does religious *need* the talisman?

[Kamog]

Well, the religious shrines are nice, too. Especially the Nature Shrine, which increases the value and condition of all the planets in the system. But do you know if all the other shrines work? Like the one that's supposed to reduce bad events or protect against intelligence operations or something, does it do what it's supposed to?

[rextorres]

Except for the Nature Shrine and maybe the Time Shrines all the other shrines are minimally useful and the fate shrine is a joke. Merely gutting the Talisman will make people simply not choose religious as a trait and probably religate it to the "lucky" Category of traits.

[PvK]

I think the War Shrine is good, because it lets you add combat bonuses no one else can get. That is, if you weren't counting on Talisman to make you 100% accurate anyway. Death Shrine is worth building too, but not worth a lot of racial points, though it does mean you can do more damage than anyone else with the same weapons. I'd prefer Death Shrine to Nature Shrine, if I had to choose, because Nature Shrine's effect is so slow. In fact, I think you probably should have to choose, since Nature Shrine and Death Shrine wouldn't necessarily be provided by all religions.

Without the Talisman, I think Religious would be worth less, though - no more than 1000 points. With it, it is probably worth more, except that smart players are liable to try to wipe you out before you develop it.

PvK

[Gandalph]

The War Shrine and Death Shrine only give you a boost IF you are fighting in the system they are built in, which would be in your territory, and if you are fighting battles in your territory, you are probably losing anyway.

[geoschmo]

Personally I don't have as much of a problem with Tailsman as I used to. In principle it's quite devastating, but in practice it never quite seems to work out as planned.

That being said I will have to agree with those that believe the Tailsman is really the only reason to go with the religious race. As Gandalph correctly points out the death shrine is a defensive facility. You only get the bonuses when the enemy is attacking you. And if the enemy captures your planets intact he then gets the bonus against all later ship combat in that sector. Not good IMHO.

I guess it would be allright if someone wanted to replace the never miss Tailsman with one that gave big bonuses to combat but still allowed for a chance of a miss instead. And then you could have different levels of Tailsman with increasing accuracy.

Didn't someone do a mod replacing the Tailsman with a mount? Using the mount for the weapon didn't change the size or damage, but increased the accuracy and cost? Seems like I remember that being talked about.

Geoschmo

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by PvK:
I think the War Shrine is good, because it lets you add combat bonuses no one else can get. That is, if you weren't counting on Talisman to make you 100% accurate anyway. Death Shrine is worth building too, but not worth a lot of racial points, though it does mean you can do more damage than anyone else with the same weapons. I'd prefer Death Shrine to Nature Shrine, if I had to choose, because Nature Shrine's effect is so slow. In fact, I think you probably should have to choose, since Nature Shrine and Death Shrine wouldn't necessarily be provided by all religions.

Without the Talisman, I think Religious would be worth less, though - no more than 1000 points. With it, it is probably worth more, except that smart players are liable to try to wipe you out before you develop it.

PvK

I think the Temporal trait has a facility similar to the war shrine; I forget the name, but it provides offense & defense bonuses within the system. The death shrine is unique - the only one I know of that provides damage bonuses.

That gives me an idea; maybe the talisman should be changed so that rather than "always hit", it's a fairly large (stackable) bonus, plus a damage bonus? At least that would provide more options for properly balancing the trait.

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
/snip\
I guess it would be allright if someone wanted to replace the never miss Talisman with one that gave big bonuses to combat but still allowed for a chance of a miss instead. And then you could have different levels of Talisman with increasing accuracy.

Didn't someone do a mod replacing the Talisman with a mount? Using the mount for the weapon didn't change the size or damage, but increased the accuracy and cost? Seems like I remember that being talked about.

Geoschmo

Heh. I was posting my response the same time you were; maybe a combination of our ideas would work:

Change Talisman to a mount (or series of mounts), providing accuracy and damage bonuses, for increased cost and size. Increased size & cost to make up for the fact that it's no longer a separate 50kT component, and damage bonus to make up for the fact that (IIRC) you can only have 1 mount on a given weapon; which means you'd either have a Talisman-mounted weapon or a "Huge"-mounted weapon (or whatever)...