I said that shrines are this way long termly useless and I can elaborate why to say "useless" is not exaggeration.
At lower levels of shrines (levels 1 and 2) I would agree with you that they are only "less useful".
But with higher levels of shrines you get to sittuation where you can not make enaugh followers to make enaugh contributions to pay upkeep because you can not make enaugh followers in one week for it to accomplish and at one point (shrine level 3-4) you come to dead point where you weekly lose aproximately the same number of followers duo to negative balance and drew on global treasury as you can get by preaching.
At that point:
- If you continue preaching you will after each weekly "Temples and Shrines Upkeep" be at aproximately the same number of followers.
- If you stop preaching, number of followers will drop duo to negative balance and drew on global treasury to numbers that level 2 shrine can support.
So, practically, all shrines above level 2, regardless their construction cost tones of gold, are completely USELESS - NOT LESS USEFUL.
This could be fixed by:
- Eliminating lose of believers duo to negative balance and drew on global treasury for shrines, or
- Creating "Shrine Treasury" analogously to "Temple Treasury".
Problem could be solved also by:
- Making priest can consturuct tepmles as well instead priests can only upgrade existing temples of their faith while only local Lords can construct temples (but here we come to second problem - local Lords can construct temples of their faith only), or
- Making option that local Lords can construct one temple of each faith they chose to construct (not only of their own faith).
These two solutions would not affect that Shrines above level 2 are useless, but they would solve the problem of dead point in preaching caused by lose of believers duo to negative balance and drew on global treasury.
