Strongest and Weakest Beliefs

[Thalassicus]

What are the most and least useful beliefs in each belief category? (A pantheon that's strong compared to other pantheon options, for example.)

You can just name your choices, or include a short explanations, whatever you feel comfortable with.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

1. +2 production per fishing boat (god of sea?). This thing is beyond insane in the right conditions.
2. +1% production (up to 20%) per follower (religious community). With me loving going both Wide'n'tall this thing really helps.
3. Monasteries. +4 science and other minor stuff makes it very worth the faith. Insane thing.
4. Reliquary - make a great prophet, get a half of another great prophet/great person/faith building free. Insane thing.
Honourable mention to the 5th - +forgothowmuch% Food Surplus Belief. The problem is I never take it because other, more situational beliefs are stronger in their right situations - and a right situation for one of them happens pretty much every game.

Least useful:
1. God-King. +1 of (almost) everything in your capital is just a bad joke compared to all the alternatives
2. This weird founder belief that helps you spread the religion but gives no benefits for doing so.
3. That another weird founder belief that does the same as nr 2.
4. Pretty much every BNW-originating pantheon belief (they seem to be the same as in regular BNW while almost every other pantheon belief was buffed, making them seem very underwhelming in comparison)

 

[EricB]

1. Monument to the Gods isn't useful long enough. I'd weaken it and make it last longer.

2. Fertility rites a bit too strong.

In general beliefs giving culture are too strong such as:
3. Ancestor Worship
4. Choral Music (way too strong for Choral Music)
5. World Church too strong
6. Pilgrimage too strong

7. Peace Loving (happiness belief) is also too strong

8. Monasteries too strong (and should probably be in the same group with Pagodas, Mosques, etc)


Ones that stand out as too weak are fewer in number (maybe because I rarely if ever have picked them and don't notice them as much).
1. Tears of the Gods
2. Pagodas is too weak and should give more happiness
3. Sacred waters is too situational so should give +2 happiness instead of +1


Overall, the biggest issue with beliefs are the ones giving culture. They distort the culture/tourism dynamic too much and should be weakened. But mostly I like the balance in the beliefs with those few exceptions.

 

[Ahriman]

Pantheon:
Fertility rites is extremely strong, one of the best of all beliefs, let alone pantheon beliefs. At 15% it would still be very good. Still decent at 10%.
Oral tradition is strong, it affects too many different tiles (bananas, sugar, dyes, cotton, wine, incense,

Earth mother is weak, copper and iron are rare, though salt can sometimes cluster. Add gold and silver maybe?
God-King is weak.
Messenger of the gods feels fairly weak.
Religious idols seems weaker than most because gold and silver rarely cluster, unlike many other luxuries.
Stone circles is a bit weak: marble is rare and doesn't cluster, stone is fairly rare.

Founder:
My main complaint is that founder beliefs should be the most powerful beliefs, and should all (or nearly all) reward you for having a widely spread religion, either to many citizens, to many cities, to many foreign citizens/cities, or similar. Many of the beliefs here don't belong as founder beliefs, and some that do belong as founder beliefs aren't here.

Charitable missions doesn't belong here (it's a good follower belief).
Holy order doesn't belong here, and is very weak as a belief in general.
Initiation rites feels a bit weak but I haven't really used it.
Interfaith dialog just feels like a dud policy, too hard to use, and weak.
Messiah feels weak and doesn't belong as a founder belief.

None of them really feel strong - when they should be, these are the rewards for religious founding.

Follower beliefs:
Many of the things which should be follower beliefs are not, and some things that are follower beliefs should be elsewhere.

Choral music is too strong. We're adding too much culture in general to the mod, which makes tourism too hard, and devalues culture in general by making it too easy to get.
Feed the world is much too strong.
Sacred sites is potentially strong, but doesn't feel like it works as a follower belief: this would be a good, specialized reformation belief.
Swords into ploughshares is good, but mostly because it's very easy to avoid war at the moment.

Heathen conversion seems weak to me in general, though I know some people have found it useful.
Holy warriors is great in concept but the pre-industrial is frustrating. Could it be pre-modern, at least?

Enhancer beliefs:
Overall most enhancer beliefs seem fairly weak: just war, itinerant preachers, religious texts, religious unity and reliquary seem like the only ones ever worth taking.

Just war is too strong: you basically quadrupled the value of these beliefs by combining the offensive/defensive and doubling the bonus. I'd revert to 20% bonus then it's probably fine.

Evangelism seems weak but I've never really used it.
Underground sect seems incredibly weak.
Unity of the prophets seems fairly weak, but I've never used it.

Reformation beliefs:
Many of the things which should be follower beliefs are here. It's weird to put so many generally useful beliefs into requiring the entire Piety tree.
In my view reformation beliefs should be about either boosting the overall value of having a widely spread religion (like founder beliefs), or should help you to turn religion to support a particular victory condition or specialist playstyle (city states, tourism, tall, wide, conquest, etc.).

Cathedrals, pagodas, mosques should be follower beliefs.

Courage, Jesuit education, thrift, Religious fervor, work ethic seem fine - though jesuit education is probably the strongest of these (more important expensive late-game buildings that you want in lots of places).
To the Glory of God seems a bit narrow.

 

[Hawawaa]

Too Strong:
Fertility Rights- make it 20%
Reliquary- 400 Faith. Ya this plus Holy Warriors fun times.
Choral Music- +5 culture for 5-6 followers

Too Weak:
Sacred Waters- +2 happiness on rivers
God-King- same plus 2nd city gets +1 faith, production and science
Underground Sect- add something to it. When you steal tech you get something else and your diplomats give you something.
Want to combined Tears of the Gods and Stone Circles? Also combined Religious Idols and Stone Circles. . And Earth mother + Stone Circles. These ones rarely work out but with these changes they would work out way more.
Pagodas- ya buff happiness

Agree with Ahriman and Eric.

I wish founding religions spreads it to all your cities automatically, capping it spreads it to your CS allies and any new cities that you built(only happens once).

 

[agc28]

Pantheon
Too strong: +2Food Camp, +2Prod boat, Fertility rites
Too weak: God-King (WTH), One with Nature (1 of FPSGCF is too weak...2 of FPSG is probably balanced), Wine+Incense

Founder
Interfaith dialogue: It has a fleeting window of opportunity. If possible, we should have 15 science per era...instead of 50 flat...If we cannot technically make this happen, then maybe 80 flat is okay. Remember we ARE paying faith (missionary) for science. Also, considering how difficult it is to perform this, maybe even 100 flat is okay.

Initiation: 300 G upon first introduction to a city, maybe?

Followers:
The +25% Food surplus when not at war should be changed to something completely different


Enhancer too strong:
Too strong: Reliquary

Reformation:

Windmill is no longer a building? Can we fix the text tooltip for one of the beliefs?
Why can't we build observatories using the science reformation belief?

 

[EricB]

Just wanted to comment on the Initiation rites belief...

I never really used it much. It looked really weak, so I buffed it to 300 gold when a religion spreads to a new city, then tried it out. It was INSANELY powerful at 300 gold. It's probably good to leave at 200 gold. It's one of those things that looks weak on the surface, but in practice not so much.

What happens is that you get your religion up and going. You get 200 gold each time it spreads to a new city. That's a nice chunk of change. You spread it to some city states and maybe a couple neighboring civs and it's a bit more. Then, a rival religion starts gaining some ground in a neighboring civilization. They convert their cities to their religion and maybe they flip some city states. You go back and spread your religion again and BAM another 200 gold each time.

It's not just 200 gold the first time it spreads to a city like I thought it would be. It's 200 gold every time. If you're on a map where there are many competing religions and no dominant one, then it's a very good belief.

 

[mystikx21]

Ahriman, I don't know if I updated the wiki page after there were some minor adjustments to a few of these. But I think feed the world came down to +2 food for shrine/temple instead of +3. It's still really powerful, but +3 was ridiculously strong.

In general I would say the present setup looks like this

Pantheons have a lot of really overpowered beliefs. Pantheons should be potentially powerful long term or immediately useful effects but it has several that are some of the best religious effects in the game flat out.

Founder beliefs are generally not great. Founder beliefs should be some of the best religious effects flat out. These should also be benefits for your own empire mostly (tithing as an example is gold for you) rather than benefits concerning spreading it faster. That feels like an enhancement or reformation choice.

Follower beliefs some don't make sense as follower effects, but mostly the issue is that there are only a handful here that are really powerful.

Enhancers have several good ones and some duds. This is in some sense fine. There should be some advantage for getting to enhance sooner but the duds shouldn't be so weak that there's no reason to enhance.

Reformation effects should probably be altered to make piety do things with faith generation or religious effects that we couldn't already do rather than make it a self-contained way to make faith generation useful at all.

I would say virtually any belief that impacts food generation, food resources, or culture generation that has been enhanced by the mod needs to be toned down. Happiness is probably fine as is other than moving pagodas et al out of reformation effects.

Specifics
Initiation rites is probably okay as is at 200. Tithing would beat it in a marathon game (more turns between conversions for gold to pile up), but they're more even in a normal game speed.
Just War also needs to come down to 20-25%.
God King is weak, yes.

 

[Ahriman]

It's not just 200 gold the first time it spreads to a city like I thought it would be. It's 200 gold every time.

Interesting. I had the same assumption as you and I think this deterred me from using it.

Ahriman, I don't know if I updated the wiki page after there were some minor adjustments to a few of these.

My comments are based on the current version I have installed, which is a bit out of date. It doesn't include the latest set of tweaks including feed the world. Feed the world at +2 each is still strong but not insane.

 

[Anastase Alex]

All the founder beliefs that have to do with spread power seem to be unpickable to me: they do not really give any bonus to your civilization. The others seem ok.

The top 4 pantheon beliefs:

+2 faith for every kill = with this you can get the earliest religion ever, and it is the gift that keeps on giving all through the game.

+2 production from fishing boats = when near fish and maritime resources it can be devastating.

religious settlement = late game powerhouse

fertility rites = almost a free aquaduct in each city

Bottom 5 pantheon beliefs:

One with nature: +1 of every yeild for natural wonders is not interesting. It got nerfed at the same time as the Celts unique. It could go back to what it used to be, in order to make it interesting when you start near 2 natural wonders.

Sacred watters and Godess of love: not enough happyness to justify picking it.

Monument to the gods: does not last long enough to be worth it, god of craftsmen gives more of a bonus to wonders

All resource based pantheons: boost only one city or two, rarelly enough to justify taking them over pantheons that will affect you long term. They should be combined probably, or affect improvements instead. +X on farms, mines, quaries, plantations, lumbermills etc etc.

The follower beliefs are ok generally, with the tourism and faith per wonders being the best, and the hermitage one being the least interesting to me. Exception: +25% food when not at war. This could be fixed if the AI tended to go to war with the civs having this belief however...

I wish we returned the religious buildings from reformation beliefs to follower beliefs. I agree with arhiman on the matter of reformation beliefs.

From the enhancer beliefs I concur that reliquary is very easy to abuse. The just war belief also can be very very strong for a warfaring civilization. I tend to get it more often than not when I add god of war.

 

[Tomice]

PANTHEONS:

Weak: basically all that only boost a relatively rare tile are VERY situational
Earth Mother (rare tile)
Goddess of Festivals (rare tile)
Religious Idols (rare tile)
Stone circles (rare tile)
Sun God (this just boosts cities that have enough food anyway)
Tears of the gods (rare tile)
tranquil refuge (rare tile)

Strong: Often those you can actively use to your advantage
Fertility rites (very strong if you play tall)
God of Craftsmen (Sums up greatly in wide empires, allows settling production-poor regions)
God of the Sea (Can be crazy if there are many islands to settle)
Religious settlements (again perfect for wide)

 

[Ahriman]

I would note that some of the large bonuses on some of the that *do* cluster (like oases) can be situationally very powerful.

 

[Tomice]

Well, I never bothered. It might be that getting a nice cluster of boosted tiles can be very helpful in certain situations, but I'm more inclined to take the safe bet - abilities I can repeatedly profit from. Might be different for someone playing tall who really wants the few cities he has to be super-awesome.

 

[Thalassicus]

The team's going to start working on this next, now that we've done some policy and leader balance. If you haven't posted your ideas already, please do so.

 

[WileyNg]

Most useful:
Follower:
1. +1% production (up to 20%) per follower (religious community)
Without a doubt.

2. Holy Warriors

3. Feed the world


Enhancer:
1. Just War
+40%? This is a great help to siege a city.

2. Faith Healer
Another great belief for a defensive game if you are surrounded by aggressive AIs


Pantheon:
1. +25% ancient and classical wonders (pantheon)
I always pick this because I tend to rush wonders in the early game.

2. God of War (pantheon)
Great for aggressive players. The excessive faith could be use for purchasing units with faith. Hence, it works great with holy warriors or one pious belief that allows player to purchase great person

3. Fertility Rites
Pantheon's other belief that improves tiles aren't really a prize. So I guess extra food means something here.


Founder Belief:
1. world church/ peace loving
I always pick either one of them. Their benefits are the best I think. At the end of game I could get about 50 culture or Happieness boost just from religion


Least useful:
Pantheon:
1. I generally agreed with Tomice that the pantheon beliefs that improves rare tile are really unhelpful.


Enhancer:
1. Underground Sect
Really.. Spies exert religious pressure? How many spies do we have? 4 tops. How many cities are there in each game. About 50. So I guess I would put the spies into better use.

2. Unity of the Prophets
I don't understand what this belief does for us.

 

[WileyNg]

BAlso, I think there are much room for improvement to the reformation belief.

It's main use is to use faith to purchase buildings, military units and great person.
I always prefer great persons because of the variety of things I can do with them.

But then it overlaps with the policy finisher which also do the same trick

 

[WileyNg]

Another thing to add, I think percentage bonus is always a better choice considering long term.

 

[ExpiredReign]

...2. Unity of the Prophets
I don't understand what this belief does for us.

The description of it is:

Inquisitors and Prophets reduce this religion's presence by half (instead of eliminating it).

This means whenever an enemy Prophet converts your cities, your religion isn't eliminated, only reduced by half. Likewise when you convert an enemy's city and they send in an Inquisitor to remove your religion it is only reduced by half, not eliminated.

It actually can be a useful belief to take if you are up against strong religious civs that just love sending their missionaries even after you ask them nicely to stop.

Stop sending missionaries and prophets to my cities.

In spite of your protests, your citizens will continue to be enlightened by our missionaries, even though you damn your own people to live in ignorance.

 

[lockstep]

My main peeve with the Religion part of CEG is not any particular weak or strong belief, but the rearrangement of Founder/Follower/Enhancer/Reformation beliefs. I think Firaxis' arrangement is basically okay, and CEG's is inferior. As pointed out by others, I think that, e.g., Cathedrals, Mosques, and Pagodas should (again) be Follower beliefs.

In general, Pantheon beliefs seem to be very strong compared to their unmodded versions, with no obvious (to me) design reason for buffing them. One particularly overpowered belief is God of the Sea (+2 prod for fishing boats).

I don't see the need for the two new Pantheon beliefs Sacred Isles (buffs Atolls) and Tranquil Refuge (buffs Oasis). With regard to the latter: Do we really need a consolidation Pantheon for players who failed to secure Desert Folklore?

 

[Thalassicus]

I like playing a balanced game.

The Piety tree balances faith income (meditation) with expenses (finisher).

The unmodded game is unbalanced. We can increase our income (mandate) increase it more (organized religion) and more (reformation) and more (opener and finisher).