How do you see the new 'concept' of Religion changing the game?

After reading that Religion would become a game concept, as opposed to just a Civ trait, i began wondering how this would be applied to the game, and how it would affect gameplay. So....

Implementation

Do you see Religion being something selectable at the start of the game? i.e. you pick Spain, and then Muslim/Catholic/Buddhist, or whatever...

Do you think that Religion will be tied to Culture groups, or Civs themselves, and do you think this is a good idea?

Can you see it being possible that you 'create' your own religion (not with you as the Deity ), and you being able to select one (or more) form a list of bonuses?

Will each Civ have the ability to become a Secular state, thus losing its (possible) negative characteristics? How many religions will there be?

Do you think the Religion will be randomly chosen, and applied to your Civ?

Should there be an option to turn religion 'off' as there currently is with Civ traits/UUs?


Affects

Will each Religion have its own bonuses? i.e. Protestants could have a worker bonus, or something along those lines?

Will Religions have Unique Wonders, bearing in mind the Sistine Chapel, the Pyramids, etc as Religious buildings. Will this make the creation of new wonders necessary? Will there be unique units amongst each religious faction?

Does this necessarily create Religious hatred in the game that must be tempered, or acted upon? (not the human player acting on their own feelings, I mean "Our people detest the Heathen Aztecs" "The hedonistic Ottoman religion runs in opposition to our Puritan values" etc.). Would this force the human player to target certain Civs when warmaking?)

Would Religion force Civs down certain tech paths? When the Conquistadors reached South America, they thought the Aztecs were primitive, but the Aztecs had mapped the stars which was something the Pope had forbidden as the Catholic Church had said that the Sun went around the Earth.

How important will the concept be? Will it be part of culture, as it is now, or will it stand apart from this? If so, will new 'culture improvements' be necessary, and do we actually want more city improvements? Will the concept ever become 'obsolete', say on reaching values of secularity, or on a Marxist theory of religion?


Im interested to hear what everyone has to say about this as I think it will be an interesting addition to Civ, and I wanted to know how people envisaged Religion in cIV...

1 thing for sure, make sure that if i'm a christian(or w/e religon you want to add here) i should have better diplomatic staus w/ that cointry

Hmm. For starters, I think one's religion should be limited by one's technology and then expand as one's horizons expand. One could not choose Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism until it begins, and even then only after one "discovers" it or it is shared by another civ.

but isn;t that the point of civ? rewriting history? obviously the aztecs didn't discover rocketry in 1973, we are rewriting history, and religon should be one of those options

Welcome to CFC

Choices could expand thusly:
With no religion tech: amoralism (could give smallest combat bonus) or pragmatism (pragmatic community morals, perhaps with bonus in researching ceremonial burial)
Ceremonial burial: Belief in afterlife (with a one shield reduction in corruption in cities over a certain size, or maybe one unhappy citizen becomes content in each city) or primitive Fatalism (with next smallest combat bonus)
Mysticism: Animism (with smallest worker bonus) or primitive belief system of Sky Warrior worship ( with third smallest combat bonus)
Polytheism: Anthropomorphic Pantheon (like the Egyptians, Aztecs, and Carthaginians, with associated fertility rites and potential for human sacrifice -- small food bonus) or Human centric Pantheon ( like Greece, Rome, and Sumerians, with small science bonus or some such)
Monotheism: This would be much trickier. I will have to give this some more thought.
Philosophy: This would be a great required tech for Buddhism, IMHO. Likewise for Confucianism.

Sure, Ybbor. I agree with that about rewriting history. But I think no civ should be able to choose a religion until its enabling tech is discovered.

That way, a religion's advantages and disadvantages could not be utilized until a nation discovers (or is prosyletized by a civ that has) that tech.

i think that each relgion should give certain pluses and minuses similar to governments. for instance, Islam could allow +2draft rate to your current draft rate. Christianity could add +15% worker rate. Athiesism could allow +1 military police. Basic beliefs/religons with limited benifits would be available at the begining of the game (w/ tribal customs the default type, giving no benifits), and all others available at the begining of the middle ages

EDIT: and if you want to add something to your posts, you can just hit the "edit" button at the upper right-hand corner of your posts, this way you aren't making 5 posts to get a point across you could get in 1

For instance, one of the reasons so many civs in the Mediterranean world had trouble grasping the notion of monotheism was that it seemed, well, snobbish. Who ever heard of only one god? How dare anyone think that everyone else's god did not exist, or was somehow a lesser being? It took time to accept such a radical idea. It flew in the face of all previous popular religious thought. Look at Socrates. He dared to question the reliability of the Greek Human-centric pantheon, with all their foibles, and he was charged with and executed for "corrupting Athen's youth."

i think that each relgion should give certain pluses and minuses similar to governments. for instance, Islam could allow +2draft rate to your current draft rate. Christianity could add +15% worker rate. Athiesism could allow +1 military police. Basic beliefs/religons with limited benifits would be available at the begining of the game (w/ tribal customs the default type, giving no benifits), and all others available at the begining of the middle ages

I like all of that, except about all others available at the Mid Ages. Maybe certain civs could be the first to introduce a religion. Arabs could introduce Islam; if no Arab in the game, then the next down a list of Middle Eastern nations, and if no M.E. civs in a game, then randomly selected. That civ could barter that religion like a tech for the first 100 years. Or maybe after a certain time in the game (all of this should be editable of course), any nation could choose that religion. For the first time following the intro of the religion (first fifty or 100 years), any civ choosing that religion loses a small amount of gold (say 1 per turn, tithes of the faithful) to the initializing civ. This would be a benefit to being the first to adopt a new religion.

well, ummm, that goes back to the concept of rewriting history, we write history, why not have a tech be granted very set # of years according to how it was in real life? why not have your cities have a set build order, that plays to each civ's history? why? because we're leaving the realm of video games, and entering movie. Also, there wouldn't be enough religon's to go around, w/ 32 civs, each one would need a religopn tp balance the game

Yeah, well, I know about editing. I try to keep my posts short because my phone lines are old. I hate to spend a half hour typing out a thorough essay, and then lose it all because some party liner in my neighborhood kicks me offline. Such is life in the country. I'm not a newbie, I just changed ISPs and had to re-register in order to post tonight.

What do you think about Philosophy being a prereq for Buddhism or Confucianism. I think Buddhism is the most philosophic religion there is. I keep thinking of the kung fu master in , well, Kung Fu with David Carradine. (Now I'm dating myself.)

What benefits could we give with Buddhism? Maybe a more content, but pacifistic, populace? But with a strong partisan resistance when occupied? Longer time to break down resistance?

Err, I think you misunderstood me. I never suggested techs or religions automatically "appearing" at certain dates. I merely suggested that certain religions are associated with certain religious techs and shouldn't be available until those techs are discovered. I think I agree with you more than you give me credit for.

Perhaps I inadequately represented my idea about a civ introducing a religion. The first civ to discover monotheism, could of course, choose any monotheistic religions he wants. A feature that could be turned off or on, though, could be that the first civ to discover monotheism independently would introduce Judaism, (even though they aren't Jewish, they could be assumed to have a Jewish minority within their population). The next to independently discover monotheism would have the privilege of choosing Judaism or introducing Christianity. This selectable or omittable feature would allow for the advantage that any civ introducing a new religion enjoys. It was so with Rome and Christianity, and so with the Arabs and Islam. Those civs that chose their religion were for a long time, in a small way, beholden to them. That ended as time passed, but these are realistic features that could be molded as dynamics in the game. I was in no way suggesting that religion be some static clock ticking, like an event in the game.

Ybbor, what do you think of offering some religions that are not normally considered so, such as Scientism or Humanism. Maybe Humanism is not so very distinguishable from Atheism. I like your idea about atheism giving a bonus for military police. It reminds me of all the totalitarian regimes inspired by Neitzshe.
Maybe Scientism could give a small science bonus, but a minus in contentment. Humanism or atheism could have the military bonus balanced by a slight increase in corruption.
At any rate, all these things and the aspects of each religions pros and cons should be editable, just as governments are.

Religion and political affiliation should go hand in hand.

@ Jeremiah: Neitzshe is not the ideological founder of any totalitarian state, although he was often misquoted by Hitler et al.

@Neomega: are you saying each Civ would have to change religion as it changes Gov?

How could Judaism be brought in with the Monotheism when it developed in the Ancient age? The game clock is set from the birth of Christ, so would this have to be changed in cIV? And if Religions are tied to techs, does this not lead to the current problem where the most recent is the 'best'? How can you say one religion is 'better' than another, and do you not think atheism has existed as long as theism (a belief in God?)
How would all this affect the game? Would each Civ have its own Religion, and would this lead to individual difference in Civs? For example, England could be 'Christian', 'Protestant', or 'Anglican', how precise does the game need to be, and are any of these titles appropriate when fewer people in Europe (especially) are going to Church than ever? Would all Civs become secular, or agnostic, or even atheist? Would religion 'develop' or remain static? And how could the AI utilise the bonuses that each Religion gives, especially if there are as many as there are Civs?

I know Sorenson had mentioned redoing the way civil disorder occurs, but I would think religion would have a similar impact if one civ (religion A) is conquering cities of another civ (religion B). Perhaps, they'll have it effect the economies. But, tolerance and intolerance will have to be addressed through some type of feature.

i think you should be able to make missionaries to convert parts of other countries to your religion

bring back fundementilism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by AdHHH
@ Jeremiah: Neitzshe is not the ideological founder of any totalitarian state, although he was often misquoted by Hitler et al.

@Neomega: are you saying each Civ would have to change religion as it changes Gov?

How could Judaism be brought in with the Monotheism when it developed in the Ancient age? The game clock is set from the birth of Christ, so would this have to be changed in cIV? And if Religions are tied to techs, does this not lead to the current problem where the most recent is the 'best'? How can you say one religion is 'better' than another, and do you not think atheism has existed as long as theism (a belief in God?)
How would all this affect the game? Would each Civ have its own Religion, and would this lead to individual difference in Civs? For example, England could be 'Christian', 'Protestant', or 'Anglican', how precise does the game need to be, and are any of these titles appropriate when fewer people in Europe (especially) are going to Church than ever? Would all Civs become secular, or agnostic, or even atheist? Would religion 'develop' or remain static? And how could the AI utilise the bonuses that each Religion gives, especially if there are as many as there are Civs?

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No, but the religion of the citizens should determine the effectiveness of their government. ie secularists would have a more complacent communism than monarchy, and would reject outright a thocracy, (lots of sad faces).

Chnaging religion would be difficult, if not impossible, unless guided via "bishops" (like taxmen).

I dunno, just throwing out ideas.