Here is my suggestion. Designed to change only what needs to be changed. Parts in red are changes relative to the existing versions
No changes to these 3
Dagda, the All-Father: +1, +1, +1 , and +1 for every 4 Followers of your Pantheon in owned cities.
Mannanan, Son of the Sea: +3 , +3 , and +4 in coastal Cities
Cernunnos, the Horned Stag: +1 and from Forests, +1 and from Jungles. +1 from Camps
Nerfs to these 2
Epona, the Great Mare: +10,, and when your Borders expand, scaling with Era
Lugh, the Skilled One: +2 , +2 , and +2 in Cities with a Specialist, scaling with era.
(mostly small) Buffs to these 4
Bran, the Sleeping Guardian: +100% city attack damage, +25% Growth, and +8 when a Citizen is born, scaling with era.
Morrigan, Harbinger of Strife: Earn , , and Points from kills (1 yield per CS, currently its 1 yield per 2 CS)
Nuada, the Silver-Handed King: +1 for every 10 per turn, and +1 Golden Age Points for every 5 per turn. +2 Gold from City Connections
Ogma, the Learned: +1 for every 3 Citizens in a city, and +3 +3 +3 Great Scientist points in the Capital
Rhiannon (and only Rhiannon) needs a total rework. My suggestion is in red, but I'd love to hear some fresh ideas
Rhiannon, Goddess of Sovereignty: +1 in every city, scaling with era. +1 and +1 from any tile with an improved resource
SpoilerCondensedList :
Dagda, the All-Father: +1, +1, +1 , and +1 for every 4 Followers of your Pantheon in owned cities.
Mannanan, Son of the Sea: +3 , +3 , and +4 in coastal Cities
Cernunnos, the Horned Stag: +1 and from Forests, +1 and from Jungles. +1 from Camps
Epona, the Great Mare: +10,, and when your Borders expand, scaling with Era
Lugh, the Skilled One: +2 , +2 , and +2 in Cities with a Specialist, scaling with era.
Bran, the Sleeping Guardian: +100% city attack damage, +25% Growth, and +12 when a Citizen is born, scaling with era.
Morrigan, Harbinger of Strife: Earn , , and Points from kills (1 yield per CS, currently its 1 yield per 2 CS)
Nuada, the Silver-Handed King: +1 for every 10 per turn, and +1 Golden Age Points for every 5 per turn. +2 Gold from City Connections
Ogma, the Learned: +1 for every 3 Citizens in a city, and +3 +3 +3 Great Scientist points in the Capital
Rhiannon, Goddess of Sovereignty: +1 in every city, scaling with era. +1 and +1 from any tile with an improved resource
Here is my suggestion. Designed to change only what needs to be changed. Parts in red are changes relative to the existing versions
No changes to these 3
Dagda, the All-Father: +1, +1, +1 , and +1 for every 4 Followers of your Pantheon in owned cities.
Mannanan, Son of the Sea: +3 , +3 , and +4 in coastal Cities
Cernunnos, the Horned Stag: +1 and from Forests, +1 and from Jungles. +1 from Camps
Nerfs to these 2
Epona, the Great Mare: +10,, and when your Borders expand, scaling with Era
Lugh, the Skilled One: +2 , +2 , and +2 in Cities with a Specialist, scaling with era.
(mostly small) Buffs to these 4
Bran, the Sleeping Guardian: +100% city attack damage, +25% Growth, and +8 when a Citizen is born, scaling with era.
Morrigan, Harbinger of Strife: Earn , , and Points from kills (1 yield per CS, currently its 1 yield per 2 CS)
Nuada, the Silver-Handed King: +1 for every 10 per turn, and +1 Golden Age Points for every 5 per turn. +2 Gold from City Connections
Ogma, the Learned: +1 for every 3 Citizens in a city, and +3 +3 +3 Great Scientist points in the Capital
Rhiannon (and only Rhiannon) needs a total rework. My suggestion is in red, but I'd love to hear some fresh ideas
Rhiannon, Goddess of Sovereignty: +1 in every city, scaling with era. +1 and +1 from any tile with an improved resource Thoughts?
Bran, the Sleeping Guardian is terrible here. Eponia will probably help grow faster when it matters, provides more culture and science over city attack damage. There really isn't any reason to ever pick Bran.
Morrigan is much worse than Lugh. It's also worse than Dagda and Nuada in almost all cases.
Nuada seems a little weak, but I think that stuff could be balanced later.
Ogma seems very weak.
I honestly think that you're still going to leave 3-4 useless pantheons with your proposal, and the celts will be just as strong as they would be under my proposal, if not stronger because Eponia still grants culture.
Bran, the Sleeping Guardian is terrible here. Eponia will probably help grow faster when it matters, provides more culture and science over city attack damage. There really isn't any reason to ever pick Bran.
Morrigan is much worse than Lugh. It's also worse than Dagda and Nuada in almost all cases.
If ABC is worse than XYZ, there are two explanations
-ABC is too weak
-XYZ is too good
The problem isn't Bran or Morrigan, its Lugh and Epona. If you insist we can try this
Epona, the Great Mare: +8,, and when your Borders expand, scaling with Era
Lugh, the Skilled One: +1, +1, and +2 in Cities with a Specialist, scaling with era.
It's like that discussion about God-King being crazy powerful or useless depending on which map size you play. Every pantheon should consider that the conditions for it to be chosen are near the optimal.
It's like that discussion about God-King being crazy powerful or useless depending on which map size you play. Every pantheon should consider that the conditions for it to be chosen are near the optimal.
Honestly, I don't mind pantheons that are completely useless on some maps as long as they are useful somewhere.
The coastal settling one is a great example of such a pantheon, it should be borderline go-to on an archipelago map
If ABC is worse than XYZ, there are two explanations
-ABC is too weak
-XYZ is too good
The problem isn't Bran or Morrigan, its Lugh and Epona. If you insist we can try this
Epona, the Great Mare: +8,, and when your Borders expand, scaling with Era
Lugh, the Skilled One: +1, +1, and +2 in Cities with a Specialist, scaling with era.
Then Lugh is useless, and Epona probably is too. These pantheons don't exist in a vacuum. If you want to make them all crap the Celts just won't be a civ. They're currently top-tier due to a combination of being able to abuse Tribute, guaranteed religion and a couple crazy pantheons.
If tribute and/or or Tribute are getting nerfed, and you want to nerf their pantheons into the ground they'll be a much worse Byzantium.
I think you're just plain wrong with your targeted strength for pantheons, and your suggestions would leave the civ as a worse Byzantium.
I mean are any of these pantheons you listed even CLOSE to the strength of a regular pantheon + a Byzantine bonus belief?
Not even a contest. Then add in that Byzantium has even more flexibility, can choose to pursue a spreader strategy and can ALWAYS get the beliefs they want, and you've got a recipe for the Celts being useless.
Even moreso when you remember how good founders are now and Byzantium can spread like crazy while the Celts are very disadvantaged in their ability to do so.
Then Lugh is useless, and Epona probably is too. These pantheons don't exist in a vacuum. If you want to make them all crap the Celts just won't be a civ. They're currently top-tier due to a combination of being able to abuse Tribute, guaranteed religion and a couple crazy pantheons.
If tribute and/or or Tribute are getting nerfed, and you want to nerf their pantheons into the ground they'll be a much worse Byzantium.
I think you're just plain wrong with your targeted strength for pantheons, and your suggestions would leave the civ as a worse Byzantium.
I mean are any of these pantheons you listed even CLOSE to the strength of a regular pantheon + a Byzantine bonus belief?
Not even a contest. Then add in that Byzantium has even more flexibility, can choose to pursue a spreader strategy and can ALWAYS get the beliefs they want, and you've got a recipe for the Celts being useless.
Even moreso when you remember how good founders are now and Byzantium can spread like crazy while the Celts are very disadvantaged in their ability to do so.
I think we are a long way from all the pantheons being crap. The advantage the celts have over Byz is a stronger early game. If the Celts fail to gain a significant advantage when medieval hits they will be at a disadvantage, that isn't a balance problem its a well designed early game civ.
Its pretty clear we aren't going to agree from just grinding out numbers in theory, so I'm ready to play the darn game already. I'm not going to pretend that my proposed list is going to be perfect, if it turns out those suggestions are too weak I'll happily argue for buffs alongside you. But for a lot of these you really need to play the game because there are too many intangibles costs or benefits in play.
I think we are a long way from all the pantheons being crap. The advantage the celts have over Byz is a stronger early game. If the Celts fail to gain a significant advantage when medieval hits they will be at a disadvantage, that isn't a balance problem its a well designed early game civ.
Its pretty clear we aren't going to agree from just grinding out numbers in theory, so I'm ready to play the darn game already. I'm not going to pretend that my proposed list is going to be perfect, if it turns out those suggestions are too weak I'll happily argue for buffs alongside you. But for a lot of these you really need to play the game because there are too many intangibles costs or benefits in play.
I agree about Epona and Lugh being awful if they become like this:
Epona, the Great Mare: +8,, and when your Borders expand, scaling with Era
Lugh, the Skilled One: +1 , +1 , and +2 in Cities with a Specialist, scaling with era.
They'd be worthless compared to any alternative. Borders don't grow fast enough to make it worthwhile,
Luigi, the Plumber: +2 , +2 , and +2 in Cities with a Specialist, scaling with era. - seems okay. Gives early edge that increases with time, doesn't seem like it'd be overwhelming much. If it is, one yield can be reduced to 1.
Epona, Link's Horse: dunno tbh, it's hard to balance something that procs rarely. At 8 I'd definitely suck, nobody would want a miniscule gain once a blue moon. Maybe +have the yields remain at 8, but also proc when +pop? Epona was the goddess of hooved animals and that of fertility too if my research is right, so it'd make perfect sense. At least it'd be something to consider then.
Luigi, the Plumber: +2 , +2 , and +2 in Cities with a Specialist, scaling with era. - seems okay. Gives early edge that increases with time, doesn't seem like it'd be overwhelming much. If it is, one yield can be reduced to 1.
Epona, Link's Horse: dunno tbh, it's hard to balance something that procs rarely. At 8 I'd definitely suck, nobody would want a miniscule gain once a blue moon. Maybe +have the yields remain at 8, but also proc when +pop? Epona was the goddess of hooved animals and that of fertility too if my research is right, so it'd make perfect sense. At least it'd be something to consider then.
I think Lugh is fine at 2. A certain someone keep insisting everything else is garbage compared to Lugh, and I just want to make a point. All that argument suggests to me is nerf Lugh.
Border growth really isn't that rare if you take tradition. Epona is going to depend a lot on what happens to tribute mechanics, lets just leave it at 10
If it cannot scale I'd try this
Luigi, the Plumber: +3 , +3 , and +3 in Cities with a Specialist
Please don't add any food to Lugh. A big challenge of Lugh is growing while working early specialists. If you are in a situation where, due to terrain or policy choices, you can't grow while doing the market merchant rush, you pick a different pantheon
If it cannot scale I'd try this
Luigi, the Plumber: +3 , +3 , and +3 in Cities with a Specialist
Please don't add any food to Lugh. A big challenge of Lugh is growing while working early specialists. If you are in a situation where, due to terrain or policy choices, you can't grow while doing the market merchant rush, you pick a different pantheon
I'd say just freaking nerf it already. Its clearly too strong and everyone agreed on that a few pages back, including you. What changed since then? Why on earth should it have food? When you add too many yield types to all the pantheons they start to look really similar.
When something is too strong, the simplest thing to do is just make it do less than it does now, thus 3 instead of 4. Making it provide food instead of another yield when it lacks food is a really weird way to nerf something (its possibly a buff......)
If anyone isn't convinced Lugh is too strong, here is some data. I usually save my game when I pick my religion, here are the numbers for culture and science output for the saves I have right now
SpoilerStuff :
Lugh by himself on turn 66,...........................28,28
Celts with Lugh as a whole, 66, Authority.....43,42
Spain on turn 66, Progress..........13,14
Shoshone on turn 69, Tradition... 18, 20
Rome on turn 80, Authority.......... 24,19
Sweden on turn 83, Authority....... 8,18 Shoshone on turn 88, Tradition.... 49, 43
England on turn 92, Progress...... 23, 30
When the Celtic pantheon by itself is pulling more culture and science than entire empires are able to 20 turns in the future, it means Lugh is too strong. It doesn't matter if social policy costs go up, the AI is never going to catch my Lugh. I don't even have any councils or libraries in that Celts game and I'm ahead of the best AI by 5 techs already.
I'll compare to that game in red in particular. First of all we are comparing to Shoshone, a civ with fantastic early game on a great position (Goddess of Hunt with 7 camps in the capital)
-Despite being 22 turns ahead and having the great library, the Shoshone can barely match science output
-Despite being 22 turns ahead and having furs as his monopoly, Shoshone are barely ahead in per turn culture (the Celts are on a weak coffee start with tundra)
-Tradition should have more per turn culture than Authority anyways (because bonus yields) and the Celts don't have garrisons in all cities either
If scaling is impossible, Lugh being at 3 will still keep it obviously OP in ancient/classical, but it being at 2 alone without anything else would probably make it a rare pick compared to Dagda. How about
Log, wooden: +2 , +2 , and +2 in Cities with a Specialist and for Gardens.
Gardens are available by medieval so they are basically going to play the role of the scaler. Or maybe
Large, the Sphinx - +2 , +2 , and +2 in Cities with a Specialist and for the Palace.
Slightly stronger early, but falls off. Alternatively, just keep it at 2 and buff if needed.
Having raw science and culture like that is good, but I think around 3,3, and 4 for cities with a specialist is a decent point to stop.
science and culture costs already scales per city, so for a per city pantheon, I think its okay. Its not like it scales per era
Of course, the upfront science and culture was the major issue. They cost way more for any normal civ to get that much, so it definitely should be lowered. But its a celtic pantheon, and maybe they should be allowed a lot for a unique ability
The gold is also a lot, but having it in excess so early in the game isn't necessarily game breaking
loggy is okay without having to put yields into something like gardens, too
It doesn't matter if social policy costs go up, the AI is never going to catch my Lugh. I don't even have any councils or libraries in that Celts game and I'm ahead of the best AI by 5 techs already.
The AI can catch up, because your science doesn't scale. Your UA is all about that early lead. Are you telling me you can't get ahead in techs with Korea? Plus Korea scales really well, making it harder for the AI to catch up.
I'll compare to that game in red in particular. First of all we are comparing to Shoshone, a civ with fantastic early game on a great position (Goddess of Hunt with 7 camps in the capital)
-Despite being 22 turns ahead and having the great library, the Shoshone can barely match science output
-Despite being 22 turns ahead and having furs as his monopoly, Shoshone are barely ahead in per turn culture (the Celts are on a weak coffee start with tundra)
-Tradition should have more per turn culture than Authority anyways (because bonus yields) and the Celts don't have garrisons in all cities either
So you're telling me that the shoshone managed to be similar yield outputs while also getting "Extra tiles when a city is founded and a bonus to defend in owned territory."?
So 22 turns for "Extra tiles when a city is founded and a bonus to defend in owned territory."? Sounds like a good deal.
Also I'll note you didn't mention how many cities Shoshone have. the Celts have 7, so if the Shoshone have less (and as tradition I'd guess they do) their yield lead is more significant.
Also before "But that's only one of those 6 games that was better/similar." let me point out that the average game has 7 AI. That means I think you're likely to be pressed hard, especially after the policy cost increase.
Additionally I'll note that two of those civs are progress which, should be out-performed early.
In short I don't think that your data set leads to the conclusion you came up with.
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, +1
, +1
, and +1
for every 4 Followers of your Pantheon in owned cities.
, +3
Points from kills (1 yield per CS, currently its 1 yield per 2 CS)
Great Scientist points in the
Capital
:gun:
