Moreover, the Candi is mediocre because it only really boosts faith after everyone else has a religion, by which point, if you didn't have some other way to get faith, you might have failed to found your own religion anyways (a common scenario at higher levels). Thus, if you fail to found a religion, then by the time everyone else has a religion, you may very well be able to send trade-routes to increase religious pressure, but the faith you gain may become useless until the late game, as buying great people may be the only use for the faith unless you have a religion in most of your cities that allows for buying Pagodas and what not.
Except the Candi isn't meant to help you found a religion. It's simply meant to help boost your
faith.
Buildings like the Stele and Pyramid are meant to help you found your religion, but that doesn't mean we should compare the Candi to it. (Sort of like that Shoshone v America argument that keeps popping up - different uniques, different purposes, and so comparing them doesn't make sense towards the gameplay itself)
And I would disagree that the
faith you gain is useless late game. If anything, the Piety tree (and the uses for your excess
faith) is more useful than ever before in BNW and here's why:
- Mandate of Heaven: 20% discount on all purchases of religious units and buildings with Faith.
- Jesuit Education: May build Universities, Public Schools, and Research Labs with Faith.
- Religious Fervor: Use Faith to purchase Industrial Era (and later) land units.
- Sacred Sites: All buildings purchased with Faith provide 2 Tourism each.
- The Glory of God: Use Faith to purchase any type of Great Person starting in Industrial Era.
- Great People from other Social Policy trees
- Faith buildings, such as Mosques, to help increase faith in order to buy any of the above
- Religious Tolerance: Cities with a majority religion also get the Pantheon belief bonus of the second most popular religion. (This one pertains to motivations of religious pluralism for Indonesia and candis)
One important thing I noticed about the Candi: Later in the game when you have a bunch of cargo ships and trade routes coming into your city, these foreign units will exert the religious pressure of their home religion. This gives a high probability of having 4 religions in your city at once, including the base +2
from the Candi: +10
total from a single Candi.
Yes, it's a hit or miss, but the potential is there. Particularly if you take something like Jesuit Education. As you unlock Research Labs, if you've saved up all that
faith you can buy all of them immediately in your most important cities.
(I'm having deja vu all over again. I did the same thing when G&K came out, defending the Celts and people's tendency to undervalue Faith)