Rationale for single-temple settlements

[Neyak]

I'm trying to understand why each settlement can only be home to one type of temple. I understand that this has undoubtedly convenient gameplay/balancing implications. However it seems a little bit like something that EB2 inherited from EB1, which inherited it from vanilla RTW. I'm trying to understand what the supposed historical justification for this is. Here are some thoughts:

1. Certain regions and/or cities certainly had particular affinity to a certain deity over others, even if the city or region shared the same pantheon with a wider culture. However, in that case the choice shouldn't be up to the player -- the cultural composition of a region is not up to the player either (at least not prior to decades of conversion); and while many regions have pre-existing temples at the start of the game, they can be easily replaced [hourse rule: don't do it?]. This seems inconsistent. The regional affinity might instead be implemented in that all temples are available in parallel, but only one (or sometimes more?) would give substantial bonuses and which temples these are depends on the region (like a hidden resource "Athenaphilia"), while others would give only lesser benefit, but can nonetheless be constructed even if it is advisable only in rare circumstances.

2. Perhaps, methinks, instead there are other temples in a city but they are irrelevant in terms of gameplay, in the same way that not every privy in the streets of Rome appears in the building browser. They're not represented in game, only the one that matters. This doesn't answer the question though why only one should be relevant, and why it should be up to the player which one that is.

3. Having a "pantheon"-like building as the final temple level makes sense, but still doesn't answer why the path to it goes via a single deity.

Is there an "official" reason for this game feature the way it stands? Any other thoughts anybody has about this?

[QuintusSertorius]

There isn't a historical justification, it's a constraint of the engine. You can only have one temple building per settlement in M2TW. We also have a hardcoded limit on the number of buildings in a settlement (due to the slots they allowed in the UI), so though we could add new building trees for more temples, that just pushes us closer to the limit for little real gain.

The best way to think of the temple shown is the most important cult in the region, not the only one.

[Hellenikon]

I usually attempt to have a variety of temples in my regions, by reading the province descriptions and picking one related to the local cult mentioned, or at least trying to. Given the limitation on number of temples, it would be an interesting thought to create a sort of hidden resource map, whereby each region has assigned one historical type of temple, representing which major cult had the most influence. It would limit roleplaying for the player, but i think enforcing some variety based on local cults would help improve immersion.

[Sarkiss]

there was a submod by Nimor that introduced minor temples. it is very out of date though.