Religion - what does it have to do with tech?

Why are new religions atributed to the first who discovers a new tech?

It just doesn't feel right. It specially does not make sense when u end up with all religions being founded in neighbouring cities: very possible (and likely, especially with one civ more advanced than the others) in the game but impossible in the real world.

Religions should be either imported or created by a prophet.

They (new religions or prophets that create them) should also be more likely to appear in a place with no organized religion influence than in a place with allready 2, 3 or more religions.

There is also the need for more religions...where is all that Ra Egyptian thing?

This also makes me point out that it should be possible to repress or even erradicate a religion.

More religions were tried. If you get many more you start running into balance issues (cities too happy, for example).

That could be solved by making monotheistic religions stronger, leading to the disapearance of politheistic ones.

The assimilation of Christianity by Native American cultures, for example, was not only due to missionaries: it was also that, by comparison, it made more sense to ppl.

Though I'm a Muslim myself, I have one question to ask:

Are you a bigot?

Say that monotheism makes more sense to all the Hindus, Taoists, Shintoists, Confucians, and other polytheists still in the world who have had contact with monotheistic religions and simply weren't interested. Of course, not all of these are EXACTLY polytheistic, but monotheists tend to define these religions--which tend to be monistic or pantheistic, really--as polytheism. So kindly, I ask you to examine yourself and examine history. If monotheistic religions are so inherently appealing, why didn't all the Romans become Jews or Zoroastrians? Why did Muhammad, by the account of everyone there, have such trouble convincing the people of his own city and his own tribe, who regarded him as the most honest and trustworthy man in existance, in the existance of only one God? No, the real reason that the two largest religions in the world are Christianity and Islam is that the Christians and Muslims were the most aggressive in their sales tactics. Sometimes this was pursued directly, through missionary work. In other cases, the action was indirect. For instance, in the case of Native Americans, intense cultural and legal pressure to become "white" through such measures as the Dawes Act forced Christianity on Native Americans as a token of being "white" and so less unacceptible to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was of course run by bigots. In other cases, unfair treatment was used, such as the tactic of unequal taxation based on faith (used by Muslims) or advantages--such as government jobs--based on faith. This last was used by the Portuguese, Spanish, British, and French in their colonies, the first three because of their state church, the French because, in their minds, being a Christian was an inherent part of being French, and making the colonized people French was the fundamental aim of their mission civilatrice. In all cases of such unfair advantages or disadvantages based on faith, the idea was to create a religiously-defined ruling class in the hopes that either a. the society would convert to the rulers' religion, or b. that the society would become divided internally along religious lines, appliying perfectly the concept of "divide and rule."

In short, while I'm sure you weren't trying to insult anyone, you probably did.

Long story short - As basic as religion is in the game, Firaxis will never evolve the system. As it is they are not only on a minefield, but on a mine.

But a mod builder doesn't care. I like the general idea of removing techs from religion but not sure exactly what a good replacement would be.

zenithilos said:

It just doesn't feel right. It specially does not make sense when u end up with all religions being founded in neighbouring cities: very possible (and likely, especially with one civ more advanced than the others) in the game but impossible in the real world.

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So, you think that Judaism, Christianity and Islam were founded far apart in the real world?

All major world religions, including Buddhism and Hinduism, are monotheistic. Buddhist might be described as Atheistic but Hinduism is defeinetely monotheistic. All of their different gods are just different faces of Brahman, the only god.</off topic>

Actually, it's more complex than that. I don't want to go into the complexities of Hindu theology--though I've known this one Hindu guy for so long that, thanks to my discussions with him, I probably could--I'll explain it like this.

There are many different variants of Hinduism; my friend went so far as to say that there are as many variants of Hinduism as there are Hindus, for Hinduism is the ultimate in personalized relgion. Each individual worships in his or her own way. Some beleive in one god and one god only, usually either Brahma, Vishnu, or Shiva, or some "greater" god, and deny the existance of any other Devas (Ganesh, Hanuman, and the like), making them true monotheists. A small minority are true polytheists, beleiving that each Deva is a god in and of itself, and not a reflection of Brahma. Another holds that each Deva is a reflection of Brahma, which you described, and is accurately described as monistic (I think). Still another is pantheistic: God is EVERYTHING and ANYTHING--all people are God, animals are God, plants are God, bacteria are God, mountains are God, the Earth is God, all the planets are God, and the stars, and the Devas, and so on--EVERYTHING is God.

So really, Hinduism is neither polytheistic nor monotheistic, but a combination of both.

And what of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean religions? Those that recognize any gods at all tend to recognize several, and most encourage ancestor worship, which is a unique form of polytheism--the dead are all gods.

Lockesdonkey said:

Though I'm a Muslim myself, I have one question to ask:

Are you a bigot?

Say that monotheism makes more sense to all the Hindus, Taoists, Shintoists, Confucians, and other polytheists still in the world who have had contact with monotheistic religions and simply weren't interested. Of course, not all of these are EXACTLY polytheistic, but monotheists tend to define these religions--which tend to be monistic or pantheistic, really--as polytheism. So kindly, I ask you to examine yourself and examine history. If monotheistic religions are so inherently appealing, why didn't all the Romans become Jews or Zoroastrians? Why did Muhammad, by the account of everyone there, have such trouble convincing the people of his own city and his own tribe, who regarded him as the most honest and trustworthy man in existance, in the existance of only one God? No, the real reason that the two largest religions in the world are Christianity and Islam is that the Christians and Muslims were the most aggressive in their sales tactics. Sometimes this was pursued directly, through missionary work. In other cases, the action was indirect. For instance, in the case of Native Americans, intense cultural and legal pressure to become "white" through such measures as the Dawes Act forced Christianity on Native Americans as a token of being "white" and so less unacceptible to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was of course run by bigots. In other cases, unfair treatment was used, such as the tactic of unequal taxation based on faith (used by Muslims) or advantages--such as government jobs--based on faith. This last was used by the Portuguese, Spanish, British, and French in their colonies, the first three because of their state church, the French because, in their minds, being a Christian was an inherent part of being French, and making the colonized people French was the fundamental aim of their mission civilatrice. In all cases of such unfair advantages or disadvantages based on faith, the idea was to create a religiously-defined ruling class in the hopes that either a. the society would convert to the rulers' religion, or b. that the society would become divided internally along religious lines, appliying perfectly the concept of "divide and rule."

In short, while I'm sure you weren't trying to insult anyone, you probably did.

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confucians are polytheist? I dont believe confucianism is even a religion much less a religion w/ a bunch of different gods.

First of all let me apologize if my post offended anyone: it wasn't my intention.

1) I'm not an history major nor an authority on religion.

2) In my opinion the only true monotheistic religions is probably the Muslim (of the ones i'm aware of). Others, like Christianity which i'm more familiar with, with all the Saints, pagan or not, have inherited something of polytheism, so let's not go that way.

3) Yes, there were several religions founded in the middle east, close to each other. No argument there. But, if I counted right, u mentioned 3 religions: not ALL of them.

4) I'm an agnostic and definitely not a bigot. What about u "Lockesdonkey"? Are u prejudiced against ppl who have diferent views then yours? Or do you tolerate them? There are diferent ways of asking the same thing, some insulting, some not (maybe u should try to act what u preach).

5) The main point is:
Founding a religion should not be associated with tech advancement: it should be random.

6) When i sugested making some religions stronger then others i was thinking of old religions like the ones in South America that involved human sacrifices. It was just a sugestion: another way to make some religions more powerfull is by the number of ppl following it. And pls keep in mind that these are sugestions for the game: not for the real world.

i feel that religion should occur in places where there are more ceremorial building.... like tomb, statue are building without religion alignment help the people there develop a public religion no? so these building help create great prophet who can be use to found a religion of choice (you should get to choose your religion no? ) after that you can that build the usual temple and stuff that spread the religion... if you have many great prophet, you can choose to found all religion, which would make sense.... no?

I think it is a very good idea to have GPs to found religions as it reflects the history of at least 3 (to a certain degree of 4) of the given religions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Judaism is the one, where it fits only partially and about the other religion I don't know enough.

Anyway, giving the first 7 Great Prophets in the game the ability to found a religion would introduce the aspect of randomness to religions, it would make wonders more useful and due to the randomness, it would add a certain tension to the early game.
Of course, it would require adaptions of the tech tree, as you would require more buildings to generate GP-points, but this is just a minor issue. This way, the more "spirituality" there is in your society, the higher the chances would be to found a religion.

Now these last 2 post are to the point: discussing the subject of religion in the game instead of politics.

I thank you for it.

If it makes sense to "research" polytheism and monotheism, then surely it makes sense to found a new religion when you do so.

Commander Bello said:

Anyway, giving the first 7 Great Prophets in the game the ability to found a religion would introduce the aspect of randomness to religions, it would make wonders more useful and due to the randomness, it would add a certain tension to the early game.
Of course, it would require adaptions of the tech tree, as you would require more buildings to generate GP-points, but this is just a minor issue. This way, the more "spirituality" there is in your society, the higher the chances would be to found a religion.

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Exactly what I've been "preaching" to my friends on how religions should get formed. Under current game mechanics, the gov is actually founding the religions, whereas it seemed that religions were more spontaneous IRL.

Something like this to generate prophet GP points:
start as pagan - alter (1)
Mystism - obelisk (1)
Afterlife - tomb (1)

Make the first GP need only like 50-75. And make some kind of order, I dont think it makes sense to have christianity nor islam (or does it??) without without judaism.

And the game is missing the one true religion.......the FORCE

i agree that polytheism n monotheism should be necessary to certain religions, but after that it should be more random then anything else.

culture or buildings should have some influence but, again, it should mainly be random

zenithilos said:

i agree that polytheism n monotheism should be necessary to certain religions, but after that it should be more random then anything else.

culture or buildings should have some influence but, again, it should mainly be random

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wth is the point of random? I dont think random does anyone any good, "ooo I randomnly got christianity! go me!"

zenithilos said:

4) I'm an agnostic and definitely not a bigot. What about u "Lockesdonkey"? Are u prejudiced against ppl who have diferent views then yours? Or do you tolerate them? There are diferent ways of asking the same thing, some insulting, some not (maybe u should try to act what u preach).

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No. Perhaps I sounded a bit rabid, but I get annoyed when people get their facts wrong. REALLY annoyed. That "monotheism made more sense to people" SOUNDS bigoted to many people, including me--a monotheist par excellance. I understand what you mean that some about the AZTEC religion making less sense than Christianity to the people of ancient Mexico; while I can argue that that's not the case either, I don't wish to belabor the point.

On the gameplay side, while I will grant that perhaps these methods are more realistic, they will also be frustrating to many. True randomness is insane gameplay-wise, despite its inherent realism, for it is far beyond the player's control. There are other arguments against it, of course, but the basic point is that the basing of religion in pure randomness is potentially unbalancing--in theory, all seven religions could land in the same nation.

Tying it to Great Prophets also makes little sense, for some religions--e.g. Hinduism--were NOT revealed religions but traditional: an amalgam of the spiritual practices of a people over millenia. Hence the complexity of Hinduism that I discussed above. I forgot to mention a group of Hindus who were entirely ATHEISTIC: they used the ethical principles expressed in the Vedas, Puranas, and Upanishads, in addition to their own writings, while rejecting the existance of Brahama, the Devas, or any other supernatural creature entirely.

The current system--of tying religion to technology--keeps things from being TOO random, while being moderately true to the actual history and character of the religions. While Hinduism is not really polytheistic now, it started off that way; the very hallmark of Buddhism is meditation; Judaism (with Zoroastrianism) is certainly the only religion of any importance to accept the existance of only one God; while the study of theology began with the Jews, and had some currency with Hinduism, it was the Christians who first took it to absurd lengths and the Christians who made it possible for people to spend lifetimes studying God to virtually no avail; Confucianism is nothing if not a codification as social law the prevailing values in China in Confucius' day; Taoism is first and foremost a philosophy of life (the Dao, or Way, of Wuwei, or "doing nothing", "nonintervention"), with little gods added in to make it more palatable by the Chinese public; and while the connection of Islam to divine right is questionable, the use of titles such as Malik al Mulk (King/Ruler of Kingship/Rulership/Sovereignty) gives that impression, and by that point in the game, there's hardly another religious technology to think of, anyway.

Q: Why are new religions atributed to the first who discovers a new tech?
A1: To make possible in the game to follow a similar chronology of their appearance as in real history.
e.g. Muslim religion is, historically, the most recent of the set proposed by CIVIV. Likewise is usually the latest to be "discovered" in t

A2: in CIVIV techs are not necessary technologies (are monoteism or drama technologies?) but mostly social/technological/culture advancements.
You discover them via science... I would say a simplification to make the game more playable.
From the game-play point of view random religions will be a nightmare.

In general CIVIV religion system and politically correct and washed-down comprmonise to bring a new play factor (and as a side effect a nice addup to the historical accuracy of the game)

Christianity may have appeared thanks to a prophete, but it's expansion was due to social, cultural, and political factors.
From this point of view binding religions to techs make perfect sence.

Some historical points:
Christianity quickly diffused itself inside the Roman empire, but didn't go too far outside it. Later it expanded further thanks to European colonization and expansion around the world.
Islam expanded itself following the expansion of the Arabic empire.
Both these two religions often converted people on the point of a sword, in other cases the diffusion was due to the easier travelling of ideas and people inside a contigous community (e.g. an empire).

Monotheistic religions took the place of polytheistic religions not for intrinsic superiority but because they best fitted with the changed cultural and social background.
For example in ancient Egypt a Farahon (Amonoteph?) did try to turn the country religion from Polytheistic to Monotheistic (worshipping only the Sun god Rha).
He failed because the proposed change didn't match the cultural and political setup of the region at that time.


I agree that the region system in CIVIV is too simple to match the complexity seen in history (ancient religions, scisms, persecutions, etc.) but it also adds a new layer of complexity to the game without overloading it.
I would say a very good compromise.

Maybe in future the system will evolve... but so far so good, i don't want a more complex system just for the sake of it, I want a good game to play!

wolfigor said:

[....]
Maybe in future the system will evolve... but so far so good, i don't want a more complex system just for the sake of it, I want a good game to play!

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Fair enough.

But where would be the problem to have religions being founded by a great prophet?
Of course, it would require to have some additional buildings, maybe even another early civic which allow you to amass GP-points. I could imagine buildings like a "worship place", "funeral sites" and so on. Some of them could become available with techs replacing the current "religious techs".

By that, more builder-like players could get the early religions, while the warmongers would have to wait until they face missionars or would have to wait for maybe a later religion.

Just another concept, but as far as I can see it, in no way more complex.