abbamouse Realistic Religions mod including Zoroastrianism

EDIT April: Posted version 1.61, which updates all files to be compatible with the 1.61 patch and fixes a few minor civilopedia issues.

This is a mod to make religion a bit more realistic in the game. No more Hindus eating Cows, Jews and Muslims eating Pigs, Jewish missionaries, etc.

Obviously fiddling with religion invites controversy, but I attempt to make each faith distinct without making any one of them "better" or "worse" than any other. I've tried to stay away from "this is a militant religion" or "this is a peaceful religion" as stereotypes; the closest thing to this is that I portray Taoism as anti-state, which helps warmongers some of the time and hurts them other times. As I continue to play the mod, I'll tinker with play balance, so if you find one religion always becomes dominant then post here.

Here is a summary of changes in this mod:

1. Confucianism is replaced by Zoroastrianism. Confucianism is much more of a philosophy of ethics than a theology per se, so I've replaced it with the immensely influential Zoroastrianism. This is the faith that pioneered a dualistic monotheism, and it influenced nearly every other major world religion. Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the faith, which was once the state religion of the sprawling Persian Empire, but is now limited to a few hundred thousand to a few million adherents. Zoroastrian Cathedrals are Fire Temples and their Shrine is Adur Burzen-Mihr, their holiest fire.

2. Renamed Missionary units. What would we call someone who went into an area where a faith was not established and started teaching others? In some faiths, there are words for those who are spreading the faith to those who don't know it. Other religions have special words for teachers of the faith.

Christianity = Missionary
Islam = Da'eiah
Hinduism = Swami
Taoism = Sage
Zoroastrianism = Magi
Buddhism = Acariya
Judaism = Rabbi

3. Added advantages and disadvantages to each religion. These generally involve spread speed, missionary units, and adding effects to Temples to change how resources affect a civ.

Judaism
Disadvantages: No benefit from Pigs, Crabs, and Clams: Jewish Temples produce -1 health for each of these resources (since access to these things produces +1 health, this means the Temple merely "cancels out" the food benefits of the resources; it does not punish the player for having them and hence there is no need to pillage them if you start building Jewish Temples). Monasteries cannot build Jewish Missionaries (it hasn't been a missionary faith for millenia).
Advantages: (unleavened) Wheat, (kosher) Cows, and (gefilte) Fish produce an extra health in cities with Jewish Temples. Free missionary when founded (the only one you'll get!), and thereafter Judaism's spread rate = 125 instead of 100, which is a substantial bump to try to keep the religion viable in the late game. Post if it seems to spread out of control (or if it seems to not spread quickly enough, given the lack of missionaries); I'm actively tweaking this value.

Islam
Disadvantage: No benefit from Pigs and Wine: Pigs produce -1 health and Wine produces -1 happiness in cities with Islamic Temples. I also removed the free missionary unit (Imam) because of the advantageous spread rate I gave Islam. Finally, Islam's ban on usury leads to a small amount of economic inefficiency: -15% trade route income in cities with Islamic Temples.
Advantage: Extra health from (halal) Cows and Sheep in cities with Islamic Temples. Increased spread rate (Islam spread incredibly quickly after its founding): Right now I have it set to 133, which is a major boost from the default of 100. Holy City produces extra three commerce (to simulate the hajj).

Hinduism
Disadvantage: Cows produce -1 food in cities with Hindu Temples.
Advantage: Cows produce +1 happiness in cities with Hindu Temples.

Zoroastrianism
I can think of many ideas for advantages, but few for disadvantages. Offerings of fragrant woods like sandalwood or incense are sometimes made in the Fire Temples, so perhaps incense could generate extra happiness. There are no specific dietary rules for this faith.
Disadvantage: Keeping an eternal flame lit is expensive in the ancient world. Zoroastrian Temples and Fire Temples cost 20% more than other faiths' Temples.
Advantage: To represent its influence on culture and faith, Zoroastrianism adds culture to a city even when it is not the state religion. Fire Temples increase cultural output by 60% instead of 50%.

Taoism
Taoism is in many ways an anti-state belief system, focused on the individual. Of course, it could be promoted by the state like any other faith, but it often coexisted uneasily with beliefs about proper social roles (such as Confucian philosophy). Moreover, Taoist beliefs were often kept secret by families and small shrines might be hidden from the authorities.
Disadvantage: Because the faith is anti-state, it becomes harder to mobilize people for state efforts. Each Taoist Temple increases your hurry costs in all cities (sorry, can't limit it to one city) by 2%. So a civ that emphasizes Taoism and builds 15 temples can expect to pay 30% more to rush build. In addition, Taoist Cathedrals do not generate extra happy faces if Taoism is the state religion.
Sometimes an advantage and sometimes a disadvantage: Taoist Temples (but not other buildings) ALWAYS survive capture of a city, unlike any other religion's Temples. This is good if you think you can retake a city, but bad otherwise.
Advantage:Taoist Cathedrals generate one happy face, regardless of the state religion.

Christianity
The most striking feature of Christianity is its missionary nature.
Disadvantage: -75% spread rate (I think: I set it to 25 instead of 100, which I think reduces the chance by a factor of 4 = 25% of originial chance)
Advantage: Christian Temples allow Missionary building, Missionaries are 50% cheaper, and a player may have up to 10 Missionaries at once instead of 3.

Buddhism
Disadvantage: Buddhism spreads slowly, except for periods when Missionaries (Acariya) are built (Example = Rule of Ashoka's Mauryan Empire in India): Slower spread rate (70 instead of 100, which seems to be around 30% less spread).
Advantage: The image of the "laughing Buddha" is designed to remind believers of the path to happiness. Buddhist Temples produce + 1 happy face for Stone and Marble (think of the giant carved Buddhas in Afghanistan that were destroyed by the Taliban).

4. I changed two non-religious buildings that affect religions differently under my mod.
Grocer
The Grocer no longer gives 1 extra health for wine (until I find a way to shut down the bonus only if your state religion is Islam). Instead, the grocer gives 1 extra health whether you have wine or not (its other effects are unchanged).

Harbor
The Harbor no longer provides one extra health for Fish, Clam, and Crab. Instead, it provides one extra health PLUS one more if you have Fish.

5. NEW IN VERSION 1.6 The technology tree has been slightly altered. While it looks like there are many changes, most of them are simply the result of switching Monotheism and Meditation around to give a more realistic chronology to the emergence of religion. Basically, Hinduism, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism should emerge early in the game, followed by Buddhism and Taoism a bit later, and then finally Christianity and Islam. This better reflects history than Buddhism being the first religion founded every game. I also tried to prevent "knowledge" of another faith's founding tech from being necessary to found a religion that didn't actually interact with or follow from the earlier faith -- there's no reason a civ should have to "discover Hinduism" first in order to found Judaism. Here is the detailed list of changes:

I. To make it more likely for Hinduism to emerge first, Polytheism's cost has been lowered to 80 instead of 100.
II. Monotheism and Meditation swapped places on the tech tree, which means:

A. Monotheism: Now leads to Priesthood and Meditation. Does not start a religion or enable any civics.
B. Meditation: Now leads to Philosophy and Monarchy. Founds Zoroastrianism.​

III. Some of the functions of Monotheism were shifted to Priesthood -- it now founds Judaism and leads to Monarchy, Code of Laws, and Theology. It also enables the Organized Religion civic.
IV. Buddhism is now founded with Literature.
V. Code of Laws no longer founds a religion.
​

6. NEW IN VERSION 1.6 The faiths which receive free missionary units when founded are now limited to Judaism (to offset the fact it can't build more of them), and the two latest religions (Christianity and Islam).

This mod does not modify your existing files in any way. Just unzip to your mods folder (the default is C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods). Everything is in a folder called abbamouse; if you get tired of the mod just delete the abbamouse folder. To update a previous version of the mod, just overwrite the old files with the new ones.

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.61

• All files now compatible with 1.61 patch.
• I fixed a few civilopedia errors noted by Houman.
• I fixed a bug that allowed three Jewish missionaries to be built.

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.6
Changes to a few early technologies in order to make the prerequisites and chronology of religions a bit more realistic. For details, see # 5 and # 6 above.

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.53
Fixed a graphic bug in the font files. City religion graphics should display fine now.

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.52
I laboriously went through each file changed by the version 1.52 patch and re-altered them for my mod. This ended up being nearly every file in the mod, so I basically had to retype the whole thing. This creates opportunities for typos, so be sure to post any you spot.

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.11

• I fixed the graphic bug that was causing leaders' names and scores to be displayed incorrectly when Zoroastrianism was their state religion.
• Islamic missionary is now called Da'eiah (plural = Do'ah), thanks to suggestions by Fachy and Elmoro.
• Sid's tips now correctly describe Jewish Monasteries. All Monastery descriptions now use the correct term for a religion's missionary units.
• Change to Judaism: Judaism now starts with a free Rabbi (missionary), but no further ones can be built. The spread rate of Judaism has been lowered slightly but still kept higher than that of other faiths (125 instead of 100, a substantial boost).

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.10
Changes:

• Used updated files from 1.09 patch
• Added Spanish, French, Italian, German text, although my translations are probably laughable. The "new" names for missionaries have not been translated.
• Mod now contains altered Sid's tips, replacing Confucian references with Zoroastrian ones and mentioning that Rabbis cannot be constructed.

Known issues:

• I lack a unique graphic for the Zoroastrian Temple or Monastery, so I reuse the graphics from the Zoroastrian Fire Temple and Adur Burzen-Mihr.
• It would also be nice to have a proper Zoroastrian Missionary skin, although the Confucian one is adequate since Zoroastrianism did indeed briefly spread to parts of China.
• All religions' missionary units are still called "missionary" or its equivalent in non-English languages
• The description of Zoroastrianism in the Civilopedia is English-only; non-English versions will still see the old description of Confucianism.

Under consideration:

• Houman's realism mod has religious UUs, and I'm looking at implementing some of them. I'm not terribly comfortable with Jewish spies as special units, since Mossad is a feature of the state of Israel and not Judaism or Jews per se, but I like most of the ideas i that mod and I plan to copy some of them.
• I want to find a way to base the effects of religions on the number of adherents in your cities instead of tying most effects to Temples. Maybe the SDK will make it possible to define a new variable like the % of a city with each religion and then use that variable in the Python or xml files to change health, happiness, etc. That would be more realistic, after all.

 

This is really excellent. While you will no doubt get people who agree/disagree with specific points, I think you're made an excellent first cut (and hey, maybe final cut) at adding character to the religions.

I was wondering if you were considering some broad changes for things like State Religion? I really think civs with State Religion should have some considerably research penalty. I also think that relations between SR civs should be heightened for better and worse.

Great job.

 

It may be a bit respectless and maybe even dangerous. Likely because people will choose religions for bonusus and leave others behind. On the other hand, the efforts are good and you could do something more. What 'bout adding Shintoism, Asatru and Babbism? What about seperating Christendom? (Catholicism and Protestantism)

 

My issue is that hardwiring the religions based on the beliefs of a minority will end up reducing realism rather than adding it.

Even if you ignore the fact that there are huge differences within a religion, and people come to practice many different versions of a religion based on circumstance, there's still a key problem with "dietary restrictions". Discovering a religion doesn't reverse the benefits of various goods, let alone their perceived benefits. It's more likely to institutionalize the benefits and drawbacks of said goods as a religious belief. Moreover, you're going to encourage people to dodge certain religions based on their starting location -- which is a very gamey, unrealistic behavior.

Nonetheless, 'religious difference' is something that many players want, no matter what it is. So at least you're filling a niche, with all the innacuracies.

 

I like the idea
Although I guess I think this game doesn't really take into account how most people are secular

 

FANTASTIC!!! I personally salute you! I understand Firaxis's restraint towards "personalizing" religions, but it has somehow just removed most of the "fun" in chosing a specific religion as your state religion...
A further step (and probably a too controversial one) would be to explore the impact of religious wars.... (for instance a civilication with teocratic rule would be extreamly agressive towards you if "you have fallen under a pagan religion")

 

I personally like it. Thank you for making this mod. (Now I just have to add it to my other ones.....)

 

Which presumably just counteracts the benefit from those as trade goods, right? They still aren't of negative value.

Not now, no. For at least 1700 of the past 2000 years, Jews would have gotten themselves lynched if they tried to convert your typical local, so it's only to be expected. But in the heydays of the Davidic and Maccabean Kingdoms? Those were outright theocracies. They banned all other religions. Preventing them from imposing their religion on their own cities (which Civ4 only allows you to directly do via missionaries) just seems wrong.

Creative, certainly, but (no offense) it seems you were at a loss for ideas here. See my suggestions below.

There wasn't a diaspora until 1,935 years ago, when the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. Which brings me to my next point: before then, the Temple was a major part of the religion. Sacrifices were brought there and only there; all Jewish men were required to make a pilgrimage to bring offerings there three times a year, on the three festivals (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot). Prior to the erection of Solomon's Temple, sacrifices were permitted to be brought anywhere, but after then they were restricted to the Temple.

As such, the Temple should create a much greater commerce boost than other shrines (except the Muslim one, since Muslims also have a pilgrimage). Two or even three gold per city might be good. But, on the other hand, if your state religion isn't Judaism, it should cause extra unhappiness in the city―Josephus Flavius records that the thrice-annual pilgrimages caused great unrest against the Romans in Jerusalem, as hundreds of thousands of religious men flocked together. I'm thinking maybe one unhappy face for every three or four Jewish cities would be good, half that if you have no state religion.

A note on terminology: prior to the construction of Solomon's Temple, Jewish Temples could represent small altars, and be called Jewish Altars; cathedrals could be Jewish Temples, or possibly someone else can think of something less confusing. The presence of any such structure should significantly increase the value of cows and sheep, since those were offered regularly in thanksgiving, atonement, etc. (so were goats and doves, off the top of my head, but of course neither is present in the game). Wine and incense were also used for various rituals, so they should give benefits as well.

Once Solomon's Temple is constructed, Jewish Altars should be automatically replaced with Jewish Synagogues, and Temples (or whatever) with perhaps Jewish Study Halls. The benefits could remain the same as long as Solomon's Temple exists, for balance reasons. If Solomon's Temple is destroyed, then the benefits from the cows, sheep, and incense (but not wine) should stop, but the Synagogues and Study Halls should produce extra happiness themselves (since as long as you had the main Temple, it wouldn't be as important to have a local place of worship as well).

If possible, these shouldn't be allowed to be traded at all by cities with an Islamic Temple or by a state with Organized Religion/Theocracy and Islam as its religion. Muslims aren't permitted to have anything to do with either of these.

I would suggest that banks be the things to take the hit instead. Banks should increase wealth by only perhaps +25% in cities with Islamic Temples and all cities under Islamic Theocracies. It should be noted that both traditional Judaism and traditional Christianity ban usury as well, but only when dealing with other members of the faith; this led, in Catholic Europe, to widespread Jewish bank ownership, since Catholics couldn't run banks profitably. This should reduce the efficiency of banks in cities with Jewish or Christian Temples or Jewish or Christian Theocracies to +40% or +45%.

Philosophically, I would like to note that I think a much better religion mod would completely ignore the actual traits of real-life religions and instead have partially random mixing and matching. This is in the same vein as a Christian China constructing Solomon's Temple in the Jewish holy city of Timbuktu. I think that kind of thing is part of what makes Civ fun.

An example religious trait would pertain to degree of centralization. Highly centralized religions would confer more benefits on the holder of the religion's holy city, but at the cost of making the religion harder to spread as you move away from the holy city. Like all religious traits, this would be subject to change over time; in this case, one major factor that would contribute to reduced religious centralization would be spreading the religion too much when means of travel were inadequate. The ancient Jewish religion was extremely centralized, for instance, but it could only maintain this centralization due to the tiny size of Israel.

 

I would like to see some sort of "inquisition" unit which could be used ot purge a city of a non-state religion in the same way missionaries can spread it. At the cost of civilian unhappiness for a time though.

 

Heh, I didn't see this comment, but I'm completely in agreement with you. I have even opened a thread about it: Inquisition Mod

 

In the other religions with modified spread rate, you state that lower is slower and higher is faster.

 

The Jewish spread rate increases when you drop the number, but the rest behave in the opposite manner?

That's anti-Semitism!!!

 

Usury is forbidden true, but Islam is the merchant's religion. There's their original concept of profit sharing which gives the same profit as interest rates does. Just check any Saudi Bank or Saudi financed investment companies in Wall Street. The Prophet of Islam was a merchant himself and Qur'an is full of business law and regulations in astonishing details. I know you were thinking to balance the mod somehow and I don't mind it personally, but i was trying to give some insight on your initial comment on Islamic economy. Again: Islam is the religion of the merchants for the merchants and profit making is essential as long as it's fair and as regulated by Sharia (Qur'anic Law). Islamic economy in the ideal is hard to implement in liberal capitalism and communism, but it's somewhat close to socialism a la Scandinavia.

 

Hey

I would also be really appreciative if a mod was done up to include Asatru.

 

What is Babbism anyway?

 

Actually, its a unified monotheistic religion. Practicers of Babbism recognize the founders of all monotheistic religions (Such as Mohammed and Abraham) and Hinduism, also they believe in 1 god and in reincarnation (In what you will reincarnate depends on how you lived, just like in Hinduism). Its popular America and loads of European nations and its one of the most youngest religions (Founded in the 1950's I believe, not really sure about that).

 

I responded to some of the criticisms by editing the Judaism section in my original post. I misstated the spread rate and food effects in the original description.

Here's something to ponder: What if Judaism gained a number of free missionaries (Rabbis) when it was founded, but then had a slow spread and no chance to build more missionaries? Would this be a bit more realistic, or would this be less realistic? Also, would it mess up play balance? The player that founded Judaism could establish a sizable religious following almost instantly, but later in the game it would fall behind other faiths.

As for the Temple of Solomon providing a pilgrimage bonus, that's something to consider. Does Judaism need an additional bonus right now?

 

Strictly speaking, Acharya and Swami mean the same thing--buddhism being an indian religion, it co-opted all of the hindu religious language for itself. Maybe to distinguish it from hinduism more, you might want to call the buddhist missionaries Lamas or something?

as for zoroastrian disadvantages, they weren't allowed to marry outside their faith, so maybe their spread rate/growth rate is slower?

 

I think this would reflect the development far better. It could be spread at once in the own state but has a harder sell later.

To Zoroastrianism - I think it should com earlier than code of law - in this mod Zoro is a later game religion, and i thougt it was the eariest monotheistic religion ? But now it comes after judaism and christanity ... ( at least in most cases )

 

I agree Judaism missionaries should be renamed Rabbis, be much more expensive to train, and function sorta like Great Artists, only giving tiny culture bonus, maybe like 100. That'd be realistic. But I like abbamouse's idea a lot too.

At no time did Jews have missionaries in the sense that the Christians do. It spread verrrrrry slowly. I'd lower their spread to 100, and up Islam's spread to 150.

Nick
(Jew)