Religious Warrior Ideas

[King Flevance]

I am wanting to begin working on a mod soon and am in the planning stages. I still have alot to learn about modding and am observing alot inside the modding community right now. (Which btw is just awesome. The available information is astounding. )

OK so basically, I want to incorperate some new units based on what faith you are. But I don't have any ideas on what they will be yet and was wondering if anyone would be willing to brainstorm with me. A special unit will be able to be constructed when X religion is your state religion. Something like maybe a Crusader for Christians (although this seems really close to the knight to me.) Does anyone have any ideas of a "holy warrior" for any of the religions?


Buddhism
Hinduism
Judaism
Confucianism (may be removed in the mod for something else)
Christianity
Taoism
Islam

Thanks for any input.

 

[Truronian]

Buddhism: Shaolin
Hinduism: Guru
Judaism: Zealot
Confucianism: Tactician (a la Sun Tzu, Zhuge Liang etc)
Taoism: Medium
Islam: Jihadist?
Christianity: Crusader seems the obvious choice. Paladin maybe?

 

[El Koeno]

I usually consider crusaders to knights with the theocracy/vassalage XP bonus. I think I'd rather keep the religions equal. But the beauty of this game that the mods allow every player to customize the game to his/her own likings.

Thuronian's suggestions sound as nice as I could make them up though. I'd go with crusaders, not paladins.

 

[Sohan]

It would be fun to have a religion, build its UUs, then switch religions and build that one's UUs, and create an army that way.

I like your idea, Flevance. I hope it works out.

 

[Raisin Bran]

Christianity: : Paladin

 

[m@jan]

Great idea! This way you could also add global terrorism to the game. That may be something worth 'pondering' about...

You could, as a civ, sponsor international terrorism or fight it...
You could add new UN resolutions concerning terrorim or religious based conflicts.

 

[Judge Dee]

m@jan: I think that equating "religious unit" with "terrorism" is overly simplistic. I'd argue that most terrorism is economic or political in nature (even if religion is frequently used as rhetorical canvas).

King Flevance: Interesting idea; but, as others have noted, maintaining balance between the religions' units would be a challenge. Perhaps if you created a series of units that were like minor great people, with a maximum number of them that can be built (similar to how you can only have X missionaries/spies active at one time - when they're incorporated into the city, see if you can keep those spots from becoming vacant again). With that in mind, how about the following as benefits for the various religious units:

Hinduism: +2 culture in city
Buddhism: +1 happiness in city
Judaism: +1 health in city
Christianity: -25% war weariness in city
Confucianism: -50% civic cost in city
Islam: +1 trade route in city
Taoism: +1 health in city

Perhaps you could automatically get one of these in the shrine city if you have it.

 

[m@jan]

I am not equating anything. But you can't deny that there are forms of terrorism that are based on religion. That interests me and I would like to see that in the game, that is all.

m@jan: I think that equating "religious unit" with "terrorism" is overly simplistic. I'd argue that most terrorism is economic or political in nature (even if religion is frequently used as rhetorical canvas).

King Flevance: Interesting idea; but, as others have noted, maintaining balance between the religions' units would be a challenge. Perhaps if you created a series of units that were like minor great people, with a maximum number of them that can be built (similar to how you can only have X missionaries/spies active at one time - when they're incorporated into the city, see if you can keep those spots from becoming vacant again). With that in mind, how about the following as benefits for the various religious units:

Hinduism: +2 culture in city
Buddhism: +1 happiness in city
Judaism: +1 health in city
Christianity: -25% war weariness in city
Confucianism: -50% civic cost in city
Islam: +1 trade route in city
Taoism: +1 health in city

Perhaps you could automatically get one of these in the shrine city if you have it.

 

[Dagoril]

It would be cool if your religious warrior unit could also have a one-time use missionary ability. In other words, they are a military unit that has whatever stats you give them, but they can also be used once only to attempt to convert a city to their religion. The attempt would not destroy the unit (but they can only try once). I'm assuming that allowing them to have more than one conversion attempt would make them unbalanced, but testing could determine that.

I've never done any modding, and have no idea how difficult that would be to code hehe.

 

[El Koeno]

I already mentioned that I thought promotions (using theocracy) covered religious warriors. You might take it one step further though and make some "religious warrior" promotion. It allows the unit to convert cities "by the sword".

 

[naterator]

amra's tibet mod has an awesome warrior monk that's basically the buddhist missionary with a sword. i believe someone else made the unit skin itself. it's really great.

 

[King Flevance]

Buddhism: Shaolin
Hinduism: Guru
Judaism: Zealot
Confucianism: Tactician (a la Sun Tzu, Zhuge Liang etc)
Taoism: Medium
Islam: Jihadist?
Christianity: Crusader seems the obvious choice. Paladin maybe?

Thanks for the input, Truronian. I don't know enough about the history of these faiths (save Christianity ) to have made accurate guesses. I will have to look these up and see what values could be assigned to them. I recognize some on the list. Paladin is a good alternative to Crusader.

I usually consider crusaders to knights with the theocracy/vassalage XP bonus.

Me too.

This way you could also add global terrorism to the game.

This is an interesting idea, but I do not have any idea how I would incorperate terrorism. I would like it to be sort of like the 'mercenaries mod' but have it deal in population. I suppose you could also make something that allows you to make/spawn terrorists. I am going to throw in UN choices to actually be able to be voted on every option for endgame. If terrorism were brought in, I would almost have to make new civics and new UN choices. It will be something I will keep in mind.

King Flevance: Interesting idea; but, as others have noted, maintaining balance between the religions' units would be a challenge. Perhaps if you created a series of units that were like minor great people, with a maximum number of them that can be built (similar to how you can only have X missionaries/spies active at one time - when they're incorporated into the city, see if you can keep those spots from becoming vacant again). With that in mind, how about the following as benefits for the various religious units:

Hinduism: +2 culture in city
Buddhism: +1 happiness in city
Judaism: +1 health in city
Christianity: -25% war weariness in city
Confucianism: -50% civic cost in city
Islam: +1 trade route in city
Taoism: +1 health in city

This is pretty good idea too. But the only thing I fear is that it will be overpowered on which religion you get. The idea is good. I may throw something similar in that runs parallel. My units I am going to balance with the game. As the Buddhist UU won't be near as good as the Islam UU to reflect the techs available and the timeline. They will all be reflective of their timeframe. I would like to make the Shaolin Monk be a good counter to axes. I may borrow your idea to give missionaries a little more flavor and use.

It would be cool if your religious warrior unit could also have a one-time use missionary ability. In other words, they are a military unit that has whatever stats you give them, but they can also be used once only to attempt to convert a city to their religion. The attempt would not destroy the unit (but they can only try once). I'm assuming that allowing them to have more than one conversion attempt would make them unbalanced, but testing could determine that.

I was already thinking of doing this. But I too am worried about having them be overpowered, as "why make missionaries, if your soldiers can do it in passing?" like you say. I am not sure if I can assign a 1 time thing on them although I would love to. My idea though was that units made in the Holy City of said religions would be the only ones with this ability. I like the idea of a 1 shot chance to spread it, I will have to see if I can find anything out that allows me to do this with a simple edit. I am pretty new to doing any big mod like this. I have only modified the graphics in my game but it helped me get my feet wet.

amra's tibet mod has an awesome warrior monk that's basically the buddhist missionary with a sword. i believe someone else made the unit skin itself. it's really great.

Thanks for the link Naterator I will have to ask Amra if I can use his monk.