Religious vs Political traits

The hard-coded effect for the Religious trait is that the civ does not experience anarchy when switching governments. To me, this sounds like something that should be given to civs that are politically rather than religiously oriented. Instead of building cheaper temples and cathedrals, a political civ would receive a discount on courthouses, police stations, and other government-related improvements. I seem to remember the trait being renamed this way in some mod, or at least someone discussing it.

Furthermore, if the "Religious" trait is dropped, should civs be given a pre-assigned religious tech allowing a unique building(s)? (Rhye did this in his mod)

Or a different option: instead of assigning a religious tech, add them as non-required techs in the tech tree and give each of them a SW, and then use the "replace all impr with this flag checked" ability to limit each civ to 1 religious SW at a time. Simulated state religions. The techs could also allow a cheap GW to give the "founder" a special bonus.

Are these good ideas to include in a hypothetical epic mod, or are things better left alone?

(I say hypothetical becuase I'm just compiling notes on all of my epic mod ideas, and may not even start work on such a mod. If nothing else, maybe my inquiries will inspire someone.)

It sounds like good ideas.

Yeah, in my personal mod, I drop the does-not-experience-anarchy-when-switching-governments trait, figuring that a time of extreme political change would be one in which more schisms ("conservative" vs. "revolutionary") would occur.

Furthering this, I have a "National Religion" tech which allows Christian and Muslim civs (these religions are Era=Zero techs; the mod begins in 1071 CE) to build a SW = "National Religion" which improves the effects of cathedrals, mosques, et, al.

Just some minor thoughts --

-Oz

In a variant of my mod I changed the "religious" trait to "organized", as an organized civ can change to the new governement much faster. I never did understand why a "religious" civ should get that benefit.

I stay with the trait "organized" as the traitname "political" means in my eyes long political controversies, which enlarge the phase of Anarchy.

In my mod the name "Anarchy" is changed to "Interregnum" and, as the period for "Anarchy/Interregnum" is much too long in the later stages of the game, the settings for "Anarchy/Interregnum" are changed to the settings of "Monarchy" (I have never seen that in any other mod, but it works). The other way to cure this heavy bug in Civ 3 would be to give each civ the "antianarchy"-trait but this is in my eyes a little bit boring, as you have always the optimal government without any risk.

Religion works in my mod in the following way: An era-none tech for each religion combined with three temples gives a religious symbol to build, symbolizing the growing mass of people that have this religion. This religious symbol is the perequisite for special improvements for that religion (p.e. churches for christianity and mosques for islamic civs). The advantage with this methode is, that you don´t need special further techs for these religions.

IMO anti-anarchy is a pretty good hard-coded effect. I'd rather not drop it or give it to everyone.
I would prefer allowing the player to "research" religions rather than having them assigned from the beginning. The religious symbol idea is good.

ugh... I had it all planned out, but it completely fell apart when I realized that only GWs can place an improvement in every city. So the whole idea of adopting a state religion via a SW is out. Giving a GW to the founder is still possible, but without the option of switching back and forth between religions it's probably better just to stick with assigned techs.

Weasel Op said:

The religious symbol idea is good

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Another advantage of the "religious symbol idea" is, that you can switch religions. P.e. the mesoamerican symbol is a perequisite for the mesoamerican "bloodcult"-wonders. Late bloodcult wonder give the christianity symbol. So the mesoamerican civs can build churches and cathedrals in the industrial and modern era when their original bloodcult temples are getting obsolete.

You can switch, but it's on a city-by city basis (unless you use a GW, but then only 1 civ can do it). This is what I wanted to do, but it won't work:

Each religion tech gives a very cheap GW and SW that can only be built in the capital. The SW represents the adoption of he religion as the official religion of the civ. It places the corresponding religious symbol in every city (that was the plan ) which gives 1 content face and is a requirement for religion-specific buildings. The GW represents founding the religion (the first civ to research the tech will likely build it) and doubles the effect of the corresponding religious symbol. Each SW has the "replace all impr with this flag checked" enabled so each civ can have only 1 religion at a time, but can switch at any time.

There were a couple of other problems with this... If the civ switches capitals, it could get away with having multiple religions simultaneously. The AI would probably continue to build the SWs constantly changing religions each turn.

Weasel Op said:

You can switch, but it's on a city-by city basis (unless you use a GW, but then only 1 civ can do it).

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The only way to switch religion with this methode I see, is to use a GW. All other imps don´t work if you want to have exactly the same buildings that are used from the other religion. But not only 1 civ can do it. You need one great wonder for each civ that should switch religion.

In my mod each civ has one religious era-none-tech and one national era-none-tech. So in my example with the mesoamerican civs, each civ has the "mesoamerican-Bloodcult-tech" and the Mayas have the national tech "Mayan-flavour" which helps the Mayas to build the GW Chichen Itza, that gives the christian symbol to all cities on the continent. For the Incas a tech "Inca-flavour" gives the Incas the GW Machu Pichu, doing the same for the Incas and for the Aztecs the Aztec-flavour tech, that gives the Aztecs the GW Temple of Tlaloc, doing the same for the Aztecs. The problem is, if one of these civs loses their GW.

So in my case, it would require a different GW for each civ for each religion... that's a lot of new GWs.
So I think I'll stick with pre-assigned techs, and use the religious symbol or something similar as a requirement for religion-specific buildings.

Or I could just rename the trait, reassign a few city improvements, and leave it at that. If I want religion, I can always fire up Civ4.

btw, when I said switching religions on a city by city basis, I meant making the religious symbols so that there could only be one per city, and if you wanted to switch you could "build" a new religion in a specific city.

Or a different option: instead of assigning a religious tech, add them as non-required techs in the tech tree and give each of them a SW, and then use the "replace all impr with this flag checked" ability to limit each civ to 1 religious SW at a time. Simulated state religions. The techs could also allow a cheap GW to give the "founder" a special bonus.

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You can build one SW in each city and have all religions that way.

That's why I added the part about them only being built in the capital (requiring the palace), but then I realized you could still switch capitals and build another SW. So, the whole state religion thing is pretty much broken. The remaining options would be pre-assigned techs, assigning religion city-by-city via the symbols(which I don't like), or no religion.

Weasel Op said:

That's why I added the part about them only being built in the capital (requiring the palace), but then I realized you could still switch capitals and build another SW. So, the whole state religion thing is pretty much broken. The remaining options would be pre-assigned techs, assigning religion city-by-city via the symbols(which I don't like), or no religion.

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True, but you could make it as hard as possible: (1) require a tech = religion in question (2) require the palace (3) tie in relgiously flavored government types ("Islamic Caliphate"; "Christian Divine Right Monarchy"; etc. -- i.e., a second tech).

At that point, any 2nd capital/SM improvements are (I think) highly unlikely and, when they do occur, could represent the sort of religious pluralism tolerated under, e.g., the Roman Empire.

Best,

Oz

P.S. Regarding using the "replace all improvements with this flag checked" ability, don't forget that you'd have to uncheck the same flags from factories etc.

-O.

In Goldflash's Dumb Fantasy Mod, I've renamed Relgious to "Magical"... and they Magic the Anarchy away!

ozymandias said:

True, but you could make it as hard as possible: (1) require a tech = religion in question (2) require the palace (3) tie in relgiously flavored government types ("Islamic Caliphate"; "Christian Divine Right Monarchy"; etc. -- i.e., a second tech).

At that point, any 2nd capital/SM improvements are (I think) highly unlikely and, when they do occur, could represent the sort of religious pluralism tolerated under, e.g., the Roman Empire.

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That may work, but I fear it would make things unnecessarily complex.

P.S. Regarding using the "replace all improvements with this flag checked" ability, don't forget that you'd have to uncheck the same flags from factories etc.

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IMO the usefulness of that flag is wasted on something as trivial as a set of very similar late-game production boosters.

Ozymandias said:

True, but you could make it as hard as possible: (1) require a tech = religion in question (2) require the palace (3) tie in relgiously flavored government types ("Islamic Caliphate"; "Christian Divine Right Monarchy"; etc. -- i.e., a second tech).

At that point, any 2nd capital/SM improvements are (I think) highly unlikely and, when they do occur, could represent the sort of religious pluralism tolerated under, e.g., the Roman Empire.

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You could put a "capital" resuorce, so you can´t switch your capital.

If you didn't want the player to switch capitals you could just make the palace require an unavailable tech. But capital changes would still occur due to war, and IMO it's not worth removing the ability to move your palace.