New government system with religion

I like the idea of lots of different governments, however I believe there should be more freedom. Not all democracies/monarchies/what have you keep all the same policies, so why should you have to in Civ 3?

In fact, I don't think you should have to switch governments in the way you do. First, I will start with how I think it should be done: with sliders for policies. This is an example of what I would want:

Ruling type:

Authoritarian aspect:
No --- Yes

Oligharic aspect
No --- Yes

Electoral aspect:
No --- Yes

Explanation: This defines by what your country is run; a dictator/monarch/etc., an unelected council or an elected council. When certain techs are researched, it would be possible to have two, or even three. i.e. Authoritarian + Electoral = Constitutional Monarchy.

Ruling policies:

Constitution:
No --- Yes
Enables you certain options if set to yes, such as voting rights and civil liberties. If on it would require some sliders to at least be set to the second notch, but if off you miss out on some good sliders.

Social welfare:
None --- Some --- Average --- Excellent
The further to the right, the happier the people, but the more it costs.

Voting rights:
None --- Rich --- All Men --- Suffrage
The more rights, the happier, but the more they get to decide government policies. The further to the right, the more you would get events like "People demand greater social welfare", and should you ignore them it creates unhappiness.

Civil liberties:
None --- Some --- Average --- Excellent
The more, the happier the people. However, also the greater the crime, as the more freedom you give them, the more freedom they have and the less effective the police force.

Education:
None --- Rich --- All Men --- Public
The further right, the greater the cost, but the more scientific output.

Taxes:
Blanket --- Graded
Sets whether people pay a flat tax or income tax. Blanket would be required to be in a socialist/communist government.

None --- Light --- Average --- Heavy
Sets the amount of tax. Pretty self explanitary, further right more money, more unhappiness.

Culture:
Private --- Public --- Sponsored --- Publicly Funded
Further right, more money it costs, the more culture you produce. By these options I mean, private is everything is kept at home, public means the arts are displayed in public, sponsored means the government will sometimes sponsor artists with money, and publicly funded is like how museums and art galleries get government handouts today.

Foreigners:
Aliens --- Residents --- Accepted --- Integrated
The further right, the happier foreigners are and the quicker they will convert to your culture, however the easier it is for other countries to carry out spy operations. If it is set to Alien then it is almost impossible to conduct spy operations, but foreigners will never convert. To make this worth having towards the left, spy operations should be beefed up and the AI would have to use them more (but I've always believed this should be the case anyway).

Religion:

Type:
Pagan --- Catholic --- Protestant --- Orthodox --- Shi'ite Muslim --- Sunni Muslim --- Hindu --- Taoist
Each religion should have very slight pros and cons. i.e. Catholics get a UU such as crusaders, but the people get upset if you attack another catholic (even in a no-WW government). Protestants get a low pop, fast moving settler UU, but their taxes are less efficient etc.

Enforcement:
Atheist --- Relaxed --- Moralistic --- Opressive
Further right, the quicker people convert to the religion, and the less chance of having people convert to other religions. However, it also creates more unhappiness. With Atheist selected, some of your citizens will also turn Atheist, but many will convert to different religions.

There should be further effects of religion, such as:

* Operations you can perform to convert foreign citizens to your religion (if you are set to Atheist you can't perform this).

* Non-state religion citizens get unhappier quicker.

* When you conquer a city its citizens retain their religion and conversion time depends on your enforcement setting.

* To be in a communist government you have to have enforcement set to Atheist. In the reverse, to be in a theocracy you have to have enforcement set to oppressive.

How all these settings affect your government:

First of all, you will begin with only one option available: Authoritarian, and it will be automatically set to yes. As you discover technologies more sliders will become unlocked. Not all sliders will be able to go all the way to the right immediately either. For example, you would not have access to any religion to begin with, then when you discover Mysticism, or some other appropriate tech, the religion sliders will become unlocked, though you will only have the options of Pagan and Atheist or Relaxed. As you discover other religious techs, you would get the option of stricter enforcement, and with monotheism the ability to choose all the other religions. Hindu would be with polytheism though.

Your government would be decided by your social policies. An example:

Electorate: Yes
Social Welfare: Average or better
Voting rights: Suffrage
Taxes: Blanket and average or higher
Government = Social Democracy

Authoritarian: Yes
Electorate: Yes
Constitution: Yes
Voting rights: Rich or greater
Government = Constitutional Monarchy

Electorate: Yes
Constitution: Yes
Voting rights: Rich or better
Social welfare: Some or better
Civil liberties: Some or better
Taxes: Graded
Government = Democracy; if voting rights Suffrage then = Modern Democracy

There would still be slight benefits for being in one government or the other, for example, in a Social Democracy the people would be less bothered by heavy taxes, but outraged at average welfare. When you change your sliders radically enough that your government changes, there should be a brief period of anarchy. If you change your sliders extremely radically, there should be a longer period.
Example: Voting rights from None to Suffrage would call for a longer period than from Rich to All Men.

What do people think of this?

I strongly disagree with including real world religions.

frekk said:

I strongly disagree with including real world religions.

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Cosign to the fullest.

I like most of the ideas, but religions should definately include an option for custom.

North King said:

I like most of the ideas, but religions should definately include an option for custom.

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Custom religion should be default, and you can name it if you want. If you include real religions at all, people will freak over perceived stereotypes. Give Catholics a population bonus, people will think you're saying they have too many kids, give Protestants a production bonus people will think you're saying everyone else is lazy, and so on. The Civ community escaped exploding into arguments about race and politics by some miracle, but I think if you throw religion in it's going to get real ugly, real fast, and probably destroy the game.

frekk said:

Custom religion should be default, and you can name it if you want. If you include real religions at all, people will freak over perceived stereotypes. Give Catholics a population bonus, people will think you're saying they have too many kids, give Protestants a production bonus people will think you're saying everyone else is lazy, and so on. The Civ community escaped exploding into arguments about race and politics by some miracle, but I think if you throw religion in it's going to get real ugly, real fast, and probably destroy the game.

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It is assinine to take offense to anything that is in a game, especially an ahistorical game. People who would whinge about things like this, frankly, need to grow up and realise that it's just a game.

Besides, games such as Europa Universalis and a slew of others have used real world religions, each with their pros and cons, without invoking any anger. In fact, when I played Europa and frequented the forums, there would be deeply religious people who never complaimed about it once.

Also, if you use UUs, not traits, like I suggested, there would be no room to be "offensive". The crusader WAS a part of catholicism, noone can deny that, it's part of history, as is the fact that the catholic population got upset when the pope told the King to stop attacking another Catholic country and he didn't. So why would that be offensive? In the same way, Protestant countries were renowned settlers, mostly due to the fact that they suffered a lot of religious turmoil, so people went to the New World, and they had less tax income because they lost the revenues provided by the church (though they got a whole lot of money to begin with because they stole it all from the catholics). So again, why should that be offensive? It's just history.

No, no, no. Don’t make Civilization 4 a new Europa Universalis. Development in Civilization is built on research, let’s keep it that way.

Many other people have suggested government to be a system of sliders, which is what you are proposing. The labels for the sliders need to be nonjudgemental, unlike the title that you have labeled them with.

On both ends, there will be benefits and consquences, which would force the user to balance the benefits with the penalties.

Er.....Protestsants won't like being blanketed all under one label. I'm talking Baptists, Lutherans, CofE, Unitarian, Anglican, High Church etc etc

Pagan? there is no such religion as pagans...

Anyway, catholics should have a papacy that would excommunicate your state if you are attacking against fellow catholic state or nation.

Paganism is a blanket term for MANY nature-related religions.

I don't wanna have the whole "specific religions" or "abstract" religions debate again.

But I think, aside from a new points I could nitpick, this system would be a great addition to Civ 4.

This idea rocks!

For religion you could use:
Catholic: Crusader
Islam: Jihadi
Buddhism: some swordsman
Hindu: Some archer
etc.

I am somewhat disturbed by the previous comment by NaziAssBandit saying:

"Pagan? there is no such religion as pagans..."

I am, myself, a Pagan and was wondering why few know about them or are properly-educated on the subject. (Grr... Public education system)

No hard feelings though, some people just don't know.

I honstely love the idea, even with religion. And you know what, is it a historic game or not? Nationalism, for instance. Nationalism in an extreme way caused two devastating world wars. Noone complained about the idea that you can be a fascist leader.. nor did anyone harshly complain that you could use nuclear missiles easily.. So, I dont think there will be a conflict involved with religion in civ4. Just make it balanced, close to reality and without any prejudices.

The problem is that there is no coherent reality for most religions. Hence the arguments over whether Jerry Falwell represents the Christian religion, or whether Osama Bin Laden represents the Muslim Religion, and so forth. You're almost guaranteed to offend half of people in each religion, with no way to please everyone.

BpFlutie said:

I am somewhat disturbed by the previous comment by NaziAssBandit saying:

"Pagan? there is no such religion as pagans..."

I am, myself, a Pagan and was wondering why few know about them or are properly-educated on the subject. (Grr... Public education system)

No hard feelings though, some people just don't know.

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Bpflutie! Being ahteist I have nothing against your religion.
But, what I was trying to say was that name pagan is a mockery name for nature cults and polyistic religions made by christians.

If it weren't for the Pagans then Catholicism would be a LOT different, trust me.

I like the idea of govenment sliders.. however i think the best way would be a mesh between sliders and the way Alpha Centauri does government... which in a sense is also more realistic... some items can be done well on sliders such as taxes.. but others such as govt economic policy are better left as a choice .. IE Green economy / free market / planned..

of course.. there should be more choices then the 3.. but a slider overcomplicates some parts.

I think the whole idea of reducing all culture to a set of sliders is really dumb, its a cop-out way to give lip service to culture in the game without actually including it at all, in any meaningful way.---And too many sliders also becomes a mess in management. It also becomes unrealistic that you can control the practices of your citizens by moving a few sliders.

Xanthippus, I find the formulas you proposed a little too mechanistic and simplistic. Especially for the differences in religions; it doesn't make sense to me why all Catholic countries would be allowed crusader units; why there were crusades was a complicated thing and had as much to do with politics as anything, and were a (late) response to Muslim invasions in the Byzantine Empire. It would just be strange to become Catholic just to get a crusader unit. Why would protestants have a good settler and low tax efficiency?--is that some interpretation of the 'work ethic'?

In all the idea of bonuses like this from religions is strange, what are we expecting in the game--only official government religions--and does it mean cities will be one religion like suggested by the buddha in the screenshot? The game would be much more interesting and real if religion (and culture generally) was something you could only influence indirectly (or if theres a case where you can have a state religion), spread on its own, and be only sometimes relevant. I suggested a system where the 'I love the king day' is replaced by things like 'Buddhism flourishes in Milan' or 'Artistic renaissance in Tokyo' or 'Golden age of philosophy in London', along with city-wide benefits/influences, and a mechanism for the spreading of these things, based on things like cultural influence, cohesion, corruption and borders and government and war.

dh_epic, I think there are real cores to religions, for instance Christianity for as long as its existed has given importance to the idea of sin, which includes lust (which is why outspoken Christians are concerned with sexuality at all)--and Islam has generally in tradition been more concerned with ritual and also less concerned with 'humanism'. Its not that there's no change, but some are not fully possible to reconcile with tradition, which could mean new sects are created or conflict happens

naziassbandit, I'm not sure if 'pagan' was invented so they could mock them but yes it was meant to refer to a type of religion.. Spatula, christianity didnt just incorporate aspects of paganism, but buddhism and eastern religion, greek/roman philosophy (neo-platonism)