[LGM]

You can certainly mod the Talisman to be weaker in some way. However, most games appear to use the base data files, which means the Talisman will dominate most games.

Gannging up on a Religious player does not work very well when 1/3 to 1/2 of the players are Religous. At least one of them will survive to get to the Talisman.

The relgious shrines are a nice help on the road to the Talisman. It is hard taking out systems that have pluses to damage and defense. The early game system bonuses give them a strong economy to defend with as they research to the Talisman.

How many widely played mods out there have a weakened form the the Talisman?

I created a Mod and made the Talisman act as 10KT armor so that it gets taken out right away without shields, or relatively soon if shields are stopping attacks. None of the players in that game took the Religious trait with that change. However, I also made some advanced traits cheaper so that lured them there.

At this point I will most likely only join games where the Mod reduces or eliminates the Talisman or Religous is turned off. I feel it is hard to design a race that is competitive with Religous without taking that trait. Organic races come close, but seekers are not a good counter as Point Defense can deal with them quite well. Ramming is hard gainst an enemy that hangs out at max range. Give the Religious player repulser beams and he will fling your ships away after he damges them, unless you use a bigger hull, which means you are to slow to catch them.

I have played a Religious race several times and really dominated and I have played against them several times and been really frustrated.

I think that Religious should be excluded from most PBW games until the base mode weakens the trait somehow.