Catholicism, Orthodoxy and the Apostolic Palace

[ozqar]

Hey guys, I'm back after a too long period without a windows computer to play on. This hole time I've been keeping an eye on the forums and all the developments, but I found it hard to post opinions and suggestions without having the means to play the game. Anyway, I'm back and very happy with the changes so far, I enjoyed a Harappa game as first thing I did with my new computer haha. Actually civ 4, and very specifically DoC, was one of the reasons why I went back to windows . Leo, thanks once for all the hard and excellent work!

More on the topic of religions, I would strongly recommend to have a generic "Christianity" before the schism. Without the schism there's no point in using "Orthodoxy" or "Catholicism" as descriptive of the religion that existed then. As you must all be aware, choosing either would also imply granting more legitimacy to one branch than the other.

To solve the need of having civilizations be rewarded for building wonders and/or researching techs, I'd suggest that the same trigger event could work to found one or the other religion, and have the other automatically branch out. Ie: Greece, byzantium, etc., would found Orthodoxy always, with Catholicism and being automatically founded in Rome; Rome or a western european civ (the vikings?) would always found Catholicism, with Orthodoxy being automatically founded in Constantinople.

As a reward for founding your branch (instead of waiting), whichever branch triggers the schism should have a higher spread rate for their religion thereafter.

Could this be a good compromise between playability and cultural-political sensitivity?

 

[Tigranes]

Hey guys, I'm back after a too long period without a windows computer to play on. This hole time I've been keeping an eye on the forums and all the developments, but I found it hard to post opinions and suggestions without having the means to play the game. Anyway, I'm back and very happy with the changes so far, I enjoyed a Harappa game as first thing I did with my new computer haha. Actually civ 4, and very specifically DoC, was one of the reasons why I went back to windows . Leo, thanks once for all the hard and excellent work!

More on the topic of religions, I would strongly recommend to have a generic "Christianity" before the schism. Without the schism there's no point in using "Orthodoxy" or "Catholicism" as descriptive of the religion that existed then. As you must all be aware, choosing either would also imply granting more legitimacy to one branch than the other.

I completely rejected this contemporary premise. Historically the opposite to Orthodoxy was Heterodoxy, not Catholisism. Cross stands for Christianity in all 3 cases. New symbols are not necessary.

 

[Leoreth]

Your personal religious views don't guide the design of this mod.

 

[Tigranes]

Do you even know my views or did I ever express them in this thread? We are talking about basic historical developments of the particular religion. Hinduism is the first religion that gets founded in the mod, does it mean that we think it is superior to the rest? One does not need to worry about political correctness, but rather to reflect the reality in the context of the game. That was the point of my previous remark.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Meanwhile I'm just sitting there, waiting for the Jews to make a comeback.

 

[Leoreth]

Do you even know my views or did I ever express them in this thread? We are talking about basic historical developments of the particular religion. Hinduism is the first religion that gets founded in the mod, does it mean that we think it is superior to the rest? One does not need to worry about political correctness, but rather to reflect the reality in the context of the game. That was the point of my previous remark.

I don't see how I would be able to respond to this without thematicizing your personal views which is exactly what I don't want to do.

 

[Tigranes]

I don't see how I would be able to respond to this without thematicizing your personal views which is exactly what I don't want to do.

thematizing you mean?

It was you who saw some personal bias in my remarks, while I was addressing completely general issue: do we or do we not need to care about particular religious sensibilities and political correctness when it comes to naming different denominations of the same religion.

I said it is irrelevant. You jumped in and said my religious views do not influence this mod. Thanks for stating the obvious, but you simply missed my point. Please move on.

 

[Leoreth]

Okay if you think so that is fine!

 

[ezzlar]

Leo: Did you salvage any of the ideas in this thread? What would be most likely path be?

 

[Leoreth]

I don't know right now, I think I have to ponder it for some time while taking care of other things.

 

[Ani Taneen]

I don't think we should fixate on the Great Schism. I'd prefer a mechanism that has Catholicism already in place when the European civs spawn.

So you want a mechanic that allows Catholicism to exist before the Spanish Spawn?

If I'm conceptualizing this correctly, we want Orthodoxy & Catholicism by the 6th or 7th Century.

I'm not sure. Unless you want to make a Visigoths, Ostrogoth, and Frankish faction that functions just like the Seljuk. They could easily spread Catholicism. Ensuring that Spain, France, and Germany (Holy Rome/Austria) all spawn into a Catholic Environment.

This solution accomplishes your goals but removes all agency from the player.

Personally I favor those who argue for the creation of an early church religion.

Called Christianity,
Symbol is the Ichthys

 

[2015]

Only way I can see a Catholic Europe with new changes is to make the spawn of Catholicism determinant (maybe not Orthodoxy, which can be founded with Theology as it currently is)

So Catholicism normally would spawn in Rome, if not Jerusalem and if both of those cities don't exist maybe somewhere in Europe. Of course that would kind of suck because humans as China, India, etc. can't find cheesy ways to found Catholicism themselves.

There's just not enough "consistency" (not sure if that's the right word for this) from 0 AD to the European spawns. There could/could not be a Byzantium, sometimes Carthage exists, etc. so having something predetermined might be the only way to go.

 

[calad]

I can only say that if there really are no good ideas and good technical solutions for Cath. and Ort. for Christianity I say there should be only reformed and pre-reformed Christianity.

This is not duch a grave matter as it looks now.

 

[Leoreth]

I can only say that if there really are no good ideas and good technical solutions for Cath. and Ort. for Christianity I say there should be only reformed and pre-reformed Christianity.

This is not duch a grave matter as it looks now.

Actually the problem of the split was most of my reason for not being reluctant to add Orthodoxy initially.

 

[calad]

Actually the problem of the split was most of my reason for not being reluctant to add Orthodoxy initially.

Historically why we have Ort. and Cath. is because we had Eastern and Western Romes. But this is so difficult to repeat like it historically did, there are so many "what if" and differences between both churches are indifferent, it was more about politics and even today both churches could unite together without any major theological issues.

Seriously just rename it into Christianity and later into Reformed Christianity or something. Holy City for Christianity will be Jerusalem and Reformed Christianity should not have it because there are no pilgrims from US to grave of Luther.

 

[ozqar]

I agreed, the differences are mostly political, and not theological, but that made for political divides between civilizations. I think it adds a lot of flavour to the game to have the Orthodoxy and Catholicism separated.
In game, there's no reason why, for example, Apostolic Palace resolutions should apply to Russia or Greece.
And I actually think that Byzantium is absent from too many games (since the point of too much uncertainty between year 0 and the European spawns has been brought up).

 

[Tigranes]

Reformed Christianity should not have it because there are no pilgrims from US to grave of Luther.

After the foundation of the University of Wittenberg in 1502, the All Saints' Church was annexed to serve as a chapel to the University, and it quickly evolved into an important academic and worship center. Students were awarded their doctorates there, and Philipp Melanchthon made his famous inaugural speech at the church. A tradition of burying academic dignitaries of the university at the church developed.

Instead of gold, Protestant Shrine could generate (20 max), while Confucian shrine could generate more state related . All these obviously within the planned greater religious overhaul making each religion a bit more unique. Income of Mecca and Rome cannot be matched by Jerusalem's Shrine, which would be more fitting to replace with (20 max).

In the respect of too deterministic spread of Catholicism after the schism and singling out Rome -- I don't see how is it different from what we have now with Jerusalem and Catholic Missioners available to Catholic Nations on spawn.

Poland, for example, starts with Catholic Missioner and later Orthodoxy can accidentally spread in their cities and I have seen Orthodox Poland on more than one occasion.

And if it is ok to place Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, why not AP in Rome? Why AP should be built in some other city? We do have Roman civilization in the game, which spawns at Rome's spot. Human player can chose to have his capital elsewhere and the bishop of that place many years later will claim his preeminence.

Also, one time conversion of all cities west of the former capital of Roman Civilization
still leaves room for spreading other religions in that region later.

 

[calad]

I agreed, the differences are mostly political, and not theological, but that made for political divides between civilizations. I think it adds a lot of flavour to the game to have the Orthodoxy and Catholicism separated.
In game, there's no reason why, for example, Apostolic Palace resolutions should apply to Russia or Greece.
And I actually think that Byzantium is absent from too many games (since the point of too much uncertainty between year 0 and the European spawns has been brought up).

Easier way to model this is to give Byzantines -2 relation to every other Christian civ "we are true Rome" or something like that. Russia could have -1. About Apostolic Palace is it possible to mod that Byzantine/Russia simply is more absent? It would solve that problem since absent votes do not count in total amount of votes.

Instead of gold, Protestant Shrine could generate (20 max), while Confucian shrine could generate more state related . All these obviously within the planned greater religious overhaul making each religion a bit more unique. Income of Mecca and Rome cannot be matched by Jerusalem's Shrine, which would be more fitting to replace with (20 max).

In the respect of too deterministic spread of Catholicism after the schism and singling out Rome -- I don't see how is it different from what we have now with Jerusalem and Catholic Missioners available to Catholic Nations on spawn.

Poland, for example, starts with Catholic Missioner and later Orthodoxy can accidentally spread in their cities and I have seen Orthodox Poland on more than one occasion.

And if it is ok to place Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, why not AP in Rome? Why AP should be built in some other city? We do have Roman civilization in the game, which spawns at Rome's spot. Human player can chose to have his capital elsewhere and the bishop of that place many years later will claim his preeminence.

Also, one time conversion of all cities west of the former capital of Roman Civilization
still leaves room for spreading other religions in that region later.

What this game has is too much of science and espionage is already well exploited. They should not definetly be increased.

 

[Leoreth]

Easier way to model this is to give Byzantines -2 relation to every other Christian civ "we are true Rome" or something like that. Russia could have -1. About Apostolic Palace is it possible to mod that Byzantine/Russia simply is more absent? It would solve that problem since absent votes do not count in total amount of votes.

Arbitrary diplomacy modifiers are not really a good model in my opinion. And the absence of Orthodoxy raises further questions about how to handle the Reformation and so on.

 

[calad]

Arbitrary diplomacy modifiers are not really a good model in my opinion. And the absence of Orthodoxy raises further questions about how to handle the Reformation and so on.

I offer practical solutions, they work but you maybe dont like them. I find it better and more constructive than ideas that cannot be coded or are very complex to work.

Well certain civs as well will never select reformation, or actually some civs are very likely to do so. HRE will likely reform, England always like Sweden and Byzantine/Russia never and so on.

But as you can see this is a can of worms. Only question that matters is how predetermined you want this modmod to be. If you want very determined modmod then follow my example, if not then there are always some very strange scenarios like Orto. Sweden and so on.