After reading that Religion would become a game concept, as opposed to just a Civ trait, i began wondering how this would be applied to the game, and how it would affect gameplay. So....

Implementation

Do you see Religion being something selectable at the start of the game? i.e. you pick Spain, and then Muslim/Catholic/Buddhist, or whatever...

Do you think that Religion will be tied to Culture groups, or Civs themselves, and do you think this is a good idea?

Can you see it being possible that you 'create' your own religion (not with you as the Deity :P ), and you being able to select one (or more) form a list of bonuses?

Will each Civ have the ability to become a Secular state, thus losing its (possible) negative characteristics? How many religions will there be?

Do you think the Religion will be randomly chosen, and applied to your Civ?

Should there be an option to turn religion 'off' as there currently is with Civ traits/UUs?


Affects

Will each Religion have its own bonuses? i.e. Protestants could have a worker bonus, or something along those lines?

Will Religions have Unique Wonders, bearing in mind the Sistine Chapel, the Pyramids, etc as Religious buildings. Will this make the creation of new wonders necessary? Will there be unique units amongst each religious faction?

Does this necessarily create Religious hatred in the game that must be tempered, or acted upon? (not the human player acting on their own feelings, I mean "Our people detest the Heathen Aztecs" "The hedonistic Ottoman religion runs in opposition to our Puritan values" etc.). Would this force the human player to target certain Civs when warmaking?)

Would Religion force Civs down certain tech paths? When the Conquistadors reached South America, they thought the Aztecs were primitive, but the Aztecs had mapped the stars which was something the Pope had forbidden as the Catholic Church had said that the Sun went around the Earth.

How important will the concept be? Will it be part of culture, as it is now, or will it stand apart from this? If so, will new 'culture improvements' be necessary, and do we actually want more city improvements? Will the concept ever become 'obsolete', say on reaching values of secularity, or on a Marxist theory of religion?


Im interested to hear what everyone has to say about this as I think it will be an interesting addition to Civ, and I wanted to know how people envisaged Religion in cIV...

1 thing for sure, make sure that if i'm a christian(or w/e religon you want to add here) i should have better diplomatic staus w/ that cointry

Hmm. For starters, I think one's religion should be limited by one's technology and then expand as one's horizons expand. One could not choose Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism until it begins, and even then only after one "discovers" it or it is shared by another civ.
:egypt:

but isn;t that the point of civ? rewriting history? obviously the aztecs didn't discover rocketry in 1973, we are rewriting history, and religon should be one of those options

Welcome to CFC [party]

Choices could expand thusly:
With no religion tech: amoralism (could give smallest combat bonus) or pragmatism (pragmatic community morals, perhaps with bonus in researching ceremonial burial)
Ceremonial burial: Belief in afterlife (with a one shield reduction in corruption in cities over a certain size, or maybe one unhappy citizen becomes content in each city) or primitive Fatalism (with next smallest combat bonus)
Mysticism: Animism (with smallest worker bonus) or primitive belief system of Sky Warrior worship ( with third smallest combat bonus)
Polytheism: Anthropomorphic Pantheon (like the Egyptians, Aztecs, and Carthaginians, with associated fertility rites and potential for human sacrifice -- small food bonus) or Human centric Pantheon ( like Greece, Rome, and Sumerians, with small science bonus or some such)
Monotheism: This would be much trickier. I will have to give this some more thought.
Philosophy: This would be a great required tech for Buddhism, IMHO. Likewise for Confucianism.

Sure, Ybbor. I agree with that about rewriting history. But I think no civ should be able to choose a religion until its enabling tech is discovered.

That way, a religion's advantages and disadvantages could not be utilized until a nation discovers (or is prosyletized by a civ that has) that tech.

i think that each relgion should give certain pluses and minuses similar to governments. for instance, Islam could allow +2draft rate to your current draft rate. Christianity could add +15% worker rate. Athiesism could allow +1 military police. Basic beliefs/religons with limited benifits would be available at the begining of the game (w/ tribal customs the default type, giving no benifits), and all others available at the begining of the middle ages

EDIT: and if you want to add something to your posts, you can just hit the "edit" button at the upper right-hand corner of your posts, this way you aren't making 5 posts to get a point across you could get in 1 :)

For instance, one of the reasons so many civs in the Mediterranean world had trouble grasping the notion of monotheism was that it seemed, well, snobbish. Who ever heard of only one god? How dare anyone think that everyone else's god did not exist, or was somehow a lesser being? It took time to accept such a radical idea. It flew in the face of all previous popular religious thought. Look at Socrates. He dared to question the reliability of the Greek Human-centric pantheon, with all their foibles, and he was charged with and executed for "corrupting Athen's youth."

i think that each relgion should give certain pluses and minuses similar to governments. for instance, Islam could allow +2draft rate to your current draft rate. Christianity could add +15% worker rate. Athiesism could allow +1 military police. Basic beliefs/religons with limited benifits would be available at the begining of the game (w/ tribal customs the default type, giving no benifits), and all others available at the begining of the middle ages

I like all of that, except about all others available at the Mid Ages. Maybe certain civs could be the first to introduce a religion. Arabs could introduce Islam; if no Arab in the game, then the next down a list of Middle Eastern nations, and if no M.E. civs in a game, then randomly selected. That civ could barter that religion like a tech for the first 100 years. Or maybe after a certain time in the game (all of this should be editable of course), any nation could choose that religion. For the first time following the intro of the religion (first fifty or 100 years), any civ choosing that religion loses a small amount of gold (say 1 per turn, tithes of the faithful) to the initializing civ. This would be a benefit to being the first to adopt a new religion.

well, ummm, that goes back to the concept of rewriting history, we write history, why not have a tech be granted very set # of years according to how it was in real life? why not have your cities have a set build order, that plays to each civ's history? why? because we're leaving the realm of video games, and entering movie. Also, there wouldn't be enough religon's to go around, w/ 32 civs, each one would need a religopn tp balance the game

Yeah, well, I know about editing. I try to keep my posts short because my phone lines are old. I hate to spend a half hour typing out a thorough essay, and then lose it all because some party liner in my neighborhood kicks me offline. Such is life in the country. I'm not a newbie, I just changed ISPs and had to re-register in order to post tonight.

What do you think about Philosophy being a prereq for Buddhism or Confucianism. I think Buddhism is the most philosophic religion there is. I keep thinking of the kung fu master in , well, Kung Fu with David Carradine. (Now I'm dating myself.)

What benefits could we give with Buddhism? Maybe a more content, but pacifistic, populace? But with a strong partisan resistance when occupied? Longer time to break down resistance?

Err, I think you misunderstood me. I never suggested techs or religions automatically "appearing" at certain dates. I merely suggested that certain religions are associated with certain religious techs and shouldn't be available until those techs are discovered. I think I agree with you more than you give me credit for.

Perhaps I inadequately represented my idea about a civ introducing a religion. The first civ to discover monotheism, could of course, choose any monotheistic religions he wants. A feature that could be turned off or on, though, could be that the first civ to discover monotheism independently would introduce Judaism, (even though they aren't Jewish, they could be assumed to have a Jewish minority within their population). The next to independently discover monotheism would have the privilege of choosing Judaism or introducing Christianity. This selectable or omittable feature would allow for the advantage that any civ introducing a new religion enjoys. It was so with Rome and Christianity, and so with the Arabs and Islam. Those civs that chose their religion were for a long time, in a small way, beholden to them. That ended as time passed, but these are realistic features that could be molded as dynamics in the game. I was in no way suggesting that religion be some static clock ticking, like an event in the game.

Ybbor, what do you think of offering some religions that are not normally considered so, such as Scientism or Humanism. Maybe Humanism is not so very distinguishable from Atheism. I like your idea about atheism giving a bonus for military police. It reminds me of all the totalitarian regimes inspired by Neitzshe.
Maybe Scientism could give a small science bonus, but a minus in contentment. Humanism or atheism could have the military bonus balanced by a slight increase in corruption.
At any rate, all these things and the aspects of each religions pros and cons should be editable, just as governments are.:king:

Religion and political affiliation should go hand in hand.

@ Jeremiah: Neitzshe is not the ideological founder of any totalitarian state, although he was often misquoted by Hitler et al.

@Neomega: are you saying each Civ would have to change religion as it changes Gov?

How could Judaism be brought in with the Monotheism when it developed in the Ancient age? The game clock is set from the birth of Christ, so would this have to be changed in cIV? And if Religions are tied to techs, does this not lead to the current problem where the most recent is the 'best'? How can you say one religion is 'better' than another, and do you not think atheism has existed as long as theism (a belief in God?)
How would all this affect the game? Would each Civ have its own Religion, and would this lead to individual difference in Civs? For example, England could be 'Christian', 'Protestant', or 'Anglican', how precise does the game need to be, and are any of these titles appropriate when fewer people in Europe (especially) are going to Church than ever? Would all Civs become secular, or agnostic, or even atheist? Would religion 'develop' or remain static? And how could the AI utilise the bonuses that each Religion gives, especially if there are as many as there are Civs?

I know Sorenson had mentioned redoing the way civil disorder occurs, but I would think religion would have a similar impact if one civ (religion A) is conquering cities of another civ (religion B). Perhaps, they'll have it effect the economies. But, tolerance and intolerance will have to be addressed through some type of feature.

i think you should be able to make missionaries to convert parts of other countries to your religion

bring back fundementilism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by AdHHH
@ Jeremiah: Neitzshe is not the ideological founder of any totalitarian state, although he was often misquoted by Hitler et al.

@Neomega: are you saying each Civ would have to change religion as it changes Gov?

How could Judaism be brought in with the Monotheism when it developed in the Ancient age? The game clock is set from the birth of Christ, so would this have to be changed in cIV? And if Religions are tied to techs, does this not lead to the current problem where the most recent is the 'best'? How can you say one religion is 'better' than another, and do you not think atheism has existed as long as theism (a belief in God?)
How would all this affect the game? Would each Civ have its own Religion, and would this lead to individual difference in Civs? For example, England could be 'Christian', 'Protestant', or 'Anglican', how precise does the game need to be, and are any of these titles appropriate when fewer people in Europe (especially) are going to Church than ever? Would all Civs become secular, or agnostic, or even atheist? Would religion 'develop' or remain static? And how could the AI utilise the bonuses that each Religion gives, especially if there are as many as there are Civs?

No, but the religion of the citizens should determine the effectiveness of their government. ie secularists would have a more complacent communism than monarchy, and would reject outright a thocracy, (lots of sad faces).

Chnaging religion would be difficult, if not impossible, unless guided via "bishops" (like taxmen).

I dunno, just throwing out ideas.

Relgion should be chosen by re life factors of your society and have an affect on every thing in the game.

Do you think contemporary religious views "determine the effectiveness of their government" and what is government effective in doing exactly? Are you saying in cIV certain religions would make the governments 'better' (less corrupt, etc) and some would make it 'worse' (more likely to fall into disorder, etc)? The probem with Communism is that it would determine all Religion bourgeois, and would make the usefulness of a religion under Communism seriously undermined. If religion is changed by "bishops" then the religion will be more or less the same, with a few points of doctrine changed (as Anglicanism is to Protestantism), and then it is easy to simply see it as a means of coercive power of the state, which would probably be possible in civ3, and therefore a waste of time in game terms...
Fundamentalism was far too powerful a government in civ2, but shouldn't a Theocratic Gov be allowed in cIV, especially considering the rising importance of fundamental Islam?
A spy/missionary unit to 'convert' the AI should be added; I loved the Spy in Civ2

First of all, I wouldn't link religion with technology as much as many of you do. It has very little to do with it. Most of the major religions (or all of the Major) were developed a long time ago. Chinese have been technologically very advanced once as were Indians. Christian nations were technologically very backwards in middle-ages compared to Islamic nations, and this is now the other way around. I stress my point: religion should NOT be linked with technology. It has more to do with pure luck (we must remember that most religions have a single founder or Holy Man - it is luck where this Holy Man would be born) and with circumstances.

I do agree that monotheism has been "discovered" later than polytheism, but that is just a historical fact. One could argue that polytheism is somehow easier to grasp than monotheism, which is a valid point. However, in Civ's time-scale this is of very little consequence: both are early techs. I also dislike the idea of putting the religions into some order. The order would be arbitrary anyway and would probably just insult some people. Is there ANY non-religious argument that shows that some religions are better than others? I'd be happy to hear those :)

Originally posted by JeremiahLook at Socrates. He dared to question the reliability of the Greek Human-centric pantheon, with all their foibles, and he was charged with and executed for "corrupting Athen's youth."

This wasn't the only reason why Socrates was executed. But your point is solid. This snobbishness has nothing to do with technology, mind you. Jews had only one deity whereas your example is taken from Greece - the technological difference is easy to see.

What do you think about Philosophy being a prereq for Buddhism or Confucianism. I think Buddhism is the most philosophic religion there is.

I would personally be careful with mixing philosophy with any religion. First of all philosophy is too wide a subject to be used in that way. Western philosophy is quite different from eastern and eastern philosophy is mainly focused on the Big Questions of Life and on religion. Philosophy is a product of a culture as much as culture is a product of philosophy - thus religion and philosophy intermingle. Philosophy is just a general topic for questions that concern the ultimate basis of our knowledge, ethics, religion etc. In Greece everything was philosophy because they hadn't fallen into different categories yet (apart from mathematics - which was on the other hand much used in philosophy and vice versa). Natural science was philosophy before it became a natural science.

I wouldn't say that any religion is more or less philosophic than other. There is a difference between the way the religion is conveyed. Buddhism concentrates on thinking whereas Christianity concentrates more on feeling. Christianity endeavours to make the basics clear to everyone, so the "philosophical" side of it is often forgotten, whereas Buddhism concentrates on the "philosophical" side. A philosopher may or may not be a religious person - and of any religion. This is not a topic that should be concentrated here, though. Should you like to discuss this further, you can send a personal message and I can give you my e-mail address. Back to business, then :)

It hurts my heart to see Nietzsche so brutalised with spelling :cry: ;) Anyway, AdHHH is correct: Nietzsche should not be connected with any totalitarian state. In fact he would have been disgusted by Hitler. It was her sister who was a nazi-symphatiser and used his text to her own ends. Philosophy has often been used as a tool for governments as well as religion.

I think the religious aspect should be kept in minimum. In addition to culture, civ-traits and all it would bring too much complexity. In any case religion should be either chosen from the beginning, or be a part of the traits of a civilization. One could perhaps implement something like religious capitals. You could build up your religion (whatever it is) and perhaps convert others to your religion for some benefits, but I would advice against it. Too much complexity and not much in addition to culture. A better idea is that each religion has special strengths and/or units. This would on the other hand differ very little from civ-traits as they are now. I must agree with the makers of civ that the religousness of a civ is more important than the exact religion. It could perhaps only affect the way civs felt toward each other - as in that religion does indeed play a huge role.

All in all, I have not yet seen any real good reason to implement religion. Many people would like to see it there, of course, as religions are very interesting and very personal to many. But it should have a proper place. It wouldn't make anybody happy to have religions making things complicated without bringing any new aspect to the game.

Originally posted by AdHHH
How could Judaism be brought in with the Monotheism when it developed in the Ancient age? The game clock is set from the birth of Christ, so would this have to be changed in cIV? And if Religions are tied to techs, does this not lead to the current problem where the most recent is the 'best'? How can you say one religion is 'better' than another, and do you not think atheism has existed as long as theism (a belief in God?)
How would all this affect the game? Would each Civ have its own Religion, and would this lead to individual difference in Civs? For example, England could be 'Christian', 'Protestant', or 'Anglican', how precise does the game need to be, and are any of these titles appropriate when fewer people in Europe (especially) are going to Church than ever? Would all Civs become secular, or agnostic, or even atheist? Would religion 'develop' or remain static? And how could the AI utilise the bonuses that each Religion gives, especially if there are as many as there are Civs?

Instead of having to research the religion, why not just have the tech pop up during accurate times, using scripting?

Yes, I would love for religion to be properly implimented in the game. Each having a unique power like some increase culture, some commerce, other boost the power of your military (sacraficing rituals), and freedom of religion makes like 1 person content in evey city.

I think that at the least a government type of fundamentalism or theocracy should be allowed, as a compromise.

One more thing. All governments that are based on religion have always been ineffective. Politics and religion SHOULD be kept apart, although they are often confused. Western society began to thrive only after it began to separate itself from the Church - this is not because the Church is bad, simply because as Jesus already warned: Church should not have earthly power. Middle-east was doing fine when their religion didn't mess things up. Now they are controlled by religious extremist which causes huge problems (do not forget Afghanistan, where tv's were banned in the name of religion - probably not FOR religion, but for power, though).

To have a fundamentalistic government should be comparable to despotism, not something to challenge democracy. I think fascism could do the trick just as well. Think of any fundamentalistic state. Would you want your civ to be like that?

Religion should not give boost to governments, nor should it be linked with technology. What should it do then? That's the problem. I am yet to hear any innovative idea of how the religion should be implemented. It shouldn't be just another culture, nor another government, nor another civ-trait (apart from religiousness, I mean). It should be a NEW concept, as stated in the thread-subject, not just some old concept in new clothes.

I am sorry to be such a bore on this. I would love to have religion in the game if it served some purpose. Therefore I would like people to think it separately from other concepts too, not as something that boosts other concepts, but something that would bring another dimension in the game. In Colonization it was connected with converts: being religious you could convert indians to work for you, and you would also get more immigrates from Europe. This wouldn't work in Civ, but perhaps something like that could be worked out...

"That's the problem. I am yet to hear any innovative idea of how the religion should be implemented. It shouldn't be just another culture, nor another government, nor another civ-trait (apart from religiousness, I mean). It should be a NEW concept, as stated in the thread-subject, not just some old concept in new clothes. "

Yes sorry, I seem also to be guilty of becoming bogged down in a 'religious' debate, rather than a Civ-related one. If we just said that the Religions were called x, y and z, what kind of powers would they have, and how would they enhance the game?

Units - Missionaries could 'convert' enemy cities, like the Civ 2 Spy? Would something as contemporary as suicide bombers get in, it could be rather controversial? Buddhist fighting monks? Druids as 'healer' units, like AoE2? Would each culture group need individually drawn units, wouldn't this lead to confusion?

Rule changes - would this mean units like the Crusader, and indeed the Knights Templar GW, were restricted to certain Civs, and would it also restrict the Sistine Chapel? I know Civ is Euro-centric in a lot of ways, but would this new concept mean a flood of new Wonders, or even 'different' tech paths? (I know obviously the units etc. would eventually be the same, but there may have to be some differences).

What other advantages would there be? 1 turn Gov change and cheaper Religious buildings could be incorporated into 2 (or more) Civs, but what else? Would each Religion need to have weaknesses, i.e. religion x is less resistant to conversion for £$£. What do people think about the game effects?

Shyrramar: apologies for mispelling, I just copy-and-pasted from a previous message and hoped no-one would notice as I was unsure of the spelling myself :)

Shyrramar: apologies for mispelling, I just copy-and-pasted from a previous message and hoped no-one would notice as I was unsure of the spelling myself

Don't worry about it. I have personally seen a person who studied philosophy in university make an essay about Nietzsche and mispelling it every time :lol: I once made a comment, that a philosopher is really a philosopher if and only if he can write Nietzsche correctly five times in a row - not many of the aspiring philosophers in my university can achieve that feat :crazyeye:

English language brutalizes spelling all the time anyway: in English quite a few of the foreign names are changed, resulting in Platos and Aristotles (in stead of PlatoN and AristotEles), which is fine. It does get a bit hard to try to remember the English spelling for all those names - for all that I know, you just might indeed spell Nietzsche differently. What kind of a name has t,z,s,c, and h in a row anyway :rolleyes:

I just thought up a way one could change religion:

In the start one chooses some kind of tribal religion or something. Then as one discovers polytheism and monotheism (and maybe some other religious techs should be added?) one get new religions to choose from.

But it is not easy to change a religion. Only the revolutionary ideas that is unleashed with the discovery of religious techs allows you to change religion. Then one would have a number of turns with something that resembles anarchy.

Religions:
Start of game: Nature Spirits?
Polytheism (Ancient): Pantheon, Hinduism, Norse?
Trancending (Ancient): Buddhism
Monotheism (moved to Ancient): Judaism, Islam, Christianity
New Age? (Modern): New Age
Maybe even Confucianism with Philosophy?

But one problem remains. I have no idea what usefull purpose religion should have in Civ4...

New age is a bad idea. New age religions are basically re-invented old religions. And what modern country has an official religion called new-age?

As long as there is no useful purpose for religion, I see no point in thinking which tech should give what religion. They are all ancient techs (monotheism is NOT in reality a middle-age invention), so why even link them to technologies? You could just as well have them choosed in the first place. Or they could come via choosing your civ.

I doubt that they would put in actual religions like Judaism, Hindu, Christianity, etc... They would probably categorize them into general groups to avoid controversey over the implied "traits" of each religion (like Islam, a peaceable religion, getting a military bonus just because some extremists are making violent headlines).

That being said, there should be some shifting of the religious technologies. The only reason Monotheism leads to the Printing Press is because of the Guetenberg Bible - very euro-centric.

<edit>
The progression of Ceremonial Burial => Mysticism => Polytheism => Monotheism always made sense to me. Not that one is better than the former, but it defninitely follows a philosophical progression. I don't think they should be age-specific, though, since they all were created in ancient times.

And I don't think that religion should be an option that one can 'turn off' in the game, just like you can't turn off having a government. Secular should be a religious option, though.

This is so complicated, I wouldn't be surprised if they just added Religious Great Leaders and left it at that.

Shyrramar: I had to go through the basics of Nietzsche last year for my Politics degree, and I hate mispelling, so i should know better :crazyeye:
Anywho, if the Religions were just linked to the 'culture groups', what kind of powers would there be? It would be difficult to attribute them without perpetuating stereotypes (real-life prob) or unbalancing the game (Civ problem). Would each Civ need an individual religion? What would Religious GLs do? Would there be Religious UUs?

New Age is too vague, Modern religions are probably Secularism, Atheism and Scepticism/Agnosticism, but would that end the concept of religion for the latter parts of the game?

Originally posted by Pirate
The progression of Ceremonial Burial => Mysticism => Polytheism => Monotheism always made sense to me
Not to me. The first two are independent of the last two.
In fact, Polytheism and Monotheism aren't advances at all and have no business being in a tech tree. Personally I cannot see a difference anyway between spirit or pantheon gods on the one hand, and angels on the other.

A good line of advances would IMHO be Mysticism -> Mythology -> Ethics -> Theology (and Fundamentalism) -> Humanism.

Maybe they were talking about incorporating religion in scenarios. It could realy do much in the Test of time mod.

Well, I think the people should be able to choose religion.

EX: You highlight your 3rd civilian in Calais and i says: French/Roman Catholic

But if you have your goverment setting, which should exist, that people don't have the freedom of religion, than they all are Anglican, or Muslim, or Jewish etc.

Pirate: that line makes sense to me in Civ3 but if Religion is becoming a game concept in cIV it needs to be changed...

So with that in mind...

Ceremonial Burial => Mysticism => Theism?

(it would also probably need Literature or something)

It could unlock the equivalent of a Temple for each religion. This would mean a player could 'pick' a religion for his Civ, or even localise it to each city, but there would be a penalty for too many religions in any given civ. Then, say, at Theology, the equivalent of each Religions 'Cathedral' is unlocked, and u can only build one of the same religion in the same city, and the same mix-penalty would exist. Secularism would be unlocked with Democracy, meaning u could build any number of these in any city without penalty. Maybe this would be too powerful, and would require a SW or even GW to combat it's effects. Perhaps a Monarchy bonus would be that it gives a bonus if u have 1 religion, and Rep/Dem gives no bonuses (Communism would have to play down Religious bonuses).

To me, the most effective place in Civ III to demonstrate religion would be in the population heads. Different religions would cause conflict amongst the citizens of cities of mixed religion.

In politics, "official" religions could be adopted under certain governments, and pressure apllied to change the religious beliefs of the population heads who still were not of the preferred religion. This official religion could have some influences, perhaps make cultural buildings more effective, but also cause strife amongst non-believers, as well as diplomatic problems/solutions.... depending on religion.

This just crossed my mind...

What about making religion a random thing? Religions are not something chosen, but something more based on chance. Perhaps your religion would affect foreign relations. You could either choose the religion you are supporting (the official religion) or allow total freedom of religion. This supporting would mean that temples and cathedrals would "convert" your citizens to that religion, but would also mean that different religioned people would become unhappy, which would cause problems. I don't know, just thinking how religion could bring another dimension into the game.

Let's say that you happen to get monotheistic people, say, Christians. Your neighbour would be Buddhists. Now you would build temples and they would also. These foreign temples "battle" your temples much like culture now. If they are stronger, your people begin to convert into the other religion, if they are weaker, it would be the opposite. Now the nation who gets converts would have some benefits from converting your people (perhaps they could flip more easily, send you money, whatever) so we would have a motivation for building up your religion.

You could choose your official religion, which would increase your changes of resisting conversions, but with a lot of converted "infidels", you would be in trouble. Perhaps having >80% of the "right" religion would give you bonuses, less than 50% would give you penalties. Without an official religion there would be no penalties or bonuses, but you would allow your people to freely choose their religions (which would of course give a upper hand to your neighbours). You could also choose the religion your neighbour is having if you are loosing the religion-struggle.

If you were "forced" to change your official religion, the civ that caused this would get some benefits (but you would loose nothing, save that having those benefits yourself).

The religions could be randomly given in the beginning, or chosen, or simply being a part of the chosen civ.

Now this would bring something new to the game without being overly complex. In the beginning you would be best off if you supported the dominant religion (the one given you in the start), but if your religion was way inferior to your neighbour, your percents would begin to steadily drop. You could fight this by keeping the support steady. If you lost anyhow, you would either face penalties by continuing support or you would be forced to change into another religion, giving the civ that caused this some bonuses. You could later (after building a lot of temples and stuff) return to support your religion and begin to battle against your neighbour.

There could also be some event that would cause religious leaders to appear and destabilize your religion. Something like Jesus did to Jews. This could severely damage you and would give you a good reason to build up your religion even without facing any other civ.

The reason why I like randomness is the fact that religion seems to be random. There is no real reason (except luck and circumstances) that would explain why Europeans became mostly Christians and Indians became Hindus.

It could either be that all playing civs would have a different religion, or that you could have "religion-pals", much like culture groups now, but more significant. Neighbouring civ with the same religion could harden your religious defences against other religions. One more reason to switch your supported religion when losing the "religion-struggle" against your neighbour.

This just came up, so it's still vague. What do you guys think about this? Any suggestions? Any fixes? Does this suck big time?

Let's say that I begin with my civ being Christian (by chance, by choice or by being a certain civ). I of course begin by supporting Christianity. At the beginning 50% would be Christian, 50% would be animists. By supporting Christianity my percents would rise approximately by 1% per turn. So after 30 turns I hit the 80% mark and get a bonus: perhaps my citizens become happier, my workers work faster, corruption is decreased, whatever. There would be some random events (like barbarian camps now) that would temporarily destabilize my religion. A religious leader pops up and starts to convert my people to, say, Buddhism. Soon I would have a situation that I had 82% Christians, 10% Buddhists and 8% animists. Christians and animists are being converted into Buddhists. So I build a temple, so I don't lose my bonuses. This effectively deals with the problem and I am soon steadily above 90%.

Then I meet a neighbouring civ, that happens to be an Islamic nation with way more religion than I. Soon my border cities begin rapidly convert into Muslims. For each Muslim citizen the other nation would get some small benefits (perhaps my citizens would immigrate, or they would get some gold or something). Soon Christians would drop under 80% and I was forced to act. But too late - I fall under 50% before my temples get built. Now I am supporting Christianity, so I get penalties - people get unhappy, refuse to work or something. I can either wait for those temples and endure - or give up before the awesome might of Islam.

If I give up. I will begin to support Islam. The other nation gets the same bonuses as it gets from having >80% muslims - effectively doubling the benefits, whereas I get no bonuses - nor penalties. By supporting Islam I make my Civ stronger against other civ's influences, but NOT get the benefits (as I have chosen Christianity). I could perhaps also get the benefits - this must be discussed. I could also grant a freedom of religion (so in effect support NO religion). This would make me untouched by either penalties or bonuses, but unable to try to convert other nations.

If I keep fighting. I continue to support Christianity. In ten turns I have completed temples in every city. I am now 30% Christian and 70% Islamic. People are unhappy, but I endure. Steadily I begin to gain ground and not long before I have over 50% already. I ditch the penalties. It will soon be stuck in 60C/40M situation, and will continue to change depending on the number of temples.

Let's then say that I discover another neighbouring civ which happens to be Buddhist. Soon the situation would be 55% Christians, 25% Muslims and 20% Buddhists. Now let's say that I begin to lose ground to both. This is the situation where I would be best off not supporting any religion. If it came to be something like 50-50 to Muslims and Buddhists, I would still lose nothing, and the other civ would benefit nothing. But by having 40C/30M/30B I would get penalties.

Now the other civs (and I too) would get small benefits from every citizen that it has supporting its religion in my country. It would get huge bonuses if I as a nation totally converted (started supporting Islam, for example). It could also be so that if I supported nothing and Islam became 80% dominant, I would start getting penalties for not heeding my citizens.

The details are very unclear yet, but I think something could be worked out...

Originally posted by Cheetah
I just thought up a way one could change religion:

In the start one chooses some kind of tribal religion or something. Then as one discovers polytheism and monotheism (and maybe some other religious techs should be added?) one get new religions to choose from.

But it is not easy to change a religion. Only the revolutionary ideas that is unleashed with the discovery of religious techs allows you to change religion. Then one would have a number of turns with something that resembles anarchy.

Religions:
Start of game: Nature Spirits?
Polytheism (Ancient): Pantheon, Hinduism, Norse?
Trancending (Ancient): Buddhism
Monotheism (moved to Ancient): Judaism, Islam, Christianity
New Age? (Modern): New Age
Maybe even Confucianism with Philosophy?

But one problem remains. I have no idea what usefull purpose religion should have in Civ4...

How about with the research of Scientific Method or the creation of ToE, you can set it so your civ follows a more scientific route gaining research bonuses, but loses bonuses or partially loses bonuses of temples.

Shy, I think you are on to something. This aspect of culture is something that one sees played out in history repeatedly, and it would add a genuinely new dimension to the game. Instead of it being only "Roman" culture, it would be Roman culture as it changes, from polytheistic to monotheistic to pluralistic, with all the cool interchanges between cultures that mold history.

But this is only a slight adjustment to the 'culture' concept isn't it? It's just making it more precise, more accurate (hang on it may be a good idea!). It would help you 'guess' which of your cities are going to flip, but should it do anything else besides this? Should there be Religious 'locations' (i.e. the Holyland) like VPs that need to be held, or should this be optional. What about overall Civ bonuses, religious GLs or UUs; this is a good idea but Religion needs to be kept seperate from Culture

Originally posted by AdHHH
But this is only a slight adjustment to the 'culture' concept isn't it? It's just making it more precise, more accurate (hang on it may be a good idea!). It would help you 'guess' which of your cities are going to flip, but should it do anything else besides this? Should there be Religious 'locations' (i.e. the Holyland) like VPs that need to be held, or should this be optional. What about overall Civ bonuses, religious GLs or UUs; this is a good idea but Religion needs to be kept seperate from Culture

No, it is not an adjustement to culture. Let me explain. Religion would not cause any flips. It could cause immigration if you continued supporting an inferior religion, or it could simply cause benefits to the other nation, perharps some penalties to your (more unhappiness, whatever). It shouldn't affect flipping chance.

Religious GLs and UUs is an idea that could be implemented, yes. I wholeheartedly agree that religion and culture should be kept apart (that's why I have been ranting here complaining about everybody's ideas :lol: ). The exact bonuses and penalties can be discussed, of course. I am just providing a bit more innovative idea for people to try to make better. The main point is that religion is something that you can direct to some extent, but something that is separate from culture, government, military, economy, technology. And a change in religion should not necessarily mean anything bad happening to you, but having the dominant religion of a given region should indeed give bonuses. The religion could also make it less likely for civs with the same religion to go to war, and more likely for different religions. I don't know - Christians have always battled Christians..

I am not providing any concrete numbers or ideas here, I am providing a schema for others to grab and develop.

Good points and ideas, AdHHH! :goodjob:

Maybe they could introduce the concept of "Holy Wars," where your citizens become happier but you need to be at war with a certain religion. Of course, obvious downsides include riots by your citizens in which foreign nationals and people of the target religion are killed, going to war with anyone who has a certain percentage of the target religion, etc.

Perhaps the religious UUs would be something that were automatically created during Holy Wars. By starting The Crusades one should be constantly at war with some religious sect, but your people would cheer you on and your capital would occasionally pop out Crusaders (as Knights Templar now). Jihad would have its own units. Don't know about other holy wars, but there could be some idea that allowed implementation of monks for buddhists and so on. Should the Holy War be something triggered by simply being in a war for long enough with a different religion (like a religious, militaristic golden age), in which case it could perhaps be wholly positive event. Or should it be something you choose, in which case it would have its pros and cons?

if religion becomes part of the game i think Catholic should be separate from Protestant as 2 different religions

this has played a major role in history
-English break away from Roman Catholic Church and become Protestant

To Shy and all,
Perhaps we can do no more than agree to disagree, but perhaps we can find common ground in the following concept (or not):
While the religion you as Leader choose for your empire is not automatically part of your culture, the religion(s) your empire's people(s), both native and conquered/flipped, is part of your empire's culture. Religion chosen and practiced by a people is part of culture just as is language, food, music, art, etc. It is part of daily life, part of their thinking.
Again, what religion the government officially chooses to sanction and support is not automatically part of culture. Given enough support (building of temples, cathedrals, religious wonders, etc.), you may eventually win the majority of your empire's people to your chosen faith. Still, it is their hearts you must win by persuasion.
All this I say to suggest the following:
Perhaps the religion you choose is not automatically what your people practice. Perhaps surrounding cultures can influence your own population towards or away from your chosen faith. This means that if you choose a specific faith, the temples and cathedrals you build will inflence your own population towards that faith and make happy that portion of your population that has already chosen that faith. In other words, to bolster your chosen faith, you would almost *need* to build religious and cultural buildings to counter the effects of competing cultures. This is partially already covered by the concept of culture and culture flipping.
The new concept of religion for cIV would be a more specific facet of culture in that it allows the interplay of government sanctioned culture, an official religion (or the abscence of official religion, the deliberate choice of pluralism, a natural result of modern democracy.)

So do you think military police would 'enforce' Religion, as they enforce contentment in Civ3?

I feel the most important way religion should affect the game is in the area of conquest and domination. Differing religions between 2 civs at war should add significantly to WW. Once a city is captured, then military police could be used, requring sufficient numbers per size of city.

Now, this may lead the player down one of two roads:

(1) razing more cities than normal

(2) warring less

In the case of #1, razing cities should carry a much steeper penalty. Razing a size 10 city, IMHO, is no diffrent than nuking a size 10 city. Rival civs ought to react towards the razing of cities in a simalr way as to the use of nukes. Now, w/ razing, the consequences could be scaled to the sizes of cities razed.

In the case of #2, hey, its called "Civilization."

But rival Religions don't always raze each others cities do they? However if religion y has a city razed by religion x, and you are religion y, it should say 'our brothers/whatever in city z have been murdered by the heathen x' this would mean that if u declared war on them under Dem/Rep there would not be the WW penalty normally associated with those Govs

For the religion idea i think including relations like in Europa Universalis 2 from -200 to 200

Originally posted by Maccabee
To Shy and all,
Perhaps we can do no more than agree to disagree, but perhaps we can find common ground in the following concept (or not):
While the religion you as Leader choose for your empire is not automatically part of your culture, the religion(s) your empire's people(s), both native and conquered/flipped, is part of your empire's culture. Religion chosen and practiced by a people is part of culture just as is language, food, music, art, etc. It is part of daily life, part of their thinking.
Again, what religion the government officially chooses to sanction and support is not automatically part of culture. Given enough support (building of temples, cathedrals, religious wonders, etc.), you may eventually win the majority of your empire's people to your chosen faith. Still, it is their hearts you must win by persuasion.
All this I say to suggest the following:
Perhaps the religion you choose is not automatically what your people practice. Perhaps surrounding cultures can influence your own population towards or away from your chosen faith. This means that if you choose a specific faith, the temples and cathedrals you build will inflence your own population towards that faith and make happy that portion of your population that has already chosen that faith. In other words, to bolster your chosen faith, you would almost *need* to build religious and cultural buildings to counter the effects of competing cultures. This is partially already covered by the concept of culture and culture flipping.
The new concept of religion for cIV would be a more specific facet of culture in that it allows the interplay of government sanctioned culture, an official religion (or the abscence of official religion, the deliberate choice of pluralism, a natural result of modern democracy.)

Isn't this just what I suggested? :confused: Or am I missing something here? :scan: Well, anyway: :goodjob:
I think it should be a viable option to NOT support any religion. There should be benefits from that if facing a religiously superior civ. Supporting a religion should only be useful when you can achieve a majority or even influence other civs.
When the big ones fight, the small ones would be wise to stand back... Or is this a loser-philosophy? Should I post a poll on this one :lol:

Well, we all seem to be agreed on how we implement Religion ;) Should it be a bargaining chip? i.e we will become religion x(which is yours) for y GPT ???

Originally posted by AdHHH
Well, we all seem to be agreed on how we implement Religion ;) Should it be a bargaining chip? i.e we will become religion x(which is yours) for y GPT ???

Oh, what a great idea! It would be a better deal than we here in Finland got some five hundred years ago: "Do you renounce your false gods and pledge yourself to the One and Only True God?"
:ninja: (represents one of the thugs of the missionary)
"Uhh, yeah, sure. Why not?"

Yeah. Some money or even a piece of bread would have been nice..

Um, ok. No offence meant, I was just thinking of missionaries spreading Christianity and how they work; I don't have a great deal of knowledge on Finnish history :)

Oh! I took no offence :lol: I was simply joking (although my sense of humour may be a bit to the odd side). It's not like I am being bitter about the way Christianity treated others during that time period. Heck, we got through quite unscatched and very, very God-Fearing ;) . I thought that atleast that quite-out-of-place-ninja there would be enough to make people think it as a joke (or me with no sense of appropriety).

And hey, just WHO has a great deal of knowledge on Finnish history? Heck, we are just glad if someone remembers that we are Europeans, not South-East-Asians! :D

Well, in that case,
Shyrramar, you should be pleased to know I made Finland one of the cultures in my mod of the Teturkhan scenario. It has been fun watching your nation holding off Russian expansion, and often make a valuable ally. ( I like playing King Alfred of the early Anglo Saxons.)

OK, at the risk of repeating what others have said on this thread-this is what I HOPE religion will do for the game:

1) First of all religions, like governments, can change throughout history-according to when you 'discover' them.

2) Also like governments, each civ will have a range of most preferred to most detested religions. This will effect what religion your people demand you change to, and how readily they accept a religion you convert to.

3) Each type of religion will have its own range of pro's and con's-and it's own set of units and buildings. These buildings only have their full effect when you're in THAT religion! Culture and tourist effects remain, however.

4) Aside from the main religion types, you would also have the opportunity to introduce 'Orthodoxy' or 'Reformation' to your religion-again, each choice will have benefits and penalties.

5) Culture groups would effect how different nations, of the same 'Broad' religion-type, view each other. For instance, though A European Monotheistic' civ might 'despise' a European 'Polytheistic' civ, but would also look askance at a Middle Eastern 'Monotheistic' civ.

6) Definitely should have 'Religious' or more appropriately 'Cultural' Great Leaders, should definitely be part of the game. They could rush build cultural wonders, be sacrificed for a 20-turn culture boost or used to convert foreign cities to your 'cause'!

7) Heresy and religious conversion: If you neighbour a nation which has a different religion to yours, there should be a chance of one of your citizens 'converting' to their religion-and vice versa. The base chance is modified according to your cities population, if your city is connected to the other civ by a trade route, the relative culture values of your civs, the presence of other converts in that same city and how your people 'view' that religion (most preferred vs most hated!). These converts can, if there are enough of them, cause a 'religious' schism, whereby they break away to form their own civ-based on the new religion. They can also be a source of discontent and potential revolt-or they might break away from the city-either as immigrants or as 'refugees'! What happens would depend, on some part, to how you treat 'religious dissidents'.

8) As with espionage, later in the game, you should be able to conduct forms of 'religious espionage' within the game. Obviously many of the missions would be very similar to espionage, but with a religious bent to them! Not sure exactly how this should work, though!

9) Some possible religions would be 'Totemism', 'Ancestor worship', 'Paganism', 'Spiritualism', 'Polytheism', 'Eastern Religion I and II', 'Early Monotheism', 'Late Monotheism', 'Baptist', 'Blood Cult' and 'Ecumenicist'. Obviously you'd be able to add as many, or as few, religions as you wanted-through the editor.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject, hope you haven't heard it all before ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

OK, a few other things, after reading some of the posts in more detail.

1) Religion, along with government type, culture group, culture ratio and civ characteristics-along with past misdeeds etc. should all effect how your civs people react towards the people of another civ, perhaps on a scale of -100 to +100, and starting at 0.
For instance, commercial and agricultural civs would get a + to their relations, wheras militaristic and expansionist would get a - (i.e. the people of the later types of civs want to conquer-not make friends ;)). Different culture groups would get always get a - of some sort, same culture would get a +. Religion and government types would give a + or - based on the preferred/shunned government/religion scale (possibly from +20 to -20 for each). When taken together, this would determine the base chance of your people accepting/demanding war/peace-or any other diplomatic deals with other nations.

2) Religions should be chosen for your civ, like governments. Both, however, should change from previous civ incarnations. Though you can still change government/religion-as you wish-it should be possible for your people to DEMAND that you change to a certain government/religion, or refuse to let you change to a new government/religion. You can ignore your peoples wishes, but you run the risk of Civil War, Religious Schisms, or conversion to foreign faiths.

3) The chance of conversion should also be affected by such factors as Inquisitions, the 'Secularity' of your State and the level of nationalism and literacy.

4) Some possible 'religious espionage' missions might be 'prosyletize', where you try to 'convert' a foreign citizen. 'Provoke Religious Schism', where you try to force a foreign city to break away from the main empire. 'Provoke Unhappiness', where you doomsay to the population of a foreign city, to make them unhappy! 'Establish' religious embassy, nuff said!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

"1) First of all religions, like governments, can change throughout history-according to when you 'discover' them."

We discussed this earlier, and it may lead to a dialectic where Religions get 'better' (as to some extent the Govs do)

"4) Aside from the main religion types, you would also have the opportunity to introduce 'Orthodoxy' or 'Reformation' to your religion-again, each choice will have benefits and penalties."

'Reformed' religion implies it has reformed from a central Church (i.e. the Vatican). How could this be implemented, I don't think there will be 'Holy Ground' in Civ4 (at least in epic games)

"6) Definitely should have 'Religious' or more appropriately 'Cultural' Great Leaders"

I think religious is more appropriate actually; not everyone who has contributed to 'culture' is religious

"The chance of conversion should also be affected by such factors as Inquisitions, the 'Secularity' of your State and the level of nationalism and literacy."

But surely a Secular state could not be converted, as politics and religion are seperate? Literacy could be used as a tool either way really, as well...

@Aussie_lurker: a good summation, there! I am not berating you for some small problems, as first of all AdHHH has addressed some above and secondly a summation can never achieve the details of the summated and of course will bring forth views that not many support.

By the way, I have no problems with reformed churches and them being something you can "research", but they should be implemented carefully. They should not be techs (I have argued this point repeatedly), nor should they be available to all. There could be some game-mechanics that allowed the birth of sects after some time has passed. This would allow greater specialization in religion in later times and would perhaps award those that have been to a religion long enough. By the way, the awards should NOT be concentrated on the newest arrival: it is quite preposterous to argue that Catholic church is somehow worse than Protestantic church.

It could go as such: you have been a Christian nation for a 1000 years (or perhaps counted in turns?), then your church breaks up. You could choose to either convert to Catholic or Protestantic Church, bot with their pros and cons (the overall effect being zero).

Anyway, this is just a suggestion on how to implement sects. I am actually against this so, because I think it is not needed, would bring very little new to the concept and would cause more complexity..

OK, first of all I believe that most of your primary religious 'Techs' should be available in the Ancient Era-though Theology, Orthodoxy and Reformation should still be in the Middle Ages. In addition, though one tech might 'flow-on from another', any change in religion should be purely for reasons of personal preference and 'Flavour'-not because one is better than the other (which, on balance, they wouldn't be) Lastly, all of the religions represent the 'State Religion' and, as such, when you change to one, you lose ALL of the benefits of the one you were just in (and vice versa)! Ultimately, though, I want to see the game 'mechanics' of Religion done in a way so that, by the Middle Ages, you can find yourself in a game with as many as a dozen different religious/cultural groups (i.e. Middle East Polytheist, European Blood Cult, Asian Monotheism, Asian Eastern Religion I etc. etc.) instead of the 'Race for Monotheism' situation we've had in every iteration of the Civ series! Not only is this GROSSLY unrealistic, it could also be slightly offensive for anyone who ISN'T monotheistic (I can name at least 2 BILLION people who aren't Christian/Muslim/Jewish ;)).
Anyway, to continue: my point about secularism was that, without a state religion, it would be easier to 'convert' people-as your people no longer feel beholden to adhere to ONE religion out of some kind of 'Patriotic Duty'! The flip side of this, though, is that secular states aren't able to convert the citizens of other Civs-for obvious reasons. The literacy factor was that, when people are more educated, they become less susceptible to the prosyletizing of the Church.
Lastly, as for Reform and Orthodoxy, I'm still a little vague about how this should work-though I definitely want to be able to have-not 'Holy Ground', per se-but some kind of 'Sacred Capital', like Jerusalem, or Mecca or the Vatican. I'm sort of leaning towards Shyrramar's suggestion, that Reform or Orthodoxy should be, to some extent, thrust upon you. Though I feel that any change in government or religion, in the game, should be thrust upon you-the player. Anyway, I digress. I think you should be able to discover the 'Concepts' of Reformation and Orthodoxy-as like any other tech. However, I do agree that the change to either of these two states should be forced by external change. For instance, perhaps over time, your religious faction become too influential, and/or corruption is beginning to increase. If other factions of your society are powerful enough, they might be able to demand that you introduce 'Religious Reform'-by doing so, you reduce the influence of the religious faction (making them unhappy in the process) but you also reduce the happiness effects of religious imrpovements and Wonders. By the same token, if the religious faction is on the cusp of losing its influence, then they might bemand that you strengthen their authority by introducing Religious Orthodoxy-this will improve their influence (and make them happy), and boost the happiness effects of religious buildings, but can make other factions less happy-and could slow down the pace of scientific progress. In either case, though, you should have to either shift or 're-build' any 'Sacred Capital' Wonder you have, in order to reflect the break from the central church. I should also note that, within my own idea for 'Social Influence', any change in your state religion will reduce the influence of your religious faction so, for obvious reasons, your religious faction will fight tooth and nail to stop you changing religions and, if powerful enough, could cause a religious revolt or even a religious Schism (like I mentioned previously). Orthodoxy is obviously the sole exception to this 'rule', as it does not reflect an actual change in religion. Lastly, it should be should noted that orthodoxy and reform can, for game purposes at least, effect any religion-type, whether monotheism, polytheism or even blood-cult :D!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

@Aussie_Lurker: you have very good ideas here. I am not certain if I agree on all, though. The ideas seem good, but how would you propose they are actually implemented? That sounds like a lot of work to me! I wholeheartedly agree that the religions should not be any better concerning each other (for the reasons you have pointed out). They should not be "good" in themselves (as governments tend to be), but only "different". We have enough concepts that make your civ "better" or "worse" - we don't need them. Therefore I would vote for a system that did not make your civ better, but would bring more choices in the game. I think it will be hard time to decide those bonuses and restrictions that apply to each religion!

I appreciate your ideas and would like to hear some more, if you please! :)

In CTP they had religion represented in an abstract way where evangelists could operate as stealth units and get some of the commerce from rival cities to go to your treasury. I suspect that the cIV planners are thinking on that type of level. I do not think they are planning to deal with the entire sticky, and likely controversial, subject of religion. The reason is that no matter what they did, if they actually named any religion or philosophy, somebody would get offended! Stupid, but true.

For me, the key issue for religion, and governance more generally, is that I REALLY feel that cIV should try and promote the sense that you are governing REAL people. This is what I hope the idea of 'Civics' is all about.
So, instead of changing your religion or government as you see fit, your people might actually say-'HEY!! NO!! This is our religion and we don't want you trying to make us worship some foreign deity!'-and then change the religion back. If you force the issue, then you risk the possibility of revolt, outbreaks of 'Heresy' (i.e. people changing to 'Foreign Religions' that they prefer over the State Religion') or an outright split of your empire along religious lines (think a Civil War but with religion, not politics, at its heart!). By the same token, though, it's just as likely that sections of your society might DEMAND that you change to a new religion. The same goes with government choice. Yes you can change your government type-as you wish-but if its not the one THEY want, then expect all hell to break loose! Of course, if you have several societal groups with equal amounts of influence, then you have to balance off the competing interests-usually by coming to some kind of compromise.
For more info on Societal Groups, and Societal Influence-check out my 'Economic and Trade manifesto'.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=85846

Now, I know that all of this might SOUND complex, but it needn't be. After all, it's all about the AI creating the 'Illusion' that these are real people. A lot of it would simply be equations and percentages. With one faction or another popping its head up depending on its current influence and happiness!

Anyway, back to religion quickly. One idea of seen around the place, that I like, is the idea of a 'slide bar' for Secularism. From 100% for no State Religion, to 0% for a total link between state and religion. Each government would have a minimum and maximum Secularisation level, and the maximum allowed would also be dependant on achieving certain techs.
For example, in earlier time periods, most of your governments would have a fairly high setting for both the minimum and maximum levels of Secularisation (maybe 0-20%), to indicate the strong link between state and religion in these times-as you discover new techs (like education and nationalism) the maximum secularisation level you could have, within each government, would increase slightly (maybe by +10-+20% each time).
Increasing secularisation makes you increasingly immune to 'Religious' attack by foreign civs, whilst increasing the chance of 'natural conversion' to other religions. It would decrease the influence of the religious societal group, but also reduces the effectiveness of religious buildings for creating happiness.
Anyway, forgive the rambling nature of my thoughts-I confess that I have yet to solidify many of my ideas.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

@Aussie_Lurker: I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way you think and express your thoughts, quite the contrary! Your ideas are good and I have nothing to comment at the moment. It may indeed sound complex, but I can see it could be implemented quite easily; we already have different nationalities and happiness-states, we only need to add religion. The Secularisation-slider is a good idea, too. It is exactly what I think should happen: secularisation detaches you from religion in good and in bad - so it would actually be a good choice for poorly religious civ, but also a way of saying "I quit, you can have the religions" to others! I also like the way governments simply determine the borders of max and min secularism - this way the governments are connected to religion, but quite harmlessly.

I think, though, that the people shouldn't be too eager to start an outright revolution when changing the government. Perhaps that should only be a real threat when changing into a less-allowing goverment: like from democracy to communism. But if you change straight from monarcy to communism, the impact wouldn't be too bad (or felt at all). This would also restrict you possibilities to be a democratic civ and always change to communism for warmongering, and then back to democracy.

Good work, Aussie_Lurker! :goodjob:

I agree with you Aussie_Lurker on the slider idea. As for the revolts during government shifts, I believe that is what the civ3 authors intended with the period of Anarchy. That is the period when a civil war is going on, thus the lack of productivity, etc.

OK, I confess that I didn't explain myself properly on the issue of Civil Wars and Religious Schisms.
I also don't feel that Civil Wars should be an 'All or Nothing' kind of thing-nor do I feel that government change is adequately represented in previous civ games. After all, very few government changes were instigated from on high (as happens in the civ games), but were in fact instigated by popular revolt (as would be reflected, in my system, by the people DEMANDING you to change governments) If you refuse them, or if you change to a government they DON'T like, then you would face the possibility of a revolt or, even worse, a civil war!
Certainly, though, Government or Religion Changes would simply be one of many potential triggers for a revolt or CW.
Lets see if I can explain it a bit better-at least as I see it working.

Revolt: When a particular faction becomes very unhappy there is a % chance that this group can go into revolt-based on their current level of influence. Other factors which would influence this would be levels of 'crime and corruption', current culture levels, war weariness and the like. The nature of the revolt depends on the social group behind it. A Workers revolt, for instance, could see your production of shields and food cut to almost NOTHING! A Religious revolt would see you lose the benefits of all your religious improvements, and middle-class revolt might see you lose the benefits of commercial improvements-and so on. A military revolt could be interesting, as it would prevent you from moving, or in any other way using, your military units-and/or cities that have lots of military units in them might suddenly start losing improvements and population as the military starts going on a rampage. Anyway, every turn that a revolt goes on unchecked, it has a potential to lead to Civil War (or in the instance of a religious revolt-a Schism). If this happens, then whole cities break away from your empire to form a new nation. Revolts could also still occur the same way as in Civ3, if an individual city's 'average' happiness fell below a certain level. If unchecked, then this kind of revolt could ALSO lead to CW.

Civil War: If the average happiness of your Civilization falls, and remains, below a certain level, or if corruption and/or war weariness remains too high, or culture remains too low-or if you change to a government/religion that your people actively dislikes (or you refuse to change to one they DO like), or if your people are in revolt, or if you just lost your capital, then there is a potential for civil war! If either of these trigger conditions is met, then each city is checked, against a formula, to determine if it breaks away. I can't remember the exact formula, but I think it was something like (% chance=avg. social influence+corruption %+1/(happiness %)+culture ratio+distance from the capital+max. distance to breakaway city X+no. of turns in revolt+'shun' factor of chosen government/religion). If this percentage is equal to or greater than the RND, then that city breaks away from your empire. This will be determined between turns but, if any of the 'trigger conditions' are met, then your domestic advisor will pop-up and warn you to do something to stave off the chance for a civil war. If the civil war is the result of a specific group revolting against you, then the 'avg. social influence' is replaced with the level of Social Influence of this group WITHIN that city. This way, it might be possible for a workers revolt to lead to a break away of your entire 'Industrial Heartland', as the workers cease control of these cities, and turn them to their OWN ENDS (and with their own government!)
Anyway, if you want I'd be happy to provide you with a 'working example' of what I mean, if that will help :)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Bump ;)!

Originally posted by Shyrramar
@Aussie_Lurker: I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way you think and express your thoughts

...like from democracy to communism. But if you change straight from monarcy to communism, the impact wouldn't be too bad (or felt at all).


This would also restrict you possibilities to be a democratic civ and always change to communism for warmongering, and then back to democracy.


Good work, Aussie_Lurker! :goodjob:

To a Communist though the transition into Communism is inevitable, and therefore the change would not be difficult.

I agree this tactic needs to be curtailed, although it was simulated to some extent in WW2

Hi!

I don't think that randomizing the religion would be a good idea.

Even the starting location is a big hazard, thus religion shouldn't be random too.

Many religions in a citiy:

I think having a divided city(at least in modern age) shouldn't mean a penalty. They could bring trade(as trade reflects to changing ideas too, that is why it determines research), or having a some divided cities could mean, you could debate some questions. You might grasp a "better" understanding of "god", an unified monotheism? Don't know if that's not a big crap.

On the otherhand:
Fascism could be an answer to the problem you(Shyrrammar) wrote. Thus they would "erase" those who are not the followers of the specific religion or philisophy.

Aussie_Lurker: Well believe it or not here in Hungary happend the same thing you described:

Our "Country Founder" Stephen (Saint) the I. introduced catholicism to our ancestor who were believing in the spirit world(shamanic).
One part of the country accepted that new religion others were revolting, thus forcing the king to take military actions. After years of civil war the king triuphed and estabilished the beses of the new religion(with laws for example: every 10 village must construct a church, where every person is obligated to go on every Sunday, except those who are taking care of the fire[or I am confusing things here?).
That was around 1010-1020 A.D.
Stephen died at 1038 and was sainted in 1083.

That's all.

An earlier comment has suggested that "You could build up your religion (whatever it is) and perhaps convert others to your religion for some benefits, but I would advice against it. Too much complexity and not much in addition to culture."
I wholeheartedly disagree that this is not much in addition to culture. My problem with culture as it currently stands is that it does not acknowledge that cultural export is an active process. I think some of the earlier suggestions, about converting cities, or establishing religious 'embassies' might be a method for acknowledging the active part which cultures have to play in the fight for domination. Also, I feel that another oint that has been made, about the important role which specific individuals (Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha) have played might be easily reproduced through the creation of a new category of great leader, a religious leader, who might be able to establish a religion for your empire. I could also see how these might work as a method of rendering an external religion the nations own. For example, during the renaissance, we might see most of europe as having been converted to catholicism by Italy/Rome/Vatican empire. In order to claim the benefits of directing their own religions, such as the control of wealth generated by the tithe, Germany and Switzerland use their own religious leaders, Luther and Calvin respectively to reform the religion and remove the foreign cultural influence upon their development.
I concede that these points might not be well developed, but I do feel strongly that the passive aspect of culture is a flaw, because culture is not passive. Nations fight to establish their own culture, and cultural export has played a significant role throughout history. This was primarily religion in the anicent age, right through to the renaissance. In the modern age, the media play a similar role. Indeed,the sense of US cultural imperialism is one of the causes of resentment for America in the present day, rightly or wrongly. This relates to Tarantino's recent comment that there are only really four nations with a real film industry. I personally think that this was the best aspect of CtP and CtP2, though they were inferior games to Civ, largely because they were just too easy. The wider range of concepts meant that it was possible to conduct yourself in more different ways, but the AI was too stupid to deal with any of these adequately, so that the game was ridiculously easy to complete. It did however include gestures towards the power of the media,such as television to increase revenue through advertising, and the Hollywood wonder to take advantage of foreign TVs. This should perhaps be a minor wonder, given the existence of Bollywood, and the strong film industries of Hong Kong and Japan, but I do think something along these lines should exist,in order to make culture an active process in the modern age, as religion has the potential to do in older periods.
Sorry if this seems rambling. I lost rack of myself a little. :crazyeye:

I doubt that they would put in actual religions like Judaism, Hindu, Christianity, etc... They would probably categorize them into general groups to avoid controversey over the implied "traits" of each religion (like Islam, a peaceable religion, getting a military bonus just because some extremists are making violent headlines). Yes, use of specific real world religions in the game would be a Very Bad Idea because everybody would have different ideas--very strongly held ideas--about the traits that should be ascribed to each religion. Religions are so diverse that it would be impossible to arrive at mutually-agreeable traits. Just as Islam can be stereotyped by the actions of a few terrorists, Christianity is often stereotyped by the bloodiness of the Crusades, the cruelty of the Inquisition, the insanity of the Salem witch trials, the scientific illiteracy of creationists, or the bigotry of a few fanatics (http://www.godhatesfags.com/). Each of these stereotypes would be highly offensive to members of the religion. However, ignoring the evils of specific religions is similarly offensive to adherents of opposing religions, as well as to non-religious persons.

Also, the issue of different sects being lumped in together would be a nightmare. I'm sure the designers don't want to receive thousands of emails from irate X-brand Christians explaining why Y-brand Christians aren't "real" Christians and should thus be separated into their own religion.

Hmmm...if they do have religion then I hope their are multiple choices.
If they just went for Christians, Islam, Jews, Buddha etc then it would be a bit annoying, but if they went for stuff like the Greek Gods, Aztecs Gods and the 'The Emperor is GOD! Now bow before me fools!' options as well, then that would be cool.

What about the trend towards secularism and atheism with time. Almost all (if not all) major religions are decreasing in numbers of followers at the moment (at least they are in England which is where my data is from) and this should be captured in the game.

Personaly I doubt that this will be that bug a concept in the game; I think it will run on the same lines of culture in CivIII.

Relgion should have serious negitive affects on tech reaserch.

Secularity should be a % measure in your 'Social Engineering' section of the domestic advisor screen. The higher you set your % Secularity, the higher your research output becomes, and the lower the chance of having religious schisms-or other negative religious events!
The flip side of this, though, is as Secularity increases, the effectiveness of religious improvements and wonders DECREASES!

Thats how I see it working, anyway!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

1 thing for sure, make sure that if i'm a christian(or w/e religon you want to add here) i should have better diplomatic staus w/ that cointry

Hah! I don't think so - in Medieval Europe the Christian countries HATED each other with a passion you can only dream! I think France allied with the Ottoman Empire in order to fight the Spanish! A bit of a case of 'who do we hate more than the Muslim Ottomans? THE SPANISH!'

"Theres only one people I hate more than the Romans, and that's the Judean People's Front!" (hope Ive got that quote right, Monty Python fans :) )

Yes but I agree that civs with the same religion should have a better relation generally, although it should be possible for there to be exceptions

I agree we need religions in civ. Similar to governments, or there can be multi-religious society in a civ.

Here are my thoughts (may be repeating):

I am against religions giving bonuses and pluses to a civ. Religions always deal with the spiritual and things not of this world. Since there won't be any theological discussions for this game, I suggest we also leave economic and other bonuses out of this. Furthermore, today most religions don't have any effect on any nations.

The advantages could be as follows:
A bonus if you are trading with another civ of the same religion, or have a military alliance with a brother in faith. Both civs could receive economic or military discounts and/or bonuses, etc. when in such a union. In general, civs of the same faith treat each other better and get first preference in trade and sharing of resources, maps, etc. and more inclined to help you against an enemy.

In the late Rennaissance and Industrial Age, religion becomes less of a factor in foreign and domestic policy, and even less if the government is a republic or democracy. Under communism, religion also loses effect.

After researching a certain tech (polytheism, monotheism, etc.), you will have contact with religious missionaries (from distant lands). You can buy or sell those just like contacts with other civs. You can call one of these contacts and ask him to spread his faith among your people.

We should limit religions to just the most popular 10 or so in the world.
Maybe a few variations of the same religion, just to have more political tension. Judaism, Confusianism, Buddhism (Theravada and Lama), Christianity (later divided into Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism (could be subdivided further)), Islam (subdivided into Sunni and Shiite), Atheism, and Hinduism. A default religion could be tribal, and you can keep it without choosing anything new (Japan is predominantly tribal (Shintoism) to this day).

• Under republic, democracy, and tribal council you can allow any religion missionary work in your civ. In other words, you don't have much control over your citizens' choice of religion.
• Under monarchy, despotism, feudalism, and imperialism, you can choose a single religion that you like for your whole civ and force ppl to comly.*
• Under communism you cannot have religious influence. *
• Under fascism, you favor one religion, the most popular that your civ had before gov't change, OR religion doesn't play a big role.
* Under the above gov'ts you can have some sort of religious inquisition to protect your civ from foreign missionaries. But if you push it too far, it may result in a reformation or revolution. Also, if within this group of gov'ts one civ defeats another, a religious conversion could become a condition for peace.

Certain events could spark your civ's reconsideration of the national religion. Scientific backwardness, or economic poverty, or pressure from other civs, or bad treatment from civs of the same religion, etc. could get your citizens to revolt and demand to reform your religion. In this case, you would let them transition into an appropriate subdivision (from Catholicism to Protestantism, for example).

I agree with the concept of "religiousness" of different nations as opposed to their actual religion. In general, northern Europeans were always less religious than people on the Mediterranean; Eastern Europe and the Middle East were always more religious than West Europe; Asia and the Far East had their own concept of religion, with which I am not very familiar. Maybe these things could play a role: Like the aggressiveness scale, there could be a religiosness scale for each civ from 1 to 5.

Likewise, since all civs were already assigned particular bonuses and favorite gov't types and least liked gov't types, we can also assign them a favorite and least liked religion. All these things should be based on history, not on brief periods of turmoil (Russia's and China's favorite religion is not atheism, etc. (as their fav gov't should also not be communism)).

One new concept could be religious dominance victory condition. You initially choose your favorite religion for your civ and then try to spread it to other civs. But you have to do it before the industrial age, because from that point religious influence declines in the civs that have reached that age.

I like most of your ideas, Beloyar, except that I feel that we should leave religions unnamed-as I've stated above.
The types of religions you could have might be totemic, animist, Ancestor Worship, Eastern Polytheism, Eastern Philosophy, Early Monotheism, Polytheism, Blood Cult, Late Monotheism and New Age Cultist.
Each Religion could also be split into Orthodox and Reformist-if you have the relevent tech.
Each civ will have a scale of preferred and shunned religion from +5 to -5, to determine how likely your people are to embrace a faith you adopt. This, of course, would be effected by in-game factors like the ones you mentioned. Equally, how powerful your religion is will depend on how secular your society is-as defined by your Social Engineering and government type. Religious conversions and Schisms are a much greater risk if you are at low secularity but, on the plus side, your religious improvements/wonders are MUCH more effective at keeping the people happy ('the opiate of the masses' ;)!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Like the aggressiveness scale, there could be a religiosness scale for each civ from 1 to 5.

Likewise, since all civs were already assigned particular bonuses and favorite gov't types and least liked gov't types, we can also assign them a favorite and least liked religion.


Beloyar, this is the most concise expression of this idea I've heard yet (that I can recall). When designing or adapting a scenario for my own use, I've often vacillated over assigning a civ the religious trait, and wished for a way to assign it a value on a sliding scale.
Your second idea would add even more depth to the game in that it allows the AI to simulate religion-motivated aggression or affiliation. The AI could then align like-hearted (as opposed to like-minded) civs together, and pursue holy wars. The degree of their religiousness, as you mentioned, would determine how zealously ( or not) they would pursue their religious feelings. It would more accurately represent how religion affects their affiliations, animosities, and decisions. As the government became more secular, their religion would affect their leaders decisions less.
Still, even a secular government of a very religious civ (high number on the religion scale) might experience greater discontent if it offends the majority religion. Likewise, a government of a civ low on the religion scale might cause unrest if it allies with a very religious civ.
I think this answers the original complaint of Shyrramar (spelling?) and others, which if I recall correctly, was that religion,if implemented, needs to add a new dimension to the game. A numerical scale for religiousness and adjustable settings for least/most liked religions would do just that. It also expands on Sid's original goal of creating the most customizable game ever. This takes that goal to the next level, worthy of cIV. (Are you listening, Firaxis? I sure hope so.)

[/QUOTE]Also, if within this group of gov'ts one civ defeats another, a religious conversion could become a condition for peace.[QUOTE]

Beloyar, this idea intrigues me. Could you expand on this one a little more?
If I understand your implication, the diplomacy model could allow religious conversion as a chip for the bargaining table, in exchange for a peace treaty.
Perhaps conversion could also be traded in exchange for other items in the diplomacy model bargaining table.
Perhaps a low religion civ would sell its devotion fairly cheaply, since its faith is of little concern to it; whereas a higher religion civ would sell its devotion only for the highest price in gold, technology, alliances, etc. Civs on the highest end of the religion scale would never sell their devotion (or secularness) for any price or even to save their civs existence.
I like your ideas. Please continue.

Why should atheism give a bonus to military police, as somebody suggested earlier? While there have been atheist states with military police, it's not like that is something inherent to atheism. After all there have been plenty of pious police states.

Rather, atheism and military police are both products of the political system. It seems more logical to me that an authoritarian government gives a bonus for military police.

I think it should be noted that there is a huge difference between an atheist state and a state which endorses no religion. An atheist state would be just as oppressive as a Christian state, in that dissenting views aren't tolerated, but the populace would be easier to control. On the other hand, a state that endorses no religion would be harder to control, but would promote trade and science.

There should definitely also be a way for a civilization to both endorse a religion and tolerate minorities. This provides a state with a way to have some middle ground between a) oppressive state with an imposed religion that is easy to control and b) a state where people have more religious freedoms and are harder to control.

I think that would fit in well with the idea somebody suggested before of sliders, to adjust the relationship between church and state.

I think the most important factor for religion is the fact that populations don't always agree with governments. I think that when a new citizen is born in a city, that citizen's religion should be randomly determined. Say for example that the civilization officially endorses Christianity, and the city is predominantly Christian but this particular city does a lot of trading with cities that are predominantly Muslim. Then perhaps the new citizen being born has a 85% chance of being Christian, a 10% chance of being Muslim, and a 5% chance of something else (either nonreligious or one of the other world religions).

If a civilization endorses no religion, and a new citizen is born into a prosperous city that does a lot of trading with many diverse civilizations, has a library, university, etc.... well, then the odds that they are nonreligious are quite high. On the other hand, if someone is born in a civilization that is officially Hindu, and they are born in an isolated town that does no trading and has poor education, but has a Hindu temple, then they are almost guaranteed to be Hindu.

Factors like geography, trade, education, state endorsement of religion, presence of religious facilities, and the religion of the current population are some variables that might have an effect.

If a state endorses one religion, then followers of a different religion, or nonreligious people should be less like to be happy citizens, and more likely to be unhappy citizens.

This reminds me of something else I'd like to see in Civ- migration of people between cities and civilizations. Religion minorities would often be the first to emigrate.

For the sliders, here are some thoughts:

100% Absolute theocracy*. Religious minorities are killed. This means that say a new citizen is born who happens to disagree with the official religion (through the system I proposed before where religion is determined through probability). He is instantly killed so you don't get to enjoy the population growth you worked for! On the other hand religious improvements and wonders may be cheaper to build. You can tithe your citizens so that you effectively tax them twice (once in church, once in their income tax). ;) So you make a lot more money. There should be big penalties for trade and diplomacy though, because you can't allow any outside interference from civilizations with different beliefs!

*In the case of a 100% atheist state, the term theocracy obviously doesn't apply.

90% Similar to 100% but instead of killing religious minorities, perhaps they are all deported. Or enslaved.

60% You have an official religion but you tolerate, and perhaps even encourage minorities, recognizing that their presence helps trade, culture, etc. Less income from tithing, and less penalties for trade and diplomacy when compared with the 100% level.

Also, there could be some variations on the 60% level. For example, 70% could be the same as 60%, except that you only tolerate religious minorities from religions similar to your own.

30% Religion used to be a huge deal in your country, but in modernizing it has been left behind, while still recognizing that it's a major part of your culture. People have total freedom of religion but there are still state-sponsored religious festivals from that old religion, as kind of a cultural heritage thing.

0% Absolutely zero endorsement of any religious belief/nonbelief. Religious minorities in your civilization aren't oppressed, but perhaps there could still be some religious violence between your citizens? (probably not too much though, as a state at 0% is likely to be a very modern state) Your civilization attracts lots of immigrants. You are not allowed to build any religious improvements or wonders, but they occasionally spring up randomly through private efforts (I'm entirely unsure of how this would work for gameplay)

Different slider levels must be dependent on gov't, technologies, etc. and perhaps most importantly- the consent of your citizens. If you are at 100% for centuries and then decide to all of a sudden go to 0%, you should be punished with rejection by your allies, mass emigration, or a civil war, etc.

Putting religion in the game can be a bit touchy. Things in the game to encourage (even unitentionally) war between different religions is a big nono. True this may not be true to history, but I do not want religious warfare in the game. I think Atari/Infogrames have erred on the side of caution to keep things out of the game that could be viewed as controversial, i.e. removing some spy functions before Civ 3 was released.

The Byzantines and the Greeks would be introducing Eastern Orthodoxy (Greek Orthodox).

I think that you'd be able to choose the religion for your civ. Maybe it would allow for more or less successful culture flipping. Perhaps you can build certain buildings/units with certain religions. In a scenario, it can be used to unite several provinces under a common ideal (several middle age civilizations did that -- Russia, Vikings).

I think the majority of ideas presented here are too complicated. Remember, Soren is thinking simple. Adding a ton of details just won't happen.

With that in mind, here's some baseline stuff as I see it:

Each civ has a religion (or lack thereof :p).
- This religion should affect relations between different civs.
- This religion will probably be selectable by the player.

Each citizen has a religion (or not).
- Each citizen's religion CANNOT be selected by the player.
- If the civ's religion is one thing and the citizen's religion is another, he should be unhappy (or perhaps if they're the SAME he IS happy), in some intensity (e.g. 4 Christians under an Islamic civ will result in 2 unhappy people or 1 unhappy person, etc.).
- Religions can be spread from city to city like plague is in Conquests. The rate at which will depend on exposure between cities (movement of units, number of roads or harbors) and an intrinsic factor which can be set in the editor.

Each civ can try to evangelize.
- For cash money you can attempt to convert citizens of another religion to your state religion. They can be within your own cities or in another civ's (kind of espionage).

Religions pop up randomly or as a result of certain triggers.
- This would be worked into Civ 4's scripting system. You could have the establishment of a new religion linked to the researching of a tech, the capture of a city, the passage of a certain date, etc.
- In addition to triggers, the location of the religion springing up would have to be specified (the location of a certain battle, the location of a city founded in a certain order, etc.).
- Finally, the intensity of the creation/spread of the religion would be specified. For example, the spread of Christianity was slow and steady, whereas the spread of Islam was fast and violent in nature (which was partially due to conquest, but that's beside the point for this example ;)).This is the bare minimum and most abstract implimentation of religion as I can see it.

Everything else from the pope to religious wars to tithing and religious states could be thrown into the mix, but my best guess is that the baseline and probably not much else will be in, maybe one more special feature.

Aussie Lurker

I am against unnamed religions. The game is based on our world, therefore, it should relate to actual religions.

Maccabee

One civ could end a war by converting to it's enemy's religion, after it was offered in the diplomacy screen. On the other hand this might start a new war with adherents of the old religion (other civs).
Such conversion would be easiest if the present relig. is primitive and the new is a popular one. But the most religious civs would be the hardest to convert if their present economy and culture are very good.

In general, the player's choice of religion shoule be his own free choice, unlimited by any bonuses in the game. Just like in our world, the player can choose the religion he believes in.

The player's advisors could also be vulnarable to conversion. If that happens, he can dismiss the converts if he chooses, and replace them with whoever else is available.

Echoes

In civs without much control over the choices of the people, their choice of religions could be determined by the achievements of other civs and their dominant religions.

A new person born in a city trading w/ a muslim civ is not going to become muslim. Parents always bring up children in their own religious tradition. Furthermore, trade does not influence religion. Otherwise, religious rulers would prohibit most trade with other civs. This theory would only work with civs that have no particular religion, or a default tribal primitive belief. Cities closer to the border of the religious civ would get the most influence.

More on war: If a civ does not accept to convert to make peace, but instead continues to fight and wins, it's people's religious beliefs are thus strengthened in their existing faith.


I think further ideas on religion in Civ4 should be based on our historic experience, not on theories of random events and guaranteed bonuses.

I don't think this is touchy at all. I know some people think they are more politically correct than others, but in reality, the game already passed this barrier with no complaints. We freely kill and destroy Japanese, Chinese, Arabs, Russians, French, Iroquois, and Americans as we like. None of those nationalities has ever complained about the game. So I wouldn't worry if a Muslim Germany would be duking it out with Protestant Chinese, while Catholic America and Catholic Japan would be at each other's throats, etc.

Putting religion in the game can be a bit touchy. Things in the game to encourage (even unitentionally) war between different religions is a big nono. True this may not be true to history, but I do not want religious warfare in the game. I think Atari/Infogrames have erred on the side of caution to keep things out of the game that could be viewed as controversial, i.e. removing some spy functions before Civ 3 was released.

I think that you'd be able to choose the religion for your civ. Maybe it would allow for more or less successful culture flipping. Perhaps you can build certain buildings/units with certain religions. In a scenario, it can be used to unite several provinces under a common ideal (several middle age civilizations did that -- Russia, Vikings).

Good ideas!:)
I like when ppl base it on historical events.
Would the buildings be churches/temples?

Trip,
Sure you can send missionaries in the middle ages, but more often conquest was a lot more effective in converting vast territories.

When you reach the modern age, your people would still retain mostly your traditional religion, the one that was dominant in the middle ages and the romantic age, etc. From this point, religion is a personal choice of each individual or a private religious organization. So, it does not have any effect on game play, or maybe very little.

In modern times, there could be religious fanatics, who sometimes would resort to terrorist tactics, but I think we should leave religion out of this aspect. Just have terrorists if they would be a fun addition to the game.

Trip,
Sure you can send missionaries in the middle ages, but more often conquest was a lot more effective in converting vast territories.
Well, that depends on who is currently occupying the territories. The Arabs had little trouble in converting the peoples of the Middle East to Islam, mainly because of the Polytheistic nature of the area and where Monotheism did exist, it did so only loosely and in a disorganized manner. Trying to, say, convert the rest of Europe that way wouldn't have been possible.
When you reach the modern age, your people would still retain mostly your traditional religion, the one that was dominant in the middle ages and the romantic age, etc. From this point, religion is a personal choice of each individual or a private religious organization. So, it does not have any effect on game play, or maybe very little.

In modern times, there could be religious fanatics, who sometimes would resort to terrorist tactics, but I think we should leave religion out of this aspect. Just have terrorists if they would be a fun addition to the game.
Yes, as time wears on religion should have less of an impact on game matters.

Worst idea I've ever heard of. We're already have enough of religion to the game. Maybe I'll play only scenarios without religion in civ4(though, I'll wait first to read reviews about how much the game is affected by religion, before I buy it).

Do we really need another round of "good" Christians and the "bad/despotic" Muslims and their Jihad? Christianity was much worse when it had more power than today.
The only thing religion does, is to maintain the hate between nations: maybe that's the reason it still exists, who knows?

I think it would be interesting if Religion was like government is now. You would have to decide what the best combination of State Religion and Govt. to use (the # of each would produce a great number of combos and each with a variety of effects). Implementing a religion should effect culture, maybe anarchy? open up new units/buildings etc. I think that religion should also promote diplomatic ties between nations with similar beliefs as well. There are a variety of possibilities here.

@Repeat Offender, this is a quite simplistic idea. Although it's wrong in historical sense, it perhaps adds a gameplay feature and is simple enough.

However, two problems:
-No state religions should also be a 'religion', because for example Rome had never 'the state religion' that the conquered people had to convert to (like the arabians and the europeans had). And then, what should it's benefits be.

-When would the religions come, and how? etc etc. ...

mfG mitsho

Worst idea I've ever heard of. We're already have enough of religion to the game. Maybe I'll play only scenarios without religion in civ4(though, I'll wait first to read reviews about how much the game is affected by religion, before I buy it).

Do we really need another round of "good" Christians and the "bad/despotic" Muslims and their Jihad? Christianity was much worse when it had more power than today.
The only thing religion does, is to maintain the hate between nations: maybe that's the reason it still exists, who knows?
What makes you think the game will address religion as specific historical types, rather than generic ones that simply differentiate religions and function appropriately in a historical context?

@King Alexander

I agree with the sentiment, especially the stuff about medieval Christianity being bad, very very bad, however...

Religion can exist in the game without any particular one being bad or good- Muslims are only bad in the Christian imagination, and vice versa. What is true is that religion has been a major influence in human history, and i am glad it is being given a more central role in the game- after all, religions have outlasted most "nations" (eg. no one can argue that the modern "English" are the same nation as the "Anglo Saxons", or the "Britons"). Maybe the game should be called "Religion" and we should be arguing about the inclusion of nations as province-type elements.

I think the game would take a sour turn if religion were to implemented tactically. There would be more arguing than rejoicing over the concept of having your own idea of God placed in such a selfish manner as bonuses to your troops.

No, it feels to me that Firaxis wants to use religion to add a new dimension to what is rather paltry at the moment: diplomacy. Say the computer has sent out missionaries to spread the word of Vishnu (for example) and they may have strayed too far into your territory. You may ask to remove them from your land, but you will have to be wily. After all, he may grow more angry with you and become pushy in negotiations. Not only will you have to be a charming and powerful leader in diplomacy, you will also have to be more considering of opponents' religions.

Its actually funny because, at the moment I'm working on a Civ3 mod which makes religion a much more prominant part of the game. Although I'm avoiding specific names for religions, I have 3 major 'religion paths' each effected by flavour and 'resource access'.
For instance, path one is 'Gnostic Dominated', and features polytheism and Eastern religious beliefs.
The second path is dominated by 'Spiritualism', and features The two main forms of Monotheism (early and late), as well as Theology, Orthodoxy and Reformist (though these latter 'techs could be picked up without first getting monotheism!)
The third path doesn't require any 'religious resource, and features nature cults, ancestor worship, Animism and Blood-Cults.
Please note, though, that I'm still in progress on this mod, so don't know how it will work in practice, but I hope to see each civ pursuing a slightly different 'religious pathway' based on a combination of their culture and access to 'Spiritualism' and/or Gnosticism. I'm not sure how the AI will take to it but, when I played a quick game of my mod-just to check out some new additions-and I found myself on a continent with only 'Gnosticism' available. Because of this, I chose to become a polytheist society, and avoided monotheism altogether. Of course, the way I had it set up, if I obtained 'spiritualism' later in the game, I could always 'convert' to Late Monotheism and build some Mosques ;)!
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that, if I could make religion work, albiet in a rudimentary fashion, with only civ3 tools available to me, then imagine what could be achieved with civ4, where religion will actually have a proper place!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

If Firaxis takes Aussie's route, how should they make sure it doesn't become another Space Race like in SMAC?

I was going to post what Aussie_Lurker is working on. What a coincidence! I think the abstraction of religion would be the best approach as opposed to specific religions. That will help mulitplayer games not because a haven for hate, we just have enough hate on the internet to also have it in games. Abstract religious concepts have less, not totally absent of, controversy and easier to implement. If they want to make religion part of the game it has to have serious effects of military expasion. If you are polythesitic, you are more accepting of other religions and have an easier time of assimilating foreign nationals. If you are monothestic you have a harder time assimilating but get other bonuses instead such as crusader units or something that have high attack. It should work like a gov't but have more of an impact on your civ because gov'ts come and go but religion usually stays the same. So your religious choice might greatly affect early game selection of gov'ts(early orthodox will not allow you to be a republic or something) but in modern times it will have less affect

What do you mean about a 'Space Race' CivCube? What I've done is given each religious tech a 'flavour', so that a civ of the appropriate culture is MORE likely to pursue those techs over others. The resource access issue is the other deciding factor of what religious techs a civ pursues.
Also, I'm not advocating that FIraxis takes my approach-all I'm saying is that even with the fairly rudimentary 'religion model' that Civ3 offers, I have been able to mod religion in such a way as to make it more part of the overall game! For instance, you have religious units capable of 'converting' workers and settlers to your cause, you might be able to 'trade Gnosticism' or 'Spiritualism' to distant civs (Spreading the Word), and you have numerous improvements, Governments and Great and Small Wonders associated with each religion tech! Also, none of the religious techs is a prerequisite for that age, so you could pursue outright atheism if you wanted-though you'd deny yourself happiness in the process.
So, if I could do all of this, think how much BETTER religion can be in Civ4!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Whoops, sorry about that Aussie_Lurker, I thought you were talking about something else. :) I thought you had a spiritual evolution in mind like in SMAC.

No offense taken CivCube. My main aim with the mod was to prevent the situation of all civs becoming Monotheistic by the late Middle Ages. I found the notion just a little, well, offensive-given the fact that around 50% of the real worlds population DO NOT fit this stereotype. In fact, I would have to say that the two single BIGGEST religions are Buddhism and Hinduism-NOT Judaism, Islam or Christianity!
I'm also adapting the flavour system to governments as well, thus hopefully preventing the Republic/Monarchy, Democracy/Communism duopoly that currently plagues the game. I'm introducing a WHOLE lot of new Government types, and giving each one a particular cultural flavour-just to nudge certain civs in certain diections, without coralling them entirely. Hopefully, when its finished, we will see a much more diverse combination of governments and religions.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I am strongly against calling the religions 'monotheism','polytheism' and so on. We also don't call Fascism 'government where the citizens are treated like ****'. It's the flair of civilization that you can build what has been acheived in the real world. It's fun to build the Art of War in London and the sixtin chapel in Bejing. So let me also fight islam america with my christian China. Let me do it. I want it, and I'm sure that many other players want that too.

However, you have to avoid offense to anybody by giving bonusses for several religions. But there are some things, that could be influenced by your religion:


tolerance-fanatism --> contributes to aggression level (therefore the agg. Lev. changes through the ages, which is more realistic.
Diplomacy. I don’t have to talk on this any more… ;)
Culture, every religion gives the same amount of culture, but if you influence/are influenced by another religion/civ you get a bonus/malus
Spreading of the religion goes alone, you have no direct influence in it. But building temples can strengthen it.


mfG mitsho

First of all, if they WERE to give all of the religions their PROPER name, I certainly wouldn't object but, if they do keep it general, there is nothing stopping players from going into the editor and adding new religions, or editing existing ones, and giving them all of their proper names!
I do agree that social engineering factors should determine issues of religious tolerance and/or militarism and have argued for this extensively in other threads! Here is an interesting thought though. If you have two civs with an identical culture/religion group, then should they get a bonus to cultural/religious conversions and the like.
For instance, lets say you have France and Germany, both of whom are of the West European culture group AND are Orthodox Monotheists. What I'm thinking is that, if they are neighbours, then both of these civs might get a bonus to RESISTING conversions (cultural or religious) by either non-monotheistic civs or even non-Western European Monotheists (like those 'accursed' Russians ;) :rolleyes: ). Also, it should give a bonus to diplomatic agreements between those two nations, as they share a common faith. Of course, if Germany later changes to Reformist Monotheism (as they did in real life) then all of these bonuses are lost!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Religions should be cultural polarities unowned by any civ. Your cities should even be able to pick individual religions, with the selection being by a variant type of relgious city improvement (temple/cathedral). It should even be possible to have multiple religions, one type dominant in each city.

Civ's would then relate not (or less so) on born cultural group, and more on religious group, with them reacting to each other on religious similarity. The first civ to discover the religion (by Wonder or tech tree), gains the most benefit for that religious polarity--perhaps dominating it in the diplomatic circles.

It'd also be risky to have competing religions in your civ (e.g. perfect way to introduce civil war), but there'd be some balance of benefits in it.

It'd even be possible to have the civ that invented all of the world's religions (by building all those Wonders), as a kind of Culture/Diplomatic Victory.


They'd probably have to add the Religious Victory option (although I can imagine the negative newspaper controversy now...)

It seems to me that religion should be treated as a very strong cultural component in Civ 4, as well as having specific advantages and disadvantages upon commerce, production, happiness, growth, military function, etc. Cultures with the same or similar religions would be MUCH friendlier and more helpful to one another and likely to grant ROP’s, MPP’s, etc. They would also be much more inclined to align against common religious adversaries.

We can’t underestimate the effect of religion on culture and upon wars throughout history. It’s huge, and Civ 4 would do well to make it of very significant effect. Maybe religions should not be selected, but develop naturally depending on your nation selected, its tech and culture researched and built over a long time, as well as the cultural influences of your neighbors. If you are surrounded by many muslim nations, it should be likely that your own culture would shift towards muslim religion. It could even be percentage of cultural religious impact by population over time. 75% of my population has become Christian at a certain point, so I get 75% of a 15% increase in worker productivity due to the strong Christian work ethic. If I want to try to alter this, I would have to do something to promote a different religious dominant culture in my nation, like increasing my Christian cultural strength by building cathedrals, etc. If I wanted to become more Muslim and reap the benefits of Muslim culture, I would build a mosque instead. You could even in the future raze a religious structure in one or all of your cities to shift your dominant national religion, but would face the wrath of your people for some time, or diminished population in your cities (some Muslims would leave, not unlike starving out the foreign nationals in a captured city to reduce protesters).

I have to admit due to the way religions spread and grow despite the actions of governments and planning, I think certain kinds of nations should gravitate naturally to their appropriate religions or mix of them. “Industrious nations” might be the ones slated to become more Christianized whereas “Militant” nations might become Muslim or Communistic. This is a tricky one to figure out how it might or how it should work. I will look forward, with crossed fingers, to how the developers of Civ 4 work it out.

I wanted to make a few quick points

first I wanted to point out each of the original 16 civilization's religions:

China: Mainly Confucianism, also Taoist and Buddhist influences
Japan: Mainly Shinto, also Buddhist Influences
Indian: Hindu, barely any buddhist influences, later some muslim influences
Persian: Zoroastrian
Babylonian: Babylonian polytheism
Egyptian: Egyptian Pantheism
Greece: Greek Pantheism
Aztec: Aztec Pantheism
Iroquois: Spiritualism
Zulu: Zulu pantheism
Greek: Greek Pantheism
Roman: Greek Pantheism, later switching to Christianity
French: Christianity
English: Christianity
Russian: Christianity
German: Christianity
America: Christianity

Note every culture has a different religion except for the cultures that rose out of the wreckage of the roman empire (or in America's case the wreckage of the British Empire), you can say that Persia and Babylon became Islamic, but I think its more accurate to say the Arabs overran them. By and large religion has always been a cultural marker, and people only change religion when they are integrated into an empire. The conversion rates from evangelicalism are largely negligable when you're looking at an economically successful culture (which would include all the cultures in Civ except for things with the marker of "minor tribe").

My second point is that the concept of monotheistic and polytheistic is largely a false concept. Islamic people often think of Christianity as polytheistic (the trinity, Jesus is part God, all that nonsense), and Islamic people arn't all that innocent themselves (The Devil and legions of angels in the relion), there aren't really any God's in Buddhism, and in anything one would usually call "polytheistic" its questionable how much the personification of a god is based on later western interpretations of it. In shinto for instance if a tree looks nice it obviously has a spirit in it, that doesn't neccesarily mean it has personaility, that's just largely what western people assume who have grown up with the concept that all religion is about a higher being. Anyways I always thought Civilization was very backwards on this one point (especially in making Monotheism more advanced than Polytheism), and I think any use of religions in the game has the threat of being even more backwards.

I do agree with making Religion specific traits, and I think they can all be done cheerfully, it would be something like a civ specific trait that wouldn't be shared with 4-6 other civ's. Confucianism makes a big deal about maintaining traditional culture, which is arguably why the Chinese culture has stayed together and dominant through 30 or so dynasties often led by foreigners, the thing often specific about Judaic based religions is their singular ability to inspire abundant loyalty, Greek religion has been said to have inspired that philisophic culture of Plato.

Largely though I think the most sensible way to use it would be as a form of cultural assimilation (which is what it was used for in Civ III), that's obviously not how they're going to use it, and I really can't imagine anything good coming as a result.

brokengambler, a few notes.

First off, I agree with you that the tech tree is a little "bigotted" to see monotheism as the key advancement over polytheism. I'm not sure what the answer is to resolving this one, or if it even direly needs to be resolved. But food for thought is that even the original Hebrews believed in multiple Gods -- they just believed that Yahweh was the one who watched over them in spite of all other Gods.

I did put together a thread where I talked about some problems I have with religion. My problems are a bit more general than yours, though. But like you, I think religion COULD be good, but worry that religion will simply be used as a "topic" to sell the game, as opposed to a source of new gameplay. Religion will permit new buildings and so forth, but ultimately be a one dimensional cartoon that doesn't change gameplay.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=113385

I would say, though, what would be better is culture-spreading more than religion-spreading. This would be something that could apply as much to the modern age as it does to the middle ages as it does to even the ancient age, when men were considered Gods, and organized religion was synonymous with a state.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=102134

But food for thought is that even the original Hebrews believed in multiple Gods -- they just believed that Yahweh was the one who watched over them in spite of all other Gods.
Would you like to explain this a bit further? I had the notion that the Hebrews were to be considered the descendants of Abraham, Isac and Jacob, or do they go further back? Anyway from Abraham the descendants would have to be considered monotheistics. There might be heretics among them and there might be a belief that other gods exist, but as their worship and beliefsystem is targeted towards one god only they can't be considered polytheists imo. Your post seems to indicate that.

There's a difference between monotheism -- the belief that only one exists -- and what the Jews had initially -- worship of one god, even if they acknowledge the existance of multiple Gods. The original Jews acknowledged the Egyptian Gods, for example, but saw Yahweh as THEIR God, the one who cared about them. It eventually evolved into monotheism, that there are no other Gods but Yahweh, and they stopped calling him by Yahweh and just started calling him God.

Probably the most important social development of Judaism wasn't the "one God" thing.

If I could point to two things, one would be the fact that they rejected the idea of visual representation of God. Some people suspect this is one aspect that made the religion more effective in propogating itself -- because an abstract God was more adaptable than a highly detailed God with characteristics from other living things.

The second would be that they phrased religion as a contract with God. Up until then, religion was often tied to specific beings on Earth claiming to be God or wishing that they were God. What's good? What Pharaoh likes. What's evil? What Pharoah hates. But Yahweh offered people a contract: if you do X, then I will do Y. If you follow these rules, then God will protect you. And this propogated through the spinoffs of Christianity and even Islam. Islam phrases it wonderfully: "If you take one step towards God, he will take two towards you. If you come to Him walking, He will come to you running." I know it's easy to take it for granted today, but for the first few thousand years of humanity, God was seen as a tyrant who could do whatever he wanted.

Religious historians tend to stir up contraversy among religious folks, because there's a tendency to see religion as an unwavering thing that has been that way since the beginning of time. Even the monotheists (Jews, Christians, Muslims) now see monotheism as the original religion of man, which was eventually distorted by others and their false Gods. This is another "winners write the history" thing, even if careful study and discussion suggests more to the picture.

It's difficult to come to any conclusion in this matter. Judaism as a religion today is monotheistic. The Jews as a people is closely connected to Judaism. Judaism stretches back long before it was written down. I think the only comprehensive source for the start of Judaism, with Abraham by the promise or Moses by the law, is the Bible. I believe the time you're talking about would be the 400 years of captivity in Egypt right before Moses, right?
Anyway, was it Judaism they practised if they worshipped other gods? Did the religion even exist or were they perhaps heretics? Were the gods equal, or could the rest of the gods be regarded as lesser beings like saints, angels or demons that could be worshipped?
The subject isn't as easy as it seems, there are too many unknown factors to come to a certain conclusion.

Truth is that, even after the Israelites settled in Israel (after their captivity in Egypt) practice of Monotheism was more something practiced amongst those in the larger towns and cities-with those in rural areas retaining their worship of House Deities and the like. It wasn't until their time in Babylon that the Hebrews finally fell in together under a single monotheistic faith, and it was at this time that Hebrew scholars actually sat down and put on paper the bible stories. I confess that I am now a little vague on the details but, if you can, check out 'The Kingdom of David', its a brilliant series on the stories of the Israelites and how their faith came to be.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

There *are* historians who take up this kind of thing. The King James Bible isn't the only written record. I don't claim to be an authority, but there are people who devote decades of research to these kinds of topics, and often come to conclusions that go against "conventional wisdom".

But yes, before Yahweh was the one and only God, he was the God of the Israelites. At least, that's what many historians believe. There are many other "surprises" in history that aren't given enough attention, either.

- after all, religions have outlasted most "nations" (eg. no one can argue that the modern "English" are the same nation as the "Anglo Saxons", or the "Britons"). Maybe the game should be called "Religion" and we should be arguing about the inclusion of nations as province-type elements.


That is not true. Not all religion outlast nations. The Roman paganism did not outlast the roman empire. And China, being the oldest continuous civilization in the world has outlasted many religions. Considering that Christianity is only 2k years old and is showing considerable sign of decay in recent years, there is strong indication that China might yet outlast Christianity.

I would have to say that the two single BIGGEST religions are Buddhism and Hinduism-NOT Judaism, Islam or Christianity!


Um, no. The two largest religions are:

Christianity: Over 2 billion adherents (more than 1 billion of them Catholics)
Islam: Over 1 billion adherents and growing very quickly.

Then what you thought:
Hinduism: Approaching 1 billion adherents.
Buddhism is on the top five list, but it's well behind the others.
I don't know about Judaism.

I just figured that, with a population of around 1 billion people-in India alone-most of them Hindus, that Hindus would be very close to the top 3. Same with Bhuddism (China, South East Asia). The problem with Christianity is that, if you asked a lot of Americans (North or South) or Western Europeans about their religion, most of them will say Christian and/or Catholic. If asked how often they go to church, or the depth of their religious convictions, then many of them would say very little, because they only tend to pay 'lip-service' to their beliefs, wheras Bhuddists and Hindus, like Muslims, seem to take their religious lives VERY sreiously, and that is how I was looking at the numbers!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Thing is, you can't judge a person's religiosity by how often he attends his local religious building. Quakers, for example, don't even have churches. And Shintoists don't typically attend a shrine except for special events in their life.

I've been contemplating a model where religions are non-player actors. They spawn randomly (perhaps weighted to appear within their historical civs). You can negotiate with the religions (embodied as that religion's highest earthly representative). Wonders are tied to the religion, so you can only build that religion's wonders if sufficient citizens in the city are of the correct religion. Same goes for religious city improvements.

Religions may occassionally decalre a holy war, excommunicate a civ, or make weird demands on your civ. If you anger a religion sufficiently, it may call on its allied civs to declare war on you, and it may scrap all religious buildings (of its type) in your cities (no refunds).

But yes, before Yahweh was the one and only God, he was the God of the Israelites. At least, that's what many historians believe. There are many other "surprises" in history that aren't given enough attention, either.

I won't argue with that. It's not a clear or 'interesting' enough distinction between the two concepts to discuss. I wouldn't make the cut between them being monotheistic or polythesitic on this basis anyway. One problem still lies in how you see the people of Israel - either Israel-the descendants through blood or Israel-the descendants through religion. The second problem lies in the acknowledge of other 'gods' - If their god went from being their god, still the only god they should worship, to this god becoming the only god, but still their exclusive god, then this could be the result of a clearification of the concept god.
My point is that Judaism and the Israelites are different things, but still intervowen(?) and to speculate about Israelites' beliefs several thousand years ago and then applying them to Judaism back then, changing the religion seems 'complicate'.

I have no problem agreeing that religions change, I'm just a bit sceptic. There are a lot of new populistic discoveries being made, especially when it comes to religious things, just take the Da Vinci Code for a stretchy example, people like this stuff, so new theories and discoveries will come in similar veins of thought.

And from CIA - factbook : Christians 32.71% (of which Roman Catholics 17.28%, Protestants 5.61%, Orthodox 3.49%, Anglicans 1.31%), Muslims 19.67%, Hindus 13.28%, Buddhists 5.84%, Sikhs 0.38%, Jews 0.23%, other religions 13.05%, non-religious 12.43%, atheists 2.41% (2002 est.)
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/xx.html#People

Loppan,

One thing we have to acknowledge is that many historians are wrong. We don't have detailed records back then. But the point is that religions do change. And many of the most important innovations would be hard as hell to model.

Which leads me to the point -- polytheism and monotheism aren't exactly a great way to dilineate religious progress ANYWAY. But they're kind of terms of convenience. "They had many Gods, then they had one God, and it changed EVERYTHING," says Sid Meier in 1991.

I think it's about time we left 1991 behind.

(And as a side note, probably one of the most tricky things about talking about Judaism, Israel, and Hebrews is you're dealing with 0.23% of the world's population. They're a religion, a "race", and a nation. You can't really say the same thing about any other people.)

Rhialto and everyone,

I think an automatic model of religion is much more effective because it can do things that players can't or won't do.

Leaving it in the player's hands would ensure that a religion will always benefit a player -- and you can't find an example in history where religion favors one nation above all others. (Unless the religion was unique to that nation, and even then, it would sometimes be a thorn in the side of the emperor or king.)

Automating it would let certain events occur that do not benefit any player. Or that benefit multiple players. This is much more like how religion impacted history. No European nation chose Christianity, it chose them. The European nations learned to work with it, and sometimes even tried to fight it or control it.

But a lot of people would have a problem with this because it verges on "natural disasters" -- a volcano randomly erupts, or an earthquake randomly hits a continent. The key to good automated model would depend on how much it upsets the game balance. Nobody wants to play a game where random luck can take them out of the lead, or put them into the lead for that matter.

I'm presently working on a scen that includes all major religions:

Christianity (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox)
Islam (Shia, Sunni)
Budhism (Nikaya, Mahayana)
Hinduism
Judaism
Chinese (Confucianism, Taoism)
Japanese (Shintoism)
Tribal (Animalist)

They're untradable techs given to corresponding civs. Each has its own temple type (gave temples the 'replace all buildings with this flag checked' ability previously for power plants so you can't can't have two if you capture an enemy city).

The scen covers Middle Ages to Modern Age so there's no transition from ancient religions to deal with. Changing religions would have to work something like changing governments (but not be controlable by player (nor should government changes for that matter--a request heard often: uncontrolled revolutions).

I tried to stay away from researching new religions in the scen, but in Civ4 this will probably be the case unless they tie it in with civ characteristics (assuming there are civ characteristics).

I have certain special religious wonders that require certain resources to be within city radius (in addition to a Temple of the same religion) thus ensuring that only colonization of these areas by a certain civ will result in these holy sites being formed. (Kind of like what Aussie was talking about earlier where religions are also determined by map features).

Another requirment that I use for some religious improvements is government (e.g. Cathedrals require Catholic Church improvement but will not function under Communism).

Thing is, in my scen, religion (buildings) only affects hapiness whereas it would be nice to have it play a role in citizen resistence (i.e. functions like nationalism--without having either one or the other) and other aspects of your civ.


Basically, the way I look at it is, 'what aspect of religion [i]can't[i] I already mod into Civ3?' That's what should be in Civ4.

Where the question of how to make religions be generic without resorting to the simplistic nature of 'Polytheism' and 'Monothesism' (which are simply stages of research and do not determine which direction a civ will follow): leave this up to Firaxis.

OK, the only problem that I have with random appearance of religion is 'how do you determine the factors that effect WHAT religions appear for which civs?' If you make it based on the Civ or Culture Group, then you risk both Strait-jacketing the player too much AND possibly causing some groups offense. Although it is not TRULY realistic, I think that 'researching' religions is OK because-as Rhialto often points out-you are the 'Gestalt' of your people and, in this case, successful 'research' of a religious 'tech' could simply represent 'revelations' within certain sections of your community. eg. 'hmmm, all this belief in dozens of different Gods has led to so much needless pain and bloodshed in the region. If, however, we all believe in one, all-powerful God, then it could unite all the people in that single belief' and, before anyone dismisses this out of hand, this was EXACTLY the social situation Mohammad faced at the time he recieved his own religious revelation!!
Of course, like governments, 'discovering' a religion is not the same as adopting a religion. However, once you have 'discovered' a religion, the chance of sections of your population changing to that religion becomes a real possibility, as does the proximity of other nations with that religion. Once you have a ground-swell of support for a given religion, then it is up to you, the player, whether to give it state sanction, or try and repress it instead (a dilemma faced by the Roman Authorities in the face of Christianity).
So, what exactly am I saying? First, that 'researching' in the case of religion is a way of representing the abstract concept of religious revelation. Second, that religious paths are NOT mutually exclusive, or on a Linear Research Path, but that you can move from any ONE Religion to any other. If anything, religious 'techs' should grow out of non-religious Social Techs, NOT other religious 'techs'.
Thirdly, I am saying that your people can embrace a religion not endorsed by the State, but that this might threaten a religious schism within your society!
Anyway, hope that makes sense!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

My thoughts about religion

* Use real religions

* Religions offer differing benefits, buildings, wonders. They do not offer negatives.

* Each religion has an implicit 'conversion strength'. Some religions may not offer all the great benefits of others, but perhaps they are spread more easily.

* That said there is a progression in religions. Some of the earliest religions may not offer the same benefits or conversion strength as some of the later religions.

* Some religions are available from the very start of the game.

* Other religions appear later. They are started by a Prophet unit, or great religious leader

*If a prophet does not appear in your lands, you may ask a foreign civ to establish a missionary in your capitol. This will begin the process of converting people in your cities.

* A prophet may be used to build a great religious monument or center.

* A religious center acts as a strong influence on the citizens of that city and surrounding cities.

* A city with a majority of citizens of a given religion may build improvements, units specific to that religion.

* Building religious buildings has a domino affect. Once a city is converted to Islam, for example, it may begin construction of a mosque. This mosque then will have an influence on citizens of neighboring cities, gradually converting them until the majority of that city too is Islam. And then they too can build a mosque.

*Religion is not entirely under your control. Citizens in your outlying cities may be affected by the religious influence of cities from neighboring civs.

*Religion and culture are closely tied together. The religion of a strong culture civ will travel much more easily across borders and affect a low culture civ, rather than vice-versa

*You may similarly attempt to spread your religion by establishing missionaries in other civs. A civ may allow you to do this for free (if they want your religion), for a price, or not at all. Vassal states (another great feature to implement) would be obliged to allow you to establish your missions.

*Having cities of different religion in your empire increases the risk of civil war, or schism.

*Secularism appears as a tech in the latter half of the game. It allows you to maintain cities of different religion in your empire with a reduced risk of schism.

*New Victory Condition: unite the world in one faith. (You will need to control the seat of the religion)

ok, let's suppose you have the following civs in a particular game:

Rome, China, India, Germany, Russia, Aztecs, Greece

And the following religions:
Aztec polytheism, Graeco-Roman polytheism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodox

Each religion would have a matrix of civs that had that religion historically, weighted according to numbers of worshippers, with a minimum score of 1 for every civ. So they might be:

Aztec polytheism : Aztecs - 10, all others - 1
Graeco-Roman polytheism : Rome - 5, Greece - 5, all others - 1
Eastern Orthodox - Russia - 3, Greece - 3, all others - 1

And so on. Note that as religions get more modern (I'm defining this as the most recent peak in their numbers of worshippers), the extremeness of the regional weightings will drop. Orthodox Christianity is a modern religion, so the weightings are low. Aztec polytheism died out a few centuries back, giving it a strong weighting that makes it almost certain to spawn first in an Aztec city.

Next, each time a civ researches the releasing tech for a given religion, the game engine rolls the dice. If this roll indicates the religion will spawn in your civ, a random city is chosen. Note that this avoids giving any weighting bonus to a big civ, thus subtly encouraging religious uniformity in any given civ (before cross cultural contact and other religions get researched of course). The dice roll to determine spawning is adjusted each time a civ fails to make it spawn in their territory, such that teh last civ to research the tech will always spawn that religion if it hasn't spawned already.

(whew!)

----

Now, once a religion has spawned, it becomes an independant entity which you can negotiate with in diplomatic screens. It immediately begins converting citizens first in its starting city, then in surrounding cities. Diplomatic actions can encourage or discourage it from converting people in your or a foreign civ. As it gains power, it may start building religious improvements or claiming a tithe, and it may even ask your civ to declare a religious war, with civil disorder problems if you refuse (what Christian king dared refuse the Pope when he ordered a crusade?). naturally different religions will have different AI personalities. For example, the Buddhist AI should be very unlikely to call for a holy war.

If a player-civ strongly identifies with a religion (or just suddenly notices that 99% of his citizens are that religion), he may declare that religion to be the official religion. This allows the player to directly fund religious city improvements (instead of hoping the religion's AI builds them for him), and allows him to build religious great wonders from the relevant religion. it also puts him in the pocket of the AI religion, making it rather harder to disobey that AI. Depending on the exact level of official support (and the AI religion may call for higher levels), citizens of other religions in your empire may be unhappy or persecuted.

Thoughts?

Well, Rhialto, I do support the broad THRUST of your ideas but-in principle-I am still broadly opposed to using realworld religions, with the exception of in Scenarios and any realworld names players want to give their religions 'In-game'.
So, what we are looking at with religion, IMHO, is the seperation between 'Divine Revelation' of a small minority of Believers, the broader understanding of the belief system by the people and, finally, the official sanction of the state.
So, I believe that the initial 'conversion' of a small minority of your population to an as yet 'unknown' faith would occur almost spontaneously-based on a very small % chance (checked every x turns). This chance will be weighted by certain cultural factors, how 'close' your nation currently is on the 'phlyogenetic tree', whether or not your nation has come to 'understand' the religion (i.e. 'researched' it) and the proximity and religious culture of similarly-faithed nations you neighbour and/or trade with. Having converts within your nation boosts the chance of your nation 'learning' that religion. Once the nation, as a whole, achieves a broad 'understanding' of the faith, then it can choose to adopt it as the official religion. Otherwise, as Rhialto pointed out, it will remain a seperate faction within your nation with whom you deal with in a similar fashion to another civ.
Anyway, thats at least how I might like to see it work.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I forgot to mention that although the religion's AI will convert the citizens, that doesn't mean that the civ loses the citizens. I'd probbaly work it so that the AI acquires 1 tithe point for each converted citizen, and can then spend tithe points placing religious buildings, or perhaps even raising its own armies.

OK, I think that a religions overall 'strength' (i.e. its ability to convert, the amount of tithes it collects, how quickly it builds religious improvements and the like) would be based on the # of converts the religion has (in ALL nations), whether your nation officially sanctions that religion and your nations degree of Theism.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I'm not opposed to real religions. Although I am concerned that they raise issues of verisimilitude, if you implement a dynamic, abstract enough religious model, then all these things will make sense.

But I AM opposed to hardwiring religions. Almost as much as I'm opposed to randomly founding religions in different civilizations. Hardwiring religions straightjackets the player, to steal Aussie's word. Randomly distribution religions just kind of makes the whole thing ... odd. It's a balance between finding a systematic way to distribute religions based on how the game unfolds, without predictably knowing your Civ's religious sphere before the game starts.

I'd like to see religion uniting civs... Like of the Babylonians, germans and americans have fought against each other long time, but they have been christians. Than another civs that have other religion comes to invade them, germans, americans, and babylonians will somehow ally against the infidels.

All religions should have their own temples and larger temples, the temples would not spread the owning civ's culture, but only the religion. Also, every religion should have a priest unit that spreads it's faith, it can also work as a spy. Also, every religion has it's UU in every era.

Religions would change. The religions would be born in some areas, and start to spread from there.

Naziassbandit, I'd come up with a similar scenario you're describing using cultural unity.

The Babylonians, Germans, and Americans can fight and then suddenly find themselves attacked by an outside force, and thus unite in the face of adversity. This happened in the Crusades with Christians uniting against Muslims. But this also happened in Greece, with Sparta and Athens uniting against Persia. The idea being that it doesn't matter what kind of similarity two nations/city-states share -- it could be language, values, rituals, or similar institutions. If they're more similar to each other than an outside force, they'll unite.

The first thing you'd need is a way to transmit culture points, so you have something to measure. Each Civ would start out with a unique culture, and producing temples and libraries and so forth would increase the number of points of that culture. Culture would "bleed over" into nearby nations automatically. Suddenly Babylon has 100 Babylonian culture points, but 10 American culture points. New York has 100 American Culture points, and 15 Babylonian culture points. Cultural transmission would be slowed, even reversed, by war and hostility. It would be sped up and increased by trade and admiration. You now have a mechanism to transmit culture between Civs, more or less.

The second thing you need is a way to measure cultural similarity. It's quite easy, really -- it's as simple as counting wood blocks. If my castle has mostly blue blocks, and yours has mostly red blocks, but we both have some blue and red blocks, we can measure how similar (different) we are from each other.

Me: RRRRRRRRRRBBBB
You: BBBBBBBRRR

We engage in some cancelling to find subtract the intersection, leaving out the "difference". Note that no culture points are destroyed in the process, but this is just a theoretical mathematical calculation.

Me: RRRRRRRRRRBBBB = RRRRRRR
You: BBBBBBBRRR = BBB

It's hard to see how these values help. But if we add "somebody else", with their own culture, represented by green... suddenly it's easy to see that there are HUGE differences between us and them. Cultural similarity is, thus, always a matter of triangulation -- me, you, and them.

Me: RRRRRRRRRRBBBB --> RRRRRRRRRRBBBB --> RRRRRRR
You: BBBBBBBRRR --> BBBBBBBRRR --> BBB
Them: GGGGGGGGGGGGG --> GGGGGGGGGGGGG --> GGGGGGGGGGGGG

The amount of culture that remains uncancelled is "the difference". Look at "Them" -- their difference is much larger than ours. Thus we can say that you and me have more in common with each other than them.

The last thing you need is a mechanism that drives similar nations closer together and different nations apart (and everyone in between). To me, the mechanism is THE PEOPLE. Popular opinion. As the leader of your nation, you may hate "me" as much as you hate "them". But your people look at my people getting attacked by "them", and say to you "we're starting to get upset that you're not doing anything about 'them'. While they haven't attacked us, we see them as a threat to our way of life, having killed neighbors of ours who share similar dress, language, and rituals." In order to boost your peoples' happiness, you might just bail me out!

I think religion would probably best be implemented as an advanced form of the culture groups ie a Multi Civ Identity (and possibly sub-Civ identity as well)

This means that it would affect your diplomatic and domestic relations... easier to declare war on someone of a different religion than your people. (ie Catholic-Protestant wars get more public support than Catholic-Catholic wars and less than Catholic-Sunni wars... Probably something like two or three Levels of difference.. so both Catholic and Sunni could be of the 'Mosaic' base; 'Christian' and 'Islamic' branches, 'Catholic' and 'Sunni' subdivisions)

There would be a few significant sites for various religions.. and they would probably tend to share them. (probably one could have something like Mosaic significant site =Jerusalem, Islamic branch ss= Mecca, if Catholic ss=Rome)

I'd probably put religions into 4 categories

1. Tribal (ie starting religion of all)

2. Imperial (ie Pantheon)...exportable:good for keeping multiple civs happy..slowly replaces 'Tribals'.. doesn't spread beyond your empire well though

3. Local (ie Judaism)...resistant: maintains resistance to assimilation..doesn't spread at all, but isn't replaced easily if at all

4. World (the Big 4..Islam/Christ/Hindu/Bhudd)... both exportable And resistant



I'd imagine some version of that would be best because that avoids trying to work out bonuses for different religions. Essentially if it is no more than an advanced Culture group (that can change.. with various technologies and events and consist of only parts of your civ)

The one thing that I could see as bonus would be things that affected the religion itself ie resistance, exportability, internal unity (ie Catholic higher than Orthodox higher than Protestant... if that was a single group)


I'd generate them like so

Tribal.. you start with it

Imperial...you get a tech that allows you to start this (you may also conquer a more advanced civ that already has this and their Imperial then becomes your Imperial ie Greco-Roman)

Local... Probably Rare.. but occasionally once a certain tech is researched (possibly like Philosophy..1st civ to Research monotheism gets a Local Religion)

Global..Mostly formed from splts or developed from othere neighboring base religions (ie Christ+Islam from the same base as Judaism, Bhuddism from Hindu...splits would be rare but enough so that the number of subdivisions by a industrial/modern game could be ~10-20.. triggers could be techs, political situations, etc.)


Governments could set religious policies, basically which religion they sponsor and how strongly (including None as an option)...Note this could also be tied to government type, ie the religion sponsored depends on what your population favors when the government is formed, and the degree of sponsorship could be hardwired to government type. (this depends on the government model)

naziassbandit
We have the example of european countries who fight a lot among history but they allways allies to face ottomans, or during the Reconquista of Iberian Peninsula against Arabs.

dh_epic
I think your example too complicate. So a better way to give similarities and diferences between civs, is something like that:
I must said that the ratios are mainly arbitrary and the model itself, could be improve, adding some features and discard others. This model is an aproach how S/D could be apply.

S = rR+lL+gG+tT+ aA, D = 1 - S and r+l+g+t+a = 1

S is a given ratio between 0 and 1. S could converge, more close to 1 or diverge more close to 0 trough the culture spread model among time.

S - similitary between 2 civs, D - diference between 2 civs.

R - Religion. How religion is similar or diferent from civ to civ? Religion is considered by their adherents as the truth faith and all others are wrong. So 2 diferents religions are exclusives to each other. So R = 0. If the religion is the same, like Christianism, but their practice is diferent, as Protestants (P), Catholics (C), Orthodoxs (O). So R between this diferent ways of practice the some religion is between 0 and 1. This is completed abstract, but suppose that R between this 3 divisions is 0.7 So R between O and C is 0.7 and R between O and P is 0.7 and R between P and C is0.7. Now suppose R between Portugueses and Spainish is 1,due both are Catholics. And r is weight that religion is in culture similarity and suppose is 0.35.

L - Language. Suppose that we take 2000 words and calcule how many words are similar and understandable between 2 civs. So if we achieve a ratio of 0.8 then this 2 languages are similar in 0.8, once again between Portuguese and Spainish, and once they're latin language this make sense. We could have also have the idiomatic expressions or grammaire, but to simplify we only count with ratio achieve above. And l is weight that language is in culture similarity and suppose is 0.35.

G - Gastronomy. we take the meals, some food and luxuries more commonly used by 2 civs. Some food are forbidden or forbiden in same days. So we can have a ratio between Portuguese and Spainish as 0.6. And g is weight that gastronomy is in culture similarity and suppose is 0.1.

T - Traditions or vice. Poligamy versus monogamy. The heritage go all to primogenit male. Mens take care og cattle. Wedding between childs are allowed. Clothes. And so one. So we can have a ratio between Portuguese and Spainish as 0.7. And t is weight that traditions is in culture similarity and suppose is 0.1.

A - Art. In early stages of game this is fundamentally jewellery, sculpture and architecture. After we add theatre, literature, and so one. The raw materials tied to geography and geology are the main aspects fallowed by style. So we can have a ratio between Portuguese and Spainish as 0.7. And a is weight that art is in culture similarity and suppose is 0.1.

I apply only 0.10 to tradition, gastronomy and art due religion allready include some of this factors and also contribute to modelling it.

If we apply the values to this model we have: S = 0.35x1 + 0.35x0.8 + 0.10x0.6 + 0.10x0.7 + 0.10x0.7 = 0.35 + 0.28 + 0.06 + 0.07 + 0.07 = 0.83.
Then we could say that spainish and portuguese culture are similar in 83%, and so diferents in 0.17%.


To the topic.
If the religion in cIV is the Rhye's approach then we have the problem solve. More religion units and religion improvements.
But if is anything else, some kind of culture spread model apply to religion, then the possibilities are more interstings. I think that we must tied to in real life religions and not push the imagination. Besides that I have same thoughts.

- How and when a particular religion appear.
By a technology. With ceremonial burial we have the pagan, nordic, blood and sacrificial cults. The mhysticism allow a higher degree of religioness. With polytheism we have the antropomorfic religions (Egypt, Greece, Rome, Hiduism, etc). When Monotehism is discover we could start have the monotheist religions. Tied this techs with Great People could be a way.
By a Great People. Lets think about Judaism, Christianism and Islam. They're all religions who come from desert one fallow the other and in some way the're related. Judaism stand tied to one nation/civ so is a spread weaklly religion. Christianism derive from Judaism but had the Roman Empire to could spread and stand mainly in Europe who have a moderate clima. Islam also come from desert and still mainlly a desert religion.
What factors: geographics, climatics and culturals define in what civ a religion came out.

- How citizens are converted.
In Europe the barbs are converted mainly when their king is converted. In America and Africa is due the colonialism and has tied to cultural assimilation of their people. Islam it spread by sword and taxation (the citizens in conquered territories who don't embrace Islam pay a tax). Some cultural similarities between the peoples of desert also contribute (Arabian desert, Sahara, Central Asia, Indonesian is an exception to this model).
The traditions of a civ culture give us the degree of tolerance to a certain religion. So if the beliefs and canones of a religion are in somehow according to traditional culture of a civ then more easily spreading to that civ. Or if the religion is brought frommore tech advanced a civ . The Aton cult is completely discard once the founding are dead. Islam that forbid alcool drinks are more problems to spread in civs who consumme alcool drinks. Civs with poligamy more easily accept Islam as they new religion
Building religion improvements and have active missionaries may increase a particular religion also, but in last case the degree of tolerance give the more fast or lower conversion, or any convertion at all.
Rulers decisions, or government type should also contribute to tolerate or not a particular religion (the intolerance against huguenotes and counter-reform contribute to France and Spain remain catholics).
Civs nearby tend spread each other they're culture and so therefore they're religion. A religion spread model is the more accurate and playable way.
Politheist civs easily accept monotheist religions, due it was one more God. And if replace the old gods by saints more easily they're be convert.

- How religions relate to each others, and with civs.
In early stage of religion, once a religion become an officila state religion they tend to embrace as many as civs at possible whatever the means. A civ recently convert and civs with a particular religion that are the most advance in techs tend to be more missionary and less tolerante with others civs. Schism inner a religion are tied to culture (catholics are mainly latins, protestants mainly germanics and orthodoxs mainly slavics). In Islam Xiits are Parsis and sunits arabs, turkish and malayans. Religion could act as a social, art and scientific constraint. Galileu in catholicism or the forbiden human pictures in Islam. In Budhism Tibetans, Mongols and Koreans are Nikaya and Thais and Khmers are Mahayana. So discovery, say Islam a civ could adopt Sunism or Xiism, like a governmental type choice. The same to Chrystianism and Catholic first and Orthodoxy after and coptas, nestorian and several others forms of Chystianity. Once Protestantism is available with discovery of Printing Press other option appear. In case of Islam the option it was not so long, it could choosed once Mohamad died, some like a trigger event who force that choice. The same to Budhism. The choice of a particular religion could be arbitrary, unless the diferents divisions of a religion, who must have the main religion back, and could be tied to the mainly feel of civics/citizens.
Once a civ discover a religion others civs don't need discover it anymore, something like great wonders. A division of a particular religion act as the same, but could be discover by any civ who adopt the main religion.

kikkitone
Hindu is a local religion to. Mainly in India. In others countries is dueing indians migrants across Commonwealth.

mhIdA, I don't have a problem if you think my model is complicated. But then you go so far as to multiply the complexity of my model by 5.

Multiplying the number of cultural concepts by 5 isn't feasible in Civ, a game that has barely introduced culture. Rather than adding 5 different kinds of culture, it's more valuable to change the way the one type of culture works.

Multiplying the number of cultural concepts by 5 isn't necessary. This is because for all the ways you've differentiated between Art and Gastronomy, there's no difference in what the player does. If the goal of culture is "spread it -- using buildings, wonders, units, trade, government policy, and osmosis", you really don't need 5 different kinds of it.

And multiplying the number of cultural concepts by 5 isn't desirable. If they player is doing the exact same thing for 5 different concepts, why have 5 different concepts at all? And if the player needs to do 5 different things for 5 different culture concepts, that's undesireable micromanagement.

Focusing back on religion, you have a lot of great thoughts. But how do you model the actual values that a religion has in common? How can you tell that it's the whole alcohol thing, or the pork thing?

And to apply what I just talked about, who cares if it's the pork thing or the alcohol thing? If they behave in the same way, then it doesn't change what the player can do, and doesn't matter. If they DON'T behave the same way, then the player gets bogged down in micromanaging his policy on every different kind of food.

The types of religions you could have might be totemic, animist, Ancestor Worship, Eastern Polytheism, Eastern Philosophy, Early Monotheism, Polytheism, Blood Cult, Late Monotheism and New Age Cultist.
Each Religion could also be split into Orthodox and Reformist-if you have the relevent tech

How about different combinations and flavors? The Reformed Church of the New Age Polytheistic Blood Cult or the Orthodox Church of Eastern Polytheistic Philosophy......! Any church could also worship tribal animal totems and ancestor spirits alongside the Orthodox Church, like in Syncretic New Religious Movements such as Voodoo, Macumba and Santeria.