Bye-Bye Religions?

[Commander Bello]

Religions are a must for a game "to build your own history".

They have been an integral part of human history and have had an influence on almost everything, starting by constructing buildings, followed by philosophy, science, giving people a feeling of belonging together (or just not!), and so on.
Even the emigration to the north american colonies would have been different without religious aspects...

I want them to be kept. Not only to be kept, but to be improved!
I understand that giving a certain religion a certain advantage might be problematic in the "out of the box"-version, but the options for doing so should be available. And then leave it to the modder/player what he is going to do with these options.

Keep religions as they are, give us the option to name them, to allocate the respective symbols to them, and to allocate certain advantages/disadvantages/restrictions/etc. to them!

 

[Naokaukodem]

Voted yes. Civ IV religions were only a mean to have allies, which I think is a poor way to implement affinities between civs. (completely out of real strategy and geopolitical choices, for the AI at least) The other side of religion was hapiness, which was really too costy in regard of the other options of the game (military, buildings other than religious ones like granaries, barracks or aqueducts), and eventually wealth, but in regard of all the efforts needed to achieve this, it didn't worth the cost. (particularly in difficulty levels like Emperor, need to found a religion (which is near impossible), get a great priest, then spread the religion with missionaries that are very costy, pretty impossible task) But well, that's not as if pretty every task was impossible in higher difficulty levels, granted.

 

[Fluesterwitz]

I'd like to keep different religions in for flavours sake. Religion as phenomenon was implemented since civ1 via temples, cathedrals ect.; the point being to represent its valuein keeping the population calm. It's not important who they pray to as long as they pray.
In contrast, religions' ability to mobilize people against each other is a nice touch, but not IMO a core game mechanic.

 

[Willowmound]

People keep talking about how religion worked in Civ 4 and how the new diplomacy system may have taken over that role in Civ 5. No one wants two systems doing the same thing, obviously. But that doesn't mean religion should be taken out altogether. Religion has played too much a part of human history not to be represented in a game like this.

Civ isn't chess. It's a game playing at being a world simulation. It's not a simulation, but it tries to look like one. That's why it's so much fun. And that's why religion has a part to play. They just have to implement it in a way that contributes to gameplay.

 

[NKVD]

thank god. no more Great Prophet!

 

[Drago Askani]

Supposedly its to make for a better Diplomacy system overall instead of having people hate you just cause you didn't follow their beliefs. Yes we know thats how real life was, but its a game not real life. There is always the possibility of them adding it in a future expansion should interest be high enough I would guess.

Hell come to think of it, that would be a good marketing strategy for a future expansion. Seeing as how so many people love the religion mechanics, would make a very strong selling point on an expansion....hmm sid you clever dog you...

 

[Windsor]

Civ4 finally gave religion the importance it deserves. As so many others have said, religion have been way to influential in history to be overlooked and ignored.

Civ4 portrayed the effects of religions quite well while having it adding to gameplay. It's a shame if Firaxis haven't found a way to refine the mechanics and keep religion as an important factor in Civ5.

 

[Pikkis]

I think religions shouldn't be removed. I especially liked all the religious buildings and wonders in CivIV and this means goodbye to them too, I assume.

 

[villagelder]

Religions should stay. They are very much a part of history and can be blamed (good or bad) for 90% of the cultural shifts/decisions/conflicts in the human timeline. And ingenuity should never go in reverse; it is a good added element to the game, so work on improving it, but do not remove it completely.

Suggestions:

1. Decrease opposition stance (diplomacy) in regards to religion - like Islam vs Christianity. Christian countries have Islamic allies. The current (real-world) hate comes from imperialism from the 16th century to the 20th century, not necessarily religion directly - despite fringe rhetoric of both sides.

2. More residual affects of religions or priests, such as increases (or gifts) in food or health - think missionary work.

 

[Silv Something]

You know guys, CivRev had a thing called 'religion'. It was a tech. It let you build cathedrals, which gave you another +1 happiness (known to civ IV users as culture) on top of one given buy a temple. To build a cathedral you need to have a temple in the city also, which also gave 1 happiness/culture. You could build a temple with ceremonial burial, also a tech.

Thoughts?

 

[Opera]

That's unflavorful. Religions in Civ4 gave a lot of flavor, in my opinion, like did DynamicCivNames added by Revolutions, etc. Even though one may debate about the function, the flavor of religions was really a plus.

 

[Silv Something]

It is unflavorful, but is it a middle ground of the religion vs no religion, or a gimmick?
Personally I think it's a gimmick.

 

[sprouts42]

I love the religion aspect, its a shame to see it go.

 

[helpless_writer]

If anything I think based off your leader your stuck with a religion. So if you choose Ghandi your civ is hindu meaning: your people won't harvest meat but will be more happy than other civs when you have a gold resource... and stuff like that

 

[darkedone02]

If religions ever be remove in this game, then there will always be the alternative... let see how far we can go when we can reconstruct the religion system that civ 4 has into civ 5, if they allow us to.

 

[EmpireOfCats]

Given the role of religions in history, and conflicts between religions, and alliances based on religions, I'm not only surprised, I'm downright shocked. My first reaction to religions in Civ IV was "where has this been all along"? I realize that they are probably getting some flak from the PC people, but still. If Civ is about history, it needs religions.

This seems to be the only really bad idea I've heard about so far.

 

[mitsho]

I vote for Expansion Pack. We all agree that Religion is an important factor so important that it cannot be left out. But as it is so huge, I advocate for them to wait until they can devote an entire expansion pack to the concept so that it cannot be included in a crappy way.

Yes, civ4 was a good concept and yes, I would like the concept to be made better, but that is why I would like to wait for an expansion. And as they said they are overhauling the diplomacy and religion is a big part in it, I would want them to wait and not have a purposeless religion systme in (if it has no bearing on diplomacy).

 

[mitsho]

sorry, double post

 

[ahmedhadzi]

Don't get me wrong, but everything that I'm picking up on this forum about CIV V makes me less and less interested. No religion, why?
They say from where I come from: if it's not broken, don't fix it, and IT IS NOT broken, it works good within its own limits (I respect idea that all religions are equal). Going further it seems that they have to come up with something HUGE to go over the high standards set up by CIV IV, and at this point I can't see what that might be, especially if there is no religion.
And the whole idea of giving different nations different look, what is it good for without religion?

 

[LDiCesare]

Religions were used to create diplomatic blocks but were rather awkward in doing that. Religious wars were indeed important (crusades), but many such wars were not between civilizations but inside one civilization (schism between shiites and sunnites, religious turmoils in Eastern Roman empire, religious wars in France under Henri III, Henri IV, Louis XIV...), and some civilizations didn't seem to view religions as a major reason for warfare (China doesn't seem to have had religious wars the way Europe or the middle east had).
So, much as I think religions are important, I think their implementation in Civ IV wasn't a very good rendition of the concept. I'm rather happy they don't bring it back to civ V.