Tuning Religion Founder Beliefs Round 2

With the apostolic founder belief changes, I've got a population 100+ capital at turn ~300, and a permanent golden age. It's really fun, and keeping the population raising every turn is an engaging mechanic without *feeling* too over-powered, but also I am wondering what other people think of it.
 
With the apostolic founder belief changes, I've got a population 100+ capital at turn ~300, and a permanent golden age. It's really fun, and keeping the population raising every turn is an engaging mechanic without *feeling* too over-powered, but also I am wondering what other people think of it.
I'm going that belief that gives production for each following city. I thought it would be bad at first, but now I am getting 500-600 production in Holy City after conquering and converting, so now I can plan on getting some extra wonders. At first it was a bit erratic.

By the way, long time no see, Gothic.
 
I should update the OP to reflect the newest changes.

With the apostolic founder belief changes, I've got a population 100+ capital at turn ~300, and a permanent golden age. It's really fun, and keeping the population raising every turn is an engaging mechanic without *feeling* too over-powered, but also I am wondering what other people think of it.
Its strong but so are many of the others. I've had fun as Byzantium with Pacifisim/Evangelism and Way of the Pilgrim, I'm getting 30 culture/ tourism and 250 science per missionary spread in medieval. Overall I think the changes are great, founders are still strong but much slower to pay off than before.
 
Do the values of Crusader Spirit/Hero Worship/etc scale as they did previously so based on conquered city size x scaling per era x gamespeed, or are they also included in the founder/enhancer/reformation change of the last two patches and scale with your pop?
 
Do the values of Crusader Spirit/Hero Worship/etc scale as they did previously so based on conquered city size x scaling per era x gamespeed, or are they also included in the founder/enhancer/reformation change of the last two patches and scale with your pop?

Same as before. All founders now scale, just using different models.

G
 
Transcendence seems a little weak now imo, might be better at 25 or 30 per city. I've yet to try it, but that's because I keep passing it up. Any other opinions?

Everything else seems pretty balanced. I'm really happy with the state of everything bar Transcendence.
 
Can't speak from experience, cause I could only test one belief. This one that gives a one time boost to production and food. I thought it would scale on era, but it seems to scale just on number of following cities. Didn't like it very much, it's a bit random at first. I think it doesn't scale on map size neither.

For the rest, I like that the effects come later, but I never find a reason to take path of the pilgrims so early.
 
I've mostly tested several. Way of Transcendence is good - first burst is almost always meh unless you play Spain/other religious civ, delay classical on purpose while being wide and eagerly buying missionaries, in which case it can be better than pre-change at every point, but once you turn into a big empire by medieval and later it's always pretty great. I argue against buffing it, it'd be too good. Council of Elders is better than it was, which was needed. If it's good enough I cannot tell for sure, but I didn't feel underwhelmed. Hero Worship is unchanged and is, as always, uncomparable in yields, but only gives them for effort and in the worst types so it's fine. The one that gives +G+F+S per policy seems a bit underwhelming initially unless you go crazy with pop, but as always once it gets going it's really nice. Not sure if it's worth having Holy Sites with a mere +5 Gold on them, but it's strong and shouldn't probably get a buff. I don't think I took other ones yet, AI doesn't like those while they fit my style and they're usually available.
 
Last edited:
Oh yeah, that reminds me of the changes to Holy Law. It used to give 100 of each, scaling with era. It seems a lot weaker now, and it was considered weakish before. I think it needs a buff for sure.
 
Have only played with Transcendence, perhaps a very small buff (like from 20 to 22 or 23), but it'll be ok even if it stays like this. I usually try to delay the classical era as much as possible when picking it, so on average I manage to squeeze out 10 following cities before having to hit the classical era.
 
My thoughts so far are that Apostolic tradition is great and transcendence not so much, but not enough to change either one, at least not without some more experience. Its quite refreshing to see the power level flip like that

I think the changes have gone a long ways towards stopping early religion snowballs, which is just fantastic
 
My thoughts so far are that Apostolic tradition is great and transcendence not so much, but not enough to change either one, at least not without some more experience. Its quite refreshing to see the power level flip like that

I think the changes have gone a long ways towards stopping early religion snowballs, which is just fantastic

Yep. I'm seeing way more balanced power levels in AI matches explicitly because of this religion change. Religion is still much stronger than vanilla, but that bonus is not as immediate.

G
 
Holy Law seems really weak. Can anyone confirm or disagree with that assessment? It's purely speculation as it's yet to be good enough to be picked, but maybe others will disagree.

The problem is both low-yields and of fairly weak types. Gold and science are useful, but also plentiful.

Thoughts?
 
Holy Law seems really weak. Can anyone confirm or disagree with that assessment? It's purely speculation as it's yet to be good enough to be picked, but maybe others will disagree.

The problem is both low-yields and of fairly weak types. Gold and science are useful, but also plentiful.

Thoughts?
My concern is that I only see this useful for China. Then it's made to fit China's uniques.
 
My concern is that I only see this useful for China. Then it's made to fit China's uniques.
I think you're thinking of Theocratic Rule, which is for WLTKD. Holy Law is 1 science, faith and gold per follower when you adopt a policy. (Scaling with era I believe.) It seems a little lackluster, and I'd take it to 2 per follower or 3 per 2 followers to start.
 
I think you're thinking of Theocratic Rule, which is for WLTKD. Holy Law is 1 science, faith and gold per follower when you adopt a policy. (Scaling with era I believe.) It seems a little lackluster, and I'd take it to 2 per follower or 3 per 2 followers to start.
Oh, yes, I forgot it got names changed.

About Holy Law, I believe it's intended for tall civs with huge pop, where most of your pop will be followers of your religion. Maybe you could compare this situation with the others in their best case scenario.
 
Oh, yes, I forgot it got names changed.

About Holy Law, I believe it's intended for tall civs with huge pop, where most of your pop will be followers of your religion. Maybe you could compare this situation with the others in their best case scenario.
Yeah, but you got 100 of each before and it was meh. This means you're getting less until you pass 100 followers, which takes too long imo.
 
Oh, yes, I forgot it got names changed.

About Holy Law, I believe it's intended for tall civs with huge pop, where most of your pop will be followers of your religion. Maybe you could compare this situation with the others in their best case scenario.

Nope, seems okay for my wide Denmark, but then it's pretty easy to grow cities with that civ despite no direct bonuses. My Poland game on the previous version (still with Holy Law change) also seemed okay, but I've had really good room for expansion then.

Yeah, but you got 100 of each before and it was meh. This means you're getting less until you pass 100 followers, which takes too long imo.

Dunno, got it to work decently pretty fast in my current Denmark game. First policy post-adoption I got when I've had around 20-30 followers (pretty bad yields as a result) as I've only got one missionary up, but the next was at 80 so almost as good as before. It only got up. Considering you can get a tree per era with some civs, monopolies and/or Inspiration, that's good. I wouldn't be opposed against a buff as it's only for a small group of civs, but it'd need to be small, like improving the wonder as a building. It's the worst one probably, except for the one that grants +GAP. It could use a bit more yields.
 
Top Bottom