Civ V a step backward?

[frekk]

Exactly. Basically the entire history of Europe since Roman times is proof of how much people of the same religion like to fight each other no matter what.

Yep .. if I was going to be the target of a crusade, I'd way rather be a Muslim or a Jew than a Cathar. There's a reason there was only one Albigensian Crusade; they completely exterminated the opposition.

Even in terms of inter-religious war, all the Abrahamic groups have historically had a much bigger hate-on for each other than they have ever had for Buddhists or Confucians. Despite some pretty vicious fighting between Hindus and Muslims, there's just no way you could rally the entire Middle East around opposition to India like you can rally them around opposition to Jews or the West, despite all their fine talk about "People of the Book". Likewise it's hard to imagine Christians in the West taking up "Buddhaphobia" or "anticonfucianism" to the same degree they have, at various times, harboured Islamophobia and antisemitism.

I guess it's what they say about familiarity breeding contempt (which, incidentally, explains alot about the Pakistan/India thing too).

 

[Thyrwyn]

Religion is rarely the reason for war, it is, however, very often the justification.

 

[frekk]

Religion is rarely the reason for war, it is, however, very often the justification.

Well, I'm not going to delve into that one, we'd be going too far off-topic. But it's clear that religious blocs fight amongst themselves alot more than they fight against other major religions, and thus, the notion that religion should be featured as a diplomacy mechanic that creates warm feelings in AI players of the same religion is nonsense on grounds of realism, not just on gameplay grounds.

 

[Leifmk]

But it's clear that religious blocs fight amongst themselves alot more than they fight against other major religions

This may arguably be in part because most of the time throughout history, people have fought and feuded with their neighbours rather more often than with people from far away, and most of the time your neighbours tend to be of a similar religious outlook to yourself.

Never mind all that, however; as long as Civ 5 still lets Gandhi threaten me with nuclear weapons I'll be happy.

 

[frekk]

This may arguably be in part because most of the time throughout history, people have fought and feuded with their neighbours rather more often than with people from far away, and most of the time your neighbours tend to be of a similar religious outlook to yourself.

Maybe, but the intensity of intra-religious wars would contradict this idea (for instance, the Albigensian Crusade, next to which every crusade to the Middle East pales in comparison).

I think it's just that different sects of the same religion are competing for the same niche, trying to lay claim to and define the same deities/concepts. A heresy is more threatening than a wholly different religion, because it's easier for a heresy to convert your followers - they don't have to make as radical a shift as adopting a wholly new religion.

 

[Leifmk]

Maybe, but the intensity of intra-religious wars would contradict this idea

Does not contradict it; in fact I think it supplements it. You have much more contact with your neighbours and co-religionists than you do with those heathens way over yonder, therefore you are more aware of the little points where they get it wrong, and it bothers you more (whereas those heathens don't even speak a comprehensible language, you wouldn't expect them to get anything right anyway). And as you say, your good Catholic peasants for example are much more vulnerable to being converted into Catharism or some other heresy (thus threatening your own power base) than they are to suddenly turning Muslim or whatever.

 

[Chalks]

It's also historically much harder to wage war against heathens in distant lands than it is to fight with your neighbours. They may have been more religious wars if it wasn't simply so logistically difficult.

 

[Hail]

civ5 is a step forward in the wrong direction

 

[Chalks]

civ5 is a step forward in the wrong direction

What is the right direction, all knowing Oracle?

 

[Ahriman]

North-north-west.

 

[trickofthehand]

I do actually, but let's keep in mind that civ is a game, not a simulator.



It ended with liberalism, did it? Where have you been for the last decade?

And ... really. Are you kidding me? You boast your knowledge of history and religion, yet seem totally unaware that intra-religious war is dozens of times more common than inter-religious war. There have been so many wars between Christian nations, or civil wars in Christian nations - and really only a handful between Christian nations and Muslim nations. This notion is rubbish.

/sigh here we go again

A) Civ is a game that is a simulation of history. If there was no ties to real human civilization, then why does the game mirror it so? C'mon, you're better than this.

B) I dare you travel back in time and tell the Pope that Protestants and Catholics are all just Christians. Hell go to Ireland today and tell that to a Protestant. Sorry, from now on I'll be super specific for you since you apparently need every fine detail spelled out for you.

Here's a hint: Catholics see themselves as Catholics, and Protestants may as well be 3-headed martian invaders. Hence, I'm right when I say that people of the same religion tend to stick together.

C) A conflict versus extremist Islam or even the minor (very, very minor) violence between religious groups in the modern age does not prove me wrong. Do a little world traveling and you'll find that cultures all around the world have begun to mesh together regardless of religion. Where in old days it would be unthinkable to rub shoulders of a different religion (or sub-set of religious group, happy with the specifics?); you can now find these people working, trading and living life side-by-side.

By the way, the true rise of liberalism has generally been seen as the granting of civil liberties to all citizens regardless of sex or race, a relatively recent experience for the majority of the world. The rise of liberalism was not born from the French revolution as I suspect you're thinking.

 

[trickofthehand]

civ5 is a step forward in the wrong direction

Why bother to post at all if you're not going to tell us why you feel this way?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Your point, Frekk, was always my biggest issue with how Religion worked in CivIV-& this is coming from someone who-overall-really liked having religion in the game .
To my mind, if one Civ is Pacifist Christian & another civ is Militant Christian-then this should have almost-if not more-of a negative impact on diplomatic relations than if one Civ was Muslim & the other was Christian.
Further, they needed take the "Dogmas" out of Civics & give them their own separate treatment-so that you could have a game where you could play an Ascetic Christian Cult, & actually have it play some role in the game (both in diplomacy & city effects).

Aussie.

 

[Shurdus]

/sigh here we go again

A) Civ is a game that is a simulation of history. If there was no ties to real human civilization, then why does the game mirror it so? C'mon, you're better than this.

B) I dare you travel back in time and tell the Pope that Protestants and Catholics are all just Christians. Hell go to Ireland today and tell that to a Protestant. Sorry, from now on I'll be super specific for you since you apparently need every fine detail spelled out for you.

Here's a hint: Catholics see themselves as Catholics, and Protestants may as well be 3-headed martian invaders. Hence, I'm right when I say that people of the same religion tend to stick together.

C) A conflict versus extremist Islam or even the minor (very, very minor) violence between religious groups in the modern age does not prove me wrong. Do a little world traveling and you'll find that cultures all around the world have begun to mesh together regardless of religion. Where in old days it would be unthinkable to rub shoulders of a different religion (or sub-set of religious group, happy with the specifics?); you can now find these people working, trading and living life side-by-side.

By the way, the true rise of liberalism has generally been seen as the granting of civil liberties to all citizens regardless of sex or race, a relatively recent experience for the majority of the world. The rise of liberalism was not born from the French revolution as I suspect you're thinking.

In Ireland the quarrel between Catholics and Protestants is not about religion at all. It is about a minority having more political power than the vast majority. The voting districts are divided so that one group has quite a lot more voting power than the other group. That the districts are grouped such that Protestant and Catholic area's exist is a factor in the groups being at each others throats, religion is not the main reason for adversity.

Also although Civ is based on history, it is not a simulation. Simulations have a goal of simulating something, in Civ the goal is to do better than other nations on a randomly provided map against a random set of opponents. Only the earth maps can claim to somewhat simulate history, but even then there are far too many inconsistencies in Civ to claim that the goal is to simulate history. I dare you to defend your claim that Civ is a simulation game, and I dare you to defend that claim using the notion of the America nation - that only gained independence in the 18th century - as an example. That is, the American nation starts at 4000 BC... Take it from there and defend that Civ simulates history. Consider yourself double dared!

One final note: mixing of different religion groups is not something modern. Many parts of the world had no notion of organised religions. Using reletively uniform and well-spread religions like Islam and Christianity of an example of any quarrels amongst religious groups proves nothing pro or against religious strife being present, since war is common amongst humanity anyway. War is inevitable in the long run, and therefore war will occur, religion or no. Calling religion a driving force behind wars is a bit forced, since there are many cultural differences between different religious groups.

 

[Hail]

What is the right direction, all knowing Oracle?

Why bother to post at all if you're not going to tell us why you feel this way?

i have an a lot more concise notion of what i dislike, than what i like.

i dislike 1u/t, i dislike the removal of espionage, i dislike that civ is turning into a wargame

 

[frekk]

Also although Civ is based on history, it is not a simulation. Simulations have a goal of simulating something, in Civ the goal is to do better than other nations on a randomly provided map against a random set of opponents. Only the earth maps can claim to somewhat simulate history, but even then there are far too many inconsistencies in Civ to claim that the goal is to simulate history. I dare you to defend your claim that Civ is a simulation game, and I dare you to defend that claim using the notion of the America nation - that only gained independence in the 18th century - as an example. That is, the American nation starts at 4000 BC... Take it from there and defend that Civ simulates history. Consider yourself double dared!

It is a simulation - not of actual history, but of the underlying principles and patterns that shaped history.

What you describe (doing better than other nations etc) is just one element of civ, and a very narrow view of what civ is. By that description, civ could be Fantasy General or something. It is not.

War is inevitable in the long run, and therefore war will occur, religion or no. Calling religion a driving force behind wars is a bit forced, since there are many cultural differences between different religious groups.

Certainly, but neither is religion completely blameless as some revisionist apologists would have us believe. While many wars with ulterior motives (such as trade or land) have taken on a religious character by way of justification, some wars have started for purely religious reasons (e.g. the aptly-named Religious Wars in France).

 

[Shurdus]

It is a simulation - not of actual history, but of the underlying principles and patterns that shaped history.

What you describe (doing better than other nations etc) is just one element of civ, and a very narrow view of what civ is. By that description, civ could be Fantasy General or something. It is not.

Civ is a game that gives these underlying principles and patterns that shaped history a place. It is a game based on history, that hardly makes it a simulation. Please explain to me how winning by space, culture or diplomatically is a simulation of principles and patterns that shaped history.

Call me narrow minded if you must, but I see Civ as nothing more than a game that takes place in the context of man's struggle for advancement, battles for land, and development by the advancement of culture and technology. Or, more to the point, it is a game taking place on a large board. Just because it takes elements from actual history does not make it a simulation, it makes it a game with rules derived from and based on historic events.

If you insist on calling it a simulation then please explain what a simulation is to you. As it is right now you simply insist that it is a simulation by referring to the fact that it is somewhat loosely based on history, which of course is a non argument if I ever saw one.

 

[Ahriman]

In Ireland the quarrel between Catholics and Protestants is not about religion at all.

Umm... seriously?
Religion is what causes the two groups to be different. If the settlers in northern ireland from Britain had been Catholic rather than Protestant, then we wouldn't have had centuries of Us vs Them. The settlers and the inhabitants would have merged together after a few generations, like Normans and Saxons in England.

That's the whole point about religion as a basis for conflict. It allows a separation of society into groups that *stay* separated over generations.

I agree with the point that this can happen within religions as easily as between them, but saying that religion hasn't been a cause of conflict is a bit bizarre.

I don't think "simulation" is the right word to be using; simulation has connotations of flight-sims or driving sims and the like, where accurate realistic replication is a major goal, sometimes even above and beyond gameplay. Civ is a strategy game with a great deal of historic content and flavor. If you want to call it a simulator, call it an alternate-history simulator, rather than a history-simulator.

Please explain to me how winning by space, culture or diplomatically is a simulation of principles and patterns that shaped history.

These are ways that the game gives incentives for you to act in a historic manner. The space race is part of history, driven by a mix of desire for prestige and desire for intrinsic knowledge. But it had almost no direct benefits. So we have to graft a benefit onto it (a victory condition) in order to make it worth pursuing, so that we can observe quasi-historic behavior.

 

[Shurdus]

Umm... seriously?
Religion is what causes the two groups to be different. If the settlers in northern ireland from Britain had been Catholic rather than Protestant, then we wouldn't have had centuries of Us vs Them. The settlers and the inhabitants would have merged together after a few generations, like Normans and Saxons in England.

That's the whole point about religion as a basis for conflict. It allows a separation of society into groups that *stay* separated over generations.

I agree with the point that this can happen within religions as easily as between them, but saying that religion hasn't been a cause of conflict is a bit bizarre.

I don't think "simulation" is the right word to be using; simulation has connotations of flight-sims or driving sims and the like, where accurate realistic replication is a major goal, sometimes even above and beyond gameplay. Civ is a strategy game with a great deal of historic content and flavor. If you want to call it a simulator, call it an alternate-history simulator, rather than a history-simulator.

Agreed on the simulator not being the right word.

In North Ireland, the religion issue sure made it so that there was an us vs them sentiment. What was like oil to the flameshowever is the fact that the voting districts are divided in such a way that - let's put it like this for simplicity sake - ten people from one religious subset get ten votes during elections, but twenty people form the other religious subset get one vote for ten people. This makes it so that when 30 people cast a vote, one subset holding 10 people has 10 votes for their candidate while the other subset which holds 20 people can only cast 2 votes. This is a crooked system by definition since it is obviously skewed. It is very hard to change this system for the set that has 20 people, obviously, since they cannot raise the votes to change it. Frustrating indeed...

 

[Willem]

What was like oil to the flameshowever is the fact that the voting districts are divided in such a way that - let's put it like this for simplicity sake - ten people from one religious subset get ten votes during elections, but twenty people form the other religious subset get one vote for ten people.

But it was only designed that way to ensure that one religious faction retained power over the other.