A new idea: religious wars

[SilverKnight]

Good point, Red Threat. Judaism actually spreads fairly wide in my games, Egypt and Persia mostly get it, sometimes Greece and even Arabia!

However, I can't imagine many wars fought between the various sects of the eastern religions for dogmatic reasons. Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shinto, these were completely omitted from the LONG string of religious wars fought in history. Even in the west, far more wars were fought between major religions, and only relatively minor altercations have involved differing sects.

I admit that religious schisms are certainly a part of history, but an larger and even more effective mover and shaker of the world was the resurgence of defeated civilizations. Just adding that in here.

Of course, y'all know me. I'll test anything twice! (Or a dozen times! )

SilverKnight

 

[Blasphemous]

Maybe schisms and religious wars should be limited to the more dogmatic religions.
I'm curious to know why the two people who said this will make them not play the mod feel that way. Does the issue offend you personally, or is it a more intellectual reason?

 

[Karam]

You can count me in for against too...
Blasphemous, I think I can answer for the other two... It is both, the issue offends me personally and intellectually, I don't like to mess with religion to that extent, besides, the game seems balanced enough religion and war wise, why should we introduce more options that would clog-up interface and make the game more complicated?

I feel that I, for one, have with alot of effort convinced my self to play civ4 even though it has religions (and I was against the idea of having religions on a game), I feel that I can't accept religious sects in the game, it makes it way too close and seriously hurting...

I am sorry, but I just wouldn't prefer to see this feature implemented, I love the mod, and can't imagine myself playing civ without it, but if this feature would be in the 'mainstream', I would have to live without it... Please Rhye, understand our point of view, and if you must include it, then for God's sake make it an option, I can't play the mod with this in it...

 

[Rhye]

I don't understand how it can offend you to the point of not wanting to play the mod anymore...I mean, we're talking about an event that would be happening like twice in a single game and not always affecting the human player...

However, you will certainly be able to disable it. I won't add an option, an ini or something like that (too difficult for me) but you can disable it just commenting a line, as it already is with Congresses, AIwars, and all the other components.

I know that wars were never fought for religion in the east (while in the western world we had bloody wars, more between "sects" than between different religions), but the odds of eastern wars are very low. Cristianity will keep being the most widespread religion, followed by Islam, and that's where statistically most of the wars will be fought. Hinduism, usually contained in India, would have odds close to 0%

The elimination of taoism and the generialization together with shinto into a generic Confucianism that was symbolizing the generic eastern beliefs had the important effect of giving Confucianism a chance in this sense (in the east there are too many religions and few civs). I'd like to hear more opinion about this specific matter...if you disagree I can adopt dh_epic's more conservative approach for now.

 

[Prestidigitator]

Karam said it right -to some extect that is.

Rhye, I meant that I wouldn't like religions to be divided into sects, let's just leave religions as they are, they work just fine...
It wouldn't be quite nice to have them like that. It would make the game way more complicated, we're talking about no more that 24 civs, sects would take away the taste and texture religions add to the game.

As a final note, I would like religions to be as they are currently. I hope we don't have to go into religious sectors or internal civil religious wars etc.
I hope I got my point clearly, I like this mod SO MUCH, and Rhye, I hope you understand the points being said and expressed by me and some other members... we shouldn't mess alot with religions...

 

[Rhye]

mmm, maybe I wasn't clear in my first post and you misinterpreted the thing I'm proposing, which is much more a frivolous thing than you may think.

From the point of view of the game, nothing changes.
As you Prestigigator say, I don't want to alter the structure of religions, leaving it to 7 (or 6) without adding pointless sub-religions or unknown religions that would fragmentate the world distribution. So, you won't see new icons, buildings, wonders or attitudes or a new religion advisor.
All I proposed is that some of the AI wars can be triggered not only by territorial claims, but also under the condition that a religion is enough big to let civs choose an inner faction.
In other words, "sects" (as you call them) are just an excuse to cause some of the wars: but they are just a fake and won't exist in the game anywhere else!

 

[Prestidigitator]

mmm, maybe I wasn't clear in my first post and you misinterpreted the thing I'm proposing, which is much more a frivolous thing than you may think.

From the point of view of the game, nothing changes.
As you Prestigigator say, I don't want to alter the structure of religions, leaving it to 7 (or 6) without adding pointless sub-religions or unknown religions that would fragmentate the world distribution. So, you won't see new icons, buildings, wonders or attitudes.
All I proposed is that some of the AI wars can be triggered not only by territorial claims, but also under the condition that a religion is enough big to let civs choose an inner faction.
In other words, "sects" (as you call them) are just an excuse to cause some of the wars: but they are just a fake and won't exist in the game anywhere else!

Rhye, truly you're a genious! I applaud your wisdom! If that is the case then I don't think I will mind some minor non-visible alteration in the code that would just enhance gameplay !

 

[SilverKnight]

But the wars caused by the territory maps are already shallow as they are. For the most part, war is simply declared for no reason, and neither civ has much of an invasion army built up. So not much happens on a large scale; at most, a city or two is razed/captured then flipped. More shallow wars might be good, but I would like to see bigger wars, too.

SilverKnight

 

[Gunner]

I don't really understand the outrage about this either. To each his own I guess

One suggestion I would make is that maybe the sects idea should only apply to Islam and Christianity. It seems that they are the only two religions which it really makes sense for -- the only ones where wars were fought based on some type of schism.

 

[dh_epic]

There's as much justification for it as not having it at all.

The "put it in" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more sects, and there were more sects because there the religions spread to more civilizations, and the religions spread to more civilizations because there were more civilizations in the region.

The "leave it out" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more civilizations in the region.

I'm honestly cool with whatever Rhye decides, since it IS his mod. But it should be moderately realistic, and most of all good for game play. If the goal is to get more wars going, there are certainly other ways to do it.

 

[Prestidigitator]

There's as much justification for it as not having it at all.
[...]
If the goal is to get more wars going, there are certainly other ways to do it.

Well said . period.

 

[OzzyKP]

I think a lot of the reason we only think of wars between religious sects in Christianity & Islam is because we are simply all more familiar with the west and our history, and all we know of eastern religions is PR pretty much.

Wars between Buddhist sects in Japan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohei

Yellow Turban rebellion in China, led by a Taoist sect (the even that led to the Three Kingdoms era, and end of Han dynasty):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban

There isn't anything unique to Christianity or Islam that predisposes them to religious wars. Any religion or system of belief that has some kind of temporal structure has and will lead to conflict. Humanity is sadly warlike by nature, and no religion or philosophy has yet been able to break us of it despite many attempts.

And it isn't fair to just say that in Judaism it is simply a scale of how devout or lazy people are in their religion. Just like all religions Judaism has its share of disagreement over what it really means to be "Jewish" and what God's will truly is, and what the correct interpretation of the Torah is. Jewish Schisms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schisms_among_the_Jews

Also, I suggest Hinduism split into Jainism and Sikhism.

 

[OzzyKP]

There's as much justification for it as not having it at all.

The "put it in" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more sects, and there were more sects because there the religions spread to more civilizations, and the religions spread to more civilizations because there were more civilizations in the region.

The "leave it out" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more civilizations in the region.

The idea that the west had more wars than other areas of the world is ridiculously wrong. You may know of more western wars since you are more familiar with western civilization and history, but that doesn't mean people were singing Kumbaya and holding hands in China, or India, or Africa, or the Americas, or the Pacific. They had just as many wars as Europe and the Mideast.

 

[SilverKnight]

Wars between Buddhist sects in Japan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohei

Yellow Turban rebellion in China, led by a Taoist sect (the even that led to the Three Kingdoms era, and end of Han dynasty):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban

So many video games leap to my mind... flashes of Civ3 scenarios and Dynasty Warriors combine... This is fantastic, I see your point. So while these may not have been a huge deal IRL, they may in Civ. Of course, only 3 civs combined end up being Confucianist, so it wouldn't be enough for a split anyway.

Also, I suggest Hinduism split into Jainism and Sikhism.

Mind-reader! Now I remember what I wanted to post earlier, but my internet crapped out. Jolly good show there, I agree! They may not be the largest or the most different, but they probably have had a bigger impact on history than the others mentioned.

SilverKnight

 

[dh_epic]

I'm glad someone could elaborate on our limited historical background. The religious wars in the east help. The main point still stands, though -- if you're looking to create more wars, there are lots of ways to do it. (Arguably, even with all the religious justifications, the wars WERE still between states vying for power. It just so happens that there is power in religion.)

As for Hinduism splitting into Jainism and Sikhism, to me would be akin to Christianity splitting into Manichainism and Islam. That is, they're TOTALLY seperate religious traditions that just happened to originate nearby, with some cross-pollination of ideas. (Actually, I'm pretty sure Hinduism was influenced more by Jainism than the other way around -- despite the fact that Jainism came after.)

 

[Rhye]

There's as much justification for it as not having it at all.

The "put it in" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more sects, and there were more sects because there the religions spread to more civilizations, and the religions spread to more civilizations because there were more civilizations in the region.

The "leave it out" logic says: there were more wars in the west because there were more civilizations in the region.

I'm honestly cool with whatever Rhye decides, since it IS his mod. But it should be moderately realistic, and most of all good for game play. If the goal is to get more wars going, there are certainly other ways to do it.

You are correct saying that adding this whole thing is pretty useless. As I said, it's just frivolous as it adds no new concept or strategy to the game.
But you are not correct when you say that there are other ways to add more wars. Besides lowering the threshold for AIWars or making them more frequent, I don't see any other way; this one instead could be a variation to the "territorial" theme.

 

[dh_epic]

I think if you opened up a brainstorm, you might find that a lot of other people in the community have ideas.

(Plus the idea of randomly starting a war seems pretty dangerous -- for the AI. I could imagine the AI chronically being caught with its pants down, and the human more able to adapt to the situation.)

Here's one idea:

Why not adapt "Congresses" to religions? All nations that share a state religion engage in some kind of congress. You could vote on the defender of the faith, how revenues from religious followers (e.g.: the holy city and the shrine) are shared, the most moral civic choice (God would prefer free religion), if all religious nations should help defend civilization X, if there is a heathen religion you should all especially condemn, and so on...

And for votes that are split, you could add antipathy between rival civilizations. Rome and Greece voted that the most moral civic choice was Theocracy, but Germany and France disagreed -- so Rome and Greece hate Germany and France a bit more.

Many religions had councils of some kind, where they settled the major debates of their faith (or didn't settle them, as the case may be).

 

[Arkaeyn]

Ozzy, thanks for mentioning that. Westerners have this almost noble-savage belief in the pacifism of eastern religions, while ignoring things like the Yellow Turbans or the militant Buddhist monks (anyone played Shogun Total War?)

As for this being offensive, I don't see how it can be worse than marching your troops into a city of millions of people and razing it because you don't want to pay maintenance. Or nuking people because they're about to win the space race. It is a fact that religious wars like this happened, so I see no reason not to try to implement it, as right now it is a glaring omission in Civilization as an attempt to model the flow of human history.

Religious congresses....is an amazing idea.

 

[SilverKnight]

As for this being offensive, I don't see how it can be worse than marching your troops into a city of millions of people and razing it because you don't want to pay maintenance. Or nuking people because they're about to win the space race.

Touche, salesman. Touche.

SilverKnight

 

[Barak]

I am in favor of utilizing religious sects, but have a question. Will those sects spread to cities in other nations? For instance if a new German city is founded in Catholic Germany could Christian orthodoxy spread there?

Also, I would prefer if the sects do not cause each nation to have its own. In the real world we have Catholic Nations and Protestant ones. Just as we have Sunni and Shi'a. But it would not be good for gameplay if each of our 18 (or later 24) civs had their own sect.