Bye-Bye Religions?

[cybrxkhan]

As for the Eastern religions, as I myself am a follower of one (Buddhism), I don't think it's fair to say that just because Buddhists and Taoists don't go around waging holy war doesn't mean that these religions had an important impact on foreign and domestic politics. In China, for example, a good chunk of the Tang dynasty's history was dominated by the struggle between Buddhists and those who believed solely in the traditional Chinese religions; the Buddhists were in a somewhat similar position to the Church in Europe, as they were one of the largest landowners and fairly wealthy.

The cultural impact of religion in the Eastern world is also fairly tremendous, just as tremendous as it was in the West. It's just that I guess we didn't pick up too fondly on the holy war thing.

 

[LDiCesare]

As for the Eastern religions, as I myself am a follower of one (Buddhism), I don't think it's fair to say that just because Buddhists and Taoists don't go around waging holy war doesn't mean that these religions had an important impact on foreign and domestic politics. In China, for example, a good chunk of the Tang dynasty's history was dominated by the struggle between Buddhists and those who believed solely in the traditional Chinese religions; the Buddhists were in a somewhat similar position to the Church in Europe, as they were one of the largest landowners and fairly wealthy.

The cultural impact of religion in the Eastern world is also fairly tremendous, just as tremendous as it was in the West. It's just that I guess we didn't pick up too fondly on the holy war thing.

The issue is that internal strife caused by religions, and strife caused by variants of religions between civs, are both missing in Civ IV. The only aspect of religion in Civ IV are:
- generic culture or other bonuses
- diplomatic penalties/bonuses.
The former doesn't require specific religions. The latter is unrealistic.
Having several religions in one city should cause strife, as you show, but in Civ IV it increases happiness, the ability of building more temples and stuff. So getting rid of a flawed mechanism doesn't feell bad to me.

 

[ColdFever]

Having several religions in one city should cause strife, as you show, but in Civ IV it increases happiness, the ability of building more temples and stuff. So getting rid of a flawed mechanism doesn't feel bad to me.

Almost everthing we enjoy in life has "flaws", still we are are thankful for its existence. If we would have to dump everything with flaws, we probably would not play computer games at all. Certainly Religion in Civ4 was not perfect, but the "flawed" result certainly was better than anything of this aspect we had before in Civ.

I know Sid says that for new features in games you have to dump something old. That's fine, but IMHO you should not dump Religion in a game about history, as you should not dump warfare or science. These things are essential. What I would expect from Civ5 is not (the impossible to reach) perfection again. But I would expect another step into this direction, not a step backwards, please.

 

[CivFanaticMan]

Religions gave civ4 a more dynamic and realistic gameplay. I hope religion gets put into civ5. I'm also hoping they keep civics. As for corporations, they can go.

 

[Voyhkah]

I'm sending the link to this poll to Firaxis.

 

[LastLegionare]

I'd hate to see it leave, it gave wars more volume and scenarios an interesting twist. However, if it is not implemented, it will be a good test to figure out how well you can mod it!

 

[zulu9812]

Religions gave civ4 a more dynamic and realistic gameplay. I hope religion gets put into civ5. I'm also hoping they keep civics. As for corporations, they can go.

I like corporations: I think that it operates as non-conventional warfare, much like global economics does in the real world. If anything, I'd like to see the feature developed further.

 

[SJSerio]

Did I miss something? Where did it say that religions were gone?

 

[vamperium]

To me it's just kind of sad that they seem to hit a pinnacle with the last expansion to Civ 4, and now with Civ 5 instead on building off of or adding to that they strip it all down again. I really don't want to play basic Civ again, I want to play RoM and AND with more religions, corps, civs, units and such (but with better graphics and other engine enhancements). News like this makes me this twice about buying the game on release day. (and I voted no in poll of course)

 

[LDiCesare]

Almost everthing we enjoy in life has "flaws", still we are are thankful for its existence. If we would have to dump everything with flaws, we probably would not play computer games at all. Certainly Religion in Civ4 was not perfect, but the "flawed" result certainly was better than anything of this aspect we had before in Civ.

I know Sid says that for new features in games you have to dump something old. That's fine, but IMHO you should not dump Religion in a game about history, as you should not dump warfare or science. These things are essential. What I would expect from Civ5 is not (the impossible to reach) perfection again. But I would expect another step into this direction, not a step backwards, please.

They say they're getting rid of religion in favor of a better diplomacy system; So we can expect the game to have superior diplomacy, which would make for more interesting games. Religion will certainly remain as it was from civ 1, i.e. generic temples etc.

 

[sbrylski06]

I think the addition of city states and minor civilizations gives religion the potential to not only be a solid foreign diplomacy tool, but have greater domestic impacts as well and should definitely be included.

I would love to see Civ trend towards more dynamic power structure. It is much too common for the rough power rankings of civilizations to be essentially inked by year zero. There should be greater ebb and flow, and religion could help drive that.

Governing well is not easy. The game could do well to emphasize domestic issues more in relation to foreign issues. This could result in the player not just competing just against the other leaders, but competing as an individual within his game's world. What I'm getting at is it should be a challenge to simply maintain an empire - both for the human and the A.I.

Empire expansion through peaceful or forceful takeover of other city states should be as common as expansion via settlers in the ancient world. Settlers and population growth in ancient times should be tough, possibly by making cities require more food before health and sanitation advances, and therefore their would be less capable city sites in the early game. Or lack of a natural trade route would cause a new city to secede from its parent state early in its history. So the ancient era should be all about the paced growth of world empires. (Far ahead, as medieval times break, internal population growth and state sponsored expansion and colonization through settlers should get easier.)

But its in the middle-game that religion could help drive power shifts. As one builds up their empire through city-state takeovers or settling of new cities, religion could be a key rift that could develop between your citizens. In Civ IV, the presence of multiple religions in your cities was never considered a negative. In real life, it is almost always a hindrance to domestic peace.

Religions in Civ should act like A.I. "civs" permeating and intertwining the actual empires. City-states that share a state religion with an empire would be much more likely to join up. Cities that don't share the religious beliefs of the rest of the empire could rebel and fall back into a city-state category. Geographically connected A.I. city states could join up mid-game and form a new empire. A religiously inconsistent empire could dissolve. A religiously divided empire could split into two. Cities in proximity to another empire's cities of a different religion could go into unrest until war is waged. So much could be done here to motivate ebb and flow in the power levels of civilizations.

The player could still have control over religion, however. It still could be spread via both the internal engine and by the player via missionaries. Civics could limit foreign influence and increase state religion spread, or quell the religious minority. Unrest could be stamped out permanently via Inquisitions.

Empires would rise and fall and rise again with shifting geographies, as in real history. And to me it would be best driven by a religion system.

 

[ColdFever]

They say they're getting rid of religion in favor of a better diplomacy system; So we can expect the game to have superior diplomacy.

Yes, I read this too, but such a decision IMHO would set Civilization as a game back into the wrong direction:

Do we really want Civ to be a more mathematical game again, similar to a Chess computer, where the AI has superior calculation power, but at the cost of dropping the human nature of history? Or do we want Firaxis to take the bold step again, as they did with Civ4 for the first time, trying to emulate some more human aspects of history and implement concepts like Religion, Ethics and other Believes?

Certainly, people looking for highly competitive games could favor the purely mathematical approach to build a strong AI. But this would effectively take us back to where we were with Civ3 years ago: building a mathematical, chess-like game around motives from history. On the other hand people like me, playing Civ not only for winning but much more for enjoying the fascination of historical discovery, surprise and human confrontation, certainly would favor a system that behaves more human instead of machine-like.

From Wikepedia: In his book "The Philosophy of Civilization", Albert Schweitzer, one of the main philosophers on the concept of civilization, outlined the idea that there are dual opinions within society; one regarding civilization as purely material and another regarding civilization as both ethical and material. He stated that the current world crisis was, then in 1923, due to a humanity having lost the ethical conception of civilization. Sounding familar?

A human Civilization that behaves just materially, like a stem of bacteria, is doomed. And a game and an AI that behaves just materially, as in a game of Chess, IMHO would be less Civilization, not more. In a game with the title Civilization, I would love to play with and against a human AI, not a bacteria AI. For this there are dozens of RTS games on the market. But Civ is something special. And so I would love to see Civ5 becoming even more Civilization than Civ4, not less.

 

[Aldor]

I would like to keep the concept of religion in the game, but not in the form of actual religions as they are in Civ4. Instead I would put more importance to the religious civics (and techs). Perhaps add a "tolerance" setting there, which could make some civics have different effects: like polytheism with a high tolerance setting ("we accept all gods") could give you diplomatic bonuses with other civs, while perhaps monotheism with low tolerance would give you a malus with more open minded civilisations...something in that direction.

 

[Fetus4188]

I love religions. I think they should be expanded, not gotten rid of. So much more can be done with them if the designers aren't afraid of the PC police.

 

[LDiCesare]

Yes, I read this too, but such a decision IMHO would set Civilization as a game back into the wrong direction:

Do we really want Civ to be a more mathematical game again, similar to a Chess computer, where the AI has superior calculation power, but at the cost of dropping the human nature of history? Or do we want Firaxis to take the bold step again, as they did with Civ4 for the first time, trying to emulate some more human aspects of history and implement concepts like Religion, Ethics and other Believes?

I think religion as implemented in Civ IV is a very forceful mathematical minmaxing tool and not something that remotely looks like real world religion. You have to have a religion if you want money (shrine) and/or good relationships with neighbours. Which religion doesn't matter. When you end up micromanaging your religions spread, don't tell me it's not become a more mathematical game than civ 2 (to me civ 3 is crap, so I'll stick comparing civ 5 to civ 4, 2 and 1 in that order).

Certainly, people looking for highly competitive games could favor the purely mathematical approach to build a strong AI. But this would effectively take us back to where we were with Civ3 years ago: building a mathematical, chess-like game around motives from history. On the other hand people like me, playing Civ not only for winning but much more for enjoying the fascination of historical discovery, surprise and human confrontation, certainly would favor a system that behaves more human instead of machine-like.

But religions in Civ IV didn't make the ai act as humans at all. Isabel the Very Christian leader had very different views about jews and muslims for instance, but in the game, she's just going to hate anyone not of her own religion.

From Wikepedia: In his book "The Philosophy of Civilization", Albert Schweitzer, one of the main philosophers on the concept of civilization, outlined the idea that there are dual opinions within society; one regarding civilization as purely material and another regarding civilization as both ethical and material. He stated that the current world crisis was, then in 1923, due to a humanity having lost the ethical conception of civilization. Sounding familar?

Crap. Materialism leads to some crisis, but ethics also. Inquisition, crusades, slaughtering of heathens in order to save their souls...

A human Civilization that behaves just materially, like a stem of bacteria, is doomed. And a game and an AI that behaves just materially, as in a game of Chess, IMHO would be less Civilization, not more. In a game with the title Civilization, I would love to play with and against a human AI, not a bacteria AI. For this there are dozens of RTS games on the market. But Civ is something special. And so I would love to see Civ5 becoming even more Civilization than Civ4, not less.

So having ai behave diplomatically as real civilization leaders would behave is less civilization-like than having them behave like undiscriminated religious fanatics?

 

[ColdFever]

But religions in Civ IV didn't make the ai act as humans at all. Isabel the Very Christian leader had very different views about jews and muslims for instance, but in the game, she's just going to hate anyone not of her own religion.

Do we speak about the same Isabella? Isabella I of Castile proceeded with a brutality unknown before against Jews and Muslims, and with her blessing conquestors destroyed entire "heathen" civilizations in South America. IMHO Civ4 did a good job of representing her.

In his book "The Philosophy of Civilization", Albert Schweitzer, one of the main philosophers on the concept of civilization, outlined the idea that there are dual opinions within society; one regarding civilization as purely material and another regarding civilization as both ethical and material. He stated that the current world crisis was, then in 1923, due to a humanity having lost the ethical conception of civilization. Sounding familar?

Crap.

It is impressive of how you are able to sum up your intellectual superiority over Albert Schweitzer in one single word.

Materialism leads to some crisis, but ethics also. Inquisition, crusades, slaughtering of heathens in order to save their souls...

Please do not confuse Ethics and Religions. In respect of Religions I agree. And because of such severe consequences for history IMHO Civ5 should not be without Religions again.

 

[Panzeh]

The trouble with religion in civ4 is that it is tremendously disadvantageous to have your own religion, or to have to use up your valuable hammers to build missionaries to spread your religion. It was advantageous to simply go with the flow, let others spread their religion onto you, and use it for diplomacy, which usually resulted in two or three alliances that come neatly down religious lines, and late religions are completely worthless.

I can't think of a good way to differentiate religions in and of themselves without being patently offensive or euro-centric. I'm sure some modder would just love to add in a bonus to commerce with judaism, etc, but I think I'd rather be respectful and include religion in a generic way.

It's just not historically accurate for co-religious nations to be all that friendly, either. Despite all of the papal efforts, there was constant war between catholic nations, war between orthodox nations, war between nations of just about every religion. It makes no sense for nations to be harmonious based on religion.

Of course, civ has not usually made sense as there is usually many many more than 18 or 32 nations in the world.

 

[mattigus]

I voted expansion pack.

I loved Civ4, but the way religon was implimented never seemed right to me. It even felt like feature creep, where it distracted from the overall game. Expanding religion would have made it worse.

As much as I love historical accuracy in Civ, I never found religion to be fun compared to the other aspects of the game.

 

[nzk13]

Look, i voted no, and here's why: Religion has always played a big part of diplomacy. Crusades, Inquisitions, Arab terrorism, that sort of thing.

 

[Sherlock]

I know everyone will pile on me for this comment and tell me I just want to play 'Civ Rev'. But religion for me was just one layer of complexity too many on an already very complex game. I won't miss it.