Curious - why no Sikhs in Civ4?

Again, to restate my statements above, many of the religions in the game were chosen not for their numbers, but their overall influence to foreign nations and history as a whole (and not just relatively modern history, which Sikhism has played its role in).
 
thanks for the account Jas, it shows how hardy these people are, frankly I had no idea how brave they were before I looked it up, and I must admit I will see the sikh population with another perspective.

They're people who live and die for their values principles, and that alone commands deep respect.

Look into the elite Nihangs and Akali (not the political party "Akali Dal") for a greater insight. Most of these seem to have originated from a tribe called the Jats who invaded India from the North centuries ago. One of the Aryan groups who invaded and settled.


Why is the fact that a religion has some very brave members mean that it is more important than any of the existing religions in game?

Nowhere in the thread is there any comment about "more important", other than in your post?



I'd like to see a Sikh civ - if indeed there was one, as opposed to simply a large number of people with the same religion but no political unity... anyone know? :)

Yes, and its height (a golden age in many senses) was during the reign of the warrior King Maharaja Ranjit Singh. However, the Empire entirely secular with positions in government taken by Muslims and Hindus as well as Sikhs.




Jas,

I am an Indian and looking at your desire to put a Sikh Civ in the game.

On a serious note, having sikhism discovered and giving a martial sikh unit would have made playing as India (which I always do) more fun. The advantage could be balanced by making the Indian neighbor always aggressive.


That's a cool start and I'd love to play that mod :goodjob: An elite Nihang unit would fit the bill.
 
Yes, and its height (a golden age in many senses) was during the reign of the warrior King Maharaja Ranjit Singh. However, the Empire entirely secular with positions in government taken by Muslims and Hindus as well as Sikhs.

Even better! :) so now we have a leader, maybe a preferred civic(Free Religion) - what about a UB, any ideas?
 
Nowhere in the thread is there any comment about "more important", other than in your post?

But then surely that means that you would have 8 religions in game instead of 7, as you do not want to remove another? That, however, would upset game balance. The more religions there are, the less you have to rush to get one, the less the later religions spread, and the less likely you are to form alliances based on religion. We all know how unimportant Islam is in 99% of the games, imagine how useless an 8th religion would be?
 
I found this graph really enlightening although being wikipedia i have no idea how reliable it is ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Worldwide_percentage_of_Adherents_by_Religion.png

Anyway I was surprised that (according to the graph) only 4 game religions have over 1% of the world's population as followers... Taoists and Confucianists are a really tiny percentage, and yep Sikhism does beat Judaism although both are under 0.5% of world population.

I'd like to see a Sikh civ - if indeed there was one, as opposed to simply a large number of people with the same religion but no political unity... anyone know? :)

Confucianism had a huge role in Chinese history and deserves inclusion as a result. Taoism, got abit lucky getting in the seven chosen religions for the game.
 
^although Taoism itself was influential enough in East Asia.

and the Yin/Yang sign is one of the most recognizable symbols of Asia to pop culture.
 
Yes. All of the above!

What I found surprising was that so few religions in general have more than 0.5% of the world's population as followers.

Although that's still 30 million people, so not too bad...
 
Even better! :) so now we have a leader, maybe a preferred civic(Free Religion) - what about a UB, any ideas?

Yes, the Golden Temple, as a religious building. Or perhaps the associated Akal Takht, which is the source of Sikh military authority and strength.



But then surely that means that you would have 8 religions in game instead of 7, as you do not want to remove another? That, however, would upset game balance.

As I conceded earlier, the Sikh civ would add much more to the game than the Sikh religion. Hence, I am proposing adding the Sikh *civilisation* to the game :)



What technology would make Sikhism? What about Zoroastrianism?

As a religion (which I am proposing would be my second choice of addition, with the civ being first), the pre-requisites would be Hinduism and Islam. Hinduism and Islam, because some of the beliefs of both these are core to Sikhism.

Oddly though, Sikh beliefs are incredibly close to Orthodox Judaism and that is the closest religion in belief terms - really very close indeed! Far far closer than to Islam or Hinduism.
 
Today they practice the Sikh martial art of Gatka

A short video showing some Sikhs practicing Gatka.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KLN1jWdrJo

These do not appear to be the elite Nihang. Note that the Nihang train their sons in Gatka from around the age of 7 using wooden sticks instead of steel swords. Sikh women also carry weapons however, and can practice Gatka, as there is no inequality between men and women in Sikhism.



Here's a short 5 minute BBC documentary in English on Gatka practice in England.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0MJ6c7ymEo
 
The religious situation in China is very complex and confusing because it's relatively unorganised, everyone uses different definitions and methods of breaking down the demographics. What the graph above calls 'Chinese Universalism' most people call D/Taoism or Chinese folk religion (in fact, this is the first I've heard of the term 'Chinese Universalism' and I know a thing or two about Chinese culture). Today Confucianism (along with Buddhism and some other elements) is really mixed into Taoism rather than something that stands on its own (which I suspect is what 'universalism' refers to). So by that definition Firaxis just went with by far the 6 largest religions in the world today plus Judaism (but the reasons for the latter will be fairly obvious to most).

These (except Judaism) are also the only religions today that have more than a few million followers, so it makes sense to draw the line there. If you include Sikhism it's hard to argue a whole bunch of other religions of similar size like Zoroastrianism, Bahai, Jainism, Shinto, Juche, Voodoo, Spiritism and various New Age-ey beliefs shouldn't also be included, not to mention some non-modern ones (e.g. the Roman state religion had a much wider following than Sikhism ever did, especially as % of the world population). Sikhism may by common definitions be among the largest of that group, but the differences are very small (on a population of almost 7 billion), the definitions very vague and this represents only a snapshot in time.

You could argue until the end of the world about which religions are most 'deserving' of a place in Civ without ever agreeing on anything, especially since this is such a sensitive subject for which there often aren't any very precise or widely agreed-upon definitions. It's also a very culturally-dependent thing: many Christians want to see Christianity split up in different denominations, Asians or people with an Asian background want to see a different distribution of Asian religions, history-minded people want to see some historic religions, etc.

But today (and indeed for most of history) the world is roughly divided in 3 major groups of organised religions: Abrahamic, Indian and Far Asian (yes, that's a gross oversimplification but so is everything else in Civ). Each of these is represented in the game with (by far) its two largest individual religions (though again, the Far Asian situation is quite messy). On top of that you have Judaism, which is a bit of a special case anyway. Without making things really complicated that's as good as Firaxis could've done, really. That, and make the game as moddable as they did ;)
 
Yes, the Golden Temple, as a religious building. Or perhaps the associated Akal Takht, which is the source of Sikh military authority and strength.

As a Sikh, Jas..aint you overstating the more violent aspects of Sikhism?
Aint we after all supposed to saints as well as soldiers? :)

Other thoughts:-

Sikhism should be "created" upon the discovery of Liberalism (or whatever
tech gives you Free Religion) and the Sikh Civ should favour Free Religion as
a Civic in general.

For the UB I would suggest Lungaar Hall - +2 Happiness or +2 Health in a
City. Can't we all just get along ...and eat? :)

For UU I would go with Water Carrier.
A worker unit that starts with Medic II but heals enemy units in it's vicinity
aswell :)

> As I conceded earlier, the Sikh civ would add much more to the game than
> the Sikh religion. Hence, I am proposing adding the Sikh *civilisation* to
> the game :)

Would it not be better to simply create another CIV mod? Otherwise we'll
all be w@nking around for years (and years and years and years) on the
why there should or should not be a Sikh Civ?

*Holding Head in Hands*

Peace Civ Dudes. :)

Cheers
Elras
 
I think there is, or there should be, a mod where there are A LOT of religions to chose from, but only a certain number of religions (maybe 7 as per the current game default) allowed per game. Once one of the religion techs are discovered, a religion is picked. Once all 7 techs are discovered, only those 7 religions will be present in that game...

Just imagine, the Polish empire adopting the Sikh faith! It could happen ;)
 
Islam: Out of Arabia, pretty much all of the Middle East, North Africa, Indonesia...

.



Islam, all over england, and most of europe too :) (ITS THE MOST RAPIDLY GROWING RELIGION IN ENGLAND)


also theres LOTS of sikhs in england too
 
I'm thinking Priesthood for Sikihism, since Guru Nanak was succeeded by 9 Gurus, and Gurmat, a philosophy of Sikhism (correct me if i'm wrong, plz), means "counsel of the Gurus". Sounds like a form of Priesthood. The problem is Sikhism is regarded as a blend of Hinduism and Islam. If this is correct, this pushes it past Islam and Divine Right, making it really late-game.
 
I think they would have to create some other technology for Zoroastrianism. Maybe Dualism? Or Something. Please, Zoroastrians out there, CORRECT ME!!!!!:)
 
There's been much discussion about adding more religions, especially for RFC mod. Pretty much the idea was that the Civ4 designers found that "7" is a perfect number for the number of religions. Similarly, there's a limited number of corporations and resource types in the game. It might be that despite worshiper population size, the designers also went with religions that are more popularized in market areas of the game.

It struck me as odd that whilst Civ4 has a number of religions, it omits the Sikhs, when Sikhism is the 5th largest organised religion in the world. Why is that?
 
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