Prophets&Clerics&Bears Oh My!

[Hermann the Lombard]

Something is unclear in the manual (shocking, I know) and it hasn't gotten clearer as I have played: what are the magnitudes of the various cash-generating special attacks? The manual: "Sell Indulgences...generates cash for your empire." "Convert City...brings in a small amount of cash." "Faith Healing...brings profit to your empire." "Advertise...extracts gold from cities." I haven't seen the last two of those in a long time, since all I've been playing has been Cradle, but I add those for the sake of (relative) completeness. I don't need exact numbers, but a closer approximation would be nice.

-- HtL

p.s. THIS one isn't in the FAQ.

[HuangShang]

sorry, the only unconventional warfare i use is the slaver and the spy

[Pedrunn]

It depend on the mod you are using. But it is a fixed value. You can easily find this value in lines in the const.txt. yet i dont remember how much it was now i may look later for you

[Pedrunn]

I think the lines can expalin themselves:

CLERIC_CONVERSION_FACTOR 0.2        # cities converted by clerics send this much of their gold each turn
TELEVANGELIST_CONVERSION_FACTOR 0.4 # like the above, but for televangelists and cities with televisions (cities without TV fall back to the cleric level)

UNCONVERTED_INDULGENCE_GOLD 3
UNCONVERTED_INDULGENCE_HAPPINESS 2
CONVERTED_INDULGENCE_GOLD 5
CONVERTED_INDULGENCE_HAPPINESS 4
OTHER_FAITH_INDULGENCE_GOLD 2
OTHER_FAITH_INDULGENCE_HAPPINESS 1

[Hermann the Lombard]

Thanks, Pedrunn!

Well, the first two are self-explanatory, but the others are somewhat less so. The unconverted indulgence gold is 3...3 what? 3 gold regardless? 3% of their output? I suspect the former (since it doesn't say 0.03), but if so, I wonder why I'm building any clerics...

However, I'll go take a look in the file; things may become clearer (clear as mud, at minimum)!

[Pedrunn]

Unconverted cities gives 3 gold when you sell indulgence. Converted ones gives 5 gold and converted ones by others civs gives 1 gold

[child of Thor]

It's pittence really in the long run - probably get more money by just taking the city and decideing to either keep it or burn it.....I like the idea, i think maybe the cost's are too high in comparison to the gain.....hmmm.....i dunno. I feel the same about most the other 'special' attacks as well; like franchise etc - they all cost a few hundred to perform and you get little back, or so it seems. I still do it to my most hated enemies though - like the idea of sucking them dry

[mapfi]

Personally, I often play with these options even though their use is questionable. Just for fun...

What if you adjust those settings? Does it seriously unbalance the game? Even more important, does the AI use those options, too? I've never seen him doing it, but then I just started seriously gaming CtP2 a few weeks ago again.
Pedrunn, what file are they in?

Has anyone played with these settings in a mod or even worked on the AI concerning this?

[J Bytheway]

the values have indeed been changed in mods (at least, so Pedrunn said above) and you find them in const.txt.

[Dinner]

I too like the idea but the cost to benifet just doesn't make converting cities worth while. I also think a player should get more money if he converts a huge metropolis then if he converts a one stop town in the middle of no where. As the values stand now there is no difference between the two.

[HuangShang]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Unconverted cities gives 3 gold when you sell indulgence. Converted ones gives 5 gold and converted ones by others civs gives 1 gold

if its pay is so low... then whats it cost?...sorry, i never use it

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I too like the idea but the cost to benifet just doesn't make converting cities worth while. I also think a player should get more money if he converts a huge metropolis then if he converts a one stop town in the middle of no where. As the values stand now there is no difference between the two.

Agreed, that makes no sense. I would have expected a percentage piece of the action, perhaps 10% (the traditional tithe), or maybe 10/5/3% (converted/unconverted/other)...but 3 gold after spending a LOT of production? That means that prophets/clerics/whatnot are really only useful as scouts and to detect other stealth units.

On second thought, conversion is worthwhile (20% for clerics), and that is the only clerical function I've seen the AI use. I have an ongoing game where my only ally is sending one prophet and one cleric across my border over and over. I kick 'em out, they come right back. If I kill 'em, I know my ally will declare war.

How about Soothsaying? I've done a fair amount in Cradle and I've never seen any useful result (like a revolt), even when I've hit one city with 5 clerics...come to think of it, I haven't hit one city with 5 clerics one at a time.

Any thoughts about indulgences from the modmakers?

[Pedrunn]

In my gams i have increased the value of indulgences gold from converted cities to 10. This way a cleric can be profitable in 10 turns after the conversion.
But there is also the risk of the cleric be caught during conversion. Still for this money it is bearable

[Dinner]

Does anyone know how much production it costs to build a cleric verses a slaver? I don't and I'm to lazy to look it up myself so maybe someone can tell us so we can go through the exact cost and benifet figures.

[mapfi]

well, I couldn't resist to play around with the stuff:
In the const.txt you'll also find the line

FRANCHISE_EFFECT 0.1    # How much production a franchise steals

Which tells us, that contrary to the manual (oh my god!) you don't get half of the franchised city production but only a tenth.

Playing around with clerics and burocrats reassured me that this stuff is actually working.
Convert City: As it cost 100 it will pay off only if the enemy earns lots of money per city - so in my opinion this is useless while its government isn't on a advanced level.
Indulgence: Being free, why not? Would it be much work to write some slic checking for the city size and give appropriate gold in return?
Soothsay(both clerics and burocrats): Now this might not be as bad as it seems - especially in a multiplayer game it'll practically halt an oponent's production when 5 more people become unhappy, but 500 seems rather expensive for that. The lawyer does it for 300.
Franchise: Were the actual setting really 0.5 tis could give you a veritable boost in production. First, the military unit upkeeping cost are paid by this, the rest goes into PW.

Ii be great if any modmaker could look into that indulgence stuff.