Discussion: limit on number of religions
Hey guys, I played a while back and recently tried out an mp game with the mod. I played pretty badly and I got rekt. One of the reasons that I did so poorly was my lack of religion. Without piety and a religion, it felt like I was missing out on substantial bonuses.
I ask you guys (who all have more xp than me), how often does a person who does not found a religion win the game you are playing? If the answer is a reasonable amount of the time, you can ignore the rest of my post. But to me it seems like the winner of a game will almost always have founded their own religion.
The fact that a fair number of people will get locked out from founding a religion in a game is unfair to people who have a harder time generating early faith (due to their start). That's why I think there should be no limit to the number of religions to be founded.
Currently, the number of religions that can be founded in a game is half the number of civs plus one (2 players -> 2 religions, 4 -> 3 religions, 6 ->4, 8->5). I understand why this makes sense for single player. Similar to a wonder, religion is something you can miss out on, which puts an element of competitiveness and fun. Furthermore, having some civ's not found a religion gives you targets for conversion.
I am not sure that this mechanic translates as well to multiplayer. Since all the players are human, and know the large bonuses that religion provides, all are left in a race to gain religion as quickly as possible. If someone misses out, they may have committed a large number of resources into building faith, which will bring minimal beneifts until a religion is spread to them (and even then, the bonus is smaller than having founded the religion). Additionally, people who have not founded a religion provide large bonuses to founders nearby who can increase the returns of their founder bonus (further snowballing their advantage).
This mod has attempted to make there be more viable beliefs for religion, which I think is great. However, with the current set up, a few people each game will be locked out from founding a religion automatically. With no limit to the number of religions founded, people will be more able to choose their strategy without the fear of missing out on religion. There will still be benefits to founding a religion earlier (more options for beliefs, more faith, earlier spread), but not immediately founding a religion will not be a death sentence.
tldr: Limiting the number of religions that can be founded means that there will be a few people who are screwed over every game. We can fix this by allowing every civ to found a religion (when they build up enough faith).
Posted Jun 21, 2015, 6:23 PM UTC · edited
Regarding your question about winning without religion: a fair amount of time the winner doesn't have their own religion. It helps, but it's not always necessary.
I still want to reply to the rest of your post because I don't agree with it at all. In my experience, in the current version of the mod most people don't invest a lot of resources into faith generation so you can almost always get a religion if you really want one. If you think a religion is absolutely necessary for your game plan there's even the option of opening piety or even building Stonehenge.
Your point about the race for a religion I feel is an argument FOR restricting the number of religions available: that's the kind of interaction with the other players that you want in multiplayer. If 6 people all get to play their perfect simcity game without having to worry about their opponents' decisions the game becomes uninteractive and boring.
Lastly, as others have pointed out, the later religions really don't add as much of a benefit as the first or second; spreading them against other, likely already dominant religions is a hassle and the best beliefs will already be taken. That's why you often see people plant a prophet even when given the choice of founding a religion; taking that 6 faith per turn and profiting from a foreign religion's strong beliefs is sometimes more beneficial than founding your own. That should give you an idea about how necessary religion really is.
You make good points. It surprises me that people would go for the 6 faith per turn rather than get their own religion. I would probably only do that if I already had a good religion in some of my cities. Like I said, I haven't played much in the mod and still have plenty to learn.