Do you think Firaxis will get around to adding it. Its annoying if you find a religion that you don't want and you want to remove it. Its also annoying when the city it was founded in is near your border.

Of course they should; this would only be historically accurate. But they probably won't because they are terrified of offending anyone. I agree with you; there should certainly be some way to get rid of religions you don't want inside your cities. This might cause both better relations with other civs that have the same State Religion as you and worse relations with civs that have the State Religion of the religions you get rid of.

I don't think inquisitions would be anywhere near as offensive as some other stuff they could do with religion

if they do it certainly will not be under the name of an inquisition, the term is too inflammatory
perhaps a more sanitized "religious removal" tool that causes unhappiness as a penalty for the removal of the offending religion

why is the term inquisition inflammatory when missionary isn't?

Instead of saying "inquisition", they could call it "conversion". So there would be no NPC-ness in CIV.

While it would be a cool feature, It is no where near the most important things that needs to be done.

why is the term inquisition inflammatory when missionary isn't?

....:confused:

why is the term inquisition inflammatory when missionary isn't?

I don't think Inquisition is quite the right word. The Inquisition only happened after forced expulsion and conversion of Jews and Muslims in Spain. Literally, inquisition is just a sort of judicial hearing, a fact-finding mission. I racking my brain trying to think of the right word, but nothing comes up. Ethnic cleansing? Pogrom? Genocide? Forced Conversion? They all seem inflammatory, though.

I I racking my brain trying to think of the right word, but nothing comes up. Ethnic cleansing? Pogrom? Genocide? Forced Conversion? They all seem inflammatory, though.


How about Religious Enlightenment?

It happened in Goa.

The mechanic should work both ways. Ex. If you use the function on a heavily Christian city with a small Hindu minority and you're Hindu, a random percent of the Christians will convert and all the others will die/flee and your population will decrease. A diplomacy option should be to request a friend of the same OR different religion to inquisit a specific religion through his/her empire or just in one place. For people with WL, we should be able to inquisit our vassals even if it is against their will

bumping this

It happened in Goa.

The inquisition in Portugal ( hence Goa ) was not a tool to erradicate other religions ( King Manuel I forced all the non christians of the Portuguese kingdom to the catholic baptism or to leave 40 years ( more or less) before the establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition. You can't erradicate a religion that (officially) doesn't exist, can you? ). In reality, it was more like Gestapo: a State department ( the Inquisition was under the King's autority, not the Pope's) whose function was to maintain the people between rigid standarts, for better political control. Just by acident, it had a religious flavour...

About the thread issue, I do think that sould exist a Inquisitor unit ( the dark counterpart of the missionary) that could try to erase a certain religion of a city of your empire or from vassals. Addicionally, the Theocracy Civic should give some kind of penalization to cities with more than one religion (the dark counterpart of Free Religion)

Having multiple religions doesn't hurt your civ. Is your problem with religions simply that it transfers to your opponents which hurt relations? Besides you can never truly wipe out a religion, I mean look at the Jews they've been persecuted for over a thousand years.

Having multiple religions doesn't hurt your civ. Is your problem with religions simply that it transfers to your opponents which hurt relations? Besides you can never truly wipe out a religion, I mean look at the Jews they've been persecuted for over a thousand years.

You're right -- In game terms, having more than one religion doesn't hurt. But I think in historical terms, it can hurt. Thus the pogroms/inquisition/cleansing etc that have happened throughout history (and even today). Also, it seems to me that the game designers had something in mind with regard to a problem of multiple religions, but got cold feet at the last moment and took it out.

About the thread issue, I do think that sould exist a Inquisitor unit ( the dark counterpart of the missionary) that could try to erase a certain religion of a city of your empire or from vassals. Addicionally, the Theocracy Civic should give some kind of penalization to cities with more than one religion (the dark counterpart of Free Religion)

I like this idea too. Monastery's could produce two units (Missionary and Inquisitor) or maybe the current Missionary could just have an added option to reduce the percentage of a population who held another faith. It wouldn't even have to be that "dark" Say you have a city that is half Buddhist/half Hindu. You send a Buddhist missionary to "bomb" the city and you end up with 75%Buddhist/25%Hindu. You can keep bombing until you achieve 1oo% of your desired religion.
But you're right also in that the Theocracy civic should work best if your cities were 100% the State Religion. Doesn't have to be a penalty, maybe it's just a bonus. Cities with State Religion build buildings that percentage faster. If you have a 100% Buddhist city, for example, you double the speed of construction in that city. Would that be enough to cause a switch in civics? Maybe. You might have to tinker with the cost of running that civic, but I think it could work.

NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!!!!

:lol: :lol:
(Yes! I said it first!:p )
Our chief weapon is surprise, and a ruthless devotion to the...Oh, I'll come in again!!!:crazyeye:

The Ninja :ninja:

Why in the world would you want to get rid of a religion you founded yourself? In game terms, it can only be a benefit... they're not going to add a feature that has no use.

And if you're looking for a strictly historical game, you've found the wrong one. But anyhow, inquisitions are not historically successful in eradicating a religion.

But you could wanna get rid of your enemy's religion. It stops him from spying.

And if you're looking for a strictly historical game, you've found the wrong one. But anyhow, inquisitions are not historically successful in eradicating a religion.

Of course they are successful. Most pre Christian religions where eradicated - and often enough followers of pagan religions have been "convinced" with fire and sword ....
They only have to be long and consequent enough.

Things good about being able to remove a certain religion:

1) it removes revenue from the civ that has the 'holy city' of that particular religion
2) it removes the ability of the other civ to check out your cities if they possess the 'holy city'

obviously, it should be limited to the religion that you haven't founded and that is not your state religion.

there must be diplomatic penalties and with this, the launch of 'crusades' <<better term should be applied here>> should also be enabled wherein civs of the same religion can participate, much like in Medieval 2:Total War.

How about a Crusade Promotion for Military Units, Any Unit with this promotion that captures an opponents city, the state religion of the Opponent in that city is removed and your own state Religion is added to that city.

Obviously
If both your State Religion and the Opposing State religion reside in that City, the opposing state religon is removed, your state religon is unchanged.

If your opponents State Religion is the same as yours then the Promotion is useless except in the case where no state religion is in that city.

If neither State Religions of either side reside in that captured city then your State Religion will be added.

The Crusade Promotion Doesn't Work on barb Cities (No reason why...)

All other 3rd Party Religions are untouched/unchanged.

The Theocracy Civic now Gives Free "Crusade Promotions"

What is so offensive about the term "inquisition"? There is even a class named "inquisitor" in some AD & D games. These political correctness crxps are really killing me.

Assuming BTS added an inquisitor unit, or let you use a missionary to purge a religion instead of spreading his own - would you actually use it?

The two benefits mentioned so far are that you reduce an opponent's shrine income by 1 gold and prevent him from seeing what's in the city. Neither seems like a big deal to me. On the minus side, you lose the opportunity to run the religion if diplomacy makes this desireable, can't build the religion's temple, monastery and cathedral and lose out on the potential culture bonus and +1 happy face (depending on how you run your empire).

Think of it in coding terms: It's very easy to implement the inverse missionary. But under which circumstances should the AI decide to build an inquisitor? I can't think of a single situation where this would seem to be worth the investment.

It would be useful to the AI if you can't see into his cities. Or if one enables Theocracy, any non-state religion in your cities would provide unhapiness, instead of proving to be beneficial by being able to build their religious buildings (which is logical, actually).

I like the idea of 'Crusader Promotions'.

And this all will fall into place if a Religious Victory is also available...

Personally, I think an inquisition feature would only add to the already far too important role of religion in Civ diplomacy.

Of course they are successful. Most pre Christian religions where eradicated - and often enough followers of pagan religions have been "convinced" with fire and sword .... They only have to be long and consequent enough. The Inquisition most people think of -- the Anti-Reformation efforts to quash Protestantism and Judaism -- failed. The pre-Christian religions were almost as much absorbed by Christianity as displaced by it... in a similar way that Eastern animist/shamanic practices were absorbed by Buddhism, with Saints and Bodhisattvas replacing local demigods.

Anyhow, if you can remove religions, so can your opponents, which would make spreading your religion abroad much less practical and useful. People have a tendency to assume that a feature that wasn't included must be an oversight, rather than a design decision.

Perhaps the simplest and least offensive (for those who like to take offense) way of introducing this concept would be to add it to an existing concept.

The Theocracy Civic might be the perfect candidate. When running Theocracy there is already a exclusionary effect on religions other than your state religion, well, it could also actually reduce the presence of other religions in cities over time. If you ran theocracy long enough the other religions would actually start to disappear from your cities.

This would even work if you have never adopted a state religion, thus modeling an actively anti-religious secular society such as the old Soviet Union (+2 exp. in cities with no religion? hmmm, maybe not!).

I'd be surprised if Firaxis decided to include an "Inquisitor" unit, but if it existed, here's how it might work:

Available at Divine Right.
Can erase a religion of choice from a city (this consumes the unit).
STR 6 Melee? (or just make it non-combat).

I would also slow down the "automatic spread" of religions to non-religious cities, so that later religions had more opportunity to catch up.

I also think that trade routes should gain a benefit if the two cities have a religion in common. That would give an economic incentive to forming "religious blocs," rather than just the arbitrary "brothers and sisters of the faith" bonus.

Personally, I think an inquisition feature would only add to the already far too important role of religion in Civ diplomacy.

Maybe you mean diplomacy only, but IMHO the overall role of religion in the game is actually NOT important enough. Maybe the game dev doesn't want to offend certain people, or maybe it's for game balancing concern. I just think the positives and negatives of adding or substracting a religion from a city are not fully demonstrated.

My "ideal" effect of adding a religion to a city that just happens to be your state religion:
- +1 happiness
- -20% war weariness vs civ with different state religion, +20% ww vs civ with same state religion, no adjustment vs civ of no state religion
- people a bit easier to manage: -15% maintainence
- people tolerate drastic measures better : e.g. -1 turn of unhappiness after whipping (you know, this has no chance for implementation, but there is a reason people compare religons to opium)

I propose with the "pollution" by one or more non-state religions, the benefits of reduced maintainence, reduced unhappiness, etc. will be voided. As a ruler you want your citizens to be easier to be ruled, less conflict, that's why you want only no religion other than your state religion exist in your land. This provides a better motivation to remove religions.

There should also be a penalty for declaring a state religion, OK, make it more positive. Give civ without a state religion a +5% research. I think right now the +10% research bonus for free religion is not enough. Make it +15%.

As a related issue, your state religon should be easier to spread in your land. Right now I don't see any difference between the rates of state and non-state religion spreading (unless theocracy is chosen). In reality, a state religion will grow much easier even in a non-theocratic country with the help from the government.

The Inquisition most people think of -- the Anti-Reformation efforts to quash Protestantism and Judaism -- failed. The pre-Christian religions were almost as much absorbed by Christianity as displaced by it... in a similar way that Eastern animist/shamanic practices were absorbed by Buddhism, with Saints and Bodhisattvas replacing local demigods.

Anyhow, if you can remove religions, so can your opponents, which would make spreading your religion abroad much less practical and useful. People have a tendency to assume that a feature that wasn't included must be an oversight, rather than a design decision.

Christian Roman Emperors persecuted the 'pagans' who represented the majority of the populace. People didn't choose to be Christian; they were forced.

The following is historical fact, not religious bias:
When the Roman Emperors followed the Roman religion (whose pantheon consisted of all the gods of the empire and territories), Rome thrived. When the Roman Emperors became Christian, Rome began to suffer problems with Barbarian invaders. Polytheist populations rose in Rome as the Empire fell; the people felt Yahweh served them no benefit and began to go back to the gods, but their persecution eventually stopped them.

When the Roman Emperors followed the Roman religion (whose pantheon consisted of all the gods of the empire and territories), Rome thrived. When the Roman Emperors became Christian, Rome began to suffer problems with Barbarian invaders. Polytheist populations rose in Rome as the Empire fell; the people felt Yahweh served them no benefit and began to go back to the gods, but their persecution eventually stopped them.

The role of religion in the fall of the Roman Empire is relatively minor. In fact, Christianity served to unite it when it was already in the advanced stages of decay.

But gameplay wise, i think when Constantine switched the state religion from Roman to Christian, he did so at a right time when Christianity was widespread within the empire (and Rome had a good-sized Christian population). Switching to the new religion would have caused him some benefits, as what gettingfat stated... of course, that's theoretical.

Having an inquisitor at Divine Right is a bit late for me. It should be available as early as Organized Religion. However, missionaries should have the ability to expel or defend from inquisitors. Come to think of it, there may not have to be a separate unit for the inquisition function and it may just be a special ability of the missionary.

Having an inquisitor at Divine Right is a bit late for me. It should be available as early as Organized Religion. However, missionaries should have the ability to expel or defend from inquisitors. Come to think of it, there may not have to be a separate unit for the inquisition function and it may just be a special ability of the missionary.
Using the Inquisitor in a foreign country would be an act of war, so you couldn't just send Inquisitors into allied countries and wipe out their religions, and you wouldn't be able to send Inquisitors into any cultural borders without open borders.

An interesting question is whether or not you should be allowed to cleanse religions from your vassals...

Inquisitor units/Missionary-inquisitors we need not.

There should just be more complex religion system (one with religion practitioner percentages), affected by buildings, state religion, civic, et al. With that, one religion and push out another, or it can cause civil disorder, or other such things (like a dark cult summoning Cthulhu, destroying the city).

For example, a Buddhist Civ with Theocracy could have a city with Buddhism and Hinduism at equal rates. Over time, due to the nature of the Civ, it would cause civil disorder and possibly the loss of civilians. Voila--inquisition.

Alternatively, a city with angry Buddhist citizens and a lot of religions in Free Religion might cause full-scale riots (all Buddhist citizens become angry).

Inquisitor units/Missionary-inquisitors we need not.

There should just be more complex religion system (one with religion practitioner percentages), affected by buildings, state religion, civic, et al. With that, one religion and push out another, or it can cause civil disorder, or other such things (like a dark cult summoning Cthulhu, destroying the city).

For example, a Buddhist Civ with Theocracy could have a city with Buddhism and Hinduism at equal rates. Over time, due to the nature of the Civ, it would cause civil disorder and possibly the loss of civilians. Voila--inquisition.

Alternatively, a city with angry Buddhist citizens and a lot of religions in Free Religion might cause full-scale riots (all Buddhist citizens become angry).This post is pretty much irrefutable...


what technology would trigger the founding of the Cthulhu cult?

I still maintain the view that it should be unit-driven characteristic. It would put up different scenarios of battling it out since missionary/priest/inquisitor units are supposedly non-combatants.

If the religious unit is also moved with a stack of military units and a crusade/jihad (to borrow the term from M2TW) has been declared, the units could receive a bonus for attacking cities of a different religion (especially with the Theocracy civic).

I still maintain the view that it should be unit-driven characteristic. It would put up different scenarios of battling it out since missionary/priest/inquisitor units are supposedly non-combatants.

If the religious unit is also moved with a stack of military units and a crusade/jihad (to borrow the term from M2TW) has been declared, the units could receive a bonus for attacking cities of a different religion (especially with the Theocracy civic).

I love the way you think. I would have never thought of that.

It would also make for some great mods

I think that religious/inquisition is just one of the aspect of the unbalanced religion system which is in Civ4.
There are particularly 2 problems which needs to be resolved
1.later religions need some boosts or we wll have always a buddha/indu sometimes jewish world.It could be done by giving them some missionaries or making religion spreading with later religions more fast
2.multiconfessional cities needs some disadvantages actually they get huge advantages over cities with only one religion.

The first problem is linked to inquisition because if later religions don't get a boost and inquisition is introduced, early religions could get potentially an higher advantage erasing later religions from the few cities they have spread.
The second problem is IMO even more important because actually with so big advantages having more religions in a city, removing religions would just be pointless unless you are trying to roleplay the defender of faith.
Among other things i think that Inquisition should be tied to a civic (theocracy), because it would be pointless to remove religions when you are under free religion.

inquisition isn't used to quench other religions. a missionary is used to do this.

Well the Theocracy civic already limits the spread of non-state religions and you do get a free missionary for later religions.

What needs to also be done if the inquisition function is to be activated on a unit is that spreading your state religion beyond your borders will be much more difficult as it is now. It should be most difficult if the civ of the target city has not had any of its cities convert to your civ's religion.

And (since I figured it out only this weekend), your missionary can be attacked when it is in a foreign land, trigerring war.

Also, there must be a penalty for founding 2 religions, since it will create a bit of strife, particularly on the holy city of the 2nd religion. This would only be alleviated if a civ adopts 'Free Religion'.

If another civ adopts the state religion of your 2nd religion, then that civ should be compelled by tis citizenry to launch a crusade and capture the holy city from you.

Also, there must be a penalty for founding 2 religions, since it will create a bit of strife, particularly on the holy city of the 2nd religion. This would only be alleviated if a civ adopts 'Free Religion'.

If another civ adopts the state religion of your 2nd religion, then that civ should be compelled by tis citizenry to launch a crusade and capture the holy city from you.

I don't know about "compelled" but it would certainly be in the best interest of the civ, and it would certainly have some historical basis. Christians, Jews and Muslims sure seem to have an interest in Jerusalem.

Look, for my money, here's what makes sense about Religion.
If you have all of your cities at 100% of your state religion, you should get big benefits when you run Organized Religion or Theocracy, making it worthwhile to spread a religion even if you are not the founder. AND making it worthwhile to eradicate non-state religions within your cities. It doesn't have to be genocide or inquisitions -- just allow missionaries to keep converting your cities to more and more of a percentage of your religion.
On the other hand, if you have a multi-religious empire, it's probably not worth it to run Organized Religion or Theocracy -- the high maintenance costs would just not be worth the small benefits. You might lag behind the religious nuts for a while, but once you adopt Free Religion, you can clean up.

It's a nice history lesson as well. Time and again throughout history, religious regimes have sprung up and thrived, only to stagnate and fall behind when they become too calcified to adapt to changing times.

That's my two cents, anyway. I love it best when the game engine can help me (or my kids) make sense about something that happens in "real" history.

Bradlius, I totally agree with your post. The inquisition may just cause unhapiness at best and a decrease in population at worst. Its nasty, I know, but that sadly is also the thuth in history. I too would prefer it to just be an unhapiness penalty for x turns or no population increase for x turns.

I've also posted in another thread regarding the need to choose between religion and rational, especially if Liberalism is founded.

There are a lot of benefits from religion and its associated buildings, but enlightenment will come at the price of its clash with doctrines of faith - until such a time or event that things are clarified (such as holding Synods or the like).

Re the discussion as to whether Christianity helped cause the end of the Roman Empire the answer is yes and no. Gibbon, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, emphatically said yes. In fact, the first sentence of that work is something like, 'I will tell you of the triumph of barbarism and Christianity.' He thought it one of, if not the, main causes for the fall of Rome. But we should always remember that only the Western part of the Roman Empire fell and ended. The Eastern part, morphing into the Byzantine Empire, lasted for another 1,000 years and, maybe, Christianity helped it last that long. On the other hand the endless, virulent religious schisms and arguments within that Empire may have weakened it and help lose a great part of it to Islamic conquest.

Religions can cause both good and bad (in terms of power) to happen to a civilization. This should always be reflected in the game. The Spanish Inquisition (its immorality apart) strengthened Spain by making it more cohesive but weakened its economy by driving out most of the more advanced economic elements.

Hi everyone. I am one of the original debaters that influenced TheLopez well known inquisition mod. I want to see this mod in BTS as it is worthy of consideration. I have played many CIV4 Warlords games and have found that Theocracy seems to lag behind players who do not convert to a theocracy. The reason is that a lot of resources are spent producing multiple Inquisitors to remove all the non-state religions in your empire and allied empire(s).

Therefore, I believe there should be a far greater benefit for converting to theocracy and achieving religious unity, whether it be for a single city or for all of your cities throughout the empire.

Proposed Bonuses: Two bonuses are needed to off set the increased empire inquisition costs.

1. For every city that has your official state religion established: I like the idea of a city production bonus of +50% (as opposed to the +25% production bonus in organized religion) when all non-state religions have been removed from a city.

2. Additionally, I would like to see the Shrine bonus double to +2 gold when religious unity is achieved for every city in your empire.

These proposed bonuses would make the conversion to the theocracy civic worth the effort.

V/R,

Orion Veteran

There is already an Inquisition mod for Civ4. It allows the creation of an Inquisitor unit to expunge unwanted faiths from your cities. I'm sure it'll be adapted for BtS. An official Firaxis Inquisitor might be nice, but it ain't gonna happen; at least there's the mod.

Perhaps the simplest and least offensive (for those who like to take offense) way of introducing this concept would be to add it to an existing concept.

The Theocracy Civic might be the perfect candidate. When running Theocracy there is already a exclusionary effect on religions other than your state religion, well, it could also actually reduce the presence of other religions in cities over time. If you ran theocracy long enough the other religions would actually start to disappear from your cities.

This would even work if you have never adopted a state religion, thus modeling an actively anti-religious secular society such as the old Soviet Union (+2 exp. in cities with no religion? hmmm, maybe not!).

I really like this simple and elegant concept. The whole point of theocracy now is too stop the spread of foreign religions, and I have at least one room-mate who actively runs it because he doesn't like me infecting his people with my religions and thus grrabbing extra money and espionage from his people.

I think that the designers probably assumed that people like my room-mate would adopt theocracy early and stick with it through a decent portion of the game. In vanilla Civ IV it was even a low cost option. With the raised cost in warlords it became more difficult to run that early, and thus people started adding it later.

MJS' suggestion takes that into account, your starting it later, so you are likely to have more than one religion in your area, and would want to spread it's growth AND get rid of it if possible.

Plus there is always the roleplaying aspect, I simply can't see the Spanish adopting a Christian Theocracy AND still allowing half their people to be Muslims. At least not in the early game.

There is already an Inquisition mod for Civ4. It allows the creation of an Inquisitor unit to expunge unwanted faiths from your cities.

I am well aware of the existing inquisition mod, as I debated several key issues thoroughly in the original thread.

An official Firaxis Inquisitor might be nice, but it ain't gonna happen; at least there's the mod.

That's too bad, as the Inquisition mod, as developed by TheLopez, has a lot of merit and potential. :sad:

I'm sure it'll be adapted for BtS.

We can only hope so. If TheLopez does not return, I'm not sure who can make the BTS conversion and/or implement new capabilities/improvements. :( This is a plea for anyone willing to do the actual programing, to please contact me about needed changes to the existing inquisition mod.

V/R,

Orion Veteran

Well, I am trying to add an Inquisitor to a mod I am making strictly for use in MP games (that is there will not be any AI in these games), and we want to put in this unit but we aren't exactly sure how to go about this properly. So if anybody knows that would be helpful.

This is what happens when you let the pope control your country (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWpMYCEAaM8)

Go to 0:42

I agree that there should be a way of removing a religion from one specific city. Mainly because two reasons:

1)The most important one is that for every religion already present in a city, there is an increased chance of your misionary failing to spread a third one. If all your empire is Bhuddist except one city, then you would prefer to use it as your stae religion. However if than lone city has already two other religions many of your misionary units will we lost trying to convert it.

2)Because there are benefits in espionage from having other civs cities share your religion, your rival should be able to do something against that advantage.

I know Firaxis will never do it, but...

I'd like to see unique units available to a civ if he builds the holy shrine for a religion. For example, the city with the holy shrine for Christianity could build crusaders, the holy shrine for Islam could build terrorists, etc.

Maybe even make the units increase their power as your tech levels goes up. That way, they would be balanced in both ancient and modern times.