Armagh Monastery Rework
Monasteries are a unique looking tile improvement but I don’t find them interesting to use because of their lackluster effects outside of housing. This mod reworks monasteries so that they contribute more to adjacent tiles to better represent how monasteries would interact with their surrounding communities and to hopefully create more interesting placement decisions.
Here are some changes to them, and the reasoning behind them:
The +2 base faith is removed, and a new appeal requirement of 2 has been added to the usual requirement of not being next to an adjacent monastery. This should make sense based on the new effect additions, and reflects the history of monasteries often being by beautiful natural surroundings (or at least in isolated areas and not in the middle of industrial hubs/mines).
New tile effects:
Faith equal to the appeal of the title. (Since it requires charming appeal, it now gives faith that scales equal to the tile appeal – making placement considerations more interesting.)
Bonuses to two adjacent tiles inspired by how monasteries were known for supporting their surrounding communities, specifically:
+1 faith to adjacent holy sites. (Many monasteries were built near holy sites, temples, etc. and it makes sense that the holy site would get a benefit from being next to this special improvement. This also gives players more options for getting holy site adjacencies when they don’t have a nearby natural wonder or mountain.)
+1 food to adjacent farms or pastures. (Some monasteries were built around farms and pastures to support the monastery and the local community, and many monasteries were known for their agricultural skills. Examples include Cluny Abbey, Glastonbury Abbey, and Monte Cassino. This also prevents Theodora from not wanting to build farms near Holy Sites. Now she is incentivized to surround Holy Sites with farms and monasteries if she is the Suzerain of Armagh.)
To summarize the Monastery after this mod:
Effects:
◘ Faith equal to the appeal of the tile.
◘ Provides +15 HP healing every turn for friendly religious units.
◘ +1 faith for every 2 adjacent Districts.
◘ +1 housing
◘ +1 additional housing (with colonialism)
◘ +1 faith to adjacent holy sites.
◘ +1 food to adjacent farms and pastures.
Restrictions:
◘ Cannot be adjacent to another Monastery.
◘ Requires Charming (2) appeal or higher.
Hopefully you enjoy figuring out the optimal placements for monasteries in your games, and let me know if you think anything is too weak/too powerful.
Discuss this update in the discussions section.
