The State Atheism Civic

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Heraclitus



Oh, akwardly phrased, I see how that might have been misunderstood. I meant a bit foolish in regard to this. Not a bit foolsih in general.

OK.

[Fleme]

Woe is me for my ideas have been shot down!

I'll just lurk here instead and hope that someone creates a mod with Atheism and other civics!

[Theben]

It seems the focus is on state-enforced atheism. In that case I suggest a Police State/Theocracy combo. Of course the failing is that it requires a rel for the bonus... perhaps a mod could add atheism as a "state religion" after a certain technology was reached.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by Theben


It seems the focus is on state-enforced atheism. In that case I suggest a Police State/Theocracy combo. Of course the failing is that it requires a rel for the bonus... perhaps a mod could add atheism as a "state religion" after a certain technology was reached.

That's the ticket! Provide Atheism as a religion (anti-religion) available with Communism. The civic "Free Religion" then frees you from that too. Think about what we would call the temple/cathedral/shrine for such a religion. "Police State" more than captures enforced anti-religious behavior.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Fleme
Woe is me for my ideas have been shot down!

I'll just lurk here instead and hope that someone creates a mod with Atheism and other civics!

Don't stop making suggestions, I was just trying to add a degree of reality to the suggestions. I at least find it's better to know what could theoretically make a good mod (or make the game itself) as opposed to just making suggestions that are interesting but not realistic to play.

And that aside, what is fun for you may not be the same as for me I have a good idea of what is realistic for a mod that would be 'mass-market', but there are plenty of niches that consider certain strategies more interesting - including RPG type non-'strategic' strategies - where things that are unrealistic for the mass market are certainly worth doing

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


Well you are a bit foolsih aren't you, this civic provides an extra for every specialist anywhere! Not only that it concentarates the specialists in the UO! This means +50% which means +100% if you have one academy! That means 2 per specialist almost as powerfull as R but minus the happy bonus! Not only that buit it provides you with vast ammounts of revenue! As much as Free Market can without intercontintal trade! And to top it off you get 100% espionage bouns in several of your cities! And no other nation profits from religions in your cities! Your people don't care with who you go to war with!

Again, you give maybe 2b/specialist; in a SE in FR, you get maybe half your economy from specialists, so you'd get 0.6b/specialist (assuming representation in a SE) plus another 0.6b equivalent from normal trade, or 1.2b/specialist on average. This ignores Pacifism, which most SE will run for the bonus GPs...

I think you are overestimating the other bonuses you provide beyond this. Certainly the 2b/specialist can be nice in a SE (but again, not that significant), but the other bonuses are all pretty much negligible - again, the +H from free religion will be worth _much_ more than the wall street bonus, and the other bonuses are pretty negligible.

BTW This civc was never meant to encourage building Chatedrals. It only provides some compensation for a logical loss Ok now that that is out of the picture. Now I'm just going to go overboard and add free specialists for buildings. What do you think of the free spy per police station and barracks, and the free scientist? Is it different enough yet?

I think extra specialists are probably not the way to go, because they are rather harder to balance (so many buildings out there, if you don't know what strategies this civic works under how do you know where to apply it to)?

I think the question you need to ask yourself is, 'What strategy will State Atheism be useful under' (again, unless you prefer the RPG element and don't care about this being a normal civic used by strategic players). Will people running a SE run this preferentially over pacifism? Will people running a strong cottage economy run this preferentially over FR? Or, as it looks like you're going, is it an Espionage focused civic?

That's probably the place with the most room civic wise - there aren't many civics that affect espionage in a meaningful way - and might be where you should focus your energies.

Instead of the beakers, money, and cathedral stuff, which you shouldn't worry about losing - there's nothing wrong with obsoleting a building, lots of things do that - focus on the root of the matter.

State Atheism makes espionage easier because you have less risk of external espionage, right? So let's say it makes your espionage defense +50% (difficulty and cost) (no idea of these numbers, they probably need tweaking). You get +25% espionage in all cities as a result of your control of the airwaves, and you have politburo spies in the ranks instead of clerics, so +2 ESP for each barracks, say. You have a large degree of enforced happiness through mass marches and such instead of religious festivals, so +2H from Colliseum.

Finally, you have -1H per religion in each city. This means you can't really run this civic with many religions ... which is the point anyway

Something simple like this would be very easy to balance (as it's just a few areas of the game it affects, and allows you to just change one number that's easy to change) and would be fairly useful (espionage strategy has its civic, and particularly in an esp-on-esp game where two civs are spying each other down) as well as being not too powerful (assuming you balance the numbers, this can be the same level as other civics). Using % bonuses instead of specialists is very key to balance, when possible, because specialists are discrete and hard to balance - you can't give 0.8 specialists, but you can take my +25% and make it +20% or +30% if it's off.

That's just one example, there's a lot of ways you could do this, but I definitely like your espionage element because it's not only a civic that's needed, but it's one that has some historical reality to it (even if it's not necessarily truly realistic).

[Heraclitus]

The espionage thing is defiently what I've been trying to go for. I just don't have too god an idea how. Also It seems fair to give some of the reshearch bonus of FR since players tend to prefere to ESP and would ignore the civc.

[snoopy369]

Why would you want a civic that everyone would want to use? That would be either a civic that is too powerful, or one that is useless for its generality. Civics *should* be specific to certain categories of strategy - not TOO specific, but for example Rep. works pretty much only with Specialist economies, Vasselage works only if you are running a large military, Universal Sufferage works only if you have a lot of cottages->towns, etc. ...

[Heraclitus]

Also a little addition to your system. Religions under atheism have a small chance of dissapearing in a city. This would make state Atheism the addictive civic. The longer you run it the better it feels but the more dependant on it you become. The roll would be made for each religion per city. This means a city with one religon is unlikely to loose it ever, a city with five would be guaranteed to loose at least one.


A few ideas

Speaking of control of the airwaves, I'd link the bonuse up with the radio tower.


Also Id change the 50% defensive bonus into something else. All your units can see Spies. Or is that way overpowered?


And it change the +2ESP into a free spy, just so you get a few GSP in your GP farm.


Another crazy idea under State Enforced Atehism, all cities behave as if they have police stations. (with the ESP and the reduced war wearines) You can still build them but they make no additonal bonus.

[snoopy369]

All your units see spies is way overpowered

You already have war weariness reduction civic (Police State). No need to double up on that

I'm not sure religions disappearing is a good idea, it's certainly possible to do (some mods do) but it's something not normally possible in the game, so it has the potential to be overpowered (or abused). It may be okay, but it would require a lot of testing to be sure.

[Heraclitus]

I agree the spies idea is way overpowered. Its just getting late over here.


Don't see why the free police stations wouldn't work. It would be a way for a developing civ to sidestep building part of their infrastructure. Also may I remind you that secondary effects can be duplicated. I mean just look at V in Legal and T in religion. The T civic is the primary EXP civic in Civ4 and V just has it as something on top of the free units. I imagine state atheism having free police stations as a "little extra something" in the same fashion.


BTW Do you agree on my other points, such no civ gets gold form religions in your cities. Or that there never is a "fighting the brothers and sisters of the faith" happines malus.


BTW I fail to see how dissapearing religions could be overpowered, if the odds are set low enough. And let me remind you that SA would be the only civic with a negative trait. It would "need" such a mechainsm to make the less annoying.

[snoopy369]

On Police Stations(Jails) - It's not that it's a problem, it's that there is already a civic that gives this effect (reducing war weariness). There's no reason to have two civics do the same basic effect. You could well imagine that people might run Police State and State Atheism together, make it so they work in tandem rather than both doing the same thing in one element. Vasselage and Theocracy do indeed do the same thing, which I consider relatively poor design.

The other points are fine, I don't think they'd imbalance things much (there are advantages and disadvantages to them, and they probably roughly cancel out).

Disappearing religions could be because it could be. It's something substantial not possible outside of this civic in the game; I don't know if it could be or not, but the point is not to have the ego to say you can see everything, but to allow for it. It's certainly something you could add in, but you'd have to test it more thoroughly as a result (this is true of any 'new effect' you add in). It certainly wouldn't 'need' that effect; the mad faces are there for a reason, to make the civic slightly weaker for civs with many religions (to force some strategic decisions on using this, and to give a religious civic that is useful to civs that failed to get very many religions in them, as an alternative to FR which is more powerful the MORE religions you get.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by snoopy369
On Police Stations(Jails) - It's not that it's a problem, it's that there is already a civic that gives this effect (reducing war weariness). There's no reason to have two civics do the same basic effect. You could well imagine that people might run Police State and State Atheism together, make it so they work in tandem rather than both doing the same thing in one element. Vasselage and Theocracy do indeed do the same thing, which I consider relatively poor design.

That gives me anotehr idea. Rember the Aztech UB?


Why don't we make Barracks under SA reduce the unhappines caused by conscription and po-rushing by half? It would make it synergetic with nationhood and slavery.


Imagine the wonderfull synergy of Kremlin+Slavery+State Atheism.


Or a war between the masses of poor quality units of a Atheist Nationhood runing civ compared to the Fanatical Elite Soldiers of a Theocracy?

[Fleme]

Perhaps it would be ok to have it very simple, much like other civics

Atheism

Religion has no effect (this covers all happiness, cultural and reseach bonuses, AP vote, war weariness from fighting religious brothers and sisters, the whole shebang)
+25% Espionage output in all cities
+2 from Courthouse, Jail
50% Reduced Unhappiness time from Drafting (perhaps also add can draft 1 unit per turn just so it doesn't force synergy?)

So, you lose all ties to religion meaning you are free from the AP votes you might want to defy and don't have to suffer the unhappiness from them. You lose all religious happiness bonuses (along with every other bonus you gain from religion) but your Jail and your Courthouse produce some instead. Also, there's less of a penalty when you conscript soldiers, all in all making it Synergize really well with Nationhood for homeland security purposes.

Meh, I'm going at it again

[Blaupanzer]

Which current religious civic would you have it replace?