Why so few beliefs?

The shear difference between the potential in a Pangea vs a continents map is what scares me...

What if it was max of 8, same as god of all creation, but it had some extra stretch goal?

maybe a 4th level for a CS following your pantheon or having an embassy with them?

does my Liturgical language proposal not seem suitable instead of a direct GP-focused bonus? It’s focused on spread, like many other enhancers.

 

What about
1) Set up an array of plots
2) When an improvement is completed, check if that plot is in the array
3) If it's not, then give yields and add the plot to the array

Maybe have the array be based on Civ so Theodora and someone else can both have the pantheon

 

This is conceptually a fine idea for a belief, and the numbers seem reasonable. I would it take it sometimes. But even if I want to win via tourism I don't necessarily want a belief that gives no tourism and no other yields, because tourism isn't important in the mid-game. I need to reach a lot of science, wonder, and culture goals along the way, great people help me do that. Furthermore, great people doesn't always mean tourism though. What enhancer appeals to a tall science victory currently?

Also this:
It focuses on spread like many other enhancers

I often want a belief that doesn't depend on spreading. It would be nice to have some options. Sometimes I don't really have the means to spread my religion far and wide, so I spread enough to reform, then switch to producing holy sites. Even if I could win the conversion war, the question is should I? The cost is usually thousands of faith, are the rewards worth it?

 

I'm always up for more options to any given part of this game, and more beliefs is definitely something I'd love. For now, here are some basic ideas for Pantheon beliefs that haven't been suggested yet, since there are some deity types that aren't represented:

Goddess of the Moon- Naturally, the inclination for this belief would be to be the opposite of "God of the Sun". But not sure what would be the opposite of Granary and Wheat farms, while still remaining useful and not overlapping other beliefs... So perhaps, in reference to the lunar cycle and the moon's connotation with sorcery, this belief gives a large sum of and a single random yield (which can be , , , , and each cycle) every other turn? And seeing how the full moon is often associated with insanity, perhaps this belief causes ? Could make for a neat "risk and reward" strat: you get large sums of yields every few turns or so, but have to deal with extra unhappiness, but balance is hardly my niche. Just an idea guy

God of Storms- There's hardly a Pantheon that lacks a storm god, so why not? And I'm thinking perhaps this belief could reward pillaging, to reflect the sort of devastation storms and natural disasters leave behind. As a bonus, Denmark (the "Viking Civ") is all about pillaging, and who is the most famous god of the Norse pantheon?

God of the Dead- Another recurring "god type" in real-world Pantheons. But admittedly, it's hard to come up with how this belief would work... Can't do "kill units" cause that's God of War. Gain yields for your own units getting killed? Overlaps with Ceremonial Burial, and that'd be rewarding failure! And possibly exploitable. Perhaps losing a population from starvation? Again, rewarding something you don't want to do. But then again, I guess that could be the point: doing something you normally wouldn't want to do for a potentially big reward. I'm afraid I'm stumped on this one, but listing it cause, again, every pantheon has a death/underworld god

Goddess of Time/Fate- Another type of deity present in almost all pantheons but not in here. But also a challenging one to figure out how to work... What I'm conceptualizing right now is maybe the ultimate snowball pantheon belief, wherein the yield gain and other bonuses get stronger with time. In this case, perhaps it grants +1 of all yields ( , , and , perhaps more) for the first few turns, and after 10-15 (maybe even 20+) turns or so, it becomes +2, and so on. And suffice to say, it scales with Era. But that's just an idea for how this belief could work, nothing concrete. Would be apt for this sort of belief to be powerful, of course, considering nothing can hope to defeat fate or time. But that's assuming, of course, that the Civ with this belief could stand the test of time

 

Hm... Perhaps it could give a feedback, like 11 for every level of influence with other civilizations (max of 8)?

So you get 1 for every civ you are exotic with, 2for influential, etc... That could be fun

 

I would say crazy well. If I can get even 8 FPT from my pantheon I think I'm doing wonderfully.

 

I like the idea of a CS pantheon, but it sounds incredibly hard to balance. Pangaea/Continents/Archipelago aside, map size and game speed also makes a huge difference to yields.

For the Trickster God idea, even if the yields are insignificant later on, you still want to micromanage your idle workers to get the most out of it, and the AI can't do it. Even a tiny amount of yields can matter. What if we change it so it gives a larger amount of yields on feature removal only (plus workers ignore terrain)? You have to make your workers remove features instead of improving what's under it to get the most out of this pantheon.

 

Any feature-removal based mechanic should probably be limited to within your borders; potentially getting yields for chopping a forest halfway around the world would be a lot of micro for the player.

 

And impossible to teach this the AI.
If you really want this improvement pantheon, why not count, how many different improvements you have?

It would be a maximum of 7 triggers in early game, 11-15 in mid game and up to a maximum of 18 with an UI.
What would fit?

Trickster God
+1 for each unique improvement,
GPTI count double
+15% worker rate

 

It is technically possible, but the issue is memory. You will be storing additional data for each civ in each plot, and there are many plots in a game. All this memory use just for one pantheon.

 

Each civ in each plot? I don’t follow. The largest the array could potentially become would be the number of workable tiles for all cities following the religion/pantheon. If you give each civ a separate array, that’s even shorter of an array to search through. I’ve only used Lua a little, so if people with more experience say it would be a memory disaster, I’ll believe them, but I have a hard time imagining it would get too large unless you’re already close to a domination victory on a large map.

EDIT: You do realize I mean you start with an empty array and add plots that have been terraformed by the civ(s) with the pantheon, right? I'm not suggesting each civ gets an array of every plot in the world....

 

Well, since we're being clever and writing new beliefs:

Pantheon Belief: Necropolises
An ancient ruin spawns near each city that follows this pantheon in the ancient era. This ruin's tile becomes an archeological site.
Artifacts and Landmarks have improved yields.

Pantheon Belief: Holy Relics
A holy site spawns near your capital. Holy sites gain additional yields each era.

Pantheon Belief: God of the Dead
Gain an artifact each time you expend a great person in the ancient and classical eras. Shrines may contain an artifact.
Shrines and Temples gain additional faith and gold.

Pantheon Belief: Stygian Fables
Units heal an additional amount when ending their turn on a river rile.
Cities gain faith and culture for every 2 river tiles worked.
(Celtic Version: Boann, The White Cow : yields are placed directly on river tiles.)

Pantheon Belief: God of Storms
Your units can heal while embarked. Enemy embarked units take damage when they end their turn in your territory.
Ocean tiles (not Coastal) without features gain +[Big number] faith and +[small number] science.
(Celtic Version: Taranis, The Wheel & The Thunderbolt) : ...also adds food to these tiles.)

Pantheon Belief: Trickster God
Infantry units ignore zone of control.
Gain the benefit of a random neighbor's pantheon.

 

I don't think this is possible.

I also don't think this is possible.
But maybe it could create a special prophet, which has only the ability to create a holy site but not found, then it's maybe an interesting introduction for prophecy/holy land combo.

I think this is probably too powerful, and if I remember correctly, you would lack the slots to place the artifacts, and adding some to buildings sound not really possible.

Sounds not that bad. Workable.

Sounds cheap, and I don't think it's possible to code.

 

I like interactions with pillaging, but unfortunately in the period of time when the pantheon has to do work there isn't very much around to pillage We could have a Norse-style warmongering enhancer belief though!

Sounds good to me. Maybe culture isnt the right yield since for this to trigger you'll have lots of it already. Maybe golden age points instead? Not sure.

I think the received wisdom is that we avoid/remove memory-demanding things at all costs.

These are cool, but many are more like a UA than a pantheon. E.g. necropolises is similar to a modded civ (Nubia). Having said that, as I mentioned earlier, I feel like some of the Celt choices could do with some love?

 

Do you have experience with coding?

 

Yeah I code every day, but I wouldn't claim to understand exactly how Civ V goes about managing its memory.
You're point that the amount to be stored is small is valid, but as I understand it we are already on the edge of what the game, with its in-built restrictions, can handle. The last thread about this I recall is this one, if you want to necro it on this point specifically.

 

Okay then.

If someone who knows what they’re talking about brings up performance issues that’s one thing, but I just wanted to suggest to pineappledan a way this could be implemented.

 

Good point! But then, the AI on higher difficulties are very fast on getting improvements early on, and certain Civs have early UIs that they absolutely have to build ASAP, which makes good pillaging potential. But I suppose Gothic Empire's "God of Storms" idea is a good alternative for a Pantheon Belief and the pillaging can be an Enhancer. But what "religious thing" would it be an analogue to? Like, Zealotry works since the soldiers you faith purchase would be, well, zealots. And Syncretism rewards incorporating outside religions into one's own cities, not unlike real world syncretism. What real world religious thing involves pillaging? I believe Crusades is already a Reformation

 

My original proposal had this:
God of Chaos - less focused than god of the sea with global bonus and aggressive edge
+2 in City.
1 and 1 for every 2 coastal or ocean tiles worked by a City.
Pillaging a tile provides an additional 10HP

So that could be renamed God of Storms. It gives a source of yields that is more consistent (and exists) in the early game, gives coastal empires a bit of fallback for if they move inland, and has that pillaging bonus as an extra bonus that comes online later.

I'd like to see more belief proposals than just pantheons. As people have said, we have enough of those already, but founder/enhancer/reformation are the ones that need more deliberation

 

Sounds like a good compromise! Kind of wish to keep a God of Chaos though (it's in my name, after all lol). But then, Chaos God's were never worshipped irl, so...

Very well! Not sure I'll be able to come up with good Founder, Follower, Enhancer, and Reforms though, but I'll try