Ideas on How to add Religion to Civ 3

[ShiroKobbure]

Has anyone tried to add religion to their mods? If so how? I am trying to figure out the best way to do it for my mod.

Right now I just do the way its done in TeTurkan's Test of Time mod, religious resources give civs crusader units. Like if a European gets land with a Christian relic, they can build the Knights Templar, Asian civs can use Buddhist relics to make warrior monks. But I want something different, and if possible a way, or reason to make religious UUs, like Catholic priests, or Buddhists monks.

[Ozymandias]

The best I've been able to work out is to use Civ-specific Improvements with 0 Culture and the "Replaces ..." flag set. The AI basically builds what it simply regards as another happiness promoting building, replacing the pre-existing one.

This is only really any fun if you have layers, e.g., 5 Churches required for a Cathedral, 5 Cathedrals Required for the Vatican; that sort of thing. Also note that, if the pop of the city in question is teetering on a Happiness threshhold, replacing the old place o' worship can lead to the usual civil mayhem.

Happy Merry,

Oz

[embryodead]

Originally Posted by ShiroKobbure

Has anyone tried to add religion to their mods? If so how? I am trying to figure out the best way to do it for my mod.

Right now I just do the way its done in TeTurkan's Test of Time mod, religious resources give civs crusader units. Like if a European gets land with a Christian relic, they can build the Knights Templar, Asian civs can use Buddhist relics to make warrior monks. But I want something different, and if possible a way, or reason to make religious UUs, like Catholic priests, or Buddhists monks.

Rhye's and Fall and MEM have pre-set religions (with era_none techs) and civ-specific tech tree branches that contain religious buildings, wonders and units etc. MEM also has Holy Land resource which allows templars etc. and special wonders (Dome of the Rock etc.). Some UUs: Christian Crusaders are early amphibious infantry while Muslim Ghazis require no upkeep.

Twilight of Byzantium has priests units that are weak but can create knights (I think it was knights, w/unit capture feature). Religious fanatics in Warhammer have hidden nationality. Frankly I don't remember the exact (somewhat broken but fun) mechanic but IIRC the AI could capture cities this way without war, while human player could not.

[ShiroKobbure]

embyrodead,
Is it possible for units to build other units?

[embryodead]

Originally Posted by ShiroKobbure

embyrodead,
Is it possible for units to build other units?

In a way yes, through the unit capture(enslave) feature. You can set your priest to "enslave" a knight, fanatic, relic, treasure etc. and he will have a 33% (or w/e it was) chance to create one on victorious combat. You could have every religion's priest create a specific religious unit this way.

[ShiroKobbure]

If you put a priest in an army, and the army defeats a unit, will it be able to enslave it, even if it isn't the priest who actually killed the unit?

[King Coltrane]

I would also check out Herectic_Cata's mod. Religions are very well represented and offer a variety of wonders, units, and strategies that I think is more interesting than the RFC, MEM, Teturkan, or Twilight of Byzantium mechanics.

[Steph]

In my mod, you can build religious units, which can "convert" ennemy units (enslave) and turn them into "converted religious units".

This religious units can then be "sacrificed" in cities (ie they joing the city to spread your faith), increasing your influence.

I did not use civ specific religion tech tree or building, because then the tech cannot easily be used as a resource.

With my new expanded game concept, I hope I can manage to have more than 4 eras and more than 256 buildings, and thus introduce more civ specific items, and also "obsolete" government.

Because then, I think it may be possible to combine religion and government.

For instance, to have "Christian feudalism", "Muslim feudalism", "Jewish theocracy", "Muslim theocracy", etc.

Each government could give a specific religious building, and also some specificities (unit cost, science cap, etc).

[tom2050]

Originally Posted by ShiroKobbure

If you put a priest in an army, and the army defeats a unit, will it be able to enslave it, even if it isn't the priest who actually killed the unit?

I was wondering the same thing not too long ago, and was given a link to a thread that explained all this (can't remember where it is though). Units inside of armies will enslave the type of unit they normally enslave. Armies that bombard can also enslave units (if the army itself has the enslave ability), if they kill the unit. If the priest has enslave but no other units in the army have enslave, no enslaved unit can be created unless the priest kills it.

I think this is correct.

Tom

[Plotinus]

In my Rood scenario I made religions governments and that worked nicely, especially in combination with government-specific buildings and Wonders.

[Madeira]

Im thinking on having each civ capable of researching a few of the total religions in the mod (by using era none techs as requirements) and have one city improvement per religion, with the replace similar building flag so only one religious building can exist in a city, then have one great wonder per religion that can only be built after a civ builds n of its religious buildings.

I've read that for the replace similar building flag to work well, we must give a production bonus to the building, is there any reason not to give it cultural bonus?

[Civinator]

Why are most posters thinking, that religions work alternative and can´t work cumulative?

[Madeira]

Well, where's the fun in allowing a city to build both a Christian Church and a Muslim Mosque? Would they then be able to build both religion's Wonders if they were more advanced than the other civs in their city developments? And if the buildings auto produced religious units, they would get both! Its more fun the other way

The way im setting it up, you can research more than one religion, but you can only have one religious temple, so for instances if you're playing as the Romans, you'll be able to research in the Ancient age both Olympian Polytheism and Mithraism, but each city will only be able to have one of their "temples" (perhaps if the olympian temple gives trade bonus and the mythraic gives production bonus, one city may take better advantage of the olympian while another the mythric, it adds another layer of strategy to the game), and then later in the Medieval age you can research Christianism, which temple may give better bonuses than the previous two, making the player choose to replace the old temples with Christian churches.
Different civs may get different religious choices, it will increase the differences of play style for those civs.

[ShiroKobbure]

we have many crusaders for the Christians and Muslims, and Plotinus gave us monks for the Christians.

So I was thinking to make priests and crusaders for other religions, what do you think of this:

Priests/Monks:
Hindu:
Something like this
There are many really cool ones, I'm not sure which one I will try to make, I might mix some of them into one

Buddhist:


Zen:


Shinto:


Islamic:


Jewish:


Crusaders:
Hindu warrior monk:


Buddhist Sohei:


Buddhist Yamabushi:


Jewish Tarkhan:


Orthodox crusader:
?

[Steph]

If you make them, I'll use them.

[georgestow]

There are Yamabushi's in the Sengoku conquest scenario. I'm not sure if it's what you want, but it might do for the yamabushis that you want.

[ShiroKobbure]

Originally Posted by georgestow

There are Yamabushi's in the Sengoku conquest scenario. I'm not sure if it's what you want, but it might do for the yamabushis that you want.

Well the Yamabushi in the sengoku mod is actually more like a sohei.
Anyways, I hope that one day we will not have to use any of the original civ 3 units, so although Civ 3's Yamabushi can be used for a sohei, I want to make one anyways.

[Moosezilla]

@Madeira: The fun comes from using the "religion" of tech advance to it's best advantage. Most mods would not have buildings enough to show the diversity of polytheism much less multiple systems of pantheons. But I can see that one might want to simulate "religious" warfare ie frictions between religions. Perhaps we will see such in the future Civ 5. As for multi-religious cities you have only to look at any major city and see many religion's "temples".

[Madeira]

Originally Posted by Moosezilla

@Madeira: The fun comes from using the "religion" of tech advance to it's best advantage. Most mods would not have buildings enough to show the diversity of polytheism much less multiple systems of pantheons. But I can see that one might want to simulate "religious" warfare ie frictions between religions. Perhaps we will see such in the future Civ 5. As for multi-religious cities you have only to look at any major city and see many religion's "temples".

I understand your point, you are correct nowadays there's much more religious freedom. The system I described is simply a design decision to make ancient times more interesting by letting the player choose between a number of religions, each with its bonus.

[BadKharma]

Originally Posted by Civinator

Why are most posters thinking, that religions work alternative and can´t work cumulative?

Hehehe I know what you are getting at with that comment I do not think most modders have really evolved the religion use.