Help needed: Religions!

[Mylon]

I'm looking to make a mod to add religions to Civ5. At the moment I'm still not sure how to claim a holy city, but that's where you guys come in! I wasn't terribly fond of the way religions were founded in Civ4, tying it to technology. Here's a chance to do something better!

The concept here is that religions are a kind of shared social policy. Each city with the religion gets 2 benefits, one for merely having the religion (which may include some penalties if other religions co-exist), and a second benefit if it is the state's religion. These benefits will depend on a set of social policy like trees. These religious policies are purchased with religious points, which are earned by having cities with the religion and religious buildings, as well as other possibilities, like having the 'crusade' policy will allow points to be earned through combat. The owner of the holy city is the one that gets to pick which policies exist. There will be some early policies that benefit exclusivity to encourage inquisition and isolationist style play to help diversify empires instead of racing to acquire as many religions as possible.

Like in Civ4, there will be an economic benefit to owning the holy city, in addition to being able to make the decisions.

Social policies to expand on this may include "God King", which means no state religion but provides religion-like beneifts, but this will be exclusive with Piety and Rationalism. Piety will be more focused on changing the benefits received from religions.

There will be missionary units that spread religion much in the same way as Civ4, in addition to natural spread.

Note that I am not seeking historical accuracy. Just as you can have a rationalist Aztec empire in Civ5, you'll be able to have a super-xenophobic Hindu religion. Or a rationalist Christian religion.

As for implementation, I'm thinking this can be handled with 'dummy' social policies that are given based on which religions are present in an empire, which in turn unlocks the "make this your state religion" policy, which is mutually exclusive with all other state policies. As whether the religion is actually present in the city affects whether the policy has an effect, most of these benefits will be done with 'free' buildings that are created and destroyed within cities based on conditions.

If anyone is interested in helping out on this idea let me know! I need ideas for religious policy branches, religious policies, as well as artwork to draw upon like icons for Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.

[Mylon]

Example policies:

Tradition

This means family values are a strong part of religious doctrine.

Tier 1:


Tier 3:
Family business. +1 production per 4 citizens in cities.

Crusade

A religion that focuses on holy wars and fighting in the name of god.

Immediate boost: +10 religious policy points for each unit killed by civs having this as their state religion.

Tier 1:
Fervor. +10% combat strength fighting civs that have adopted a different religion.

Holy Land. +30% combat strength when fighting near the holy city.

Tier 2:
Paradise. +20% combat strength when wounded.

Tier 2:
Jihad. Extra damage dealt to the enemy when own units are killed.

Enlightened

Pursuit of knowledge and understanding is highly regarded among followers of this religion.

Immediate boost:

+1 beaker from priests.

Tier 1:
Well being. +1 happiness for temples.

Tier 2:
Meditation: -25% religious policy costs.

[Roto-Router]

Might want to check out the DUCKS mod; their approach is different from what you have here. There are also a few others out there which you could scrape for ideas.

[chrome-rome]

Additionally you can look at Procylon's Call To Power; he wants to impliment religion at some point in the mod. Unfortunately, he has the same issue as the DUCKS mod: lack of .dll access. I don't know if he just plans on borrowing concepts from DUCKS when it is published or if he wants to do his own thing, but either way I don't see how it can hurt to check it out. Besides, there is always a place for a gifted lua coder

[Mylon]

Eh, it seems possible to do a lot in lua scripting. For religions, all of the notification can be done to the player through interface, no dll required. Most of the changes will require adding some buildings to the city on an individual basis to provide bonuses, others will be civ-wide (or could be applied manually, if necessary). For AI, it's possible to simply deduct points and assign policies.