The Cult of the Dragon

[felwar]

I hate it... actually, hate may not be a strong enough word. This is a feature that does nothing but slow down the game. It is simply not fun.

And the worst part is, I came to realize that it doesn't even matter if you keep them out of your cities or not. Why? Because keeping them out periodically causes unrest EXACTLY like letting them in. Every so many turns they try to spread to your city again (always my capital for some reason), which means more unrest to keep them out. If I let them in, they periodically cause unrest. There is no difference.

Is there some other event that doesn't involve unrest that can occur? I don't mind random religious units switching sides. I can deal with that by assigning them to garrison duty or another war. I didn't even mind the old culture reduction. But currently all it's doing is making me feel like I'm waiting three turns to keep playing.

 

[Pandemonis]

Has the cult of the dragon not been removed from Shadow, anyways ?

 

[Silverkiss]

No, it is in, as one of the seven guilds. I agree with the OP, I only played 200 or so turns so far in one game, but the Cult is extremelly irritating. And I don't know if it was because I was with the custom setting that raises event's chance of happening, but it soon spread like a plague to almost, if not all, civilizations.

 

[Halancar]

Same here, I found that the Cult got founded very early (like before turn 50 if the Sheaim or Kuriotates were in the game) and tried and tried and tried and tried again to spread to my capital. I was playing with extra events, so it might have added to it, but I think there should be a limit to how frequently it can happen to the same city.

In fact, I can't remember any other duplicate random event happening to one of my cities. I don't know if there is a check (would be good) and if the Cult somehow evades it, but it is annoying...

 

[onedreamer]

The Cult is supposed to be annoying, AFAIK. Now if it is an annoying FEATURE as the OP says, then there's something to discuss about.

 

[Willgar]

Find the headquarters of the cult (i would guess in a kurio / sheaim city) and turn it to rubble.... problem solved

 

[Silverkiss]

Problem is, you can't do that so early in the game whithout crippling yourself... At least I can't :x

But about the cult, it could be toned down... Like, only happen again ins 50 turns or so if it already happened... Because it is supposed to be annoying, right, but it's not fun if you don't play each 3 turns out of 10 in the whole game x.x

 

[Willgar]

Problem is, you can't do that so early in the game whithout crippling yourself... At least I can't :x

But about the cult, it could be toned down... Like, only happen again ins 50 turns or so if it already happened... Because it is supposed to be annoying, right, but it's not fun if you don't play each 3 turns out of 10 in the whole game x.x

In a recent game, not having an open border with the kuriokates delayed the spread of the dragon cult to my lands. By the time of my first champion unit, it was roughly the time when the first of the cult spread to one of my cities.

I had a small (blitzkrieg type) war with the Kurio, just enough to cripple them (they only had 4 cities and i captured one and razed one which the dragon cult founding city) and after that, i had very little spread of the cult. However, In that game, the kurio were wiped out completely by one of the dwarf races, maybe 70 turns later...

 

[Silverkiss]

lol, champions ? The time when the cult spread to me I still had only 1 city, with warriors and was building a settler, and I didn't even had met the Kurios/Sheiam x.x

Edit: I play on Epic, so that must've helped the Cult's expansion. Hum... Speaking of the game makes me want to finish it x.x

 

[Willgar]

lol, champions ? The time when the cult spread to me I still had only 1 city, with warriors and was building a settler, and I didn't even had met the Kurios/Sheiam x.x

Edit: I play on Epic, so that must've helped the Cult's expansion. Hum... Speaking of the game makes me want to finish it x.x

ahh - i was only on emperor at normal speed with the standard event options...

 

[Silverkiss]

That figures.... Epic speed + more events... Well, maybe game *is* balanced with normal options then... But I still think Cult should be re-balanced for 'More Events' options, because that's is for enjoying the *good* events, not being annoyed constatly, in my opinion ^^''

 

[felwar]

In a recent game, not having an open border with the kuriokates delayed the spread of the dragon cult to my lands. By the time of my first champion unit, it was roughly the time when the first of the cult spread to one of my cities.

I don't know what settings you played with, but I play normal speed with double events and in every game the cult tries to spread to my city before I even have contact with the founding civ, let alone trade routes or open borders. In one game I hadn't contacted anyone yet or even built a road. Open borders and trade routes don't have any effect as far as I can tell.

And on a large map with all 19 civs, it isn't easy to attack them early on.

 

[Willgar]

I don't know what settings you played with, but I play normal speed with double events and in every game the cult tries to spread to my city before I even have contact with the founding civ, let alone trade routes or open borders. In one game I hadn't contacted anyone yet or even built a road. Open borders and trade routes don't have any effect as far as I can tell.

And on a large map with all 19 civs, it isn't easy to attack them early on.

Standard map, emperor, pangea, all standard rules - think there were me + 5 on the map

 

[EvilBob22]

I usually do Huge map, epic speed, and lately have been doing double events. Starting 6 games that way, I've had the cult come to my capitol before my first settler was built in 5 of them.

By the way, has anyone successfully had it removed by one of the events? In one of those games I let it get in the city only to find out that you get lovely things like 4 turns of unrest or losing buildings that took 50 turns to build. Every time the option came up I took the "25% chance to get rid of the cult" choice, but it never got rid of it. I know it is not a guarantee, but it was still there after 7 or 8 attempts. (If my math is right, that is a 87% - 90% chance after that many tries.)

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

I tried the "extra events" option. What that does in my opinion is not change the number of unique events, but rather, it seams to increase the frequency of the events you recieve. What I mean is that the game seems to pre-determine which events are going to happen, then it's a random shot at who gets hit with those events. So, in all of my games, if any player gets the herbal remedy event, it's a guarentee that I will get it, and that eventually everyone will get it. Further evidence is the bandits reaking havoc in the farm and fire or flood events, which seem to happen to someone in every game no matter what option you pick. However, in this last case, if you chose the "extra events" option, and you were unfortunate to get hit with the ugly stick so to speak, then you will have the negative event happen to you many many times. I had a game, where the same city got hit by the bandits reaking havoc on the same farm 7 times in 300 turns...that equated to 70 gold! Without the extra event option on, it's a normal BTS game, where anything can happen and happens to just one person, just one time.

 

[EvilBob22]

The way I understood it is that there are a list of possible events, but that each has a prerequisite. For example, you won't get the bandits looting your farm event if you don't have a farm, and you won't get certain end game events without a high armageddon counter. In the early game -- when it is set to double events -- there are only two or three to pick from, so it seems like every event hits every civ. (Each civ gets randomly picked for enough events they they get hit by most or all of them.)

 

[xienwolf]

Haven't had much time to play, but first time I chose Kurio and second time Random gave me them. Each time I got the event for CoD very early on. I am wondering why it isn't tied to the building of your Dragon anymore? Especially if it is THIS annoying.

Make it spread fast and often, and it is an appropriately annoying thing to do to people at the point where you are able to build a dragon. But early in the game, it has to be slow and infrequent or it is simply debilitating.

 

[Alchemistor]

Yes I find Cult of the Dragon annoying too. It should at least allow the player to make meaningful decision of whether to keep the cult out or let it in.

If allowed in, let the Cult should have the effect like before where the units produced in that city have the cult promotion but at least there's no unrest.

If not let in, it randomly causes unrest in the city.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

The way I understood it is that there are a list of possible events, but that each has a prerequisite. For example, you won't get the bandits looting your farm event if you don't have a farm, and you won't get certain end game events without a high armageddon counter. In the early game -- when it is set to double events -- there are only two or three to pick from, so it seems like every event hits every civ. (Each civ gets randomly picked for enough events they they get hit by most or all of them.)

I like your explanation.

 

[snarko]

The problem with CotD firing so often isn't that it's set to fire often. It's that the game first decide if it's going to trigger an event and only then decide what event to trigger. Early in the game there aren't many events to choose from so the CotD events get chosen often (or even always).