps in the first place or your not in a very competetive game.

I tend to like to found one of the first three and another from the second two. Going godless just to get Orders would hurt a civilization immensly since religion is one of the main ways to get happyness.

I like the idea of getting a disciple in your main city when you reasearch a religois tech though. Going for kilmorph and losing out to someone halfway accross the world can hold a civ back a lot. And if two civs go for one religion it's mostly luck who gets it in the first place (goody huts, luxury resources ect.

 

[subanark]

As do i.

However, I don't think that this particular strategy needs changing. Why do you want to encourage people who try to found every religion?

One way to discourage founding multiple religions is to give a percentage chance of losing the holy city to another civ, if:
1. Your state religion is not that of the holy city
2. Another civ has that religion as that state religion.

You could also add a Wonder: "True holders of the faith" that causes the building city to get the holy city for your current state religion (this could be built defencivly to prevent others from building it, or to simply move your holy city). Wonder not buildable if you don't have a state religion, and if you switch you lose all progress on that Wonder.

PS Sorry I couldn't resist the chance to give another idea for a wonder.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I tend to like to found one of the first three and another from the second two. Going godless just to get Orders would hurt a civilization immensly since religion is one of the main ways to get happyness.

It wouldn't be so bad if the Order had some more nifty effects to justify its greater cost...

 

[Endovior]

A better idea would be to make all the religious techs offer some sort of bonus not necessarily tied to having the religion as state religion... or present at all, for that matter.

 

[Lord Vermillion]

Personally I believe that when someone beats you to a religion...well.... your S.O.L. (though I must admit that I get quite angry when it happens to me ).
I think that its part of the game, and no awards for "2nd" place should be given. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Hypnotoad]

I don't think you should get a free founding of a religion.

I suppose there is some question here of what is meant by "founding" a religion. I mean, two people can't found Christianity on two different continents. There could be two quite similar religions, but that wouldn't make them the same.

Could two people independently found Runes? I would think no: at best, you would have two different religions. But perhaps in a Fantasy world it would be possible, since the Gods could come to you and tell you "oh, by the way, far away someone else got the bright idea of worshiping me before you did."

 

[Silverkiss]

Thats the catch, in FfH the Gods are beings that exist... Why the freaking hell can´t I contact Kyllmorph just because someone contacted her first ? It makes no sense.

 

[subanark]

Personally I believe that when someone beats you to a religion...well.... your S.O.L. (though I must admit that I get quite angry when it happens to me ).
I think that its part of the game, and no awards for "2nd" place should be given. Just my 2 cents.

If you look at my solution #1, it give you a 2nd place 'award' but for the most part you would have been better off not researching it. It follows the same idea of what happens when someone beats you to a wonder.

But most people like soultion #2 more.

The game is designed in such a way to minimize getting screwed. If you are going to lose you should lose quickly, if you can win, you should be given oppurtunities to catch up. If you miss an early religion you can try for the later ones.

In real history, did the Chinese try and build the Great Library, but stop since they were told by a mysterious force that it was already built? No they never concieved of it, or if they did it was a Big Library, but it didn't end up being the Great Library. If we wanted to we could randomly assign religions and wonders for each civ to research to make it more relistic, but if we did that I think the game would be less fun, since you no longer have a lot of options, and there is less of a rush to build or research it.

 

[Mesix]

I like the idea of limiting the founding religions to one per civ, or giving some sort of penalty to players who are researching a religion when they have a different state religion. Perhaps there could be modifiers in the religious civics that affect this as well. A more zealous nation would be less likely to favor founding a new religion. This could show up as a penalty to the research (so it takes longer), or unhappiness while researching religion, or some other penalty.

It also makes sense for someone who discovers a religious tech (but not first) to get some sort of benefit for their trouble, especially if they have no state religion. At the very least they should get a deciple unit in their capital that can spread the religion to their nation.

 

[formless blob]

It does seem a bit strange that you can research a religion, and then not be able to spread it. What was actually researched then? A bunch of mystics sat down and meditated for several years only to come up with "Sorry that god has already been taken". I favor getting a free disiple, which would be a double edged sword, because you would give a benifit to the holder of the holy city, if you spread the religion.

 

[Nero's fire]

One of the main problems in FfH that differs from vanilla is that the religions are different. If you miss out on Hinduism its not so bad since you can try again for Judiasm. The two don't matter since all you get is happyness and culture from them, but if we were a peaceful civ there is a big difference between Leaves and Overlord. So the only way to get the religion you want currently is to found it or get lucky enough that whoever beat you to it spreads it to your cities. This can take a long time and if they are a continent away it may never happen.

The second differnce is that religions are much more important in FfH. Up to +7 happy people in a city as opposed to +2(3?) from Vanilla. In addition it opens up civic options, adds in new units and each has a differnt bonus associated with it, leaves get ancient forests, Runes gets extra gold from temples Overlords get drowned. Especially early religions bonuses are very important.

Thirdly in Vanilla there was atleast some kind of 'runner up' prize for reasearching a tech in Vanilla. Since there were very few dead ends in Vanilla every tech lead to something else. In FfH if you reasearch runes and don't get it then that was wasted reasearch since the ONLY thing that tech does is let you build stuff for that religion (the wonder with Ashen Viel being the only exception I can think of)

Winning a tech is still very important as you get the holy city and can easily spread the religion in your lands. Most importantly you can build the wonder for that religon. Giving the 'Runners up' a disciple is a way to allow your civ not to be too badly hurt. Obviously this is much more important in multiplayer then in single.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

One of the main problems in FfH that differs from vanilla is that the religions are different. If you miss out on Hinduism its not so bad since you can try again for Judiasm. The two don't matter since all you get is happyness and culture from them, but if we were a peaceful civ there is a big difference between Leaves and Overlord. So the only way to get the religion you want currently is to found it or get lucky enough that whoever beat you to it spreads it to your cities. This can take a long time and if they are a continent away it may never happen.

The second differnce is that religions are much more important in FfH. Up to +7 happy people in a city as opposed to +2(3?) from Vanilla. In addition it opens up civic options, adds in new units and each has a differnt bonus associated with it, leaves get ancient forests, Runes gets extra gold from temples Overlords get drowned. Especially early religions bonuses are very important.

Thirdly in Vanilla there was atleast some kind of 'runner up' prize for reasearching a tech in Vanilla. Since there were very few dead ends in Vanilla every tech lead to something else. In FfH if you reasearch runes and don't get it then that was wasted reasearch since the ONLY thing that tech does is let you build stuff for that religion (the wonder with Ashen Viel being the only exception I can think of)

Winning a tech is still very important as you get the holy city and can easily spread the religion in your lands. Most importantly you can build the wonder for that religon. Giving the 'Runners up' a disciple is a way to allow your civ not to be too badly hurt. Obviously this is much more important in multiplayer then in single.

Well said.

 

[Kael]

One of the main problems in FfH that differs from vanilla is that the religions are different. If you miss out on Hinduism its not so bad since you can try again for Judiasm. The two don't matter since all you get is happyness and culture from them, but if we were a peaceful civ there is a big difference between Leaves and Overlord. So the only way to get the religion you want currently is to found it or get lucky enough that whoever beat you to it spreads it to your cities. This can take a long time and if they are a continent away it may never happen.

The second differnce is that religions are much more important in FfH. Up to +7 happy people in a city as opposed to +2(3?) from Vanilla. In addition it opens up civic options, adds in new units and each has a differnt bonus associated with it, leaves get ancient forests, Runes gets extra gold from temples Overlords get drowned. Especially early religions bonuses are very important.

Thirdly in Vanilla there was atleast some kind of 'runner up' prize for reasearching a tech in Vanilla. Since there were very few dead ends in Vanilla every tech lead to something else. In FfH if you reasearch runes and don't get it then that was wasted reasearch since the ONLY thing that tech does is let you build stuff for that religion (the wonder with Ashen Viel being the only exception I can think of)

Winning a tech is still very important as you get the holy city and can easily spread the religion in your lands. Most importantly you can build the wonder for that religon. Giving the 'Runners up' a disciple is a way to allow your civ not to be too badly hurt. Obviously this is much more important in multiplayer then in single.

You guys all make good points. BUt I have a few concerns:

1. Is it weird that A civ may found a religion and then halfway around the world, in a civ they havent even met, a city shows up on their radar because it knows the religion too?

2. Should religions be this easy to specify or is a little randomness better? Do we want a player to just be able to pick that he wants runes and get it (with the only difference being if get the holy city or not?).

But I do agree that its not fun to be researching a religion you want and miss out on it by a few turns and have wasted all that effort.

I would consider returning the research to the player as the most balanced option but it seems out of flavor. In vanilla civ religions are founded by ideas. In FfH they are founded by gods, so its easier to grasp that seperate civs could start worshiping the same religion without any knowledge of each other (since they are just just follwoing the same divine teaching).

And I guess I could see that the place with the holy city would get some knowledge of the other civ just through their divine connection.

So I guess I could see that when a religion tech is founded, if the player doesn't already have the religion in one of his cities (and hes not agnostic) he could get the religion in a random city.

Anyone think thats a bad idea?

 

[Chandrasekhar]

You guys all make good points. BUt I have a few concerns:

1. Is it weird that A civ may found a religion and then halfway around the world, in a civ they havent even met, a city shows up on their radar because it knows the religion too?

2. Should religions be this easy to specify or is a little randomness better? Do we want a player to just be able to pick that he wants runes and get it (with the only difference being if get the holy city or not?).

But I do agree that its not fun to be researching a religion you want and miss out on it by a few turns and have wasted all that effort.

I would consider returning the research to the player as the most balanced option but it seems out of flavor. In vanilla civ religions are founded by ideas. In FfH they are founded by gods, so its easier to grasp that seperate civs could start worshiping the same religion without any knowledge of each other (since they are just just follwoing the same divine teaching).

And I guess I could see that the place with the holy city would get some knowledge of the other civ just through their divine connection.

So I guess I could see that when a religion tech is founded, if the player doesn't already have the religion in one of his cities (and hes not agnostic) he could get the religion in a random city.

Anyone think thats a bad idea?

I'd prefer a free disciple, but they amount to pretty much the same thing. Perhaps also make it so that they get no religion or disciple if they have a state religion?