Here is my idea. let's make all religions start out with a founding city state that is settled at the beginning of the game. they make missionaries and these missionaries spread across the continent. All the civilizations start out with pantheons like "roman pantheon" and "indian pantheon". When a missionary from one of the big seven comes along, he can convert that city to the particular religion. So if a jewish missionary converts a border city, you can convert to judaism or keep your pantheon. and if you have more than one religion in a city, they have different percentages based on the time a religion is present in the city. you could increase this time by sending more missionaries to that city. All the city states that found religion would be spread across the continent or continents. civic like stances could allow the player to customize the religion more, even though each religion has starting bonuses. so you could make your empire have a state religion but be tolerant towards other religions. or you could have a complete theocracy and outlaw every other religion. other civs that have your religion would also be slanted in your favor. and if someone attacked the founding city of your religion, you and your AI pals could start a crusade. i haven't flushed out all my ideas yet, so it's not all that great, but it's better than no religion at all
Hey all,
I've been a lurker here for a few years. The absence of religion in Civ 5 has been something I've been thinking about since it came out. I like this thread so much(Especially cicero spqr's idea above) it has prompted me to post for the first time.
I like the idea of city states founding and spreading religion. I think having religions influenced by AI could add a realistic flavor to religion. Giving them the ability to influence a Civ but not become a defining feature of the civ unless the player decides to use religion that way. I have absolutely no modding experience so I'm not sure how hard these ideas would be to implement but for what its worth here they are.
Why not create religious city states each one corresponding to the founding of a different religion. For example "Jerusalem" Religious state spreads Judaism. And have a policy tree added that governs religions.
Rather than having violent, pacifist or irrational personalities Religious City-States would have personalities that would encourage Civs to spread their religion in different ways. For example building certain wonders, spreading religion to more cities or converting cities from one religion to another, building x temples or Jihad/Crusading against cities or city-states with another religion.
Gaining influence with the Religious city state could spread that states religion deeper into your civ having being friends and allies having it spread at different rates. Perhaps they could also add a +1 happiness bonus for every city you have with their religion when they are friendly and +2 if you are allied. That might synergise with the piety policy tree well and would be a nice enough happiness bonus to encourage players and AI to cultivate relations hopefully without unbalancing the game too much. They should be exempt from the mechanics of the Patronage tree (As well as Alex and Thailand's Specials) and be influenced by the "religion tree" instead. This gives players the option to incorporate the religion if they want to. Influence should decay rather quickly with religious states to encourage doing their quests or tithing frequently. Perhaps all known religions (religious city states that you have met) could have a bar like great people that could be influenced by various wonders, buildings(like temples), influence with a religious city state, connection by trade route or the "religion policy tree". With the religion with the most influence becoming the religion of any given city.
Once a religion spreads to a certain percentage of your state or maybe even whatever religion your capitol is that religion would become your state religion giving some kind of bonus for having a state religion. If a player wants to remove religious influence from his civ perhaps the rationalism tree could be tweeked to make religion in cities decay.
You could have it influence diplomacy or not. I had mixed feeling about the religion mechanic in civ4 when it came to politics. Maybe just having the Religious city states encouraging you and the AI to spread it's religion (sometimes by force) would be enough. That being said I think AIs should be very protective of the city state that spreads their state religion. It should get the player pretty upset too since they would no longer be receiving happiness from the city state if it was occupied.
The "religion policy tree" (Devotion maybe) could be something like:
1: Influence with city States decay 15% less quickly.
2: Non State religions in your cities increase at half the normal rate
3:+1 happiness for every city with state religion
4:Your state religion grows at twice the rate in all cities where present(global).
5:+2 culture for every city with state religion +5 in the capitol.
I hope that the powers that be are working on a totally new mechanic for religion and espionage that shows up in a future expansion. In the mean time if I were a gifted programmer this is the kind of change I would do to make a mod for religion.
Thanks for starting this Chazcon.