I'd like to hear your opinions on an idea I had in the last days.

Basically, I was looking for a simple idea to feature schisms without adding new religions.

I ended up with a simple concept: to expand AIWars system with the "schism" condition.

When a religion is spread enough (at least 4 civs have it as state religion), each one has to choose the faction they belong to.
AI does it automatically, the Human player will choose through a popup.
Then, a 2v2 (with the partecipants chosen randomly) war will possibly be triggered.
Each schism can happen only twice for each religion, and one of the condition has to be that there are no internal wars (between civs of the same major religion).
So, each religion has 3 branches.
I would remove Taoism and set it as a sub-confucianism (as they indeed influenced each other).

Buddhism:
Theravada
Mahayana
Vajrayana

Cristianity:
Catholic
Ortodox
Protestant

Islam:
Sunni
Shi'a
Isma'ili

Judaism:
Ortodox
Masorti
Progressive

Confucianism:
Kongjiao (Confucius's teaching itself)
Taoism
Shinto

Hinduism:
Vaishnavism
Shaivism
Smartism


If you see something incorrect in this list, please tell me

It is a nice idea! I would like to see it in action!

Sounds cool. How exactly would the new factions be represented? What I'm trying to ask is whether or not the factions created by the schisms are permanent or if they are just temporary mechanisms to make a one-time war.

another great idea. i like it a lot. it will bring even more realism to an already lifelike mod thing of yours.

Very great idea.

This leaves room for another brand new religion.

That's very similar to something I've been proposing, so I like it. Mine was much less complex - four base religions, each with two branches. But if this can work with its complexity, it could be great.

Cool idea.

I like. The only thing I think is essential is to have the "brothers and sisters" diplo bonus adjusted according to sect. Catholics should like eachother more than they like Protestants, but they should like Protestants more than they like Muslims.

As to Judaism, first, let's get the names straight. It's either Hebrew, or sometimes hebraicized English, or plain, real English.
Hebrew(Hebraicized)=English
Haredi(Ortodoxi)=Orthodox
Masorati(Konservativi)=Conservative
(Reformi)=Reform
Now, the problem is that these aren't quite sects in the same way sects exist in other religions, afaik. It's more like levels of adherence. I'm not quite sure how realistic it would be, if two or more Jewish states existed, for one state to be officially Reform Jewish and another officially Orthodox Jewish. I know in Israel some would have the state go Orthodox Jewish and others would be more lax and tolerant and have the state acommodate Reform and Conservative Jews and just not get into all of the details of the Orthodox way of life.
I'm not sure about this, but my initial feeling is that the different streams of Judaism aren't quite fitting and that no real schism should be possible for Judaism in the game. But who knows how it could have played out in an alternate history.

I like. The only thing I think is essential is to have the "brothers and sisters" diplo bonus adjusted according to sect. Catholics should like eachother more than they like Protestants, but they should like Protestants more than they like Muslims.

As to Judaism, first, let's get the names straight. It's either Hebrew, or sometimes hebraicized English, or plain, real English.
Hebrew(Hebraicized)=English
Haredi(Ortodoxi)=Orthodox
Masorati(Konservativi)=Conservative
(Reformi)=Reform
Now, the problem is that these aren't quite sects in the same way sects exist in other religions, afaik. It's more like levels of adherence. I'm not quite sure how realistic it would be, if two or more Jewish states existed, for one state to be officially Reform Jewish and another officially Orthodox Jewish. I know in Israel some would have the state go Orthodox Jewish and others would be more lax and tolerant and have the state acommodate Reform and Conservative Jews and just not get into all of the details of the Orthodox way of life.
I'm not sure about this, but my initial feeling is that the different streams of Judaism aren't quite fitting and that no real schism should be possible for Judaism in the game. But who knows how it could have played out in an alternate history.

I agree. Historically the schism in Judaism was Christianity as the first Christians were Jews. But to have Judaism split by the level of adherence doesnt work too well.

Decent idea with a lot of potential. But I'm with the others that some of the names could use some work.

Particularly Judaism. We don't want to get into some of the more modern interpretations, but go back to the oldschool, with more nuanced distinctions. This way, we sidestep any of the bigger debates (which tend to happen more frequently in modern times).

Buddhism:
1. Theravada
2. Mahayana
3. Vajrayana

Cristianity:
1. Catholic
2. Ortodox
3. Protestant

Islam:
1. Sunni
2. Shi'a
3. Kharijite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharijite)

Judaism:
1. Ortodox
2. Sadducees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadduccee)
3. Pharisees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees)

Hinduism:
1. Vaishnavism
2. Shaivism
3. Smartism

The last two, I understand they're tricky. But putting Taoism and Shinto and Confucianism together as sects of a different religion would be like saying Islam is a sect of Christianity. I think we can get these right:

Confucianism (http://www.paulnoll.com/China/History/history-Confucianism.html):
1. Mencius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mencius)
2. Hsun-tzu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xun_Zi)
3. Chu Hsi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhu_Xi)

Taoism:
1. Zhengyi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Daoling)
2. Lingbao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingbao)
3. Quanzhen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanzhen)

Shinto, for all intents and purposes, isn't much of a world religion at all. It's more like Mithraism, the codification of Roman pagan beliefs. These indigenous religions don't really fit into the scope of Civ 4's World Religions... or, at least, they weren't "top 7" material.

OK guys keep in mind that it won't be easy that more than 4 civs get the same state religion other than christianism (at least, this is my experience with .93) so it is an idea that is going to deal with Europe and the christian civs more than else (maybe to rebalance the lack of wars in such area?).

The actual mechanics -- X number of Civilizations -- might not be the right way to go about it at all. It might be better to make it a function purely of absolute # of cities. Perhaps tie it to culture somehow, to make culture more useful (for holding a religion together if you're in charge, or making a split possible if you're not in charge).

I am SO against this idea.
Although religions have different sects, it doesn't mean that the religious belief is different; wars shouldn't evolve from religious sects.
It would also take away the taste of civilization.

Please Rhye, and everyone, if this was to be implemented into this mod, then please at least make it an option. I wouldn't want it to be forced in the mod. Make it an option that one can chose to play with or without.

Umm, there are pretty damn bloody conflicts between different sects within religions sometimes. Take a look at what goes on between Sunnis and Shi'ites, say in Iraq right now.
This is not only necessary, but perhaps a mild representation, to have sub-religions instead of separate religions in-game for the different sects. In reality sometimes two sects of two different religions have more in common than two sects within a single religion (but some core beliefs can keep sects under the same title.)

Shinto, for all intents and purposes, isn't much of a world religion at all. It's more like Mithraism, the codification of Roman pagan beliefs. These indigenous religions don't really fit into the scope of Civ 4's World Religions... or, at least, they weren't "top 7" material.

and also, shintoism is generally only followed in japan, unlike the religions in civ which are adhered to by many more people.

moving on, shouldn't there be "sect cities" for each different schism? catholicism would be rome, i suppose, not sure about any of the others...

Umm, there are pretty damn bloody conflicts between different sects within religions sometimes. Take a look at what goes on between Sunnis and Shi'ites, say in Iraq right now.
This is not only necessary, but perhaps a mild representation, to have sub-religions instead of separate religions in-game for the different sects. In reality sometimes two sects of two different religions have more in common than two sects within a single religion (but some core beliefs can keep sects under the same title.)
... still, I prefer this to be an optional aspect. I, for one, wouldn't play the mod if this was in the mainstream, although I believe that the mod is a great one.

I am SO against this idea.
Although religions have different sects, it doesn't mean that the religious belief is different; wars shouldn't evolve from religious sects.
It would also take away the taste of civilization.

Please Rhye, and everyone, if this was to be implemented into this mod, then please at least make it an option. I wouldn't want it to be forced in the mod. Make it an option that one can chose to play with or without.

1. Different sects DO have different beliefs and ways of life. I can only speak in any detail about the differences between the Christian groups but assume that the sectatian differences of the other major religions can be just as distinct and perhaps more so (esp. Hinduism).

2. There have probably been more wars BETWEEN sects on the basis of religious/cultural differences than between religions. This is not ironic, since people have to have a fair bit in common to have a meaningful fight. When people are completely different there is less offence as each side figures that the other is talking about something completely different. They have nothing much to fight over.

I don't like this idea too... I think it would create some big controversy for many people. Oh and me too, I wouldn't play the mod if this was included in the 'mainstream'.

If this was to be in, it should be an option.

At the end of the day, it's Rhye's call. I don't think you need religious reasons for wars. There's already enough reasons for wars. Plus, too many religions clutters the interface, generates too much wealth too much happiness.

I'm also not a fan of options... since this would be such a huge part of the game balance that turning it off would either make the game way easier, or way harder (depending on how it's implemented). It would be impossible to let people play with OR without and have the game always be fair.

So I do leave it up to Rhye.

By god Rhye, you're a genius. What a great idea.

Good point, Red Threat. Judaism actually spreads fairly wide in my games, Egypt and Persia mostly get it, sometimes Greece and even Arabia!

However, I can't imagine many wars fought between the various sects of the eastern religions for dogmatic reasons. Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shinto, these were completely omitted from the LONG string of religious wars fought in history. Even in the west, far more wars were fought between major religions, and only relatively minor altercations have involved differing sects.

I admit that religious schisms are certainly a part of history, but an larger and even more effective mover and shaker of the world was the resurgence of defeated civilizations. Just adding that in here. :mischief:

Of course, y'all know me. I'll test anything twice! (Or a dozen times! :crazyeye:)

SilverKnight

Maybe schisms and religious wars should be limited to the more dogmatic religions.
I'm curious to know why the two people who said this will make them not play the mod feel that way. Does the issue offend you personally, or is it a more intellectual reason?

You can count me in for against too...
Blasphemous, I think I can answer for the other two... It is both, the issue offends me personally and intellectually, I don't like to mess with religion to that extent, besides, the game seems balanced enough religion and war wise, why should we introduce more options that would clog-up interface and make the game more complicated?

I feel that I, for one, have with alot of effort convinced my self to play civ4 even though it has religions (and I was against the idea of having religions on a game), I feel that I can't accept religious sects in the game, it makes it way too close and seriously hurting...

I am sorry, but I just wouldn't prefer to see this feature implemented, I love the mod, and can't imagine myself playing civ without it, but if this feature would be in the 'mainstream', I would have to live without it... Please Rhye, understand our point of view, and if you must include it, then for God's sake make it an option, I can't play the mod with this in it...

I don't understand how it can offend you to the point of not wanting to play the mod anymore...I mean, we're talking about an event that would be happening like twice in a single game and not always affecting the human player...

However, you will certainly be able to disable it. I won't add an option, an ini or something like that (too difficult for me) but you can disable it just commenting a line, as it already is with Congresses, AIwars, and all the other components.

I know that wars were never fought for religion in the east (while in the western world we had bloody wars, more between "sects" than between different religions), but the odds of eastern wars are very low. Cristianity will keep being the most widespread religion, followed by Islam, and that's where statistically most of the wars will be fought. Hinduism, usually contained in India, would have odds close to 0%

The elimination of taoism and the generialization together with shinto into a generic Confucianism that was symbolizing the generic eastern beliefs had the important effect of giving Confucianism a chance in this sense (in the east there are too many religions and few civs). I'd like to hear more opinion about this specific matter...if you disagree I can adopt dh_epic's more conservative approach for now.

Karam said it right -to some extect that is.

Rhye, I meant that I wouldn't like religions to be divided into sects, let's just leave religions as they are, they work just fine...
It wouldn't be quite nice to have them like that. It would make the game way more complicated, we're talking about no more that 24 civs, sects would take away the taste and texture religions add to the game.

As a final note, I would like religions to be as they are currently. I hope we don't have to go into religious sectors or internal civil religious wars etc.
I hope I got my point clearly, I like this mod SO MUCH, and Rhye, I hope you understand the points being said and expressed by me and some other members... we shouldn't mess alot with religions...

mmm, maybe I wasn't clear in my first post and you misinterpreted the thing I'm proposing, which is much more a frivolous thing than you may think.

From the point of view of the game, nothing changes.
As you Prestigigator say, I don't want to alter the structure of religions, leaving it to 7 (or 6) without adding pointless sub-religions or unknown religions that would fragmentate the world distribution. So, you won't see new icons, buildings, wonders or attitudes or a new religion advisor.
All I proposed is that some of the AI wars can be triggered not only by territorial claims, but also under the condition that a religion is enough big to let civs choose an inner faction.
In other words, "sects" (as you call them) are just an excuse to cause some of the wars: but they are just a fake and won't exist in the game anywhere else!

mmm, maybe I wasn't clear in my first post and you misinterpreted the thing I'm proposing, which is much more a frivolous thing than you may think.

From the point of view of the game, nothing changes.
As you Prestigigator say, I don't want to alter the structure of religions, leaving it to 7 (or 6) without adding pointless sub-religions or unknown religions that would fragmentate the world distribution. So, you won't see new icons, buildings, wonders or attitudes.
All I proposed is that some of the AI wars can be triggered not only by territorial claims, but also under the condition that a religion is enough big to let civs choose an inner faction.
In other words, "sects" (as you call them) are just an excuse to cause some of the wars: but they are just a fake and won't exist in the game anywhere else!
Rhye, truly you're a genious! I applaud your wisdom! If that is the case then I don't think I will mind some minor non-visible alteration in the code that would just enhance gameplay :) !

But the wars caused by the territory maps are already shallow as they are. For the most part, war is simply declared for no reason, and neither civ has much of an invasion army built up. So not much happens on a large scale; at most, a city or two is razed/captured then flipped. More shallow wars might be good, but I would like to see bigger wars, too.

SilverKnight

I don't really understand the outrage about this either. To each his own I guess :undecide:

One suggestion I would make is that maybe the sects idea should only apply to Islam and Christianity. It seems that they are the only two religions which it really makes sense for -- the only ones where wars were fought based on some type of schism.

There's as much justification for it as not having it at all.

The "put it in" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more sects, and there were more sects because there the religions spread to more civilizations, and the religions spread to more civilizations because there were more civilizations in the region.

The "leave it out" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more civilizations in the region.

I'm honestly cool with whatever Rhye decides, since it IS his mod. But it should be moderately realistic, and most of all good for game play. If the goal is to get more wars going, there are certainly other ways to do it.

There's as much justification for it as not having it at all.
[...]
If the goal is to get more wars going, there are certainly other ways to do it.
Well said ;). period.

I think a lot of the reason we only think of wars between religious sects in Christianity & Islam is because we are simply all more familiar with the west and our history, and all we know of eastern religions is PR pretty much.

Wars between Buddhist sects in Japan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohei

Yellow Turban rebellion in China, led by a Taoist sect (the even that led to the Three Kingdoms era, and end of Han dynasty):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban

There isn't anything unique to Christianity or Islam that predisposes them to religious wars. Any religion or system of belief that has some kind of temporal structure has and will lead to conflict. Humanity is sadly warlike by nature, and no religion or philosophy has yet been able to break us of it despite many attempts.

And it isn't fair to just say that in Judaism it is simply a scale of how devout or lazy people are in their religion. Just like all religions Judaism has its share of disagreement over what it really means to be "Jewish" and what God's will truly is, and what the correct interpretation of the Torah is. Jewish Schisms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schisms_among_the_Jews

Also, I suggest Hinduism split into Jainism and Sikhism.

There's as much justification for it as not having it at all.

The "put it in" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more sects, and there were more sects because there the religions spread to more civilizations, and the religions spread to more civilizations because there were more civilizations in the region.

The "leave it out" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more civilizations in the region.

The idea that the west had more wars than other areas of the world is ridiculously wrong. You may know of more western wars since you are more familiar with western civilization and history, but that doesn't mean people were singing Kumbaya and holding hands in China, or India, or Africa, or the Americas, or the Pacific. They had just as many wars as Europe and the Mideast.

Wars between Buddhist sects in Japan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohei

Yellow Turban rebellion in China, led by a Taoist sect (the even that led to the Three Kingdoms era, and end of Han dynasty):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban
So many video games leap to my mind... flashes of Civ3 scenarios and Dynasty Warriors combine... ;) This is fantastic, I see your point. So while these may not have been a huge deal IRL, they may in Civ. Of course, only 3 civs combined end up being Confucianist, so it wouldn't be enough for a split anyway.
Also, I suggest Hinduism split into Jainism and Sikhism.
Mind-reader! Now I remember what I wanted to post earlier, but my internet crapped out. Jolly good show there, I agree! They may not be the largest or the most different, but they probably have had a bigger impact on history than the others mentioned.

SilverKnight

I'm glad someone could elaborate on our limited historical background. The religious wars in the east help. The main point still stands, though -- if you're looking to create more wars, there are lots of ways to do it. (Arguably, even with all the religious justifications, the wars WERE still between states vying for power. It just so happens that there is power in religion.)

As for Hinduism splitting into Jainism and Sikhism, to me would be akin to Christianity splitting into Manichainism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism) and Islam. That is, they're TOTALLY seperate religious traditions that just happened to originate nearby, with some cross-pollination of ideas. (Actually, I'm pretty sure Hinduism was influenced more by Jainism than the other way around -- despite the fact that Jainism came after.)

There's as much justification for it as not having it at all.

The "put it in" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more sects, and there were more sects because there the religions spread to more civilizations, and the religions spread to more civilizations because there were more civilizations in the region.

The "leave it out" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more civilizations in the region.

I'm honestly cool with whatever Rhye decides, since it IS his mod. But it should be moderately realistic, and most of all good for game play. If the goal is to get more wars going, there are certainly other ways to do it.

You are correct saying that adding this whole thing is pretty useless. As I said, it's just frivolous as it adds no new concept or strategy to the game.
But you are not correct when you say that there are other ways to add more wars. Besides lowering the threshold for AIWars or making them more frequent, I don't see any other way; this one instead could be a variation to the "territorial" theme.

I think if you opened up a brainstorm, you might find that a lot of other people in the community have ideas.

(Plus the idea of randomly starting a war seems pretty dangerous -- for the AI. I could imagine the AI chronically being caught with its pants down, and the human more able to adapt to the situation.)

Here's one idea:

Why not adapt "Congresses" to religions? All nations that share a state religion engage in some kind of congress. You could vote on the defender of the faith, how revenues from religious followers (e.g.: the holy city and the shrine) are shared, the most moral civic choice (God would prefer free religion), if all religious nations should help defend civilization X, if there is a heathen religion you should all especially condemn, and so on...

And for votes that are split, you could add antipathy between rival civilizations. Rome and Greece voted that the most moral civic choice was Theocracy, but Germany and France disagreed -- so Rome and Greece hate Germany and France a bit more.

Many religions had councils of some kind, where they settled the major debates of their faith (or didn't settle them, as the case may be).

Ozzy, thanks for mentioning that. Westerners have this almost noble-savage belief in the pacifism of eastern religions, while ignoring things like the Yellow Turbans or the militant Buddhist monks (anyone played Shogun Total War?)

As for this being offensive, I don't see how it can be worse than marching your troops into a city of millions of people and razing it because you don't want to pay maintenance. Or nuking people because they're about to win the space race. It is a fact that religious wars like this happened, so I see no reason not to try to implement it, as right now it is a glaring omission in Civilization as an attempt to model the flow of human history.

Religious congresses....is an amazing idea.

As for this being offensive, I don't see how it can be worse than marching your troops into a city of millions of people and razing it because you don't want to pay maintenance. Or nuking people because they're about to win the space race.
Touche, salesman. Touche. :lol:

SilverKnight

I am in favor of utilizing religious sects, but have a question. Will those sects spread to cities in other nations? For instance if a new German city is founded in Catholic Germany could Christian orthodoxy spread there?

Also, I would prefer if the sects do not cause each nation to have its own. In the real world we have Catholic Nations and Protestant ones. Just as we have Sunni and Shi'a. But it would not be good for gameplay if each of our 18 (or later 24) civs had their own sect.

no, they can't spread, because they aren't religions.
They are just a decision the leaders do, like the state religion.
Choose one faction, and in case join a war vs the other faction, that's it.

How is this feature coming Rhye?

I'd just like to say again that I think it would be a great addition. In my current game as the Russians all of Europe is either pleased or friendly with eachother due to everyone being Christian. As a result there haven't been any wars among Europeans. Adding in the occasional religious split war would really spice things up a lot.

Well maybe a bit OT but I think after most civs adopt Free Religion it could be nice if wars were triggered by having oppositional civics (e.g. Free Market <--> State Property) or the AI Attitude could change more than currently in CIV4.

How is this feature coming Rhye?


It will come, but not in the next version. I'm preparing another, unexpected thing for it instead :D



Well maybe a bit OT but I think after most civs adopt Free Religion it could be nice if wars were triggered by having oppositional civics (e.g. Free Market <--> State Property) or the AI Attitude could change more than currently in CIV4.

nice idea

[...] I'm preparing another, unexpected thing for it instead :D


Warlords? :banana:?

No, sorry :(

It will come, but not in the next version. I'm preparing another, unexpected thing for it instead :D
Exciting! I wonder what it will be.

It will come, but not in the next version. I'm preparing another, unexpected thing for it instead

Mediterranean Religion?

I'd just like to add my two cents on the Confucianism/Daoism issue. Primarily we have a problem here because the two "religions" (their status as such is debated) don't fit neatly into exclusive categories. While Daoism and Confucianism arise from a similar background (the cultural heritage for pre-Warring States China such as the ideas behind the sage kings of the Shang and Zhou) they can be said to have some distinctive elements. Enough so to draw some distinctions. However as early as before the the Han Dynasty ideas arise such as the 5 phases-Yin/Yang School which are heavily influential in both movements. If you think Confucianists were just hard headed rational humanists, think again, they were extremely interested in divination during the Han Dynasty. Cross-influences can be seen too in movements such as Neo-Daoism in the Wei-Chin period (220-420 CE) (after the fall of the Han) in fact interpret Daoist texts to reformulate Confucianism!

You point out the Yellow Turbans arising during the fall of the Han, yet there was another significant group called the Celestial Masters that arose whose ideas of the "Celestial Bureaucracy" can be seen as influenced by a Confucian heritage. Later in Tang and Song there occurs a massive influx of Buddhist ideas which profoundly alter both Confucianism (so called "Neo-Confucianism") and Daoism (Quanzhen for instance), eventually leading to a mixture of all three movements so that today a "Daoist" temple may contain a statue of Confucius, Lao Zi, the Yellow Emperor, and the buddhist goddess Kuan Yin!

Needless to say the story here is one of dynamic interaction and merger rather than hard distinctions! While there was certainly competition between these groups (for instance the Daoists are accused of inciting anti-Buddhist purges during the Tang by the government which were quite bloody and wide spread) on the historical whole we can say they have become very closely knit. Naturally it is difficult to incorporate this into a game yet if we look for instance at the examples of Korea or Japan, this mixture was often imported together in varying ways in the adoption of Sinic culture. I don't know if this helps, just thought I'd add my 2 cents. VERY interesting mod!

thank you, WiegrafFolles.
I had studied a bit of those things and knew their interaction. So, do you support merging into one?

i really like the idea of religious wars :) actually i thought of this some days ago as i played england and all of europe was christian (8 nations i think) and everyone was singing kumbaya and enjoying peace :crazyeye:

It could be nice, but _random_ wars with _random_ allies? I would prefer a much less deterministric system with some sort of diplomacy malus.

I just have this fear (probably from playing as Russia so much, builders ftw!) of being tossed into a random war against Germany and co with only England on my side.

For the purposes of the game it seems reasonable to merge them, since they don't really fit into the exclusive categories the game sets out. As for the name it's hard to think of....they're Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, are often spoken of together as the "Three Teachings" but since Buddhism isn't indigenously Chinese it presents something of a problem to use that name.

A friend of mine who is a Chinese Philosophy major suggested Siniticism...sounds kind of funny but it's the best thing I can think of. Anyhow given how nations arise and evolve in this game it's certainly fair to say Korea, Japan, etc. fell within such a general cultural influence and evolved out of it.

I wonder if the civ4 engine is capable of reunification, this could be quite useful as sects often recombine.

Syncretism (religious combination) happened all the time throughout history, but they were a matter of geography rather than anything intrinsic about the faiths. In China, it can be said that multiple religions came together to influence a sort of "national thought" -- and many citizens were Confucianist AND Buddhist AND Taoist. But to me, this is the same thing as the Baha'i Faith: when the combination of Hindu, Christian, and Islamic ideals came together in Persia -- a sort of religious melting pot.

If you want to ditch confucianism for strategic reasons (e.g.: too many eastern religions), go ahead, if you must... but I would be against a merger (e.g.: confucianism as a sect of taoism, or vice versa).

Just my two cents.

Yeah the suggestion was for a kind of Chinese "meta-religion" to stand in for the complexity of the Chinese religious landscape. I certainly agree that subsuming one faith under another would be problematic.

Needless to say the story here is one of dynamic interaction and merger rather than hard distinctions! While there was certainly competition between these groups (for instance the Daoists are accused of inciting anti-Buddhist purges during the Tang by the government which were quite bloody and wide spread) on the historical whole we can say they have become very closely knit.

Very intersting. Can you direct me to more information about the Buddhist purges?

I found that in the diary of a Buddhist monk from Japan who made a pligrimage to Tang China and was forced to leave the country during the purges. It's important to note that it's estimated that the Buddhist religious establishment was estimated to own about 80% of the material assets in China at this time so there was definitely reasons for the Imperial government to get antsy. Combine that with an Emperor who was obsessed with finding the Daoist pill of immortality and you've got trouble! Anyhow the book is called Ennin's Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law, though I'm sure you could find some info about it in a book on Tang China too.

This idea is so hot....

Judaism has always been a minority religion (except in Israel). Perhaps it shouldn't be a state religion no more. If judaism should spread to your cities, it could be like a bonus. Jews were (and still are) good merchants, a jewish temple could give extra gold to a city.

The idea that Jews are good merchants is a stereotype, in a way. Jews were pretty much forced to work as merchants in Europe for hundreds of years and still somehow prospered in that position.
I do however agree that it's a bit unrealistic to portray Judaism the way it is portrayed, as a religion that spreads and embraces new nations gladly, and can be spread by missionary. I think the way religions spread should be differentiated somewhat, and with Judaism there should be no missionaries, and it should spread very slowly and possibly be disfavored by the AI as a state religion.

Judaism already spreads in its own customized (slow) way

Judaism was one of the earliest proselytist religions. They converted, within their own guidelines. The main reason Judaism didn't spread as far or wide as Christianity or Islam is because the religion was essentially homeless for more than 2000 years. (Also, the reason why Jewish people have the financial stereotype is because money-lending was sinful and illegal for Christians, so Jews filled this niche as a matter of survival.)

I'd also argue that Christianity and Islam's ability and willingness to spread had more to do with location and neighboring politics, even if their belief system had a lot to do with it too.

There's no need to make the religions drastically different. If you really wanted to simulate Judaism, you'd have it founded in a barbarian city which is easily conquered. And maybe have an incentive for working with a pagan religion for a while (so Rome doesn't convert the first chance they access Judaism).

Islam was spread by the sword, like the mod now does, christianity was spread by the Roman Empire, but this is most of the time Jewish (an other reason for a large roman empire, but that is an other forum). Around 300AD the Catholic Church was founded in Nicaea by all Christian sects in the empire comming together.

What you say about the Jews is true, but now they still are an economical superpower, in Antwerp, Belgium the Jews control the diamant trade, and most diamants pass trow Antwerp. And isn't the american vice-president jewish because of jewish financial support to the rep. party?

SM, all that doesn't demonstrate any kind of connection between the Jewish religion in and of itself and the positions of financial strength that certain ethnic Jews are in today or were in in the past.

Yeah, drop all that stuff about "people of religion X are all like that", because you'll always find a counter example. This mod does a pretty good job in terms of religious realism, IMO.

This is definitely true. While one might get the impression for instance that Chinese religious figures were extremely open-minded from what I said, the mergers between religions in China were certainly not without conflict. In fact many times a religion would take the other's idea in order to gain a competitive advantage over that religion. So for instance we have Daoists and Neo-Confucians taking many ideas from Ch'an (Zen) but at the same time attacking Buddhism on certain grounds particular to their beliefs. This never really came down to war in China, but it caused its fair share of conflict. Remember, where there's power there's vested interests and those trying to overthrow them. In this sense religions tend to all play out the same way.

I had an extremely weird religious division in my most recent game as England. Rome founded Islam before the coming of Arabia, which is the first time I've ever seen anyone other than Arabia found it. Persia founded Taoism, which happens occassionally, but it was the first time I'd seen Persia beat Arabia in a while, Russia was hindu for the first half of the game, then jewish, then christian. I was just REALLY surprised by the Roman-Islam situation.

I had an extremely weird religious division in my most recent game as England. Rome founded Islam before the coming of Arabia, which is the first time I've ever seen anyone other than Arabia found it. Persia founded Taoism, which happens occassionally, but it was the first time I'd seen Persia beat Arabia in a while, Russia was hindu for the first half of the game, then jewish, then christian. I was just REALLY surprised by the Roman-Islam situation.

cool! never seen that, but it proves the current system is better than the old scripted one

I was Greece, and founded confusism. Because of which, the major Western world Religions were Confusism and eventually Islam. Christianity was number 3.

Everyone in the East was Taoist and Hindu.

Taoism is sometimes founded by Persia, more rarely by Greece, and once I saw it founded by Egypt. I've seen confucianism founded by Greece too, actually. And I played one game as England where most Civs spent the game without a state religion until some random religion spread to one of their cities, at which point they immediately adopted it. This was because Christianity's holy city was barbarian, I think. But it ended up being a nothing-faith. Religions tend to follow a somewhat realistic path in the mod, but sometimes they deviate, which is good. Not everything should be set in stone.

Yeah, I think there's a pretty good balance. Most of the time it's the same as actual history, but there's a decent chance things work out differently.

I guess the question I have is are we now looking at two layers of religion - the religion as a whole and the sect? So being of a diff. sect may put you at odds with another civ of a different sect, but not as much as one w/ a different religion entirely? At the end, Muslims may look at Christianity or Judaism as a whole, or Hindus will look at Buddhists as a whole, regardless of sect - though we split Sunni or Shia, as a whole, we've treated Muslims as Muslims period, just as it seems as if many of them view the West as Christian (as opposed to Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, etc.).

Maybe if a civ of another faith starts attacking another religion, the different sects will somehow band together until the war is over.

And yet at the same time, aside from a few spots in around the world, England, for example, doesn't look at Italy or Mexico because it's predominantly Catholic as opposed to Protestant. And yet yes, def. in the Middle East their is clearly fighting among the Muslim sects - so how can sect be represented in the game, where at times maybe sects are cool w/ one another, while other times they aren't.

I guess the question I have is are we now looking at two layers of religion - the religion as a whole and the sect? So being of a diff. sect may put you at odds with another civ of a different sect, but not as much as one w/ a different religion entirely? At the end, Muslims may look at Christianity or Judaism as a whole, or Hindus will look at Buddhists as a whole, regardless of sect - though we split Sunni or Shia, as a whole, we've treated Muslims as Muslims period, just as it seems as if many of them view the West as Christian (as opposed to Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, etc.).

Maybe if a civ of another faith starts attacking another religion, the different sects will somehow band together until the war is over.

And yet at the same time, aside from a few spots in around the world, England, for example, doesn't look at Italy or Mexico because it's predominantly Catholic as opposed to Protestant. And yet yes, def. in the Middle East their is clearly fighting among the Muslim sects - so how can sect be represented in the game, where at times maybe sects are cool w/ one another, while other times they aren't.
... I think we have clearly established earlier that it is NOT going to be sects, it will be a minor thing, you won't see the sects in the game, it will be a gameplay thing...
As I said earlier, I do not think it would be displayed pleasantly in the game, besides, the religious system needs no more additions/ alteratoins, let's just leave it as it is (if the sects are kept the way Rhye described it earlier).

no, they can't spread, because they aren't religions.
They are just a decision the leaders do, like the state religion.
Choose one faction, and in case join a war vs the other faction, that's it.
Here is the quote I was looking for.

Rhye, have you seen the Eusebius World Religions MOD. It has pagan temples, religions founded by great profets and by a building. It has a shism system for christianty, but it has some new tech.

Perhaps you could get some inspiration.

can you post a link?

I think this is the one.

Eusebius World Religions

hmmm, it looks interesting, but I think it'd need many tuning and balancing for it to work as one would wish. One that striked me was that certain religions would only found if x and x religions are in a city. It would be hard to make realism...

Just a question since I dug this up looking for something. Is this still in development or has it been scrapped? Just wondering.

I think Rhye mentioned earlier it had been scrapped, or at least put off for the time being.

That's what I wanted to know; whether it has been scrapped and we'll never see it or whether it has just been put back behind other things.

I'm not very fond of the idea because I think wars should be triggered by more political reasons. Religion has been just an excuse as many other invented to declare war.

yes it's behind other things now.
We'll analyse the whole thing again after warlords version

Thanks for the update Rhye!:goodjob:

If you are going to work on this idea I will be greatly interested in it for my religions mod.

The idea kinda kills the point in spreading your religion, since you risk to provoke wars beacuse of it.

Something like that would be really interesting though.
Not for all religions, but only Christianism and Islam maybe. This way, it would introduce a little balance between Christianism and other religions, as it's quite rare to see 4 civs with Islam or another religion. And war shouldn't be systematical, but an option only. Maybe as part of the Apostolic Palace.
Besides this would introduce some well needed flavour to religion in Civ.

By the way the attached screenshots completely contradict what I've just written. Still this game would be very interesting with the proposed feature. Don't you think?

I don't know how it will play out in Rhye's mod. I just want to see a schism system. The idea for my mod for spreading religion was. The reason you spread your religion is to prevent wars and make allies. The other thing I can explain with a phrase from Forrest Gump "Sh_t happens". That is what I want in my mod. You can not control what everyone believes in your empire well maybe you use fire to help.

I don't want to take this thread off Rhye's mod. I only wanted to say I support because of a fact of realism. I want all hell breaking loose with religion not a bunch of happy hippies always smiling.

Year old thread, people...

I like. The only thing I think is essential is to have the "brothers and sisters" diplo bonus adjusted according to sect. Catholics should like eachother more than they like Protestants, but they should like Protestants more than they like Muslims.

As to Judaism, first, let's get the names straight. It's either Hebrew, or sometimes hebraicized English, or plain, real English.
Hebrew(Hebraicized)=English
Haredi(Ortodoxi)=Orthodox
Masorati(Konservativi)=Conservative
(Reformi)=Reform
Now, the problem is that these aren't quite sects in the same way sects exist in other religions, afaik. It's more like levels of adherence. I'm not quite sure how realistic it would be, if two or more Jewish states existed, for one state to be officially Reform Jewish and another officially Orthodox Jewish. I know in Israel some would have the state go Orthodox Jewish and others would be more lax and tolerant and have the state acommodate Reform and Conservative Jews and just not get into all of the details of the Orthodox way of life.
I'm not sure about this, but my initial feeling is that the different streams of Judaism aren't quite fitting and that no real schism should be possible for Judaism in the game. But who knows how it could have played out in an alternate history.

There was at least one actual non-Hebrew state that had adopted the Jewish religion: the Khazars. I don't think they could easily be classified by either of the three names, Orthodox, Conservative or Reformed, but they did indeed practice some form of Judaism. How that would be represented in the game, I have no idea.

Opus95

As a Jew, I must say there is a large difference between Orthodox Jews and Reform Jews. Orthodox Jews are more traditional and practice Judaism in a more old and traditional way. while Reformi Jews are more liberal, they update their books once in a while and are more feminist (women can have Bar Mitzvahs and participate in all prayers and so forth).
Reform Judaism is relatively new and was founded in Germany in the 19th century.
Im Israeli and as most of the Israeli Jews Im Orthodox, but Im not really religious. so its not really "level of adherence."

The point is Orthodox Jews never declared war on Reformi Jews.

Of course, there were never more than one Jewish state at the same time, so it was impossible to declare war at each other.

Christians and Muslims have managed that, though. There's been many wars between Catholics and Protestants within the same nation for example.

I don't know if its been said, but I would think there is anouther good way to implement this. Quests.
Lets make it interesting and say 2 ore more civs with a certain state religion are put to war with one anouther. One Seperates from the "TRUE" (the way things were before) way and is tasked with conquering the Holy City of -generic religion- and the other is tasked with defending it for x amount of turns, if the owner, or capturing it him/herself if not. Now if completed I would propose as a bonus 1. all your cities get your state religion in them for free 2. +x diplo bonus to all leaders with same State religion.
Quest idea number 2, random city within x squares (your empire or anouther) is seperating form the true way all religious leaders with state religion must now atempt to recapture it. Yet it spreads the skizim ala plauge slowly to all cities with that base religion. If it spreads to the holy city all civs with that state religion suffer a hit in stability and the skizim ends, if it spreads to say 50% of the cities in one civ you are then given option to control all seperated cities but are now at war with all other civs of that state religion plus diplo malus, or you can keep control of your remaining cities and go to war for the other side. Of course if any one manages to capture the city of skizim origin they get diplo / happyness bonus and all goes back to normal.

what do you think, it would also not need as much micromanagement as 2 sub religions.

You could also have these triggered by certain techs/wonders or by howmany non state religions are within your empire.