First I should say I'm a builder type of player... I usually don't finish my games because I don't like to move armies across the map to take enemy cities. And don't wait for cultural or any other type of victory.

This are some ideas that come to my mind several weeks ago and I have finally found the time and desire to write down.

The main idea is I think changing religion in the mod shouldn't be so easy.

It is not so easy on earth (try to imagine your country changing the state religion from one day to the next). Today you are catholic. Next year (one turn) you wake up and you go to the mosque to pray. WTF!!!

For the people it should be hard but for the acolytes and priest (or worse, the high priests) should be horrible.

Imagine yourself being the high priest of the Khazad, and the religion you teach is Runes of Kilmorph. Next day (year, turn, etc) the king/emperor/whatever has changed the state religion and now is following the Overlords. I think you should feel a bit unhappy. Several turns later, when the ruler has got enough priests of the overlords, he decides to change again religion... but not back to Kilmorph, he's now changing to The Order... what!!!! This man is not a true believer (of whatever religion, but he's a heretic!!! he follows whoever pleases his military or else).

You may end being the high priest of Kilmorph with a dude who is the high priest of the Overlords and another who is the high priest of The Order. You may have temples of kilmorph in the cities, but the religion that should be spread should be the new one (in this example The Order). The citizens could go to your temples, but the official religion and so the one they should follow wouln't be yours.

You could still live in the country to teach your religion (which is not only not official but maybe even heretic), but it wouldn't be nice. The Order High priest should be on his temple telling the people you (kilmorph) are not a believer, you don't follow the true religion of the empire and that you should probably leave the country (or better, be burned to not spread heresy).

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Right now you get a high negative modifier with civs that have a different religion. But even when I get -18 in my relations with other civs they won't declare war (playing on prince, maybe I should jump to monarch but I don't like the AIs getting more help than I do, specially on research and military). Wars for religion should be more common. Okay, I have more soldiers but I'm a heretic and FFH looks like a place ruled by fanatics... maybe there should be new units of fanatical soldiers, cheaper and weak that would get insane attack modifiers but horrible defense (like the werewolves). They would prefer destroying improvements than to attack cities so maybe they could be a real pain (and would not give that much exp when defeated).

Holy wars should be for everybody, not only the bannor (give them something special to do when fighting a holy war).


Ideas for the mod

- Give the religion on one city to every civ that discovers it, or at least an acolyte. Ok, you got second (or last) to a religion, but you did contact the Teachings of that religion... so maybe getting an acolyte would be good. Then you can decide to spread the relion or not (if he fails to do so it's a #censored#!!!!)

- Maybe a second holy city for each religion (you can only have one but another civ could build the second). This would be accomplished by a Wonder. This would get a civ relations modifier of -2 (for example "We have the True Holy City"). If you happen to take the second holy city the wonder is destroyed (and can be rebuilt by another civ). We have Rome and Jerusalem as special cities for catholics, Jerusalem and La Meca for Muslims. So it's not that wrong to think on several holy places.

- Relics: every religion has them on earth. On medieval times some saints had even 5 skulls in five different cities on different countries. All where original/true. Well, maybe he was a saint because he had five heads (don't take this as an offense, please).

The Relic building could give something like +1 happy face +2 gold. BUT if you change religion it would be something else. Nobody would like to have a proof of a different religion on the form of a sacred relic on their cities. The high priest of The Order would not tolerate kindly that a Golden Leave from the Ydragsil (sorry, don't remember the true name of the wonder) was in a heretic temple two doors away. He would like the people to worship his True Relic of... for example, The Golden Fire from the True One God. So changing religion would make a relic something like -1 happy face +1 gold (people from other religions would still arrive to the city to see the relic, but they wouldn't be encourage by the religious authorities).
I would make this building not very expensive, for the Heavens Wars (see idea below). And there shouldn't be more than 2 or 3... maybe even only one of this kind of building, like a National Wonder.

- Fanatics: cheap + fanatical (increased attack and worse defence). If you change religion this guys left you (or became barbs and attack you). When they took a city, they should instantly convert it to their religion and maybe have a chance to purge other religions. Like the fanatics in Civ II.

- Desertion of acolytes/priest/high priest : this could be less fun for the players, even though it could be realistic. So maybe the chance should be very low 2%/4%/6%. The ones to flee your nation could vanish or became barbs.

- Negative modifier with civs you shared a religion once (you have not only followed a different god but you rejected the true one).

- Tech: "Heavens Wars" or something similar. The Gods, tired of just watching, could decide to send their own angels/demons to war on the lands of men.
Upon discovery of this tech the next conditions would apply:
* civs with different religions would be at war
* every x turns, an angel of your religion would arrive at the holy city or at the city with the Relic Building in it.
(Treant for Leaves, Golem for Runes, Angel for Order, Demons for the other two... this guys would have different promotions but basically the same stats -
Treants 18 strength-double move in forest-gain exp-heal-40% against shock
Golems 18 strength-double move in hills-gain exp-heal-40% against archers
Overlords demons 18 strength-water walking+no penalty for attacking from the water or across a river-gain exp-heal-40% against adepts/priest
Etc...

So maybe you are following The Order and an angel arrives. Good. The problem is that the #censored# elf got a Treant also!!! And the dwarf got a Golem... and so on...
This would lead to a massive "World War" with good units on every civ.

If you don't like the Heavens War to be linked with a Tech, it could be linked to a Wonder like Armaggedon, but different. Like someone doing a call to his God only to find himself fighting a celestial war at home.


I think I had more ideas a few weeks ago, but this should suffice (don't think they will make it anyway but I want to contribute to this wonderfull mod).

And sorry for my english.

If you want religious wars you are going to love "Fire".

http://kael.civfanatics.net/images/ffhtitlefire.jpg

Historically governments did switch frequently. Look it england and its bounces back and forth from prodestantism to catholism (I think for a brief while they had accidently adopted Mr Peanut as their mandatory state savior).

But yes I agree with you 100%. I always want players to be able to change their religion if they want, but their should be equalizing penalties for doing so. Not so much that it is never worthwile, but enough so that it is costly.

That's a good point about England; one king once wanted a divorce, so he invented his own denomination.
Of course, anglicanism and catholicism is a bit more similar than runes and the ashen veil. For this I say
"Our weapon is surprise!"
btw, inquisition should probably add unhappiness for a few turns if it doesn't.

(I didn't have time to read your whole post, I'll do that later:))

I had an idea that would make people less likely to switch religions.

Instead of having only religious heroes abandon you when you switch, I'd make it so that ALL units with the religion's promotion (priests, inquisitors, etc.) would abandon you once you switch religions. Also, instead of just up and disappearing, the units would join the strongest civ that still follows their religion.

This would fix quite a few issues with cross-religion units (like Ashen Veil flesh golems :confused:) as well as punish switch-happy players while rewarding more devout followers.

I had an idea that would make people less likely to switch religions.

Instead of having only religious heroes abandon you when you switch, I'd make it so that ALL units with the religion's promotion (priests, inquisitors, etc.) would abandon you once you switch religions. Also, instead of just up and disappearing, the units would join the strongest civ that still follows their religion.

This would fix quite a few issues with cross-religion units (like Ashen Veil flesh golems :confused:) as well as punish switch-happy players while rewarding more devout followers.

Yes, this is an idea I would support. Perhaps they should go to the owner of the holy city? And should the person losing them be the holy city founder, maybe they should just go to either random followers of the religion or the follower of the religion with the highest score.

Or maybe with the lowest score, to try and give them a chance ?

Or maybe with the lowest score, to try and give them a chance ?

If a human player has the lowest score of their brothers and sisters of the faith, they've done something wrong, and they don't deserve a handout. If a computer player has the lowest score of their brothers and sisters of the faith, then there's no need to give them a chance, because they're just a weak NPC.

lol Maybe they should turn Barbarian?
But be instaconverted when attacked by a unit following the hero's faith?

lol Maybe they should turn Barbarian?
But be instaconverted when attacked by a unit following the hero's faith?

I have trouble seeing Order troops as barbarians.

In their opinion, YOU're the barbarian. :mischief:

:lol: True, but then they'd need Hidden Nationality so that barbarian civs can try to reclaim them, and then lose it when they convert.
That might cause issues with Heroes that have Hidden Nationality already, but who starts with it right now, anyway?

How about a new unit that is a cross between Shadows and Inquistors? It can enter rival territory, and purge opposing religions from other player's cities.

Already I find the AI makes good use of Shadows to destroy my resources; if it also sent covert units to sabotage my temples that would definately heat things up. That would also give a real chance at a late game religious victory.

Instead of having only religious heroes abandon you when you switch, I'd make it so that ALL units with the religion's promotion (priests, inquisitors, etc.) would abandon you once you switch religions. Also, instead of just up and disappearing, the units would join the strongest civ that still follows their religion.

Ooh I like! :)

How about a new unit that is a cross between Shadows and Inquistors? It can enter rival territory, and purge opposing religions from other player's cities.

Already I find the AI makes good use of Shadows to destroy my resources; if it also sent covert units to sabotage my temples that would definately heat things up. That would also give a real chance at a late game religious victory.

That's brilliant!

How about a new unit that is a cross between Shadows and Inquistors? It can enter rival territory, and purge opposing religions from other player's cities.

Already I find the AI makes good use of Shadows to destroy my resources; if it also sent covert units to sabotage my temples that would definately heat things up. That would also give a real chance at a late game religious victory.

I don't really like that idea. If I found out that someone was sabotaging my religion, it'd be a one-time shot because afterward I'd declare war on them on the spot. Even the Spanish Inquisition never went beyond Spain. It's better the way it is now.

I had an idea that would make people less likely to switch religions.

Instead of having only religious heroes abandon you when you switch, I'd make it so that ALL units with the religion's promotion (priests, inquisitors, etc.) would abandon you once you switch religions. Also, instead of just up and disappearing, the units would join the strongest civ that still follows their religion.

This would fix quite a few issues with cross-religion units (like Ashen Veil flesh golems :confused:) as well as punish switch-happy players while rewarding more devout followers.

I love this idea in theory. But, in practice, I don't think it would work. If I knew I was going to switch religions (and really, why would I switch religions if I wasn't planning it), then why would I not just disband all of my religious units before switching and hence, no penalty? I agree that switching religions must have some sort of consequence but I don't think that the proposal will do what we intend it to.

Perhaps this: If we switch religions (say from Runes to Order), then 50% of the current Runes units in the world would make their way to our borders to pillage/attack/protest/cause general unrest. If no other civilization follows Runes, then the Runes hero (Bambur, in this case) and a group of 10-15 Stonewardens (depending on the timeframe) would appear as "barbarians" at our doorstep and do the same. I know it would not be easy to code but perhaps it would be possible.

I'd like to see religous revolts in cities. Cities with a different religion then you state religion and doesn't have your religion in it can revolt and either join the civ that holds the holy city or become barbarian.

And cities with both your state religion and another religion can go into unhappiness revolts causing them to have city wars which will cause them to not be able to produce anything for a few turns.

Maybe a new civic option that would automatically make your state religion what was most practiced in your cities, but let other religions spread while at the same time banning units that spread religion?

And what benefit would that give?
If I want to adopt the religion most of my people worship, I can already do that by converting to it manually. If I don't want other civs to convert me, I can adopt Theocracy. There's no benefit to having your religion change automatically, and plenty of headache if you switch right when you were just about to finish a Hero or Wonder. If you want a viable multi-religion civic, maybe we should bring back Free Religion?

And on that same note, why isn't religion a civic category anymore?

And on that same note, why isn't religion a civic category anymore?

Probably because religion is such a big part of the mod, they don't want it to only be affected by one civic category...

If this has already been suggested, then accept my apologies. However, what about this:

The longer your remain in a State Religion, the greater the benefits from your State Religion buildings and units. For example, if you remain Jewish for 40 turns, then your Jewish Monastaries get a +8% Research Bonus and a +16% Culture Bonus. Your Jewish Temples and Synagogues also get a +16% Culture Bonus and a +2 Happiness Bonus. Any Priests assigned as a result of your Jewish Temples or Synagogues give you +8% Great Person Points (Prophets). Likewise, Shrine Income and Holy City Culture/GPP's are also boosted by +8%. Lastly, the build time and success chances of your Jewish Missionaries is also given a boost. Certain Civics might speed up, slow down or completely halt the rate these bonuses are gained. Now the flip side is that non-state religion buildings accrue a similar penalty the longer they are on the "Outer". Obviously this can be bad if you have a non-State Religion Holy City and/or Shrine in your empire!
The other flip side is, should you ever change State Religions, you get a penalty for you former state religion buildings and units exactly opposite to what they currently were at the time of the change.

Anyway, just a thought!

Aussie_Lurker.

What I miss is freedom of religion.

Why did they get rid of that?

What I miss is freedom of religion.

Why did they get rid of that?

1. Free religion doesn't fit Fall From heaven. Freedom of religion is a crusade in Erebus.
2. We got rid of the entire civic category to simplify things. Actually I don't really know why we got rid of, but I don't really miss it.

It would be nice though if the Grigori could achieve the opposite of a religious victory. If say, after researching the Liberalism tech, less than 33% of the world's population follows a religion, they win, and humanity guides its own destiny!

Yeah I was wondering about the grigori all the while when reading this mod. I cannot think of a good solution, but I do feel they should have some sort of civic just for them like having Democracy as an option, so its not just citizens but any freeborn person can vote.

i think something like theorcracy which allows the Grigori to have no religion spread in their cities and no religion