C2C - Religions discussions and ideas

[Toffer90]

You present an interesting concept foundation for a radically changed religion system.
The current system is something I'm not too fond of, as it feels inflexible in nature and hence limits what is possible to do with it in a modding sense.

You have my complete support in any further development of this idea; I hope that I can help flesh it out in one way or another in the time to come.

 

[Noriad2]

@Praetyre: my opinion: while the current system has its flaws, replacing actual historical religions with generic fantasy religions is the wrong direction. You'd throw away a lot of historical immersion from movies, documentaries and history books, and replace them with a bunch of numbers you can min/max.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Interesting ideas Praetyre. It is possible to have a second "tech tree" a "faith tree" if you will.

I have been messing around with some new properties Faith, Piety and another "Religion Development". The first is National, the second City based while the third is Religion based and can be fed into by all nations.

The third "Religion Development" is the one I have been concentrating on at the moment. It is based on the Total War mods religion system which I still don't understand fully but does support schisms nicely.

How "advanced" a religion is determines what can be built in a city with that religion.

• Basic means you can build a temple, if you have the tech;
  
• Awakened means you can build the national shrine, holy city shrine, monasteries and missionaries;
  
• Mature means you can build the cathedral buildings.

You use "Religious Components", a type of consumable resource, to advance your religion. You get Religious Components via Faith sort of like how you get Great People. Each Religious Component is useful for different religions variably.

For example: the Religious Component Fatherhood becomes available at the tech Patriarchy. If you select it you get 5 Fatherhood consumables. Judaism can use 3 towards it's development, Animism can use 1, Christianity and Islam can both use 2. You, and the AI, would select the ones that are best for the current religion or the religion you are working towards. Religious Consumables you don't use can be traded for other Religious Consumables or if we can do it just normal trade.​

In Total War these components come free with techs but I was working on having them available based on the Faith level of your nation in a similar way to how you get Great People but you choose which Religious Component you get from those remaining.

This method makes the religions separate from nations. A step in the right direction I feel.
​

The other ideas I was toying with that have some similarity to what you propose are to do with the pre_Ancient eras

1. each nation has its own form of animism which can be developed. It can also grow into another religion eg pantheistic animism, polytheistic animism or monotheistic animism perhaps even non-theistic animism.
   
   Having a religion is so important that I feel that the current race to get one feels wrong. Your suggestions fit right in with my ideas on this part. Although I would allow a nation with Egyptian Culture to grow their polytheistic animism religion into Kemetism for example.
   
   
2. cults - I tried to get these to work as corporations as that works better than religions would for what I had in mind.
   
   I got the idea from Pie_AT's mod but I could not get the XML to work. If I added one everything worked fine but if I added more than one all the buildings would end up belonging to the last defined or would swap between the cults. I suspect my dyslexia to have been playing up in the extreme when I was doing it.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

@Praetyre: my opinion: while the current system has its flaws, replacing actual historical religions with generic fantasy religions is the wrong direction. You'd throw away a lot of historical immersion from movies, documentaries and history books, and replace them with a bunch of numbers you can min/max.

I think it is an improvement in the prehistoric and early ancient era but not so much after that. Although even there it can be more useful in improving the "flow" of the religions.

I would still keep the religions but allow you to get them in a different way. We still have some problems with the placement of the religions on the tech tree at the moment for example Yoruba (animist) should come before Tengrii (animist). There should be Yoruba (polytheist) and Yoruba (monotheist) on the tree. While Kemetism, Druidism and Rodnovera really should have both ancient and the neo-pagan versions.

Attached is the Religion "Tree" I would like to implement

 

[Thunderbrd]

Interesting. I... I'm not sure what I want to say about this subject or proposal. I quite like the game balance we have with our existing religions and wouldn't want to see that completely rewritten because no other mod has all the religions we've developed. Therefore, it would be, imo, best to present that as a cousin mod of C2C, an alternative, or perhaps through an option.

A lot of that sounds like it would take a great deal of DLL programming. I'd be supportive to anyone who wanted to do the work to set that up but I've got FAR more pressing things to attend to and a dwindling sense of concern about addressing them quickly.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

A lot of that sounds like it would take a great deal of DLL programming.

Not really, most is already supported by base BtS functionality. Some AI would be needed but that can be done the same way the Mine Warfare stuff is done, ie in Python. The Mine Warfare stuff as coded is slow but that is because it uses a loop (either going over all technologies or all buildings) to find stuff that it does not need the loop to find.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Not really, most is already supported by base BtS functionality. Some AI would be needed but that can be done the same way the Mine Warfare stuff is done, ie in Python. The Mine Warfare stuff as coded is slow but that is because it uses a loop (either going over all technologies or all buildings) to find stuff that it does not need the loop to find.

Your proposal, yes. But what Praetyre was talking about with an extra Commerce would.

 

[Praetyre]

@Praetyre: my opinion: while the current system has its flaws, replacing actual historical religions with generic fantasy religions is the wrong direction. You'd throw away a lot of historical immersion from movies, documentaries and history books, and replace them with a bunch of numbers you can min/max.

Believe me, I am very, very much in the "Intuitive realism>number jockeying" camp. My intention here is not to strip the religions of their character, but to make their development more organic and more in line with the way most religions have developed prior to the Postclassical Era.

I mean, does it really make sense that Kemetists would have as big a beef with Hellenists as they would with, say, Sikhs, when in our reality there was never any significant conflict (to my knowledge) on religious grounds between the two?

This is certainly not to deny that there have been conflicts between pagans (I'm not promoting a religious equivalent of that ridiculous "Democratic Peace Theory", nor am I in the even more ridiculous "Pre-Abrahamic societies were Scandinavian liberal feminist LGBT utopias until those evil monotheists wrecked everything" camp), and even that religion has played a role in such conflicts (surely virtually all Neolithic tribes have incorporated their faith into their warmaking, not to mention Aztec wars for human sacrifice), but actual conflict on doctrinal grounds seems a peculiarity of what i referred to as the "Platonic orthodox/exclusivist" faiths.

A possible compromise that would retain the cultural flavor of the pagan faiths (which I myself am quite fond of) would be to have my model up until Classical Antiquity or the Postclassical Era (a bit like what DH is suggesting) and then allowing you to either start a whole new religion or to reform your existing one (Crusader Kings II style) into a "higher" creed. There'd have to be some sort of cost/benefit analysis between founding a new religion, staying "lower" (for lack of a better term) or reforming. One possibility I'm thinking here is that the religions that become unlocked around the time your religions can get more "advanced" also spread quicker and are tougher to "shake off", since even if you reform your own religion it'll take a while for everyone to accept its creed as sacrosanct.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Your proposal, yes. But what Praetyre was talking about with an extra Commerce would.

Not if it is a property. Which is how was reading it as.

 

[Praetyre]

I'm fine with it being a property, provided that the tech tree can be unlocked with Faith in a manner akin to Culture with Policies in Civ V.

 

[JosEPh_II]

How many modders here have played CiV? I have not nor Civ VI.

So you speak a foreign tongue maybe Praetyre?

Perhaps an overview of "Culture with Policies in Civ V" workings is needed?

JosEPh

 

[Praetyre]

Well, the way Policies work in Civ V is that instead of having Civics, you have a series of sometimes but not always mutually exclusive trees based around themes like Tradition, Liberty, Honour, Piety and so on, which have little mini-policies you can choose to unlock after expending more culture (you have to expend culture to unlock a tree at all first, and even a tree you've unlocked but not unlocked any of the policies within gives you some benefits of its own), like Universal Suffrage or Conscription or whatever. There's a set bonus for getting all the policies, and in the Modern Era (which would be about halfway to two thirds of the way through the Industrial Era in current C2C) you have to pick an ideology, based on the three competing ideologies of World War II (an analysis of that period quite similar to and perhaps based upon Hearts of Iron).

So, what I'm proposing is similar in as much as:

• There is a seperate tree for a particular aspect of your civilization, which interacts with technology but is not unlocked solely by it.
• There is a commerce and/or property (the latter not existing in Civ V, of course) which is used to unlock sub-trees and their specific benefits.
• This commerce and/or property is obtained via particular buildings and units.

That's the basic overview, at least in comparison to my proposal. Hope this makes things clear.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The current thought for Developing Leaders is that as your Nation reaches certain cultural levels you get access to a new leader trait.

This proposal is more similar to how Science ( ) is used to give you Technologies. Faith ( ) is used to give R-Techs if you like.

I see Faith ( ) as a National Property that is added to mainly by religious buildings but also via unit actions. This national Faith is independent of the individual religions.

• each temple and monastery level building may give 1 per turn - the culture output would need to drop for balance
• each cathedral level building may give 2 per turn
• each national building may give 4 per turn
• each world building may give 6 per turn

We can display the R-Tech tree on a different page of the current Tech Screen. Other mods do this sort of thing. We would need to display how close you are getting to your next R-Tech on the main and city screens.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

OK after seeing this video on youtube (Why Can't Christians Understand the Word Atheist?) I understand why some people thing atheism is a religion. It is a difference between the definition of the word in US of A English and British English. The Websters Dictionary forgets Greek for that one word only and instead of saying Atheism = not Theism (Oxford dictionary definition) it says something about "belief in God" instead.

The video also explains the difference between Gnostic/Agnostic and why they have nothing to do with Theism, or more precisely why they are two different things and should not be used in the same argument. Unless you mention all four combinations of them that is since you can have an Agnostic Theist and a Gnostic Atheist as well as the more usually discussed.

For V38 I hope to have all the current religions optional and have Mormon converted to the new version. My work on evolving religions has past 10 pages of design most of which is still in "dot points". Only the bit on Animism has progressed to the stage where it actually defines in detail the buildings and improvements but it is still lacking the neo-pagan movements of the 18th Century.

@Praetyre: my opinion: while the current system has its flaws, replacing actual historical religions with generic fantasy religions is the wrong direction. You'd throw away a lot of historical immersion from movies, documentaries and history books, and replace them with a bunch of numbers you can min/max.

The problem as I see it is that what we currently have does not match history either. If fixes each religion at one point whereas in reality what the religion did over time changes.

 

[Thunderbrd]

As I understand it, the term Theism relates to a particular religious definition for the term. Generally speaking, those I've discussed the topic with consider Atheism to simply mean the belief that there is not a higher creator power or if there was, it no longer exists.

I'm not sure what it is to be a 'Gnostic' exactly either, again a more religious specific term. But as I've come to understand the term Agnostic, it means basically, "A belief that while there may be a creator/creation force/God or gods, until empirical evidence makes a truth completely provable, all given faiths are just theories."

Are these the US definitions as you were informed there? If it differs from what you've come to understand, how so? Just curious but still don't have any audio capability here so I just have to ask rather than watch.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

As I understand it, the term Theism relates to a particular religious definition for the term. Generally speaking, those I've discussed the topic with consider Atheism to simply mean the belief that there is not a higher creator power or if there was, it no longer exists.

I'm not sure what it is to be a 'Gnostic' exactly either, again a more religious specific term. But as I've come to understand the term Agnostic, it means basically, "A belief that while there may be a creator/creation force/God or gods, until empirical evidence makes a truth completely provable, all given faiths are just theories."

Are these the US definitions as you were informed there? If it differs from what you've come to understand, how so? Just curious but still don't have any audio capability here so I just have to ask rather than watch.

Yes. For some reason all the other a- prefix words in Webster are given as not whatever the suffix is but not atheism. Eg asymmetrical is not symmetrical.

Theism = belief in god or gods so Atheism = not Theism = not belief in god or gods but the Webster definition is belief that god(s) don't exist which is a totally different thing.

Gnostic = knowledge (of god(s)) so Agnostic = not knowledge.

This means that your statement

As I understand it, the term Theism relates to a particular religious definition for the term. Generally speaking, those I've discussed the topic with consider Atheism to simply mean the belief that there is not a higher creator power or if there was, it no longer exists.

is consistent with the Webster definition whereas I would say that atheism could be expressed "there is not enough reason to believe in a god or gods". It does not say anything about the existence of the god or gods only of my belief.

 

[Thunderbrd]

"there is not enough reason to believe in a god or gods". It does not say anything about the existence of the god or gods only of my belief.

Right and clearly that is expressed by the term Agnostic. Not ENOUGH evidence. Whereas Atheism generally means the belief that there is not only no evidence of a God, but that there is evidence that there is NOT one. (Actually the arguments for this are hard to refute on a basis of scientific observations of measurable phenomena, though I believe personal experiences often do and that those experiences aren't taken into account because of a lack of faith in the reliability of human experience.)

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Right and clearly that is expressed by the term Agnostic. Not ENOUGH evidence. Whereas Atheism generally means the belief that there is not only no evidence of a God, but that there is evidence that there is NOT one. (Actually the arguments for this are hard to refute on a basis of scientific observations of measurable phenomena, though I believe personal experiences often do and that those experiences aren't taken into account because of a lack of faith in the reliability of human experience.)

No agnostic has nothing to do with Theism-Atheism. It is like saying Mt Everest is a lake. Gnostic-Agnostic is about knowledge not belief. Knowledge and belief are two different things. That is the problem outlined in the video it is

|Theism|Atheism
Gnostic |x|x
Agnostic |x|x

not a linear Theism - Agnostic - Atheism as some say.

You can have an agnostic theist but you can also have an agnostic atheist.

 

[stoferb]

No, the word gnostic has too much historical baggage to be able to use the term in it's simple opposite to agnostic definition. Gnosticism was a widespread spiritual movement especially in the 2nd century AD, that influenced the entire religious landscape of the Greco-Roman and Persian/Parthian world in the first four centuries AD. Manicheanism, a sort of mix of gnostic christianity with zoroastrianism, was a huge rival to christianity in late Roman history. But long into the middle ages various gnostic "heretics" popped up in various places too. The main message of gnosticism is a bit vague to pin down since practically every gnostic we meet have their very own unique take on it but basically it boils down to a few points, that the physical world is pure evil and unimportant and therefore the creator of this world is evil or ignorant and so "salvation" consist in getting some kind of map or guide to how to get out of here when you die so that your soul can reach heaven where the real god of love awaits you. So gnostic Jesus doesn't save mankind from sin in gnostic christianity but from ignorance, gnostics usually take issue with the whole resurrection thing, that is giving the physical world way too much credit and they often imagine Jesus a completely spiritual being aswell so it wouldn't make sense that he could die on the cross in the first place. Gnostics also often have quite alot of dieties, even as christians or jews, and the creator is usually some subordinate angel/demigod/lesser god that screwed up in some way, not the masterpiece of 'the real God'.

 

[strategyonly]

@Dancing Hoskuld , @JosEPh_II , i know above DH has a map so 2 say about religions, but its hard 2 understand and figure out what is what?? Is there anyways 1 of u'll can make a comprehensive "map" starting at the beginning and go thru ALL the civs we have in C2C, or ones that they dominated anyways . . thx . . .SO