Well if you can think of a Hindu-specific military unit, then definitely substitute them. Basically, though, what I'm thinking is that the Benefit of a Militant stance against Foreign Religions/Sects is that it gives you the power to build a religion-specific military unit (such as Jewish Maccabees, Christian Templars, Islamic Mujjahadeen, Buddhist Warrior Monks etc etc). I confess that, in some cases they might be totally *historic*, but it will enhance game-play.
As for the Doctrine of Fundamentalism, I fully accept that it can the meaning you attribute to it (& is often the one referred to in the popular media), but I was referring to a more generalized definition-namely:
militantly conservative religious movement characterized by the advocacy of strict conformity to sacred texts
.
Again it might not be strictly historical, but can still work from a game-play standpoint. That said though-putting aside my example from above-you could have the Fundamentalist Doctrine only becoming available with a tech like Scientific Method-thus representing the reaction *against* modern science!
Well if you can think of a Hindu-specific military unit, then definitely substitute them. Basically, though, what I'm thinking is that the Benefit of a Militant stance against Foreign Religions/Sects is that it gives you the power to build a religion-specific military unit (such as Jewish Maccabees, Christian Templars, Islamic Mujjahadeen, Buddhist Warrior Monks etc etc). I confess that, in some cases they might be totally *historic*, but it will enhance game-play.
As for the Doctrine of Fundamentalism, I fully accept that it can the meaning you attribute to it (& is often the one referred to in the popular media), but I was referring to a more generalized definition-namely:
or .
Again it might not be strictly historical, but can still work from a game-play standpoint. That said though-putting aside my example from above-you could have the Fundamentalist Doctrine only becoming available with a tech like Scientific Method-thus representing the reaction *against* modern science!
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 ??
That seems like a good design.
A small twist would be having a chance if the time limit is left on (2050) that one of the religions was real and the civs that propagated the religion gets a nice score boost ( a + score boost if they propagated it a - score boost if they prosecuted it) to give em a better chance of winning.
But if it is completely random I don't think anyone would get mad.
It would keep people on their toes about which one they are at the end.
Another thing I'd like to talk about is the idea of Religious "Slots", rather than the binary approach of CivIV.
So as I see it, these slots refer to the total "quantity" of religions you can have in any given city. Each city would have a number of slots based on its population (say 1 for a village, up to 6 for a metropolis). This number could be varied-up or down-based on your current religious doctrine.
Initial spread of a religion into a city would take up a single slot, though it can grow to occupy more free slots over time naturally (again, the speed would depend on doctrinal issues & whether its your State Religion). However, using missionaries & building the appropriate religious structures will hasten that growth considerably. By the same token, though, failure to do these things could-over time-actually lead to the decline in the number of slots occupied by the religion (which can, again, be hastened or slowed by doctrine, by whether or not its the State Religion, or by the destruction/loss of the Holy City for that religion). By the same token, it should be possible to *remove* a religion slot by conducting an Inquisition against it (see the various Inquisition Mods for CivIV to see what I mean).
Of course all this can play nicely into diplomacy. For example, if a Civ adopts another Civs religion as their State Religion-but then does nothing to encourage its growth-then diplomatic relations might sour far more than the Civ with the foreign religion who still encourages the growth of the other religion within their borders.
Then why do you rely on revisionist "facts" so strongly Civ-King?
Anyway, to the point-we were speaking about the potential benefits of schisms & sects, well how about this?
Lets assume that the ability to set the "Doctrine" of a religion belongs only to the founder of the Civ or the Civ which currently controls that Religion's Holy City. This means there might be a lot of Civs who adopted that religion, but are no longer happy with the benefits/penalties they provide. Lets use a hypothetical, in-game example.
The Greeks found Hinduism, & establish it as a Fundamentalist (bonus happiness; science penalty), Ascetic (Bonus Happiness & Health; money penalty) & Militant (bonus XP, religious military unit (Thuggee); happiness penalty from non-state religions & diplomatic penalties) Religion. Now the Greeks can alter these doctrines (at a cost) at any time they want-& the changes will flow to all cities with Hinduism as the State Religion (or only those which have built the appropriate temples etc).
Anyway, early in the game the neighbouring Romans adopted Hinduism as their State Religion, but now no longer like the Doctrines of the Faith. They have a few options open to them: (a) they can use diplomacy to urge the Greeks to change the doctrines, (b) they can launch a war to capture the Hindu Holy City, (c) they can change to another religion or (d) if they have an available Great Prophet, they can force a schism. By forcing a schism, they gain long-term control over doctrine-an option not open to them in (a) or (c), but without the cost associated with (b). They will earn the instant enmity of the Greeks (though this should be modified by how strong a religious flavor the Greek leader has), but this could be overcome-in time-through conciliatory gestures.
Of course forcing a schism should *not* cause all your cities to change religion. Indeed, very few cities should convert at first-forcing you to expend the effort to spread your new Sect. There should also be issues with spreading the new Sect to cities where the old religion still resides, dependent on the respective Tolerance of both the new Sect & the former religion However, another benefit is that it allows the player to form entirely new diplomatic blocs-in a way that Static Religions don't allow!
Sounds good, I like use of the Holy city as the item that establishes 'ownership' of the religions doctrines. I'm not sure what mechanism your using for religion founding, Is it still technology based? I've always like the Great Prophet being used as founder idea and remove the hard cap of 7 religions, Schisms really necessitate the complete removal of the cap anyway as it would be kind of grating on the player to be told they couldn't schism just because their were already X religions in the world.
Another thought with regard to Holy Cites, combine the Holy city and Religion wonder into a single concept. A religion would lack a Holy City when first founded and this would mean no one would be able change the starting doctrines (founding player of course still gets to pick them at founding). The expenditure of a second GP in a city containing a religion which the player has adopted as state religion would create the wonder/Holy City and only then could doctrine for the religion be changed by the owner of the city. This could set up a lot of interesting strategies.
Take Aussies example and say that theirs not yet a Holy City for Hinduism, the Romans could use their Great Prophet to create it and then change the doctrines to something more to their liking, now the Greeks might be the ones wanting to form a Schism. It would make establishing the Holy City a genuine race as it's now open to any Civilization which adopts the religion. It also helps make the Holy City desirable as a means of control rather then as a gold-farm which is all they really were in Civ4, a purpose which I always found quite bland and uninspired. You also get good motivation both for conflict (try to take over the Holy City) as well as cooperation (unite players with similar play strategies under one religion).
As for units being available under a 'fundamentalist' doctrine I think its a bad idea, it requires unit artwork for each religion and the unit will only be useful for a narrow span before it obsoletes. Instead allow a special promotion 'Zealot' which give a unit a bonus again units controlled by civs under a different state religion and perhaps an even higher bonus against a Schismatic civ. This would avoid all the artwork and obsolescence issues while providing an interesting military flare to fundamentalism.
I'm a keen supporter of the Technology+Great Prophet approach to founding religions (& likewise creating a Holy City). So have all the techs still apply to the main religions (& a few others to boot) but you require an actual Prophet to FOUND the religion. This serves three useful purposes. (1) it allows you to theoretically have more religions than the total number of religion Slots (i.e. if Monotheism opens up both Zoroastrianism & Judaism, a player can choose which one he'll Found when he uses his Great Prophet); (2) it allows players more control over where the Holy City is-rather than the random rubbish we get in CivIV (if the Real World were to follow the rules of CivIV, then Judaism would have its Holy City in Haifa rather than Jerusalem ); (3) it forces a player that wants to found a religion to really push for it in the earliest part of the game-by building Temples etc in line with his National Pantheon/Animist Beliefs, rather than just lucking out on a tech!
A nice thing would also be random events that say "A prophet has had a vision that said that <insert city here> is holy grounds."
Now everyone with that religion wants that city because of a happiness boost and you will be driven to war if a different nation has it especially if they have a different religion.
And other random events with religious people preaching in your lands that you are straying from the path, and you get a choice of "Commend or Condemn" Commend would increase happiness in cities that aren't affected by it and decrease happiness in cities that are affected by it.(and possibly stop a resource from being able to be used)
Condemn would make cities that weren't affected by the speeches sad, and the ones that were being prosecuted by it happy.(but it has a chance for revolts)
And if there was randomly selected at the begging of the game 33-50% chance atheism is the truth, and then the religions get an equal share of the rest of the chance for being true. I would have condemning a holy person have a chance to bring a curse onto your nation and you will have lower chance of winning military battles.
But to make everything a mystery till the end never officially announce if they were truly cursed or not.
And occasionally have great prophets and false prophets come with random events sometimes to declare war, or to give extra happiness or sadness for some cities.
And possibly some boost towards techs.
And have buildings like the Vatican and if someone builds it all of the places with that religion gets sadness if they break rules governed by it. And instead of having a human or computer govern it have a elected delegate govern it (a computer) and you get a description for what the delegate believes in and which country it favors if any.
And if you break from a Vatican you get sadness from your people for many turns but you can start to make your own rules again.
And random thing Atheism is the belief that there are no gods or goddesses.(not really a religion but it is a belief)
Nihilism can be used as a term for those who don't believe there is for-sure any divine power nor do they believe there isn't one.(I think D=)
Sort of along the lines of what Tigerruss suggests, I have been thinking about the whole Holy City thing (please, please, please get rid of the whole income aspect). What if a tech or Great prophet were required to "found" a religion, but it required another Great Prophet to set the Holy City? What if a Great Prophet could change a new city into the Holy City? You could use that as a trigger for reform/schism, as well
Vatican City was not the birthplace of Christianity.
I think that the state religion should still be the choice of the player - even if it is not the majority religion - plenty of rulers have held different beliefs than their followers.
I think you ment me not Tigerruss. Creating a Holy City for an existing religion is not really the same thing as a schism though, it's like your centralizing power/control in one area ware as a schism is a break away religion with different doctrines. The new religion could then gain its own separate Holy City. I agree the players should retain control of State Religion (or lack their of) with the requirement that the religion is at least present some ware in their empire with the possible exception that creating a schism also changes your state religion to the new schismatic religion, this would prevent players being able to form a schism while remaining in the parent religion and only switching when it was convenient for them. If your going to do a schism you should really have to go 'all in' and commit too it.
One thing I positively hate about the religion system is that it has slots. Personally I think there should not be a list of religions at all. Instead, I'd rather see each civ have a function to name whatever religion it founds, and then derive all the art (icons, units, buildings) from that civ's cultural artstyle. This way there are no "slots" and no predefined religions at all.
Hey Impaler. What you were discussing sounds very much like the Apostolic Palace in Beyond the Sword. I've had several occasions where I've failed to Found a religion, yet been able to build the Apostolic Palace &-by so doing-effectively seize control of the Religion. I guess the point is that, if we use Christianity as the sole example, there is a difference between its SPIRITUAL HEART (which is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jersualem) & its POLITICAL HEART (The Vatican). In a game like Civ, every religion could potentially have this dichotomy, which is why we should still have the Holy City where the Prophet founds the religion (which makes perfect sense) & the Apostolic Palace, which can be built wherever the Faith is sufficiently strong (i.e. occupies sufficient religious slots).
One thing I positively hate about the religion system is that it has slots. Personally I think there should not be a list of religions at all. Instead, I'd rather see each civ have a function to name whatever religion it founds, and then derive all the art (icons, units, buildings) from that civ's cultural artstyle. This way there are no "slots" and no predefined religions at all.
Hm. I kind of like this idea. Or how about a compromise: each civ has a list of possible religions it can found. So the Arabians could found Islam, the Romans Christianity (or maybe just "Catholicism"), the Persians Zoroastrianism, the Americans Mormonism...
Hm. I kind of like this idea. Or how about a compromise: each civ has a list of possible religions it can found. So the Arabians could found Islam, the Romans Christianity (or maybe just "Catholicism"), the Persians Zoroastrianism, the Americans Mormonism...
Actually, I think having some kind of cap on total religions is good-if only on so-called *primary* religions-say Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Vodun, Judaism, Islam, Shinto & Confucianism (yes I know its not a *real* religion, but I see nothing wrong in keeping it in)-but no cap on religions created through schisms. You should also have the power to give primary & schismatic religions any name you want. Of course that's just my opinion !
Hm. I kind of like this idea. Or how about a compromise: each civ has a list of possible religions it can found. So the Arabians could found Islam, the Romans Christianity (or maybe just "Catholicism"), the Persians Zoroastrianism, the Americans Mormonism...
Actually, I think having some kind of cap on total religions is good-if only on so-called *primary* religions-say Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Vodun, Judaism, Islam, Shinto & Confucianism (yes I know its not a *real* religion, but I see nothing wrong in keeping it in)-but no cap on religions created through schisms. You should also have the power to give primary & schismatic religions any name you want. Of course that's just my opinion !
Is it really that important to make a distinction between primary religions and schisms, though? I'm leaning towards just treating, say, Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy as different religions. On realistic scenarios like, say, "Rhye's and Fall", the founding of historically schismatic religions would play out about the same as if they were actually schismatic, at least if we get the general mechanics for religious spread and conflict right. Catholicism is founded by Rome, probably spreads through Europe, then the Protestant sects appear in Germany, England, and Scandinavia and either drive it out or get suppressed. We don't need a special mechanic to derive the Protestant sects from Catholicism for this to happen.
On a vanilla random-map scenario, sure, it'd be unrealistic at times: Rome could found Catholicism and England Episcopalianism when they're on separate continents and have no contact with each other. But this is no more unrealistic than England and America spawning in 5000 BC on opposite sides of the planet. EDIT: Actually, it seems even more justifiable. Think about how Arianism and Orthodoxy spread in the East among peoples with no real prior exposure to Christian sects.
However schisms are handled, one thing to be careful about is not giving a civ too much of an advantage for controlling its state religion's holy city, or too much of a disadvantage for not controlling it. There has to be a reason why a civ might want to adopt a religion someone else has founded rather than nurturing their homegrown church, or else everyone's just going to be an island of their own religion, which would be boring and pointless.
There should also probably be a number of backup names in case a civ founds more than one religion, which would probably get a bit into "what-if" territory for every civilization that isn't India. Every civ that historically controlled the Holy Land at some point might have a shot at Christianity, Judaism, and Sunni and Shia Islam, for instance.
I'm in agreement with frekk, allow player naming of religion and assign either a random symbol, one derived from their civ symbol or just let the player choose from a large library containing both real and abstract symbols.
For human players I would NOT try to pre-associate any real world religion on any particular civ nothing more then say the initial text in a box the player can replace. They can of their own volition adhere to 'historical accuracy' or found the religion of "Smiling Bob" for all we care. I mean seriously Civ is a game ware Mayan tanks can crush Roman musket-men, its an ALTERNATE history of the earth. AI's are going to need something that tells them what to do of course and rather then having half the civs in the game all trying to found 'Christianity' it might actually be interesting to see some philosophical movement that were strongly associated with particular Nations be used as religion names to incresse diversity. For example France could found 'Existentialism'. Possibly more then one name could be provided and the AI just picks randomly.
If a player performs a schism the new religion created should be in every way a whole and complete religion just like those founded 'from scratch' with the singular difference that it has a parent/child relationship with another religion. The point is that religions could now have up too three different relations with each other, unrelated, parent and child (including grand-child). And this would allow for more interesting diplomatic effects as some relations are inherently more friendly and others bring a lot of antagonism. Their was also some discussion of religions being easier to convert to/from if they are related which would also add some interesting effects.
Is it really that important to make a distinction between primary religions and schisms, though? I'm leaning towards just treating, say, Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy as different religions. On realistic scenarios like, say, "Rhye's and Fall", the founding of historically schismatic religions would play out about the same as if they were actually schismatic, at least if we get the general mechanics for religious spread and conflict right. Catholicism is founded by Rome, probably spreads through Europe, then the Protestant sects appear in Germany, England, and Scandinavia and either drive it out or get suppressed. We don't need a special mechanic to derive the Protestant sects from Catholicism for this to happen.
On a vanilla random-map scenario, sure, it'd be unrealistic at times: Rome could found Catholicism and England Episcopalianism when they're on separate continents and have no contact with each other. But this is no more unrealistic than England and America spawning in 5000 BC on opposite sides of the planet. EDIT: Actually, it seems even more justifiable. Think about how Arianism and Orthodoxy spread in the East among peoples with no real prior exposure to Christian sects.
However schisms are handled, one thing to be careful about is not giving a civ too much of an advantage for controlling its state religion's holy city, or too much of a disadvantage for not controlling it. There has to be a reason why a civ might want to adopt a religion someone else has founded rather than nurturing their homegrown church, or else everyone's just going to be an island of their own religion, which would be boring and pointless.
There should also probably be a number of backup names in case a civ founds more than one religion, which would probably get a bit into "what-if" territory for every civilization that isn't India. Every civ that historically controlled the Holy Land at some point might have a shot at Christianity, Judaism, and Sunni and Shia Islam, for instance.
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![Impaler[WrG]](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/m/73/73222.jpg?1475248346){kind=avatar}
); (3) it forces a player that wants to found a religion to really push for it in the earliest part of the game-by building Temples etc in line with his National Pantheon/Animist Beliefs, rather than just lucking out on a tech!
