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Thread: Temples - overview and assessment

  1. #1
    Jurand of Cracow's Avatar History and gameplay!
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    Icon3 Temples - overview and assessment

    Hi Guys,
    I would like to share my thoughts and ask for your opinions on the usefulness of the bonuses that the temples provide. Obviously, I’ve checked only a handful of factions so I might be wrong in some aspects.

    Overview

    • Temples don’t change culture of the province, unlike what one may expect after having played vanilla M2TW or certain other mods. The main benefit of the temples is, as usual, better public order complemented by other side-benefits.
    • Public order bonuses are the same for all types of temples at all levels. They don’t increase at each level but only three times: 5% for village, 10% for town and large town, 15% for city and large city.
    • These bonuses concern Happiness, with the exception is the Governors type temples where it's replaced by Law (clearly superior bonus, combating also corruption).
    • Only one temple can be build in a settlement so the player cannot have all the benefits in one settlement.
    • Temples incur maintenance costs so it’s better not to build a (higher level) of a temple if the public order is good (what may happen eg. in a home province). All city-level temples (lvl 4 and 5) give also -1 trade malus.
    • The benefits and availability of the temples may vary from faction to faction. Eg. for Pritanoi all the benefits of the Fertility and Farm temples are identical (what may stem from the fact that they don't have access to lvl 5 level), Pritanoi don’t have Fun and Governors types; Hayasdan doesn’t have Farm type but does the other five.


    Bonuses and their usefulness

    • Governors: the Construction Time bonus – this bonus doesn’t matter in practice as most of the buildings have comparatively short building times (eg. the higher level of mines in EBII it's 12 turns, while in the EBI it was 40 turns). However, the law bonus is a great one, much superior to the happiness provided by the other temples.
    • Battle: the unit Experience bonus is quite useful even if – due to the low battle losses – the player recruits new units rather rarely. An option is to have city with this temple so that the new units recruited elsewhere come and re-retrain to get that additional chevron. This might be costly though.
    • Forge: the unit Retraining Cost bonus: if the player does re-train, this is an attractive option. If the player follows a limited-retraining rule (as I do, see here) then it’s rather useless.
    • Fertility: the Population growth bonus is very useful given vera scarce pop growth bonuses from other sources (what is different from the mods like SSHIP, see here). This might be the optimal choice for the players with the “builder spirit”, ie those trying to get the cities as big as possible.
    • Farm: is very similar to the Fertility temple as it gives same population growth bonuses up to lvl4. At lvl5 it offers an agricultural income instead of the additional +0.5 population growth. Given that it’s a flat sum of money (what translates in the lower percentage of income as the settlemet gets bigger), and that the pop growth bonuses are very scarce and provide for higher population, this type of temple is inferior to the Fertility one. (mind that this conclusion doesn’t hold for factions with only 4 levels of temples – in this case Farm and Fertility temples seem to provide similar bonuses).
    • Fun: half the (own) maintenance cost for each level, but there’s a swap between happiness and law bonuses (eg. the highest level is +25% happiness but -10% law). I think the costs are unlikely to make up for the downsides of having less law, therefore this is a kind of useless temple, imo.


    Overall assessment

    • The similar happiness bonus for all types of temples might be a good choice for the gameplay. However, the bonuses seem rather small to me. The temples were essential for public cohesion in the antiquity and I think they should be more important. Furthermore, more variety gives more choice for the player - and the game is about making choices. So I'd also be in favour of diversification of happiness bonuses, mixing them with law etc. More choice is better.
    • At first glance, for the reasons of historicity, I was very positive on the idea of the temples not providing for the cultural change. However, after the second thought I think that they should provide for a small change over time (even though it cannot be compared to the impact of hegemonic religions in Late Antiquity).
    • The situation when not building a temple is a better choice than building it (when it incurs maintaining cost while providing no practical benefits ) is very bad for the historical feeling. Given that it occurs in the home provinces, this is very unhistorical. I think the temples should always be a pre-requiste for some governments or other building. They should be the first building a player builds in the province – life in those times concentrated on cult and people needed places of worship.
    • The law bonuses of Governors temple make it vastly more useful than the others unless in the home provinces close to the capital.
    • The other good types of temple are Fertility and Battle, while Forge may be useful for certain gamestyles.
    • The bonuses of Fun and Farm (lvl5) look good on paper but are irrelevant in practice (ie: player optimizing his game would never chose building them – even if he wouldn’t destroy them if the city is conquered).


    Questions to the EBII team:

    • What do you think about this dis-incentive to build temples in own provinces? (they incur costs without providing benefits)
    • In this context: have you considered making the temples conditions for other buildings more frequent? This would make the player building temples in a historical manner - as a basic amenity of a settlement.
    • Would you consider differentiation of the Farm and Fertility temples in another way so that the barbarian factions would effectively have 4 types of temples (for now, they have 3 as Farm and Fertility are identical). Or in general: what do you think about introducing more variety into the benefits of the temples?
    • Have you considered allowing for many temples in one settlement? If yes, what were pros and cons for the decision? (well, me personally, I'm not very much interested in having many temples, but it's just a thought)
    • Why have you chosen that the temples don’t provide for any culture change (I want to repeat: I think only a very minor change would be historical but still temples were transmitters of a culture)?
    • In general: what kind of change of the bonuses could you consider in the future?
    Last edited by Jurand of Cracow; April 24, 2019 at 02:49 AM.
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  2. #2

    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    I think that currently temples are a mess and they badly need a rebalance. I also posted my proposals (more based on gameplay that historicity I admit). Sadly Quintus answered that a temple rebalance is not in the team to-do list, I hope they change their mind someday.
    Edit: this were my suggestions, in case you are interested. Please remember they are untested and may be horribly unbalanced.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    I understand, but what I meant is that each temple tier bonus need a rebalance. For example IIRC (I didn't keep a backup of the original files ) the tier 4 of the FUN temple due to the law malus actually grant a smaller net public order bonus than the other temples, plus the corruption increase; and the smaller upkeep cost doesn't make much sense IMHO, it would be better tied to a more management focused temple, or I'm wrong?

    Since this thread is meant to contain suggestions, I suggest the changes I made in my files : the general guidelines are slower happiness bonus progression but increased unique benefits.

    TEMPLE OF BATTLE: +1 exp is too weak, I would never build them in vanilla EBII, removed cavalry exp bonus because doesn't make much sense for infantry based factions.
    BATTLE TIER 3: HAPPINESS +2, +1 EXP
    BATTLE TIER 4: HAPPINESS +2, +2 EXP
    BATTLE TIER 5: HAPPINESS +3, +3 EXP

    TEMPLE OF FARMING: I see this priests as really good at managing local economy, so increased farming level and reduced upkeep costs. Removed pop increase because it robs fertility temple of its uniqueness. Good for smaller and more isolated factions that need cash.
    FARMING TIER 3: HAPPINESS +2, +1 FARM, 100 UPKEEP
    FARMING TIER 4: HAPPINESS +2, +2 FARM, 100 UPKEEP
    FARMING TIER 5: HAPPINESS +3, +3 FARM, 150 UPKEEP

    TEMPLE OF FERTILITY: focused on pop growth
    FERTILITY TIER 3: HAPPINESS +2, +1 POP GROWTH
    FERTILITY TIER 4: HAPPINESS +2, +2 POP GROWTH
    FERTILITY TIER 5: HAPPINESS +3, +3 POP GROWTH

    TEMPLE OF FORGE: this is very tricky, because you put very different deities here, and what makes sense for one doesn't for others. In the end I just stole the construction time bonus from governor temples and put it here, rebalancing it to have a real effect on most buildings. It makes somewhat sense and make the temple worth of its price.
    FORGE TIER 3: HAPPINESS +2, CONSTR TIME -20%
    FORGE TIER 4: HAPPINESS +2, CONSTR TIME -25%, RETRAIN BONUS 1
    FORGE TIER 5: HAPPINESS +3, CONSTR TIME -35%, RETRAIN BONUS 2

    TEMPLE OF FUN: focused on, duh, fun. Big happiness bonus, good for troublesome regions.
    FUN TIER 3: HAPPINESS +3
    FUN TIER 4: HAPPINESS +4
    FUN TIER 5: HAPPINESS +5

    TEMPLE OF GOVERNORS: this temple reduce corruption and promotes trade, emphasizing the "lawgiver" aspect of divinity. Stern justice reduce happiness, though (PO net bonus at each tier is the same of most other temples anyway). Good for big sprawling factions.
    GOVERNORS TIER 3: LAW +3, HAPPINESS -1
    GOVERNORS TIER 4: LAW +4, HAPPINESS -2, REMOVED TRADE MALUS
    GOVERNORS TIER 5: LAW +5, HAPPINESS -2, REMOVED TRADE MALUS

    That's it, I hope it was worth of your reading time.

    TL; DR: please make temples more balanced to each other at each tier, and make their bonuses more relevant.
    Last edited by Aper; April 23, 2019 at 04:17 PM.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    Very good assessment, Jurand.

    Most of the temples I build are governor temples. The law bonus helps control corruption - meaning more cash. The shorter construction time is useful for big projects like advanced mines and huge ports.

    I will build battle temples in regions that have plenty of manpower.

    I may build one fertilty/farming temple in my core provinces for the sake of variety.

    I will not build forge temples because I don't retrain depleted units, I merge them.

    I will not build fun temples because of the law penalty.

    Being able to build more than one temple is a great idea, but a scary one too. If done right, it's a blessing. If done wrong, it's a curse. It would need fine fine tuning.

    P.S. If I remember correctly, there are no dedicated trade temples. Why is that?
    Last edited by Rad; April 23, 2019 at 05:26 PM.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    Quote Originally Posted by Rad View Post
    I may build one fertilty/farming temple in my core provinces for the sake of variety.
    I build fertility/farming in every one of my cities... that 0.5% pop increase is so valuable as game progresses...

  5. #5

    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    I find them to be underwhelming in their current state. I use my good governors and grain imports to build up cities to Huge. I much prefer the law/troop experience bonus the other temples offer.

    You could just build fertility/farming temples in the early game and replace them with other temples later, but that would offend some of the Gods and cause all sorts of troubles

  6. #6

    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    There was one thing that you didn't take into consideration Jurand, that temples also give different anciliaries for your FMs which makes it interesting to have different temples in your homeland to get different types. For the rest, I normally prefer the governors temple and sometimes build war temples in cities where I plan to recruit a lot.

    Overall, I would prefer the temples as Roma Surrectum did, that is, making every temple buildable with smaller bonus which was far better and more historical accurate. They simply replaced the temple building with a wonders building where you could get different monuments while the temples had their own separate building tree.

  7. #7
    Jurand of Cracow's Avatar History and gameplay!
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    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    Quote Originally Posted by Lusitanio View Post
    There was one thing that you didn't take into consideration Jurand, that temples also give different anciliaries for your FMs which makes it interesting to have different temples in your homeland to get different types. For the rest, I normally prefer the governors temple and sometimes build war temples in cities where I plan to recruit a lot.
    Yeah, this is probably true but I haven't ploughed through EDA to find out when you get an ancillary ;-) and I haven't experienced being given ancilliaries from the temples (or I was unaware of). The problem is, you rarely keep your FMs in a home provinces to get those ancillaries, while in client-ruler provinces you cannot. So - recalling my type of argument on the other things - maybe it's interesting on paper but doesn't work for my gameplay in practice. Yes, there's a possibility to swap ancillaries in the EBII and to make one general just getting them and then stacking them on another one, but I find it unrealistic and bad for the gameplay. Imagine, that you're using your client ruler as a factory of ancillaries - he stays in his settlement, he regularly gets the same ancillary, and an odd FM comes to him just to take the ancillary. Is it historical?
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Quote Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius View Post
    Many ancillaries represent members of staff who could be transferred and would actually be replaced by different people over time. Only the genuinely unique ones are non-transferrable, by design.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jurand of Cracow View Post
    Ok, this is one perspective, I understand it's valid for the EBII, fair play.
    Nevertheless, I tilt towards another view: all human/animal ancillaries represent unique people/creatures who feel attachment to a general (or vice versa) and because of this are not transferable (otherwise you've got a Master Smitch or a Swift Steed serving for 100 years to generals from 4 different generations). This results also in stacking inferior ancillaries on older generals (to die), while passing the better ones to the young. I don't like it, I prefer to make probabilities of acquiring the ancillaries higher but make all of them die at the moment their master dies.
    However, the titles (in the SSHIP there're provincional governors and ministerial ones, and also crowns for the FL) represent staff accompaning the holder and as such they can be transferred to another general.
    Last edited by Jurand of Cracow; April 24, 2019 at 02:53 AM.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    Culture change for temples is impossible in the current setup. Any building can only convert to one culture, it would mean creating separate temple trees for each culture, and encouraging the destruction of "foreign" temples every time you took a settlement. Given the AI doesn't destroy buildings, that becomes an immediate exploit for the human player (or else something that has to be added to the auto-destruction script).

  9. #9
    Jurand of Cracow's Avatar History and gameplay!
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    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    Quote Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius View Post
    Culture change for temples is impossible in the current setup. Any building can only convert to one culture, it would mean creating separate temple trees for each culture, and encouraging the destruction of "foreign" temples every time you took a settlement. Given the AI doesn't destroy buildings, that becomes an immediate exploit for the human player (or else something that has to be added to the auto-destruction script).
    Ok, thanks, I find it fully justified: just 1 temple per settlement and no conversion bonus. What about the other two questions?


    • What do you think about this dis-incentive to build temples in own provinces? (they incur costs without providing benefits). In this context: have you considered making the temples conditions for other buildings more frequent? This would make the player building temples in a historical manner - as a basic amenity of a settlement.
    • Would you consider differentiation of the Farm and Fertility temples in another way so that the barbarian factions would effectively have 4 types of temples (for now, they have 3 as Farm and Fertility are identical). Or in general: what do you think about introducing more variety into the benefits of the temples?

  10. #10

    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    Temples provide benefits - not only the order bonuses, but the ancillary ones at the higher levels. Not to mention the impacts on the traits and ancillaries of named characters staying there. The costs mean they're not no-brainers, and have to be weighed against other building choices. They're also easy places to sink money later on.

    They don't represent a literal single building, but the elevation of one cult above all others in the settlement (which was the case in many large cities). All the factions represented were polytheistic, there'd be multiple cults and temples in reality, but we can't reflect that with the M2TW building system (which is designed for a monotheistic setup). That's why we don't see the need to allow more than one, which would just encourage doubling, tripling or more, filling up the building slots for little gain.

    Farm and Fertility don't elicit the same traits/ancillaries in governors. The problem here is the lack of real variety of capabilities that are relevant to temples.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    What about trade temples? Any chance they might pop up?

  12. #12
    Jurand of Cracow's Avatar History and gameplay!
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    Default Re: Temples - overview and assessment

    Quote Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius View Post
    Temples provide benefits - not only the order bonuses, but the ancillary ones at the higher levels. Not to mention the impacts on the traits and ancillaries of named characters staying there. The costs mean they're not no-brainers, and have to be weighed against other building choices. They're also easy places to sink money later on.

    They don't represent a literal single building, but the elevation of one cult above all others in the settlement (which was the case in many large cities). All the factions represented were polytheistic, there'd be multiple cults and temples in reality, but we can't reflect that with the M2TW building system (which is designed for a monotheistic setup). That's why we don't see the need to allow more than one, which would just encourage doubling, tripling or more, filling up the building slots for little gain.

    Farm and Fertility don't elicit the same traits/ancillaries in governors. The problem here is the lack of real variety of capabilities that are relevant to temples.
    Ok, thanks, now we know what the team is thinking about this - and this is what actually matters.

    I've been convinced by the arguments against having more than 1 temple in one settlement and the temples not providing conversion bonus.

    However, I'm not swayed by the other arguments because:
    - the choice of the temple should be (and is made by the players) on the basis of the clear benefits, not the elusive ones (like probability of getting ancillaries);
    - you rarely keep your FMs in a home provinces to get those ancillaries, while in client-ruler provinces you cannot. So these benefits are a of minor relevance;
    - the player is playing a game so he shouldn't be expected to act exactly against his interest (paying money for a temple while he doesn't need it);
    - I don't think there's "the lack of real variety of capabilities that are relevant to temples" - Aper's proposals shown that it's perfectly possible to find another ways of spreading the benefits;
    - more variety for choice is better for the gameplay than less - and imho the benefits of the temples are just a lost opportunity to make the game more interesting while keeping it historical.

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