Different Gameplay Effects of Religions - viable?

[kokosbilen]

To me it seems a bit dull that religions seemingly have the same gameplay effects. I can understand why Firaxis did it this way, to avoid (an almost certain) controversy had they tinkered with this.
Being a complete noob when it comes to programming and modding, I don't think I could mod this my self; so consider this simply a suggestion that might be elaborated should it turn out to be viable.

Of course, giving different religions (as state religion) variable gameplay effects is difficult, and controversial. Personally, however, I believe it could make the game even more interesting, as what state religion you choose would actually have more consequences than just the diplomatic ones.

There is no clear-cut answer to what benefits (or costs) the religions should give; but I will try to outline some suggestions:

This might be a bit Euro-centric, but I think one should at least differentiate between Catholic and Protestant Christianisty.
IMPORTANT: These suggestions are not meant as criticisms or validations of different religions, they are merely based on (limited, I admit) historical and theorical interpretations of religions, and I mean no disrespect to adherers of any of the mentioned religions.
-Catholicism could be interpreted as a tradional, culture-rich religion, with for example The Church of Saint-Peter or The Vatican as specific Wonder conferring culture-boosts or other effects. UU could be Inquisitor, but not sure what role this could play.
-Protestantism, based on Webers The Protestant Work Ethic and Capitalism (can't remember the exact name of his book) could be given a modest financial or production boost (reflecting the work ethic of protestants, as outlined by Max Weber)
-The Islamic World was historically (in the Medieval Ages) scientifically advanced, so perhaps a moderate science boost could be implemented. Certainly to arouse controversy, I would also suggest a Jihad Fundamentalist, available in the Modern Age.
-Confucianism is often presented as emphasising stability and tradition. Maybe a happiness bonus or a maintenance bonus could reflect this.
-Buddhism, (in my humbled opinion) being an explicit pacifist religion par excellence , could have a military penalty (though I am aware of the fact that buddhist countries in the real world maintain standing armies - and use them), but benifit scientifically or culturally.
-Central to Hinduism is a rigid caste-system, so this civic could be made Hindu-specific.
As for Taoism/Judaism, I can't think of anything at the moment.
-Maybe even introducing Secular as "state religion", reflection the (partial) secularisation of esp. Western Europe in the 20th century. Could confer science boost, but a small unhappiness penalty.
My point is this:
Implementing different effects for having different state religions seems to me to add more depth to the game - though I really like the introduction of religions, and I most certainly can understand why Firaxis made them all the same in gameplay effects, when playing Civ4, I feel that I could'nt care less whether my empire is one religion or the other, since they in the game basically are all the same. I know there could easily arise great controversy over this, and that is not my intention.

I don't know if this thought is viable at all, but I just want to see if anyone else feels the same about religion in the game as I do: Good that it has been implemented, but a bit dull, as they are in effect all the same.

EDIT: I see there is some discussion over Religions UUs, which to me seems a great idea as well, but I would also like to have different empire-effects of state religions. Just to clear that up beforehand.

PS Being my first post, I hope this has not been endlessy argued over before. I couldn't find other discussions referring to this in this forum.
PPS Being a Norwegian, please forgive my English.

 

[Seven05]

Not endlessly argued over, just brought up here and there

There are some easy ways to impliment religious differences, you can edit the individual buildings (e.g. temples) as a start. The actual religions are fairly limited in what variables you can use without getting into the python scripts. Not being a religious history buff I had taken a look at those but later decided not to make any changes.

As for controversy, I think as long as you define a simple "baseline" for all religions and then only apply bonuses to each religion from there you wouldn't have any problems. In effect you wouldn't be saying any one religion is better or worse than another, just better at some things than others are. But again, with the limited variables available to use it would be a tough one.

 

[Shqype]

I was actually in the process of creating a mod with various religious effects. Good ideas for the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism.

 

[kokosbilen]

Thank you for your kind replies!
I guess Python is way beyond me, so maybe buildings will have to do, though it's not really what I wanted to hear.
One (albeit not fully satisfactory, I admit) solution could be to introduce religious specific National Wonders, with empire-wide effects, but the problem would be to have only one of these active at a time according to the State Religion, and switching the active wonder to the correspondig wonder when switching State Religion, if you get my point.
Would that be possible with simple Xml, or am I way in over my head here?

On second thought, maybe I'm better off waiting for your (Shqype) religious mod.

EDIT: Typos.

 

[DSChapin]

Making the buildings change when you change religion would not be possible through XML changes. You'd need to get into the Python for that.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

A usefull and historicaly acurate ability for Islam, when ever a player with Islamic State Religion concoures a City Islam is introduced their. This is the "spread by the sword" ability. It might also be possible for other religions to do the same thing if their using Theocracy. This would be implemented with Python ofcorse.

 

[Fachy]

I'm having the same problems, introduced some basic suggestions.. not this religion should have and this religion should have that sort of thing, but rather technical ideas. If interested check my thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=147778