Am I the only one who fails to see much fun in religion?

[dh_epic]

I remember hearing about the idea of adding religion to Civ 4 and I was thinking "hey, neat!" But now that I think about it, when I consider that they want to remove "unfun" concepts in Civ, I'm questioning the fun factor of religion.

How could religion be a fun concept?

E.g.: you choose the religion of your civ, and religious wars break out between your Civ and another Civ. Do we REALLY need any new reasons to have wars? I think we've been pretty good at it in Civ 1, 2 and 3. The religious element is there, in our imagination, as we capture cultural improvements and wonders, and look at the little heads on our screen that are different colors and clothings.

E.g.: your population not only has national origin but religious background... my nation is 50% christian. big deal. how does this make my game more fun? now I find different ways to please the different religions in my nation? I think that if I'm going to divide up and complicate my nation, it would be more interesting to do it across class or ethnicity than religion.

E.g.: you can not only nationalize your country for wartime, but you can religious-size your country to solve your domestic problems, but reduce scientific research. If nationalizing your economy for wartime was a way to simulate fascisim, then religious-izing your country could be a way to simulate fundamentalism. I guess this would be cool, and bring back something that was liked from Civ 2 (without all the crazy unbalanced aspects of fundamentalism in Civ 2). But this is more of a footnote than a new "killer feature", no?



It seems no matter how I hack it in my head, it seems more trouble than it's worth, and a general idea that would be more effective by adding new dimensions to culture.

I'd sincerely like someone to prove me wrong though, if anyone is really creative. God knows most of us are.

 

[thestonesfan]

As you said, I see religion as already in the game - via culture and certain improvements. I mean, your temples make people happy because of religion.

The only thing more I want is culture-specific improvements and wonders. For example, Middle Eastern civs should build a mosque instead of a cathedral.

I hope they don't waste too much time on it.

 

[warpstorm]

Religion can make people unhappy (say, for example, Communism disallowed it) and be the cause of wars (as well as making people happy). Both of these could be used to temper a front runner civ. In addition, a religious victory condition could be a possible win.

 

[dh_epic]

Religion can make people unhappy (say, for example, Communism disallowed it) and be the cause of wars (as well as making people happy). Both of these could be used to temper a front runner civ. In addition, a religious victory condition could be a possible win.

I think you could accomplish the same thing with culture, if you were really dying to do so. Outlawing certain cultures, pacifying the various ethnic influences in your pluralistic empire. And how pluralism can encumber a frontrunner civ.

Still, those things don't make the game more fun in my mind. Although I guess that's just a matter of taste. Modelling civil rights and political freedoms, or class structure are more to my liking -- when it comes to domestic strife. But again, that's just taste.

I think religion tempering a frontrunner is about as fun as corruption, and probably equally as effective -- that is, religion comes across as more of a nuisance than anything (eesh, damn monotheists and polytheists having trouble co-existing, gotta build a new temple). At least that's how I imagine it. Like I said, I think a more creative type could think of a really fun user-empowering way of using religion. I'm just hoping someone has the brilliance to get specific.

 

[thestonesfan]

How could religious victory work? God comes down and kills all the non-believing civs in a scenario straight outta Revelations?

Okay, I admit that might be pretty cool, but not for a game grounded in reality.

I don't know how they could make a religious victory work any differently than a cultural victory would.

As for the absence of it making people unhappy - why not have all temples disappear under a communist government? Something like that could be interesting.

 

[Colonel]

E.g.: you choose the religion of your civ, and religious wars break out between your Civ and another Civ. Do we REALLY need any new reasons to have wars?

Yes we need more reasons to goto war think a new way to get around everyone hateing you for killing off a Civ just blame it on religon

 

[Vizurok]

Personally I would like to see this feature in civ4. Wars, culture, relationships can depend form the religion.

 

[erickcid]

thestonesfan: Perhaps future tech 6 can trigger revelations. Then God can come down and pick the winner. Sort of a one vote UN...

On a serious note, I like the idea of religion being added. In fact, I like the idea of just about anything being added. The more options and features the better. I love games that go for a long, long time. Consider this. If you can do something, than at some level the AI can do the same. If firaxis allows the user to hand off all or no choices to his AI assistants than you can have the same game span between action/war and gritty realism. You dont have to dumb-down the game to make it more accessible, you simply make certain aspect transparent to the people whom dont care.

 

[one_man_assault]

How could religious victory work? God comes down and kills all the non-believing civs in a scenario straight outta Revelations?

How bout converting a certain percentage of the world population through meens of culture, economy or a series of Holy wars in which you must invade the capital and build a Temple and leave or something which spreads the religion in the empire you had. But in Holy Wars you can only Occupie cities you cant capture them for yourself...somethin like that

 

[Jon Shafer]

Religion was a major factor in history. That it's not yet been included is a travesty in itself.

As far as whether its implimentation is "fun" or not is completely subjective. I might find sending my Workers around to clean up pollution to be a fun aspect and others might not, that's just how things go.

 

[Bast]

No in a game like Civilization where it attempts to be faithful to human history. Religion is absolutely crucial. Yes we have religious elements, but we need our citizens to have an identifiable religion. And of course religion is the cause of many wars.

I think though that there should be a conversion possibility. For instance, there should be preacher units or whatever that can convert enemy units and citizens. I don't know if that'll be a feature in Civ 4?

 

[dh_epic]

I pose this question to everyone... in fact, maybe I'll do a poll -- to get a genuine opinion, not to sway people to mine.

For Civ 4, they have announced an interest in adding Civics and Religion. Imagine that these would be the only two new features added to Civ 4 (hopefully not the case, but just bare with me).

Do you think religion would be the most interesting and fun thing to introduce? Even just in the category of individual differences, do you think it would be more interesting to add:

Socio-economic class (rich, middle, poor)?
Ethnicity?
Labour type (merchant, agriculture, industrial... etc.)?
Political affiliation (pro-communist, pro-republican, pro-democratic)?
Sex and Gender?
Even enhancing culture, with culturally motivated wars, and culture-specific needs and such?
Or does religion give rise to the most interesting gameplay opportunities?

I'm still debating it with myself. Hoping someone can offer me a reason besides "I'd like them to add as much detail as possible" -- since this could be the only detail about your population that they add! (Hopefully more than just one thing, though.)

 

[Colonel]

hey i dont if this has been thought of but have it so every country that is the same religon will attack other religon like the crusades

 

[Roxalana]

Relgion could be an interesting factor in government - Divine Right of the Monarch, Seperation of Church and State, etc. It would also be interesting to use as a diplomatic tool. Colonel's Crusades suggestion is a lot like what I had in mind there. Maybe even if you have certain wonders, like the Oracle, other civs' citizens could make pilgrimages, which would in turn influence trade, science (exchange of ideas) and maybe even population bonuses from pilgrims who decided to live in the "Holy Land."

I think one of the biggest obstacles in developing specific religion is that developers have to avoid offending people. I personally don't care, but I can imagine that some would be upset if some religions lent violent bonuses in war time or if one was obviously better than the other. I think these things should be included because they add depth and historical context. Giving a Crusade or Jihad option would not be disproving a god or an attack on people, just a really cool gameplay feature taken from historic precedent.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I pose this question to everyone... in fact, maybe I'll do a poll -- to get a genuine opinion, not to sway people to mine.

For Civ 4, they have announced an interest in adding Civics and Religion. Imagine that these would be the only two new features added to Civ 4 (hopefully not the case, but just bare with me).

Do you think religion would be the most interesting and fun thing to introduce? Even just in the category of individual differences, do you think it would be more interesting to add:

Socio-economic class (rich, middle, poor)?
Ethnicity?
Labour type (merchant, agriculture, industrial... etc.)?
Political affiliation (pro-communist, pro-republican, pro-democratic)?
Sex and Gender?
Even enhancing culture, with culturally motivated wars, and culture-specific needs and such?
Or does religion give rise to the most interesting gameplay opportunities?

I'm still debating it with myself. Hoping someone can offer me a reason besides "I'd like them to add as much detail as possible" -- since this could be the only detail about your population that they add! (Hopefully more than just one thing, though.)

As far as "large" and "new" features, I would say that yes, religion and civics top my list.

Classes would be nice, but I think the implimentation would probably take us farther away from Civ-ness than Firaxis wants to go.

Religion and civics have the most possible effects on all of gameplay of anything that I can think of. Religion affects the little people, religion causes wars, religion is a major factor in dipolomacy, religion even created it's own pseudo-state and power base. A myriad of interesting options to throw into gameplay. Similar things apply to civics.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Personally, I wouldn't be suprised if Social Class was one element of 'Civics'. As for ethnicity, that is already covered under culture groups and foreign citizens-though it could be 'beefed up' even more. Again, though, I have a sense that civics will deal with ethnicity and nationalism.
Labour type could easily be done simply by reworking and expanding the current 'specialist' model from Civ3.
Sex and Gender I don't really see as adding much to the game, except through the civics function of Suffurage.
I have faith that, along with religion and civics, many of the aforementioned areas will be properly dealt with by the Firaxis Team !

EDIT: BTW, another great thing which religion could add to the game are religious 'units', Religious/Cultural Great Leaders and city specialists like 'clerics/priests' which boost happiness, but possibly in a different fashion to entertainers. In fact, in my preferred model, entertainers should cause happiness in many cities at once-perhaps limited by connection to the trade network (think 'Travelling Players', Poets/Dramatists and, later, composers and court musicians-their happiness function would be enhanced by mass communications!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Here is a list I came up with from Apolyton of the very baseline things I would expect from the inclusion of religion in Civ IV:

The thing to keep in mind about this (and other) new feature(s) is that they probably won't be greatly detailed and intricate systems with 50 new things to worry about and hooks into all areas of the game. Think simplistic, but important.

With that in mind, there's a lot that needs to be shaved off of Stefu's massive list.

Baseline stuff:

• Each civ has a religion (or lack thereof ).
  - This religion should affect relations between different civs.
  - This religion will probably be selectable by the player.
  
• Each citizen has a religion (or not).
  - Each citizen's religion CANNOT be selected by the player.
  - If the civ's religion is one thing and the citizen's religion is another, he should be unhappy (or perhaps if they're the SAME he IS happy), in some intensity (e.g. 4 Christians under an Islamic civ will result in 2 unhappy people or 1 unhappy person, etc.).
  - Religions can be spread from city to city like plague is in Conquests. The rate at which will depend on exposure between cities (movement of units, number of roads or harbors) and an intrinsic factor which can be set in the editor.
  
• Each civ can try to evangelize.
  - For cash money you can attempt to convert citizens of another religion to your state religion. They can be within your own cities or in another civ's (kind of espionage).
  
• Religions pop up randomly or as a result of certain triggers.
  - This would be worked into Civ 4's scripting system. You could have the establishment of a new religion linked to the researching of a tech, the capture of a city, the passage of a certain date, etc.
  - In addition to triggers, the location of the religion springing up would have to be specified (the location of a certain battle, the location of a city founded in a certain order, etc.).
  - Finally, the intensity of the creation/spread of the religion would be specified. For example, the spread of Christianity was slow and steady, whereas the spread of Islam was fast and violent in nature (which was partially due to conquest, but that's beside the point for this example ).

This is the bare minimum and most abstract implimentation of religion as I can see it.

Everything else from the pope to religious wars to tithing and religious states could be thrown into the mix, but my best guess is that the baseline and probably not much else will be in, maybe one more special feature.

 

[Loaf Warden]

I remember hearing about the idea of adding religion to Civ 4 and I was thinking "hey, neat!" But now that I think about it, when I consider that they want to remove "unfun" concepts in Civ, I'm questioning the fun factor of religion.

How could religion be a fun concept?

Without knowing how they intend to implement it, frankly I think it's too early to say. I'm skeptical about a few of the things they've said, but I plan to reserve judgment until we get a lot more information.

 

[socralynnek]

Here is a list I came up with from Apolyton of the very baseline things I would expect from the inclusion of religion in Civ IV:

[*]Each citizen has a religion (or not).
- Each citizen's religion CANNOT be selected by the player.
- If the civ's religion is one thing and the citizen's religion is another, he should be unhappy (or perhaps if they're the SAME he IS happy), in some intensity (e.g. 4 Christians under an Islamic civ will result in 2 unhappy people or 1 unhappy person, etc.).
- Religions can be spread from city to city like plague is in Conquests. The rate at which will depend on exposure between cities (movement of units, number of roads or harbors) and an intrinsic factor which can be set in the editor.

[*]Each civ can try to evangelize.
- For cash money you can attempt to convert citizens of another religion to your state religion. They can be within your own cities or in another civ's (kind of espionage).

I'd like to add one thing: cities with majorities of people from a different religion than the state religion possibly flip to the other side(or get independent).

And of course captured cities give you much less problems if you have their religion.

 

[Phoenix]

Well there hasn't been a major war in history that hasn't had religion as one of the major factors that it started for. Basicaly religon should be used to start wars - just look at the crusades or the war on terrorism.

Also there should be techs to make your civ secular and/or atheist (so that not only Communists can become atheist nations). Also if they are to add religion I don't really see how they can not include Fundamentalism as a Government.