Religion as a game concept - good or bad?

Yes I like to see religion back in the game, I dont know what was the problem with it in CIV4 for some people it was just a flavor addition that affected diplo more than anything else. so same religion system from IV for me would be fine.

Left Foot said:

Religion is a core element of human history. Can't understand why they removed such an important concept.

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Bingo!

neptune2000 said:

And Islam spread through war and conquest.

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Muslims never conquered Indonesia nor Philippines nor Malaysia and they are Muslims, Islam also spread along the trade routes to china through merchants and poets, and for the record India was one thousand time more populated than Arabia, 300 million against 1 million, i don't see how we could force them ( lol at the concept ) to become Muslims, unless of course they ( yes i know chocking ! ) choose Islam.

AfterShafter said:

Hrm... The one thing I'm wondering about, is there an actual historical empire without a religion? Or more specifically, that adopted any non-state religion policy beyond free religion? I can't think of one. Even the communist powers still had/have religion very prevalent in their populace, the state just didn't officially support it - worship wasn't banned, it was just viewed as the state as superstition. The modern secular states in the free world are pretty much the model for the free religion civic.

When you talk about humanism, secularism, atheism... Has any state ever really adopted these things as an official policy in opposition to a state religion? Not the US, not England, not Canada, Australia, New Zealand... They've all gone the equivalent of free religion. The things you're talking about here seem as if they'd go in another tree entirely, and atheism as a state policy would be more appropriate to SMAC since it has never actually happened (well, arguably in the communist countries, but even there religion was very, very prevalent and worship was allowed).

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I am pretty sure that Stalin's Russia was explicitly atheist and persecuted any form of worship.

I did not like Civ 4's religion system, and I would rather see Civ model ethnicity instead of religion.

I voted other because I like the religious mods implementations:

Religion founded by making a wonder instead of a tech. Good idea (I thought tech gave certain Civs to much of an advantage)

Not allowing 1 Civ to found a religion if it already had a religion. Great Mod, because every Civ needed to have a religion in order to compete.

In the unmodded version I played some games where I founded 5 of the 6 which I think is bad.


One way to make it work in CiV is have religions randomly founded over time in city-states, possible in waves so each continent adds a religion at the same time.

Religion is a good concept, but it's hard to balance it. In 4, it was too much, since in way too many cases, setting your state religion was all that was needed to keep you safe. Even if that religion occurred in only one random tundra city.

If it were to come back, I'd say it should have the following:
1. It not be the overriding factor in diplomacy. In civ4 terms, it shouldn't affect more than +/- 2 or so diplo points. Thus, it can help keep a neighbour happy, but won't be the deciding factor.
2. That should include how you use the religion. So if you adopt a state religion as a tundra city, Izzy won't love you for that. If you want the diplo benefits, you should need to spread it around to your cities. And also build temples/monestaries. So if you adopt it as a true state religion, then you can get benefits from it.
3. There should be a penalty for other religions if you have a state religion. If I set a state religion of Islam, my city without Islam but that has Buddhism and Judaism should be unhappy because of that. So adopting a state religion gives +1 happy for the state religion, but +1 unhappy for other religions
4. I'm not a big fan of religion being simply on/off in a city. I think it should be a sliding scale like civ4's city ethnicity. I understand why they did it (much simpler), but it makes a lot more sense being a sliding scale. You'd improve the spread in a city by building temples/monestaries/cathedrals and sending missionaries, and over time it would shift naturally.

Overall, it should be something that you can work to give you benefits, but if you basically want to play with "state atheism", it shouldn't punish you too much.

In civ5 terms, I'd put it as simply a modifier towards city states. So they would be allowed to have a religion, and you would gain influence depending how active your civ is in spreading that religion. Make it one factor so most city states might not care, but a few will give quests like "spread my religion to 3 of your own cities", "build 4 cathedrals" and so on. Have it not really matter against the AI (so like all the other bonuses, they really don't care too much about any), and it'll be fine. So you can ignore it, and all it will cost you is some influence with city-states.

Although, it increases the micman processing quite a bit -- just as Corporations & Espionage do -- there aren't much better ways to immerse anyone in conceptual (yet complex enough, depending on your perceptive reasoning) gameplay.

Heck, even a huge MOD is currently under steady development right here at CF!

I do like to see religions in the civ serie. Perhaps improved way what it was in civ4 when I missed pagan temples and Great Prophet as religion starter and some benefits from them like corporations. But it was one disappointment in Civ 5 when religions are gone and many other things too, they made just mediocre wargame.

I'd like to see it, maybe with an option to disable it for those who don't want it.

demidyad said:

I am pretty sure that Stalin's Russia was explicitly atheist and persecuted any form of worship.

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Stalin's Russia was explicitly atheist just like it had overcome materialism - it was a short, failed experiment that never actually came to anything close to a legitimately atheist state. Each of their implemented constitutions guaranteed freedom of religion - including the one done under Stalin's rule in 1936. Whatever the state claimed, freedom of worship being a guaranteed right seems fundamentally opposed to a state being considered an atheistic one rather than having free religion. Russia had a party line about eliminating religion while practicing free religion under Stalin's rule. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure it was a bad time to worship, but their constitution guaranteed the right to free religion. The idea that the country was athiest with a huge portion of its population actively worshiping and a guaranteed right to worship in their constitution is a bit silly.

I'm still trying to think of an example of an actual atheist state that existed and did something that really qualifies as living up to the term, rather than Stalin's claiming atheism while guaranteeing freedom of religion. I'm still curious to see whether someone knows of an actual atheist state, but... I can't think of an actual state that goes further down the line than Civ IV's free religion civic did, and the idea of having a religious civic type thing of atheism seems more in the realm of SMAC than Civ.

I just don't really get TPQ's post. He talks about advantages for not adopting religion but... This is Civilization, not SMAC - religion has been state sponsored policy from the existence of nations until the last two hundred years or so in pretty much the entire world - and I may even be being generous then, as it's more likely the past hundred years where the idea of an actual non-religious state came into existence. Even then, the non-religious in question isn't the actively opposed to religion type state that atheist would imply - that's pure pie in the sky - but some variation of free religious state. Whether or not you like defined religions as a concept in Civ, in reality, it's a part of life. A non-religious empire is pure fantasy and I can't see any tech being a good excuse for an atheist state policy short of future tech. With more or less every other tech in the game, every other unit, building, wonder, or policy, there's some historical analog which we can look at and say "See - there's Sistine Chapel boosting culture in Italy!" In the case of an atheist state and bonuses for abolishing religion rather than adopting free religion, I can't think of a single historical analog. The closes would be Stalin's Russia, which claimed atheism while guaranteeing free religion in their constitution, but what kind of bonuses does that net? A government that falls apart in 50 years?

Anyways, I know it's just wikipedia, but the information here is fairly accurate. I used to do a lot of religious studies as an undergrad, and I was always interested in the question of religion under European dictatorships at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Soviet_Constitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Soviet_Constitution

UWHabs said:

In civ5 terms, I'd put it as simply a modifier towards city states. So they would be allowed to have a religion, and you would gain influence depending how active your civ is in spreading that religion. Make it one factor so most city states might not care, but a few will give quests like "spread my religion to 3 of your own cities", "build 4 cathedrals" and so on. Have it not really matter against the AI (so like all the other bonuses, they really don't care too much about any), and it'll be fine. So you can ignore it, and all it will cost you is some influence with city-states.

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That's a good idea - the main issue with implementing religion in Civ (that people don't seem to be willing to talk about) is that it isa solution in search of a problem.

What do you want religion to accomplish? Does it bring you money? That seems really, really, odd - there's mechanics suited much better for this. Does it bring you science? Even stranger (regardless of how religions have supported/opposed science in the past, we already have a good science mechanic). Does it help you with diplomacy? This would be the natural one - but it created more problems than it was worth in CivIV. Culture? Ok - but if you don't make it necessary for a cultural victory, what's the point?

Of course - with CSs - why build 4 cathedrals when you could simply drop some coin and be their best friend?

I guess the question is - what do you want religion to do for the player??????

This has to be answered before we decide whether we want it in or out (and I don't think they asked this properly in CivIV).

Moor said:

Muslims never conquered Indonesia nor Philippines nor Malaysia and they are Muslims, Islam also spread along the trade routes to china through merchants and poets, and for the record India was one thousand time more populated than Arabia, 300 million against 1 million, i don't see how we could force them ( lol at the concept ) to become Muslims, unless of course they ( yes i know chocking ! ) choose Islam.

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While there were indeed Islamic conquests in the Indian subcontinent (it wasn't 300 million against 1 million; India was not close to being a nation back then and anyway whoever wins gets to make the rules), I apologize; I was thinking in terms of religions moving with conquering civs. I should have said "Islam spread through conquest and missionary work". I'll generalize and say that many religions, notably (due to their successes) Christianity and Islam, do this. It doesn't take away from my point that religion is a huge factor in human history and should be included in some notable way in the game.

I still think that it should remain neutral, or PC, to as large an extent as possible for the obvious reasons. If they didn't tie it to techs (which was an attempt to tie the religions to their historic origin points), I wonder if it would sense for the game to allow you upon founding a religion to name it and pick from a set of graphics/music. This way you could sorta roleplay a religion.

That reminds me, remember how you used to be able to name your cities?

I really don't quite understand this thread. Religion, as a concept separate from specific implementation, has always been a part of the Civ series and is in CiV. The only thing that got added to CIV and subtracted for CiV was a specific implementation of Religion as a game mechanic, not as a concept. The concept is still there, and has always been there, and probably couldn't be removed without changing the core concept of the game itself.


I can understand people being annoyed that religion as a game mechanic isn't present in CiV, but it wasn't present in any other Civ besides IV anyway, and to claim the concept has been removed is nonsensical.

MoonBase said:

I really don't quite understand this thread. Religion, as a concept separate from specific implementation, has always been a part of the Civ series and is in CiV. The only thing that got added to CIV and subtracted for CiV was a specific implementation of Religion as a game mechanic, not as a concept. The concept is still there, and has always been there, and probably couldn't be removed without changing the core concept of the game itself.


I can understand people being annoyed that religion as a game mechanic isn't present in CiV, but it wasn't present in any other Civ besides IV anyway, and to claim the concept has been removed is nonsensical.

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In early Civs, religion as a concept was present only in a superficial manner. You say that the concept "couldn't be removed without changing the core concept of the game itself" - prior to Civ IV, this was pretty much represented by temples and wonders which mentioned religion. You changed temples to, I don't know, theme parks, and wonders like the oracle to, say, some other non-theologically oriented wonder, and you've effectively removed it from the game both from a gameplay standpoint and conceptually. Even conceptually, it was only present in an *extremely* abstract and superficial manner, and not anywhere near being a "core concept" like you're claiming. The key point, its implementation was so superficial in early Civ games changing the names on a few wonders and buildings - which could have probably been counted on one hand - would have effectively removed it from the game and Civ would be the retelling of history with no religion existing whatsoever.

In Civ IV, not only was it a major gameplay mechanic that tied religious structures into victory conditions, leader personalities, the spread of culture, and was a tremendous factor in diplomatic relations. Conceptually, it was entrenched in Civ IV in a way that it absolutely wasn't in any previous Civ game. The concept was made concrete as opposed to just being a vague and unformed reference of a few historical wonders. I'm even a bit reluctant to call it a core concept in Civ IV, but it was a very major, well fleshed out, and non-superficial entity both from a gameplay and conceptual standpoint. The same cannot be said of previous Civs.

I disagree with your statement. Religion was hardly even mentioned in Civ I and II, extremely abstracted and superficial in III, and only really became a concrete concept in IV. Conceptually, it was a superficial non-entity until IV. If you want to split hairs though, consider the thread as talking about religion with any sort of specific character or any but superficial lip-service in the series.

I think religion is an excellent game concept and should continue to be explored. I thought it worked fairly well in Civ4. It spread around like a virus and tore the world apart and usually into war. It was used throughout the early game to influence and control civilizations indirectly that may otherwise want nothing to do with you.
It effectively stuck its nose in political affairs and spawned biased hatred towards specific entities that were not "apart of the group".
I thought the Civ4 religion mechanics were fairly accurate and reasonable. If you did not use religion you didn't suffer the negative effects from it, but you also did not reap its early game rewards.

Problem is people get all uppity when they see their religion listed, which confuses me beyond reason. To them its not something to be made fun of (and games are for fun), its a very serious thing and its very real with everyone spewing different translations of what everything means... what I don't understand is why they can't uniformly agree that they can't all be 100% right therefore the possibility exists that a lot of religions or parts of religion are fantasy.
If they could make that logical step it would be far less of a "serious crime" to see their religion loosely referenced in just or to make a game mechanic exist.

It would be like saying the Chinese are upset that their empire isn't accurately represented in the game. Its just stupid. Of course its not, its a game.

MoonBase said:

I can understand people being annoyed that religion as a game mechanic isn't present in CiV, but it wasn't present in any other Civ besides IV anyway, and to claim the concept has been removed is nonsensical.

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How is religion present as a concept in Civ5?

Because a few social policies have a couple vague religious terms attached to them? That constitutes including religion?

MoonBase said:

I really don't quite understand this thread. Religion, as a concept separate from specific implementation, has always been a part of the Civ series and is in CiV. The only thing that got added to CIV and subtracted for CiV was a specific implementation of Religion as a game mechanic, not as a concept. The concept is still there, and has always been there, and probably couldn't be removed without changing the core concept of the game itself.


I can understand people being annoyed that religion as a game mechanic isn't present in CiV, but it wasn't present in any other Civ besides IV anyway, and to claim the concept has been removed is nonsensical.

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I'm sorry, but no --- a handful of pink techs and maybe a few blue techs does not even rate a "concept".

I can't wait for the dll to be released. I foresee that many upset civ fans, who want to like Civ5 but can't because the gameplay is stale, will feverishly mod things into the game like religion. I bet the modding community could make a better game than fraxis.

AfterShafter said:

In early Civs, religion as a concept was present only in a superficial manner. You say that the concept "couldn't be removed without changing the core concept of the game itself" - prior to Civ IV, this was pretty much represented by temples and wonders which mentioned religion. You changed temples to, I don't know, theme parks, and wonders like the oracle to, say, some other non-theologically oriented wonder, and you've effectively removed it from the game both from a gameplay standpoint and conceptually. Even conceptually, it was only present in an *extremely* abstract and superficial manner, and not anywhere near being a "core concept" like you're claiming. The key point, its implementation was so superficial in early Civ games changing the names on a few wonders and buildings - which could have probably been counted on one hand - would have effectively removed it from the game and Civ would be the retelling of history with no religion existing whatsoever.

In Civ IV, not only was it a major gameplay mechanic that tied religious structures into victory conditions, leader personalities, the spread of culture, and was a tremendous factor in diplomatic relations. Conceptually, it was entrenched in Civ IV in a way that it absolutely wasn't in any previous Civ game. The concept was made concrete as opposed to just being a vague and unformed reference of a few historical wonders. I'm even a bit reluctant to call it a core concept in Civ IV, but it was a very major, well fleshed out, and non-superficial entity both from a gameplay and conceptual standpoint. The same cannot be said of previous Civs.

I disagree with your statement. Religion was hardly even mentioned in Civ I and II, extremely abstracted and superficial in III, and only really became a concrete concept in IV. Conceptually, it was a superficial non-entity until IV. If you want to split hairs though, consider the thread as talking about religion with any sort of specific character or any but superficial lip-service in the series.

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Changing temples to, "I don't know, theme parks" would represent a fundamental change in the core conception of the game series, because you wouldn't be playing a game based on human history, simply because ancient cities built temples, not theme parks.

And again, you're confusing "concept" with "game mechanic". I agree completely that religion wasn't a game mechanic until IV, and if that's the question ("do you want religion as a game mechanic?"), then so be it. But the idea of it "separate from specific implementation" keeps getting mentioned, and if you want to separate out the concept from the implementation, then the fact that I build temples and cathedrals and King Richard's Crusade and researched Monotheism and Theology while I was playing Civ1 is actually relevant.



Yes, in terms of the phrasing being used, the concept of religion is, indeed, present in CiV, just as it was in Civs1-3. Temples, technologies, cultural tracks, etc. It's silly to say "the whole concept of religion -an important part of all Human Histories and Cultures!- has been completely excised from CiV!" when there's a whole set of cultural policies centered around religion and called "piety". The same use of the concept of Religion was in CIV, as well, in addition to the separate and distinct presence of the game mechanic of Religion that was implemented in CIV.


What got removed, and what's being discussed here, is religion as a game mechanic... which depends entirely on its specific implementation as-such. CGG1066 stated it pretty well, actually: if you want Religion-as-a-game-mechanic, then what is it supposed to do?

SuperJay said:

How is religion present as a concept in Civ5?

Because a few social policies have a couple vague religious terms attached to them? That constitutes including religion?

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As a "concept -- separate from specific implementation" ? Yes, yes it does.

I know I'm going to probably be labeled as some sort of irrational CiV "lover" because I think that using correct terminology is somewhat important in these sorts of discussions, but them's the breaks.