De-Christianising Religion

[evonannoredars]

I've been really enjoying how Civ 7 is shifting away from having predominantly european civs, but it was such a shame to find out that the model for religion in Civ 7 is broadly the same as Civ 6's. (I have not played Civ 5, so can't comment on what the nature of Civ 5's religion system was.) I think it's rather undeniable how Christian-centric Civ 6's system was, with missionaries, apostles and inquisitors, relics and generally a very Christian (although perhaps more broadly abrahamic) concept of needing to convert other civs to your religion.

With Civ 7 shifting religion further towards something which supports other victory types rather than being a victory in of itself, it would've been a great opportunity for introducing more intentional opportunities for other religious playstyles, such as a defensive playstyle which benefits you the stronger they are in your own cities, such as providing boosts to yields from certain buildings, or a syncretism playstyle which allows you to recieve (diminished) rewards from other religions in your cities (similar to Mvemba a Nzinga's ability) or be able to navigate diplomacy easier with civs who have established their religions in your cities - or other playstyles for interacting with religion in unique ways!

These are of course possible to do anyway to a certain extent normally, but I believe providing more intentional opportunities for how to handle these religious 'ideologies', each with similar levels of support from the game - perhaps even with unique units and buildings for each one, so you don't have to go through the hassle of reconverting all your cities one by one with missionaries or 'mediator'-type unit which can automatically balance out religions in your cities for the syncretism playstyle - would open up many more options for how you want religion to support how you're playing the game or what victory you're aiming for. It might make it more fun to some extent, even if you love the current religion system or (like me lol) find it a bit tedious having to fend off enemy apostles, as well as simply making it less Christian-centric!

 

[Zaarin]

TBH Civ5/Civ6/Civ7's religion system isn't very good at representing Christianity, either; if anything, I'd simply call it "gamey." I was hoping for a much more nuanced take on religion in Civ7, and while I like most of what I've seen of the game, somehow making a not-great religion system worse is probably the biggest disappointment I've had so far with the game.

 

[Patine]

TBH Civ5/Civ6/Civ7's religion system isn't very good at representing Christianity, either; if anything, I'd simply call it "gamey." I was hoping for a much more nuanced take on religion in Civ7, and while I like most of what I've seen of the game, somehow making a not-great religion system worse is probably the biggest disappointment I've had so far with the game.

It always struck me, ultimately, as AoE2 Monks with some AoM props.

 

[aieeegrunt]

TBH Civ5/Civ6/Civ7's religion system isn't very good at representing Christianity, either; if anything, I'd simply call it "gamey." I was hoping for a much more nuanced take on religion in Civ7, and while I like most of what I've seen of the game, somehow making a not-great religion system worse is probably the biggest disappointment I've had so far with the game.

Anyone who thinks that the Civ6 system is Christian centric clearly has no idea what Christianity actually is

To be fair, it seems like neither do a lot of people who identify as Christian

 

[evonannoredars]

TBH Civ5/Civ6/Civ7's religion system isn't very good at representing Christianity, either; if anything, I'd simply call it "gamey." I was hoping for a much more nuanced take on religion in Civ7, and while I like most of what I've seen of the game, somehow making a not-great religion system worse is probably the biggest disappointment I've had so far with the game.

Aye didn't mean it was intended to represent Christianity as such, instead that it very Christianity-flavoured with the units (most of which are based in Christianity) and relics (which like ~60% of which are real Christian relics) and the way it works, which yeah is gamey, is I think rooted in the history of Christianity - perhaps describing it as it's broad ideals wasn't well formulated, although I stand by referring to it as Christian-centric in terms of the aesthetics, if not so much mechanics.

Likely not an intentional decision from the devs in Civ 6, but aye, disappointing they've not given it the same deepened and diverse treatment they've given other parts of their game design so far - hoping the modern age will bring something more interesting to the table, or even better, a future DLC reworking the whole system lol

 

[Patine]

Aye didn't mean it was intended to represent Christianity as such, instead that it very Christianity-flavoured with the units (most of which are based in Christianity) and relics (which like ~60% of which are real Christian relics) and the way it works, which yeah is gamey, is I think rooted in the history of Christianity - perhaps describing it as it's broad ideals wasn't well formulated, although I stand by referring to it as Christian-centric in terms of the aesthetics, if not so much mechanics.

Likely not an intentional decision from the devs in Civ 6, but aye, disappointing they've not given it the same deepened and diverse treatment they've given other parts of their game design so far - hoping the modern age will bring something more interesting to the table, or even better, a future DLC reworking the whole system lol

Terminology and actually reflecting the religion, meaningfully, are, still very different notions. You could have the same mechanics, but use the terms, "Dawah," and, "Jihad," and just make a different group of people upset instead. The fact is, the mechanics are what are flawed.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Terminology and actually reflecting the religion, meaningfully, are, still very different notions. You could have the same mechanics, but use the terms, "Dawah," and, "Jihad," and just make a different group of people upset instead. The fact is, the mechanics are what are flawed.

Frankly offending Christians is probably the safe move, as you won’t be seeing anything more than perhaps some online whining

 

[sTAPler27]

I've been really enjoying how Civ 7 is shifting away from having predominantly european civs, but it was such a shame to find out that the model for religion in Civ 7 is broadly the same as Civ 6's. (I have not played Civ 5, so can't comment on what the nature of Civ 5's religion system was.) I think it's rather undeniable how Christian-centric Civ 6's system was, with missionaries, apostles and inquisitors, relics and generally a very Christian (although perhaps more broadly abrahamic) concept of needing to convert other civs to your religion.

With Civ 7 shifting religion further towards something which supports other victory types rather than being a victory in of itself, it would've been a great opportunity for introducing more intentional opportunities for other religious playstyles, such as a defensive playstyle which benefits you the stronger they are in your own cities, such as providing boosts to yields from certain buildings, or a syncretism playstyle which allows you to recieve (diminished) rewards from other religions in your cities (similar to Mvemba a Nzinga's ability) or be able to navigate diplomacy easier with civs who have established their religions in your cities - or other playstyles for interacting with religion in unique ways!

These are of course possible to do anyway to a certain extent normally, but I believe providing more intentional opportunities for how to handle these religious 'ideologies', each with similar levels of support from the game - perhaps even with unique units and buildings for each one, so you don't have to go through the hassle of reconverting all your cities one by one with missionaries or 'mediator'-type unit which can automatically balance out religions in your cities for the syncretism playstyle - would open up many more options for how you want religion to support how you're playing the game or what victory you're aiming for. It might make it more fun to some extent, even if you love the current religion system or (like me lol) find it a bit tedious having to fend off enemy apostles, as well as simply making it less Christian-centric!

Thank you! The exploration era really pushes you to be a prostheltizer meanwhile there's only like 3 prostheletyzing religions on the planet. It's evident this game still uses Christianity as its main source of inspiration because we still get 3 different branches of christianity to choose as separate religions. I was hoping we'd see stuff like a differentiation between mono and poly theistic religions in this game or a schism system in which people can take some of your beliefs at the cost of spreading your religion further. Things that show the variety of ways people worship instead of everyone being monotheistic prostheltizers.

 

[notNamed]

The exploration era really pushes you to be a prostheltizer meanwhile there's only like 3 prostheletyzing religions on the planet. It's evident this game still uses Christianity as its main source of inspiration because we still get 3 different branches of christianity to choose as separate religions.

The options you have for religion are obviously built from the modern situation in the world which is dominated by those few that do spread religion.
30% of the world is Christian (proselytizing), 25% is Muslim (proselytizing), 15% Hindu (proselytizing but beaten at it, nowadays just India's ginormous population), 6% Buddhist (proselytizing).
So you've got 76% of the world belonging to a proselytizing religion, further 15% being atheist and leaving you with a fairly minor percentage for anything "other", and even that category involves religions that chased converts, only failed at it.

Now obviously if you go further into history the religious landscape becomes less modern and one-note on this but the design here is clearly not playing with that.

 

[sTAPler27]

The options you have for religion are obviously built from the modern situation in the world which is dominated by those few that do spread religion.
30% of the world is Christian (proselytizing), 25% is Muslim (proselytizing), 15% Hindu (proselytizing but beaten at it, nowadays just India's ginormous population), 6% Buddhist (proselytizing).
So you've got 76% of the world belonging to a proselytizing religion, further 15% being atheist and leaving you with a fairly minor percentage for anything "other", and even that category involves religions that chased converts, only failed at it.

Now obviously if you go further into history the religious landscape becomes less modern and one-note on this but the design here is clearly not playing with that.

I though Hinduism was more of an Ethnic religion like Judaim rather than a universalizing one?

 

[Zaarin]

I though Hinduism was more of an Ethnic religion like Judaim rather than a universalizing one?

There are many varieties of Hinduism, some of which are universal. And to my knowledge, unless they're very niche, I don't think any variety of Hinduism refuses converts like modern Zoroastrianism does--and ancient Zoroastrianism was, of course, very universal. Even Judaism has had a complicated relationship with whether or not it accepts converts.

 

[notNamed]

I though Hinduism was more of an Ethnic religion like Judaism rather than a universalizing one?

Tell that to Southeast Asia (it's a complex topic but particularly the continental part shows signs of being fully Hindu [whence Angkor society] while maritime I've heard described as Buddhism and Hinduism being constrained to the elites... though even so you still get the back and forth in debates, but with the scale of conversion and politics involved, you could probably argue against it being a genuine proselytization process). Or just look at India as a place of many cultures rather than a single homogenous blob.
The rise and fall of Buddhism in Indian states didn't come about because random rice farmers decided to set up a forum and argue that some other faith has more merit to it. Nah, both sides were actively fighting for the flock with the typical back and forth between religious scholars arguing for their belief and getting the populace or the ruler to listen to them on how to properly to handle spiritual matters and ignore what the other scholars told him before/are telling him right now.

Of course, today you'd be hard-pressed to have an Indian colleague try and convince you to start practicing with them, go vegetarian and so on. But that is a modern development. You see this sort of respect build up in all of these religions today. Imams don't go to Europe to spread Islam, they just preach to the muslims living there. Same for Christian priests going to the Middle East overall servicing the existing community rather than actively trying to argue and convert villages to their belief. Same with Buddhists not trying to convert tourists who marvel at their temples by the millions.


You'll obviously need to go to the experts (books, papers,...) if you want to know more as I'm going off of very brief insights/contemporary descriptions by outside travelers. But even with those faint bits and pieces you quickly get to see that no, the modern state of the religion(s) is better understood as a historical anomaly than the norm.

 

[Patine]

Frankly offending Christians is probably the safe move, as you won’t be seeing anything more than perhaps some online whining

Thank you! The exploration era really pushes you to be a prostheltizer meanwhile there's only like 3 prostheletyzing religions on the planet. It's evident this game still uses Christianity as its main source of inspiration because we still get 3 different branches of christianity to choose as separate religions. I was hoping we'd see stuff like a differentiation between mono and poly theistic religions in this game or a schism system in which people can take some of your beliefs at the cost of spreading your religion further. Things that show the variety of ways people worship instead of everyone being monotheistic prostheltizers.

The options you have for religion are obviously built from the modern situation in the world which is dominated by those few that do spread religion.
30% of the world is Christian (proselytizing), 25% is Muslim (proselytizing), 15% Hindu (proselytizing but beaten at it, nowadays just India's ginormous population), 6% Buddhist (proselytizing).
So you've got 76% of the world belonging to a proselytizing religion, further 15% being atheist and leaving you with a fairly minor percentage for anything "other", and even that category involves religions that chased converts, only failed at it.

Now obviously if you go further into history the religious landscape becomes less modern and one-note on this but the design here is clearly not playing with that.

There are many varieties of Hinduism, some of which are universal. And to my knowledge, unless they're very niche, I don't think any variety of Hinduism refuses converts like modern Zoroastrianism does--and ancient Zoroastrianism was, of course, very universal. Even Judaism has had a complicated relationship with whether or not it accepts converts.

Manichaeism and Gnosticism were also once big Proselythizing Universalist Religions, often in cooperation after a certain point. Neo-Confucianism and Baha'i could also, from a certain point of view, be seen as such. There was also the phenomenon, distinct, but similar, of Triumphal Spread of Religion, that has been used by Prosetylizing Universalist Religions, but also by a fair number of Polytheist ones, like Olympian Polytheism during the Hellenistic (Alexandrian and Diadochi) Period, Capitoline Jovian Polytheism during the Pre-Christian Roman Empire, the Inti-led Polytheist Religion of the Inca over other Andean Peoples, and Zoroastrianism during the Acheimenid, Parthian, and Sassanid Iranian Empires. In fact, even though the two regions had similar broad religious foundations, each, such Triumphalism was used between States in both Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica to get subdued and tributary vassal states to acknowledge the conqueror's chief deity and religious idiosyncracies.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

I would honestly go as far as to say this is looking like the most Christian-centric, most Eurocentric depiction of religion in the game series yet. There is literally no way to have a religion in Antiquity, despite the fact that organized religion was a huge deal to pretty much all ancient civilizations across the globe, to the point where organized religion may predate sedentary living and civilization as a concept itself, depending on how you choose to interpret Göbekli Tepe. But no, FXS has doubled down on portraying religion as something inherently post-Roman (or at least, something that only became relevant past the peak of the Roman empire), something the player should primarily associate with feudal Europe and/or the colonial powers of the early modern period. This means that when you play as Confucius, you cannot found Confucianism during the time period he was alive.

On that note, I should point out the commonly held belief that Confucianism and Taoism shouldn't be considered religions, or at least not be placed in the same category as the Abrahamic faiths. This is actually a belief I myself hold, so why did I rant about Confucius earlier? The answer is that the most popular definitions of religion are deeply Orientalist; they have their roots in colonizers trying to figured what it is the colonized believe in instead of the teachings of Christ, but if you ask any of the experts on eastern religion (or heck, you are one of those experts by the mere virtue of being one of the billions of people who have grown up and lived in Asia their entire lives) you'll quickly find out that not only is there a significant overlap between the different teachings and mythologies, they don't cancel each other out, unlike what most Christians, Muslims & Jews are taught to believe. In other words: western pop culture has repeatedly mistaken allegiance for faith, and I really wish FXS had learned this lesson by now, thus applying a significantly more syncretic approach to the religion mechanic.

Now comes the question of how the hell one is ought to program this mechanic, since I've yet to know of a 4X game that has properly simulated religious syncretism. The reason as to why may be because religions have so far functioned as highly organized institutions that serve little purpose beyond acting as a social arm of The State, even though opening a history textbook will at least occasionally hit the reader with the inverse narrative: the state serving as the administrative arm of the clergy. Basically, a religious victory would only make sense if, 1. religious institutions were available as playable factions, and 2. winning the religious victory wouldn't necessarily prevent anyone else from winning another type of victory in the same game.

I've talked previously how the Secret Societies mode has been the closest the game series has ever come to simulating real life religions, as NPC factions that act largely independently from the people/spirit/government of each civ. If I were to elaborate on that core mechanic, here's what I would suggest:

1. Give each Religion/Secret Society a continuous string of different agendas for the civs to accomplish, much similar to city state quests. I think this ought to be the primary method, if not the only method, to acquire the perks that were just automatically given in Civ 6
2. Randomize which beliefs come with what religion. Again, we're on the theme that religions operate orthogonally to cultures and government
3. Measure the influence of religions not by a discreet number of followers, but rather by how much raw Faith has been dumped into each religion in each settlement. That way, if religious victory would still be a thing won by civs, the victory would be handed to whichever civ that spent the most Faith on the religion that took over the world, rather than the religion's "founder", since religions wouldn't have founders under this model
4. Allow for civs to found denominations that'd allow them to select their own schism beliefs. Though I do think there should also be an option for denominations to be founded on their own, given the right circumstances; it doesn't always have to be portrayed as The State "taking power back" from the The Church
5. Make the social policies regarding religion revolve around interfaith relations, largely to simulate why one part of the world pivoted towards religious uniformity, and why another instead went for religious diversity

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Allow for civs to found denominations that'd allow them to select their own schism beliefs. Though I do think there should also be an option for denominations to be founded on their own, given the right circumstances; it doesn't always have to be portrayed as The State "taking power back" from the The Church

This- in tandem with the non-state religions laid out in the rest of the post- is probably the best way I’ve seen to reflect denominations/schisms. Plus, it lets players retain the fun minigame of strategizing with their own religious beliefs.

I would have to hope that civs could join the new denominations founded by other civs, though.

 

[sTAPler27]

There are many varieties of Hinduism, some of which are universal. And to my knowledge, unless they're very niche, I don't think any variety of Hinduism refuses converts like modern Zoroastrianism does--and ancient Zoroastrianism was, of course, very universal. Even Judaism has had a complicated relationship with whether or not it accepts converts.

Yeah but there’s a difference between accepting converts and being universalizing. You can convert to Judaism and be welcomed in but I’ve yet to hear of Rabbis going to public places looking for converts. In fact they’re supposed to push you away at first to make you consider your commitment

 

[BackseatTyrant]

I would have to hope that civs could join the new denominations founded by other civs, though.

I would also hope that not all religions or religious denominations have a vested interest in winning the religious victory, so to speak. I mentioned agendas earlier, and for some of religions, those agendas would largely be variations of "make sure proselytes of other faiths don't get near our communities"

 

[Krajzen]

TBH Civ5/Civ6/Civ7's religion system isn't very good at representing Christianity, either; if anything, I'd simply call it "gamey." I was hoping for a much more nuanced take on religion in Civ7, and while I like most of what I've seen of the game, somehow making a not-great religion system worse is probably the biggest disappointment I've had so far with the game.

Religion is literally the only civ7 thing announced so far which has been flat out disappointing for me

Its just... the exact same system we've had since civ5 G&K, twelve years ago.

 

[Krajzen]

I though Hinduism was more of an Ethnic religion like Judaim rather than a universalizing one?

This is a very interesting question because it is certainly not proselytysing in the same way Buddhism and Abeahamic religions are, but then you realize that
1) There has never been such "ethnicity" or language as "Indian" (or identity - before late 19th century) so it has always been extremely multicultural, multi-language belief system even within Indian subcontinent, so it had to spread a lot and cross a ton of radical cultural barriers. Including the most radical od them all, the great cultural and linguisitc gap between Indo-Aryans and Dravidans!
2) Hinduism did manage to spread to Indonesia, Malaysia, Khmer and Champa by the early centuries AD and dominate them to the point of shaping royal ideology at the very top of those countries elite. Titanic temples of Angkor Wat and Prambanan were originally Hinduist after all!

It's the same with Confucianism and Taoism - not really proselytysing belief systems, but they did eventually shape daily spiritual practices as well as the beliefs of the elite of very diverse people of the entire East Asia plus Vietnam.

Similarly, even "ethnic pantheons" of antiquity could spread, which was evident in the Roman empire, ancient Middle East, and across the incredibly interesting history of Greeks in Central Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where their belief systems got syncretized with local pantheons and Buddhism.

 

[sTAPler27]

This is a very interesting question because it is certainly not proselytysing in the same way Buddhism and Abeahamic religions are, but then you realize that
1) There has never been such "ethnicity" or language as "Indian" (or identity - before late 19th century) so it has always been extremely multicultural, multi-language belief system even within Indian subcontinent, so it had to spread a lot and cross a ton of radical cultural barriers. Including the most radical od them all, the great cultural and linguisitc gap between Indo-Aryans and Dravidans!
2) Hinduism did manage to spread to Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and Champa by the early centuries AD and dominate them to the point of shaping royal ideology at the very top of those countries elite. Monumental Angkor Wat and Prambanan were originally Hindu temples after all!

It's the same with Confucianism and Taoism - not really proselytysing belief systems, but they did eventually shape daily spiritual practices and beliefs of very diverse people of the entire East Asia plus Vietnam

The same thing could be said about Judaism though, there are members of every race more or less, maybe not on large numbers but there are. But that's not really due to prostheletyzing but just growing how general populations grow. I think it helps if the religion feels specifically tied to a geographic feature or has inheritable elements, like Judaism for example where there are rules pertaining to ones status based upon whether their mother or father was Jewish.