Weak (?) pantheons

[Gidoza]

You added a lot more than one new function.

Ancestor Worship is new (citizens)
Faith Healers is new (tile owner)
Fertility Rites is new (ITR)
Craftsmen is new (expenses)
God of the sea is new (% boost)
God of War is new (formula model)
Festivals (WLTKD)
Protection (% discount)
Wisdom (tech bonus)
Polytheism (faith yield from knowing other pantheons)
Religious Settlements (purchase element)
Sacred Path (promotion element)

and so on...

I'm not adding even more functions or data elements here - there are plenty of functions already in existence for pantheons. We can tweak what already exists without reinventing the wheel.

G

Ah, I didn't even realize that some of those qualified as "new functions" (e.g. changing the formula for God of War strikes me as the mod of a formula and not a new function).

I'll put out a new version with corrections in a couple of hours.

Also really appreciate the feedback I'm getting - it's dang useful and exactly what we needed. Changes will take those into account.

 

[PurpleMentat]

I did test Goddess of Love, with India. Got 3rd religion on Immortal as Tradition, and the golden age points are really nice.

 

[Funak]

I did test Goddess of Love, with India. Got 3rd religion on Immortal as Tradition, and the golden age points are really nice.

So it probably needs some minor tweaking? I mean it's going to be a lot more powerful for India since you get an extra 6 or so pops by starting with it.

Also it strikes me that having no idea what kind of civs you played against or what mapsize you played I can't really tell if getting the third religion is good or not

 

[Gidoza]

I did test Goddess of Love, with India. Got 3rd religion on Immortal as Tradition, and the golden age points are really nice.

Thanks for the test. I think this confirms that the buff to Faith is warranted. If it takes India to get 3rd when it's best growth is being done from nil, them I really wouldn't expect any other than the luckiest to succeed in getting a religion with it after the initial 40-turn waiting period for a Pantheon when most of those much-needed citizens have already grown. Agreed that the GA points are awesome as they are, though.

 

[PurpleMentat]

Thanks for the test. I think this confirms that the buff to Faith is warranted. If it takes India to get 3rd when it's best growth is being done from nil, them I really wouldn't expect any other than the luckiest to succeed in getting a religion with it after the initial 40-turn waiting period for a Pantheon when most of those much-needed citizens have already grown. Agreed that the GA points are awesome as they are, though.

I disagree? Anyone can get a really high food start. Anyone can luck into a Shrine turn 2, or even their Pantheon. My India start was fairly production-heavy. You pick your pantheon for your surroundings. If you're talking about the 3 or 4 population that's going to grow in the early game before you get a Pantheon, that's 2 or 3 bursts, so 16 to 24 faith. That's not going to get you a religion.

Also, one test is not enough to make this call.

 

[Gidoza]

I disagree? Anyone can get a really high food start. Anyone can luck into a Shrine turn 2, or even their Pantheon. My India start was fairly production-heavy. You pick your pantheon for your surroundings. If you're talking about the 3 or 4 population that's going to grow in the early game before you get a Pantheon, that's 2 or 3 bursts, so 16 to 24 faith. That's not going to get you a religion.

Also, one test is not enough to make this call.

Point noted on Shrines, but also that's variable with game and anyone can get them, so I don't think this is the main point to concentrate on.

Obviously this Pantheon is going to depend mostly on expanding to get a Religion, because relying on the growth of a single city won't be what you need to generate the faith needed to produce a religion. Consequently, the utility of this Pantheon in the early-game would strike me as making more sense in a Capital with high production than high food; and a Capital that has excellence in both is an exception and not the rule, so we can't really aim to balance the Pantheon around that exception (and even if it is an exception, I don't see this as a problem: all the Improvement Pantheons go without complaint if I should happen to have 7 of said Improvement in the radius of my Capital, but this isn't the standard situation, so we don't consider it unbalanced if it should happen). The point is: if your starting situation favors a certain Pantheon, I don't see the problem with this.

Anyways, the math. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Shrines will net you 100 of the 400 needed Faith by turn 90 to get your Religion, which leaves 300 Faith to go. 300 Faith @ 8 Faith a pop = 38 population. That's a tad steep. At my suggested 12 Faith a pop, the number is 300 @ 12 = 25 population. That's a bit more realistic.

Now, the factor I haven't calculated in (because I'll admit, I'm not quite sure what it is) is the scaling effect of jumping from the Ancient to the Classical Era, which will add some extra Faith into the mix. So I admit that this could skew the numbers. Even so, 4 extra population generating 32 extra Faith early on for India you must admit really CAN make a difference in certain games (I can count beyond both hands how many games I thought my Faith generation was supremely awesome, and lost the race by a single turn, anyways).

Anyways, my end point is that I think it could use a scale upwards. The jump from 8 to 12 may be too much and perhaps 10 is better, but I feel confident from the math that the demand for 38 population before scaling is a bit much, and thus this could use a bit of a buff.

 

[Gidoza]

So it probably needs some minor tweaking? I mean it's going to be a lot more powerful for India since you get an extra 6 or so pops by starting with it.

Also it strikes me that having no idea what kind of civs you played against or what mapsize you played I can't really tell if getting the third religion is good or not

Yeah, this is where I think alot of the contention is. I've played games where I thought my Faith was great, and failed to get a religion (even with Stonehenge). Other games my Faith sucked, I got religion first, and AIs followed me maybe 20 turns or more later. My point is that any balancing or tweaking I am attempting to do here in this thread is totally unconcerned with exceptions: if you have lots of Mines, or Wheat, or massive pop potential, or whatever, there's a diversity of Pantheons that can exploit the strength, and that's the point of it. If we don't like going about it this way, then I'd suggest re-constructing the Pantheons from scratch with a whole new mindset.

 

[Gazebo]

Yeah, this is where I think alot of the contention is. I've played games where I thought my Faith was great, and failed to get a religion (even with Stonehenge). Other games my Faith sucked, I got religion first, and AIs followed me maybe 20 turns or more later. My point is that any balancing or tweaking I am attempting to do here in this thread is totally unconcerned with exceptions: if you have lots of Mines, or Wheat, or massive pop potential, or whatever, there's a diversity of Pantheons that can exploit the strength, and that's the point of it. If we don't like going about it this way, then I'd suggest re-constructing the Pantheons from scratch with a whole new mindset.

Let's keep the pantheons the same format as they are now, but tweak numbers as needed. No need to reinvent the wheel. There will never, ever be a perfect pantheon balance.

G

 

[Gidoza]

Let's keep the pantheons the same format as they are now, but tweak numbers as needed. No need to reinvent the wheel. There will never, ever be a perfect pantheon balance.

G

Don't worry, Gazebo - I have every intention of honoring your request so that any fiddling you have to do in the code will be just changing numbers. My statement was one of rhetoric and not a serious suggestion to start everything from scratch.


And @ PurpleMentat, I just want to be sure I'm understood. I am thinking about this piece of the project in a particular way, namely that...

1. Edaka has pointed out some Pantheons that appear to be weak, and I'm not sure that I can disagree with him.

2. But we lack information about how strong these Pantheons actually are, because nobody talks about them.

3. So you're right, we need more testing.

Yes, I really am interested in balanced and differentiated Pantheons. I will share that I am a very trial-and-error kind of person: hence, I'm not worried about even deliberately making a Pantheon overpowered just to see results and to have people react to it. Half of what I'm doing is perceived balancing, and half is just plain testing. Does this sound alright to you? As I said, I'll honor Gazebo's request, and I'm happy to take the brunt of analyzing the data. I ENJOY doing stuff like this.

 

[Gazebo]

Don't worry, Gazebo - I have every intention of honoring your request so that any fiddling you have to do in the code will be just changing numbers. My statement was one of rhetoric and not a serious suggestion to start everything from scratch.


And @ PurpleMentat, I just want to be sure I'm understood. I am thinking about this piece of the project in a particular way, namely that...

1. Edaka has pointed out some Pantheons that appear to be weak, and I'm not sure that I can disagree with him.

2. But we lack information about how strong these Pantheons actually are, because nobody talks about them.

3. So you're right, we need more testing.

Yes, I really am interested in balanced and differentiated Pantheons. I will share that I am a very trial-and-error kind of person: hence, I'm not worried about even deliberately making a Pantheon overpowered just to see results and to have people react to it. Half of what I'm doing is perceived balancing, and half is just plain testing. Does this sound alright to you? As I said, I'll honor Gazebo's request, and I'm happy to take the brunt of analyzing the data. I ENJOY doing stuff like this.

My rule-of-thumb: when you make a balance change to buff something, go a bit higher than you originally intended. Players will be more excited about picking it, and their reports will help you figure out how much to nerf it by.

G

 

[PurpleMentat]

Point noted on Shrines, but also that's variable with game and anyone can get them, so I don't think this is the main point to concentrate on.

Obviously this Pantheon is going to depend mostly on expanding to get a Religion, because relying on the growth of a single city won't be what you need to generate the faith needed to produce a religion. Consequently, the utility of this Pantheon in the early-game would strike me as making more sense in a Capital with high production than high food; and a Capital that has excellence in both is an exception and not the rule, so we can't really aim to balance the Pantheon around that exception (and even if it is an exception, I don't see this as a problem: all the Improvement Pantheons go without complaint if I should happen to have 7 of said Improvement in the radius of my Capital, but this isn't the standard situation, so we don't consider it unbalanced if it should happen). The point is: if your starting situation favors a certain Pantheon, I don't see the problem with this.

Anyways, the math. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Shrines will net you 100 of the 400 needed Faith by turn 90 to get your Religion, which leaves 300 Faith to go. 300 Faith @ 8 Faith a pop = 38 population. That's a tad steep. At my suggested 12 Faith a pop, the number is 300 @ 12 = 25 population. That's a bit more realistic.

Now, the factor I haven't calculated in (because I'll admit, I'm not quite sure what it is) is the scaling effect of jumping from the Ancient to the Classical Era, which will add some extra Faith into the mix. So I admit that this could skew the numbers. Even so, 4 extra population generating 32 extra Faith early on for India you must admit really CAN make a difference in certain games (I can count beyond both hands how many games I thought my Faith generation was supremely awesome, and lost the race by a single turn, anyways).

Anyways, my end point is that I think it could use a scale upwards. The jump from 8 to 12 may be too much and perhaps 10 is better, but I feel confident from the math that the demand for 38 population before scaling is a bit much, and thus this could use a bit of a buff.

You tell me we can't compare exceptions, and then use an exception (5 pop Capital before Pantheon) as your base of comparison. You're likely to get your Pantheon at 3 or 4 pop if you make Religion a priority. If you don't, then guess what? You're at a big disadvantage for getting a religion! 3 pop is 16 faith, which is 4% of a Prophet on Standard, and 2.67% on Epic where the test was done. 4 pop is 24 faith, for 6% on Standard and 4% on Epic. Testing a flat-faith-per-population on Epic put me at a disadvantage using the Pantheon. Also, the test was on Immortal, I didn't' prioritize Shrines, and I got FIRST religion. Had I been a different civ and prioritized shrines, I probably would have done better.

On Shrines - 65 hammers. Capital produces 4 hammers without terrain. Hill makes it 5, one decent tile makes it 6 or 7. You have your first Shrine on turn 9 or 10, assuming no Forest settle. Pantheon on Turn 40, assuming no other Faith bonuses. You're getting 60 Faith towards your Prophet from your first shrine alone.

Research a Luxury tech, then Pottery, build Settlers after Shrine - Scout - Monument, at 4 pop. 13 production towards Settlers is not uncommon (this example start I'm playing did it with two Plains Truffles and 2 Plains), giving you your first Settler at Turn 34, second at 42. 3 cities settled at turn 45. Shrine 2 up on Turn 59 (two forests, bought a plains forest truffle, settled on grassland river), Shrine 3 up on Turn 62 (Settled on Hill River, bought a Grassland Cattle, had a Grassland Forest Truffle and a Grassland Horse).

Total faith from Shrines by Turn 90: 119. In my experience, you have a good 10 to 16 turns past Turn 90 before all the religions are founded (extrapolating from Epic to Standard at 2/3's of 150 to 160) granting another 30 to 48 faith from Shrines. If you get any sort of real help towards this goal, you can do it faster (18 production in the capital while building settlers is totally doable with Tradition, much faster expansion Shrine production is standard with Progress). So, we're looking at needing 300 faith from non-Shrine sources for FIRST religion, and <250 for ANY religion, on standard. You have 50 turns to get this for first, so average 6 faith per turn from pantheon, and 65 turns for any, so average 4 per turn, ignoring external sources (ruins, religious city states, Tradition). If you take Tradition, you can get your 3rd policy turn 60 to 70 (Musician, 6 free Culture) That's another 60 to 90 faith towards 1st, or 90 to 135 faith towards any.

Founding a world religion is not something that should 'just happen' without investing into it. Building a Shrine first in three cities with average spots is not asking a lot of investment, and has a good shot at getting you 1st or 2nd. Your Pantheon can't do most of the work and get you a good religion. It can do half the work and get you 1st pick, or 3/4s of the work and maybe miss it. You need to make up the other half some other way.

 

[Edaka]

Don't worry, Gazebo - I have every intention of honoring your request so that any fiddling you have to do in the code will be just changing numbers. My statement was one of rhetoric and not a serious suggestion to start everything from scratch.


And @ PurpleMentat, I just want to be sure I'm understood. I am thinking about this piece of the project in a particular way, namely that...

1. Edaka has pointed out some Pantheons that appear to be weak, and I'm not sure that I can disagree with him.

2. But we lack information about how strong these Pantheons actually are, because nobody talks about them.

3. So you're right, we need more testing.

Yes, I really am interested in balanced and differentiated Pantheons. I will share that I am a very trial-and-error kind of person: hence, I'm not worried about even deliberately making a Pantheon overpowered just to see results and to have people react to it. Half of what I'm doing is perceived balancing, and half is just plain testing. Does this sound alright to you? As I said, I'll honor Gazebo's request, and I'm happy to take the brunt of analyzing the data. I ENJOY doing stuff like this.

One thing worthy to note: I started this thread because I thought that all pantheons should've had equal chances at founding a religion and therefore only brought up the faith generation. However, after extensive discussion and arguing a consensus has been achieved that all pantheons yielding more or less the same amounts of faith would possibly create boring gameplay, with which I agree. I think it has become a matter of making all pantheons equal if not faith-wise, then otherwise. Equal as in equally feasible depending on the situation, e.g. whether you're planning to found a religion or not.

Like I've mentioned, the high faith generation meaning high chances at founding a religion is probably the single most powerful benefit a pantheon can provide. Therefore, pantheons with low faith generation should have their secondary effects adjusted so that anybody not going for a religion can reap beneefits from their pantheon of choice.

Ancestor Worship is a good example of that model. It will never guarantee you a religion, but the +3 culture is pretty relevant in its power up intil the point where your cities will start getting converted to another religion, at which point its power would have slowly fallen off. Polytheism is another good example, but I still think it shouldn't be as dependant on the mapsize.

Keeping that model in mind, the main offenders are pantheons like God-King. It requires you to found a religion to actually reap benefits from it, but at the same time it's extremely hard to found one. You almost never want to take God-King, and that's exactly what I'm talking about when mentioning pantheon equality - I think every pantheon should be equally desirable, without meaning equal faith generation or anything like that. Making them equally desirable wouldn't make it boring, but quite the contrary.

 

[Funak]

Keeping that model in mind, the main offenders are pantheons like God-King. It requires you to found a religion to actually reap benefits from it, but at the same time it's extremely hard to found one. You almost never want to take God-King, and that's exactly what I'm talking about when mentioning pantheon equality - I think every pantheon should be equally desirable, without meaning equal faith generation or anything like that. Making them equally desirable wouldn't make it boring, but quite the contrary.

Again, I want to emphasize that God-King is mostly designed for civs with massive natural faith-generation, civs that give up their 100% chance of founding a religion for a 70 or 80% chance to found one with a super-pantheon. There are quite a few civs that can make God-King work, along with anyone rushing Stonehenge.

 

[Edaka]

Again, I want to emphasize that God-King is mostly designed for civs with massive natural faith-generation, civs that give up their 100% chance of founding a religion for a 70 or 80% chance to found one with a super-pantheon. There are quite a few civs that can make God-King work, along with anyone rushing Stonehenge.

Well, then I'm not sure I like that idea. Do faith oriented civs really need advantages like these? I've talked before how being almost always guaranteed to found a religion is already a big boon by itself. Besides, restricting certain pantheons to only certain civs isn't terribly interesting, either. I mean, we have the whole Celtish UA based around that - the usual pantheons, on the other hand, can be founded by anyone. It doesn't make much sense to me if they can only be useful to a select number of civs.

In my opinion, an ideal situation would be the one where every pantheon was being picked with the same frequency on average. Otherwise some pantheons are more (and some less) useful in most situations than others - that's actually a good definition of imbalance if I understand correctly what that is.

An entirely different question, but I think it's worth to ask: do we really need pantheons that scale into the late-game? It doesn't make much thematical sense when we're talking about civilisations as a generalised whole (unless we're talking about Celts again) - from that point of view, I think pantheons are supposed to kind of give way to organised religion. I know that the two are assimilated in the game and therefore are terms are highly figurative. However, right now I think it's exactly the scaling type of pantheons that's giving us (me, at least) the most trouble, namely God of Commerce, God-King etc. It makes a lot of sense to have these long-term scaling pantheons for Celts since it's their thing and they're always guaranteed to be able to make use of them, but it makes balancing pantheons for everybody else a nightmare.

 

[Funak]

Well, then I'm not sure I like that idea. Do faith oriented civs really need advantages like these? I've talked before how being almost always guaranteed to found a religion is already a big boon by itself. Besides, restricting certain pantheons to only certain civs isn't terribly interesting, either. I mean, we have the whole Celtish UA based around that - the usual pantheons, on the other hand, can be founded by anyone. It doesn't make much sense to me if they can only be useful to a select number of civs.

It's not so much an advantage for faith oriented civs as it is a choice, a chance, a possibility. A strong faith civ picking a pantheon with weaker faith-generation means two things:
1. Their faith generation is lower
2. The strong faith generating pantheons are still available for others.

This leads to non-faith-oriented civs having a bigger chance in the faith-race instead of just being run over, as well as giving faith-oriented civs a shot at a more powerful religion while risking missing out on religion altogether.

 

[Edaka]

It's not so much an advantage for faith oriented civs as it is a choice, a chance, a possibility. A strong faith civ picking a pantheon with weaker faith-generation means two things:
1. Their faith generation is lower
2. The strong faith generating pantheons are still available for others.

This leads to non-faith-oriented civs having a bigger chance in the faith-race instead of just being run over, as well as giving faith-oriented civs a shot at a more powerful religion while risking missing out on religion altogether.

Yeah, I can see this being a valid choice for faith civs, but l don't think it's ideal that only faith civs can afford pantheons like these. It effectively narrows down the variety of choice of pantheons for non-faith oriented civs. I think it would be better if any pantheon could be useful to any civ given the right conditions without locking out many options. More variety is always better.

That's why I propose something along the lines of giving flat yields or boosting the existing ones to the pantheons that neither excel at early faith generation nor being useful in any other way early on. Pantheons have to be good in at least one of these areas to be a feasible/interesting choice.

 

[Funak]

More variety is always better.

You do realize that this would mean less variety, not more, right?

That's why I propose something along the lines of giving flat yields or boosting the existing ones to the pantheons that neither excel at early faith generation nor being useful in any other way early on. Pantheons have to be good in at least one of these areas to be a feasible/interesting choice.

This sounds extremely boring and one-dimensional, there are already over 10 pantheons that are useful early on, how many more could you possibly need?
More variety is always better.

 

[Gidoza]

You tell me we can't compare exceptions, and then use an exception (5 pop Capital before Pantheon) as your base of comparison. You're likely to get your Pantheon at 3 or 4 pop if you make Religion a priority. If you don't, then guess what? You're at a big disadvantage for getting a religion! 3 pop is 16 faith, which is 4% of a Prophet on Standard, and 2.67% on Epic where the test was done. 4 pop is 24 faith, for 6% on Standard and 4% on Epic. Testing a flat-faith-per-population on Epic put me at a disadvantage using the Pantheon. Also, the test was on Immortal, I didn't' prioritize Shrines, and I got FIRST religion. Had I been a different civ and prioritized shrines, I probably would have done better.

On Shrines - 65 hammers. Capital produces 4 hammers without terrain. Hill makes it 5, one decent tile makes it 6 or 7. You have your first Shrine on turn 9 or 10, assuming no Forest settle. Pantheon on Turn 40, assuming no other Faith bonuses. You're getting 60 Faith towards your Prophet from your first shrine alone.

Research a Luxury tech, then Pottery, build Settlers after Shrine - Scout - Monument, at 4 pop. 13 production towards Settlers is not uncommon (this example start I'm playing did it with two Plains Truffles and 2 Plains), giving you your first Settler at Turn 34, second at 42. 3 cities settled at turn 45. Shrine 2 up on Turn 59 (two forests, bought a plains forest truffle, settled on grassland river), Shrine 3 up on Turn 62 (Settled on Hill River, bought a Grassland Cattle, had a Grassland Forest Truffle and a Grassland Horse).

Total faith from Shrines by Turn 90: 119. In my experience, you have a good 10 to 16 turns past Turn 90 before all the religions are founded (extrapolating from Epic to Standard at 2/3's of 150 to 160) granting another 30 to 48 faith from Shrines. If you get any sort of real help towards this goal, you can do it faster (18 production in the capital while building settlers is totally doable with Tradition, much faster expansion Shrine production is standard with Progress). So, we're looking at needing 300 faith from non-Shrine sources for FIRST religion, and <250 for ANY religion, on standard. You have 50 turns to get this for first, so average 6 faith per turn from pantheon, and 65 turns for any, so average 4 per turn, ignoring external sources (ruins, religious city states, Tradition). If you take Tradition, you can get your 3rd policy turn 60 to 70 (Musician, 6 free Culture) That's another 60 to 90 faith towards 1st, or 90 to 135 faith towards any.

Founding a world religion is not something that should 'just happen' without investing into it. Building a Shrine first in three cities with average spots is not asking a lot of investment, and has a good shot at getting you 1st or 2nd. Your Pantheon can't do most of the work and get you a good religion. It can do half the work and get you 1st pick, or 3/4s of the work and maybe miss it. You need to make up the other half some other way.

^_^ I never said investment shouldn't count for anything: of course it does. I assumed investment as part of the process, and underestimated it a little - thank you for more accurate numbers! My point, though, is that if you want a religion, you DO need Shrines and you DO need your Pantheon to work for you - without a Natural Wonder or a Faith-based Civ that produces the extra Faith, you can't just magically get the Religion lacking one or the other. But a Pantheon that is too weak won't be enough to overcome any gap that exists from what the Shrines can't produce, or that better Pantheons can't produce.

I really don't think we're disagreeing with one another here - something just got lost in translation. In either, case, this:

Originally posted by Gazebo:
My rule-of-thumb: when you make a balance change to buff something, go a bit higher than you originally intended. Players will be more excited about picking it, and their reports will help you figure out how much to nerf it by.

G

I want to buff the pop-for-Faith Pantheon to 12, and just see what happens. THEN yell at me!

 

[Gidoza]

An entirely different question, but I think it's worth to ask: do we really need pantheons that scale into the late-game? It doesn't make much thematical sense when we're talking about civilisations as a generalised whole (unless we're talking about Celts again) - from that point of view, I think pantheons are supposed to kind of give way to organised religion. I know that the two are assimilated in the game and therefore are terms are highly figurative. However, right now I think it's exactly the scaling type of pantheons that's giving us (me, at least) the most trouble, namely God of Commerce, God-King etc. It makes a lot of sense to have these long-term scaling pantheons for Celts since it's their thing and they're always guaranteed to be able to make use of them, but it makes balancing pantheons for everybody else a nightmare.

My answer to this question is YES, in a certain way. I think Ancestor Worship is a good example of this. It has a strong starting buff (Culture) that falls off quickly, and a Faith buff that - even if buffed by me - is still weak early on for generating a Religion. Whereas other Pantheons will have stuff like Markets (that give +2 Culture per city), this Pantheon doesn't have that: so to allow it to produce larger Faith than average in the late game seems like a worthy reward for actually enabling it to succeed in getting a Religion. As for the others, like Oral Tradition - Plantations are plenty enough that your Faith generation from them late into the game will never be anything to sneeze at.

 

[Gazebo]

Let's step back here, things are getting a bit esoteric. A few (I'd say 5-6) of the Pantheons need to a little love. List out the ones that are specifically poor early game and/or nigh-impossible to gain a religion with, and let's go from there.

G