To the glory of gods -> too OP?

[Trumtram]

Hey everyone,

I would like to get your thoughts on this enhancer belief. To me, it feels waaaay to strong. Getting access to all the GP leads to a pretty easy victory. It becomes accessible during the Industrial Era, at which point you probably already have laid down quite some GP buildings / created great works. You can get so many yields by bulbing whatever you need. It lends itself well to all(?) victory conditions.

I didn't take this one for the longest time, but once I started doing it, I never had any problems in the late game. Plus, it comes with additional yields for expending GPs, which makes it even stronger (in combination with its corresponding founder belief).

What are your feelings about it? Wouldn't it be an idea to cut the GP accessibility and enhance the bonus for bulbing GPs a bit more to compensate? That would seem like a reasonable option compared to the other enhancement beliefs.

Also, the AI doesn't seem too fond of this belief.

I love the enhancement beliefs for their variation, but I can rarely resist taking TTGOG.

 

[andersw]

Its good but not that crazy and depends on what you are doing, what playstyle do you prefer it with?
If I go rationalism I eventually get scientists anyway.
If I warmonger (which I often do) I think crusader spirit is better and faith of the masses is a very strong option for wide play (both warmonger or not).

 

[Trumtram]

Its good but not that crazy and depends on what you are doing, what playstyle do you prefer it with?
If I go rationalism I eventually get scientists anyway.
If I warmonger (which I often do) I think crusader spirit is better and faith of the masses is a very strong option for wide play (both warmonger or not).

Agreed on crusader spirit for warmongering. I'm more a culture/science kind of guy and whenever a civ is close to or in front of me with techs / tourism, I just bulb the **** out of everything and easily surpass them. Or to put it differently: If a game of mine is exciting and suspenseful, it stops being that. Could be my play and I could always choose to not pick the belief, but if it's there, it's something I like to consider as an option.

Oh, the city-state flipped: Let's get a great diplomat.
Damn, I need money: Oh, just take a great merchant.
This choke point is nice...: Time for a great general!
My fleet is almost done: Well, another great admiral it is then.
Arabia is still a bit far away on tourism: Send over a great musician.

The belief offers so much flexibility for relatively low cost. It feels like cheating at times .

 

[hokath]

I think there's two issues
1) too flexible (?)
2) some GP are "must have" in the late game

the solution to 1) is something like split the belief to a Scientist/Merchant/Engineer one and a Writer/Musician/Artist one and a Diplomat/Admiral/General one
Each with some secondary effect more substantial than the fairly low-scaling (and no era scaling) part we currently have.

the solution to 2) depends a lot on what late game balance you want to see: as you can already see developing in that thread on adding more buildings there are different views on that. I personally think Scientist, Writer, and Artist bulbs all scale too aggressively and I would rather see much weaker scaling with a higher base, or something like what @Flamingcheesepie has been talking about where they give a non-scaling +% modifier whose duration is what then can be increased (which prevents chaining them together to get giant numbers).

 

[greenfieldpark]

Currently my favorite enhancer because of whst you already mentioned. The other nice thing is that you can dabble in multiple policy trees because you dont need to finish any tree for the great person purchase finisher.

 

[Nightmare Dusk]

I think there's two issues
1) too flexible (?)
2) some GP are "must have" in the late game

the solution to 1) is something like split the belief to a Scientist/Merchant/Engineer one and a Writer/Musician/Artist one and a Diplomat/Admiral/General one
Each with some secondary effect more substantial than the fairly low-scaling (and no era scaling) part we currently have.

the solution to 2) depends a lot on what late game balance you want to see: as you can already see developing in that thread on adding more buildings there are different views on that. I personally think Scientist, Writer, and Artist bulbs all scale too aggressively and I would rather see much weaker scaling with a higher base, or something like what @Flamingcheesepie has been talking about where they give a non-scaling +% modifier whose duration is what then can be increased (which prevents chaining them together to get giant numbers).

I really think the solution is to split it into 3 different beliefs, which would allow the secondary effect to actually be substantial. While i definitely have taken other beliefs, i find it extremely hard to pass up on this one, especially as Tradition going for CV. being able to buy all 3 great work great people is a huge boon to your culture/tourism engine

 

[Trumtram]

A minor fix could be to extend the cooldown. But I maintain my position that the combination of being able to buy all the GPs in addition to getting yields for expending them is too crazy.

 

[hokath]

If it were split, maybe the better way is actually to do it by Era (e.g. Engineer, Writer, General for Ancient Era). So its generally +2 extra GP you can buy, and, it can still have this nice property that greenfieldpark mentioned

The other nice thing is that you can dabble in multiple policy trees because you dont need to finish any tree for the great person purchase finisher.

since multi-tree stuff usually happens within an Era

 

[phantomaxl1207]

I find myself taking Zealotry and TTGofGod quite often as they are the best late game Faith "sinks" one can spend on. I think the issue is that Faith can go from a useful Yield to very low value as the game goes on, as we run out of reasons to buy Buidings.

 

[gozar]

I am not sure TTGofGod is that strong, it just that it fits well with a lot of play styles that are available to humans at high level play.

At Emporer and above, it quickly become pointless to keep spreading your religion in most games, excepting if you go out of your way to snuff out the other religions on your continent. So what do you do with your extra faith? There are only a few good faith sinks and you probably want to get one of them:
Zealotry
Faith of the Masses
The Science building one...forgot the name since I never get it
TTGOG

I almost always get one. Zealotry can be quite good if you prefer to save hammers for other purposes but its an expensive tradeoff. Free buildings is nice if you get them early enough. They lose their luster if you have already sunk hammers into universities. That leaves TTGOG and it has two benefits: fits well with a suprisingly large % of playstyles and it probably adds the most total benefit. The downside is that it is is heavily backloaded. If you manage to keep a competitive game without enacting TTGOG and you have been planting specialists up until that point, then you probably want to step up your difficult level.

 

[Nightmare Dusk]

While not directly a nerf, i think adding some type of religious victory actually helps with balancing the TTGoG. Like gozar mentioned, spreading your religion starts to become pointless as the game goes on. Having a religious victory actively encouraging you to spend your faith in prophets and missionaries instead gives another option to sink your faith into. The problem with TTGoG is less with it being too good (though i still think it is), and more that a faith sink is a neccesity late game and there's very few options to choose from

 

[azum4roll]

Wasn't it suggested that all great people are always available to be purchased at Industrial, but the currently unavailable ones would be much more expensive? Then To the Glory of God can be quantified as a discount to all GP faith cost (maybe only the expensive ones).

 

[Nightmare Dusk]

Wasn't it suggested that all great people are always available to be purchased at Industrial, but the currently unavailable ones would be much more expensive? Then To the Glory of God can be quantified as a discount to all GP faith cost (maybe only the expensive ones).

I could go with that. Definitely would make me think hard about taking it

 

[Anarcomu]

What about increasing costs of GPs unlocked by TTGOG ? This way, you are still incentivized to finish policies for the faith discount, when going TTGOG.

 

[Stalker0]

I think TTGOG is directly dependent on which policies I am taking. For example a run that gives me access to Great Writers and Great Scientists....TTGOG is pretty meh.

If I don't have one of those two, TTGOG is pretty solid. If I don't have either, TTGOG is the strongest belief.


This comes down to, G Writers and G Scientists are the best late game great people, and any ability to acquire more of them directly aids your VC.