Wow, i am really liking this thread. I think the best thing about Civ V not having religions is that it will allow people to customize what religion aspects they want in their games through mods. And if they include corporations (i'm doubtful), it will be really easy for modders to create religion mods. After all they are much the same, and corporations are founded by Great People, no?
I fully agree with religions being malleable. This will not only stop people from getting angry, but opens up new gameplay possibilities.
Absolutely not. Ever since Confucianism - or more precisely, a tortured version of it called Legalism - was adopted by the First Emperor of Qin, it has firmly established itself as the philosophy of governance in China and never even come close to losing this status. In the political realm, religions (to which Confucianism does not belong, as it has absolutely no supernatural element) have never posed a serious threat to its overwhelming dominance. On the other hand, while Buddhism and Taoism had a permanent battle with each other, they never felt threatened by Confucianism, not only because Confucianism is not a religion, but also because it is an elitist philosophy that ordinary people had little chance of learning. So it left the ignorant mass to the religions to fight over.
Absolutely not. Ever since Confucianism - or more precisely, a tortured version of it called Legalism - was adopted by the First Emperor of Qin, it has firmly established itself as the philosophy of governance in China and never even come close to losing this status. In the political realm, religions (to which Confucianism does not belong, as it has absolutely no supernatural element) have never posed a serious threat to its overwhelming dominance. On the other hand, while Buddhism and Taoism had a permanent battle with each other, they never felt threatened by Confucianism, not only because Confucianism is not a religion, but also because it is an elitist philosophy that ordinary people had little chance of learning. So it left the ignorant mass to the religions to fight over.
Actually from what I know Legalism was not a "version" of Confucianism, and it is considered a distinct school. Now they may have shared some similarities, but otherwise, no.
Anyhow, Buddhism struggled against Confucianism in the Tang dynasty, more or less because the Buddhists monasteries were getting tons of wealth and land, sort of like the Catholic Church in Europe. And although yes, I think the Taoists also opposed this, the Confucianists (mostly government bureaucrats and officers, obviously) were the ones really fighting with the Buddhists per se. Eventually the Confucianists managed to essentially do something like a purge against Buddhism, taking temples and land, and afterwards Buddhism never had the same power it did.
So basically what I'm saying is that there was a struggle between Buddhism and Confucianism (along with Taoism) during the Tang dynasty, but it not a struggle that lasted for all of Chinese history.
Now I will admit that I may be wrong, about Buddhism and Taoism "fighting" with each other afterwards (it doesn't sound unreasonable), but even so it was nowhere near the religious conflict that occurred within Europe and the Middle East.
Please don't do that. Neither is a religion. Paganism is a broad term that encompasses many religions, in addition to being mildly pejorative in some contexts. Atheism is the lack of a religious belief (a specific religious belief, i.e. that of deities) and not properly a religion either. If you're going to add Paganism do it properly, rather than just mixing unrelated religions together in a big unresearched mess, and if you're going to add Atheism then the Civ IV system of religion isn't suitable, and you're going to have to rethink the whole thing from the ground up.
Absolutely not. Ever since Confucianism - or more precisely, a tortured version of it called Legalism - was adopted by the First Emperor of Qin, it has firmly established itself as the philosophy of governance in China and never even come close to losing this status.
Confucianism is important, yes. However, legalism was something completely different. Legalism was abandoned soon after Qin Shi Huang's death and reviled by both Confucians and Taoists to this day.
Yeah, it did happen. Taoists often view Buddhists as foreign to China and thus the hostility and competition for influence. Genghis Khan, for instance, patronized Taoism to the detriment of Buddhist institutions.
but even so it was nowhere near the religious conflict that occurred within Europe and the Middle East.
Yes. The Confucian/Taoist/Buddhist struggle usually takes the form of political lobbying, maneuvering, competition for patronage and smear campaigns, but religious wars were rare and in time people adopted and mixed elements from all three religions/philosophies.
Since religion is somewhat in the game via social paths, you would most likely input and expand the social path's to go beyond simple mono/poly selection. It may branch further already, bur for now we can assume it doesn't.
Now, they have mentioned that these development models would branch out like a tree allowing you to pursue policy down particular branches, but not all of them.
So we would mod in a branch from poly to include Hinudism, Hellenism, etc.
A branch from Monotheism to include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc, etc.
The branch would continue on past first choice into perhaps denominations. Sunni/Shiite, or Protestant/Catholic/Mormon/etc.
Each choice in the religion policy tree would give you certain religion units and buildings as well as flat bonus's and perhaps disadvantages.
Instead of the first tech discoverer founding a religion, we would isntead have the first civ to convert to that religion in the policy tree be the founder. It would be similar to the Civ 4 way only you wouldn't found it if you didn't want to.
I would add certain factors to the mod to discourage people from founding more than 1 religion. Perhaps there would even be unhappiness in cities that had more than 1 antagonistic religion.
The difficult part of this mod would likely be the city conversion side of it. If you wanted to delve below the civilization wide religion, then you would have to figure out a way to mod in city specific religious orientation, which will be difficult if there isn't a system in place to graft in your mod.
Athiesm is, by definition, any religion or set of beliefs that in which believers do not believe in God, Goddess, or any other gods or goddesses.
One civic in CiV could be State Athiesm:
Civic Name: State Athiesm
Type: Religion
Available With: Scientific Method
Cannot Build Temples, Cathedrals, Missonaries
Religion Effects Reversed (religion provides unhappiness, not happiness)
No Religion In A City Gives Happiness
Religion Does Not Spread on Your Trade Routes
Obseletes All of Player's Shrines
+20% Research Bonus
I'm thinking of some sort of building that would replace Temples, Cathedrals, and a sort of "Athiest Shrine" world wonder.
Having a set of religions and prescribing them a set of benefits is a ridiculous way to simulate religion. I support their removal from Civ V wholeheartedly because they were unrealistically rigid in Civ IV. Religions aren't nearly as historically distinct as they're portrayed. Sure, there were many religious wars, but these were always related to issues very specific to the time, not some overarching plan. Religious wars only make sense if they are over a specific issue for the time, like "You're occupying our holy land GTFO". Religions were extremely fluid and constantly changed and shifted, so having 7 specific religions which you can switch allegiance too throughout history is silly.
The fact is the whole concept of discrete religions is a bit misguided, and I think partly a result of strict monotheistic abrahamic religions that like to monopolise peoples beliefs. Where do you draw the line between the general superstition of pre-scientific times and specific religions?
Interesting topic so far, I hated religion in Civ IV but I really like some of the ideas in this thread. It definately belongs in a mod because of the complexity needed to make the system both fun and more realistic. I'll keep my eyes open for the Mod thread once Civ V is released, look forward to the heated debates.
Excellent ideas in this thread. A religion mod that makes it's own religions as it goes...
This leaves much to the imagination, a belief system can be about almost anything (as history has proved) and have random and unlimited characteristics, or attributes.
When a religion is founded, it is assigned a set of attributes at random from a fixed database. The name of the religion can be pulled from a db of real and fictional names as well...
Two years ago I worked out a new model for religion as I find the current Civ IV implementation is too superficial/bland. I never published it, but this may be a good moment. All together these ideas will be to much for a balanced and playable Mod. I set this up as a broad design from which the best parts can be taken.
Be warned it is a bit rough on the edges in some sections.
The attachments contain a Word doc with this text and an Excel sheet with a study into the vitality + zeal concepts. See the graphs especially, but no explanations provided. (My intention is not to hijack this thread. If a new thread is a better place for this amount of ideas, please let me know and I will remove/scale down this post)
Outline
Religions are founded through a revelation, not through developing a tech
The strength of each religion and its game objects are characterised by 2 factors: Vitality and Zeal.
All religions start with the same vitality and zeal values
Religion has global, national and city wide effects. Vitality and Zeal are influenced by effects on all these levels.
A religion is not stable. The process of ossification will decrese Vitality and Zeal, and the process of a revival will increase these values.
Every civilization starts with an initial religion, named animism.
There are more religious units and they have more religious actions
The character of a religion is changable through a theological civic
Introduction
The current implementation embodies only the external functions of religion: spreading and conversion, building beautiful buildings and generating wealth and culture from them, influence on the diplomatic relation between states.
Spoiler:
What is not implemented is the internal characteristics of a religion. What people believe, how they believe it, how religions evolve/revolve. Say for yourself, you can send a missionary on a mission, but he cannot even pray! Also, in order not to offend anyone, Firaxis has made every religion (almost) identical. Only symbols, shrines and the names of the great prophets are in line with the uniqueness of each world religion. Hmm, wouldnt such a bland representation also thread on long toes?
The goal of this design is to make the religions more distinguishable, more unique. And more interactive. To make them a stronger force in your strategic decisions and to create more opportunities for gameplay fun!
My method is to let the brainstorm blow and generate a lot of ideas, knowing that all of them together are to much/to complex to be taken over for Civ V or a Mod development. So selecting, discarding and pruning also have their place in working this out. But that is mostly left to the interested reader.
I also do not pay mutch attention to the fact if these ideas can be put into the Artificial Intelligence DLL. Several of the following sections & ideas will be quite an AI challenge (eg multiple unit interaction over multiple players). As could be diplomacy consequences.
Internal characteristic and external characteristic
Two parameters are introduced to capture this internal/external character of religons: the internal is Religious Vitality (V), the external one is Missionary Zeal (Z). In short, zeal is the capacity to spread and convert people, vitality is the capacity to bind people together. In other words, zeal is the factor which enables a religion to spread out in a game, vitality is the factor with which a religion can withstand the zeal of another religion.
Spoiler:
These capacities can also control aspects like diplomacy, leader traits, civics, unit/unit actions and maybe buildings.
These capacities have a base value carried by the religion VR & ZR (actually the Religious Leader, see below), by two civics VC & ZC, by the set of religious units VU & ZU and by their actions Va & Za.
As the player can change civics and choose what units he will train and how they will be used, this ensures that the character of a religion is not static but will change during the game. Fun thing is that a spatial variation also comes up by itself: a religious leader controls the whole religion on a global level, a civic works its effect on a national level and a unit (and a building) infuences the city level. More on this scaling will be explained later.
To avoid a strategy that inflates vitality and zeal indefinitly, and would put later religions in an unfavourable starting position, another aspect is introduced: ossification (decay) of a religion: the fact that the initial zeal/strength/fervour is lost and that a religion becomes prone to internal conflicts and imprisoned in old tradition. This decay sets in after some time and reduces the zeal (and maybe also the vitality) through some function. Think of an exponential decay like in radioactive material or of a lineair stepfunction. This continues until some minimum. The decay onset, decay rate and the minimum should be kept the same for all religions. Methods to counterbalance this decay need to be designed as well (see the section on revival) ]
Selection of religions
To the religions of Civ IV BTS a few more can be extended. I have not thought aboud world views like rationalism but these should/could also be included somehow.
Spoiler:
Animism : the primary religion with which al civilisations start. This religion has no special effects. It is very empty, no symbols/no spreading and conversions. Pantheonism : (from the greek word Pantheon. A combination of all ancient and classical era polytheistic religions. This can be used to model religions from the mesopothamian gods- to the german myths/ beliefs to the Meso-American religions., etc, etc. (a big generalistion of course). Judaism : roughly as it is in Civ IV BTS Christianity: Islam : Hinduism: Buddism : Taoism : Confucianism: Rationalism: The secular worldview originating from greek philosophical schools and expanding over the world since the Enlightenment took place.
Pro/Contra
+ the initial religious state of prehistoric man is made explicit.
+ polytheism has an extended representation in Pantheonism.
- Rationalism is not a religion but a worldview. Its treatment must differ from the other actual religions.
- the civilopedia states that 7 religions is enough in the game. And I suspect that the game designers are right in this.
Religious Processes
A proces is a set of gameplay tactics which takes more than one turn/are more involved than one action. The following are defined
Founding a religion
Conversion
Holding a council of various types
Schisma
Revival
Founding a religion
The founding proces should be more interactive and less deterministic. A religion is not developed by an early Tech, nor build by a shrine, but revealed through a special terrain resource, a revelation resource. This resource remains hidden until some triggered moment. It is only visible to a religious sensitive unit, a Visionary (see him as a sjaman).
Spoiler:
So you have to go out and seek the revelation, using the Visionary. Before this revelation is found the Visionary has no affiliation to a particular religion. When the resource is found, the Visionary gets a special object/symbol (see below) This religious object has to be safely brought to (one of) your city which becomes the Holy City. [other option: a nearby city of yours becomes the Holy City] The Visionary is consumed in the proces.
From there on it goes like in CIV BtS / Gods-of-Old mod. Visionaries which loose the race to the revelation resource/to a Holy City-to-be will remain in the game, but are empty handed, and the founding of a religion in a distant land is announced, a sound is heared..
As God (a god) can reveal himself on multiple places, the revelation resource will be generated on a few locations so all players can have a look for it and have a (more or less) equal chance. The revelation has to be found within a certain number of turns, then it disappears. But as God (a god) can reveal himself more than once the whole proces can be repeated.
Revelation resource/object: Judaism : stone tables Christian : cross. Islam : a kaaba. Must not be brought to a city, a city must be settled on top of it. Hinduism : ... Buddism : Bodh Gaya tree underwhich Buddha received enlightenment Taoism : ... Confucianism: ...
There are a few options to trigger the moment when a revelation is given:
When a technology is researched, just like in current Civ. BtS
A random factor determines when a revelation happens under some guiding conditions like [a chance of 1 in 6 per century; a minimal number of cities has to be settled; etc, etc]. Certain religions must be founded in certain eras.
Revelations occur in waves, just like in real history many religions were founded in the 7th 5th century BC. Certain religions must be founded in certain eras.
Which religion will be the actual result of the revelation is subject to roughly the same ordering as in the current game. Obviously there are three historical lines:
Polytheism is first, Hinduism before Buddism, Judaism before Christianity before Islam, Confucianism before Taoism. But per revelation a suitable subset could be placed in the randomizer and one could be selected as the revealed religion. Eg. For the first revelation Hinduism and Judaism have a 50-50 chance and Judaism could be the one actually founded. In the second revelation Hinduism is running against, say, Confucianism and Christianity. And the selection falls on Christianity. This proces is not visible to the gamer.
All religions are founded with the same amount of vitality and zeal. Say {VR=7, ZR=7} see the excel sheet.
Pro/Contra
+ Founding a religion becomes and adventure!
+ It ensures a wider variation in the early religions. Buddism and Hinduism will not be so dominant.
- This randomisation of what religion actually is revealed is counter the design principles of the Civ series where conscious choice of deterministic options is the prime directive. Random factors play a minor role.
- The gamer cannot beeline anymore for a specific religion. You have to accept what you get. Higher Powers have made the decision or you!
- More micromanagement.
Conversion
Much alike to the current Civ BtS concept. Religions spread automatically along rivers/traderoutes, and conversions can also be worked by an action of a missionary.
Spoiler:
The missionary can increase the effect of the conversion (the number of converts, %) by staying in the city and preaching a few turns before he does the conversion action.
(similar to how a spy can increase his succesrate by staying hidden in the city of the enemy for a few turns)
The success of spreading a conversion also depends on the vitality of the other religions in the city. As said before this is determined on a global and national level, but also on a city level. One can train a bishop for religion X in a city to increase the vitality of that religion [option: or have priest specialist take this effect].
The algorithm determining which part of the city population is converted and from what religion they came is an important one. It had better be rather simple and well tested on side effects. Eg one cannot drain more followers from a religion than there are citizens; no negative numbers here as a religion cannot have -2 followers.
[optional: The automatic spreading could/should be turned off for Judaism as this religion never had much of a missionary zeal. A Missionary unit should remain for Judaism as it should not become impossible for that religion to spread. As a balancing factor a strong positive domestic effect should be added to Judaism, e.g. in the domain of culture.]
Pro/Contra
+ Not much difference with current implementation
- ???
Gatherings
The idea behind a gathering is to use the combined unit principle; More than one unit is needed to get the effect.
Spoiler:
Synod : a few missionaries from the same religion (but might be from different civilisations) can come together in a city where their religion is present and have some good effect for that city (eg. a temporary boost in culture points, trigger an event, )
Concilium : a few Great Prophets from same religion can come together in a city (of their religion) and have some good effect for that religion (eg )
Eucumenical Council : Takes over the role of the current Apostolic Palace, except that it is a gathering of religious leaders, not of national leaders. And the voting is not on worldly matters but on the religious differences and similarities. Some other Wonder should take over the current role of the Apostolic Palace, eg. The Round Table from King Arthur.
The city (actually the governor or a Religious Leader or Unit) can call out for a Synod, Concilium or a Council. Others players can react on it, and send their missionaries/ Prophets/ Religious Leaders.
Pro/Contra
+ Stimulates team play
- Still rather vague
- More micromanagement.
Schisma & Branches
Under certain conditions people are unhappy with their religion, and a schisma develops. In this schisma the new relgion formed is a branch of the old religion. Eg, like protestantism separated from Catholic christianity but also remains a christian religion.
Spoiler:
It takes some anarchy when a schisma occurs.
A schisma is a city scale process. It starts in a city. The new branch can spread from there.
Initially it will spread much easier under adherents of the old religion but later it becomes more balanced, if the old religion takes counter measures. (a tricky proces to capture in an algorithm)
The new branch may also spread/convert into other religions.
It may happen outside your direct control as the schisma can take place outside your empire, even if you have the Holy City of that religion.
A revelation does not occur for the branching religion but revivals to it can happen of course(see below).
A branch has its own Holy City, where the schism started. But this can never be the Holy City of the old religion.
Some of the possessions of the old religion will be confiscated by the new branch.
Triggers for a schisma could be:
The vitality and/or the zeal of a religion drops below a certain value.
The outcome of a synode or concilium might be negative.
The religion stays to long in the dogmatic, zelotic or worldly variants of the Theological Civic (see below) [hmmm, a timing factor I am not to wild about this]
Lack of pressure from other religions, from other empires.
Succesfull spionage mission .
[Anyone with better ideas]
Possible branches are Animism : none Judaism : Orthodox <> Conservative <> Reform Christianity : Catholicism <> EasternOrthodoxy <> Protestantism <>Evangelicalism? Islam : Sunni <> Shia <> Soefi? Hinduism : ?? Buddism : Mahayana <> Terayana Taoism : Shintoism Confucianism : ?? Pantheonism : ?? Rationalism : ?? various modern schools of thought / do we need any branches here?
After a schisma the name of the old religion should be changed/adapted for clarity. E.g. when Eastern Orthodoxy splits of from Christianity the term Catholicism or Catholic Christianity is better used for the leftover of the old religion.
Note that the branching does not need to follow historical lines. Protestantism could very well branch of from Eastern Orthodoxy .
This concept has quite some international and diplomatic consequences. As a religion is a transnational aspect in the game a branching in a religion can and will affect all empires where this religion has spread. Even against your wishes and influence one of the pillars and commercial boons in your empire could be split and divided.
Schismas should be rare. A game starting with 9 religions and ending with 20 is probably very overdone and hard to manage. The balance should be a handfull in 6000 years, I guess.
[open issue: Should every religion be prone to schismas? ]
Pro/Contra
+ New strategic options are opened.
+ New historical realism introduced.
- hmm, where in the user interface Main Map is room for even more religion symbols.
Revival
A Great Prophet can trigger a Revival. During a revival a religion is strengthened.
Spoiler:
This means that the zeal and vitality factors are boosted, by a rather large amount
Eg. +5 each. So a religion will be founded with Z=+7 , V=+7 in the year 1800 BC.. Because of decay this will be reduced to Z=+3 , V=+4 . A great prophet triggers a revival and the factors are boosted to Z=+8 , V=+9 . This level remains for a number of turns (same number as for a golden age) until decay sets in again. During the revival the religions missionaries can be used to spread the religion further and further.
Pro/Contra
+ Ensures that religion is a dynamical game concept. A concept which can change itself and which can be used to bring about change.
- Revivals can be a very unbalancing factor. As conversion depends on the difference between zeal and vitality of 2 different religions, a big plus for zeal of religion A can give an overwhelming wave of conversions and leave the other religion(s) empty.
Religious Leader
Those religions which have a strong organisational/hierarchical structure have leaders [option: or all religions]. These leaders have the same presence as National Leaders and are almost as complex in character; having influence on production, research, war, diplomacy, and of course on happiness and healthiness.
They also have an animated leaderhead as graphical presentation.
But they also steer/control the character of the religion itself.
Spoiler:
A few dimensions of the character of a religious leader are (Religious Traits)
Strictness : from fundamentalism - orthodoxy - ... - liberal - ...
Example Leaders Christianity : Pope Leo I ; Martin Luther ; Billy Graham Judaism : High priest Aaron ; ... ; Rabbi Akiva Islam : ... ; ... ; Ayatolla Hinduism : no leaders Buddism : ? Confucianism: ? Taoism : ? Pantheonism: ? (Hera ; Athene ; Dionysios) Animism : no leaders
The Religious leader can be chosen when you found a religion, or when a religions spreads to your empire for the first time. As there are/should be more than one leader per religion one can select a flavour of this religion which suits your game and your empire leader best.
The gamer is still playing the national Leader (aka _is_ the national leader) but can discuss with the religious leader, and ask him(/her) to apply his/her influence in certain matters...
[Bold Idea] When you switch to the Theocracy civic (see below), the control over your empire switches to your religious leader. I.e if you are playing the Byzantines with Emperor Justinian I and Pope Leo I, your national leader after the switch to Theocracy will be Leo I. Thus you will control the Byzantian empire but also the Eastern Orthodox religion. This gives you the power to influence other empires where this religion is established. When you switch back to state religion or an other Religious Civic, you will become Justinian I again.
CIVICS
Just as part of the character of your Empire is determined by the Civic system so the character of a religion is determined by a small Civic system. The Religion Civic in Civ IV is maintained but is more geared to tot relation of your empire towards religion. A new Civic is introduced to describe the nature of each religion: the Theology civic.
Spoiler:
The religion civic is shown on the civic screen of your empire. The theology civic is shown on a religion screen, those religions you have founded can be controlled by you, for the others the current theological civic is shown.
Some possible civic choices are outlined below. How they relate to game play concepts like science, production, happiness, etc, is not worked out (yet).
Religion : relation State <-> Religions (Empire bound)
a. Anti-theistic : the state persecutes all religions (aka the Soviet Union)
b. A-theistic : the state discourages the spread of religion but uses no persecution.
c. Tolerant : the state allows all religions to settle and spread, freedom of religion
d. Dominant : the state favors one religion but is tolerant towards others.
e. State : the state has one religion and can persecute others. The gamer plays as (is) the civilisation leader
f. Theocracy : the state has only one religion, all the others are persecuted. The gamer plays as (is) the religious leader. See the section on the religious leader.
Theology : character of a religion (Religion bound)
a. Ecstatic :
b. Worldly : very active in secular activities, not so much in religious matters
c. Pietistic : inward bound.
d. Scholastic : oriented to knowledge
e. Pacifistic : averse of war
f. Zelotic : fanatic, militaristic
g. Dogmatic : keeping to strict rules,
The organisational structure can somehow be determined by
a. Free form : no important leaders or grouping structure, individualistic.
b. Organised : social structure and leadership is organised. Priests, abbot,
c. Centralised : one central leader, high priest, pope, dalai lama
The theology civic of a religion and the religious civic of an empire have influence on each other. E.g a pacifistic religion in a theocratic state does not make much sence.
Pro/Contra
+ makes religion stand out more, have more character than in the current Civ IV implementation
+ gives gamer more options to control the religion.
- Added complexity: what if you have founded 3 religions. How to balance that in one empire.
RELIOUS UNITS
Several new units to embody the aspects of a religion:
Spoiler:
Sjaman or Visionary: An animistic guy, see above. Can do a ritual, incantation,
but needs to stay put for one turn, increases religious sight. {S,M}=(0,1)
Missionary : as existing unit
Inquisitor : as the unit existing in several Civ IV BTS mods.
Great prophet : ....
Priest : ....
Religion UNIQUE UNIT: (also reachable through Unit upgrades)
Judaism : Rabbi or a Levite
Christianity : Bishop
Catholicism : Bishop
E.Orthodoxy : Metropolitan
Protestantism : Reformator
Islam : Mufti
Sunni Islam : Mufti
Shia Islam : Ayatolla? Imam?
Confucianism : Mandarin?
Taoism : ?
Hinduism : Yoga
Buddism : Sangharaja; Monk
Pro/Contra
+ more action, more uniqueness for each religion
- effect on Great Profet and priest city specialist is not clear
Religious ACTIONS by Religious Unit
Have you ever heared of a missionary who cannot even preach?
Spoiler:
Incantation : increases religious sight.
Hold a ritual : ??
Vision : Reveal something the AI of another civ is doing
Prophesy : same as Vision but then stronger.
Preaching : Increase effect of conversion
Prayer : Ask for a specific action of god. (se religious events)
Worship : Increase temple effects. Musical effects
Sacrifice : one of the available animal resources, or oneself. Increase temple effects
Write : An letter (epistle), a Holy Book. Strengthens the religious bond of a city to this religion
Healing : similar to the Medical promotions
Miracle : one of the Religious events is triggered
Convert : Both Units and Cities. More effect after preaching/teaching/Holy Book.
Inspire : Strengthening bravery of military units ??
Hypernova. By your own standards, CivIV religions got it dead right. All the religions-at their basic level-had no differences. Any differences (beyond names) were determined by each civs Religion Civic. My issue with CivIV religions was (a) the Religion Civics didn't account for the all the most common dogmas we see (Fundamentalist, Orthodox, Reformist, Ascetic, Animist etc etc), (b) there was absolutely *no* accounting for the host of Animist & Polytheistic religions which preceded the 7 religions depicted in the game, (c) the diplomatic penalties for different religions were too hard-coded, rather than dictated by dogma & in-game actions, (d) having more religions per city was *always* beneficial, no matter *what* Religion Civic you were running.
However, instead of tackling those flaws & making Religion into an amazing part of the game, the developers have instead taken the *easy* route of simply removing it altogether! This was a very *bad* decision IMHO-especially given the obvious popularity of religion amongst the hard-core civ fans!
Also, you try telling a Christian or a Hindu that their religion isn't fundamentally different from Buddhism or Islam-& see how far *that* gets you !
(My intention is not to hijack this thread. If a new thread is a better place for this amount of ideas, please let me know and I will remove/scale down this post)
Disclaimer: I am bashing other peoples ideas here, this is sensitive stuff :> If you are offended by watching your ideas bashed, don't read any further.
Atheism is no more religion than not-collecting stamps is a hobby.
Paganism? Do you mean some sort of cocktail mixed of old mongolian, slavic, baltic, australian aboriginal, norse, native american (all 234390 kinds), shinto and the rest 28390389 different systems of belief?
1) For starters, include the Civ 4 religion system in it's entirety, including method for spreading religion, prophets, buildings, etc., everything.
Eklabiaan, you & I have very similar views regarding how the Religion System should work-& I am currently working on a Mod for CivIV which incorporates many of the things you put forward. For example, my Civics mod for Warlords (which I'm still hoping to port to BtS) seperates the religion civics into Dogma & Inter-faith Relations-allowing for much more differentiation *within* the different religions.
I'm also working on updating the True Prophets Mod, which will tie the founding of a religion to a Great Prophet-forcing players to focus on Religion as a strategy, rather than just getting a tech at the right time.
I'm also hoping to adjust the CivIV religion based diplomacy penalties/bonuses to make them more dependant on dogma & interfaith relations, rather than hard-coded penalties.
Last of all, I'm hoping to merge all of this with one of the two Inquisition Mods currently out there.
3) It'd be good to see a greater focus on religion prior to the founding of the "Big 7"-i.e. generic temples & sacred sites associated with Animism & Polytheism. It'd also be good if religions were founded not by acquiring techs (though this should still be a part of it) but via a great prophet.
I agree with this! I would like the religions spread past just the "Big 7", though, to include various ancient religions, not just all pigeonwholed into a single "pagan" religion. The Persian religion (to lazy to look up the spelling and word right now) would be nice, but also some Euro-centric religions like the Greco-Roman, Druidic, and Nordic. A Meso-American Religion (or more) would be nice as well. And don't forget the ancient Egyptian religion.
As far as founding them, I think that the idea of having a great prophet found the religion makes sense. Of course, there would have to be some way to start earning the points early on. I also think that available resources could play a part in the religion (like incense, etc) and, perhaps with the new limited use resources, the availablity of the resource (or other source) could play a part in the spread of the religion. For example, if the religion requires Copper, and the player is at their limits with the resource, this could slow down spread. However, if they found or capture another town which has access to copper, then that would increase spread.
I would also like to see linked religions. This means that one religion would have to exist in the world already and, in order to found it, you would have to control a city that contains it inside the borders already. That city (or one of those cities if there are more than one) would become the Holy City if you do found the religion. The best example that I would have for this would be Judaism -> Christianity -> Islam. I beleive Hinduism and Buddhism are related as well, but I am not sure off hand.
I would also say that the religion would have to be present in the capital city for the state to be able to switch to it. Partly to prevent civs from switching instantly as soon as a religion touches its border (even if it is in a distant, remote section of the civ). I don't agree with the suggestion that the state religion should be done automatically. I do agree that there should be no anarchy because of it. In fact, I think that switching anything should not cause anarchy. I think that in the place there should be a statistic for public content (different from happiness). Basically, certain decisions could cause the PC score to raise or lower and if it lowers beyond a certain threshold, then anarchy could kick in (which would, in turn, force a change in policy... or religion... when order is reestablished). Of course, switching religions could have a negative impact on that score. If you have 10 cities and only 2 of them have a particular religion present, then switching to that religion for state would lower that score. Also, changing religions... or civics (or whatever the replacement system is for V) too frequently could also lower the PC score.
Finally, in response to the religion benefit/disadvantage portion, I don't really have too much of an opinion on whether that is included the case or not. However, if it were included in this "mod", and if a Greco-roman religion is included, then my suggestion for that would be that you get a bonus with it as your state religion and the more religions you have in your border. This is more based on the Roman side where they often incorporated other religions that they came across into their society as they expanded their territory.
maybe instead of religion, perhaps do belief systems? for example, polytheism, monotheism, spiritual athiesm (aka Buddhism), materialistic atheism, etc., then let a development of each school of thought, which can then be spread or something. for example, each nation starts with paganism, then then upon the discovery of a certain tech or use of a GP change into its own national polytheism (or in the case of Israel, monotheism), then into a monotheistic religion or an "international" polytheism (such as Mithraism, Hinduism) which can be spread via missionaries and begins to take an individual flavor. It can be diversified by schisms within the one religion, or other countries founding their own idea of monotheism, until it gets to materialistic atheism (which should be generally unpopular unless enforced by the government). each school of thought can have a general bonus but not specific. (paganism + from forests etc., nationalistic religion + 10% defense??, international religion = relationship bonuses with countries of same faith, attack bonus against non-believers, spiritual atheism ...?, materialistic atheism +++science, - , - population [abortion, birth control, human extermination and the such]) Then you can name the religion you found. I know its a lot and its probably ridiculously difficult to make (not that I would no, I'm absolutely not a programmer and only a casual gamer) but it would keep the fun customization and realism factors of civ without people getting over the topic of religion. Thanks for listening to my first post
I would like to see a better way to handle the relationships between religions. Currently every religion hates every other religion. Would be nice to see something like two allied nations of different religions go to war against a third nation with a third religion to delvope a positive relationship(diplomatic bonus) and get a negative one when dealing with the third religion(ie nations with that religion and so forth)
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over the topic of religion. Thanks for listening to my first post
