On the RevolutionDCM forum, GoodGame suggested this:

Just curious, is there any room for religious schisms in this mod? I'm thinking that on top of the brand new religions causing stress, that one form of a revolt would be the creation of a religious schism based on a religion existing in the city. Kind of like the team color change in that one Warlords scenario that pitted Protestantism vs. Catholicism. Each religion could have at least one alt-from that represents a schism that has about half the negative and positive affects of a different religion in the city. Also first to a tech--say Printing Press---might trigger a schism automatically.


This is open for discussion as well as any other religion behaviour relevant to the Revolutions mod.
Cheers.

I think a good example of this was in a recent game of WolfRev I had where a distant city had my state religion, a foreign religion, and suddenly was picked to be the holy city for a religion I founded. All the foreign religions were upping the revolt of course, but why not have that revolt take the form of a request to allow a schism from the state religion? Thematically, it's like my state religion mixed with the foreign religions to form an alternative form of my state religion. Of course that will lead to further revolt troubles down the road...

So, something like when the city revolts and they make their demand, You are given a choice to accept a schism which would do something like reduce the State Religion Bonus in all cities by 1/2 permanently, but wipe away the RevIdx of the effected city, OR just refuse the demand and have the normal effects of doing so. Something like this?

Exactly what I was thinking!

It could be expanded a little with contextual co-factors like civics and known technologies. Pacificism or Free Religion might increase the likelihood of schisms. Same for communication-type technologies (Printing Press, and Monotheism might schism earlier religions that were founded pre-Monotheism). Particular wonders and buildings might play to or against it (e.g. temples, monasteries, cathedrals might decrease the chances of local schisms).

Question would be if infinite schisms would generate, or to simplify so only one schism per religion is allowed? Simpler is probably better.

Schisms would also be interesting in that they might inject stress into multi-civ religious blocs. AP voting regarding schisms as a
'Influence Religion' vote might be appropriate too.

I think schisms would be too big of a change to put in, but I do have some suggestions:

Schisms should be broad enough that it will split the civs who currently have that religion, with some believing orthodox and some believing in the schism. The penalties for having a schism-city in an orthodox state (and vice versa) should be double (or some greater factor) than just a completely different religion.

Also, perhaps only the AP religion can have schisms, or tie it in to the AP in some way.

I was going to start a new topic for this, but I figured this should go here. The way religion works in the game is more of a diplomatic/roleplay thing than it really is an actual faith that your people believe in. A simple +1 happiness is all your citizens get for believing in a religion.

The better AI board has a debate as to how best to deal with AI religious behavior, since it's more of a diplomatic choice than a citizen-driven one. My suggestion is to add more citizen weight behind religion. For example, citizens of Greece would be unhappy if they were in a Jewish Theocracy and Greece was good friends with the Hindu nation of Rome. That way, incentive would be to switch religions and deal with other nations based on how your citizens would react. The penalty for dealing with heathen nations might not be huge unless in a Theocracy or something, but still, integrating the citizens more into religion would provide some basis to an otherwise diplomatic choice of religion.

This could provide more background for schisms: If a foreign nation controls your religion's holy city, and your people don't like the other nations that they're dealing with, it could cause your citizens to become unhappy and form a schism, so they can "run things their own way." (Another random suggestion: perhaps schisms can only happen under a theocracy?).

Schisms should be broad enough that it will split the civs who currently have that religion, with some believing orthodox and some believing in the schism. The penalties for having a schism-city in an orthodox state (and vice versa) should be double (or some greater factor) than just a completely different religion.



That's an interesting idea. In the case of switching to Theocracy, after having allowed a schism in another religion, I think a doubling of effect on diplo and on the revolt bar would make the gameplay effect of schisms dramatic, and possibly worth having.

It'd be best to make the intensity of the effect of a schism to be civic-contextual. Under Pacificism or Free Religion, a schism wouldn't be grounds for huge reactionary diplo/revolt changes relative to a completely different religion. Would each city/civ evolve a religion memory by which they prefer a specific religious affilitation (e.g. if they spend say 70% of the game in Buddhism, would they prefer to flip back to Buddhism if a choice was required?).


My suggestion is to add more citizen weight behind religion. For example, citizens of Greece would be unhappy if they were in a Jewish Theocracy and Greece was good friends with the Hindu nation of Rome. That way, incentive would be to switch religions and deal with other nations based on how your citizens would react. The penalty for dealing with heathen nations might not be huge unless in a Theocracy or something, but still, integrating the citizens more into religion would provide some basis to an otherwise diplomatic choice of religion.

A populist mechanism regarding religion/schism would be interesting. The main things I think it would cause would be irredentism---basically forcing city swaps (liberations) based on religious affiliation. That would mesh well with the context of a city revolting due to a schism/foreign religion. A secondary effect could be religious/sectarian violence---mini rebellions where the out religion auto attacks the city, but doesn't form a new civ. Would this require a 'religion' bar to track %religion in the city or would that be included in the %population bar in the city view?

Not sure that I follow the example you're providing though. Would specific cities/civ's have hardcoded preferences for a specific religion? Would diplo sway religious preference?

Some dude said you were thinking about adding in schisms and asked me to contribute my work here. I did a lot of work on the RoM forums working out a suggested system for a schisms engine. Here's what I came up with.

Okay, religions are still founded by either technology or events and prophets. When you found a religion, you decide what values you want it to have and this determines what sect you found. Afterwords, the religion spreads. The city in which it first appeared remains its only holy city throughout the entire game and that sect of that religion remains in that city forever.

Then, lets say an event happens in another city where this religion has spread. This allows you to change the values of this religion in that city. If you change the values too radically, you found a new sect. This sect has the same holy city, though the holy city may not yet have this sect in it (though holy cities will likely acquire new sects of their religion quickly). If you do not change the values too greatly, the sect remains under the same name. However, if you are not the country which founded the sect, the version of this sect founded in your country will be named after your country (Japanese Zen Buddhism or Greek Orthodox Christianity). Also, when the first version of a sect is founded, it does take on the name of its country too. If you have already founded a version of a sect and only change its values slightly, it changes the values of that version of the sect in every city, reforming the religion.

A prophet can do the same thing. He can allow you to choose a religion which has spread to the city he is in and found a new sect of it in that city (or reform the old one).

You only enjoy the benefits of each religion's sects if you choose that as your state religion. A Christian state enjoys the benefits of all Christian sects within its boarders. Also, you cannot tell which sects of a religion are in each city from the map screen. You have to select the city and view the religion window. The map screen only lists it as having that religion, it doesn't say which sect.

Of course new values are enabled by new technologies, so not all values are open at the beginning of the game, but all values are eventually open to every religion, so even Christianity can believe in reincarnation and polytheism.

Also, each religion should probably have its own benefits which are modified by the values of its sects.

Here are the variables and traits

Growth
Production
Military
Commerce
Science
Culture

Structure - How is the religion organized from a logistical perspective? What is the primary focal point of the faith?

- Individual
- Family
- Local
- Regional
- Centralized
- National

Message What is the prime message or goal of the religion? These are all available upon founding your first religion [All of these require state in the city to have an effect]

- Improvement
- Salvation
- Knowledge
- Glory
- Tradition
- Industry

Belief System - What is the core of the religion's theology? What is worshiped? These are meant to be more focused on building related bonuses and buffing existing wonders relevant to that belief system.

- Tribal
- Ancestor Worship
- Dualism
- Polytheism
- Pantheism
- Monotheism

Influence - How does the religion interact with society? [too many graphics in my post lol, 30 seems a bit low]

- Mythology/Oral Tradition
- Evangelical
- Intolerant
- Pious
- Rational
- Charitable

Scientific Beliefs – How does your religion approach science? Does science take its cues from your religion or have your people even heard of science? Is the world controlled by nature spirits or are there more earthly forces at work?

- Mystical
- Alchemic
- Empiric
- Controlled
- Philosophical
- Utilitarian


World View – How does your religion believe the world to be structured? Is it an island of order in a sea of chaos or an illusionary temporal reality subject to a higher spiritual plane? Does the world exist on two planes, one plane, or several?

- Layered
- Elemental
- Unified
- Order/Chaos
- Spiritual/Temporal
- Time/Eternity


Afterlife – What happens to a person after they die and how can they influence what their afterlife will be, assuming there is a choice?

- Netherworld
- Underworld
- Reincarnation
- Neutralization
- Reward/Punishment
- Immortalism

And here are the sects I worked out

Egyptianism

The Ennead - consisted of Ra, his children Shu and Tefnut, and their descendants Geb, Isis, Nephthys, Nut, Osiris, and Se headed by Atum) was worshipped. This grouping was hierarchical and used as a device by the priests to stress the importance of either the Sun God Ra or the Sky God Horus (it’s not easy to determine which due to inconsistencies in the research)
Ptah - was the chief deity in Memphis, later extended into the triad of Ptah-Sekhmet-Neferte. Ptah was a creation deity and a personification of the earth as a mound rising up out of the sea of Chaos
Ogdoad - First it was a cult having Hathor and Ra; later changing to a cult where Hathor and Thoth were the main deities over a much larger number of deities headed by Thoth.
The triad Amun-Mut-Khons. Chief god being Amun who seems to be a fertility god of creation and the sun
The triad Khnum-Satis-Anuket. – Chief god was Khnum who was the source of the Nile river and its annual flooding
Atenism - focused on the Egyptian sun deity Aten as a monotheistic supreme god


Hinduism

Folk Hinduism - as based on local traditions and cults of local deities at communal level and spanning thorough to pre-historic times or at least prior to written Vedas.
Vedic - as still being practiced by traditionalist Brahmins, for example shrautins.
Vedantic - for example Advaita (Smartism), as based on philosophical approach
of the Upanishads.
Yogic Hinduism - especially based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
"Dharmic" or "daily morality" - based on the notion of Karma, and societal norms such as Hindu marriage customs etc.
Bhakti or devotionalism - especially as in Vaishnavism- distinguished from other schools by its worship of Vishnu or its associated avatars, principally as Rama and Krishna, as the original and supreme God.



Hellenism

Cult of Zeus – God of kings
Cult of Apollo – God of virtue and prophesy; heavily associated with the sun
Cult of Hestia – Goddess of the hearth
Cult of Ares – God of war
Cult of Demeter – Goddess of fertility and the harvest
Cult of the Godhead – Many philosophers did not agree with the traditional belief in multiple gods of relatively equal power. They believed that some singular, greater power gave rise to all the lesser gods and that this greater power, often entitled “the Godhead” should be worshiped as superior to the Olympians.


Judaism

Orthodox Judaism - holds that both the Written and Oral Torah were divinely revealed to Moses, and that the laws within it are binding and unchanging.
Masorti Judaism – Reaction to the enlightenment; Characterized by a commitment to following traditional Jewish laws and customs, including observance of Shabbat and kashrut, a deliberately non-fundamentalist teaching of Jewish principles of faith, a positive attitude toward modern culture, and an acceptance of both traditional rabbinic modes of study along with modern scholarship and critical text study when considering Jewish religious texts
Reform Judaism - Its defining characteristic with respect to the other movements is its rejection of the binding nature of Jewish ceremonial law as such and belief instead that individual Jews should exercise an informed autonomy about what to observe.
Reconstructionist Judaism- emphasizes reinterpreting Judaism for modern times. Like Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism does not hold that Jewish law, as such, requires observance, but unlike Reform, Reconstructionist thought emphasizes the role of the community in deciding what observances to follow.
Jewish Renewal - focuses on spirituality and social justice, but does not address issues of Jewish law. Men and women participate equally in prayer.
Zealotry - a Jewish political movement in the 1st century which sought to incite the people of Iudaea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the country by force of arms; opposed the Romans due to Rome's intolerance of their culture and on the grounds that Israel belonged only to a Jewish king descended from King David


Zoroastrianism

Asura Pantheon – Refers to the polytheistic worship of the Asura Gods which went on in Iran until Zoroaster’s teachings (that good Asura obey Ahura Mazda and bad ones don’t and thus should not be worshiped, for instance) came to prominence.; Fertile
The Zoroastrian Church – Refers to the traditional beliefs of Zoroastrians as first taught to them by their prophet and adopted later by the Persian Empire
Zurvanism - had the divinity Zurvan as its First Principle (primordial creator deity). Here, Ahura Mazda was not the transcendental God, but one of two equal-but-opposite divinities under the supremacy of Zurvan, 'Time'
Ilm-e-Kshnoom - a school of Parsi-Zoroastrian philosophy based on a mystic and esoteric, rather than literal, interpretation of religious texts. According to the adherents of the sect, they are followers of the Zoroastrian faith as preserved by a clan of 2000 individuals called the Saheb-e-Dilan ('Masters of the Heart') who are said to live in complete isolation in the mountainous recesses of the Caucasus (alternatively, in the Alborz range, around Mount Damavand); Scientific
Manichaeism – Actually considered a different religion, though it can be thought of as a merging of Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism. Principle prophet is Mani and central belief is that there are two gods (one good one evil) who vie for power within a person’s soul. This is a severe departure from the Zoroastrian beliefs about the nature of God (the uncreated code of the universe).


Mazdakism - The two distinguishing factors of Mazdak's teaching were the reduction of the importance of religious formalities — the true religious person being the one who understood and related correctly to the principles of the universe — and a criticism of the strong position of Zoroastrian clergy, who, he believed, had oppressed the Persian population and caused much poverty. Mazdak emphasized good conduct, which involved a moral and ascetic life, no killing and not eating flesh (which contained substances solely from Darkness), being kind and friendly and living in peace with other people.


Buddhism
(I’m not going to lie to you, the terminology used in discussing these sects is not familiar to me, so I’m just doing the best I can to define them)

Theravada - the oldest surviving Buddhist school. Theravada philosophy is a continuous analytical process of life, not a mere set of ethics and rituals. Conservative. Emphasizes the Four Noble Truths as revealed by the Buddha. Doctrine says that insight must come from the aspirant's experience, critical investigation, and reasoning instead of by blind faith. However, scripture is used as a guide.
Mahayana – Emphasizes the Mahayana Sutras, sometimes as the manifestation of Buddha himself. Very widespread with several offshoots. Characterized by eclecticism and a general belief in a common search for salvation, sometimes thought to be attainable through faith alone.
Vajrayana – Similar to Mahayana in philosophy, but differs mainly in practices.
Jodo or “Pure Land” – Offshoot of Mahayana. Concentrates on the Amitabha Buddha almost as a personal savior. Amitabha, in his 48 vows, his 18th and 19th vows promise entry into this Pure Land to any who calls upon his name as few as 10 times in their life and to anyone who calls out his name upon the moment of their death. This will make reaching Nirvana far easier in their next life. Very popular among the working class. Practices include mantras of his name and meditation on Amitabha himself and/or his Pure Land.
Zen – Concentrates on a moment to moment understanding of the world and of the mind. Menial tasks are seen as central. It is a way of life. Group activity is used to limit the influence of one’s ego. Various forms of meditation are used to empty one’s mind, unite the mind with the body/world, and escape ordinary patterns of thought. As teachings are said to have been passed down from the Buddha, lineages are often important in assessing a teacher’s ability. They tell who taught who.
Shingon – Offshoot of Mahayana and a form of Vajrayana. Concentrates on remembering one’s own Buddha-nature through meditation using mudras and ritual instruments for enlightenment of the body, mantras for enlightenment of speech, and mandalas and meditation for enlightenment of the mind. It is a highly esoteric form of Buddhism. Enlightenment is achievable in a single lifetime.


Confucianism
(I think I’m creating a lot of divisions here which don’t exist, but, seriously, Confucians seem to pretty much agree with each other)

Neo-Confucianism - a philosophy that attempted to merge certain basic elements of Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist thought. Attempts to find principles through observational science.
Philosophical Confucianism – This is the practice of Confucianism as a philosophy which can exist alongside other religions.
Religious Confucianism – This is the practice of Confucianism in its traditional form which includes ancestor worship, a belief in an abstract celestial deity, various rituals and rites, and the deification of ancient kings and even Confucius himself along with a skeptical view towards otherworldly beings. Excludes the practice of any other religion and tends to deny its own identity as a religion.
New-Confucianism - a new movement of Confucianism that began in the twentieth century. Often associated with the essay, "A Manifesto on Chinese Culture to the World." The Manifesto presents a vision of Chinese culture as having a fundamental unity throughout history, of which Confucianism is the highest expression. a "New Confucian" is anyone who (1) believes that Confucianism can and should accommodate modern science and democracy, (2) argues that Confucianism has a distinctive contribution to make to Western thought, and (3) interprets Confucianism along the general lines of Neo-Confucianism.
“State” Confucianism – Focuses on the accommodating needs of the local people through Confucian philosophy. Accommodates whatever culture it comes in contact with and takes the name of the state it is practiced in. Tries to bring about Confucian reforms in state lay and spread Confucianism throughout that particular state.
Temple Confucianism – Identified by the practice of building temples to honor Confucius as well as numerous noteworthy scholars throughout history. Statues of the honored ones are housed in the temples and offerings are made to their spirits.


Taoism

Philosophical Taoism or Daojia - A philosophical school based on the texts Dao De Jing (道德經) and Zhuangzi (莊子)
Zhengyi or Orthodoxy – a Chinese Taoist movement that emerged during the Tang Dynasty as a transformation of the earlier Tianshi Tao movement. Like Tianshi Dao, the leader of Zhengyi Daoism was known as the Celestial Master. Unlike prior incarnations of the Celestial Masters, like the school based at Louguan, the Zhengyi Taoists did not venerate Laozi as a god. Instead, he was viewed as the ancestor of the school's teaching.
Folk Taoism - The Chinese folk religion as it was adapted to serve Taoist beliefs
Sinaism or Pangu – taken from the Greco-Roman term Sinai meaning “the Chinese”, this word refers to Chinese Mythology as a whole rather than the portion of it which was adopted by the Taoist religion.
Quanzhen or Complete Reality - specializes in the process of "alchemy within the body" or Neidan (internal alchemy), as opposed to Waidan (external alchemy which experiments with the ingestion of herbs and minerals, etc). The Waidan tradition has been largely replaced by Neidan, as Waidan was a dangerous and often lethal pursuit. Quanzhen focuses on internal cultivation of the person which is consistent with the pervading Taoist belief of Wu Wei, which is essentially "action through inaction." Like most Taoists, Quanzhen priests were particularly concerned with longevity through alchemy, harmonizing oneself with the Tao, studying the Five Elements, and ideas on balance consistent with Yin-Yang theory.
Tianshi or Way of the Celestial Masters - a Chinese Taoist movement that was founded by Zhang Daoling in 142 CE. At its height, the movement controlled a theocratic state in Sichuan. Illness, in this sect, was caused by sin. Repentance through mediation or prostration and acknowledgement of one’s sins was necessary to relieve sickness. Semen is considered the embodiment of qi. If someone ejaculated too often, their life would be shortened. While Daojia advocates not ejaculating during sex in order to 'nourish the brain,' the Celestial Masters frowned upon this, and advocated non-ejaculation simply as a way to avoid losing qi. In addition, the Celestial Masters thought that the Daojia method of stealing a woman's qi to replenish the man's own qi was completely wrong, and should not be practiced. Sect was highly organized and structured along theocratic lines.


Naghualism
(I'm quoting this part off the top of my head as I'm having trouble finding my book on the subject. I'll make corrections after I find the book)

Cult of Quetzalcoatl - Snake god of rebirth; Merciful and wise god; patron of humanity; his temples were often used as schools or universities for the nobility; prohibited human sacrifice, preferring the sacrifice of flowers and butterflies
Cult of Huitzilopotchli - War god of the Sun; national patron of the Aztecs; required daily offerings of human hearts to carry on his war with the demons who lived in the stars; also considered to be the source of destiny and names
Cult of Tlaloc - War god of Rain and Thunder; very wrathful; required the yearly sacrifice of several children who were tortured to death (their tears were considered to be an offering to him); Favorite god of the Teotihuacano Empire (their enemies believed him to be a god of death)
Cult of Xipe Totec - "the Flayed Lord"; Undead God of Corn; required the yearly gladiatorial sacrifice of captured warriors who were then skinned and worn for a month to resemble husks of corn
Cult of the Tezcatlipoca -God of kings, darkness, evil, sorcery, and death; mortal enemy of Quetzalcoatl; kings prayed to him for power and sorcerers worshiped him almost exclusively; King of the gods; none of the Aztecs liked him but rather, worshiped him out of fear and necessity (one of his epithets is Titlacauan meaning "We are his Slaves" and another is Necoc Yaotl meaning "Enemy of Both Sides") ; his temple is one of the largest in Tenochtitlan, though few people ever entered it, and Quetzalcoatl's is one of the smallest, but nearly all visited regularly
Cult of the Leader - The Maya believed that their dead leaders became goods in heaven and that their living nobility could commune with these gods through blood sacrifice. As the sole conduit to heaven, the shaman leader was the only one who could pray to the gods for rain, victory, or fertility and thus he wielded remarkable power and loyalty. There is record of a noble once being kidnapped and his people would not allow any member of his family to replace him until it was confirmed that he had died 11 years later.


Christianity

Orthodoxy – Exists to preserve the original message of the Christian faith and bring others closer to God by facilitating the innumerable Mysteries. Does not acknowledge the Pope as anything other than the Bishop of Rome and vest almost all religious authority with the Archdioceses of the Ecumenical Council. Free will is extraordinarily heavily stressed. Even the shallowest theological discussion does not fail to mention it. More mystical than other forms of Christianity. Relatively little evangelism.
Catholicism – Exists to bring together all the Christian faithful, preserve the message of Christ and his apostles, and administer the Seven Sacraments. Acknowledges the Pope as head of the Christian Church, with is authority descending directly from Peter who was chosen by Christ. Good works and charity are heavily encouraged due to the principle of Purgatory. Has a history of manipulating governments and inciting crusades. Theology very similar to Orthodoxy, but tends to be explained in more concrete, less mystical terms.
National Supremacy or Church of “State” – Acknowledges the head of one’s stated as head of the church, chosen by God to rule over all the people of his lands. Otherwise similar to the Catholic church. Discourages charity and good works except as regulated by the state. Relatively little evangelism due to its nationalist nature.
Lutheranism – Does not acknowledge any but God as a supreme authority. Emphasizes the importance of a personal relationship with God, salvation through faith, and the authority of the Bible. Good works and charity are looked highly upon, but not necessary for salvation.
Calvinism – Emphasizes humanity as being at the mercy of God, who would be just in condemning all people for their sins, but who has chosen to be merciful to some. Does not acknowledge any but God as supreme. Believes in a kind of predestination. Can be extraordinarily strict. Society is led by the Elect who are identified by their moral character and worldly success. Emphasizes the authority of the literal word of the Bible even more than Lutheranism. Once attempted to replace the Catholic Church through warfare. Is the only form of Christianity which does not acknowledge free will. Does encourage charity and good works, but these tend to be, in large part regulated by the state under Calvinism.
Primitivism– Sees itself as reinventing the whole church for a new age. Places extraordinary importance on the word of the Bible. Consists of several relatively independent movements which tend to disagree with each other heavily. Have a strong moral and evangelist ethics. Very little regard for church tradition, protestant or Orthodox Catholic. See older, more organized churches as corrupt. They tend to see the world as near its end.

Islam

Sunni - believes that Muhammad did not specifically appoint a successor to lead the Muslim community before his death, and after an initial period of confusion, a group of his most prominent companions gathered and elected Muhammad's close friend and a father-in-law, as the first Caliph of Islam. Sunni Muslims regard the first four Caliphs as the al-Khulafā’ur-Rāshidūn or "Rashidun" ('The Rightly Guided Caliphs'). Sunnis also believe that the position of Caliph may be democratically chosen, but after the first four Rightly Guided Caliphs the position turned into a hereditary dynastic rule.
Shi’a - believe that his family, the Ahl al-Bayt (the People of the House), including his descendants known as Imams, have special spiritual and political rule over the community and believe that Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, was the first of these Imams and was the rightful successor to Muhammad, and thus reject the legitimacy of the first three Rashidun caliphs.
Kharijite - while originally supporting the Caliphate of Ali, they eventually rejected his legitimacy after he negotiated with Mu'awiya during the 7th Century Islamic civil war (First Fitna). Their complaint was that the Imam must be spiritually pure, and that Ali's compromise with Mu'awiya was a compromise of his spiritual purity, and therefore of his legitimacy as Imam or Caliph. While there are few remaining Kharijite or Kharijite-related groups, the term is sometimes used to denote Muslims who refuse to compromise with those with whom they disagree.
Mutazilism -
Sufism – is a mystical-ascetic form of Islam practiced by many Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. By focusing on the more spiritual aspects of religion, Sufis strive to obtain direct experience of God by making use of "intuitive and emotional faculties" that one must be trained to use. Sufis usually considered Sufism to be complementary to orthodox Islam, however it has widely been criticized by many Muslims on the whole for being an unjustified Bid‘ah or religious innovation. One starts with sharia (Islamic law), the exoteric or mundane practice of Islam and then is initiated into the mystical (esoteric path of a Tariqah (Sufi Order)
Ahmadiyya - followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who claimed to be the Mujaddid of the 14th Islamic century, the promised Messiah ("Second Coming of Christ") and Mahdi, as well as the likeness of all the prophets. The followers are divided into two groups, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement for the Propagation of Islam, the former believing that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a non-law bearing prophet and the latter believing that he was only a religious reformer though a prophet in an allegorical sense. Followers of Ghulam Ahmad consider themselves Muslim and believe their form of Islam to be a re-establishment of the original teachings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

I DO NOT WANT BASE REVOLUTIONS TO BE LIKE ROM WITH HUNDREDS OF ADDED THINGS!

If schisms are added, make them a simple concept, something like what GG suggested. The above is not tenable for this mod, it is something more fitting to massive expansion mods like RoM.

I agree. I don't think schisms add too much to the game, but if they are implemented it should be something simple.

I have to say that schisms are an interesting idea, but a bit too complicated. If relgion is to be upgraded within the revolutions mod then I think a better priority would be to add a mechanic showing the amount of a cities population under a certain faith. I think this could be acheived fairly easily with a mechanic similar to the culture bar in cities.

I agree. I never liked how once a religion spread to a city, it didn't distinguish between a cult following and a situation where everyone is pious to the faith.

Wow SH, that's quite a brainstorm. I'd have to go with the consensus that simpler would be better, as the idea is to complement the Revolutions mechanics, not to make a full blown religions mod.

I wanna confer with you on this, as I think it's a fantastic idea that I'd strongly consider adding to NwT/Diamond - though, as noted, too in-depth for base Rev. Send me a PM when you get the chance, as I'm on the way out atm.

Well I am sure you seen my Rapture stuff.

Anyway it has some tags in buildings schema that allow other religions to build the same building. So anyway what I am saying if you want not too much added.....

You could say for example make a second Christian religion, and all of the buildings are shared by the second religion. But it is another religion at the same time.

So a Catholic religion and a Protestant religion could both build a Christian temple, monastery, cathedral, and a shrine. The idea was still give happiness to any religion using it.

Civics should be used as well. We began to have civics that effect the spread of certain religions. So that religions go away as well when not your state religion. Like Paganism would not help spread Christianity.

I was only trying to get the mechanics to work for schisms first in Rapture, then I was looking at something to separate religions that usually send out missionaries and ones that are usually more related to one group.

For example Egyptians did not try to convert others to their religion. They believed there were gods of Egypt only.

Anyway that is not what you guys are looking for. So if you want to try small only. The SDK might be of interest in Rapture, but would need some tweaking.

I am expecting to hear blasphemy now about how your mod stinks, but like said you do not have to use all of the art. It was never finished just started.

Not sure if it helps, but when I first began my Civics Mod I was fascinated by the idea of religious sects and schisms. One of the things I thought of to help represent sects was to bring in a Dogma Civic-the central tenet of your particular religion. It's been a while since I looked at them, but I think some of them were "Ascetic", "Gnostic", "Orthodox", "Scholastic", "Pantheist", "Animist" and "Ecumenicist"-can't remember, but that's not really the issue. Now, although I never got round to fleshing the idea out, my ultimate plan was to tie a religion-at its founding-to whatever Dogma your civ is currently in.
So, as an example, if you found Judaism whilst running a scholastic dogma, then Judaism will have a Scholastic character as long as it's the Dogma of the civ which controls the Holy City.
Now my idea was that if a religion spreads to a city whose civ is running a contrary dogma, then unhappiness would result in those cities. The only options open to the city's owner would be (a) purge the city of the religion using Inquisitors (i.e. eliminate the heresy), but at a cost of population and a short-term loss of happiness (as in slavery); (b) change your dogma (which could cause unhappiness in cities without the competing dogma, not to mention the usual disruptions of civic changes) or (c) urge the controlling civ to change their dogma. Failure to cure the differences would-in time-result in a religious schism. Differences in dogma could also impact on the relations between 2 civs-even when they have the same religion. So 2 civs running Judaism might get the "same religion" bonus for relations, but would also get an ever increasing "sectarian" penalty to relations-on top of the usual civic penalties.

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear your opinions, and I could flesh them out a bit more for your if you'd like.

OK, I had another look, and my idea consisted of (a) Dogma/Tenet and (b) Inter-Faith Relations. Under Dogma you had-in order-"Animist", "Ascetic", "Numinal", "Scholarly", "Organized", "Fundamentalist", "Reformist", "Orthodox" and "Ecumenism". Under inter-faith relations you had "Insular", "Evangelical", "Pantheist", "Sacrificial", "Theocracy", "Free Religion". I think most of my ideas hinge on both aspects of my religious civics.

Also, can anyone with a better understanding of religion give me some better civic categories than what I have above. Some of them are OK, but some could probably be done differently.

Aussie_Lurker.

OK, so I've been looking at things again & this is how I see religion working. If anyone disagrees with my interpretations, I'd be happy to hear alternatives.

1. Dogma which can be defined as:

Animist (aka Numen): The belief that the Divine is in all things-whether that be a single God, or a whole Pantheon of Spirits, Demi-Gods and/or Gods, thus making all things worthy of worship. Obviously this is the central tenet of Shinto and many Tribal Faiths. An alternative view is that God(s) and Spirits inhabit the places that are built for them, as was often seen in Classical Roman & Greek beliefs.

Ascetic (aka Gnostic): Is the idea of the "Inner Divinity". Purification of the soul by abstaining from worldly pleasures. A variant of this is Gnosticism-or Dualism-that holds that the material world was created by a "Lesser God", and so must be rejected as evil in order to ensure the transcendence of the Pure Spirit.

Scholastic: Holds that all knowledge is a "Gift from God", and so must be pursued rigorously.

Organized (aka Hierarchic): Holds that religion can only be dispensed from a centralized authority-usually through very inaccessible rituals open to the priestly caste. Can also refer to religion strongly linked to the secular authorities, and often very....monumental.

Orthodox: Holds to a very strict interpretation of any religious/oral works relating to the Faith, tends to be even more ritualistic and monumental than Organized Religions.

Fundamentalism: Is an even stronger form of Orthodoxy. A belief in very strict adherence to very basic principles within the Faith, even to the extent of rejecting modernity. Unlike Orthodox and Organized religion, Fundamentalism places greater emphasis on adherence to strict religious belief than it does to ritual or monuments.

Reformist: The exact opposite to the previous three. Reformism holds the belief that the faith must be relatively simple and accessible to all-comers. Services should be performed by relatively ordinary people in the native language of the observers. It is usually Iconoclastic, yet also more open to change and modernity than the previous 3 dogmas.

Anyway, hope that all makes sense. Obviously different dogmas could make for interesting faith relations between nations with otherwise identical religions. For instance, having a Reformist Buddhist Japan vs an Orthodox Buddhist China. Obviously to make that work you'd need some polar opposite dogmas which create especially large foreign relations penalties-like Scholastic vs Fundamentalist, Ascetic vs Organized, Orthodox vs Reformist. Throw in penalties/bonuses for the Faith-Relations civics and the possibility for new religions to spawn from Dogma-related schisms, and the possibilities are quite enormous.

Aussie.

That's an interesting proposal for schisms, however it might be too complex to include in a mod like Revolutions.

Well, it doesn't have to be too complicated. Dogma is simply a new Civic category. The key is that each Dogma civic carries its own set of bonuses and penalties for State/Non-State religions within the nation. Where things get interesting is when a nation adopts a Dogma which is at odds with the dogma of the Holy City of a religion within your empire. By the same token, the founder of a religion might also take a hit if he/she changes the dogma of their own faith.

At its simplest, I'd see it working like this-say if an Orthodox Religion spreads to a nation with a Reformist Dogma, then it will generate -2 happiness in that city (as they are diametrically opposed), this would rise to -3 (or even -4) happiness if the receiving nation converts to the religion whilst maintaining its Reformist Dogma. Obviously this unhappiness can be countered by building of that religions temples/cathedrals. However, if the underlying dogmatic differences remain unresolved then 1 of 3 things could eventuate: 1) the cities with that religion break away and join the religion's founder (if close enough), 2) the cities with that religion break away and form an independent nation friendly towards the religion's founder (and automatically of the correct Dogma) or 3) an opportunity to found a *new* religion (sect) becomes available (not sure how hard that would be).

Now the question for me is this-should the religion bring its Dogma bonus to the receiving city? i.e. lets say an Orthodox Dogma grants +25% culture to cities. In the example above, should the spread of the Orthodox religion to a Reformist city bring with it the +25% culture bonus from Orthodox Dogma? I think it would be cool, but only if it could be easily done in the SDK.

Hope that makes a bit more sense.

Aussie.

If my opinion is anything, I think the simplist way to impliment this is to have a "schism" initiate a new "unused" religion, in a similar vein to how new Civilizations' arrise from existing Civilizations in the standard Revolutions Mod.

Currently the game has the ability to have 7 religions that are founded at 7 different technologies.

I propose that new religions (for this example say we add 3, Zoroastarianism, Hellenism, Shintoism) DO NOT have a new tech for them (along the same vein as the JARM Mod). Doing this will limit the max number of religions in the game that can be founded by normal means to 7. If the Choose Religion option is used, then the 7 in question can be any of the 10 that are now in the game... Make Sense?

Now Enter Schisms.... instead of adding a branch of an existing religion i.e. Christianity to Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox, etc... I think the best way to incorporate it is to have the "Schism" spawn one of the unused unchosed religions. Thus introducing a new religion.


For example:
Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, and Taoism are founded via the 7 technologies.

At some point in the 1500's a the English City of Dover is having religious tourmoil in it for whatever reason (too may religions, a colony, etc...). This turmoil causes them to break away from their faith, and found a new religion, which is then randomly chosed from and resulted to be Shinto.

Now Dover becomes the Holy City for Shinto, maybe some missionaries to help spread the message. All existing religions in the city are eliminated from it... and so on...


Its basically the same concept that introduces the new civilizations, except it could be religion driven instead of culture driven.

Well, that was kind of what I was getting at with my idea. Only my point was that the underlying source of this potential schism is differences between your Dogma & the Dogma of the civ which controls that religion's Holy City (&/or Founded the Religion).

So, as a case in point, if a the founder of Islam is currently Scholarly & that religion spreads to one or more cities in a civ currently running an Orthodox Dogma, then there is a chance of a religious schism erupting in one or more cities the religion exists in-potentially leading to the creation of a new Religion-Orthodox Islam (I'm guessing Shi'ite, but just Orthodox Islam would work too). If the nation in question has adopted Islam as it's State Religion-whilst still maintaining it's Orthodox views-then the chance of a schism should be markedly increased. It should then be up to the ruler of that civ whether it wants to adopt the new religion as the State Religion, or refuse to recognize it-in which case you could spark a possible revolution where the cities break away to form a new civ under this new religion.

So, to summarize:

1. All the 7 official religions gain extra "flavor" from the Central Dogma of the Religion's founder.
2. If said religion spreads to a civ with an opposing dogma, then unhappiness will result in that city. This can be partly overcome by building the appropriate religious improvements.
3. If the adoptive civ fails to change its dogma then a possible "Religious Schism" could result-with 1 of 2 possible outcomes. Either the city breaks away to become more like it's "religious parent" or an entirely new religion-carrying the dogma of it's "adoptive parent" appears.
4. If the latter event occurs, then either the adoptive civ can make this new religion the State Religion, or it can refuse to accept it, in which case a revolution can occur, with the cities breaking away to form a new civ under this new religion.
5. Obviously the nature of the schism will determine relations between any new civ & it's "adoptive" or "natural" parents.

Hope that makes sense.
3.

If you are adding all of these religions ......

What is the point of not having actual denominations? I mean I made a lot and they are real denominations. But Confucianism and Taoism are considered part of the same group, and I replaced Taoism with Zoroastrianism in importance as one of the main 7.

I think it does not make sense to have Shinto form from a schism in Christianity. Throwing in any religion is silly to me since I already did a lot of denominations anyway. But if no one is interested in the religions I made then I should not be typing this here.

I agree with you Johnny. If we can add real-life denominations, then why not. I think most of my dogmas correlate with real-life denominations of at least the monotheistic religions. Orthodox probably correlates best to Eastern Orthodox Christian, Shi'ite Muslim and Hasidic Judaism. Organized is obviously Catholicism, Judaism and Islam respectively. Fundamentalist correlates to Puritan Christianity, Zionism and Wahabbi Islam respectively. Reformist obviously relates to Protestantism for Christianity-not sure about the other two.
Ascetic correlates to Catharist Christianity & Essene Judaism. Hope that all makes sense.

Aussie.

If any religions are included (I think this should go for any mod pack), they should not include civ-specific names. Hellenism should be Olympian. Egyption should be something like Nile or anything excluding Egypt.

Well adding a lot of religions was never the intent of Revolution. I would suggest just concentrating on the 7 in game first. If you want to call it a schism they should split up.

I was thinking a few new icons for the whatever religion a schism creates, and probably better for example if Christian you can use the Christian buildings for your new religion that is from Christianity. Like Christian Catholic temples can be used for Christian Protestant Temples instead of having to add a big set of art. Just think that is idea of Revolution. Small size but big changes.

I have sets for the denominations as just recolored textures for the units. Does not mean they need be used. Just making it clear they are available. They are meant to look similar enough so you don't think they are very different from the original.

Older religions that are tied to specific culture I think should not really be for schisms. Anything that involves only people of a particular ethnic group as the only members of their religion really are civ-specific though in reality. That is my opinion anyway. I think they are meant to be civ-specific.

Egyptians or Greeks did not have some grand organized religion to spread to the world. They did not send missionaries out to spread a religion that only pertains to themselves. They did have some cults come in from other groups though. Well my 2 cents anyway.

Yeah, although a religion to represent the various pre-Judeo-Christian beliefs might be nice, I think you could just as easily have a generic temple & Temple Complex which you can build once you get Polytheism & Priesthood. Obviously it would be linked to the Civ building it, so you'd have a Greek Temple, a Roman Temple, an Egyptian Temple etc etc. It would also be replaced by the basic religious building of any one of the major religions in the game. That way there would be nothing stopping you from having an "Old World" religion right into the Modern Era, without making any major alterations to the game.
Other thoughts I had involved Civic-linked religious buildings, like a Shrine for Asceticism or a Sacred Grove for Animism. I also thought of having an Inter-Faith relation civic called Henotheism, which would allow you to build a Pantheon. What do you reckon Johnny? I think that could work.

Aussie.

Well I think they are really not the same either to replace a religion for another that does not think it is the same. Egyptians that converted to Christianity did not believe they were using the same religion. Catholics and Protestants did think it was the same.

I would not go far to begin with I mean with the other shrines. I would keep it even simpler. Just a new religion that changes some religions in the cities around it to another denomination to begin with.

For example Martin Luther makes a schism. It replaces the Catholic religion with the Protestant religion in the city done and makes a holy city. It also changes religions in the cities around from Catholic to Protestantism based on probability and stability. Some may have both afterwards.

Just think basic simple is the best way first. Check out my WoC Lite Rapture stuff if you want to see what I had in mind anyway. Was wanting to add another commerce called spiritual that is spent when using missionaries and inquisitors. Sort of like the Super Spies idea but for religion units. Was thinking spirituality points in a state religion would be an opposing force in instability issues in making schisms happen.

Anyway the first step is not complete I mean. I have a schism mission in Rapture that needs to be tweaked. Just something to work from maybe if people are interested.

Oh sorry, I think you might have misunderstood what I was getting at. The Shrine, Pantheon, early temples & stuff would disappear as soon as you first adopted a "proper" State religion. It would just allow a proper representation of the pre-Judeo Christian era religions which are currently under-represented (only the Egyptian Obelisk goes anywhere near representing that era). So you'd have all your nice Greco-Roman temples, or Egyptian Temples right up until you convert to Hinduism or Christianity etc etc.

I do think I understand what you're getting at too. Instead of having a bunch of extra Temples, Shrines, Monasteries & Cathedrals for the new religions, you'd just have the old ones convert-is that what you're saying? Still, it would be kind of nice having stuff like Canterbury Cathedral or Westminster Abbey as the Shrine for Protestantism, or some such ;).

Aussie.

Please remember that RevDCM is used as a mod base for many mods. Implementing a complex and overbuilt system as proposed in the few previous posts will ruin RevDCM for a lot of mod makers. Those ideas would be more suited for their own unique mod, like johny smith's rapture project, and not for the RevDCM core.

Oh sorry, I think you might have misunderstood what I was getting at. The Shrine, Pantheon, early temples & stuff would disappear as soon as you first adopted a "proper" State religion. It would just allow a proper representation of the pre-Judeo Christian era religions which are currently under-represented (only the Egyptian Obelisk goes anywhere near representing that era). So you'd have all your nice Greco-Roman temples, or Egyptian Temples right up until you convert to Hinduism or Christianity etc etc.

I do think I understand what you're getting at too. Instead of having a bunch of extra Temples, Shrines, Monasteries & Cathedrals for the new religions, you'd just have the old ones convert-is that what you're saying? Still, it would be kind of nice having stuff like Canterbury Cathedral or Westminster Abbey as the Shrine for Protestantism, or some such ;).

Aussie.

Well maybe on the temples. But I mean not really so important first I mean. I was thinking schisms only. In Rapture I have decay and spread religions tags based on civics and eras for earlier religions. The older religions stick around if they are state religion otherwise they go through decay.

Yes thinking that for temples, cathedrals and monasteries. As for shrines I have thirty of them with movies in Rapture for the denominations. I tried to stick to actual important ones as much as I could. So a lot already done anyway. If wanting to be used.

Please remember that RevDCM is used as a mod base for many mods. Implementing a complex and overbuilt system as proposed in the few previous posts will ruin RevDCM for a lot of mod makers. Those ideas would be more suited for their own unique mod, like johny smith's rapture project, and not for the RevDCM core.

What system would be simple then? I have not heard a real system suggested. The WoC is in RevDCM so no problems on religions icons. Adding more tags to buildinginfos for a temple to be used by many religions is small. Making a new schism mission that founds a religion is not a major change. Just add another action to the prophet.

Missionaries and Inquisitors with commerce is another thing. Like I stated looking into in Rapture now.

No offense to JS - I know he's done alot of amazing work on the schismatic denominations and it would be a fine mod in its own right - but I wouldn't want to see tons of new religions added to RevDCM either. Two or three might be OK, but any more than that ought to be a separate mod. RevDCM is supposed to be fairly standardized - fixed aspects of the game such as civilizations and leaders aren't changed too much, so far it only changes the mechanics, not the content too much. I think it ought to stay that way.

But what might be nice for the idea of schisms is that some religions flow from other religions, kind of like how civilizations have derivative civs when they found a colony. From Judaism you get Christianity, from Hinduism is Buddhism, and so on (the default used when there is no derivative could maybe be Islam). These religions would be founded by some sort of schism mechanic, say you get very high unhappiness or bad health or nationality differences in a particular city (more or less like the mechanics behind Revolution) then there would be a chance of a schism developing in that city, and a new religion being founded there. It would be a derivative of the current state religion - so if your state religion was Judaism, it would be Christianity, and so on.

I do not recommend all of my religions in a core RevDCM. I mean just how ever many people think they want. That should be able to be decided all by xml was my idea.

If you began making Judaism turn to Christianity and etc I think you are going to get yourself a bigger headache. Than just dropping in another religion icon.

But Hinduism came after Buddhism. There was a common religion they share that they sprung from. Although Hinduism looks to the Vedas for their religion source the Vedas contain different gods in similar roles. The first was an older Vedic religion for the two. I will not preach more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Vedic_religion

I don't think the idea is to add more religion art(temple, cathedral, monastery, shrine, missionary...). I do think the idea is to add more religions.

Let me make it clearer what I mean.

Civ4BuildingInfos.xml

<PrereqReligion>RELIGION_CHRISTIANITY</PrereqReligion>
<PrereqOrReligions>
<PrereqOrReligion>RELIGION_PROTESTANT</PrereqOrReligion>
<PrereqOrReligion>RELIGION_ORTHODOX</PrereqOrReligion>
<PrereqOrReligion>RELIGION_COPTIC</PrereqOrReligion>
</PrereqOrReligions>

This is example is what I am thinking. This would mean every new denomination uses the same building.

Schism extra XML

CIV4MissionInfos.xml

<MissionInfo>
<Type>MISSION_SCHISM</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_MISSION_RELIGIOUS_SCHISM</Description>
<Help>TXT_KEY_MISSION_RELIGIOUS_SCHISM_HELP</Help>
<Waypoint>NONE</Waypoint>
<EntityEventType>ENTITY_EVENT_GREAT_EVENT</EntityEventType>
<iTime>16</iTime>
<bTarget>0</bTarget>
<bBuild>0</bBuild>
<bSound>1</bSound>
<HotKey/>
<bAltDown>0</bAltDown>
<bShiftDown>0</bShiftDown>
<bCtrlDown>0</bCtrlDown>
<iHotKeyPriority>0</iHotKeyPriority>
<HotKeyAlt/>
<bAltDownAlt>0</bAltDownAlt>
<bShiftDownAlt>0</bShiftDownAlt>
<bCtrlDownAlt>0</bCtrlDownAlt>
<iHotKeyPriorityAlt>0</iHotKeyPriorityAlt>
<bVisible>1</bVisible>
<Button>Art/Interface/Buttons/Actions/ReligiousSchism.dds</Button>
</MissionInfo>

Civ4UnitInfos.xml

<bReligiousSchism>1</bReligiousSchism>

I do not have anything for units as <PrereqOrReligion> yet. That was not my intent with Rapture. I do not think Rapture should be in RevDCM.

I am saying that the smallest way I see it is is to only add icons and no new buildings or units. I do not think people are understanding me. I never said add Rapture. I just have some code that may be useful is all. I will let you guys argue about the count. I do not care. Only thing I would want to see is a schism.

7 Religions is enough. There is no need for more. In fact adding more is just one of those MAOR CONTENT OMFGWTFBBQ!11!!!!1 things to do. I am firmly against it, more relegions will not help gameplay, actually for a standard player it will only harm it. If you want more religions mod them in, don't force useless stuff in RevDCM because some of you like RoM and want MAOR STUFF, LOL!11!!!! More is not better.

7 Religions is enough. There is no need for more. In fact adding more is just one of those MAOR CONTENT OMFGWTFBBQ!11!!!!1 things to do. I am firmly against it, more relegions will not help gameplay, actually for a standard player it will only harm it. If you want more religions mod them in, don't force useless stuff in RevDCM because some of you like RoM and want MAOR STUFF, LOL!11!!!! More is not better.

So people just swap their religion? That is not a schism. So you just want to have one of the 7 appear? What are the followers of a previous religion going to do then? Why don't we have no religions founded from techs then? I am lost what you want in religion behavior. You make no sense. SO YOU WANT TO FORCE PEOPLE TO CHANGE THE REVDCM. You want to add a feature that waters down the importance of religion by giving it to others by not having to select a tech. WHERE DID YOU DECIDE WHAT IS REVDCM? I only made a suggestion. AND I DO NOT LIKE TYPING IN ALL CAPS. AND GO MAKE SOME WORTHLESS STUFF FOR YOUR MOD. I AM NOT TALKING TO YOUR ALL CAPS TYPING DUM......

The game is perfectly balanced with 7 religions. More just complicates diplomatic and happiness issues needlessly.

I don't think the idea is to add more religion art(temple, cathedral, monastery, shrine, missionary...). I do think the idea is to add more religions.

It's not the more art that I don't want (by all means, more art!! Ethnic artstyles for the religious buildings would be just fine). It's just the way religion is set up in the game right now, I feel like more than a handful (7 ... maybe room for a couple more, tops) would be too many. It would make diplomacy alot more difficult and wars would be far more common - and not just for the human player, the AIs would be at war with each other pretty much constantly because it will be very difficult for any particular religion to be a state religion to more than one or two civs, if many more than a single-digit number of religions are in play.

Or you could balance it out so that only the first couple of religions to get founded really go global, but that's a cure that's worse than the disease. With the small number of religions there are now, most games tend to go that you get competition between 3-4 very different world religions with extensive influence, and there's room for a religion founded in the middle of the game (with some effort) to achieve that status. This is just about right.

On the other hand, I could see this being done in a very modular way so that people could pick and choose exactly how many and which religions would be seen in the game, just by changing a few zeroes to 1's. If this defaulted to the usual 7 and/or it was a WoC-type module, I can't see anyone having a problem with it.

As far as Hinduism/Buddhism ... maybe. But drawing a line between Vedic and Vedic Hinduism at any specific point in time is totally arbitrary. It's the same tradition, it just evolved. Buddhism references a specific individual and a specific point in history, and has a clear dividing line. But all that aside, it's a game and some historical license is allowed, particularly in civ ... where Judaism might be founded by the Aztecs, who promptly have "Jeanne Arc" build the Temple of Solomon in Tlateloco!

Here's the way I see it. I agree that having dozens of religious sects on top of the main religions could get pretty unwieldy-so how about about having 8 "Major religions" & slots for 4 "Minor Religions" or Sects? Personally, I think that engineering a schism could be a very good diplomatic tool, & one with a basis in real history. Didn't get Buddhism & don't like taking orders from the Orthodox Head Lama in Berlin? Then switch your own dogma to Reformist & try and engineer a "split in the church", with yourself at the head of the new, Reform Buddhist Sect. Also, if I'm not mistaken, this mod would almost certainly include an Inquisition Mod, which means that the number of religions in any given game would be in constant flux-as specific leaders sought to root out any kind of Heresy within the kingdom. Again this has a real-life basis, as evidenced by the Inquisition against the Cathari heresy & the related Albigensian Crusade (which, in my in-game thinking-would be some kind of Ascetic/Gnostic sect of Christianity).
Hope that makes sense.

Aussie.

Well whatever with the religions. Does not matter how many that can all be modules. That is what I had in mind if it was not obvious already. There is 10mb limit or an upload for RevDCM core at this point is the plan I thought. Then can have whatever modules to add a count. If you are making a schism then it should be a split of a religion. If not a split of religion call it something else.

Adding more modfications to how religions play would be more work I think then just adding a religon in game from a schism and removing one from the city before.

The divide in Vedic versus modern Hinduism in Rapture is when the present Hindu gods began being worshipped. The two biggest denominations are to Vishnu and Shiva. I having them began around 500 BC. The older Vedic has Agni, Indra, and Mithra in Rapture. Total difference in gods worshipped. Each denomination has a lot of differences of belief inside of Hinduism as well. Hindus do not make human sacrifices anymore or burn horses to Agni for example like in the Vedic. Either way the name Hinduism did not come into use to way after Buddhism. Asoka promoted Buddhism after the decline Buddhism in India I would say is another possiblity point to say a change.

Either way it would be the same case for Judaism and Christainity as well. When Jesus died the the messiah cults did not immediately consider theirselves a separate religion. That came a good bit after. Islam came from Judaism? It obviously has Christian influences as well. Anyway I am just saying I think you are opening a jar of worms with it.

What are you looking for in a schism is the real question? I am lost of what you guys imagine will happen. Do you mean a civic change and that is it? You can not just drop in another symbol for the religion icons unless it is a religion. The other idea would be to add some text to the scoreboard or something. I do not see anyway else to display it.

If you just want a civic change then really this is not a schism religion wise in game reading it as another religion. You would not change an icon in the city with it. Just would not be getting along with another leader of the same religion. That is not a bad idea. Just would have to add a lot more to where somewhere it is decided who is the authority for a religion. Who is the rebel and etc. All I am saying I do not see how any of the options can be done to interact with others in the same religion. Does not mean it can not be done just a lot more work than just having another religion.

Please explain in detail what you think should happen with each civ that follow one religion does the religion civic change or how a religion would swap from Judaism to Christainity. How would you represent the change in game? Because I do not see a way of easily doing what I think you guys are asking.

Civics would be displayed as a leader's choice only. So really would not do a lot on individual cities. Would be more of a diplomacy option. Your people never decided that is really just a your state religion policy.

If you want your followers to have a schism like what a schism did in real life. Where people in your cities converted and have problems within your empire than you need a religion to appear.

I don't think any changes to religions are necessary. 7 is fine, and schisms wouldn't add too much to the game.

The divide in Vedic versus modern Hinduism in Rapture is when the present Hindu gods began being worshipped. The two biggest denominations are to Vishnu and Shiva. I having them began around 500 BC. The older Vedic has Agni, Indra, and Mithra in Rapture. Total difference in gods worshipped.

More like a difference in status. Vishnu, for instance, is in the Rig Veda - and the Rig Veda comes from the early Vedic period. Also in the Yajurveda (Vedic, but not as early).

A heck of alot more attention is paid in the Rig Veda to gods like Agni, but have a look at their relationship to Vishnu:

1. MEN come not nigh thy majesty who growest beyond all bound and measure with thy body.
Both thy two regions of the earth, O Visnu, we know: thou God, knowest the highest also.
2. None who is born or being born, God Visnu, hath reached the utmost limit of thy grandeur.
The vast high vault of heaven hast thou supported, and fixed earth's eastern pinnacle securely.
3. Rich in sweet food be ye, and rich in milch-kine, with fertile pastures, fain to do men service.
Both these worlds, Visnu, hast thou stayed asunder, and firmly fixed the earth with pegs around it.
4. Ye have made spacious room for sacrificing by generating Surya, Dawn, and Agni.

Shiva is thought to be a composite deity whose emergence can't really be specifically dated, but may be tied to a deity in the Rig Veda called Rudra.


When Jesus died the the messiah cults did not immediately consider theirselves a separate religion.

Well, exactly. It was originally a schismatic sect of Judaism, a splinter cult.

Islam came from Judaism? It obviously has Christian influences as well.

No doubt. St John of Damascus, who was surrounded by early Islam, didn't even realize it was a separate religion - he just thought it was a new, frontier heresy of Christianity. The differences were certainly minimal at that time (even the kneeling during prayer was, originally, a tradition of Byzantine Christianity).

What are you looking for in a schism is the real question?

I can only speak for myself, but what I'm looking for is that any given 'early' religion would have a tendency to produce a specific 'late' religion. If your state religion was Judaism, and you founded a new religion, it would be Christianity (for example). For Buddhism and Hinduism you could do something where both are derivatives of each other (if you had Buddhism as your state religion and founded a new religion, it would be Hinduism, and vice-versa). The late religion, once it emerged, would also have a tendency to spread to cities which had the old religion.

If you had really developed the old religion and built alot of temples and so on, you might not want to lose the investment and start again from scratch, or you might have foreign relations that might be adversely affected by the new religion - so you would fight against its spread with inquisitors and so on. On the other hand, if you hadn't invested all that much or there were foreign benefits, it might not be worthwhile to fight, and you would simply accept the new religion being spread. Particularly if you were the founder and possessed the new Holy City but not the old one. If you were the founder of the old religion and had it's Holy City, you might fight like hell to keep it from spreading in your borders. All kinds of dynamics ...

Basically not really a change in the religions themselves, just in the mechanics of how they spread. So that a religion that emerged very late wouldn't necessarily fall to the wayside, but could very well supplant a widespread religion that had been founded earlier. Or not.

Increasing the number of religions doesn't make for a schism mechanic, no matter how many you include or whether they happen to share icons and buildings or not.

Actually, Frekk, this is another area where I think religious schisms would be very helpful from a "gameplay" perspective. One of the big issues I have with religion at the moment is that-given the same rate of spread-Hinduism & Buddhism will almost always end up dominating the map. If you have a schism model in place, then religions like these will probably be the most subject to schism due to their greater age & the diversity of civilizations to which it has spread (thus exposing them to greater dogmatic variation). This might help to prevent these religions from *always* dominating every game (especially if you include an Inquisition system).
Another thing which my civic mod did was to have an Evangelical vs Insular "Inter-Faith Relations" civic. The Evangelical Civic allowed the civ to build missionaries without the need for a monastery (like the existing Organized Civic Mod), wheras the Insular Civic prevented you from building missionaries at all. I confess this was a bit of a hack, as I also wanted to have a Civic tag which adjusted the spread rate of the religion.

Aussie.

Actually, Frekk, this is another area where I think religious schisms would be very helpful from a "gameplay" perspective. One of the big issues I have with religion at the moment is that-given the same rate of spread-Hinduism & Buddhism will almost always end up dominating the map. If you have a schism model in place, then religions like these will probably be the most subject to schism due to their greater age & the diversity of civilizations to which it has spread

Well, that has nothing to do with shcisms per se. Whatever mechanic you use to render early religions somehow vulnerable to the spread of newer (ie founded later in the game) religions, can be used just as easily with major religions as opposed to minor schisms. I.e. whatever makes Protestantism spread to Catholic cities, could just as easily be used to make Christianity spread to Jewish cities. Or Greco-Roman Pantheistic cities or however you want to set up the major religions and their derivatives.

For schisms to really work, though, you'd need an additional layer of complexity: less hostility between denominations of the same religion as opposed to more hostility with entirely different religions altogether. Otherwise they're not really schisms in game terms; they work the same as new religions and we're not really talking about anything different, other than the names and the number of religions. It really doesn't matter much in terms of mechanics if you call the original and supplanter religion Lutheranism and Anglicanism, or Judaism and Christianity. That's just a flavour thing. So is the total number of religions. IMO, anything that can be called a flavour change ought to be left to a module. The mechanic behind one religion (whether it can be called a schism or an entirely new religion) supplanting another is what we should be talking about.

Why is everyone talking about new civics? Ideally, the system would work independantly of new civics. The simpler it is and the more portable it is, the better. New civics should be like a modmod - cool, maybe, but not necessary for balance and functioning of the new game mechanic. Similarly, if this is for use in Revolutions (RevDCM in particular) it should be able to function well in isolation without any of the other optional features like Inquisition. It should interact in interesting ways with something like Inquisitions, but it shouldn't be dependant on it for balance.

Sorry Frekk, but as a student of History let me assure you that more people have died as a result of sectarian violence than have died as a result of inter-religious warfare. Hundreds of thousands-possibly millions-of people died in the Wars of Religion in Europe following the rise of Protestantism. Even today, Shi'ites kill Sunnis, and vice versa, and the Protestant/Catholic conflict in Ireland still hasn't completely abated.
Also, although I mention extra civics a lot (because I think they're needed to add more depth to religion-whether you have schisms or not) the schism system I envisage would not need the civics in order to work (though I would like a version which does). Indeed, you could structure it in the manner of a random event. If you're Christian (State Religion) you could have something like a "95 Theses" event where-if you have a Cathedral, a Priest Specialist (or Super-specialist) and are under Organized or Theocratic Civic, then you get a choice of how to respond to this priest who has just nailed his Theses to the door of the cathedral.

Aussie.

Sorry Frekk, but as a student of History let me assure you that more people have died as a result of sectarian violence than have died as a result of inter-religious warfare. Hundreds of thousands-possibly millions-of people died in the Wars of Religion in Europe following the rise of Protestantism.

Even today, Shi'ites kill Sunnis, and vice versa, and the Protestant/Catholic conflict in Ireland still hasn't completely abated.

They're proximate to one another. Conflict between proximate groups is expected, and it will occur on the fault lines of whatever differences they have, religious denomination being one of them.

Nor would I agree with your statistical assessment. Have you studied much about Hungary, the Balkans, Israel, etc? Places like France and Ireland loom larger in our consciousness (being that we are of the Commonwealth) and places like southeastern Europe occupy a very diminished and obscure part. Do you know what a homunculus is? The way we perceive history is very similar. Ireland's conflicts are so minor in terms of statistics, and France's were intense but extraordinarily brief compared to the longstanding conflicts between Christians and Muslims in places like Romania, Hungary, and the Balkans.

And the thing is, it's internal conflict for the most part. The Wars of Religion in France or the Troubles in Ireland weren't wars between states. Sectarian conflict doesn't generally have a great impact on international relations, with a few exceptions (like England vs Spain etc; not entirely a religious matter, though), and those only between proximates (the Catholics of Northern Ireland don't want to go to Sweden and cause trouble there, nor do the Protestants want to go to Hungary and have a march through Catholic Budapest. They're only really involved in conflict with the denomination of their immediate neighbours). WW3 might start over something the Israelis do, but it won't start because of anything the Republicans or Loyalists in Belfast do. Hungarian, Italian, or Swedish Christians just don't worry about it much, no matter whether they happen to be Protestant or Catholic. But they would if the Republicans were Islamic rather than Catholic!

But historical debate is something of a distraction here.

In any case, we're still just talking about a flavour difference, for purposes of the game. The problem is: religions founded late in the game don't fluorish, except by strenuous effort on the part of a (human) player. The solution could be a mechanic whereby early religions are rendered vulnerable to the spread of late ones, and each early religion is vulnerable to a specific late religion - call it a derivative religion or a schism, that's arbitrary, the mechanic doesn't need to be any different. Flavours like denominations, the way I see it, can be added in later. It's a different issue - the mechanic ought to work no matter how you choose to divide the religions, which ones you include, or how many there are. In other words, it should work with the 7 base religions without requiring any other changes.

If a mechanic like that can be devised which works for the religions as they are now, then denominations - or any other setup which could make good use of the new mechanic - can easily be added in separately as a module, and can capitalize on the mechanic.

The less dependant the mechanic is on the specifics of the religious setup, the more utility it has and the more mod-friendly it is. Adding denominations is just a matter of adding some new religions, which really doesn't have anything to do with the mechanic itself.

I think for me that the biggest change I want to see to religions-with or without schisms-is how they are founded. Are you familiar with the True Prophet mod? It was a bit of a hack, but it tied the founding of religions to both the techs & Great Prophets. In order to work, though, it would require some representation of "religion" (like early temples, monasteries, sacred groves et al) prior to the foundation of the major religions-so that you can generate the necessary Great Prophet points. In the same vain, you might have a Great Prophet be able to do a "Cause Schism" mission-using a similar mechanic to a trade mission for Great Merchants. Schisms could only be done within cities that have an existing religion, and the "new" religion would have to be in some way connected to the existing religion (like your Christianity from Judaism thing).
How does that sound?

Aussie.

Are you familiar with the True Prophet mod? It was a bit of a hack, but it tied the founding of religions to both the techs & Great Prophets. In order to work, though, it would require some representation of "religion" (like early temples, monasteries, sacred groves et al) prior to the foundation of the major religions-so that you can generate the necessary Great Prophet points.

There are other ways to get GPs. You can assign a GP to be given to the first person to discover a particular tech. I've also seen mods that give a unit to anyone who discovers a specific tech, not just the first. And I suppose really, you could have a GP appear according to pretty much any variable you wanted with the right coding.

Or you could have generic pagan temples that don't require any 'religion', that become obsolete.

Another thing that might be interesting, is if religions don't appear so predictably at all - if they were somehow founded as an event, triggered like other events. Then you could even have some choices about how to respond - for instance, you could have three choices:

-adopt it as a state religion, and all your cities with the old religion could get some unhappiness for a few turns;
-suppress it, and it will cause unhappiness wherever it's present until you adopt it as the state religion
-(Free Religion required) allow followers of the new faith to practice their religion and encourage tolerance; no particular effect

I don't know if it's possible to do that or not though.

Guys check out Rapture. The prophet can make another religion based on having a preexisting religion. Like if you are catholic you can make protestant. Well please just look at it. I have some useful things anyway. I do not mean use all Rapture. Just thought you should give it a look. The SDK is not totally finished it it yet.

Sorry I was in a rush before. The schism mission is generic in Rapture. It is set in the xml. You have a tag in the religioninfos called "parent religion". So you can set if you wanted Judaism as a normal religion and Christianity as a split from it. To do it add the tag "parent religion Judaism" to Christianity for example.

If you want to see how it is setup in Rapture I have a folder for each religion group and then there is one folder called control. In the control folder I have multiple religioninfo files. One sets the parents and then one sets the dominations. You do not have to have the entire xml file for this just the relative pieces. Anyway it has been done.

Now there are automatic schisms as well which are not really tweaked good yet. I would not bother with those that is more complicated, but it has religions randomly appear regardless of what the players do.

You need one of the parent religions and a prophet to perform a manual schism. A pop up appears and ask for which parent religion you want to make a schism from and after that the selection of a new religion from the group is random. It does not remove a religion when it adds one. I want to add the ability remove a religion in a schism when I can as well in but only in some cases like based on stability of a city.

Here is a link of the latest version I am working on. It is big because of sounds and movie files.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=321507

I think you guys need to focus this discusion a little more. Schisms are an interesting idea, but please remember to keep ideas simple. Also, I've noticed a few argument popping up about where religions have come from in real life, whether or not they are the same thing, etc. I think gameplay should be the primary focus here. Realism is always secondary and if you get caught up in historical details nothing is going to move forward.

Locce, I do kind of agree with you. That is why I think we need to answer some basic questions in order to determine the best way to implement schisms. Those questions I feel are:

1. Should a schism system involve just "major religions"? Just denominations? Or both?
Indeed, should denominations even be in the model?

2. What kind of cap should we have on the total number of religions/denominations in the game? Should it be based on map size?

3. Should schisms be linked to Prophets? To missionaries? To random events? Or maybe a mixture?

4. Assuming you can engineer a schism yourself, should it be limited only to your own cities, or should you be able to cause schisms in other people's cities?

5. What impacts should a schisms have on a city (happiness, health, yields, commerces, new buildings etc etc)? In a related question, should the old religion remain in the city, or should it be removed?

6. What impacts should a schism have on foreign relations?

7. Do you think any changes would need to be made to the existing religion civics? I'm thinking new tags like <iSchismModifier> or <iReligionSpreadModifier>.

Anyway, hope that helps to ground things a bit.

Aussie answers to your questions first.

1. Any in the SDK. WoC Modules each mod can decide for theirself. It is not hardcoded in the SDK which religion is the parent and which is the child.

2. It should be relative to map size. 0 as in zero religions should actually be added I think to RevDCM. This should all be in modules for RevDCM and there should be global define to adjust how many in game are running even on top of map size adjustement.

3.Prophets and events. If you guys ever look at Rapture. I have dates that you can set for when a religion has an automatic schism. And in this range it is random when it occurs but will happen regardless.

4.You should be able to make schisms in other cities if you have open borders. That would be the most logical thing to do. Otherwise it would not be so useful I think. If you have someone with the AP and tired of the holy power you can make quite a mess for him or her.

5.Well with removing first. In Rapture I am going to change it to prevent schisms from occuring in a city with a holy city I think as default. Why. Because people would not want holy cities removed, and the city will stack a lot of religions otherwise. But yes in the city it occured the older should be removed in my opinion, and you should have schism wave effect of cities around it having a chance of it occuring. And again based on some stability modifier wether or not it occurs. I also have religion decay which you can set for say Hinduism for example. There is an era and civic tag for the decay effect. I have the text displaying and more in a newer SDK working on now by faichele in the WoC Full.

Yields and etc. I don't think it is needed. Maybe anarchy for few turns in a city.

6.Should not matter. Unless you adopt the religion. And if you do then what. You still get a penalty to diplomacy regardless really. Only thing might be for a period of time their would be problems between the parent and child religion maybe, but that is more complicated to do I think.

7. This is more complicated and something that I am working on now. I am adding a spriitual commerce in Rapture. You can make spiritual commerce just like you make culture with religious buildings. I have not put it in the latest yet. I have been busy with art for now. The idea is though each religious building produces spiritual commerce. So the more spiritual commerce generated for a particular religion it effects the spread rate.

And again I am just peeing in the wind if no one really looks at the functions in Rapture I have.

I don't understand what can be more generic then what is already made for the schism. You set everything in the xml. I am working on hoping to improve on it now. But it has been done already. You do not have to add religions to the game. You can use religions already in game, and not add any. The RevDCM core should not add a ton of garbage. Modules are there to add more so everyone can choose for theirselves.

I like the sounds of Rapture ... but I don't really like the idea of engineering a schism. On the other hand, it wouldn't be any more disagreeable than the way you engineer religions now, by beelining techs, so I really shouldn't complain.

I don't really like the idea of child religions not being able to be present in the same city as the parent religion, or one removing the other. There are lots of places where offshoots and their progenitors coexisted (often with alot of conflict, but still). I don't think the mechanics there should be any different than they usually are in Revolutions for cities with different religions, keeping in mind that with Revolutions, it's not easy to maintain religious diversity.

Trust me Johny, your Rapture system sounds pretty damn close to the way I want a religion system to work-I really must take some time to look at it. Heck, it might even give me some great ideas for revamping my civics mod for BtS. I really would like a system for founding religions similar to the way True Prophets mod worked (which was, itself, a harbinger of the corporation model). Having a period of time enjoying true "Paganism/Polytheism" prior to gaining sufficient GP points to found a religion would be really cool, and would eliminate some of the beelining problems that frekk refers to. I also think that prophets as the instigators of both religions and schisms is perfectly fair, as these people are those who-historically-really did change the course of their society and/or religion.

Aussie.

Well as it set now there are no religions removed from schisms. I am trying to tune the mod better is why I want to remove some in the schism. I am not thinking automatically the religion is removed during a schism. I am thinking there is several factors that determine if a religion is removed or if a new religion can be founded. And this is only for Parent versus Child. Not other religions.

Factors to are....
1. State Religion
2. Stability
3. Holy City
4. Spiritual Commerce in a city from buildings
5. A hard limit set on the amount of religions in a city determined by a player.

I am only using 7 religions founded from techs at this point in Rapture. And those 7 are the parents. So I never really looked into the idea of just True Prophet. I really think it gets confusing to have 2 classes of prophets.

Well anyway the point of the whole entire thing would be able to turn things on and off in the global defines. If you do not like manual schisms for example turn them off. It would have to be all able to be customized.

Sorry just wanted to say I patched up the 3.19 version of Rapture now. I had left some things commented out that left manual schisms and inquisitions not available. Anyway I posted a just dll if it was downloaded before, and sorry ahead of time. I also put in my 48 shamans (108 new units in all)recently as well if not seen yet. Anyway I hope someone will let me know some feedback anyway on it.

Here's an idea I've had brewing in my head for a while now; I'm planning on implementing it in NwT 1.2 or so, but I thought I'd throw it out here and see if people thought it might be worth implementing in RevDCM.

It's sort of an answer for those situations where you want/need to do something tech-wise early on that doesn't involve beelining for a religion, especially if you're off by yourself for a while, but find yourself needing temples or what-have-you to make your empire run more smoothly: Your people's everyday spirituality becomes so prevalent that it becomes a major force in your culture, a Native Faith. Mechanically, your people's Native Faith would emerge in the first city that gets its either 2nd or 3rd expansion, provided that:

You've discovered Mysticism
Your Native Faith has not already emerged
The city has no other religions present

Once in play, a Native Faith functions just like any other religion; however, they don't have shrines, and probably don't have cathedral-equivalents (maybe not even monasteries?). They can spread across borders, but only to cities that have no other religions present (and maybe at lower probability?) - but once they've taken root in a given nation, they can spread just like they do in their native lands. This simulates things like the traditional Greek pantheon basically taking over Rome.

I am already doing something similar. Each civ begins with a religion though and it does not spread to other civs. You have just a temple for it. Then you can build a wonder that gives you a cult within that religion. The cult can be spread to another civ only by a unit, and when the cult is spread there is a chance the original religion will spread.

For example you begin as Greece you get Hellenism(only certain civs can start with it). Then you can build the Statue of Zeus if you have Hellenism as a religion. (If not Hellenism you can not build it.) After building it you receive the Zeus cult. You can then spread the Zeus cult to other civs with a Zeus Shaman(not by regular mechanics), and after another civ has the Zeus cult there is a slight chance the civ can receive Hellenism.

I am already doing something similar. Each civ begins with a religion though and it does not spread to other civs.

I haven't played your mod, but I have a few suggestions (which you may already be implementing):

"Native civ" religions should not trigger negative diplo modifiers. They also should not have holy cities (the only religions with holy cities should be the stand-out, major religions). Schisms and the like (religions breaking off from another) should share the same holy city as the parent religion's city. Some of the other minor religions should also not have holy cities. Religions without holy cities could also spread to barbarians (to add some variety to barb cities).

The 7 major religions should be just that: major religions. The rest should be considered minor religions, which decay over time if science spending/literacy/education reaches a certain percent (i.e, with the spread of libraries in the classical era, ancient religions should die out).

The game should be balanced so that there are only 5-7 dominant religions at one time. 2 main reasons for this: adding religions for the sake of religions is silly, and civ-mechanics-wise, there needs to be several civs sharing a religion in order for it to be worth it (if every civ has its own religion, it's silly because they all get negative modifiers with each other. Part of the point of religions in this game is to get civs into "blocks" of allies). Also, if you keep adding religions which have holy cities, on smaller maps, every city in the world could easily be holy if you have lots of religions.

Although, to reiterate, this is clearly too much complexity to add into base RevDCM, I do think it would be interesting as a module if you balance the religions properly. I'd love seeing religions rise and fall just like civilizations do in this mod, just please tweak it so that the minor religions don't get in the way of overall game/diplo balance.

Well a lot of things thought about in the past already. Holy cities are there for denominations like normal religions but the point was to really limit how many come in play based on the map size and player decision. And that is going to be controlled by xml, but still waiting for faichele to put in his fixes on that. I mean if I would not have holy cities then catholic would have a holy city and orthodox would not. That is not good I think to most players, but at the same time they are not meant to all appear. Right now the code has automatic schism that just fill in the cities per years randomly based on the dates they appear. That is going to be limited severely when I get it done. I mean it makes no sense to have too many religions out there.

The earlier Native what I called pagan religions are treated same diplomacy wise. There is still holy cities but that does not mean they produce the same amount of global commerce. The holy cities are planned to swap based on who has the highest spiritual commerce from within the group. And the cults have holy cities as well but again no global commerce. Pagans are not going to use the Apostolic Palace I mean. None of pagan holy cites act like a holy city but they give benefits still over just having the religion.

As for Apostolic Palace that is something I wanted to do as well was have more of them if possible in the future. One possibly per group and was thinking of changing the diplomacy to count religions in groups versus individual religions. So alliances were planned to recongnize denominations as part of the same group, but at the same time have not so good relations as the same exact religion. So for example all Christians could announce a holy war and call on all Christian denominations for help. But it is not even started yet. But a lot ideas of making better religion alliances anyway.

I am only suggesting that some of the stuff could be used. Not the complete mod. I am adding in an earlier era as well now so the mod could never fully be used I think. It may never even get done, but I want something really new. Just altering slightly to me is not enough for my full mod.