Design: Religions

[Kael]

I was thinking that the owner of the cult of the dragon holy city should be able to see whats happening in other civs cities where the cult has spread. The other religions do this and I just think it makes sense that the cult members would report back to home about the goings on in their cities.

I think he can. Am I wrong?

 

[Chalid]

You are wrong. He only can look into cities if it is his state religion...

 

[Kael]

You are wrong. He only can look into cities if it is his state religion...

Ahh.. makes sense.

 

[Jono]

Yeah its the only religion that didn't exist in the D&D game, and the only name I didn't make up. But its a tribute to my OO'er friends and although I agree that it doesn't quite match the rest I don't think its a particuraly bad name so it probably won't change unless the team members mount an effort to change it.

If you wanted you could make a summoning ritual for every civ at the end of the game (like spare race). OO would summon the Octopus Overlords, which then become a unit (and change the OO religion name)...

 

[Black Attila]

I am playing a noble game as Bannor with The Order as my religion, 2 of my cities and 1 druid have been infected by the Cult of the Dragon. The wonder for removing this has already been built. I finally got to divine right and upgraded a confessor into an inquisitor. But the inquisitor is unable to start an inquisition in either of the cities. Am I able to do this? or am I missing something? or is my only alternative to track down the holy city and raze it?

 

[Kael]

I am playing a noble game as Bannor with The Order as my religion, 2 of my cities and 1 druid have been infected by the Cult of the Dragon. The wonder for removing this has already been built. I finally got to divine right and upgraded a confessor into an inquisitor. But the inquisitor is unable to start an inquisition in either of the cities. Am I able to do this? or am I missing something? or is my only alternative to track down the holy city and raze it?

Inquisition is broke in 0.12. It is fixed in 0.13. For now you should go into the worldbuilder and take the religion off of your cities (as long as you have inq's its not cheating).

 

[Black Attila]

Thanks for the quick reply. Guess I am stuck as I am playing a hotseat game and worldbuilder is not available. First try at FFH@ and it has been a fun game so far.

 

[Kael]

Thanks for the quick reply. Guess I am stuck as I am playing a hotseat game and worldbuilder is not available. First try at FFH@ and it has been a fun game so far.

Glad you are enjoying it. The fixes in 0.13 are here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171497 and the Inquisition fix is included. Sorry for the inconvienance.

 

[Thunderwing]

Are we going to see any new religions by the next major component? There just isn't any religion that feels fully Good at all. Seriously, I thought that the Order was neutral, Leaves partly good and Runes good the first time I played. It's like good players have to choose between the Spanish Inquestion(sp) and Dwarves.

There is nothing remotely in-theme for any good civ except Bannor or Luchuip. The Malakim should probably have a Church of Lugus integrated into the civ, since they are defined in large part as a civ by their religion. It comes with philosophy, but only the Malkim can found it and the holy city is always thier capital? The Mercurians and Illians should probably get cult-type religions since thier both blatantly defying the gods and have powerful immortal leaders, perfect material for a cult of personality with power to back it up and certainly not suitable for a standard faith to support. Both the evil religions feel kind of, cerebral, and not at all like the Clan of Embers or Dovellio's style.

 

[Kael]

Are we going to see any new religions by the next major component? There just isn't any religion that feels fully Good at all. Seriously, I thought that the Order was neutral, Leaves partly good and Runes good the first time I played. It's like good players have to choose between the Spanish Inquestion(sp) and Dwarves.

There is nothing remotely in-theme for any good civ except Bannor or Luchuip. The Malakim should probably have a Church of Lugus integrated into the civ, since they are defined in large part as a civ by their religion. It comes with philosophy, but only the Malkim can found it and the holy city is always thier capital? The Mercurians and Illians should probably get cult-type religions since thier both blatantly defying the gods and have powerful immortal leaders, perfect material for a cult of personality with power to back it up and certainly not suitable for a standard faith to support. Both the evil religions feel kind of, cerebral, and not at all like the Clan of Embers or Dovellio's style.

I wouldn't mind more religions but they are a lot of work and not the area of focus for the mod right now. In "Light" we are concentrating on getting the civ's and spell systems working and adding another religion isn't on the plate right now. Thats one aspect of the game that we are pretty happy with, other areas need more work.

That said there are 19 major religions in the FfH world and only 4 are represented in the mod so far. So we have plenty of room to grow when we are ready to. The next religions I could imagine adding (and this may change) are the worship of Lugus (Sun) and Esus (Shadow) and those may be added in "Shadow". We probably won't be adding a religion in "Fire", though the worship of Bhall (Fire) would be fitting.

 

[Xuenay]

Are we going to see any new religions by the next major component? There just isn't any religion that feels fully Good at all. Seriously, I thought that the Order was neutral, Leaves partly good and Runes good the first time I played. It's like good players have to choose between the Spanish Inquestion(sp) and Dwarves.

"Dark Fantasy" is the theme of the mod. Nobody is entirely pure, when it really comes down to it.

 

[ChaoticWanderer]

yeah you are missing a god thats war torn it seems theirs not a good fighting evil good you have the evil arcane god and the evil Octopi but those dont seem good for some of the darker non magic races

 

[Kael]

yeah you are missing a god thats war torn it seems theirs not a good fighting evil good you have the evil arcane god and the evil Octopi but those dont seem good for some of the darker non magic races

The first post has all of the deities in it, there are definitly quite a few that arent implemented.

 

[Starship]

Hello,

I just wanted to say that you actually have 7 religions. The 7th flies under the radar though...paganism. I think it would be cool if it was a little more fleshed out in future versions, the starting religion that is. Call it the old ways, or just keep it paganism. It would be cool if some like Doviello had to keep the pagan/Old Ways religion though, to achieve max effect. Maybe a couple of different versions...ie pagan leaves, pagan runes, etc...but that's a little much. Just a fleshing out of what is this starting religion would be cool, something that fits your story line of course. The darker aspects of druidism/wicca would be a good place to draw ideas, I think.

I don't know what your plan with the tech tree in .13 will be. It might eliminate the above comments if the current religions become starting religions.

Here's the thing...After the time of Ice, there must have been religion/gods? Why would that religion be weaker/less important than the later game ones? Were the gods not there? Maybe just like people started worshipping dragons there is some sort of Earth spirit that became a god during this time? Maybe it just doesn't offer things that more advanced civs would want. (city limitations, limit on city growth...etc...)

 

[Bad Player]

Other options:

1. We could make it fixed by the Civ and disallow religions that don't match the civs starting alignment (the Bannor could never follow the Veil, the Sheaim could never worship Kilmorph, etc).

2. Alignment is set by the Civ and independant of the religion, such that the Bannor can worship the Veil and still remain good.

I tend to prefer the origional recommendation, but what do you guys think?

I am thinking of starting a thread to discuss my idea but basically I think that races should have bonuses if they chose to follow a particular religion. E.g. Bannor military units gain extra strength if the state religion is Order, Luchuirp and Khazad get extra trade/financial incentives if their state religion is Runes, Ljosalfar and Svartalfar gain +1 happiness and +1 health in a city with a forest/jungle tile*, etc. This would encourage, but not force, certain civs to follow certain religions - however they are free to convert to any religion they choose but usually this would be a disadvantage.


* Or allows Ljosalfar and Svartalfar access to treeshapers workshop when state religion is Leaves (see Kerrang's post http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4195622&postcount=15 )

 

[Chalid]

@Bad Player: Actually we want to do the same thing in a more subtle way. The only religion where it is quite obvious is the fellowship of the leaves. The Elves get bonus in forests and the fellowship of the leaves give bonus to forests as well (ancient forests). this way an elven civ is more powerfull when following the leaves.
For the Kahzad one could imagine to give them a special kind of mines that give +1 gold compared to normal mines or allow them to built mines every where (hmm thats actually a good idea). If now the mines would give additional boni whith the runes the dwarfs would be encouraged doubly to built mines and get the boni, but each half (race and religion) are worthy without the other.

 

[Kael]

I am thinking of starting a thread to discuss my idea but basically I think that races should have bonuses if they chose to follow a particular religion. E.g. Bannor military units gain extra strength if the state religion is Order, Luchuirp and Khazad get extra trade/financial incentives if their state religion is Runes, Ljosalfar and Svartalfar gain +1 happiness and +1 health in a city with a forest/jungle tile*, etc. This would encourage, but not force, certain civs to follow certain religions - however they are free to convert to any religion they choose but usually this would be a disadvantage.


* Or allows Ljosalfar and Svartalfar access to treeshapers workshop when state religion is Leaves (see Kerrang's post http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4195622&postcount=15 )

In general when you create to much synergy between two options you effectivly remove one of the options. A game that offers 1 good option and 2 bad ones isnt offering any option at all (its offering a "noob trap", which is to say something that punishes new players over experienced ones).

So we try to keep the synergy's down to flavor aspects only because in general we want th eplayer to be able to pick any civ and any religion and have it be a viable option.

Of course the Ljosalfar and the Fellowship break this rule in a huge way. I don't think anyone plays the elves in any religion except the Fellowship, which is a shame. Effectivly they read as only having one religion available to them. But the synergy between them is so natural that I doubt we will change it. One case where the strong flavor will probably override good design.

 

[Bad Player]

But it might be beneficial to not choose the obvious race-religion choice if you can team up with a powerful set of allies by converting to their religion.

EDIT: I can see it might get repetitive if the bonuses for race-religion is too large so people always choose the same thing.

 

[Bad Player]

Black - Destroyer of Worlds(fits well with the ambition of the Sheaim)

I'm not sure if they should start with the dragons and the religons. Building the dragon, and focusing on the dragon religion, should still be a choice the player can make. It would most likely be the best chocie to get the most out of your civilization, but I don't think he should be forced into the Dragon Cult playstyle if he doesn't want to. Perhaps the technologies could be placed a bit after Polytheism, so you could still grab them, and the dragon, reasonably early.
I don't think it should be restricted for the Kuriotates to become Black Dragon Cultists, in fact it could well be imagined that they would be compelled to do so after the death of their own dragon. Perhaps restricted while the dragon exists? And then also from picking any other religions as state religions? Perhaps the dragon leaves you if you do, and so will essentially be a religious hero.
I think the two religions should be mutually exclusive in the same city, like the Veil and the Order.

I like the idea of the dragon growing with the religion spread(it should obviously be scaled after map size in some way). It would also be possible to make it the other way around, so the religion grew in spread rate and bonuses as the dragon grew(for example, the possibility of Temple Upgrades would come at a late growth stage). But then there would still be the issue of growth. Perhaps the Gold dragon will grow through projects(requiring a good production base, which the Kuriotates will be likely to have), while the Black would instead grow by defeating enemies in combat, reaching a certain lvl of xp to grow? Barbarians shouldn't count. This would force the Black Dragon Cultists to play quite agressively, but on the flip side they'd be able to grow their dragon earlier than the Kuriotates through diligent use of the young dragon in battle.

Just wanted to say from a fan's POV that this post and the next few after it are great ideas for the cult of the dragon IMO.

 

[ChaoticWanderer]

i been thinking of the gods and think the enxt three gods should be one good one neutral and one evil

for good i think sucellus since they are so much a part of the story

for neutral i think Oghma is the best of the lot a knowledge god would rule for the magic races though Ceridwen can also fit the role but they are evil

and for evil i think it should be either Camulos or Aeron giving a good evil god for the fighting non magic races.