[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Unmitigated Gaul]

That's a good point. That's why I would like to see a possibility of converting your religion into Ideology after discovering rationalism in a game. So you can secularise your Civilization. Your religion would be converted into something similar to a legacy bonus from Government Mechanic and on top of that, you would be able to found an Ideology with a new late-game set of modifiers and still spread it with your units and still go for a religious victory.

Would you lose your religious bonuses?

how, conceptually, would that be different than a culture victory?

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Would you lose your religious bonuses?

how, conceptually, would that be different than a culture victory?

You wil still spread it with a religion mechanics, you will still use faith as a main resource. The one thing that will change is converting religion beliefs into Ideology dogmats that will be stronger but with a downside for example. This downside you can use against different Civs. For example Ecology could provide large buffs for National Parks, Neighborhoods, Preserves, titles with high appeal etc. But you will loose loyality, and hapiness for industrial zones, mines, co2 etc. So you will grain a possibility to spread your Ideology to high industrialized neighbor and make even their cities flip. That could spice up late game. Pretty different from culture game.

 

[SandFli]

That's a good point. That's why I would like to see a possibility of converting your religion into Ideology after discovering rationalism in a game. So you can secularise your Civilization. Your religion would be converted into something similar to a legacy bonus from Government Mechanic and on top of that, you would be able to found an Ideology with a new late-game set of modifiers and still spread it with your units and still go for a religious victory.

Entirely agree. Players could choose to convert Faith from Religion to Ideology. It would be good to see 'Ideologies' emerge at ~3 stages throughout the game.

Ancient (or earlier) would be Pantheons, expanded upon, to represent a number of traditional beliefs of your Population or Civilizations Culture.
~Medieval era onwards, players can begin to dispel Pantheons to push organized Religions, which combine Population preference and State preference.
Industrial era or later, Ideologies could emerge, under State control & promoted to the Population, and further aided by the relative removal of Religions and Pantheons.

Pantheon-type beliefs could still be prevalent in the late game, with some benefits for the longevity of the traditions, but with less and less Pressure to modern, Ideology-led Civilizations. By remaining focused on Pantheons or Religions, Reformations are then possible at each stage, in place of upgrading to a new Religion or Ideology.

The conflict between traditional Pantheon beliefs, organized Religious beliefs, and political Ideology beliefs throughout could make for a more interesting and challenging 'Religious' Victory, and make the proportion of followers within a Population matter more. This would also have the advantages of improving the late game, as you rightly point out, and also allow for animist or shamanic (Waashat, Tengriism, etc.) beliefs that either awkwardly fit the current Religious system, or are not included at all. More management of the balance between the advantages and disadvantages of your chosen belief system would be required, and players would have more than one shot at founding a belief system. I've been working on an idea along these lines for a while.

 

[Abaxial]

I will note here that the idea of "ethnic religion" - especially when it comes to Judaism - is an extremely recent one.

It's a technical term in the study of religions. "Universalising" (or something similar) is another, and there is a third that I have forgotten.

Yes, of course other religions like Buddhism have spread widely, but not at sword point.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Entirely agree. Players could choose to convert Faith from Religion to Ideology. It would be good to see 'Ideologies' emerge at ~3 stages throughout the game.

It would also be a good way to integrate religion generally with the other mechanics instead of making it this kind of unfun, unrelated side game. Instead of always feeling compelled to use religion for a religious victory, you could develop and pivot the religious mechanics into other victory paths.

I think this should probably be balanced out by affording a similar way to pivot other victory paths into religious victories. An obvious example would be maybe giving campuses an extra building or project that would let you "deconvert" religions and achieve a rationalist ideological victory.

In general I think a big problem with the current victory conditions is that a) they tend to snowball in isolation without interacting substantially with other victory paths, and b) they aren't easy to pivot between after you choose your snowball(s). I think the game would overall be a lot more fun if there were more complexity late game as to being able to more substantially pivot and/or affect competing victories. Although that might just generally be my preferred style of game generally--I don't find foregone conclusion games especially interesting and love games with the potential for a lot of endgame changeups--and I suppose civ has the snowball model in part because many players like that aspect of it. Maybe it could be split up better into different variations on the game, where some players can enjoy a more traditional slow build to domination game in one mode, while others could enjoy something more dynamic and unpredictable in another mode.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

but not at sword point.

Looks meaningfully at Ashoka, Siamese policies towards the South, the Burmese SLORC policies, U Wirathu, Phra Kittiwuttho, the Sri Lankan BBS, the Ikko-ikki, and others.

Checks out. Most of these were at gunpoint. A few swords, though.

 

[Yudhisthira]

Looks meaningfully at Ashoka,

Can u elaborate on that, sounds interesting.

Siamese policies towards the South, the Burmese SLORC policies, U Wirathu, Phra Kittiwuttho, the Sri Lankan BBS, the Ikko-ikki, and others.

Checks out. Most of these were at gunpoint. A few swords, though.

Don't know about Siam thou most of other cases look like connected to modern politics,ethnic etc issues.
It doesn't throw light on Buddhism spread during antiquity from its birth place in Gangetic plains to Central,East Asia & may be to west also.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Ikko-ikki

Just want to point out most of the Ikko-ikki were not about forcing Buddhism proselytization onto others but more or less socio-religious rebellions against local lords. The majority of pre-modern popular rebellions in East Asia had a similar socio-religious background while not really caring about proselytism.

They were really fierce though, enough to debunk the good old "Buddhism is peaceful" myth.

 

[Abaxial]

From Chris Park (2004) Religion and geography. Chapter 17 in Hinnells, J. (ed) Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion. London: Routledge :

"From a geographical perspective it is more useful to distinguish universal and ethnic religions. Universal (or universalising) religions - such as Christianity, Islam and the various forms of Buddhism - seek world-wide acceptance by actively looking for and attracting new members (converts). Ethnic religions, are very different in that they do not seek converts."

So I retract remarks about Buddhism.

Beyond religion, consider some tribal culture in the Pacific NW that did not interact with colonial cultures until the 19th C. They nevertheless existed for thousands of years. Now compare their achievements over that period with the Tech and Civic trees in Civ VI. How much did they unlock? Almost nothing. Compare it with any European or Asian civilisation. Why no development? Because why should they develop along this path? For such a tribe, "victory" can be thought of as preserving their traditions in peace. All the victory conditions in Civ VI are irrelevant to them.

So my solution is simple: such tribes don't belong in Civ VI, except maybe as something like city states. To be a player civilisation, a culture must be one for whom the various victory conditions make some sort of sense.

In fact, replacing all the city states with "minor cultures/kingdoms" would not be a bad idea, and solve the matter of trying to think of a city to replace Lisbon once Portugal becomes a player civilisation. The dynamics of player interaction with CS would be more realistic if you think of relations with, say, Bhutan, than with the "independent city of Bologna" for example.

 

[EarendilTheMariner]

I think city states are a good idea to keep, it reflects how not every nation was a large empire and some were just independent cities or small areas. Something like Singapore is a perfect example of this. Unless they want to turn Singapore into something like civ 5 Venice, with only one city, then it really wouldn't fit as it's own separate civ, because it only controls a single tiny island. While it is important, Historically, Culturaly and Economically, it simply wouldn't work in the current format of Civ 6, so a City State makes perfect sense. Especially since Singapore is literally a City State in real life too. Similar logic goes for CS like Valletta, Caguana, Brunei, Hong Kong, Nan Madol and Geneva. There are other City States that are just major cities of Civs not in the game, which I think is another good use of the concept.

 

[Abaxial]

Except that

Valletta = Malta
Brunei is a state
Geneva is part of Switzerland
Bologna is part of Italy
Jerusalem is part of Israel
Hattusa was the capital of the Hittite empire

etc etc

So it's more appropriate to call them minor states/countries.

 

[Unmitigated Gaul]

Except that

Valletta = Malta
Brunei is a state
Geneva is part of Switzerland
Bologna is part of Italy
Jerusalem is part of Israel
Hattusa was the capital of the Hittite empire

etc etc

So it's more appropriate to call them minor states/countries.

That the city states that still exist today are within the boundaries of modern nations doesn’t seem like a reason to exclude them?

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Can u elaborate on that, sounds interesting.

I believe it's because Ashoka is known for becoming a huge pacifist after seeing the horrors of war and the death it brought.

 

[Yudhisthira]

I believe it's because Ashoka is known for becoming a huge pacifist after seeing the horrors of war and the death it brought.

Hmm, I asked from the context of Asoka & spread of Buddhism. I mean Did he used violence to convert people to Buddhism?

Much of Indian history is a long and often bloody tussle between Buddhism, local polytheistic cults which we now call Hinduism, and Jainism (and groups within and between those!) .

Thou, there was competition between Buddhism,Hinduism & other Indian religions but I don't think it was 'bloody' one.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Hmm, I asked from the context of Asoka & spread of Buddhism. I mean Did he used violence to convert people to Buddhism?

Nope. Here's a video I think can help you.

 

[Yudhisthira]

My friend, I have watched it along with several bollywood movies & dramas on Asoka. I am very well aware of popular image of Asoka the great pacifist.

I think there is some misunderstanding here.
@Andrew Johnson [FXS] said

Looks meaningfully at Ashoka,
Checks out. Most of these were at gunpoint. A few swords, though.

I am asking from this context. May be we can get to know something new.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

I am asking from this context. May be we can get to know something new.

Ah, ok. It appears from reading that he did resort to some usage of violence against other religions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka#Violence_after_conversion

 

[Yudhisthira]

Ah, ok. It appears from reading that he did resort to some usage of violence against other religions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka#Violence_after_conversion

Things is these r problematic sources( mostly later Buddhist ones) & doesn't match with evidences & other sources.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Things is these r problematic sources( mostly later Buddhist ones) & doesn't match with evidences & other sources.

Well then, I'm going to need to pass the torch to someone more knowledged than me.

 

[Henri Christophe]

So we are going to ignore the Khoisan?

To be honest these kind of civs would fit better on a possible Prehistoric Era for CIV7, until then I dont see how to make sense to the way of life and organization of Inuit, Aboriginals or Khoisan on CIV6.

By the way I would prefer less late eras and more early eras.

Inuit, Aboriginals and Khoisan I also would love to see in next Civilization expansion.

If they don't have leader, at least they can have a supreme god as Kupe the Navigator was to Maori, it is enought to do a game