Why make some civs Neutral when their clearly intended religion drives them to evil?

[Cuteunit]

making your cities require only half food at the price of a fairly minor economic dip is leagues ahead of Protect the Meek.

 

[Ringtailed]

don't forget, though, that STW gives a large penalty to health, and the spread of Hell destroys most food resources and all forests, so unless you've managed to destroy the Infernals and sanctify all the Hell in the world (or, at least, the part that's near you...), STW doesn't quite result in half food use.

 

[ophite]

I'm talking about the Social Order values civic. Extremely useful at keeping your happiness cap equal to your city population.

-- ACS

 

[oyzar]

don't forget, though, that STW gives a large penalty to health, and the spread of Hell destroys most food resources and all forests, so unless you've managed to destroy the Infernals and sanctify all the Hell in the world (or, at least, the part that's near you...), STW doesn't quite result in half food use.

Well assume you have a health cap somewhere in the middle of the road say 12. Without STW(looking away from any other unhealthiness bonuses like forge etc though they will all be favourable for with STW..). At size 8 you then get no unhealthyness and have 8 food compared to 16 normally. At size 12 you have to pay 16 food per turn compared to the normal 24. At size 13 it is 27 vs 18. So basically you gain between 1 food per pop(up healthy cap with stw) then gain nothing per pop(but still don't pay more food per pop than normal) up the next 4 pops then precede to gain 1 food per pop -4 up til forever. At large sizes this 4 food is pretty insignificant compared to the food you gain from going with STW(16 food at size 20 assuming we are way over health cap for example). Have fun playing as kuriouates getting the OO wonder that gives no unhappiness then going for veil for stw and watch your city grow insanely big...

 

[Shadius]

amurites are clearly ashen veil.

Eh. I've always seen the Amurites as pragmatists. Sure; the Veil is a logical choice for them, story-wise, given their quest for power, but it's more likely that they'd turn to whatever would benefit them the most given the situation. Remember that pedia entry where Dain and Val increase Order authority because of a looming Infernal Threat? Yeah. Like that.

 

[Goodgimp]

Amurites have so far been my favorite Civ, but I've never taken AV with them *shrug*. I like OO for Hemah.

Still, saying allowing a sage makes them clearly the Amurite religion is silly. A sage is useful to everyone.

 

[Mewtarthio]

well, good doesn't just mean opposed to evil in this game. Civics like Sacrifice the Weak and abilities like Feast pretty much distinguish evil as an attribute with no regard for any life

Bear in mind, this is a pretty dark fantasy world. The Order has been described as similar to real-world oppressive dictatorships in some circumstances. The only difference between Agnostic Calabim and Order Calabim is that the latter tells its citizens that they're being eaten for the greater good.

 

[Ekolite]

Exactly, you've got to remembe that the ''evil'' or ''good'' of a religion is more to do with what side of the godswar they fought on and just because the religion is ''good'' its not necessarilly good at all. The Order is a fanatic crusading, really quite evil religion that actually fits the calabim better in a RP sense and in some places game-wise. For example, Social Order civic gives happiness for eah unit in the city, that can easilly counter the ''harsh oppresion'' unhappiness I believe you get when you let your vampires out for dinner. Also, now the only way to get StW automatically sends hyborem into the world, I'm pretty sure that not getting the food bonus from Stw makes up fine for not having your lland urn to hell.

Also, the Order or Council of Esus fit the Calabim thematically so much better then the AV.

 

[Cuteunit]

Sabathiel is an angel of junil and the Order worships Junil... I dont know if calabim really are xoxo bff with such beings.. Can you imagine sabathiel being bff with either of the calabim leaders just because the order was their state religion? Takes a very loose interpretation of the Order to jibe there.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

But remember, eventually the Order became very corrupt, and its priests ceased to listen to Sabathiel (if he would even agree to talk with them anymore). Sine he is bound by the compact, he cannot intervene in the world to point out that the evils done in his name are not his will. There were many evil acts committed by those who claimed to be priests of Junil, but were more likely followers of Esus, or of their own desires. Most Priests of the Order have no real divine powers, and eventually the Order became devoted to hunting down anyone that did. Valin Phanuel, the Order's Hero, is among the true followers of Junil whom The Order tried to have killed.

The Calabim fit quite well into this latter, fallen state of the Order.

 

[onedreamer]

AV temple adds research and allows assigning another Sage.

I don't see how this has any more synergy with Amurites than Clan of Embers ?

 

[Caradoc]

Leaves works very well for the Amurites. Not having to cut the Forests means high production, high income, and plenty of food. You get Govannonized Druids, Satyrs, and two good Heroes. Being Neutral, your diplomatic prospects are good, and Leaves spreads fast and early. The Elven promotion reduces the need for roads and benefits your recon units.

 

[oyzar]

How does fol work well with Amurites? Fol sucks with any non-elves due to the fact that forests titles sucks and ancient forests titles are still worse than farms...

 

[Caradoc]

How does fol work well with Amurites? Fol sucks with any non-elves due to the fact that forests titles sucks and ancient forests titles are still worse than farms...

Of course, you still need Farms. But with Guardian of Nature, the health and happiness you get from the trees means you keep all the food you grow and "we love our" days happen frequently.

 

[MalkutX]

The Calabim fit quite well into this latter, fallen state of the Order.

Plus, I can see the Calabim as being pretty implacable enemies of the Ashen Veil. It's no fun living forever in a world overrun with demons. Demons are even bigger, scarier, and more powerful than vampires, and their culture revolves around vampires being the biggest, scariest, and most powerful people around.

So, I imagine that whenever the veil rears it's ugly head in Calabim lands, someone is there to bite its' jugular. It makes sense that they'd choose a state religion that justifies this.

 

[Rod]

Actually the original thread was the question why are the 'bad' religions better than the 'good' religions.

The point is for me that this has a particular reason. Sheaim and Amurites are very late comers and this is because they have the strongest synergies with OO (Amurites) and AV (Sheaim). So it might be that the relative 'superiority' of these Religions in opposite to Orders and Empyreans (does ANYBODY ever felt the need to adopt them ?? ) is just a balancing effect ?

Btw. A sidenote regd. Empyreans. I feel so sorry for the developers. They spent months on implementing Empyreans and nobody has ever sad, oh how great, how awesome. Esus was cheerfully welcomed. Everybody likes either FoL or OO or Orders or AV especially when they play a particular civ, but has anybody ever tried to use Empyreans as part of a strategy ??

 

[Seventh Child]

Amurites have so far been my favorite Civ, but I've never taken AV with them *shrug*. I like OO for Hemah.

Same. Amurites are probably my favourite, above Sidar and Lanun. I can see easily how they could slip into worshipping the Ashen Veil. As you get to some of the later Magic Techs like Soul Debt, it becomes apparent how easily your civ could slip. On the other hand, one game I played with my girlfriend saw my Amurites ending up as FoL mostly. Water and Nature mana nodes plus Amurites natural spellcasting prowess.

Most of the time I don't have a state religion (Which I get the impression makes my civ weaker overall.) but my favourite is probably OO.

I just recently had the pleasure of being deemed the "evil" civ of a game. It was mostly Good and Neutral. I just happened to start on a fairly small continent with the Elohim and eventually ended up kicking them out of our little corner. Stayed neutral throughout, but of course nobody trusts the Amurites =(. The Malakim somehow managed to convince every single Civ in the world to go to War with me, which made life pretty hard.

 

[Ringtailed]

Btw. A sidenote regd. Empyreans. I feel so sorry for the developers. They spent months on implementing Empyreans and nobody has ever sad, oh how great, how awesome. Esus was cheerfully welcomed. Everybody likes either FoL or OO or Orders or AV especially when they play a particular civ, but has anybody ever tried to use Empyreans as part of a strategy ??

Well for my part, I don't really care for Esus either o_O I like idea but feel its underpowered; most of the strengths behind it is really the Undercouncil resolutions which aren't strictly Council of Esus perks. The only real benefits of CoE atm is building Shadows (currently bugged?) which doesn't strike me as useful enough in most cases (unless facing a bunch of superpowered casters... but regular assassins may be built anyway without CoE religion AFAIK)
I like the idea of Empyrean too, but it doesn't feel very unique in execution. Mostly I use it as Malakim since Chalid and his Aurealis have sun affinity...

I hope the development team doesn't feel slighted in their efforts though. Personally I appreciate all attempts to add interesting mechanics to the mod even if they're underpowered or not quite right at first.

 

[xienwolf]

Yes, most all the perks are in the Council, not the religion. I think that actually adopting Esus only allows: Ability to actually spread the religion, (thus build CoE requiring units in more cities: only Shadowrider requires the state religion, the rest just require that it is present), not removed from enemy borders when declaring war, the single Esus Hero.

About the same with Empyrean, allows a few units and one hero. Can spread it and get the temples without needing to adopt the religion at all.

 

[Arwon]

The CoE also removes negative religion diplo modifiers. I've switched a couple of times to it purely to keep one of the crazier crusaders (I think it was the Malakim) off my back for a while.