Alternate Religion Tech Tree

The default religion tech tree is interesting, but makes no real sense. Why is monotheism better than polytheism? Why go through Hinduism to get to Judaism? So I redesigned the tree based around some genuine religious concepts. Each religion tech gets a wonder and a civic. There is a detailed readme in the mod, but the following should give you a flavor. View the README by clicking on: Alternate Religions ReadMe

High Level Overview
 {No religious tech assumes an animism where you are completely at the mercy of spirits with no control over what happens to you.}
 Divine Appeasement: Can appease the gods with sacrifices made in temples by priests. Temple, Chichen Itza, Slavery. First founds Paganism.
 Divine Patronage: God(s) is actually on your side. Oracle, Theocracy. First founds Judaism.
 Ordained Government: God(s) sponsors your government which works closely with your religious hierarchy. Haggia Sophia, Organized Religion. First founds Christianity.
 Crusading Religion: Any and all means are justified for you to “share” your religion with the rest of the world. Spiral Minaret, Police State. First founds Islam.
 Ordained Social Order: God(s) defines the social classes in your culture. Angkor Wat, Caste System. First founds Hinduism.
 Universalism: God(s) have a plan for working out the salvation/enlightenment of everyone in the world. Sistine Chapel, Pacifism. First founds Buddhism.

Everything is in XML. I neither created new tags nor got rid of old ones so the mod should work in any new or existing game. Sorry, I haven't figured out the graphics end yet so those are all the same. Civilopedia is fully updated (including some quotes I'm rather proud of.)

Download Alternate Religions Mod (800kb)

One bit that I forgot to mention was the creation of a new building, "The Gymnasium" which takes the place of the Pagan Monestary. Adds to research as Hellenistic Gymnasia did, obsolete with "Crusading Religion" when the free exchange of ideas is less encouraged.

Also, since I moved "Police State" to "Crusading Religion", I converted Facisim to "Totalitarianism" and added a new tech "Imperialism" where Communism used to be. Various changes to tech costs and dependencies are present, but the total number of research points in the tree stayed about the same.

Any opinions?

Eusebius

Do you have a picture of the changed tech tree for us poor souls who are unable to play/download the mod?

 Crusading Religion: Any and all means are justified for you to “share” your religion with the rest of the world. Spiral Minaret, Police State. First founds Islam.

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Ouch. Wanna use some cartoons for your graphics?

Yeah seriously if anything is a crusading religion its Christianity, you know with the Crusades and all. Not to mention colonization.

IMHO I think that Christianity and Islam are in the right spots. If you look at the starting outs/beginnings of each you have Christianity proliferating throughout the roman empire through preaching etc. and eventually taking over the reigns of government while Islam enters onto the stage with a burst of conquest and expansion throughout the former territories of the empire. Granted that Christianity would also indulge itself in a spot of conquest or two (Crusades, Reconquista, Colonization among others) but for the initial foundings and periods of expansion, I think Eusebius' choices are a valid model.

Note/Disclaimer:

I do not claim to be a scholar of historical or theological stripes, I'm just looking at it from the history that I've been taught in school.

Virtually ever religion before 1600's AD has gotten into wars. Buddhist fought over Buddha's body parts, etc. So you really can't say "This religion did peaceful things, this religion did bad things" since virtually all of them did.

Christianity: Nuff said.
Islam: Nuff said.
Buddhist: Just said.
Hinduist: I'm pretty certain wars were fought over Hinduism.
Taoist: Well, most likely not.
Confucianism: Not really a Religion in my opinion, and no wars fought over it.
Judaism: From bible to real life, Judaism has started wars.

Religions don't start wars, people with certain religious beliefs do.

Mrdie said:

Virtually ever religion before 1600's AD has gotten into wars. Buddhist fought over Buddha's body parts, etc.

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I don't know what your source for this is, but assuming it's true:

Any "Buddhists" that would fight a war (especially) over Buddha's body parts, is so completely missing the whole point of the Buddha's teachings it's not even funny. What I'm guessing might have happened is that Buddhism was, shall we say, "comandeered" by one or several power hungry rulers who were trying to win over the Buddhist masses. Something similar happened in WW2 when the Japanese Emperor-worship cult which had engulfed Japan managed to influence Zen leaders to fabricate B.S. "Buddhist" justifications for war.

It should also be remembered that unlike the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), those teachings of the Buddha which are universally accepted by all Buddhists offer no scriptural justification (and certainly no scriptural encouragement) for war-waging behaviour. (If there are any, I am yet to come across them after several years of studying Buddhist scriptures)


On the whole though, I would have to agree with Red Diamond's comment.

Mrdie said:

Virtually ever religion before 1600's AD has gotten into wars. Buddhist fought over Buddha's body parts, etc. So you really can't say "This religion did peaceful things, this religion did bad things" since virtually all of them did.

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I have doubts as to the authenticity of this claim, however, I can provide a replacement example.
When Buddhism was first brought to Japan, there was a war of conversion fought between the Buddhists and the Shintoists.

Mrdie said:

Hinduist: I'm pretty certain wars were fought over Hinduism.

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There's an ongoing conflict between Hindu and Islam right now. And I'm under the impression that Hinduists called Buddhism a heretical sect and fought it back in the day.

Mrdie said:

Taoist: Well, most likely not.

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I'd imagine that the religion which forms the foundation of most martial arts disciplines has been involved in at least one war. Possibly against Confucianists.

Mrdie said:

Judaism: From bible to real life, Judaism has started wars.

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You need to work on your rhetoric. For Judaism all that needs be said is "Israel", and possibly "failed attempts at bringing peace to the middle east".

No! I am horrified! You left out Wilebill-ianity, "world's only perfect religion." Perfect, because it replaces all religious beliefs and practices with Indifference -- which comes natural to most people.

No nasty buildings, no tedious scriptures, just look up at the sky and yawn.

Heh,heh. Now it becomes very clear why the game designers kept all the religions neutral to each other and even have a disclaimer in the manual. Although I must say the discussion here has been friendly (as it should be), big thumbs up for that .

Also a thumbs up to Eusebius for having a go at this.

For my part I think the Islamic tech here rather reinforces a certain negative stereotype of Islam, which is partially correct (early Islam was indeed constantly involved in wars, sadly not much has changed there). Police state is particularly misleading for it was only in the later centuries when Islamic nations started restricting freedoms on a grand scale. Prior to this there was considerable freedom for "citizens" of Islam and tolerance of other faiths was common (although not universal).

Gatsby said:

Any "Buddhists" that would fight a war (especially) over Buddha's body parts, is so completely missing the whole point of the Buddha's teachings it's not even funny. What I'm guessing might have happened is that Buddhism was, shall we say, "comandeered" by one or several power hungry rulers who were trying to win over the Buddhist masses. Something similar happened in WW2 when the Japanese Emperor-worship cult which had engulfed Japan managed to influence Zen leaders to fabricate B.S. "Buddhist" justifications for war

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Call me crazy but, how again is that different from Islam, Christianity, or Judaism? That is like calling fighting Muslims not really Muslim. Buddhism is definitely a peaceful religion, but it always 'miss the point' when it becomes a state religion or popular front.


But on topic, the Islam one does give a negative stereotype. But since this is a private mod, it's really up to the creator's discretion.

EDIT: Yet, for what it's worth. I really like this mod.

QuoVadisNation said:

But since this is a private mod, it's really up to the creator's discretion.

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Quite true . Just thought it was worth pointing out, thats all .

Mrdie said:

Hinduist: I'm pretty certain wars were fought over Hinduism.

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Not Hinduist as far as I have used it and heard it, and I have been living in India on and off for a period of about 18 years now, usage should be Hindu.

Secondly, there has been a long running fued with Islam, arguably, dating back to the Mughal rulers of India. And there is some evidence that the Taj Mahal, the supposed creation by an Islamic ruler for his love for his wife, was built over a 100 years before, and was infact a temple to Shiva.

And more recently there have also been tensions with the Sikh minority in India, some of whom have sought independence for the Punjab, leading to violence in the 1980s.

*And nice mod btw.

Gatsby said:

On the whole though, I would have to agree with Red Diamond's comment.

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Yes. But they did start wars in the "name" of their religion. No matter how twisted their version of it is. That's the only point I was trying to make.

wilebill2 said:

No! I am horrified! You left out Wilebill-ianity, "world's only perfect religion." Perfect, because it replaces all religious beliefs and practices with Indifference -- which comes natural to most people.

No nasty buildings, no tedious scriptures, just look up at the sky and yawn.

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"Look at me, I'm so indifferent! In fact I'm so indifferent I try to make other people indifferent like me! Join in my crusade to spread athiesm across the globe! I'm contradicting myself!"





sorry not trying to start something - I just don't like when people like this come into religios conversations and try to spread their own "anti-religious religion" It just doesn't make sense to me. If you're so indifferent, why do you care what other people think? And sorry, the religion isn't called "Wilebill-ianity." It's called "ignorance"

Eusebius said:

 Universalism: God(s) have a plan for working out the salvation/enlightenment of everyone in the world. Sistine Chapel, Pacifism. First founds Buddhism.

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I'm pretty sure Buddhism doens't have a "God" just a teacher's teaching's to follow. In most far eastern religions (except Hinduism), the self is the only "God" and life is dedicated to knowing yourslef and your surroundings.

I may be wrong.

I like the idea of this mod and the more I think about it the more appropriate "Crusading Religion" is for Islam. While the Crusades do have a Christian taint, the first several were reactionary against Islam invading Christian (and Byzantine, aka Roman) lands and thus there is that connection.

Though I am amused that the Sistine Chapel is Buddist apparently

Regarding the "Crusading Relgion" Islam/Christanity thing

Christiantiy starts out being a tiny, sometimes persecuted cult. Jesus was never a political/military leader. The tech really represents Constatine's 4th century decision to adopt Christianity as the formal religion of the Roman Empire. But even after that, the church officials have limited political power, usually trying to persuade political leaders rather than "ordering" them.

Mohammed on the other hand, was a political, military leader during his lifetime as well as being a spiritual leader. Early expansion of Islam is includes much military action and the ottoman turks follow-up with that big time. This is why it is appropriate to have Islam founded by "Crusading Religion".

However, remember that you can have the tech "Crusading Religion" and its civics with any religion in the game as your state religion. The Crusades are a great example of doing this with Christianity.

Eusebius

PS. I've been wondering what a suitable Buddhist substitute would be for the Sistene Chapel. Anyone have any ideas?