The early religions

[Lone Wolf]

On the forum there had been quite a few complaints about too much dominance of FoL and RoK on certain maps and complaints about RoK taking the suspence out of the game by making everyone go neutral. I believe they deserve a separate thread.

So, discuss about the severity of that problem and possible solutions to it.

 

[Jamz]

I think the problem is more that Evil/Good Civs tend to take the first religion spreading to their lands, insted of going for a religion more suited for them.

 

[Brugarin]

I believes the Ljosafar convert to FoL at the fist chance possible.

It does seem that the OO are not very liked by the civs... Usually Hannah the Irin of the pirates researches it. Everybody else seems to ignore it...

 

[Lone Wolf]

OO spread rate is set to be the lowest (75).

 

[zup]

It all depends. In games where there are no dwarves and elves it is quite easy to make the entire world into an Order theme park.

I did have a game where FoL was founded on turn 112, RoK turn 115. And still I won religious victory with Order, an aggressive religious victory involving conquest and then purging the heretics.

 

[the_fish]

I think the problem is more that Evil/Good Civs tend to take the first religion spreading to their lands, insted of going for a religion more suited for them.

This. The AI needs civ-specific religion weights.

The current system appears to be "convert to the majority religion in my cities", which is good for vanilla, but obviously fails here. Perhaps "convert to the majority religion in my cities that's above a certain threshold".

e.g.
Ljosalfar: Ord (30%) / Emp (30%) / RoK (10%) / FoL (0%) / OO (20%) / Es (30%) / AV (30%)
Sheiam: Ord (30%) / Emp (30%) / RoK (20%) / FoL (20%) / OO (10%) / Es (10%) / AV (0%)

So a Ljosalfar civ with 20% Order 10% FoL (and nothing else) would prefer FoL, but if it was 40% Order 30% FoL it would prefer the Order.

This just makes civs a bit warier in the early game, while still allowing you to convert them against flavour if you try hard enough. Once religions pervade in the late game the thresholds are all exceeded anyway, so religion choice works as normal.

(EDIT: applying these too harshly would obviously result in very similar games where each civ has exactly one religion it uses. Low enough thresholds would result in a slight resistance to certain religions, buying enough time for the later religions to come into play. The example %s above are probably too high)

 

[Lone Wolf]

It all depends. In games where there are no dwarves and elves it is quite easy to make the entire world into an Order theme park.

I had a game where I got to found the first religion, and it was Empyrian. Then the Balseraphs found Ashen Veil, breaking the world to an exciting alliance of Good Kuriotates (me), Bannor and Malakim (Decius of the Malakim was formally neutral but he had very good relations with me and Capria) vs. Evil Balseraphs, Sheaim, Doviello and the evil Ashen Veil empracing mad midget scientists of Luchuirp.

Still, FoL/RoK dominance does happen quite often, and it's annoying, especially with RoK. I'm thinking of reducing the spread rate of both, and disabling the RoK militiary switch (hey, evil guys sometimes value dilligence and hard work, too!)

This. The AI needs civ-specific religion weights.

The current system appears to be "convert to the majority religion in my cities", which is good for vanilla, but obviously fails here. Perhaps "convert to the majority religion in my cities that's above a certain threshold".

The AI already has them - look in the LeaderHeadInfos XML. I even increased the absolute value of them by 10. Maybe they need some revisiting.

 

[Demus]

The AI needs to include a religion pick in their strategy choice, along with unit type specialisation, tech paths etc. Another religion can be temporarily picked for diplomacy or happiness issues (if it's more wide-spread), but the AI still needs to look for opportunities to allow their prefered religion to become dominant (researching the tech, active spreading etc.).

 

[Gigaz]

I think the AI should be more likely to found a religion. Most civs simply tech in a way that can only be described as random. But a tech that founds a religion is usually last choice.

 

[Luckmann]

There's really no option out of the three that I can endorse. It's not fine, I don't want the alignments to change, and I don't want the spread to be slower.

What's needed is for there to be more civilizations that prioritize their favourite religion. I want it to be harder for me to found all religions myself, simply because the AI goes for the first available religion (which is always FoL in my case) and stick with it - at least they tend to do so, until I found the next religion.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

There's really no option out of the three that I can endorse. It's not fine, I don't want the alignments to change, and I don't want the spread to be slower.

What's needed is for there to be more civilizations that prioritize their favourite religion. I want it to be harder for me to found all religions myself, simply because the AI goes for the first available religion (which is always FoL in my case) and stick with it - at least they tend to do so, until I found the next religion.

There is an option saying other

 

[Luckmann]

There is an option saying other

Yeah, I just saw that. I have no idea why I missed it. I'm going to blame it on insomnia. Sorry 'bout that.

 

[Demus]

reminds me of the old alignment options modmod, which had an option to force alignments on civs. No-one could adopt a religion that would change their alignment (i think sto wrote it). I would really like to see it added in the main mod tbh

 

[WarKirby]

I don't think the spread rate of any religions should be decreased.

But I think the tech paths to order/empyrean/av need to be shorter. It's much easier to found Empyrean in FF, I think.

Allowing the others to be founded earlier would help, I think.

But aside from that, there does need to be much stronger AI weighting on religions.

I think certain civ/religion combinations should be marked as Abhorrent, so that they will never switch voluntarily, and can only be made to adopt the religion by force. If they're losing a war and it's a condition for peace.

Examples

Bannor/Elohim - Ashen Veil
Svartalfar/Ljosalfar - Runes of Kilmorph
Malakim - Council of Esus
Sidar/Svartalfar - Empyrean
Sheiam/Hippus/Lanun - Order (the last two because they're undisciplined peoples who enjoy freedom, rather than because they're evil)
Khazad/Luchuirp - Fellowship of Leaves


Aside from that, each civ needs more weighting towards their preferred religions, so if a religion they really like spreads to their land (ljosalfar + FoL) they're much more likely to dump their current and switch to it.


Also, I think the Sheiam need a farther special exception, as they depend so much on Armageddon. They should always beeline corruption of Spirit ASAP, and once they get AV (whether or not they founded it), switch to it instantly, and mark all other religions abhorrent so they can never switch without coercion.

 

[Emptiness]

This problem isn't restricted to FoL & RoK, it is only exacerbated in their cases because they are usually the first religion researched. In rare cases when no one researches them (as another poster mentioned), or in which I beeline for another religion (typically AV), or in which a religion is found in a lair, any religion can spread around to everyone.

Personally, I think passive spread of religions should be virtually eliminated until that religion's wonder is built - and even then the rate of passive spread should be greatly reduced, and limited to spread between cities that share a trade routes. Also, the passive spread of a religion into a civ with an opposing alignment (Order into Sheaim, for example) should be impossible. And finally, the AI needs to make a strategic decision about whether to adopt a religion that has spread to one of its cities. Seeing the Elohim convert to AV should be a very rare occurance, rather than something that always happens whenever AV is the first religion that spreads to their lands.

 

[Sarisin]

I'd like to see the beelining of the Dwarves and Elves for ROK and FOL removed. I just think they are able to get those religions too fast in every game I play. I am still convinced they get some 'divine intervention' or something when it comes to the goody huts they pop.

As a result, these two religions are found very early in games (I'm talking epic speed here around turn 125) and by the time anyone gets around to founding any of the other religions, these two have spread allover the map.

Yes, the best strategy is to try and take one of these civs out so someone else has a chance to found ROK or FOL later. Or, you can get lucky with a lair, etc. and pop a Disciple or Thane.

However, for the most part, the beelining works for the Dwarves and Elves and they always found their religion too soon and it is spread.

 

[JustinianVII]

It's all situational. Where a religion gets founded and when. OO's most prevalent in the game I'm currently playing. RoK and FoL have barely expanded beyond the island continents they were founded upon.

 

[Lone Wolf]

RoK and FoL have barely expanded beyond the island continents they were founded upon.

True, in the continent maps, when the seas limit the religion spread, the problem is less evident. But when playing pangea or even with two continents, it can become quite annoying.

But I think the tech paths to order/empyrean/av need to be shorter.

Interesting idea.

I think certain civ/religion combinations should be marked as Abhorrent, so that they will never switch voluntarily, and can only be made to adopt the religion by force. If they're losing a war and it's a condition for peace.

I do think that it would be good for some combinations to be marked as such, althrough there shouldn't be much of them. While I have a hard time imaging an Ashen Veil Elohim, I can imagine corrupted Bannor adopting AV: "We are not evil. We realize that pacifism doesn't work and evil can only be brought down in a fight with it, the last fight between the Angels and the Demons - the Armageddon. We seek Armageddon for the Greater Good".

I'm not against aligment change in principle - I don't mind Luchuirp turning into AV-empracing mad scientists, Bannor going corrupted from too much fanaticism, Faeryl seeing the light, Alexis deciding that, amoral as she is, she doesn't want the world to end, slightly improving the treatment of non-vampires, and adopting Order to actively fight demons. Yay redemption/corruption themes.

What is annoying, however, is when 4 out of 6 evil nations in a game turn neutral. It's the monotony I dislike.

 

[Darkness]

Personally, I think passive spread of religions should be virtually eliminated until that religion's wonder is built - and even then the rate of passive spread should be greatly reduced, and limited to spread between cities that share a trade routes. Also, the passive spread of a religion into a civ with an opposing alignment (Order into Sheaim, for example) should be impossible.

I think this sounds very reasonable. The "problem" is mostly due to the fairly easy passive spread of religions, so if that can somehow be limited it would be the easiest (and most logical, IMHO) solution...

 

[Lone Wolf]

reminds me of the old alignment options modmod, which had an option to force alignments on civs. No-one could adopt a religion that would change their alignment (i think sto wrote it). I would really like to see it added in the main mod tbh

Would be very nice as an option - at least, it would secure from the monotony, even through that's not really what I want - I like the occasional redemption/corruption. But it still should be implemented.

so if that can somehow be limited it would be the easiest (and most logical, IMHO) solution...

I talked about the spread rates. With them set to 0, you can totally eliminate the passive spread, for example.