Alter the way you get religion(s)

[Aussie_Lurker]

Though I agree it shouldn't be the sole determinant of religion foundation, I do feel the 'techs' should remain as part of the process. Remember, there are a LOT of techs which aren't genuine 'techs', but merely represent a change in the outlook of your civ. So, when you have Monotheism, it means that your people are 'receptive' to the idea of a single God-not a multitude of them. However, it should require a Great Prophet to come and 'articulate' a new faith to the people-along these lines. Thus, founding a religion should require both a Prophet AND a Tech.

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Pitboss]

Very true, but none of those other techs plays a part that could be seen as similar to the religious inspired techs. The idea of founding a religion trough a tech and a great prophet, are one of the ways to alter the creation of one.

But than you have to wonder if a city can go produce great prophets, or if they'll come just as randomly as before. Which would impley that it might even take longer then usual to go and form a religion. You could ofcourse give every civ a great prophet at the start of the game. But than it's just as good as leaving it as it was.

I do agree that certain "techs" like monotheïsm for instance, should rather be associated with certain religions, rather then other ones.
But then again not every civic has a religion that it can preset.

Pacifism > Philosophy > Buddhism, confucianism, Taoism
Organized Religions > Monotheïsm > Judaïsm, Christianity, Islam
Free Religion > Liberalism > Hindouism

Perhaps it would be a nice extra, to implement that each founded religion would come with a free tech, that basicly is a represenation of what does religions represent. Does techs could also be removed from the tech tree, and only be available trough trade for example.

 

[King Flevance]

I like this idea but I think it goes way into the deeper aspects of the game. I don't play much Civ anymore due to reasons of my own but I think something like this would spice of the repetative nature in the game if done right. I like the idea of specializing specific cities towards religion to create one rather than have it magically show up by researching a tech. But this would mean removing techs like Polytheism and Monotheism and such. Reallocating new "homes" for the wonders/buildings those techs offer and then even possibly making new techs to address new aspects that would come in from this.

Anyways, I don't like the aspect of every civ creating it's own religion. I think all the religions should stay as they are as far as availability goes. (7 religions max - possibly even cut it down to 5-6 IMO) Then when you have achieved a specific aspect of religion in a city, you get to found one. Like religion points you would spent to found it, then you would pick from the religions still available to found.

Example:
You found "Capitol City" it has
- = 0[+2] (0/30)
- = 0[+0] (0/200)

In this example you build a worker first. But you could choose to build aburial ground or an obelisk or something. (This "something" would allow you to convert a citizen into a priest. Spiritual people would get 1/2 cost on building whatever this thing is.) Then after your worker is done you farm a cornfield allowing you to have an excess amount of food. You probably know now where I am going with this.
You build the "something" next and you allocate a citizen as a priest to make the city start bringing in religion. So just as an example you do all this in 50 turns.

50 turns later.
"Captiol City has
- = 100[+2] (100/300)
- = 0[+4] (0/200)

These numbers, BTW, I am just spitting out with little regards as to the balance of the game but mostly just to get my idea across. But anyhow, the religion hits the growth mark in 50 turns in this example. So you now have a "religion growth" in the city. Which is basically a milestone event in religion in that city - which could be seen as a time a new religion emerged. But in simple game turns a list of the 7 religions pops up and you select one, any one you want. So the first religion in the world could be Taoism, or Islam, whatever you want to take... not like it matters anyways right?
this takes the religion counter to = 200[+4] (200/750) and you have a religion. Soon, a great prophet emerges or already has merely from the GP points in priest. They can do everything they can now plus found a religion in a city. So when you have this prophet show up you must choose if you wish to A) found a new religion. B)Build a shrine to the first religion OR C)** Purge religion. So prophets would be more crucial of a target for religious gurus.

Now that brings us to the question of what happens when you get to 750 religion points and all 7 religions have been founded? well under this system the religions will be founded all very early. Well, as I said before this is where a turning point in religions is made not just for founding them... although that is a turning point. You would actually get to choose from a few options here in my idea but I am not sure what they could be exactly. I have been thinking something like a religious crusade/pilgramages (sp?) where your religion's spread rate has a 10 turn +100% sprawling frenzy in all open bordered cities and inside your own empire and a +50% in unopen border territories. Or you could choose to, once again, purge a religion.

** Purge religion: When you choose this a pop up box appears asking you to pick a religion of all the ones founded so far. Upon selecting one, it makes an attempt to remove that religion from your cities within your own empire. Each city is calculated independant of all the others so it may not remove all of the that religion and may only hit certain ones. the attempt is against the odds with maybe a 35% chance of removing a religion by a RNG.

Now, I know your thinking why would you ever want to remove a religion? Well, I think the religion areas have to be went into alot more in many aspects and some should rival others. But like I said initially, going in and toying with religion is something that effects a deeper part of the game and the game WOULD have to make some changes to suit the new playstyle. It doesn't matter if it is this idea I mentioned or another method that involves removing it from the tech tree. The game is set up to have religion's spine tied to the tech tree so if you take that out, you are going to have to change more than just that.

I think I will just leave this much here on the boards and check the replies in a couple days if there are any. I do think this would add alot more to the religious aspect of the game though and would definatley make for some interesting new concepts entirely to come into Civ.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

My view, though, is that the whole darned thing needs to be re-examined. First-up, Priesthood needs to occur BEFORE Meditation and Polytheism-not after it.
Second, Priesthood should allow for the construction of a Pagan Temple. Actually, it would just be a generic temple for your culture group. So Greeks and Romans would get a Greco-Roman temple, Aztecs and Inca would get South American Temples, the Germans and Vikings would get Norse Temples, and the English, French and Spanish would get Celtic temples (just as an example). These temples would be lost as soon as you have one of the seven religions as your State Religion.
Second, Polytheism would allow you to build a Pantheon in your cities (again, generic based on your culture group).
The purpose of these buildings would be to generate points towards the creation of a great prophet-who can then be utilized to found a religion if you ALSO have the appropriate tech. This would make the founding of a religion a far more 'pro-active' exercise than simply 'researching techs'.
The second thing I would like to see is an introduction of religious 'strength'. A simple way to do this might be to have the religions granted a rank 0 (not present), rank 1 (extreme minority, rank 2 (minority) rank 3 (majority) and rank 4 (Extreme majority). When a religion is founded, its Holy City Automatically gets a Rank 2, wheras all other cities start as rank 1 after a new religion spreads to it. The ranks would effect things like Shrine Income, chance of the religion spreading from this city, and the chance of a new religion taking hold in a city. It would also effect the kind of religious buildings you could construct in the city. So a city might need to be rank 3 in a religion before that religion's Cathedral-style building can be built, and a rank 2 before you can build the monastary or temple. Strength would grow on its own, or could be brought up via multiple missionaries. Lastly, a cities population would dictate the maximum number of ReligionRanks a city could hold. So a size 6 city could have 1 rank 4 religion and 2 rank 1 religions (or 2 rank 3 religions).

Anyway, hope that makes sense.

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Mewtarthio]

The second thing I would like to see is an introduction of religious 'strength'. A simple way to do this might be to have the religions granted a rank 0 (not present), rank 1 (extreme minority, rank 2 (minority) rank 3 (majority) and rank 4 (Extreme majority). When a religion is founded, its Holy City Automatically gets a Rank 2, wheras all other cities start as rank 1 after a new religion spreads to it. The ranks would effect things like Shrine Income, chance of the religion spreading from this city, and the chance of a new religion taking hold in a city. It would also effect the kind of religious buildings you could construct in the city. So a city might need to be rank 3 in a religion before that religion's Cathedral-style building can be built, and a rank 2 before you can build the monastary or temple. Strength would grow on its own, or could be brought up via multiple missionaries. Lastly, a cities population would dictate the maximum number of ReligionRanks a city could hold. So a size 6 city could have 1 rank 4 religion and 2 rank 1 religions (or 2 rank 3 religions).

Anyway, hope that makes sense.

Aussie_Lurker.

That makes perfect sense. It reminds me of an idea I once had in which your cities had limited numbers of "religion slots." Each slot held one religion, and getting prosletyzed successfully caused a new religion to enter a random slot, exising the old one (by default, all slots would be "Pagan," but it may be better to simply start them all off empty and put new religions in the empty ones before ousting old ones). If the religion is already present, the message given is "[religion] has grown stronger in [city]." If the religion draws a slot in which it is already present, a failure message appears to the person using the Missionary. If a religon is removed from a city entirely as new religions enter its slots, the message is "[religion] has all but died out in [city]" or perhaps "The citizens of [city] have turned their backs on [religion]." State religions could be given an advantage: Say if the slot drawn contains the state religion, the RNG will re-roll once more.

Your "strength" idea could give this some purpose: Religious strength would be based on the number of slots in a given city occupied by said religon. It would naturally get harder to increase the strength of a religion as each time a religion grows stronger not only is a Missionary more likely to fail (based on number/percentage of empty slots) but also a successful spread may only mean that the slot replaced already contains that religion, resulting in no change. Religious strength would also affect happiness: The stronger your state religion in a city, the greater the happiness bonus (Free Religion should still be based on the number of different religions, though).

I hope all that was clear.

 

[Pitboss]

I have been thinking something like a religious crusade/pilgramages (sp?) where your religion's spread rate has a 10 turn +100% sprawling frenzy in all open bordered cities and inside your own empire and a +50% in unopen border territories. Or you could choose to, once again, purge a religion.

The idea of having crusades alone, makes me very enthusiastic. It's surely something that would go very nicely with the whole idea/concept of civ warlords

I think I will just leave his much here on the boards and check the replies in a couple days if there are any. I do think this would add alot more to the religious aspect of the game though and would definatley make for some interesting new concepts entirely to come into Civ.

Your whole idea seems well thought trough. But as you said yourself if implemented they'll have to change more than just (re) moving the religions.

My view, though, is that the whole darned thing needs to be re-examined. First-up, Priesthood needs to occur BEFORE Meditation and Polytheism-not after it.

That's a difference in point of view. You could say that buildings in honor of a/the god(s) should be build after you've a reason to do so. But you could also look at paganism as some kind of civ religion. In whitch case their should definitaly be temples from the start.

Second, Priesthood should allow for the construction of a Pagan Temple. Actually, it would just be a generic temple for your culture group. So Greeks and Romans would get a Greco-Roman temple, Aztecs and Inca would get South American Temples, the Germans and Vikings would get Norse Temples, and the English, French and Spanish would get Celtic temples (just as an example). These temples would be lost as soon as you have one of the seven religions as your State Religion.

Sounds like an interesting thing to add, and it would fill up the time gap, that you'll get if the way religions are founded is remade, nicely.
If it would just be implemented in the current circumstances it wouldn't have much sence ofcourse.

Second, Polytheism would allow you to build a Pantheon in your cities (again, generic based on your culture group).
The purpose of these buildings would be to generate points towards the creation of a great prophet-who can then be utilized to found a religion if you ALSO have the appropriate tech. This would make the founding of a religion a far more 'pro-active' exercise than simply 'researching techs'.

It would surely give the game an extra dimension.
Perhaps their could be some kind of religious building that you could have one or several cities build. That on completion would generate your great prophet.

The second thing I would like to see is an introduction of religious 'strength'. A simple way to do this might be to have the religions granted a rank 0 (not present), rank 1 (extreme minority, rank 2 (minority) rank 3 (majority) and rank 4 (Extreme majority). When a religion is founded, its Holy City Automatically gets a Rank 2, wheras all other cities start as rank 1 after a new religion spreads to it. The ranks would effect things like Shrine Income, chance of the religion spreading from this city, and the chance of a new religion taking hold in a city. It would also effect the kind of religious buildings you could construct in the city. So a city might need to be rank 3 in a religion before that religion's Cathedral-style building can be built, and a rank 2 before you can build the monastary or temple. Strength would grow on its own, or could be brought up via multiple missionaries. Lastly, a cities population would dictate the maximum number of ReligionRanks a city could hold. So a size 6 city could have 1 rank 4 religion and 2 rank 1 religions (or 2 rank 3 religions).

It could be based upon the spreadage of your state religion troughout your empire/nation.

Your "strength" idea could give this some purpose: Religious strength would be based on the number of slots in a given city occupied by said religon. It would naturally get harder to increase the strength of a religion as each time a religion grows stronger not only is a Missionary more likely to fail (based on number/percentage of empty slots) but also a successful spread may only mean that the slot replaced already contains that religion, resulting in no change. Religious strength would also affect happiness: The stronger your state religion in a city, the greater the happiness bonus (Free Religion should still be based on the number of different religions, though).

It's true that it's way to easy to add other religions. Your idea would make it more realistic indeed.

 

[Englor]

Hey, you'll like to see my idea, it rips the bejesus out of the current lame-ass model and revamps it with a more closely nit model and system to not only the religion yet the way yyou embrace/found/maintain the religion with viable differences. By the way I'm drunk.

 

[King Flevance]

Now that I have my internet back for good and have reread this thread about 3 times, I am willing help anyone who wants to maybe start making a mod with this. I have learned basic XML and am willing to jump in and learn python if I have to. I am sure with the help on these boards I could manage to find a good place learn python fairly easy enough.

If anyone knows where this is at in the XML and python I will gladly check it out to see how easy/hard this would be to do. I have been working on a mod in the background and am completely going to have to recreate a new tech tree anyways. Later tonight I will check in creation and customizations for this info as well but if anyone wants any help on this I will gladly offer my time.

 

[Pitboss]

An other way to aproach the religion altering, could be to only give the founder of the religion (the one that researches the tech with the religion first) a high priest to go build that religious shrine. Other civs that would research the tech later, could still aquire the religion, but they just won't have the shrine.

But even with this way the late appereance of the other religions will remain a problem.

Hey, you'll like to see my idea, it rips the bejesus out of the current lame-ass model and revamps it with a more closely nit model and system to not only the religion yet the way yyou embrace/found/maintain the religion with viable differences. By the way I'm drunk

There sure are a lot of alternate ways civ4 could deal with the religions.

Now that I have my internet back for good and have reread this thread about 3 times, I am willing help anyone who wants to maybe start making a mod with this. I have learned basic XML and am willing to jump in and learn python if I have to. I am sure with the help on these boards I could manage to find a good place learn python fairly easy enough.

If anyone knows where this is at in the XML and python I will gladly check it out to see how easy/hard this would be to do. I have been working on a mod in the background and am completely going to have to recreate a new tech tree anyways. Later tonight I will check in creation and customizations for this info as well but if anyone wants any help on this I will gladly offer my time.

I'd like to help you in anyway that I can. Although I doubt I'll be able to aid you with xml and python. The mod idea sounds like a good plan though.
Congrats with getting your internet back btw

 

[Pitboss]

1. You are not supposed to get all wonders and all religions etc.

That sounds like a useable idea.
Give your capital all th religions, and the first one that has build 5 cities or more with that religion embeded.

 

[Fiend777Fits]

religioning... hehe

theres no pagan religions. and pagan religions have a much longer history than any monotheistic or eastern spirituality. the non-inclusion or the generalism of the pagan religions seems to suggest the superiority of the belief in one god.

 

[Bast]

There's a mod that you can use it's called True Prophets or something where you need a Great Prophet to found a religion. I think that's more closer to historical truth.

Christianity had Jesus
Islam had Muhammed
Judaism had Moses
Taoism had Tao
Confuciasnism had Confucius
Buddhism had Buddha

Hinduism is the exception but it's so old it doesn't have written records but someone had to found it. Someone had to have spread the message.

So really I think that's the most realistic way to go.

And make it in chronological order (which the mod didn't).

With a first prophet you can take the root of:

Confucianism
Hinduism
Judaism

And one of only that three.

You can found Christianity unless if you have Judaism in at least one of your cities.

 

[Pitboss]

theres no pagan religions. and pagan religions have a much longer history than any monotheistic or eastern spirituality. the non-inclusion or the generalism of the pagan religions seems to suggest the superiority of the belief in one god.

Very true. It's like they've made the concept without thinking of how the evolution of religion has gone. Basicly it has come from a lot, to lesss, to some, to one. Some examples : Greek, Roman and Egyptian.

You can found Christianity unless if you have Judaism in at least one of your cities.

That would make sense indeed, from a historical point of view anyhow.

 

[Fiend777Fits]

it would be nice to see pre-ordained historical events coming to play in the next civ. events like the birth of muhammed could trigger the founding of islam. this might be unpopular, as some people like to make their own history. but i say, to hell with em. if you choose to play as the arabs, you should expect islamics to be among your constituents eventually.

 

[ProfessorK]

I like a couple of the ideas for changing how religion is handled in the game.

1. I don't see why religion should be on the tech tree, or the other humanities for that matter.

2. I like the idea of scouts becoming missionaries after a certain number of turns after visiting a holy city.

Back to the first point, why not have two separate trees, one for philosophy, arts, and politics and a separate tree for sciences and technology.Some techs could be available on both trees because of overlapping and some techs on one tree would require a tech from the other tree. The actual religions wouldn't be attached to the religious techs but on a separate kind of tree, which I'll discuss later.

Techs in the Philosophy-Arts-Politics tree would include:

Mysticism, Polytheism, Meditation, Pottery (requires The Wheel from Science-Technology tree), Monotheism, Priesthood, Writing, Monarchy, Literature, Alphabet, Drama, Code of Laws, Theology, Civil Service, Feudalism, Philosophy, Music, Divine Right, Paper, Printing Press, Guilds, Education, Liberalism, Nationalism, Military Tradition, Democracy, Constitution, Economics, Communism, Facism, Radio (Requires Electricity from Science-Technologytree), Mass Media

Science and Technology Tree would include:

Mining, Fishing, The Wheel, Agriculture, Fishing, Hunting, Bronze Working, Masonry, Sailing, Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Archery, Horseback Riding, Iron Working, Metal Casting, Mathematics (requires Writing from the Philosophy-Arts-Politics tree), Compass, Construction, Currency, Calendar, Machinery, Optics, Engineering, Paper (requires Civil Service from Philosophy-Arts-Politics Tree), Banking, Printing Press, Gunpowder, Military Tradition, Astronomy, Economics, Chemistry, Rifling, Replaceable Parts, Corporation, Steel, Scientific Method, Steam Power, Assembly Line, Medicine, Biology, Physics, Artillery, Railroad, Combustion, Fission, Electricity, Industrialism, Refrigeration, Rocketry, Flight, Plastics, Ecology, Genetics, Computes, Satellites, Composites, Fusion, Fiber Optics, Future Technology, Robotics

To obtain techs, currency would be distributed between "researching" for the Science and Technology (beakers) and "studying" for the Philosophy-Arts-Politics tree (some appropriate symbol). Of course the amount of time (ie. currency) that it takes to obtain the techs from the two trees would have to descrease since players would be spliting their allocation of currency between two trees, the religion tree (and later a fourth tree when culture become available through creating music).

I realize that this would be a very large and radical change to the current gaming system that would necessitate a lot of other tweaking of techs, improvements, civics, wonders, etc. Mainly what it would accomplish is the game being a little more logical in terms of real history. This may not be worth the time and effort it would cause.

I also like the idea of having the religions be created on a separate tree and groups around basic concepts or influences on each other. Also good was the specific benefits for each religion so there is some strategy in choosing a religion.

The tieing of actual religions to types of religious practices and beliefs seems very arbitrary to me, as if the creators had to figure out some way to get the religions into the tech tree. After all, (it can be argued depending on your viewpoint) that all the major religions contain elements of mysticism, meditation, code of laws, philosophy, and theology. The only real distinctions are between polytheistic and monotheistic relgions, and that some of the major religions have or haven't used the concept of divine right to select leaders. The whole thing of assigning religions to the techs is pretty inaccurate.

I would be willing to entertain other ways of doing this . Primarily, it might be worth considering yet another tech tree for religion. In this tree the religions would be organized into logical groups based on core beliefs or historical relationships between them. You could have Paganism (Animism, Pantheism, Totemism) leading to Polytheism (Pantheonism and Hinduism) or Eastern Religions (Buddism, Taoism, Confusinism) or Monotheism (Judism, Christianity, Islam). Each religion would have its own benefits which would be logically appropriate to that religion. There would be an equvalent beaker-like cost to move from Paganism to any of the three other religious groups. Within each group you could choose which religion you want to adopt based on which benefits were best for your civ. Again, the building, wonders, and civics and such would have to be tweaked to accommodate this change.

I personally don't like the race to found religions, treating it like it is an arms race or space race because there should be no distinct advantage to one religion as being better than another. So why race? Instead pick the groupings of religions which best serve your overall strategy for the game. Each grouping could appeal to different styles of play based on what benefits each grouping contained. If you were interested in more historical accuracy, you could choose the religious package that was historically accurate for your leader's culture. It always seemed very strange to me to be playing, for instance, Louis XIV and found Hinduism.

If you wanted to keep holy cities in the game, a player could select a holy city for his religion when he adopts a religion and move it when he switches religions within his chosen grouping of religions. Holy cities would act the same with the exception of their effect on converting units to missionaries as discussed above.

With this system, religion would still be an intregral part of the game, but it wouldn't be as competitive. The counter-balance would be that it could be more historically accurate if a play chose a religion with that in mind.

Sorry for this post being so long, but it is a big subject and a big proposed change.

 

[Fiend777Fits]

good post K

i agree with most everything you had to say. it always kinda ticked me off that the early game was a race to found religions. if i didnt get a holy city, i might as well sodomize myself because i wasnt ever gonna make it beyond mediocre. waiting til alphabelt to trade techs also pisses me off. the civ 4 team designed it that way to slow down the tech race a bit. but really its just delaying the inevitable. come alphabet time, you know the ai's gonna gang up on you and swap techs every chance possible leaving you always steadily behind with your science rate maxed. the only thing in this game that should be worth beelining for is iron-working and gunpowder and ****. arrrgh!!! i'm gonna go kill something now.

 

[Pitboss]

I like a couple of the ideas for changing how religion is handled in the game.

1. I don't see why religion should be on the tech tree, or the other humanities for that matter.

2. I like the idea of scouts becoming missionaries after a certain number of turns after visiting a holy city.

I completly agree with those points.
I people could travel far distances for spices, why wouldn't they do the same to aquire religions. Or why wouldn't there be priests that came along on trade ships. Perhaps it should be translated as a 33% chance of getting the home religion from your trade counterpart ?

I also agree that the tech tree should loose certain techs, like capitulation.
And see the rest dived into groups, to boost your specific tech needs, to give tech trade it's real meaning, and to avoid that the tech research becomes realy doll after a few times.

 

[ProfessorK]

I see the conversion of units like scouts and explorers and possibly workers as a similuation of one or two things happening. Either the person or unit is seeking enlightenment, or becomes enlightened through exposure to the power of the religion over a period of time. History and experience shows that the most feverent practitioners of a faith are typically those who converted to the religion either from a different religion or who were non-religious because they chose the religion, rather than being raised with it, or they had a powerful religious revelation when they had a hole in their own lives.

I would like some feedback as to whether you think my ideas of spliting up the current tech tree into three tress makes sense. It seemed like a good idea at the time, anyway.

 

[Pitboss]

I would like some feedback as to whether you think my ideas of spliting up the current tech tree into three tress makes sense. It seemed like a good idea at the time, anyway.

I sure like the idea, and I've got a thread about it : Non Linear Tech Tree Remake.
However I don't realy see how that can aid in altering the way you get religions.

 

[ProfessorK]

One of the goals of the change that I'm suggesting is to eliminate the religion race where only a single civ can found a religion and get a holy city for that religion. In my proposal, when a civilization progresses enough to move from the paganism group to one of the other religious clusters, it simply chooses a religion from that cluster and names one of its cities the holy city for that religion with the benefits of a holy city as it is now. Several civs could choose the same religion and each have a holy city in there civ. The drawback would be that choosing a cluster of religion ties one to that cluster for the remander of the game, unless the influences of a neighboring civ forces a change to a different cluster. In this case, the civ could accept the new cluster they had been converted into or take steps to try to expell the "invading" religion. I think that to change reiligions within a cluster there should be a period of anarchy involved, like changing civs. With this system, I don't think that there would be any need to race to found a religion so you can have the benefit of the only holy city for that religion, which I dislike. A civ could concern itself with religion on its own terms when it wanted to shift its emphasis to religion and away from other matters. Or not concern itself with religion at all and wait for religion to come to it. I hope this clarifies my idea. Thanks for the feedback.