RtR mod 4.1.0.1 Discussion Thread

[pindicator]

I'm not a fan of changing the pre-req on Philosophy to Priesthood. That is a more central tech path opening up avenues to Writing, Code of Laws, and Monarchy and I think would be harder to work around than Meditation is now.

Personally I haven't had a game where I teched Meditation early and then wished I hadn't for an Astronomy bulb. Unless you rush the religion immediately then you usually have enough map information to know if you want to leave the bulb option open. And as others have pointed out, now you have the backup plan of privateers at Paper.

However, I think I almost always go Polytheism over Meditation and part of that calculus is leaving the Astro bulb open for later in the game. (The other part is that polytheism opens the path to Monotheism which you want for Org Rel.) So I can see where removing some of the downside of Meditation would be healthier for that choice. But I'd rather see the change of moving Philosophy to below Astronomy in preference on the GP list if we decide to change anything. I'm not sure there's a more "out of the way" technology to put as Philosophy's pre-requisite than Meditation.

[Krill]

That seems fair to me.

No temples at Mysticism, please. Just move Philosophy below Astro in bulb order.

Choosing between meditation and polytheism as they stand is an interesting trade-off. The proposed change makes the decision less interesting imo.

Choosing between meditation and polytheism as they stand is an interesting trade-off. The proposed change makes the decision less interesting imo.

I agree and don't see a reason to change it. It's not as if teching meditation makes an astro lightbulb impossible -- you just need to get 1 more GP, which is easy to do if you use pacifism. An inconvenience on many maps to be sure, but it's not as if you've completely blocked out a strategy just by teching meditation. Only civil service does that.

But I don't feel strongly about it and Krill's most recent suggestion works for me too.

OK, a few thoughts:

I still feel that Meditation should not have the effect of requiring one extra GP to get an Astro bulb, compared to Polytheism. As it stands Meditation gives the Monastery and Priesthood gives the Temple, so the decision between Poly and Med isn't based just of individual tech cost but tech path and a building (namely, without Meditation, there is no way of actively spreading a religion without OR, so it's actually a more complex decision than it first appears.

But there is actually another option to achieve this, which is to remove Meditation as a mandatory prerequisite from Philosophy. That way the Astro bulb is likely gated behind Philo because of the need for Caste, but theoretically it would be possible to generate the two GS as PHI without Caste in certain strategies. I dislike this from the point of view that it actually nerfs an Astro beeline, OTOH, it does help to balance out that an Astro bulb is inherently more efficient due to lack of prerequisite bonus on Astro, so there is that. I don't feel that the Astro bulb itself is broken compared to any other normal bulb, but I have been wondering if the efficiency might be an issue and it was worth considering lowering the cost of Astro slightly (basically to make a double bulb strategy less efficient because of the beaker overflow being lost). I don't think that such a change is justified, but in the context of Meditation shoving Philo in there probably achieves the same end.

Anyone have any views on this?

[Old Harry]

Is there another tech that could be the pre-requisite for philosophy which has less impact to ignore? Drama perhaps? Although I think having organized religion as the other (more efficient) way to spread a religion means avoiding meditation really isn't a problem.

Gavagai - I don't like the idea of fiddling with the bulb order because that's hidden info that players may not notice and we'd have to maintain a list separate from the one on civfanatics which is likely to lead to confusion for someone.

Reducing the cost of astronomy is a decent idea too.

[Krill]

Following on from PB41, one option to fix Meditation blocking the Astro bulb is to change Philo to need CoL as a mandatory prerequisite, and keep Drama as the sole optional prerequisite. That way Drama is necessary for the path to Philo and Nationalism, and Meditation has no effect on the Astro bulb... I don't see a downside to this change

Well I did suggest this but got told this is a nerf to Nationalism. OTOH I think Drama could be made into an optional prerequisite for Nationalism which would lower the tech cost of Nationalism due for the extra optional prerequisite, and also opens up an interesting route to drafting...

[Krill]

Thinking about this over the past few days, the only options that make sense are:

Remove Meditation as mandatory prerequisite for Philo. Give PHI a boost, and make players research Philo before an Astro bulb. A bit heavy handed.

Remove Meditation, add Priesthood. Remove the ability for most players to shrine a religion if they want to straight bulb Astro. Seems unreasonable.

Remove Drama as optional prerequisite from Philo, add as a mandatory prerequisite, and add as an optional prerequisite to Nationalism. On the plus side it makes Drama relevant, and doesn't actually change the base beaker cost of Nationalism by a significant amount, but it does remove the option of a quick bulb and Pacifism revolt compared to the current set up.

Remove Meditation, add Monotheism. Everybody can still spread religion, and make a shrine, but all the religious civics are locked away behind Mono. This does make Swedagon Paya better, so that might need it's tech requirements changing from Aesthetics and Meditation to Aesthetics and Mono as well, but in general I think this solution is actually quite reasonable.

Anyone think I'm being stupid again?

[Charriu]

Remove Meditation as mandatory prerequisite for Philo. Give PHI a boost, and make players research Philo before an Astro bulb. A bit heavy handed.

I would go with this. It has the least impact on the whole tree. By the time you research Philo, Meditation (and maybe Mysticism) is not a roadblock that prevents any player from researching Philo. So Meditation as a prerequisite is more less unimportant anyway.

[Krill]

The problem is that once a player has meditation and Code of Laws, a GS will bulb Philo and not Astro. We need that block before Philo, if we want to leave the Astro bulb beeline available. So there is a downside to that option.

[Old Harry]

Sounds like the cure is worse than the illness... I vote for no change.

[Hitru]

I agree with OH here, don't really see reason to change anything

[Krill]

Sounds like the cure is worse than the illness... I vote for no change.

The first two I agree, the third I don't: I think it's as bad as the disease, but not worse. Which I think communicates my opinion of the Meditation issue, I don't think it is reasonable to just leave it.

There are a few more options, but they are a bit more...unusual.