* Background
* Proposal


Background
One of the major reasons that I did not purchase Civ IV was the inclusion of religions in the game. From a gaming perspective, the addition of a new aspect to play with is very enticing (and I think enjoyable), but the religion aspect crossed the line for me.

Proposal
I wonder whether other people here would be interested in working on a mod to remove the religion aspect from the game and implementing something else as a replacement. From a gaming perspective, I don't think it would be wise to just remove religion and be done with it, as that is likely to leave a gaping hole in the gameplay. Instead, something must be setup to replace it, whether that be some kind of trading model, some kind of economics system, some kind of political system, some kind of enhanced culture system, or something else. That is one thing that would need to be figured out before any work began.

So, might anyone be interested in working on the programming aspect of this? Anyone wanna offer some suggestions? Or, is this something that probably nobody is interested in by now?


P.S. I should also add that I personally, cannot commit time to programming this. There are issues which are of greater importance that I need to give attention to. Thus, much of my time will be consumed by those issues. However, if you still feel like you would want to work on something like this, then feel free to say so.

I know 2 mods that replace religions by ideologies :

Second Revolution (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193359)
Spain 1936 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=192685)

Out of interest, what 'line' do you think was crossed?

Religion is certainly important enough in human history to be included, and the developers were at pains, perhaps excessively so, to implement religion in an equal and non-controversial sense.

I know 2 mods that replace religions by ideologies :

Second Revolution (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193359)
Spain 1936 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=192685)

That might be worth using as a basis and just turning into a stand-alone mod if nothing else.

I find the religion part of the game boring and tedious. I would love to see it completely removed somehow.

I find the religion part of the game boring and tedious. I would love to see it completely removed somehow.

I'm with you. What does religion get us that we don't already have? Money generating shrines? They could have just added a few religiously-themed wonders. Culture? Happiness? They already had temples and cathedrals. Diplomatic penalties? In a game with only one winner, you don't need new reasons for people to hate each other. Religious civics are actually the most interesting part of the implementation, and they don't need to be tied to little missionaries.

I'd like to go beyond a narrow concept like religion and look at broader ideas of (1) Class, (2) Ideas, and (3) Culture.

(1) Religion is important to history. But it's not in terms of starting wars between states, or making one state rich and happy. The big impact was how the priesthood influenced politics within a state, and also between states. Sometimes states would resist the influence of the priests. Hence, I'd love to see this influence and conflict in the game.

But not just priests. I'd love to see some kind of "factions" model, with the priests versus the rulers versus the merchants versus the intellectuals versus the workers. Some of the foundation is there with the specialist system. As certain types of specialists become more prevalent, they gain more influence in your society which is modeled by certain bonuses and penalties. Sometimes you have to juggle competing demands. And sometimes you might be able to use the high influence and support of one faction to suppress another faction, rather than trying to please them all.

Admittedly, this idea isn't that well formed.

(2) Religion is really only a small part of history. Christianity a huge part of European history for a solid 3 eras (Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial), but that's 3 eras that its role was very general (Ancient, Classical eras, with polytheism, and the Modern era which was characterized more by the cold war and politics than it was by religion). The history of Judaism and Islam is characterized by a lot of conflict too. Otherwise, the role of religion has been more in philosophy than international relations. I'd like to see religion expanded to philosophy -- the power of ideas.

Rather than focusing on Christianity versus Judaism versus Buddhism... let people found ideas like Monotheism, which spread to some parts of the world, while ideas like Dharma spread to other parts. Let's go beyond 7 throughout the entire game. Even Silk Making or the Mandate of Heaven were tremendously powerful ideas that started in one part of the world and spread to its neighbors gradually. In the middle of the game, this can even be regional ideas like Colonialism or the Enlightenment. And obviously, the game can work towards the modern social movements like Labor Unions, Human Rights, or the New Deal in the Modern Era. Each of these could offer a different bonus to the nations where these ideas flourish. These ideas would have a more realistic and evolving impact on the world than religion alone.

(3) Yeah, religion caused a lot of differences and tensions between neighbors. But religion is not the only source of tension. Some places are more culturally different than others. In the propaganda at the height of WW2, there was a sense that America and Germany would eventually be able to get along, but a sense that Japan were just intolerably cruel from a totally different mentality. Let's go beyond religion, and look at culture.

Culture points should stop being something you generate city by city and be more something that transmits and copies itself throughout a region. The more open your borders, the more you trade, the more your culture influences others, and the more your cities are influenced by other cultures. Culture floats around between cities. Eventually culturally-similar regions emerge through a combination of geography and diplomacy. This is something that can impact the game before religion is even invented, and can impact the game in later eras where there are many non-religious conflicts.


Just a few ideas.