TheChanger
Warlord
I got this idea the other day and felt i should share it before i forget it. ill probably look into modding this at some point if no one else does 
but i dont have he game yet sooo ... 
The Idea:
Religions in Civ 4 kind of failed for a few reasons:
The removal of religions from civ 5 was actualyl a wise move in my oppinion because of the above factors, and because of the first point they could not really make them any better in civ 5, thus removing them was the way to go.
The idea behind this mod is that the player (and AI) should be able to *build* their own religion when you found them at particular technologies (such as theology, philosophy, etc) As such there would not be any 'pre determined' religions such as buddhism, jeudaism, Hindu, Christianity etc, instead upon founding a religion the player and AI is prompted to select a number of options from a list of attributes that their religion will provide, such as +happiness from particular resources at the cost of reduced yield (ie cows for hindu), increased culture in cities, increased research, increased hammers, increased gold, cheaper purchasing of land tiles etc etc. Basically a lot of small bonuses can be created. So over all, a religion would eventually consist of a few various benefits, some of which might be mutually exclusive (such as increased culture/gold/hammers/beakers) and some might require others (for example an ability to eliminate other religions from the city might require the religion to reduce the spread of other religions in theempire first). Once the religion benefits have been decided, the Religion name can be chosen. this one would consist of a list of many real world religions ranging from Christianity to Neopaganism, and there should also be an option to create your own name for your Religion. Finally there should be an option to select a religious Icon to use to represent your religion.
Now, this process would be fairly straight forward for a player, however it may (will) be confusing to the AI. one solution is to have a series of predetermined religion set ups from which the AI can choose from based on particular AI characteristics. for example AI Ghandi might be more inclined to found Hinduism which could give +1 happy from cows at the expense of -food from the tile, Would be more inclined to allow foreing religions to spread in their borders without any unhappiness penalty + 1 happiness per religion present (i know next to nothing about hinduism so if you are hindu and i have offended you i sincerely appologise)
Wider Effects:
Wider effects of different religions would be things such as:
Ok, So Why?
Because i think giving the player some control of what their religions do to their empire is more fun than saying "heres 7 religions, choose one. they all do the same thing though". It adds another layer of strategy to the game, and adds an element of variation that religion has never had in a Civ game.
Potential Religion Attributes:
(individual items on separate lists are mutually exclusive)
Potential Religion Names:
(note, this list is effectively inexhaustable and the ones listed are in no particular order, if i have missed any tell me and ill add it)
but i dont have he game yet sooo ... The Idea:
Religions in Civ 4 kind of failed for a few reasons:
- Firaxis had to be careful to not offend anyone, religion is a very tender topic.
- Thus They were all the same (no differentiation)
- They impacted way too heavilly on diplomacy
- They got BORING
The removal of religions from civ 5 was actualyl a wise move in my oppinion because of the above factors, and because of the first point they could not really make them any better in civ 5, thus removing them was the way to go.
The idea behind this mod is that the player (and AI) should be able to *build* their own religion when you found them at particular technologies (such as theology, philosophy, etc) As such there would not be any 'pre determined' religions such as buddhism, jeudaism, Hindu, Christianity etc, instead upon founding a religion the player and AI is prompted to select a number of options from a list of attributes that their religion will provide, such as +happiness from particular resources at the cost of reduced yield (ie cows for hindu), increased culture in cities, increased research, increased hammers, increased gold, cheaper purchasing of land tiles etc etc. Basically a lot of small bonuses can be created. So over all, a religion would eventually consist of a few various benefits, some of which might be mutually exclusive (such as increased culture/gold/hammers/beakers) and some might require others (for example an ability to eliminate other religions from the city might require the religion to reduce the spread of other religions in theempire first). Once the religion benefits have been decided, the Religion name can be chosen. this one would consist of a list of many real world religions ranging from Christianity to Neopaganism, and there should also be an option to create your own name for your Religion. Finally there should be an option to select a religious Icon to use to represent your religion.
Now, this process would be fairly straight forward for a player, however it may (will) be confusing to the AI. one solution is to have a series of predetermined religion set ups from which the AI can choose from based on particular AI characteristics. for example AI Ghandi might be more inclined to found Hinduism which could give +1 happy from cows at the expense of -food from the tile, Would be more inclined to allow foreing religions to spread in their borders without any unhappiness penalty + 1 happiness per religion present (i know next to nothing about hinduism so if you are hindu and i have offended you i sincerely appologise)
Wider Effects:
Wider effects of different religions would be things such as:
- The dominant religion in your empire would determine the State religion, increasing the importance of spreading your favoured religion through your empire.
- There should be some diplomatic effect to religions but it should be vastly less dominant than in civ 4.
- Some different religious units such as Priests, High Priests, inquisitors and Crusaders should be avaliable for religions (some religion attributes could provide particular promotions to these units)
- A Religion's Attributes are only in effect if that religion is the state religion of the Civ.
Ok, So Why?
Because i think giving the player some control of what their religions do to their empire is more fun than saying "heres 7 religions, choose one. they all do the same thing though". It adds another layer of strategy to the game, and adds an element of variation that religion has never had in a Civ game.
Potential Religion Attributes:
(individual items on separate lists are mutually exclusive)
Spoiler :
Potential Religion Names:
(note, this list is effectively inexhaustable and the ones listed are in no particular order, if i have missed any tell me and ill add it)
Spoiler :
do you know if youll be working on this for civ 5 any time soon? if so maybe we can work together 
