Could religion become too customizable

[Alk3Crimson]

On history - accuracy isn't an issue. Civ5 seems to model the grand sweep of history while opening the door to new outcomes. Issues with Civ4 religion was it was tied to tech research and it ignored the polytheistic traditions that existed for thousands of years before the more familiar religions came into being.

In civ4 all religions can be founded in the same game. Not to mention they all offer the same benefit.

It's nice that that they're trying something difficult and introducing 'faith' currency for religion. This will reduce crowding while maintaining scarcity by limiting how easily 'faith' is earned. Ed Beach recently commented how costs of Great Prophets scale up exponentially during the renaissance as religion fades. That's a neat way to incentivize change. No more late game prophet spamming to add extra happiness. lol.

This isn't quite true. It's been said that the game has been balanced so only 5 or so religions in a given game can be founded, so if you slack on Faith you won't be able to found one yourself.

 

[dexters]

This isn't quite true. It's been said that the game has been balanced so only 5 or so religions in a given game can be founded, so if you slack on Faith you won't be able to found one yourself.

I thought I mentioned that you can only found limited religion. But yea, I'm fine with the limit on how many can be in the game, gives more room for the religions that are founded to actually grow and give incentives for civs who don't found their own to convert.

As for faith, everyone earns it, probably produced from your palace, i think you unlock your pantheon with 20. There are probably more structures like cathedrals that produces more faith later on.

Everyone will get those base bonuses; and I believe the devs also said you could ignore religion if you are an atheist.

 

[Louis XXIV]

If you don't found a religion, you can keep your pagan pantheon or you can follow someone else's religion. Just like in real history.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

If you don't found a religion, you can keep your pagan pantheon or you can follow someone else's religion. Just like in real history.

Yeah, I don't know. At first I was not looking forward to re-adding religion to the game, but this sounds like it's it's going to be interesting.

 

[craig123]

This isn't quite true. It's been said that the game has been balanced so only 5 or so religions in a given game can be founded, so if you slack on Faith you won't be able to found one yourself.

The article said: "In a 10 civilisation game, only about 5 will be able to start a religion." From this we might infer that there will be half as many religions as civs.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I felt that religion in Civ4 was a good simple abstraction of one element, which is the spread of it beyond borders and the alliances that resulted. But I think Civ5 will be a little deeper. The Pantheon itself seems fun even if it only will exist briefly in the game.

 

[_hero_]

Ah the joys of the internet.

"My game isn't customize-able enough fix this!"

Company adds highly customize-able features:

"This is too customize-able I want things set in stone!"

Poor game developers, no matter what they do they are going to tick lots of people off.

Seriously though, modding is the way to go.

 

[dexters]

I felt that religion in Civ4 was a good simple abstraction of one element, which is the spread of it beyond borders and the alliances that resulted. But I think Civ5 will be a little deeper. The Pantheon itself seems fun even if it only will exist briefly in the game.

It was my impression pantheon beliefs provide base bonuses and that religion bonuses as a whole do not expire, only its importance and ability to spread it.

In anycase, I just like the idea of pantheons as an early customizer. I see increasingly divergent civs with both the SP and religion in play.

 

[Alk3Crimson]

I felt that religion in Civ4 was a good simple abstraction of one element, which is the spread of it beyond borders and the alliances that resulted. But I think Civ5 will be a little deeper. The Pantheon itself seems fun even if it only will exist briefly in the game.

I wonder if you'll be able to stick with a pantheon for your religion, or you'll be forced to go with a more monotheistic model. I think the ability to carry a pagan religion into power in the modern age would be interesting.

 

[dexters]

I wonder if you'll be able to stick with a pantheon for your religion, or you'll be forced to go with a more monotheistic model. I think the ability to carry a pagan religion into power in the modern age would be interesting.

Good question.

My feeling is you have to choose, but it's also possible religion is built independent of pantheons.

And this makes historical sense, lots of places where a specific religion is dominant maintain lots of local pantheons.

Even something like Catholicism, where westerners associate with the inquisition and religious wars and forced conversions tend to co-exist with local dieties and pantheons in many places of the developing world.

The way I see it, everyone get their pantheon beliefs.

Religion comes after and layers over top of that. But you never lose your pantheon benefits.

 

[Seek]

I wonder if you'll be able to stick with a pantheon for your religion, or you'll be forced to go with a more monotheistic model. I think the ability to carry a pagan religion into power in the modern age would be interesting.

It would be interesting, especially if Great Prophets will be able to unlock more Pantheon beliefs if all the allowed religions are already taken - so one could make an actual polytheistic religion.

 

[Montov]

The article said: "In a 10 civilisation game, only about 5 will be able to start a religion." From this we might infer that there will be half as many religions as civs.

Does anybody has ideas how this limit will be implemented? If Faith is accumulated from the palace, and the Great Prophet will appear when a threshold is reached, then I assume every civ will get a Great Prophet at roughly the same time... I hope religions will not be found at once, actually, but giving random Great Prophets to civs could work.

 

[GenjiKhan]

What I'm most intrigued about readding Religion in Civilization is about how Rationalism would influence religion .

 

[potatosalad]

But the "most" beneficial belief will vary wildly depending on your civ/strategy. I don't think there will be a cut and dry "best" belief. It's all situational.

Yes, I know that. That's why I said "most beneficial", rather than "best". Sure, the belief you'll benefit most from will depend on stuff like what goals you have for the game, but figuring out that X is better for culture victory and Y is better for science victory doesn't require particularly in-depth analysis and foresight.

What I'm most intrigued about readding Religion in Civilization is about how Rationalism would influence religion .

Also piety. Technically, now that we have the option, shouldn't piety give religion bonuses rather than cultural bonuses? I wonder how they'll handle that, if they'll just ignore and leave religion out of social policies completely, or if they'll incorporate some faith bonuses in piety, and perhaps spread around a little in other policies too. A third and perhaps the most thorough option would be to add a completely new policy tree for religion and faith bonuses, naming that piety instead and renaming the old piety something else, but I think the feature list would say something about "new social policies" if they planned that.

 

[MARDUK80]

Also piety. Technically, now that we have the option, shouldn't piety give religion bonuses rather than cultural bonuses? I wonder how they'll handle that, if they'll just ignore and leave religion out of social policies completely, or if they'll incorporate some faith bonuses in piety, and perhaps spread around a little in other policies too. A third and perhaps the most thorough option would be to add a completely new policy tree for religion and faith bonuses, naming that piety instead and renaming the old piety something else,

This is whats intriguing to me also. Would be absolutely great if the social policy system would be revamped reasonably. There is nothing wrong with it as its current state, in fact, the SPs are one of my favorite things in CiV. It just would be so great if they added some new branches or completely new tree(s). I am sure the religion system is a lot of fun, but they shouldn't forget SPs. Social Policies is, for me at least, the thing that has been making me to play CiV even more, to try different combinations and kept me excited for a long time. With some new ones there would be new tactics for old players to discover and thus increasing the life span of the game.

Like mentioned many times already, Environmentalism should be a new SP, other Piety (with Faith Religion/bonuses), old Piety renamed for something Cultural, and Commerce split to Commerce (gold buildings, trade routes, resources and mercantile CSs bonuses) and Navalism (with water tile, foreign trade route, naval units/buildings and promotion bonuses). There could even be a "Labor" SP with production, wonder (national, natural, world) worker / work boat bonuses and additional improvements like the Canal.

but I think the feature list would say something about "new social policies" if they planned that.

Yes, unfortunately this is what makes me not to get excited / hopeful of seeing new SPs in G&K