Could religion be modded to simulate disease?

[Master Kodama]

This may be premature, and I could be impossible for all I know, but the thought struck me that the parameters that control the religion might be used to simulate the development and spread of disease. Not to knock religion, or the game mechanics, but CIV religions work similarly to disease, spreading from city to city and from civilization to civilization. Using the same mechanics, one might be able to create a model for the spread of infectious deseases, preferably without having to replace or gut the existing religions feature. I've always thought that disease would add a much needed historical element to Civ, considering that events as huge as the colonization of the New World would not have occurred as they did if it weren't for disease.

If it is possible, I currently have no idea how to do this, as I'm only just familiarizing myself with the basics of modding in Civ4. Beyond that, I'm not sure I have the time or the patience to figure this one out all by myself (me=lazy? ). It would take a lot of work, and would almost certainly require the SDK and other resources currently beyond the community, but it's an idea I thought I'd put out there.

 

[Raize]

I can see it now... "Gonorrhea has spread in London!"
. . .

It seems to me that it would work, the only thing you'd have to do is have the religions grant maladies instead of bonuses and disable the temples from being buildable and modify the civics (this last part possible?)

 

[Master Kodama]

An amusing example, but my thoughts exactly. If the... er, "religions" could spread unhealth instead of commerce etc. then it would work out pretty well. I know for a fact that each religion is individually moddable (HOW moddable, I'm not sure), so... HOPEFULLY one could make a new suit of "religions" that functioned as diseases.

Beyond that, it's a bit more unclear -- for instance, could a disease go away eventually, or would its permanence in a city mark its population as resistant to that particular ailment? Would you need or have available something specific to combat the effects of diseases (disease-specific buildings??), or would adding more health-bonus buildings and improvements be sufficient?

Anyhoo, anyone who has any constructive input, info, or thoughts on the subject, please do share. For now, I'm off to .

 

[ShroudedMist]

Actually I was thinking just along these lines a few days ago. It'd be neat to adapt some game mechanism to simulate the Black Death.

 

[Raize]

Oh, I know! You could make the temples CANCEL the effect of the disease. That'd do it.

 

[Tunch Khan]

Given the game mechanics i don't see a reason it can't be implemented. It's one of the best ideas I heard this week.
They can spread from city to city via trade routes, human contact (just like religion does) basily add a new religion, name it different and give some traits like decrease health, population etc.
So what were the major diseases in history? These are a few that i thought were/are widespread (in millions) rather than small examples.

Leprosy
Plauge-Black Death
Spanish Influenza
Avian Influenza ? (Bird Flu)
AIDS ?
Small Pox
Chicken Pox ?
Typhus
Cholera
Malaria
Bubonic Plague
Ebola?
Syphilis (killed a great number of native americans)
Tuberculosis
Yellow Fever

They can all be added but the question is can we mod some of them to appear more often than others? Can they coexist with religion at the same time? Like we don't want them to replace any existing religion. This part can be a little tricky. We need more thoughts on this.

 

[Uty]

If you want to go over the top, this could also include zombie infestations

 

[Ralendil]

problem would be: you can't cure the disease, and can't slow its spread"

it means you will all end with cities under disease

 

[ShroudedMist]

omg zombies! right on!

 

[Master Kodama]

Oh, I know! You could make the temples CANCEL the effect of the disease. That'd do it.

That's kind of what I was getting at with the "disease-specific buildings." Not sure how keen I am on this idea though, because what would said buildings represent? And if you could build them immediately after your city got the disease, instead of, say, having to have a certain tech-level or something, then that might defeat the point of having disease in the first place.

problem would be: you can't cure the disease, and can't slow its spread"

it means you will all end with cities under disease

Yes, that's a problem I noted. But, IF a disease could not be removed from a city, then the city certainly couldn't get that disease again. Once measures were taken by the AI or player to combat/negate the effects of disease, then that city would be immune/resistant to the disease from then on -- it could never have an epidemic of that variety.

Also, Hospitals might be made to negate all ill effects from disease instead of just adding some extra health.

So far, this looks like it would work best in a scenario setting, to simulate the Black Death, or Small Pox spreading to the New World. Otherwise you'd get diseases being "founded" in certain cities. And, who would want to "found" a disease anyway?

One idea I had along these lines was to have "plagues" that would be "founded" with techs like Animal Husbandry (or something). The advantage to being the first to get plagued might be that, as I mentioned above, you wouldn't have to worry about it after the initial epidemic, which would then be spread to your rivals. Later in the game, you could even spread your vast array of diseases to some pristine continent that had "founded" few or no diseases, and wreak havoc on the disease-free populace with a bunch of diseases all striking at once, and a different "building" needed to combat each, simulating what occurred in the New World. But I'm not sure if the concept is even viable in the first place, as "I'd better get this plague out of the way first thing *sigh*" is not an entirely positive sentiment. Building up diseases in your civ to prevent the devastation of getting infected from outside is a little too much like chopping off your fingers one at a time and treating the wounds to make sure no one else will chop them all off at once when you don't have enough bandages handy. I suppose it could be made to work, if the proper measures for combating each disease were implemented along with the tech that started the disease, like the ability to make "temples" that negate the unhealth effects, and if the diseases came at reasonable intervals.

My one fear right now is that I'll try this out and get messages like, "Peter has converted to Small Pox!"

 

[Raize]

That's kind of what I was getting at with the "disease-specific buildings." Not sure how keen I am on this idea though, because what would said buildings represent?

Clinics, vaccine labs, and condom distribution centers?

 

[gunnergoz]

To work, this would have to involve other adjustments to the game, since I expect that a lot more time and resources would have to be expended to deal with these diseases. Perhaps altering the time per turn so that the game is 10-20 per cent longer, if that is feasible (yes, I think it would be historically accurate in that disease has routinely set back cultures and nations, sometimes for generations.) Given that this time per turn change would be feasible, then the disease model would be an EXCELLENT addition to the game.

I strongly suspect that it could be modded into the game in addition to the religion system already in the game. There well might be performance hits due to more calculations to be made each turn as to disease spread and built-up resistance.

The disease model I envision could be triggered in several ways: by events (e.g. cities reach a certain population level, armies are stacked beyond a certain level), by location (e.g. proximity to flood plains leads to mosquitos then malaria), by script (e.g. WMD bio warfare as a technology?) and by randomization.

Disease spread would be altered by natural immunization effect (after so many turns "infected" a city would eventually become resistant to the disease and its effects) and by technological remedies (disease-specific buildings or technologies).

This got me to thinking...The same religious spread model could also be used to spread other things accross the map. I'm thinking of things like organized crime (loss of income); class related poverty (loss of happiness); moral decadence (loss of culture); resistance to technology (loss of reseach points.) There would be counters to these trends: police stations, social integration incentives, family values emphasis, secular education -- all could be used as researchable technologies to reduce or eliminate the obnoxious trends in society.

Again, all these things will add complexity to the game, will likely lengthen it and would also perhaps be a performance hit...but their addition would no doubt greatly enrich the Civ 4 experience.

I hope some Python savvy modders take up the torch...

 

[maxpublic]

If you want to go over the top, this could also include zombie infestations

I see a mod in the making - "Dawn of the Dead". Rising from the ashes of a world destroyed by vengeful, brain-eating ambulatory corpses, you and your hardy band of followers must reestablish civilization while fending off the hordes of zombies that, strangely enough, never seem to decompose, much less run out of the energy required to chase you down and tear you to little bite-sized morsels. I'm thinking the "Chainsaw" invention would be real useful in this mod.

Max

 

[gunnergoz]

Bumped, because this is a worthy idea, zombie mod notwithstanding...

 

[sovarn]

i wonder how state diseases would work then would states with similar sponsered diseases like each other more cos they feel sympathy with them?

"You have discovered dysentry. Would you like to change state sponsered disease to dysentry? or would you like to stick with leprosy?"

Original idea but i dunno how you would implement it. Although building missionaries will be fun lol.

 

[gunnergoz]

The entire religion thing is apparently all Python scripts, so it should be feasible to mod in a disease model that does not include the concepts of "state diseases" and replaces it with something else entirely, like a "quarantined" label that impacts city growth, trade and even popularity with other nations. Similarly, an advanced state with a "clean bill of health" (literally) would be a paragon to be emulated and admired...no doubt boosting culture, trade and influence. But at some expense, indubitably, to cash flow (as in rising health insurance costs in our modern society.)

 

[zyphyr]

I haven't really looked to deeply into how they work, but perhaps it would be possible to make the diseases come not from Techs but from huts.

That would eliminate the issue of posibly avoiding a tech just to avoid creating the guaranteed disease.

 

[Ralendil]

The entire religion thing is apparently all Python scripts, so it should be feasible to mod in a disease model that does not include the concepts of "state diseases" and replaces it with something else entirely, like a "quarantined" label that impacts city growth, trade and even popularity with other nations. Similarly, an advanced state with a "clean bill of health" (literally) would be a paragon to be emulated and admired...no doubt boosting culture, trade and influence. But at some expense, indubitably, to cash flow (as in rising health insurance costs in our modern society.)

hmmm

I think if you use Python you will be able to configurate it like you want...
Perheaps you would be able to add the remove disease option .

 

[Haarbal]

how about rare recources as a antidote for a disease? Or combining this with the "disease-specific-buildings", so it differences per disease.
Example: Condom factory against AIDS and the resource penicilline against Tuberculosis (i don't know if the second example is correct, but you get the idea).
And how about the idea of biological warfare, through this idea? instead of missionairies, spy like units who don't spread religion, but disease in your opponents cities.

Edit: maybe ad something with immunity into it like every civ is immune to a disease (bassed on first city or something)

 

[sovarn]

good idea. and then this way you will have an excuse to remod in the rubber resource.