When they said that the different religions wouldn't have any pros or cons I was a bit dissapointed, although I can understand why they did it. But as soon as I heard that they were going to let us mod the game and it's supposed to be an easy thing to do, or at least not impossible, I thought maybe we should make a modpack that adds certain effects for each religion.

I don't know much about every religion but after thinking about it at school I thought we could make 2 modpacks for them, 1 is the way each religion is supposed to be effecting the civilizations and 1 should be the way religions effect are effecting civilizations.

We should start coming up with ideas for each religion and what they do, for example for the modpack where religions are effecting civilizations:

Judaism : Increased Commerce, Increased Science, Increased Military Upkeep, Decreased Happiness(because of being looked down on in many civilizations in the past)
Christianity : Increased Commerce, Increased Production, Increased Military Upkeep, Decreased Science ("Evolution isnt real" thing with some of the extremely devout christians, i.e. Flander's in the simpsons...)
Islam : Increased Production, Increased Science, Decreased Unit Upkeep, Decreased Commerce(No idea why commerce)

Not to familiar with the other religions, but I'll add any new ideas anyone comes up with in the future to the op.

It sounds like you have a very stereotypical knowledge of the religions you do know about.

I'll add any new ideas anyone comes up with in the future to the op.

:hatsoff: :hatsoff:
I came up with those three in a few minutes.

Islam is all about commerce! Muhammed was a trader for crying out-loud!

"I want to convert to Judaism so I can be sad." What!!

Among other technologies, Christian Europe came up with Evolution (Not Scientific??).

Notice, I attacked the negatives. I don't think any religion should have negative effects. Of course, I'm also one whom thinks that (in the game) all religions should be created equal.

Islam is all about commerce! Muhammed was a trader for crying out-loud!

"I want to convert to Judaism so I can be sad." What!!

Among other technologies, Christian Europe came up with Evolution (Not Scientific??).

Notice, I attacked the negatives. I don't think any religion should have negative effects. Of course, I'm also one whom thinks that (in the game) all religions should be created equal.

That would be in the other mod pack, the one that portrays how its supposed to be.

I just had a vision, I just saw hundreds of threads on "my religion is better than your religion" flaming posts. Civ 4 will be known as the Holy War of games, mainly due to the religious fighting that will be unleashed once mods start popping up stereotyping one religion or another. :nuke:

I'll just wait for the Planet of the Apes mod with Darwin as the leaderhead. :lol:

there will be great contest amone Pagan mods, wich will make Paganism decent religion... by the way - you can start just now)

I don't think you should make any differences between the religions, seeing as this is in contradiction to one of the most key elements in Civ - the "I created this world! I helped shape it! My taoist empire is truly victorious, I finally nuked France to death" scenario is just plain st00p1d.

Well there are key differences in relgions. For one thing the Jews tend to value works above faith while Christains do the oppisite. So a Chritain relgion socitey may be hapier but Jewish society would be more productive.

The key to not triggring a PC riot is to study the basic tenets of each relgion, thing such as work ethic, treatment of others, punishment of wrong-doers, and thing such as that.

We shouldn't have science hindered because of "Christains don't belive in gravity" marlarkey. (For one thing there are real reasons that some christains don't belive in Evolution or Stem Cell Research).
Now another cool thing to have would be a fantic of each relgion (we all have them just admit it). That is spawned in the Holy city.

Well there are key differences in relgions. For one thing the Jews tend to value works above faith while Christains do the oppisite. So a Chritain relgion socitey may be hapier but Jewish society would be more productive.

Three words: "Protestant Work Ethic"

I think somebody's soon going to come out with a Greco-Roman Pantheon mod that includes worship of particular deities as religion and gives bonuses like "Venus doubles growth rate" and "Pluto gives extra gold." That's the only way I can see differences between religions being implemented without starting a Holy War on the forums.

I have an idea.

Have religion available not on tech discovery. But based on in-game events dicated by turn/game year.

Hinduism from 3000 BC, Judaism 2000BC, Christianity 0, Islam 800 AD etc.

Obviously edit the 7 religions to have the correct ones listed.

Another great idea: America doesn't get build until the late eighteenth century! And Rome collapses before the medieval era! And England gets a lot of naval units after researching Imperialism, then loses them after enough people research Nationalism! And in the early twentieth century, Germany goes to war with everyone!

Er, nice try but mine does make sense. There are disagreements of the religions being tied to certain techs, and the orders in which they come. Might as well make them pop up a: randomly or b: after a set date/turn.

Personally, I really like the random idea. It would reflect the religion growing to a size where you, the ruler, took notice of it. Because no religion was...instantly "discovered".

they shoul leave it as it is, and then have the option to mod 'em, so you can have interresting fantasy/sci fi mods? (just a thought)

they shoul leave it as it is, and then have the option to mod 'em, so you can have interresting fantasy/sci fi mods? (just a thought)

You've got the option to "mod 'em." With CivIV, you could mod in a religion that has a 12.2% chance of appearing every prime-numbered turn if three particular Wonders are built in a particular order and all in cities beginning with "A." And the religion spreads by infecting Obsolete units and upgrading them into barbarian ICBMs, and it turns every city with a perfect square population into a new Civ with a randomly generated name that uses the Spearman graphic for all its houses. :crazyeye:

EDIT: Added friendly-looking smiley to clarify tone

whats your obsession with bad-attempted-sarcasm? i'm just saying, sid made civ 1, civ 2, and civ3, so i say trust him. he knows what he's at. but ya know what? why dont you go on and release a mod that lets raelians make the 'alien' unit and rastafarians utilise the 'cannabis' resource? huh? why dont you try and use your brain and think, rather than put down other ideas??

whats your obsession with bad-attempted-sarcasm? i'm just saying, sid made civ 1, civ 2, and civ3, so i say trust him. he knows what he's at. but ya know what? why dont you go on and release a mod that lets raelians make the 'alien' unit and rastafarians utilise the 'cannabis' resource? huh? why dont you try and use your brain and think, rather than put down other ideas??

If that was directed at me, I apologize for sounding rude. I, in fact, intended quite the opposite. As you had questioned the possibility of modding something in, it naturally appeared that you did not know that you could, in fact, mod anything you wished. Thus, I was merely stating the extent of the possibilities CivIV moddability opened. I was not in any way implying that you were an idiot or that you should create that particular mod and then buzz off.

thank you for some civility. its rare in alot of people.

I like the idea of having relgions change to an extent, but it should be like this

1000000 bc only paganism is aviable. at X bc Judism becomes avaible thanks to Abraham, at 5 bc Jesus Christ is born (long story just accept that he was born in 5 bc for now) and at 25 ad Christanity is avalible. At X ad Mecca is conquered by a barbarin tribe led by Muhamad founding Islam, or somthing like that, it depends on the
Simulation V Video Game debate again doesn't it?

Well, as I have said in previous posts, perhaps if you had a system of Traits which the Founder of a religion could assign (if he/she chooses), then we avoid this problem of unfairly stereotyping specific faiths.
For instance, if you want your particular faith to be of a Fundamentalist/Militant variety, then merely select those options when you found the religion. Civs that adopt your faith will automatically acquire the specific 'flavour' of that faith that the founder is currently following. If you tire of the whole 'Fundamentalist' thing, then you can either abandon your faith altogether (leaving it to the next longest follower to alter it), or change the Fundamentalist trait to another, more suitable one (like Ecuminical), though at the cost of Anarchy. In fact, if you didn't mind having a particularly large Religion Civic category, then you could expand that, and use it to really make your faiths different from each other (or even achieve differences between followers of the same faith). For instance, you might have one nation which follows a very militant brand of Christianity, whilst another one follows a Pacifist variety-if you could properly factor this into the diplomatic relationship system, then you could even model such things as 'The Wars of Religion' which occured between Protestant and Catholic nations in Europe. Hmmmm, could be VERY interesting.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

they didn't want to put any effects to Relegion since it's an opening to all the narrow minded racists to come and publish antisemistic games or antimuslim or what so ever so this opition is an open door to tempt the racists.

Whether religon is a amlus for science or not is more a matter of how dogmatic is the religon seen in the society, so it should be left to the civic ( theocraty big malus, free religon no malus ). Look f.e. at europe. Christanity blocked science in the medivian age, but not anymore in the industrial age.

Giving religons specific advantages and disadvantages and you will have an holy war here in the forum ;) ( as other said already ). So I think, best way to do so would be if you invent fictiv religons, so nobody would be annoyed.

Hey if someone makes an anti-sematic or anti christain game that
s THEIR problem, don't ruin other peoples fun because we still have hate groups filled with inbred morons.

Hey if someone makes an anti-sematic or anti christain game that
s THEIR problem, don't ruin other peoples fun because we still have hate groups filled with inbred morons.

You may ignore those hate groups, but what about the other claim ? I mean in the medivian era the islamic civs where better at science than the europeans, in the industrial and modern era it was the other way around. IMO it is more a problem whether the religon is taken literaly and no science that contradicts is allowed. Therefor it is IMO justified to say its more a problem of the "Civic option" ( in terms of Civ 4 ) then the religon itself.

My god, just have the player be able to pick the bonuses, that way everyone is happy.

Well, Japanrocks, that is what I have been suggesting since the beginning. Rather than get involved in a long and tiresome argument about 'which religion was/is more militant, which one was/is more mercantile or which one was/is more fundamentalist?' which, quite frankly, are tags that can be associated with almost all religions at a given point in their history-why not simply have the founder of the faith determine what defines his religion-at that point in history.
The main question is-would that be better done via a whole new system of traits, or could you simple expand the religion civic category to accound for all the various 'sects' that a faith can ascribe to-be it Orthodox or Reformist/Heterodox, militant or pacifist, scholarly or dogmatic, fundamentalist or ecumenical-just to name a few.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

How's this... instead of giving each religion a trait, give various sects within the religion a trait. Sects within a religion share certain things (like holy cities and places of worship [for simplicity]), but fight amongst themselves and have differing traits (per citizen, not per city of civ).

I'm reluctant to support religious traits that are chosen in game for the same reason I am reluctant to support leader/civ traits that are chosen in game. Players would likely choose the same ones over and over, and not get prodded into playing the game from a slightly different angle. I also worry that it would also give a degree of sameness in any given game, as players (AI or human) in a particular game might be more likely to choose the same traits due to the conditions of that game.

Regardless, religious traits should not at all resemble the civics or leader traits except as a core concept. Happiness, production, war weariness, science, and the like are all in the civics/leader traits categories. Religions traits should instead be things like spirituality, tolerance of other religions, tolerance of other sects, importance of ritualism (and thus of places of worship), evangelism, etc. They should be things that only make sense in the context of religion, both as concepts and as implemented in the game.

Well, thats exactly what I was suggesting-in the broadest sense. After all, if you want to represent the schism between the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant faiths, you merely have blocs of nations-all christian-but whom each follow a different 'trait' or 'civic option' within the Christian faiths. So the Catholic nations of the time might have an Organised and/or Militant trait/civic, wheras the Orthodox nations will obviously have an Orthodox trait/civic and the Protestant nations will all have a Reformist/Heterodox trait/civic.
The key is in determining what each trait/civic does-both good and bad-but given the fact that the Protestant/Reformists brought the Church into the language of the ordinary people, I would say that their religious buildings and/or priest specialists might generate extra happiness. However, as these Reformists also tended to be iconoclasts, then it might be that these same religious buildings produce less culture for their cities. Of course, that is just a single example, but you see the point-you can represent the different sects within a religion at the civic/trait level-so long as you keep the traits/civics within a broadly religious tone.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Right. I just wanted to suggest a way to keep the religions overall neutral while emphasizing the importance of trait groups that were truly religious in nature rather than being relatively generic and meaningless bonuses and penalties like the other traits. I still prefer spontaneous formation of these sects, however. Completely random would work, but it would be useful to explore how they could be more predictable and what factors would influence the formation of schisms, and thus, how the resulting sects would differ.

Hmm, I think it would be okay to give each civ small bonuses in the way it spreads.

Judaism: Bonus to spreading to cities within the founding civ.
Chistianity: Missionaries slightly cheaper.
Islam: Bonus when spreading via traderoute.
Buddhism: Bonus when other religions already in city.
Confucionsim: Small chance of spreading to foreign capital when civics are bartered.
Taoism: Small chance of spreading to foreign small city when advances are bartered.

I didn't put any numbers on these because they need to be balanced. But these seem to add a lot of historical flavor without horribly offending anyone.

I agree with Aussie Lurker's suggestion. For example, a "fundamentalist" trait might make military units much quicker to build, but decrease culture and science, while a "Eucumenical" trait would be a great aid in diplomatic issues, at the expense of missionaries more likely to infiltrate if you have open borders. "Orthodox" trait would make missionaries from other civs extermely easy access, but increase civics and building wonders. "Missionary" trait would strengthen missionaries but gives you a disadvantage in diplomacy.

Maybe a new religion/sect should arise with increasing culture of a certain type in a city. At that point things which dictate the attitude of the city would determine the traits. If such attitudes are pretty close to a current sect then they strengthen the current sect. This would allow for the fact that areas with several strong religions tend to produce hybrids and evovle much different thant those that are pretty homogenous. Sunnism and Sufism have many ties, but definitely have their differences. Also, imagine that the traits and bonuses were per city, so you could have extremely 'fundamentalist' regions (the south, yes i live there) and more secular (other places in the US).

heres a thought: if you have the certain trait (cant think of name at moment), cults (representing religious weakness) could pop up, doing some shape or form of damage (money loss, pop loss, food loss, prod loss??) and if you have another trait then you aare more likely to be declared war upon, due to extreemism within the religion?

Greetings, all. (First post)

First off:
Very civil discussion on a horrendously risky subject. Very gratifying to see, and an occasion to which one might suspect "Civ" enthusiasts would rise.

Beef:
The Devs were wise to leave these variables out of the game. They're outgrowths of our own weave of history, and not something that would be uniformly reproduced in the alternative weaves of each unique game of Civilization. I like the unique historical units per civilization. Maybe in Civ VII they'll each have unique religions--but until then: a religion's attitude toward science, commerce, social welfare, etc. was much more of a political heritage than something innate about the religion itself. (In my experience, most of those who claim otherwise, that religions have innate biases are propogandizing one over another.)
All religions have been polluted with political vectors to varying degrees--but the inescapable fact is that doctrines deriving from their respective mystic experiences are uncannilly identical--despite the far reaches of distance and time.

Civ IV gives us and the AIs options for 'national' religious attitudes: nationalistic, evangelical, monastic, militaristic, pacifistic---and all religions have been all of these in some fashion or another in its history! Why not introverted and mystical Western Monotheisms and territory-ravenous, memetically viral Daoism? Heck, I got the Babylonians winning the Space Race the other day...

Suggestion:
Stepping out further into the 'what-if' fun of Civilization--why not have a wider range of plausible 'religions' indexed to each Civilization should it become originator of one or more great world religions? If India is the first to unlock Polytheism, fine--then one of the 7 great world faiths is Hinduism. But if it's Egypt, why not use an Egyptian moniker instead?

("Hindu"='of the Indus'; their name for their religion is "Sanatana Dharma"='Eternal Law' or 'Eternal Binding.') Not wanting to be formulaic...but maybe the most plausible solution is to call it 'Egyptism' since a more traditional name isn't handy---perhaps 'Nilism' or 'Maatism'? 'Shinto' for Japanese Polytheism) Every one of these civilizations has a polytheistic heritage at some point--I'd enjoy a game where they're recognized in appropriate game conditions--again with the caveat they have no differences in game mechanics. Assuming Monotheism unlocks "Judaism," if the Egyptians get there first, perhaps we can have "Atenism" instead. (If the Egyptians are establishing all these enduring religions in a game, seems they're a big threat on the 'Cultural Victory' front.) Zoroastrianism for the Persians...etc.

Similarly--Every Civilization has a nifty social/govt. ethicist Philosopher--why not "Socraticism" over "Confucianism" if the Greeks unlock whatever unlocks Confucianism first? "Lockism" for the Brits; "Franklinism" should it be the Americans? (This is fun!)

As for Daoist alternatives at the 'Philosophy' finish-line--"Transcendentalism" for Americans; "Brahmanism" for the Indians, "Zen" for Japanese, etc.

Can't say I have suggestions for more than a small fraction of all the permutations--but researching and making the best conjectures would be darn fun!

sumerian
native american religions
meso-american
celtic/germanic
Polinesian
shinto
satanism
Egyptians

these should have been added too, its a shame they only went with the big 4, not everyone threwout history followed the big 4!

Islam should be "increased" commerce but "decreased" happiness.

I'm going to add a religion called CivFanatics. Worship supreme god Sid. Also they can be invisible, even to each other.

Yeach - In Islam there should be additionall unit - Terrorists.... LOL!

sumerian
native american religions
meso-american
celtic/germanic
Polinesian
shinto
satanism
Egyptians

these should have been added too, its a shame they only went with the big 4, not everyone threwout history followed the big 4!

Agree with your list :goodjob:

except maybe satanism - isn't this some kind of perverted christanity ? Because AFAIK satanist believe in bible in some way, they just praise gods opponent ...

Polinesian religon - i haven't heard anything about them - any special details ?

satanism is a form athism where you believe you are your own guard

I think you are refering to the seth,nergal and Kali-ma who all worse "Evil" gods, "satan" is ego rather than a god.

the Hawaiian and other island peoples worishiped a fire goddess that created the world iirc its been a while since I have studied/had contact with Hawaiins but before christianity they had a rich system of beliefs.

satanism is a form athism where you believe you are your own guard

I think you are refering to the seth,nergal and Kali-ma who all worse "Evil" gods, "satan" is ego rather than a god.

Hm - I think it's too specific, the other pagan religons were more common at there time ( and have even today some supporters, ), satanism was AFAIK never widly spread ( neither as ego religon nor as evil god religon ) - maybe we should take atheism as a religon too, ( although it is technical the opposite ) ? OTOH it might be better as a civic...:hmm:

the Hawaiian and other island peoples worishiped a fire goddess that created the world iirc its been a while since I have studied/had contact with Hawaiins but before christianity they had a rich system of beliefs.

Hawaii is quite small ;) what about the other islands ( todays indonesia, phillipines etc ? ) - Did they worship there the fire goddess too ?

hawaiians are the example ive had more contact with, phillipeans are catholics for the most part, indonisia is the largest islamic state in the world, there are the headhunters of papa new gengie(sic) and satanism/athism is human or self woriship. There are more satanists in the world than you might think but its only mod religion, the moari, micronesia and pacific islanders share a basic poly relegion.

I dont like the idea that they lump all "pagan" religions into the primative group and are not in teh game, odin and wotan are not the same gods, ancient russian gods different what happened to the meso-american religions?
the meso-american religions are still around why only include asian religions?

Islam = asia
Christianity = asia
Jedoism = asia
Hinduism = asia

this is very bias more so than the amount of western civs, yeah those releigions spread but they all started in asia why not any other religions from around the world?