Two things that didn't make it?

[Simplicity4]

Overall, I'm really liking the new expansion. But there seems to be two things in the previews that I'm just not seeing in play:

1) Religion's effect on diplomacy. There doesn't seem to be any effect except for city state influence decay slowing down. So far I haven't seen any positive or negative modifiers for same/differing religions with the AIs (though there is a diplo hit if you convert someone else who is spreading a religion). Wasn't there supposed to be some effect that went away and got replaced by Social Policy diplomacy?

2) Declaration of Friendship auto-renewal. Why do AIs auto renew trade deals but not declarations of friendship? The message pops up every 45 turns... Well, why can't the AI just pop up and ask me if I want to renew? Rather than looking at the notification... Go to the button at the top, find the AI. Go discuss. Friendship. Not sure why this wasn't fixed along with trade deals. It just seems so obvious.

 

[Huaojozu]

1) There is a plus effect "More than half of their cities have happily converted to your Religion" or something like that. No penalty for just being different religions though, which is very disappointing, if indeed true.

2) Yep, seems simple.

I would also like to add that I couldn't manage to get any Intrigue information on any AI. Has that been cut or do I need to do something special to enable it? My spies automatically try to Steal Technologies.

 

[HazzMadd]

Intruige can be given to another play via the discuss button, and if your spy is in a city they will steal a tech no matter what, just given you e option of what tech. It's one of the few things they can do.

 

[Buccaneer]

1) There is a plus effect "More than half of their cities have happily converted to your Religion" or something like that. No penalty for just being different religions though, which is very disappointing, if indeed true.

Then it would be like Civ4 religion, which was bad. I'm glad that religion does not affect diplomacy, so the latter can still be mostly ignored. I will like religion for its bonuses, just like social policies.

 

[Kabloosh]

I was expecting some sort of impact on social policy choice when there is none which is a shame. These things should have an impact cause in reality they impact foreign policy more than anything else. Its why we live in separate nations in the first place.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Then it would be like Civ4 religion, which was bad. I'm glad that religion does not affect diplomacy, so the latter can still be mostly ignored. I will like religion for its bonuses, just like social policies.

Buccaneer, I agree that they should avoid the pitfalls of religion dominated diplomacy which we saw in Civ4, but that doesn't mean we can't have *any* impact. 2 possibilities come to mind for a middle ground-(1) you get an initial boost if you "Convert" to a Civs State Religion, but it decays quickly unless you make an effort to spread said religion and/or drive out "enemy" religions-with the boosts/decay being based on how strongly the AI values religion and/or how Pious the AI Civ is. Obviously using inquisitors should anger the Civs who have the religion you're persecuting ;-).

(2) No conversion, but you get a nice, "short-term" diplo boost every time you spread the religion around/use inquisitors to get rid of other religions-again based on Religion Focus/Piety.

What we should *never* have, ever again, is the small bonus which grows over time-just because you adopted another Civs religion ;-).

Aussie.

 

[Andulias]

Then it would be like Civ4 religion, which was bad. I'm glad that religion does not affect diplomacy, so the latter can still be mostly ignored. I will like religion for its bonuses, just like social policies.

Why, what pitfall, what was wrong with it? Some Civs didn't care at all about religion in CIV, while others were crazy about it, it gave them all more flavour.

I personally really enjoyed converting a neghbour of mine to a religion nobody else followed, and watching the Alexanders, Monties and Isabellas pound him to death. I was really hoping with religion we could at least form early-game blocks, maybe having the option to spend a huge amount of faith on a Holy Crusade of some sort, where every civ that follows your religion would declare a war on a nation of your choosing. As it stands isn't religion more like another SP tree? Not exactly realistic.

But maybe all of this would be too imbalanced, yes...