[Tuning] Simple number tweaks

Good to know. I hate how much dry humor withers online.

 

Agreed 100%.
I think I came across your bug report on github. For those who aren't aware, iron fist gives +50% of vassal yields, but that's +50% of THEIR yields, not +50% of the 20% you normally get. So you get 70% total, which is massive.
Gazebo said that's intended.

There are definitely situations where you vassals can be quite strong.
I had a game where I fought an atomic age Korea who beelined electronics while still running around with fusiliers. I had mostly very highly promoted riflemen upgraded from musketeers. After killing the bulk of his troops I could pretty much just dive wherever I wanted into his land, pillaging everything and easily taking half his cities in a quick operation. Maybe speed of conquest makes them capitulate easier?
I left him alive with 5 cities out of his original 10, and now I'm getting close to 1.5k science from him if I recall correctly. Massive.

 

Way of transcendece is pretty crappy, I would guess that Holy law gives you mire yileds 99% of the time and even if hily law is taken there are enough stronger alternatives.

Pagodas and Stupas seem very weak to me as well

Edit: I see there are some changes in the newest beta, post is outdated then

 

I'm really liking the balance tweaks in the 2-1 beta patch regarding religion. At this point there are only 2 bug-bears left for me when it comes to religion, specifically founder beliefs: Council of Elders is running a little hot, and Way of the Pilgrim is a little counter-intuitive.

For Council of Elders, I would just throttle down the production and science yields a tad. Right now it balloons out into ridiculous yields territory a bit too quickly, especially on larger maps. Also, you can easily time missionary/GP spreads to coincide with wonder production, essentially turning them into mini-Great Engineers in the mid/late game.

For Way of the Pilgrim, I think the calculation for how Culture/Tourism yields are calculated needs to be reevaluated. Currently you get the biggest yields for sending missionaries to cities with lots of followers of another religion. So if you want the biggest yields you need to target cities that your missionary likely won't fully convert. And if you use a GP to flip a city, even if it had tons of followers of other religions, you essentially get no yields because it seems to only count followers converted, not followers removed. So if you want to actually generate a lot of tourism with a high-culture-output civ, you want to spread your missionaries out and NOT convert their cities. Because once you convert their cities you won't be able to generate any more tourism from WotP. Yes, you'll get a tourism boost with them if you can entirely convert their empire, but then your spreading boost is useless. Thus the counter-intuitive nature of this Founder belief. I think it should be changed to be the same as Apostolic Tradition is, where your yields are based on the number of followers converted, not on the number of other followers in the city at the time of conversion. That way you are encouraged to fully convert cities rather than look for "juicy" cities with lots of followers of other religions.

 

Way of the Pilgrim is by design. It’s intended to be a non-majority spreader.

G

 

So, is the intent is that it's for Civs that are trying to spread their religion after other religions have already spread across the map? I guess that makes sense for tall/tradition civs going for a cultural victory that aim for early religious enhancement over early religion spreading or have Big Religious Civs tm nearby (India, Ethiopia, etc.) that would be aggressively trying to spread their own religion.

As a side note, I've found that the much, MUCH better AI in the last couple of month's worth of patches have gotten much better at culture generation and policy accumulation relative to difficulty level. This had made early (pre-industrial) cultural victories much more difficult, which has been a very nice change of pace for the average game. It allows for me to get actual use out Archaeology, theming museums, building hotels, and utilizing other late-game tourism-boosting buildings and technologies (I used to be able to win via Cultural Victory before I could even unlock Radio or start building Broadcast Towers). The balance of AI culture generation to tourism output feels SO, SO MUCH better now, so THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Cheers!

 

I do think Council of Elders needs a nerf. It has become my go to founder in most cases.

I personally think it is the best designed founder belief right now. Regardless of its power, its actually just really simple and effective to use. Its very clear how it works, you can time the bonuses to rush wonders, and it is effective even if you can't hold your religion in other countries long term. Its just very solid. Also the holy site bonus and holy council building really good.

But its also.....very powerful. I think the science bonus is fine but the hammer bonus could likely use a nerf. Its too easy to rush wonders with this belief right now.

 

It does, yes, I've noticed that as well. Current test has it at 6/6 (from 10/10), AI seems to be a little more inline with it.

G