Religion Mod

The current unrealistic system of religions in Civ IV has always annoyed me. I have seen many mods on the forums that make changes to religions, but none seem complete. My goal is the eventual creation of a complete and balanced religion mod that makes religions more realistic.

Ideas/Things to Include (so far) :
1. Inquisition/Religious Victory (currently a mod by BMarnz, though I would like to change religious victory conditions...

2. Religious UU. (there is a mod by Navy Seal, though it isn't quite balanced for all religions, and civilopedia needs to be changed)

3. Historical Founding of Religions: I would like to create a system that allows religions to be founded in historical locations, while still being fair to all civs.
One idea I had was to allow only a certain group of civs to found each religion (i.e. Islam can only be founded by middle eastern civs)

4. Possibility of New religions...

5. I want to keep this easy to use and add to other mods.

Please post any further comments, ideas you might have, or how to implement them. The above ideas are only a start, and I would like more input.

Note: I understand the basics of modding, and can merge things well, but I don't know too much about actual coding.

In the limited religion version of tht inquisitor, it might be possible add a check for artsyles to limit religions culturally. It would not be compatible with mods that have custom artstyles.

I just want to add that paganism is NOT a civic, but an amount of polytheistic religions. And please, change the description of paganism in the civilopedia, because what's described there isn't paganism, but pantheism. BTW, civilizations should begin with their historically original religion (that's to say: Germans = germanic paganism, Romans = roman paganism, etc.) and then decide if you convert to another one or not.

The pantheism change shouldn't be too hard, and it would be necessary if one were to add the idea of local start religions.
I like the idea of each civ starting with its own local pagan religion. i was actually going to suggest something similar. Maybe they could become available upon researching mysticism, but all would have the same benefits; however, this way one could add different effects to other religions.
The only problem is that I'm not entirely sure how to go about doing this.

EDIT: I found a mod that adds paganism, but I have no idea how "localize it". Does anyone know how I might go about doing this?

That's a great idea! And then you can get new religions...

The only complication I see with the local pagan religions other than how to go about doing it would be whether or not the game would allow this for civs that start with mysticism.

To fix the mysticism problem:
1. Paganism could be founded on polytheism, and Hinduism should be founded on a different tech (maybe a new one...) One thing that has always annoyed me is the fact that Hinduism is portrayed as a polytheistic religion, when it actually isn't.

2. Meditation should be moved up, because Budhism was actually created as an attempt to purify Hinduism by removing the necessity for many rituals. This will make religions founded closer to their actual time period.

Writing is the tech that should allow you to found hinduism but there's still a problem with buddhism. I'll think on it.

I don't know about writing... its a bit too late. Hiduism was officially founded arund 3000 BCE, and I would like to make it the earliest religion. However, Buddhism was acually founded around 563 BCE so it could be moved up.

I like the idea of allowing each civ in the game to found only one religion. The total number of civs in the game determines the total number of religions available to select from.

For Example: If there are 10 civs selected, then only a maximum of 10 religions can be founded in that game. Once the specified religion tech is discovered by one civ, then that civ can select from among 10 religions to found a holy city. Once a civ founds a religion through tech discovery, then that civ cannot found any of the remaining 9 religions, as they are reserved for the other 9 players.

I would limit the founding of all religions to the same tech in the tech tree. Once all 10 players discover or trade for that one tech, then all 10 religions would be in play. All other techs that previously discovered a religion would now provide a free missionary or inquisitor for the player's state religion.

These changes would truly give all religions and players a fair and equal chance against all the other religions/players in the game. The way the stock game is now, if you don't discover a religion early, you might have to wait a while before you can research the next available tech that discovers a religion or you might not get a holy city at all. Fair and equal: That is what its all about. You win by having a better strategy, not by having the game deny or delay a player from having the opportunity to found a religion.

Very Respectfully,

Orion Veteran

This is a very interesting idea... it sounds a bit like bmarnz's limited religions version of the inquisition mod. I originally started this thread for the creation of more realistic and historical religions, but I think that another version could be made with this idea for minimal gameplay changes.

Do you have any ideas for the more historical version though? I would like to make some distinction between religions, while still keeping the game balanced.

marx&engles said:

This is a very interesting idea... it sounds a bit like bmarnz's limited religions version of the inquisition mod. I originally started this thread for the creation of more realistic and historical religions, but I think that another version could be made with this idea for minimal gameplay changes.

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This idea was briefly discussed in the inquisition mod thread, but it was decided that such a major change to the number religions and to the way they are discovered, was beyond the scope of the inquisition mod and that these ideas really deserve to be developed in a separate mod comp. We can always combine both mods upon completion of this Religion mod.

marx&engles said:

Do you have any ideas for the more historical version though? I would like to make some distinction between religions, while still keeping the game balanced.

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If you really want fair and ballanced, I would go with the religious equality ideas I mentioned, as no one can complain that one religion has any advantages over any of the rest.

If you are looking for distinctions between the religions, game balance becomes very tricky, as one religion's advantage might provide a better result than the advantages provided by the other religions. Then smart players would exploit the best advantage to help win the game.

What kind of advantages can the game provide? Here is a list that is by no means complete:

1. More Happiness, less corruption
2. More Commerse, higher trade, less maintenance, higher shine income
3. More Culture
4. More Production, quicker production times for certain religious buildings and Wonders
5. More Food output
6. More Health, increased population growth.
7. More Scientific Research points
8. More unit experience
9. More Spying effectiveness, higher intelligence
10. More Specialists: Artist, Engineer, Merchant, Priest, Scientist or Citizen
11. Less time in anarchy or one free civic change without anarchy.
12. More Dipomatic Charisma
13. Longer Golden Ages
14. Less time to complete improvements with fast workers. Fast roads, fast Mines, fast pastures, Fast Plantations, Fast Quarries, Increase chop efficiency.
15. Increased ship movement
16. Free missionary upon religion discovery
17. More great persons.
18. etc.

The question is: How would a specific religion distinctly affect any of these advantages realistically? I'm sure you could eliminate most of them, if you really stay true to historical accuracy. In my mind, deviating from the equal capability for all religions, is a slippery slope to adding exploits to the game. Therefore, I will stick to my original request to create a mod that fosters religious equality, as specified in my previous post.

Very Respectfully,

Orion Veteran

islam want to take over the world and take out all the jews, as the real world.

WTH are you talking about?

Here are the development milestones for a Fair and Equal modcomp.

1. Create 27 additional religions for a total of 34. 34 religions are enough to have one religion for every civilization in BTS.

2. Create the capability to select the specific religions to be founded in the game.

3. The number of available religions will be limited to match the number of civilizations in the game.

4. Identify one single tech called “Religion” that founds all religions in the game.

5. Locate the new Religion tech after Mysticism and before Meditation and Polytheism

6. When a civilization discovers the Religion tech, one religion is picked from a list of all available religions.

7. As each player discovers a religion, the list becomes smaller until the last player discovers the last available religion. This works the same way that the choose religion option does now.

8. All other techs, that previously founded a religion, will now provide a free Missionary to the first Civilization that discovers the tech. That is a total of 7 free Missionaries.

Let’s get development of these mod changes underway today (if possible).

Very Respectfully,

Orion Veteran

ripple01 said:

WTH are you talking about?

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I like to have a realistic mod, from the real world. I did not mean any thing against believers. My English, is WTH.

I mean, those civ`s who have islam as state. they prefer war, against those civ`s who have Judaism as state, and not an peace solution.
thats how it is, in the real world.

1. My original idea was not to change the number of religions too much, but instead have a basic religion like local paganism founded on the discovery of one of the early techs. At this point, each player would be garuanteed a 'basic' localized religion so to speak, which is historically accurate. This base religion could keep the +1 culture and happiness.

2. After this point, each other religion would have some unique benefit other than the happiness and culture specific to that religion/location/culture. This adds some actual strategy to religions, because otherwise each one does the same thing, and there is little purpose in founding or spreading a late religion. I have also found a mod that adds religious UUs which could be added as well.

3. I would like to keep the option of a religious victory for those who want it, but for the reasons pointed out by OrionVeteran, religious equality is necessary for a balanced religious victory. Also, this already exists to some extent with the AP victory.

4. I would like to somehow increase the chances that religions will be founded somewhere closer to their historical location (i.e. Buddhism isn't founded in Europe).


@kaangen: First of all, the conflict is not purely religious, and has politics is involved as well. Secondly, I would prefer that this thread is used to discuss a potential religion mod, rather than an Israel-Palestine debate (though that would be interesting). Thanks.

The above changes are what I would ultimately like to accomplish, though the details need to be sorted out. An alternative version should be made as well with OrionVeteran's ideas about equal religions.

markx&engles: Okay. it will ba an great mod.

I just found the most amazing mod that does pretty much everything I wanted. Eusibius's World Religions Mod. The only problem is that it is NOT FOR BTS! I unfortunately do not know how to convert it, and he won't either. If anyone has the time and coding skills, a BtS v3.13 version of this mod would be exactly what I intended to accomplish through this thread.

THANKS to anyone willing to do this.