Strongest and Weakest Beliefs

[lockstep]

The unmodded Piety tree is unbalanced, but not necessarily the unmodded arrangement of beliefs.

CEG's Piety somewhat increases faith income, and its Reformation beliefs provide many options for spending faith (other than buying Misssionaries and waiting for Prophets).

I'm asking for a somewhat larger set of useful options for players that didn't choose Piety, but nevertheless have above-average faith income.

 

[mystikx21]

What lockstep said both times.

The beliefs can be balanced somewhat better than in default, but I'm skeptical we have achieved this as there are numerous beliefs that are considerably more powerful without an obvious justification (almost anything generating culture, production, or food for example), while others are not increased. That's a separate problem which I think is more easily addressed in balancing the individual effects of available beliefs.

The problems lockstep identifies are related to this, but basically come down
1) We have a problem with the available order of beliefs in that some beliefs are placed in types that make them overpowering or useless. Pantheon beliefs should be helpful, but not necessarily "god-like" unless you really run out and leverage them. Pick one that really suits the start location, say. Founder beliefs should reward founding a religion over getting a pantheon. And so on down the line.

2) We have a problem over what to do with the piety tree and what to do with the "need" to have it when generating faith associated with religious effects.

We have created options for ways to spend faith, which is good, but we have in rearranging piety created a portion of the game that does not in fact create ways to spend faith except to take the piety tree. We have removed an option from the game by forcing a particular game play style effect.

Piety works better as
a) a way to rapidly acquire or enhance a religion and
b) a way to use that religion and reward the faith accumulating features that went into getting that religion than as a way to resolve problems with the beliefs being imbalanced.

 

[Ahriman]

Another +1 to lockstep and mystikx21. The vanilla arrangement of beliefs is better than that of the mod, and while I think beliefs in vanilla are a bit weak, I'm not convinced that balance in the mod is any better, because some are extremely strong while others are quite weak.

Religion should not be a game mechanic that is only decent for players completing the Piety tree, just as city states should not be a mechanic that is only decent for players completing Patronage, nor warfare only for players completing Honor.

I think it's really important to have a general division of purpose across the belief spots:
Pantheon beliefs are mostly fairly minor, they shouldn't be so powerful that they have huge snowball effects, and they should either have a moderate early game power that gradually becomes less useful (like something which benefits you for the resources or terrain which you have nearby, but then doesn't help much when you expand beyond your area), or a weak early game power that remains relevant all game (like the happiness from 6+ size cities). They should definitely be unamibigously weaker than other beliefs.

Founder beliefs should benefit the founder of a religion from having that religion widely spread, either to many cities, to many believers, to many foreign cities, or whatever.

Follower beliefs should provide general nice bonuses for having that belief in your city.
The religious buildings fit well here (cathedral/pagoda/etc.)

Extender or enhancement beliefs should either give you extra ways of spreading your religion, or resisting the spread of others, or extra bonuses from spread.

Reformation beliefs should offer some new specialist way of using religion; the let you benefit from having a large faith income (the faith purchase for building class X are good reformation beliefs) or let you use religion to support a particular specialist playstyle (eg city state bonuses, tourism from religious buildings, etc).

 

[lockstep]

IMO, beliefs are most fitting as Reformation beliefs if they support a specific victory condition (similar to the level 3 ideology tenets). Therefore, Cathedral & friends (culture/happiness/more faith) are more appropriate as Follower beliefs, while CEP's transformed monastery (science) could arguably be shifted to be a Reformation belief. (EDIT: It's also why Sacred Sites is an exemplary Reformation belief.)

 

[Ahriman]

IMO, beliefs are most fitting as Reformation beliefs if they support a specific victory condition (similar to the level 3 ideology tenets). Therefore, Cathedral & friends (culture/happiness/more faith) are more appropriate as Follower beliefs, while CEP's transformed monastery (science) could arguably be shifted to be a Reformation belief. (EDIT: It's also why Sacred Sites is an exemplary Reformation belief.)

Agreed, this is definitely a great design approach: reformation beliefs should help you really specialize your religious strength into a particular area. My only slight disagreement is that I think there are also reformation beliefs that make sense that aren't aimed specifically at a victory condition but are aimed generally at a playstyle. So I wouldn't want to interpret victory condition too narrowly.

Monastery as reformation belief would be fine. Just war fits well here, but it's about warfare more than just conquest victory. The faith-for-gold-buildings isn't really about a victory condition (except loosely diplomatic I guess) but works fine too. Sacred sites is a great reformation belief.

 

[mitsho]

I like the idea of reformation beliefs as specialising into a victory or specific strength (1) and the other categorisations above. (But the human player will obviously be better in using these strong beliefs). The proposal above seems to be a good design goal, however it doesn't solve the (possibility of) a big imbalance (for a designed religion) between faith generation and faith costs which was the idea behind the current distinction. (2) But one can look over that for the sake of a fun game and the current set-up certainly doesn't seem fun to most people.

How would you feel of switching the founder and enhancer beliefs though? It would put the spread before the harvest (gameplay wise) and historically, spreading Christianity across the mediterranean came before setting up the papacy and its tithe... It also puts some more focus onto the first follower belief and may make it harder to get the good founder ones (through free prophets from wonders and policies for other civs).

Pantheon beliefs shouldn't be too strong I agree here as well, but I'd need to take a look at the beliefs in game again before judgment of what's too strong right now.

(1) So what do we got here then: Tourism, City States, Science, Gold (buildings), War, Great Persons (Reliquary?), Wide Empire/Settling?, World Congress, Culture (buildings)?
(2) I still would love to have a generic policy allowing the construction of a building by faith for that effect.

 

[Ahriman]

How would you feel of switching the founder and enhancer beliefs though?

I think I wouldn't like it. When I found a religion, I should then start benefiting from that religion. Postponing actually getting any benefits from religious founding until the religion is enhanced (which might be medieval era) is too late IMO.

I think it would be frustarting to have to be 2 great prophets in before I start getting spread benefits, and I think it would be hard to balance many of the expansion boosters if they are available as soon as the religion is founded, as there is a lot of snowballing potential from an early religion spread.

To go with your analogy, I'm not sure the enhancer beliefs should be modeling the spread of Christianity to Rome, I think it would be more modelling the spread to the British isles, to Spain, to Germania, to Russia, and so forth. But that's subjective of course.

*edit*
The other bigger problem is: the founder belief goes only to the founder. But IIRC the enhancer belief can benefit any civ with that religion present. So with your proposal every civ gets benefits from you widely spreading your religion, when those benefits should accrue only to the founder.

(1) So what do we got here then: Tourism, City States, Science, Gold (buildings), War, Great Persons (Reliquary?), Wide Empire/Settling?, World Congress, Culture (buildings)?

I'm not sure that culture really qualifies, culture doesn't get you much by itself. Otherwise generally fine.

however it doesn't solve the (possibility of) a big imbalance (for a designed religion) between faith generation and faith costs which was the idea behind the current distinction.

A fair number of the reformation policies would function as faith sinks, if you wanted that. Science and gold building purchase beliefs, military unit purchase beliefs, a monastery building belief, all let you spend faith to get stuff.
Another idea (probably not feasible): what about a reformation ability which let you spend faith to increase influence with a city state if you shared the same religion?

(2) I still would love to have a generic policy allowing the construction of a building by faith for that effect.

This would also be fine with me. Take out the golden age stuff, which has no particular Piety synergy. I'd love to get rid of all the dud social policies.
But I don't remember whether a Monasticism policy was technically feasible or not. And there could be balance problems with Sacred Sites if you can get 3 religious buildings per city *and* sacred sites.

I'd also like to strip out the missionary/inquisitor changes, I don't see what was wrong with the vanilla values. 300 faith missionaries seem too expensive in the early game, and too cheap later on.

 

[mystikx21]

I'm not sure that it is a great game play effect. Spreading your religion wider to do.... what? is different as a starting point for the faith aspect than getting a religion to give you X, and then spreading it far and wide to get more of X.

There's a balance problem for the AI to figure out which beliefs to select, but this doesn't seem like it provides a suitable psychological reward to making the investment of getting a religion set up quickly.

I'd say the Papacy spread Christianity a lot wider, farther, and with more authority to expel other beliefs than early Christians did in laying the essential groundwork that allowed the Papacy to emerge. I'm not sure the history is a great guide to doing this as a result as the argument could be made either way.