So I was thinking that it would be kind of handy under the new estate system to be able to give guilds or religions an estate in your region.
It would be much easier to fund those institutions and it would increase the sense of patronage that I feel region lords should have over the guilds or temples they have in their region.
Of course to avoid abuse they wouldn't add to the region's efficiency but work more like wild lands or vacant estates? Perhaps they could give other bonuses like a higher conversion rate for temple estates?
Anyway, thoughts?
It is an interesting idea.
It was quite popular, I understand, for nobles to leave property to the church in their wills. But then such lands were not taxed, as they were church property.
Might be an interesting option if that was possible, and that lands given tot he churches couldn't be taken back by the lord, and they were subject to no taxes, or the greatly reduced taxes they get under the New Estates.
I wonder what kind of balance issues might crop up with this...
Quote from: Indirik on November 16, 2011, 09:50:04 PM
and that lands given tot he churches couldn't be taken back by the lord
That would be horrible. All it takes is one angry lord to give all his land to a religion and you'd never get it back, thus screwing the region for just about an eternity.
The land is the lords. He can and should always be able to take it back.
Quote from: LilWolf on November 16, 2011, 09:56:43 PMThat would be horrible. All it takes is one angry lord to give all his land to a religion and you'd never get it back, thus screwing the region for just about an eternity.
That would be one of those "balance issues" I mentioned. :P
Quote from: Indirik on November 16, 2011, 09:50:04 PM
It is an interesting idea.
It was quite popular, I understand, for nobles to leave property to the church in their wills. But then such lands were not taxed, as they were church property.
Might be an interesting option if that was possible, and that lands given tot he churches couldn't be taken back by the lord, and they were subject to no taxes, or the greatly reduced taxes they get under the New Estates.
I wonder what kind of balance issues might crop up with this...
True but it also was a popular practice for lords to seize back those properties and give them as rewards to their bannermen.
It does create potential conflict about these estates though. Knights come and go, but religions and guilds can easily survive dozens of lords, each of whom may have different opinions about said guild or religion. Thus it would give guilds and religions more incentive to meddle in the appointments of lords. After all their funding depends on it.
Quote from: Indirik on November 16, 2011, 09:50:04 PM
I wonder what kind of balance issues might crop up with this...
someone grabs a region by whatever means. gives everything to church then gets banned... no one else will be able to get the stuff back from church... short of jihad against that church.
thing about church is.. instead of region lord, they have the religion equivalent... bishoprics, etc.. dotted all over the place..
Lords should definitely be able to claim the land back. But the church is going to hate that, and any local peasantry of that faith will be very upset; the trick is to make it sufficiently hard for the lord to claim it back, without making it impossible.
I love this idea. It creates another mechanism for conflict. It gives religion a way to gain power, to create an incentive for people to be involved. And, bonus, it's historical roots are absolutely authentic.
Quote from: Indirik on November 16, 2011, 09:50:04 PM
It is an interesting idea.
It was quite popular, I understand, for nobles to leave property to the church in their wills. But then such lands were not taxed, as they were church property.
Might be an interesting option if that was possible, and that lands given tot he churches couldn't be taken back by the lord, and they were subject to no taxes, or the greatly reduced taxes they get under the New Estates.
I wonder what kind of balance issues might crop up with this...
Indeed, unlike our temples, which now get taxed... Just to incite more people not to bother with them.
Love it. Would be better to make an estate a REQUIREMENT for a temple. The bigger the temple, the bigger the estate needed. All the income of the estate goes to the temple. The bigger the estate, thus more people the church governs, the better the conversion rates. Same effects. when reclaiming the estate as when arresting a priest, only more severe because its outreach will be well beyond heavy hits to morale.
Would make temples strong, but at the same time reduce the number of temples you see. Would cause more religious friction in realms- who wants to SUPPORT multiple religions for the sake of peace? This could also help cut back on every realm trying to establish an RPless state religion for security. Adds realism, and balances itself out. LOVE IT!
I can see lots of potential abuses in this, especially for money-funneling/banking purposes. Religions are not intended to be money-makers, or to be able to generate large cash flows without significant donations from the nobility. I wouldn't mind seeing religions able to generate a small but steady cash flow on their own. But I don't think I'd want to see religions become independent financial powerhouses. The game just isn't set up for that kind of thing.
Mm...So long as the religions are taking gold from the realms, rather than creating new gold sources, I see no difficulty with this. I'm envisioning a Theocracy with a strong, wealthy church and nobles who gain most of their funds from religious grants...I don't think the balance would be an issue so long as the estates, like all estates, can be reclaimed at will by the lord (while triggering the same unrest as trying to close a temple, say) and don't produce any more gold than they would for the realm.
Make ways to cap the income then. For example, temple estate efficiency = % of followers. If a lord is willing to give s significant portion and income to a religion to build a temple, what makes you think he wouldn't have donated under the current system anyways? Plus, the temple could be taxed just like any other estate, could fall prey to looting, and even maintenance fees could be there.
Any large cash flow IS a donation from a lord anyways. Plus, with this setup you wouldn't likely see many temples generating high income either- it's too much commitment and risk for any but devout lords. The only placed you'd see it more prevalent would be where religions are already the dominant force, politically, such as theocracies.
Here's some more... looting, the temple or region, can take money from the temple. Also, looting the temple can cause part of the estate to become vacant/wilderness. Faiths would be forced to use gold to protect their assets.
Quote from: Psyche on November 17, 2011, 05:35:00 AM
Here's some more... looting, the temple or region, can take money from the temple. Also, looting the temple can cause part of the estate to become vacant/wilderness. Faiths would be forced to use gold to protect their assets.
Because religions just have so much gold they don't know what to do with it all, right?
However much I disagree with the stance, Tom has said that there wouldn't be a way for lords to automatically fund their temples. Giving temples an estate to get an income from would just be a different way of implementing the old tithe suggestions.
This sounds pretty good actually.
Quote from: Indirik on November 17, 2011, 04:50:16 AM
I can see lots of potential abuses in this, especially for money-funneling/banking purposes. Religions are not intended to be money-makers, or to be able to generate large cash flows without significant donations from the nobility.
Granting your estate to the church isn't a significant donation?
Hmm, to keep money in your pocket where it will not be taxed or place it in a temple where it can be taxed...... I really see the positive use of religius banking everyone talks about.
Or are you talking about religius banks in the way that elder priests are always on the move with large amounts of gold to supply every temple with enough gold to stay up. One could say this moving around of gold is a form of banking, but I hardly see it as proper hoarding of gold.
I concider the idea of granting estates of religions/guilds a brilliant oppertunity. Religions can have the oppertunity to be more or less free aggain, unless you all enjoy bland state sponsored "just ad water and it's ready to eat" faiths. Why don't we increase the taxing of religions to the normal levels. At low amounts of gold present in a temple it will balance the income and the outflow, and at very large, so called stockpiles, of gold the taxes will kick in much harder and drain away some of the gold.
I see a good oppertunity here, that as all ideas, need some proper thoughts and a lot of balancing.
By "significant donations" I mean "significant manual gold deposits in temples". Automated donations/funding is something that Tom has stated in the past that he does not want. Religion funding is not supposed to be "set it and forget it".
I personally like this idea, with the additions that Psych has. We could probably do something with this that could make it work. But it does require a change to the "manual funding" stance that Tom has taken regarding religions. You'll need to convince him to change that policy before we can even begin considering this as a possibility.
Quote from: fodder on November 16, 2011, 10:15:26 PM
someone grabs a region by whatever means. gives everything to church then gets banned... no one else will be able to get the stuff back from church... short of jihad against that church.
thing about church is.. instead of region lord, they have the religion equivalent... bishoprics, etc.. dotted all over the place..
Since the largest estate you can make is 50%, this is a non-issue. I think (taking other's suggestions), you could have the largest temple take up a 50% estate and tailor down from there. "Tax" for the temple could be based on follower % in the realm.
Priests could also be tied into this system- choose a "home temple" and gain a portion of that tax as your income, rather than choosing a traditional estate. Give religious hierarchy the option to boot that priest from his temple, rather than the region lord as is done now.
I was just thinking along the same lines before reading the last comment. To avoid direct deposits into temples, make it so elder or priest has to sponsor the estate/temple. The priest wouldn't have to be an elder, but it has to be one of the two- at least somebody with strong ties to the church.
To counter using characters as temporary elders or priests to get temples and then demote or change class, have a mechanism like religions collapsing due to lack of elders/priests/temples. Have it so the church can designate a new caretaker to the estate, so long as the character is not banned from the realm, with maybe 3-5 days/turns?
Rejected on all accounts.
Estates are given to knights, end of story. Now what the knights do with their taxes is theirs to decide, so all it needs to kind-of implement your feature, but without any additional code or all the drawbacks, is to have a knight who donates all his taxes to a guild or religion.
Quote from: Tom on November 18, 2011, 09:41:01 AM
Rejected on all accounts.
Estates are given to knights, end of story. Now what the knights do with their taxes is theirs to decide, so all it needs to kind-of implement your feature, but without any additional code or all the drawbacks, is to have a knight who donates all his taxes to a guild or religion.
(raises the flag again for some form of tithing, something that can be set automatically so you don't have to manually deposit the gold all the time)
Quote from: Bedwyr on November 19, 2011, 08:01:09 AM
(raises the flag again for some form of tithing, something that can be set automatically so you don't have to manually deposit the gold all the time)
Make a rank for them and set the debt accordingly?
Quote from: Tom on November 19, 2011, 12:01:18 PM
Make a rank for them and set the debt accordingly?
They still have to visit a temple to manually deposit gold.
Quote from: D`Este on November 19, 2011, 12:16:47 PM
They still have to visit a temple to manually deposit gold.
The important part of Tom's message was this
Quote from: Tom on November 18, 2011, 09:41:01 AM
without any additional code
It has been mentioned several times that Tom has in the past been against any system to Automate donations to religions.
I'd be in favour of automatic donations. Sure you can say that by the making people have to pay their own imposed "debts" but you'd be wrong. We need to accept people are lazy and try to work with that. Just putting it out there.
Quote from: Shenron on November 21, 2011, 08:29:46 AM
I'd be in favour of automatic donations. Sure you can say that by the making people have to pay their own imposed "debts" but you'd be wrong. We need to accept people are lazy and try to work with that. Just putting it out there.
The thing is so far as I can tell Tom does accept that people are lazy. He just thinks that religions that contain lazy people shouldn't get a leg up from the game. Religions as designed are only supposed to flourish from interaction and by being so compelling they over come peoples inherent laziness. I'm not sure they achieve that as is, but making things automatic would be a step backwards in this regard.
After all if we accept people are lazy, then we accept they might not be bothered to move their units properly either, so lets just make it so marshals control everyone's movement. You could have a button that lets you "join" the army and after that everything just happens. I actually played a game like this, for all of two days. The majority of players just existed to hit that button and let the military elite actually enjoy that game, then when the army was worn down to much to fight you got to log back in, move to a recruitment zone, recruit a new unit and hit the button again.
Quote from: De-Legro on November 21, 2011, 10:36:59 AM
The thing is so far as I can tell Tom does accept that people are lazy. He just thinks that religions that contain lazy people shouldn't get a leg up from the game. Religions as designed are only supposed to flourish from interaction and by being so compelling they over come peoples inherent laziness. I'm not sure they achieve that as is, but making things automatic would be a step backwards in this regard.
After all if we accept people are lazy, then we accept they might not be bothered to move their units properly either, so lets just make it so marshals control everyone's movement. You could have a button that lets you "join" the army and after that everything just happens. I actually played a game like this, for all of two days. The majority of players just existed to hit that button and let the military elite actually enjoy that game, then when the army was worn down to much to fight you got to log back in, move to a recruitment zone, recruit a new unit and hit the button again.
I sort of disagree with your comparison of moving units and religion. The reason I support automation for religion is because I think religion should be the
status quo. If you want a successfull religion then obviously this needs rp and dedicated members and the all the rest of the hoo-haa. The problem is that currently we have areas that just don't accept religion at all, this annoys me a lot. Instead of having a mix of no religion, dud religions and good religions; I think we need to narrow it down to dud religions and good religions.
Quote from: Shenron on November 21, 2011, 10:40:50 AM
I sort of disagree with your comparison of moving units and religion. The reason I support automation for religion is because I think religion should be the status quo. If you want a successfull religion then obviously this needs rp and dedicated members and the all the rest of the hoo-haa. The problem is that currently we have areas that just don't accept religion at all, this annoys me a lot. Instead of having a mix of no religion, dud religions and good religions; I think we need to narrow it down to dud religions and good religions.
My understanding is that in these cases its not that there is no religion, simply that there is no religion of a size and organisation to be worthy of mention. It follows from Toms statement that no noble is atheist, nobles either follow a large established religion which have recognisable temples, or they follow smaller religions that "fly under the radar"
As it stands, it is really not that hard to have a religion of some sort, so if we have large area's with no religion, I would suggest that it is because the nobles have no interest in pursuing a organised religion in the area, no matter how simple we make it.
Something of interest though, The Manifest Path has a few temples which are making enough gold in contributions to pay for themselves, might have to investigate how we are managing that. But we are managing to maintain 15 temples, and looking to build more and expand some of the ones we have. This is managed from the income provided by the faithful of pretty much two realms, with the majority coming from 1 realm. Anyway with 15 temples the difference between the upkeep and the contributions is a mere 18 gold. Not a huge imposition is it.
There are several reasons why religion debts (or income) is not automatic. It also has to do with the location of temple funds, gold distribution is supposed to be a problem (we don't have online transactions in BM, and way too much gold is already moving around in magical ways) and also to allow people to accumulate debts. Religions are first and foremost a roleplaying instrument, and that means pressuring people into actually paying their debts is a good thing.
I do agree we need to advance them some. If someone opens a feature request to give people a list of religions to join when they create a character, just like they choose a duchy to start in, I would agree to that (though it would be middle priority).
How about some form of notification when a player's rank in a religion entails some debt? (Or, maybe even better and more flexible, a customisable message per rank that's sent whenever someone's promoted.)
Right now, it doesn't seem to me that many players even notice whether they're racking up debt in a religion or not. There are pretty much no consequences that I've seen.
Yes, this is stuff that could potentially be done with the message system by a bunch of very active and attentive priests, who keep on top of when people sign up, and always follow up promotions with personal messages outlining duties. But that's not happening. This would be a useful RP tool, to ensure stronger obligations.
Edit: Also, stronger consequences for debt?
You already get a message every time your debt or grants are automatically incremented.
For example
Monthly Fee Paid (16 days, 6 hours ago)
Your rank of Feather in "Cra'ithil" has to pay a monthly fee of 5 gold. Your balance with this religion has been adjusted accordingly.
Haha, good point... I suppose that just shows the limitations of a message reminder :P
It would be nice if the message told me what my current balance was. For instance with my Priest I only just discovered I had a 650 gold positive balance, I sure can't remember depositing that much money, and I don't get a monthly grant.
Quote from: De-Legro on November 21, 2011, 01:06:03 PM
It would be nice if the message told me what my current balance was. For instance with my Priest I only just discovered I had a 650 gold positive balance, I sure can't remember depositing that much money, and I don't get a monthly grant.
Did you ever deposit money in a temple only to immediately use it for an enlargment? That still counts as a deposit.
Quote from: Hroppa on November 21, 2011, 12:41:28 PM
Edit: Also, stronger consequences for debt?
Myah. As it is debt doesn't really do anything. Only time people notice it is when they want to leave the guild/religion. Also means that's about the only time most people pay their guild fees, which probably isn't that good.
The financial aspect of religion/guilds is far from being fun to deal with. It's a pain in the ass to be honest and I pity anyone who has to deal with in any moderately large scale. Sadly it's a necessary part and Tom seems to like it the way it is :'(
Quote from: Shenron on November 21, 2011, 08:29:46 AM
I'd be in favour of automatic donations. Sure you can say that by the making people have to pay their own imposed "debts" but you'd be wrong. We need to accept people are lazy and try to work with that. Just putting it out there.
Considering religions are automatically taxed, now, I'd indeed consider it fair, but I don't think he will change his mind.
Would fit and be fair to therefore make the religion tax force someone to go and pick it up too, but I think that would be hell to code.
Quote from: LilWolf on November 21, 2011, 05:30:01 PM
Myah. As it is debt doesn't really do anything. Only time people notice it is when they want to leave the guild/religion. Also means that's about the only time most people pay their guild fees, which probably isn't that good.
The financial aspect of religion/guilds is far from being fun to deal with. It's a pain in the ass to be honest and I pity anyone who has to deal with in any moderately large scale. Sadly it's a necessary part and Tom seems to like it the way it is :'(
What you guys need to do is come up with your own solutions. It's not that hard. How about "no promotions until you've paid your debt" for starters?
The entire point of the entire thing is that guilds (and religions are just a sub-type of guilds, really) are meant to be player-driven, not driven by game mechanics.
Quote from: Tom on November 21, 2011, 05:57:15 PM
What you guys need to do is come up with your own solutions. It's not that hard. How about "no promotions until you've paid your debt" for starters?
The entire point of the entire thing is that guilds (and religions are just a sub-type of guilds, really) are meant to be player-driven, not driven by game mechanics.
No promotions? Considering that in 99% of the cases, you'll get all the promotions you'll ever get within the first week of joining...
And that as a religious leader, it's not in your interest to spit on a good candidate because of his debt considering how rare people willing to invest themselves in religion are...
I don't think that's a very good approach.
Hell, considering that there's no drawback to not being in any faith at all, odds are if any leader tries to force the guys lower down to pay up, they can just ignore him or leave to religion.
Yea, I understand that you want it to be more of an RP thing, but players aren't medieval nobles. Without incentives to do so, most players will not roleplay their nobles as giving a damn about religion. And the few who do anyways are not enough to maintain a dynamic religious world in BM.
Quote from: Tom on November 21, 2011, 05:57:15 PMWhat you guys need to do is come up with your own solutions. It's not that hard. How about "no promotions until you've paid your debt" for starters?
That requires promotions to be a moderately frequent event, and for there to be a reason for someone to want to be promoted. Some actual or perceived advantage to it. As it is, most guilds/religions operate with, effectively, three ranks: Aspirant, Full, and Elder. Yes, there may be dozens and dozens of ranks defined, but they are effectively meaningless, since the
only thing you can adjust for each rank is, well, the allowed debt load. And the problem being addressed is that people aren't paying that debt to begin with.
There are simply no advantages to being slightly higher in rank than someone else unless you cross the aspirant/'full or full/elder line. (And even then, it's really only the full/elder line that counts.) You can't even threaten to demote someone with too much debt, as they can't be demoted unless the rank to which they will be demoted has at least as high of a debt limit as they already have. And if the debt limit is higher, they can just go deeper into debt. And if you kick them out, they lose all that debt load anyway, and you never collect.
What we need is some way to make debt mean something. So what can we do to make that happen? The easiest way I can think of is to either allow the elders to selectively disable certain features for deadbeats, or have the game do it automatically. The most basic thing that comes to mind is guild-based communications. Too much debt? No guild messaging for you! There are probably other things that could be disabled as well, with greater or lesser effects.
How about honor? I'm sure it wouldn't be the best thing for a character for others to know that they go around racking up debt without paying it. Maybe have it so when an elder calls for global treasury to be filled it hits characters with debt too. If the collection doesn't satisfy the debt, the character loses honor. That, or make it so elders can select characters in debt and post a collection- if the noble doesn't pay, he gets some honor taken away. Elders could also cancel collections for members who are paying off the debt, but need more time to get the gold to a guildhouse. Maybe a one week deadline?
Quote from: Psyche on November 21, 2011, 09:24:38 PM
How about honor? I'm sure it wouldn't be the best thing for a character for others to know that they go around racking up debt without paying it. Maybe have it so when an elder calls for global treasury to be filled it hits characters with debt too. If the collection doesn't satisfy the debt, the character loses honor. That, or make it so elders can select characters in debt and post a collection- if the noble doesn't pay, he gets some honor taken away. Elders could also cancel collections for members who are paying off the debt, but need more time to get the gold to a guildhouse. Maybe a one week deadline?
I'd rather a carrot than a stick solution. People don't really gain much from joining religions, after all, so if you are going to punish them for not doing something they don't care to do, they'll likely just not join any religion whatsoever. And it won't cost them a thing in 99% of cases.
Quote from: Chénier on November 21, 2011, 11:28:12 PM
I'd rather a carrot than a stick solution. People don't really gain much from joining religions, after all, so if you are going to punish them for not doing something they don't care to do, they'll likely just not join any religion whatsoever. And it won't cost them a thing in 99% of cases.
I guess the issue is though if the plan is for Religions to be mostly about RP, then you don't really want to be providing much of a carrot. Either people will want to be part of RP or they won't, a carrot is unlikely to improve the RP aspect.
Quote from: De-Legro on November 21, 2011, 11:40:35 PM
I guess the issue is though if the plan is for Religions to be mostly about RP, then you don't really want to be providing much of a carrot. Either people will want to be part of RP or they won't, a carrot is unlikely to improve the RP aspect.
Exactly.
If you play the religious game for strategic reasons, then you're misunderstanding it. And I won't advance it into that direction. And that's also why it is optional and there are no drawbacks for not being in a religion.
Quote from: Tom on November 22, 2011, 12:09:59 AM
Exactly.
If you play the religious game for strategic reasons, then you're misunderstanding it. And I won't advance it into that direction. And that's also why it is optional and there are no drawbacks for not being in a religion.
While that's a coherent line of thought, I'd point out that if it's only meant to be RP anyways, why should people bother with game-handled religions? Most religions could have the same structure and advantages with a lot less costs by sticking with a purely RPed religion instead of one founded via game mechanics.
I, for one, stick with the old religions that have been up for a while, but I've completely given up on ever founding a new one unless things change. Been there, done that. Thousands of gold for temples, endless begging for funds, constant preaching which feels more like bureau work than anything, atrocious upkeeps, that only got worse now with the new taxes, to maintain medium to large religions, etc. All of that for...? Messaging? Sure, it's an advantage, but in most cases, all the followers are in a position that allows them to communicate with each other easily anyways. Religious maintenance tools? Takes months to convert well-populated regions, and with a single calm followers you typically end up losing a week's worth of converts for the gains equivalent to what a courtier would have had. Why bother? Offensive tools? Good luck converting enough followers to use it. And if you do, the damage is usually no greater than a looting attempt, may as well save your time and just come with a unit instead.
In some cases, it's worth the costs of founding a religion. In most of these, though, a single temple is all they'd ever need to satisfy their needs.
The approach of dumping all the religious duties on the priests is a problem, imo. On one hand, they are asked to provide all the RP to make the faith dynamic and alive. On the other hand, all of their tools concern *regions*, and not nobles. They feel like glorified courtiers. If you ask me, it's no wonder almost nobody wants to bother being a priest, and that a good chunk of those who do probably only do it for the hour/travel system more than anything.
Quote from: Chénier on November 22, 2011, 01:06:22 AM
While that's a coherent line of thought, I'd point out that if it's only meant to be RP anyways, why should people bother with game-handled religions? Most religions could have the same structure and advantages with a lot less costs by sticking with a purely RPed religion instead of one founded via game mechanics.
I, for one, stick with the old religions that have been up for a while, but I've completely given up on ever founding a new one unless things change. Been there, done that. Thousands of gold for temples, endless begging for funds, constant preaching which feels more like bureau work than anything, atrocious upkeeps, that only got worse now with the new taxes, to maintain medium to large religions, etc. All of that for...? Messaging? Sure, it's an advantage, but in most cases, all the followers are in a position that allows them to communicate with each other easily anyways. Religious maintenance tools? Takes months to convert well-populated regions, and with a single calm followers you typically end up losing a week's worth of converts for the gains equivalent to what a courtier would have had. Why bother? Offensive tools? Good luck converting enough followers to use it. And if you do, the damage is usually no greater than a looting attempt, may as well save your time and just come with a unit instead.
In some cases, it's worth the costs of founding a religion. In most of these, though, a single temple is all they'd ever need to satisfy their needs.
The approach of dumping all the religious duties on the priests is a problem, imo. On one hand, they are asked to provide all the RP to make the faith dynamic and alive. On the other hand, all of their tools concern *regions*, and not nobles. They feel like glorified courtiers. If you ask me, it's no wonder almost nobody wants to bother being a priest, and that a good chunk of those who do probably only do it for the hour/travel system more than anything.
Well its often for RP reasons that we choose to use in game Religions. For exmaple if you want to RP having a opulent temple, then it helps if you actually have one. If you want to claim your religion has more temples then anyone else, it would be hard to do if you didn't actually have one. Again you are thinking of what a in game religion provides in terms of "advantages" instead of seeing how the current mechanics can tie into RP. I really fail to see where the game forces Priest to do all the RP work, we have several non priest working quite a lot on RP, far more then some of our priest in fact. The "tools" priest have should inhibit RP, or prevent it. They can be used to add to RP but they are hardly required for it.
Again I see the complaints about upkeep, like I posted before The Manifest Path has 15 modest temples, most level 2-3 one level 6 and we pay a total of 18 gold maintenance.
Religions aren't too nerfed, though they'll good once the new estate system is finished and allows RTOs again. I've had success with organizing heavy preaching in an enemy realm combined with regular warfare in their lands. The enemy seems to be tying themselves up defending and repairing regions. The religion is now the dominant faith in the majority of their regions, so it adds up across the board when they arrest a priest. It's all about knowing how and when to use faith.
Quote from: De-Legro on November 22, 2011, 01:27:21 AM
Well its often for RP reasons that we choose to use in game Religions. For exmaple if you want to RP having a opulent temple, then it helps if you actually have one.e.
'nough said.
I don't understand why people think religions are weak. I really, really don't. Yes, you can accomplish more, in theory, with that much gold in troops. But not with the moral high ground. And not in peaceful situations. And not in ways that don't make it look like you're hostile. All of these are worth the extra price in gold.
Having played a powerful Ruler and now a powerful Founder/Ruler, I can say quite definitively that I have more game-mechanic power as a religious leader...And as with Rulership, the RP power of a religious leader is what you make with it.