Civilization IV: Religious Victory

A small modification that allows religious victory. A religious victory can be obtained by controlling a Holy City and spreading the religion of that Holy City to sixty six percent (66%) of the world's population. There are minimum requirements for achieving a religious victory, I think they are controlled by variable <iTargetNumCities> in the Civ4WorldInfo.xml found in the assets/xml/gameinfo folder (which means religious victory can be obtained after 4 cities have been built on Duel or Tiny size map, 5 cities on small and standard size maps, 6 cities on large and huge size maps. You can view the old development thread at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=142266

Special thanks to donquixote235 for presenting the religious victory variable in the forums!

I have made a small installer that installs the mod the your CustomAssets directory; additionally it creates an uninstaller shortcut in your start menu so you can remove it.

Download Link: Coming Soon

History:
Version 0.2
+ Optimized for newest Civ 4 patch (1.6.1)
+ Changed spread rates for religions (for balance, more research religion requires = higher spread rate)
-- Christianity +20%
-- Judaism +10%
-- Islam +40%
-- Hinduism +0%
-- Buddhism +0%
-- Confucianism +20%
-- Taoism +30%
+ In Theocracy non-state religions in a city cause (1 per non-state religion)
+ Percentage of followers changed to 66%
Version 0.1
+ Initial Release
+ Percentage of followers required for victory is 60%
+ Added religious victory to the Civlopedia under Victory Conditions in Game Concepts

Awesome, I'll try it out now.

I want to take a moment to comment on the added depth that a religious victory condition adds to the game. You can go one of two routes - peaceful or warlike. In the peaceful route, you can go organized religion and spam your state religion around the globe, making sure to get open borders with all your neighboring civs. If you take the warlike path, the best bet is to send your crusaders forth and burn any heretic city to the ground, or have a missionary waiting in the wings to convert the city.

I found that in many of my games where I was attempting a religious victory, it actually was a combination of the two... I would be peaceful when possible, but warlike when necessary (e.g. a nation wouldn't grant me open borders, so I had to attack them to spread the One True Faith).

While a nice idea, there are times that it can cause a really premature ending to a game. Say you are playing Continents, and start on a small island. You found most of the religions, but the AI manages to get one that you miss. You can't spread any of yours off your island yet, and the AI is free to spread his all over the other continent. Instant win for the AI.

Sadly it's not a far-fetched scenario, as I've had it happen numerous times.

Perhaps there could be a requirement that every (alive) empire needs to have at least one city with the religion? That way the AI couldn't win until it got one of your cities (at which point you, presumably, could get to theirs).

Bh

do you really think that 60% is an adequate number for a religious victory? religions are not particularly difficult to spread, and a figure like 60% can lead to an early domination of the three religions, spread one of them as fast as possible, and crawl to victory. i have already modified the victory conditions file to require 70% for a religious victory, which i think is a more difficult number and a better challenge.

Great idea!

niffweed17 said:

do you really think that 60% is an adequate number for a religious victory? religions are not particularly difficult to spread, and a figure like 60% can lead to an early domination of the three religions, spread one of them as fast as possible, and crawl to victory. i have already modified the victory conditions file to require 70% for a religious victory, which i think is a more difficult number and a better challenge.

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i was going to say the same thing. i think 70-75% would be much more challenging.

niffweed17 said:

do you really think that 60% is an adequate number for a religious victory? religions are not particularly difficult to spread, and a figure like 60% can lead to an early domination of the three religions, spread one of them as fast as possible, and crawl to victory. i have already modified the victory conditions file to require 70% for a religious victory, which i think is a more difficult number and a better challenge.

Click to expand...

Have you actually tried the mod though? Try playing 6 players on a duel sized pangea on prince difficulty. It becomes downright insane to spread your religion to 60% of the world, you basically have to raze everything except your Theocratically protected cities.

And remember the minimum requirement, have you had a game end before 1100 AD? So far I haven't, my earliest ended about 1320 AD. Also remember as any other religion spreads your percentage goes down - and the minimum requirement usually allows at least 4 religions to be founded.

@Bhruic - You'll have to attempt to make contact as soon as possible, go straight for Caravel's, you ought to be able to get them before the minimum requirements are reached.

As for the early domination of the first three religions - the only way to avoid this is to make religions be founded at roughly the same time.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, although more actual tests of the mod would be welcome - its one thing to say 70-75% is a good number, its another thing play it out and actually stay above 60% past 500 AD until you can win a religious victory.

Has anyone tried this with the other religious mod that gives different (dis)advantages to different religions? Is it fun?

I think it you should have to spread your religon over the entire world. Or custom setting that let you define whether you want it from 60 to 100 percent maybe

Rodman49 said:

Have you actually tried the mod though? Try playing 6 players on a duel sized pangea on prince difficulty. It becomes downright insane to spread your religion to 60% of the world, you basically have to raze everything except your Theocratically protected cities.

And remember the minimum requirement, have you had a game end before 1100 AD? So far I haven't, my earliest ended about 1320 AD. Also remember as any other religion spreads your percentage goes down - and the minimum requirement usually allows at least 4 religions to be founded.

@Bhruic - You'll have to attempt to make contact as soon as possible, go straight for Caravel's, you ought to be able to get them before the minimum requirements are reached.

As for the early domination of the first three religions - the only way to avoid this is to make religions be founded at roughly the same time.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, although more actual tests of the mod would be welcome - its one thing to say 70-75% is a good number, its another thing play it out and actually stay above 60% past 500 AD until you can win a religious victory.

Click to expand...

no, i have not tried the mod at 60%. i have tried my own at 70%, although i haven't yet tried to win a religious victory.

you're probably right in that religious victory is impossible at 70% for a duel sized map with 6 civs. it would also most likely be impossible at 60. a duel sized map with 6 other civs is not a map which would lend itself easily to a religious victory, just as, say, a huge archipelago map with all 18 civs is a more challenging domination or conquest victory than a tiny pangaea/continent map with 2 civs.

however, on a huge pangeaea map, the idea of a religious victory at 70% becomes a realistic possibility, while 60% may be too simple.


you are right, however, in that the mod should at least be playtested, but i think that you will find that 60% is far too easy for many maps.

Ah, I was just thinking of how the game should have a Religious Victory - weird that this wasn't in the game from the first place (still patchable?). Anyway, looks awesome. 2/3 (66%) could be a good number, or perhaps there should be a some type of secondary condition too...

Reuhka said:

Ah, I was just thinking of how the game should have a Religious Victory - weird that this wasn't in the game from the first place (still patchable?). Anyway, looks awesome. 2/3 (66%) could be a good number, or perhaps there should be a some type of secondary condition too...

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I'll need to play a few more games with the mod (at least a few at each map size and speed), but it is looking like a return to 66% is likely - primarily because it is easy to achieve an inadvertent religious victory when going for domination.

I think its a good idea but perhaps it should not be allowed to after all religions are on the board so to speak. And wouldn't free religion kinda have an adverse affect- if say the other civs passed a UN rez for free religion? just aSKING

elderotter said:

I think its a good idea but perhaps it should not be allowed to after all religions are on the board so to speak. And wouldn't free religion kinda have an adverse affect- if say the other civs passed a UN rez for free religion? just aSKING

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Free religion would have an adverse effect on winning with religion, but realistically, if you are going for a religious victory you should aim for winning the game before 1800 AD, I mean once advanced technology and democracy hit religion takes a serious blow (which is kind of like how it panned out in real history).

I think you can still win a religious victory once the UN is built though - raze the city with the UN, won't that stop votes and cancel resolutions so you can go back to theocracy and raze all other non-your religion cities.

The way I see it, this victory can become too corny if you can achieve it by founding a religion, then putting everything else on hold while you pump out missionaries.

... Unless the AI is built to stop it. The AI would need to see a heavily expansionist religion, and then close its borders for the "block". Thus, you'd have to open the borders by force.

... Or if there's another requirement to the victory condition that makes it just a little more challenging. For example, you must convert 2/3 of players to your state religion. Or must build some kind of religious wonder before the discovery of free religion -- kind of like a spaceship victory 3/4 of the way through the game.

Just thinking out loud...

dh_epic said:

The way I see it, this victory can become too corny if you can achieve it by founding a religion, then putting everything else on hold while you pump out missionaries.

... Unless the AI is built to stop it. The AI would need to see a heavily expansionist religion, and then close its borders for the "block". Thus, you'd have to open the borders by force.

Click to expand...

This is next to impossible to do, the minimum requirement keeps you from winning the game too soon and if you can't manage to found all the religions another AI will spread their's and thus make any civs of different religion annoyed to you reducing your ability to get open borders and spread your religion.

Did someone check if there is a hidden movie to this victory condition?
(As Frontbrecher found some for the Lost Wonders.)

Nice adds a lttile bit more depth, it would be more intresting if each religion gave your civ specific abilitys ie, judasim=increased commerce, hindu=production ect

High_Elf_Lord-M said:

Nice adds a lttile bit more depth, it would be more intresting if each religion gave your civ specific abilitys ie, judasim=increased commerce, hindu=production ect

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thats already been done. you could load that mod and play both