Starting Religions, History Rewritten

[Xyth]

Actually I might have found some code that I could adapt to solve the AI issue with Great Prophets...

EDIT: Ugh, maybe not. Still, might open up some other possibilities. Shall experiment.

 

[Howard Mahler]

This would be very good.
Three options for the expected number of religions per civilizations:
1/2, 1, 3/2.
The options would presumably be described verbally rather than numerically, such as:
few, average, lots.

I like such player options!
As long as we are discussing this, I would like a player option to change the rate of science for all civilizations in the game. (I would like it to be somewhat slower.)

In its simplest form it would just result in a factor applied to the cost of all techs. A factor greater than one for slower than average science, and a factor less than one for faster than average science. Probably better would be to have a factor of one for Ancient Techs, and factors that got successively further from one as we went to later eras.

What I'd like to do (if I can figure out how) is let the player decide via a game option. Those that want to play with fewer religions than civs can, as can those who'd like to play with more. Perhaps then the default should be 1 religion per civ.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I do not understand.
In BTS when a religion is founded by a civilization doesn't the program have to check for which city becomes the holy city?

(I am ignorant of the programming.)

"I should also mention that another reason I like cultural expansion as a trigger is that they are done per city. This removes the need to add additional code to check which cities are eligible and then somehow select which becomes the holy city - which would be needed with a civilization-wide trigger."

 

[Howard Mahler]

Now that you reminded me of it, I like Ceremonial Burial better.


"As for techs, I was thinking of bringing back "Ceremonial Burial" but "Ancestor Worship" might work too."

 

[Howard Mahler]

While this might work, I think it is inherently very tricky.

Assume you want solely for discussion an average of 1.5 religion per civilization, and assume there will be on average 30 culture checks per civilization.
Then the average probability of success would have to be 5%.

A Binomial Distribution with parameters 30 and 5% has a mean of 1.5 and a standard deviation of 1.19.

As you point out the probability of success would vary.
Solely for discussion, let us take the sum of two Binomials, one with parameters 5 and 20%, and the other with parameters 25 and 2%.
Again the mean is 1.5 and now the standard deviation is 1.14.

While the standard deviation would vary somewhat for adding up several different Binomials, you still have a relatively large amount of random fluctuation.
It is inherent in having a large number of checks to see if a religion is founded and a desired small mean.

The negative feedback, the more religions have been founded the less likely additional ones will be founded, will cut down on the randomness somewhat. I think you would have to make this negative feedback effect very, very big in order for what you are proposing to work reasonably well.

"That's why I want to manipulate the chances in a relatively transparent way so that they are large in some circumstances and much smaller in others. Here's some completely made up and inaccurate numbers for an example:

Base chance: 10%
Spiritual trait: +10%
Each religion in the city: -25%
Already a holy city: -50%
State religion: -20%
Cemetery: +10%
Other buildings: +10%
Royal Cemetery: +20%
Rationalism civic: -50%
Free Religion civic: +10%
Ancient religious tech: +10%
Classical religious tech: +10%
Medieval religious tech: +10%
Certain later techs: -10%

So the idea is that the player can build up the chance reasonably high if they desire but once religions start spreading the chance drops off considerably, often below zero."

 

[Xyth]

This would be very good.
Three options for the expected number of religions per civilizations:
1/2, 1, 3/2.
The options would presumably be described verbally rather than numerically, such as:
few, average, lots.

I like such player options!

Yeah that's pretty much exactly how I'd like to do it too. The only issue atm is that I don't know how to add a option to the game setup screen, in fact I suspect it's not possible at all. I could probably add a small options screen at the start of the game though.

As long as we are discussing this, I would like a player option to change the rate of science for all civilizations in the game. (I would like it to be somewhat slower.)

In its simplest form it would just result in a factor applied to the cost of all techs. A factor greater than one for slower than average science, and a factor less than one for faster than average science. Probably better would be to have a factor of one for Ancient Techs, and factors that got successively further from one as we went to later eras.

I'll see how my new tech tree turns out. Basically I'm going with an approach of a lot more techs per era; each tech will be similar in cost to standard BTS but many more will be required to advance through the eras and what is unlocked (units, buildings, civics, etc) will be more spread out across them. Atm I'm working on the Ancient to Renaissance section, I'll post a design preview when it's a bit more complete.

As for a tech cost factor, this might be possible to do by creating custom game speeds (changing tech cost but not production costs, etc). I've never really looked at the related xml files but I'll make a note to do so when I start implementing the tech tree.

I do not understand.
In BTS when a religion is founded by a civilization doesn't the program have to check for which city becomes the holy city?

(I am ignorant of the programming.)

The routine that chooses a city seems to be locked away somewhere inside the DLL alongside the AI. In Python (which I'll be using for this) I have to specify which city to make the holy city. Founding a religion doesn't automatically grant a holy city for some reason, though creating a holy city automatically founds the matching religion. Kinda strange, but workable.

While this might work, I think it is inherently very tricky.

Assume you want solely for discussion an average of 1.5 religion per civilization, and assume there will be on average 30 culture checks per civilization.
Then the average probability of success would have to be 5%.

A Binomial Distribution with parameters 30 and 5% has a mean of 1.5 and a standard deviation of 1.19.

As you point out the probability of success would vary.
Solely for discussion, let us take the sum of two Binomials, one with parameters 5 and 20%, and the other with parameters 25 and 2%.
Again the mean is 1.5 and now the standard deviation is 1.14.

While the standard deviation would vary somewhat for adding up several different Binomials, you still have a relatively large amount of random fluctuation.
It is inherent in having a large number of checks to see if a religion is founded and a desired small mean.

The negative feedback, the more religions have been founded the less likely additional ones will be founded, will cut down on the randomness somewhat. I think you would have to make this negative feedback effect very, very big in order for what you are proposing to work reasonably well.

I haven't got time to respond to this post fully (taking my son swimming) so I'll come back to it later today. A quick thought though:

After some more thought I think what I'll do is have a cities base chance to found a religion be 0. However, I will make the Palace give a certain % chance so that the capital can found a religion relatively early. Additional cities will have to build a Cemetery or other such building to be eligible. I think this would cut down on the randomness a lot in favour of more player decision making.

I haven't thought through the longer term implications of this yet, please let me know how you feel this could/couldn't work

 

[Xyth]

Reviving this topic since it's what I'm currently working on. I think I've finally got a much simpler and more realistic solution that will work. It's much closer to what you were proposing too, Howard. Here's a quick rundown:

• A religion is founded when a Great Prophet is born in a city
• That city becomes the holy city for the chosen religion
• The Great Prophet can then be used as normal
• All Shrines will require a certain tech so that they can't be built too early
• Maximum number of religions will scale with number of civilizations on map (probably 1:1 by default)
• I hope to add a setting so the player can define a different maximum number of religions (0 - 18) if they wish
• I'll also add a 'one holy city per civilization' option
• I'm considering having Great Prophets build Cathedrals too, to give them more late game use
• I haven't yet decided on a way for GPP to be generated from game start but there are plenty of possibilities (specialists, buildings, civics, wonders, etc)

The most important aspect of all this is that the AI will understand it (because it's a result of the Prophet being generated rather than from any action of the Prophet itself). Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Assuming that the automatic holy city when a Great Prophet is born is the best way to get the AI involved, is there some way for the Great Prophet to then also "vanish."
Otherwise, your proposal would make Great Prophets too strong in the early game.

What I am thinking is that the first thing the computer checks is can the Great Prophet found a holy city (checks whatever restrictions exist such as maximum number of religions, whether the civilization owns another holy city, etc.)
Then if the Great Prophet can, it is used up to found the holy city; no choice for the either the player or AI.

Let me know when you have zeroed in more on how to generate Great Prophet Points early in the game.

I like the idea of more for Great Prophets to do in the later game.
Given the relatively small cost in shields for a Cathedral, I am not sure this option would be used very often, but then it would just be an option.
Perhaps something to help spread the religion. A possibility would be using up the Great Prophet spreads the religion to X cities. (There are random events that do this; maybe half yours and half foreign cities.) This ability might require a certain tech or civic, so it could only be available later in game (Middle Ages.)

Reviving this topic since it's what I'm currently working on. I think I've finally got a much simpler and more realistic solution that will work. It's much closer to what you were proposing too, Howard. Here's a quick rundown:

• A religion is founded when a Great Prophet is born in a city
• That city becomes the holy city for the chosen religion
• The Great Prophet can then be used as normal
• All Shrines will require a certain tech so that they can't be built too early
• Maximum number of religions will scale with number of civilizations on map (probably 1:1 by default)
• I hope to add a setting so the player can define a different maximum number of religions (0 - 18) if they wish
• I'll also add a 'one holy city per civilization' option
• I'm considering having Great Prophets build Cathedrals too, to give them more late game use
• I haven't yet decided on a way for GPP to be generated from game start but there are plenty of possibilities (specialists, buildings, civics, wonders, etc)

The most important aspect of all this is that the AI will understand it (because it's a result of the Prophet being generated rather than from any action of the Prophet itself). Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions.

 

[Xyth]

Assuming that the automatic holy city when a Great Prophet is born is the best way to get the AI involved, is there some way for the Great Prophet to then also "vanish."
Otherwise, your proposal would make Great Prophets too strong in the early game.

I'm pretty sure that's possible, good suggestion.

I like the idea of more for Great Prophets to do in the later game.
Given the relatively small cost in shields for a Cathedral, I am not sure this option would be used very often, but then it would just be an option.
Perhaps something to help spread the religion. A possibility would be using up the Great Prophet spreads the religion to X cities. (There are random events that do this; maybe half yours and half foreign cities.) This ability might require a certain tech or civic, so it could only be available later in game (Middle Ages.)

Also a good suggestion. I haven't worked with the event system much yet but I can't see any obvious reason why that wouldn't be possible. I might leave this aspect until after 0.9 though, I still have a lot to get done without starting something like this as well.

Let me know when you have zeroed in more on how to generate Great Prophet Points early in the game.

I decided that adding GPP directly to buildings such as the Monument would be unbalanced; they'd still be generating GPP long after all religions have been founded, and because you can build one in each city that means a LOT more great people overall. I think achieving it via Priest specialists is the way to go.

In my mind the buildings that could make sense to attach priest slots to are the Palace, Monument, Cemetery and/or Baths (I plan on adding the latter two). All are available early. Spiritual leaders already get a free Priest slot in each city which helps them get an early start.

My main concern is that the AI won't value filling those priest slots early enough since it won't value priests as highly as a player (because the AI doesn't actually realize that's how religions are founded, just that Prophets are great to have eventually). Because of this I'm tempted to replace the priest specialist's +1 with +1 . This would make them easier and more desirable to employ sooner. I'm still thinking through the wider implications of this though.

Finally, maybe it's worthwhile to have a couple 'backup methods' of founding a religion available as well. I could leave in 1 technology that founds a religion to the first civ to research it, and maybe a religion-founding wonder also.

 

[davidtylr]

I am not into programing so this might sound stupid but can you have hidden technologies that are not on the tec tree and the great profit can give you that technology which comes with the religion.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I think making the priest +1 food is a bad idea.
As a player +1 hammer is usually more valuable than +1 food.

As I understand it, you will make it so that a player can found at most one religion.
Thus I would try the priest as is and see whether the AI founds religions.
I suspect they will.

I do not particularly like the priest slot for palaces.
Not sure about Baths; seems more like a merchant slot if anything.
Cemetery makes sense.
As has been discussed, adding a priest slot should increase the hammers to build the Monument.

Having a single wonder that founds a religion is not a bad idea, assuming the AI will sometimes try to build it.

I would move away from techs totally.

I decided that adding GPP directly to buildings such as the Monument would be unbalanced; they'd still be generating GPP long after all religions have been founded, and because you can build one in each city that means a LOT more great people overall. I think achieving it via Priest specialists is the way to go.

In my mind the buildings that could make sense to attach priest slots to are the Palace, Monument, Cemetery and/or Baths (I plan on adding the latter two). All are available early. Spiritual leaders already get a free Priest slot in each city which helps them get an early start.

My main concern is that the AI won't value filling those priest slots early enough since it won't value priests as highly as a player (because the AI doesn't actually realize that's how religions are founded, just that Prophets are great to have eventually). Because of this I'm tempted to replace the priest specialist's +1 with +1 . This would make them easier and more desirable to employ sooner. I'm still thinking through the wider implications of this though.

Finally, maybe it's worthwhile to have a couple 'backup methods' of founding a religion available as well. I could leave in 1 technology that founds a religion to the first civ to research it, and maybe a religion-founding wonder also.

 

[Xyth]

I am not into programing so this might sound stupid but can you have hidden technologies that are not on the tec tree and the great profit can give you that technology which comes with the religion.

I considered this approach but I couldn't find a way to restrict the hidden technologies to just the Great Prophet or 'obsolete' them after their religion had been founded (same problem with buildings actually). There's also AI issues as I'd have to create a custom action button/command to grant the tech and getting the AI to understand such things is a nightmare.

I think making the priest +1 food is a bad idea.
As a player +1 hammer is usually more valuable than +1 food.

Thus I would try the priest as is and see whether the AI founds religions.
I suspect they will.

Yeah I will definitely test it before making any changes to the specialist. The reason I suggest granting food is that the largest impediment to employing specialists is the potentially stifling effect on growth. I'll worry about this if necessary after testing.

As I understand it, you will make it so that a player can found at most one religion.

That will be an option, disabled by default. Civs can found as many religions as they can but the total number of religions will be scaled with mapsize. By default there'll be 3 religions on a 3 civ map, 12 religions on a 12 civ map, etc.

I do not particularly like the priest slot for palaces.

Neither, that's just a convenient way of having a priest slot right from the start of the game. I don't think it will be necessary though.

Not sure about Baths; seems more like a merchant slot if anything.

Baths had important ritual functions in ancient societies like the Harrappans and Minoans; I was thinking of this more than Roman Baths and such. Still, I think Monument and Cemetery are better choices and ideally 2 buildings should be enough.

As has been discussed, adding a priest slot should increase the hammers to build the Monument.

Yes. Incidentally Mysticism (and thus the Monument) is becoming a 2nd tier tech, requiring Calendar and Ceremonial Burial. The Cemetery will require Ceremonial Burial and Stonehenge will require Calendar. Stonehenge is going to become a very desirable wonder in terms of founding religions, it generates GPP for prophets and gives a Monument in every city. Because of this I'm thinking that a wonder that automatically founds a religion would be superfluous.

However I'd like like there to be a second wonder with similar level of advantages to Stonehenge, to create a choice similar to how deciding whether to go Meditation or Polytheism is in standard BTS. I'm wanting to add the Nazca Lines so this seems to be the best choice, though I do intend to redesign the Pyramids too so that's possibly an option as well.

Finally I'll probably rethink the Royal Cemetery a bit one the Cemetery is in. So that could potentially have an effect as well.

 

[Xyth]

I'm making good progress on getting this all implemented. However, due to some unavoidable technical restrictions I cannot make it so that the Great Prophet that founds the religion is deleted.

What I will do to compensate for this is make all the Shrines require X number of religious buildings (still deciding how many) before they can built - so you can't found a religion and get the shrine all in one turn.

The Great Prophet can still be used to help trigger a golden age, lightbulb or settle as a super specialist however and there isn't really any way of changing any of this. I don't think this will too much of an issue though, I'll see how it goes in testing.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Too bad.

A possibility to consider.
Can you take away the ability of the Great Prophet to found the shrine?

Then the shrine could require for example the magic number of temples plus the magic number of monasteries of the proper religion. (Magic number equals number of courthouses to build forbidden palace. I do not know if this is too much of a requirement. Could instead require a small number of cathedrals, but this would delay the building of shrine much longer.)
Then you still have to build the shrine using a lot of hammers.

This would weaken the Great Prophets, but they were strengthened with the ability to found religions.
Not sure this would be a good idea, but worth thinking about.

Alternately, you can use either hammers or a Great Prophet to build the shrine, similar to what you have done with the academy.

I'm making good progress on getting this all implemented. However, due to some unavoidable technical restrictions I cannot make it so that the Great Prophet that founds the religion is deleted.

What I will do to compensate for this is make all the Shrines require X number of religious buildings (still deciding how many) before they can built - so you can't found a religion and get the shrine all in one turn.

The Great Prophet can still be used to help trigger a golden age, lightbulb or settle as a super specialist however and there isn't really any way of changing any of this. I don't think this will too much of an issue though, I'll see how it goes in testing.

 

[Xyth]

Well I've been doing a fair bit of testing and I have a system that seems to be working well:

• Religions are founded when a Great Prophet is generated
• Maximum number of religions scales 1:1 with number of starting civs (civs can still found more than 1 religion)
• The Cemetery (requires Ceremonial Burial) costs 40 , grants 1 health and a free Priest specialist and is necessary to generate the first Great Prophet
• The Cemetery currently obsoletes with Biology (but I might make this earlier)
• Shrines are no longer built by Great Prophets, instead they require 2 Great Temples (and thus 4 Temples) and cost 500 to build
• Great Prophets build Great Temples (which still require Priesthood and 2 Temples) instead, making them more useful in the mid to late game

(Reminder: Great Temples are Cathedrals renamed to be less religion specific)

I decided to go with a free priest specialist rather than just a priest specialist slot because, as I suspected, the AI would rarely make use of such a slot as it stifles early growth. This way I didn't need to make any changes to the priest specialist and neither did I need to change the Monument or other building as 1 free priest per city was enough. Wonders like Stonehenge help as well.

I'd still like to make the maximum number of religions player adjustable but that might have to wait til after 0.9.

I need to redesign the Spiritual trait a bit as faster building of Great Temples becomes irrelevant in this new system. At the moment Philosophical leaders are quickest to found a religion due to their GPP bonus. I'll probably give them faster building of Cemeteries for sure, but I'm not sure if anything else is needed yet.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Sounds Good.
A few comments:

Ignoring the founding of religions, a Cemetery seems at least as useful as a Monastery (60 hammers), Temple (80 hammers) or Aqueduct (100 hammers).
You should consider raising the cost in hammers a lot from 40.
70 or 80 hammers seems worth a try.

I think that the health advantage of Cemetery should not obsolete, but I could see the free priest obsoleting, probably sooner than Biology.

Spiritual leaders could have faster building of Shrines.

Currently you can build a Great Temple for Hammers, 300 on a standard map, double production with stone.
(I believe that the number of Temples needed for a Great Temple scales with map size. In any case, it is 4 on a huge map.)
If that will continue, it is unlikely that I would often use a Great Prophet to build a Great Temple.
I would not like Great Temples to only be able to built by a Great Prophet; I think this would be a bad change.
I think it would be better to find something else useful for Great Prophets to do.

As mentioned, an alternative is to a allow a Great Prophet to convert an appropriate number of cities (domestic or foreign) to the state religion. If you have tried this and it can not be made to work, I apologize for bringing it up again.

Well I've been doing a fair bit of testing and I have a system that seems to be working well:

• Religions are founded when a Great Prophet is generated
• Maximum number of religions scales 1:1 with number of starting civs (civs can still found more than 1 religion)
• The Cemetery (requires Ceremonial Burial) costs 40 , grants 1 health and a free Priest specialist and is necessary to generate the first Great Prophet
• The Cemetery currently obsoletes with Biology (but I might make this earlier)
• Shrines are no longer built by Great Prophets, instead they require 2 Great Temples (and thus 4 Temples) and cost 500 to build
• Great Prophets build Great Temples (which still require Priesthood and 2 Temples) instead, making them more useful in the mid to late game

(Reminder: Great Temples are Cathedrals renamed to be less religion specific)

I decided to go with a free priest specialist rather than just a priest specialist slot because, as I suspected, the AI would rarely make use of such a slot as it stifles early growth. This way I didn't need to make any changes to the priest specialist and neither did I need to change the Monument or other building as 1 free priest per city was enough. Wonders like Stonehenge help as well.

I'd still like to make the maximum number of religions player adjustable but that might have to wait til after 0.9.

I need to redesign the Spiritual trait a bit as faster building of Great Temples becomes irrelevant in this new system. At the moment Philosophical leaders are quickest to found a religion due to their GPP bonus. I'll probably give them faster building of Cemeteries for sure, but I'm not sure if anything else is needed yet.

 

[Xyth]

Ignoring the founding of religions, a Cemetery seems at least as useful as a Monastery (60 hammers), Temple (80 hammers) or Aqueduct (100 hammers).
You should consider raising the cost in hammers a lot from 40.
70 or 80 hammers seems worth a try.

Yeah I came to that conclusion recently as well. For the moment I've raised it to 60 hammers and I'll see how that goes. I worry that if I raise the cost too far the AI won't build it as readily, but I'll push it higher if this isn't a problem.

I think that the health advantage of Cemetery should not obsolete, but I could see the free priest obsoleting, probably sooner than Biology.

There's no way to make them obsolete separately.

Spiritual leaders could have faster building of Shrines

I like this idea but it's not quite as easy to implement as I thought it would be. I'll figure it out though.

Currently you can build a Great Temple for Hammers, 300 on a standard map, double production with stone.
(I believe that the number of Temples needed for a Great Temple scales with map size. In any case, it is 4 on a huge map.)
If that will continue, it is unlikely that I would often use a Great Prophet to build a Great Temple.
I would not like Great Temples to only be able to built by a Great Prophet; I think this would be a bad change.

I am intending Great Temples to be built only by a Great Prophet. Why do you think this would be a bad change? The temple requirement is something easily changed/adjusted/removed.

I think it would be better to find something else useful for Great Prophets to do.

As mentioned, an alternative is to a allow a Great Prophet to convert an appropriate number of cities (domestic or foreign) to the state religion. If you have tried this and it can not be made to work, I apologize for bringing it up again.

I still like this idea and I will certainly try it out, but it will have to wait til after 0.9 is done as it would take me quite a while to implement and test.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Great Temples (Cathedrals) are one of the standard buildings.
Some games I build none, but other games I build as many as I can (given the restriction of needing Temples.)

It is uncommon to get that many great prophets. (That should increase somewhat with cemeteries.) Regardless of the expected number, there is a lot of random fluctuation in which great persons one gets.

Great Prophets will be still be useful for starting or helping to start a golden age, and for lightbulbing some techs.
You can also add them to a city, although I tend not to do that myself.
Most of the time, these will be more useful than building a Great Temple.

The main reason to use a Great Prophet to build a Great Temple, is if you are trying to get two Great Temples to build the Shrine. However, there is no way to be sure that you will ever get another great prophet if you use one to build your first Great Temple.

Under your proposal the only way to build the Shrine is to get and use two Great Prophets to build Great Temples.
(You can save the Great Prophet that founded the religion for a while until you can use it to build a Great Temple.
Opportunity cost. In that case, it will be one of the needed two.)

Thus I believe your proposal will just set the player up for a needlessly frustrating time if he tries to build the shrine.

Otherwise, in most cases there are better uses of a Great Prophet.

I am intending Great Temples to be built only by a Great Prophet. Why do you think this would be a bad change? The temple requirement is something easily changed/adjusted/removed.

 

[KaneofEgypt]

I'm definitely no modder, and this idea may have been mentioned already and shot down, but why not have Great Prophets specific to the empires in the game. What I mean is if you play as the Chinese Empire, and your first great prophet is born, it would be Confucius. He would only have the ability to found Confucianism, and as China you would only be able to found religions specific to China until you ran out. A downside to this would be if you played as say, Portugal, which founded no religions at all. Maybe factoring in the religion of most of the population could work, but that would be a lot of labor. Also, with a country like America, or any with free religion this could cause a lot of debate and anger.
I dunno, just the thoughts that go through my head...

 

[Simon_Jester]

Because this would be a lot of work, that's why it probably won't be done.