Temples workings are unclear. People in the Discord decided to share their code to help shed some light but it barely helped; at best, their effect is weak. At worst, they are best completely avoided.

Besides apparently generating Influence per-pop, it's unclear what they do. They allow conversion of enemy systems regartless of their diplomatic status, and they block all FDSI produced by population on that planet. 

Problems:

• If population in temples produce Influence, that's not explained anywhere
• It's never explained if temple's effect on influence bubbles are the temple's own or just a consequence of producing influence
• If the effect is simply to produce influence, it's terrible. You can get plenty of influence from SPIN + Museum. Almost as much per-pop, without is costing you your entire FIDS.
• It's never specified if the effect depends on how many people are in the temple
• If it doesn't, it's terrible, and better used in empty systems where it won't drain your FIDS
• If it does, it's terrible, since the efect is too weak to justify the cost
• No matter the intended effect, right now it doesn't expand your influence zone nearly enough for it to be viable
• Nakalim's +approval on temples is way too low

As it stands, temples are really bad, and more than a "slight adjustment" away from being viable. 

Common proposals:

• Allowing systems with temples have relics assigned to them to strenghen their effect or obtain other bonuses
• The temple planetary specialization costs a relic (or more) to build, like Hissho's specialization that costs Keii, and is therefore much stronger
• Temples are naturally very very strong but can't be destroyed/removed, forcing you to sacrifice one or more planets in a system in exchange for the tithe you'll get after converting the surrounding ones

Main temple usage is to convert enemy planet - then temple can be disassembled. Influence bonus is small but ability to steal enemy planet to academy side is good as you receive 60% of resources from it permanently plus one-time bonus of 2 relics.

Vind wrote:

Main temple usage is to convert enemy planet - then temple can be disassembled. Influence bonus is small but ability to steal enemy planet to academy side is good as you receive 60% of resources from it permanently plus one-time bonus of 2 relics.

Yes, true.

Vind wrote:

Main temple usage is to convert enemy planet - then temple can be disassembled. Influence bonus is small but ability to steal enemy planet to academy side is good as you receive 60% of resources from it permanently plus one-time bonus of 2 relics.

I think you'Ve missed the point of the complaint. We know what it's supposed to do- it just does it so badly as to be useless.

    How about building temples as many as relics they have?

    And add another FIDSi bonus, remove the current penalty of temple.

    I think that temple should be better than other planetary developments like SPIN.

Yeah the penalty far outweighs the benefit, especially in the early game. Make them more useful and interesting with another bonus. building one temple could reveal an uncharted relic location, for example.

If the current preview's revisions make it into final, the reduction of FIDS loss to 50% should change the equations here.

I find it annoying that when you give a system to the Academy, you don't get that systems luxury's or strategic resources. 

Pazik wrote:

I find it annoying that when you give a system to the Academy, you don't get that systems luxury's or strategic resources. 

That's a bug and should be fixed in the upcoming patch.

I'm on turn 146 (normal speed) for the Nakalim under the pre-patch in Steam and the revisions made in the patch definitely ease the situation for the Nakalim. The temples are much more effective, as is ceding systems to the Academy. 

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

That's a bug and should be fixed in the upcoming patch.

yaaas

Valadeus wrote:

I'm on turn 146 (normal speed) for the Nakalim under the pre-patch in Steam and the revisions made in the patch definitely ease the situation for the Nakalim. The temples are much more effective, as is ceding systems to the Academy. 

Big agree on this. The specific changes to temples are that they reduce planetary FIDS (and not influence!) by 50% and add +10 influence per pop; these changes are also clearly described in the tooltip for the Temple specialization.

I've found that it's quite effective to place temples to the lost on unique planets, especially ones which give bonus science such as Tor, to create huge influence bubbles quickly. Plus, it's a very thematic thing and a big "screw you!" to the Endless, which is always fun roleplaying.