European Middle Ages 500-1500 AD

A religion you may want to include... from wikepedia:



"Arianism was a Christological view held by followers of Arius, a Christian priest who lived and taught in Alexandria, Egypt, in the early 4th century. Arius taught that God the Father and the Son were not co-eternal, seeing the pre-incarnate Jesus as a divine being but nonetheless created by (and consequently inferior to) the Father at some point, before which the Son did not exist. In English-language works, it is sometimes said that Arians believe that Jesus is or was a "creature;" in this context, the word is being used in its original sense of "created being."

The conflict between Arianism and the Trinitarian beliefs was the first major doctrinal confrontation in the Church after the legalization of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine I. Controversy over Arianism extended over the greater part of the fourth century and involved most church members, simple believers and monks as well as bishops and emperors. While Arianism did dominate for several decades in the family of the Emperor, the Imperial nobility and higher ranking clergy, in the end it was Trinitarianism which prevailed theologically and politically at the end of the fourth century, and which has since been a virtually uncontested doctrine in all major branches of the Eastern and Western Church. Arianism, which had been taught by the Arian missionary Ulfilas to the Germanic tribes, did linger for some centuries among several Germanic tribes in western Europe, especially Goths and Longobards but did not play any significant theological role afterwards."

I've heard of this sect before... it was very important in early christianity. It is speculated that the reason the Frank held their possessions in former Roman Empire lands as opposed to the other Germanic peoples, notably Visigoths, was due to Clovis' conversion (his wife was christian) in the early 6th century. The Arian Visigoths could not maintain control of their Trinitarian subjects, while the Franks adapted and switched, maintaining control and beating the Visigoths for control of Gaul.

If you are looking for another religion, this may be another choice.
 
Yep Craig.

It all comes up to the question: do you want to use true "religions" only, or are you going to reflect the sub-religions as well?

Important christian sub-religions during the period 500-1500

arianism - after the 4th century only germanic tribes except for franks after Clovis/Chlodwig, still important during the early stages of the mod
catholicism - the major winner over the whole mod time
orthodoxism - the "eastern taste" after the great shism approx 1050 AD
gnostic dualists - Bogomilen/Waldensians/Catharans, the classical "heretics" of that time
hussites - only showing up at the end of that time period, predecessors of reformation
 
I'm familiar with Arianism but I don't intend to feature it as a religion.

In my mod I'm focussing on religious authority, rather than popular following, as the criteria for a game religion. Thus there's no need to account for the spread of Christianity per se, rather the spread of Catholicism and Orthodoxy represent the spread of centralized authority and a standardized doctrine.

By that logic, I have the following religions featured:

  • Catholicism
  • Orthodoxy
  • Sunni Islam
  • Shi'a Islam
  • Judaism

Judaism didn't have a centralized authority but it's included because I need its holy city for various holy land related game effects. Its spread represents the Jewish diaspora.

Another thing about the religions, be prepared for considerably different mechanics for each religion. I'm not trying to preserve the symmetry of vanilla Civ4. The only thing they'll have in common is the basic effect of culture and happiness, and they all have a basic "temple"; they also all have "cathedrals" except for Judaism (which has very few associated buildings).

I'm not really done with Islam though... the playtest version I'm posting has a disproportionate number of Catholic buildings compared to other religions. All in due time...
 
I was always interested in the middle ages, and I would like to try out your mod when it comes out. For an Orthodox building or holy shrine, you could put Etchmiadzin Church, since Etchmiadzin was the first church built in the world and it is an Armenian Orthodox church still standing today.
 
Thank you Drtad, for bringing this to my attention. I still need to do more research on both Islam and Eastern Christianity (aka Orthodoxy). One of the challenges of this mod has been to restrain my Western bias and include enough features from the eastern civilizations (both Christian and Islamic) to adequately represent them. So I really appreciate help and criticism from forum members more intimately familiar with either Orthodox Christian or Islamic culture.

@Kommari:
I did a little research of Finland (as well as Estonia and Latvia), looking for reasons to include it as a separate nation. The reason why Finland doesn't meet my criteria is that the Finns never established their own state in the medieval period. I respect the Finnish culture, e.g. the epics of Kalevala, and understand that they were there in medieval times, but from what I gather Finland just wasn't politically unified or centralized. So I feel I'd be including them to be politically correct rather than historical. As for Norway and Sweden, you may be confused by the later 19th century union - the countries were clearly separate nations in medieval times and had separate kingdoms and dynasties.
 
About the Holy Roman Empire, I completely agree that it shouldn't be prescribed to Germany. It's more interesting to leave the establishment of the empire as a game event possible for any major Catholic power.

In fact I had it like this in earlier versions, with 'Kingdom of Germany' for the Germans rather than HRE. In the v0.1 which I'm releasing now, Germany is called HRE simply because I wasn't ready with another solution and it was the safest arrangement.

But I think I've come up with a solution I'm happy with now:
  • The Papal States (or Italy, using the short list) has the Lateran Palace as a unique building replacing Palace. The Lateran Palace provides 2x Roman Authority resources. Roman Authority will have some basic happiness benefits but more importantly it allows the construction of the Holy Roman Empire wonder, which is not buildable by the Pope/Italian himself. Upon building the HRE wonder, I'd have EventManager.py change the name (and flag?) of the builder's civ to "Holy Roman Empire". As for the effects, and other requirements, I have some things in mind but it's not completely decided.
    The point with having 2 bonuses is of course so that the Pope will have Roman Authority "for trade". Thus, interestingly, the Holy Roman Emperor might later find himself without the R.A. resource, by falling out of the Pope's favor. This will somewhat simulate the Pope's political role and the great struggles for power in Catholic Europe.
  • Similarly Byzantium will have the unique Great Palace (of Constantinople) which will give 1x Byzantine Authority resource. The holders of Byzantine and Roman Authority respectively will have reaction penalties against each other.
  • The Muslims will have their version in the form of a Caliphate wonder, supplying the Caliphate resource. I might have this a national wonder actually, since Caliphs were popping up here and there in the Islamic world with contesting claims.
 
The download's available on page 1... Take a look, and watch out for CTDs, bugs, loose ends, and unbalanced gameplay in general ;)
 
A couple of possible wonders, if you're looking:

Doge's Palace, Venice contruction: 1309 to 1424 AD

Doge's Palace Commentary
"The Doge's Palace, Venice, has fa?des which date from 1309-1424, designed by Giovanni and Bartolomeo Buon. The palace, started in the ninth century, several times rebuilt, and completed in the Renaissance period, forms part of that great scheme of town-planning which was carried out through successive centuries. The fa?des, with a total length of nearly 152 m (500 ft), have open arcades in the two lower storeys, and the third storey was rebuilt after a fire in the sixteenth century, so as to extend over the arcades. This upper storey is faced with white and rose-coloured marble, resembling ornate windows and finished with a lace-like parapet of oriental cresting."

— Sir Banister Fletcher. A History of Architecture. p506.

Perhaps something to do with urbanization, as a wonder.

Leaning Tower of Pisa
1063 to 1350 AD

Tower of London 1070 to 1090 AD

"The greatest castles of the period had stone keeps. The Tower of London assumed its form as a 'concentric' castle, with successive lines of fortification, only after several reigns. Here, the rectangular keep of three storeys—the topmost was divided into two, later on—28 m (92 ft) in height, stands in the centre of an inner bailey, surrounded by a wall with thirteen towers (c. 1250), which is, in its turn, enclosed by an outer bailey and wall with eight towers and an encircling moat (c. 1280)."

— Sir Banister Fletcher. A History of Architecture. p372.

The Walls of Carcassonne ~ 1150 AD

"Carcassonne is a unique example of a double fortification. The older part dates from late antiquity, the more recent part from the 13th century. The first without doubt inspired the second. The projection of the towers from the wall, and the fact that they therefore commanded it, made possible a more flexible system of defense."

— John Julius Norwich. The World Atlas of Architecture. p239.

Details

"The inner walls measures 1286 m. and has 25 towers; the outer wall, with 17 towers, measures 1500 m."

— Henri Stierlin. Comprende l'Architecture universelle. p171.

Found, with others, at this site: http://www.greatbuildings.com/cgi-b...ges=&drawings=&models=&discussion=&resources=
 
Thanks for the suggestions, guys :)

Cluny and Mt Athos are already in BTW. Perhaps I'd better make a list of wonders I'm including in the documentation.
 
Hi guys,
I was reading your posts and you spoke once about religious units…

I came with the idea of a (maybe) more realistic crusader or preacher or whatever that comes with Catholicism and other requirement: chapter house (but chapter house should go with chivalery orders..) or other thing like that, like theocratie civic or else... : (I will only speak of preacher to clear any confusion with the CivII and CivIII kind of crusader)

but the main purpose of the idea is to give him the ability to “raise” friendly units to go on crusade : as you know, “crusades” were not historically made of special combat units: they were either serfs or soldier or knights going to fight for a religious cause (and of course counts and lords going with their private army).

This crusader/preacher unit may only be created if Catholicism is state religion but will stay if state religion changes.

(I use the term raising to mean the action of enrolling citizen to form units as can be done in vanilla civ with the nation tech (or civic I do not remember) I use this word because as I play in french and not in english...)

Lets say it works like that : create an ability (promotion/terrain improvement/construction of a building ability...) only given to preacher and that works like that :
when in a city with Catholicism the preacher (and theology if you want or state currently in war...) can “raise” a pilgrim army (1 turn): worker design with red cross on it, low power (as a swordman vs the vanilla maceman), no upkeep and disappear after XX turns (or end of war or whatever) (+25 city raiding, no defense points... : a unit made to go to war, not to protect your kingdom)
Furthermore, the "raise" of the pilgrim army decrease the city pop by one but give 1happy face for XX turns. (the city is happy to participate in the holy war but as it means workers / craftsmen are fighting, the population decrease)

Or you can do it with enabling raising these units in the city (from the city screen as in vanilla screen) with a prerequist : presence of the preacher in the city…. Etc and then it works like the former solution

or the ability to go to crusades may be activated with a world wonder: you can raise your pilgrim army only if "Call to Crusade" has been build in your kingdom...

(I know nothing of xml and all so I'm not sure my proposition is feasable)

I thought of making this ability on the unit available whatever the owner of the city but it may well be very unbalanced... (as in: put your preacher in a friendly city with catholicism then raise two or 3 pilgrim army, then attack him with units created from his own kingdom... not fair)

If you want a special unit use ‘templar’ or ‘theutonic knight’ or other ones like that. But I think that crusader won’t fit.

That’s my two pence
 
EDIT: oups two post sending

EDIT : in fact I think I am refering to "conscription" but with the prerequiste of a preacher unit... but with the population becoming happy, and the unit a unique unit that cannot be built in an other way

Calavente
 
I like your idea, Calavente... perhaps it could be made into an ability of a Great Person, say a Saint, or other religious great person, rather than a buildable unit. Crusader units would be rabble, but many should be generatable when the Great Person is used - I'm not certain about the mechanics. Maybe a unit produced in each city of the generating power, and like you say, usable within a set period of time... maybe restricted in combat to when within territory of countries that are not of the same faith as the religion of the operating power, or against units of such civilizations.
 
Yes .. I had though of the crusader only able to attack civs of other religion, but I didn't know if it was possible..

or an other possibility is that you can build the "preacher", but you put a restriction on him such as : only one per civ at a time.. or something like that, or even a "national wonder unit". (in FFH, they use wonder units, so maybe it shall be possible to do national wonder unit??) then every civ can build one for each religion if he changes the state religion, but if the preacher dies, it cannot be rebuilt..

I'd rather not have it made by a GP as a great prophet beacause it will be too costly to use a GP to have in exchange some rabble unit, only available for attack, and only against other religion civ... even if there are many of those units
 
some more things on a "crusader"
if the preacher or prophet is a "national wonder unit" it can only be build if 5 monastery or if it is a nationale unite, 3 or 5 max if you have monastry, or buildable only for each 3 catholic monastries using the same logic than for cathedrales respective to churches in vanilla civ.

to make the "pilgrim army" desapear after a given time, it may be possible to give them a property that have say : X% chance of becoming a barbarian. (ex mean life time of 20 turns if 5%, 50 turns if 2%...)
as the unit can become a barbarian even in the owner land or in friends lands it may be interesting. that may even be historicly correct as in the IVth crusade were the crusaders plundered Constantinople.

depending on the strength of other religious special units, it may be interesting to have 2 crusaders/pilgrim armies created for each citizen "conscripted", especially if the pilgrim army is a real ragged unit. It may also be important to balance the number of preacher or/and their movement points to balance this kind of religious unit
 
Thanks for the suggestions Calavente, I will give this some thought.

What you are describing is mostly not possible with XML. That's not to say it's not doable, since I'm not trying to avoid Python or SDK, but I haven't really been doing any advanced coding so far, simply because I haven't taken the time to learn it ;)

Conscription is worth considering as a crusade mechanic, at least.

Personally I like the way it's reflected in vanilla Civ4 (with the Theocracy civic); in my mod so far it's more or less the same except the civic is called Holy War. It's actually quite realistic that it just gives a general bonus to military without any special units and such, because historically there were many kinds of crusades, not always against Muslims and not always involving long marches to the Holy Land. Various crusades were "hijacked" by some opportunistic politicians and diverted against targets which could hardly be called enemies of Christianity, e.g. the Fourth Crusade. Thus a vague militaritistic religion-based civic is a safe choice.
 
I was thinking about more than just creating a rabble army with a GP crusade instigator.

Here would be possible effects:

1. Large rabble army for the period of the Crusade, say 15 turns. It would consist of, for Christians, large numbers of poorly equiped units. For Islamists, maybe bedouin units (rabble camel riders).
2. Certain regular units would have the Crusade or Jihad promotion for the period of the crusade, this would be a strength or attack enhancer. Possible units would be Teutonic Knights, Other knights, camel riders, etc. They would lose the promotion after the Crusade fervor had ended.

I think these may be worth a GP expenditure... if several cities could be taken (ie the arab expansion in the 6th century, or the crusader kingdoms later). I like the GP method because it is relatively rare, and crusades were off and on things, not constant; and it is most focused upon religious minded civs. It should be restricted to those civs with appropriate civics in place.

And it sounds cool: Blow you GP and...

Saint Innocent proclaims a crusade against the heathen.
Or
Prophet Mohamot summons the faithful for Jihad.

If the benefits were great enough, this could simulate the rapid expansion of the Arabs early on, or other territorial grabs via crusade/jihad.

Anyhow, sounds like this is for another mod, as the maker of this one seems cool to the idea. We'll see how simulates the idea.
 
About Slavery and Slave fighters:

Here is a possible idea:

Create a slave unit. This unit would operate like a GP with two uses, First it could be added to a city as a specialist that adds to the city pop. It would, perhaps, add +1 hammer and +1 food while giving -2 culture. Second, it can be expended to create a slave military unit appropriate to the tech level... ie Janissary, Mameluk, etc. or generic military units if there is no unique one. Otherwise, slave military units would be unbuildable except by use of a Slave GP.

Slave units would be created in 2 ways. First, they are buildable. As per settler or worker, the city experiences no growth during that time. Second, they can be created in combat when a non-formed infantry unit is destroyed in combat. Some percent chance should be determined here. I saw that non-formed infantry were in your mod, and am assuming that means low quality troops. Troops such as Peasant Levies (no city growth during production, but fast to build - perhaps limited in length of service and only with certain civic), urban militia, warriors, crusade and jihad rabble, etc. would be unformed. These would be most subject to forming slave units when destroyed. Slave units created in battle would need to be escorted by an owner's unit to a city to be used.

The slave civic needs to be in place for all of the above. Cities with slaves have the negative health problem, as per usual. They can still rush build, however, instead of ordinary citizens being destroyed, only slave specialists are depleted. Slave specialists cannot be switched over to ordinary citizens during the Slavery civic, however, other civics allow the slaves to change to ordinary citizens. They cannot later be reset as slaves. If the civilization does not have the Slavery Civic and still has slaves, each slave generates 1 unhappiness.

Some cultures would benefit more from this civic. Cultures with special unique units such as Jannisaries or Mameluks would be able to create them if they have the appropriate tech using the slave units. Others would create more generic units appropriate to their tech level. Naturally, all these things would have to be balanced between the length of time it takes to build a slave unit in a city and the effectivess of the slave created military units.

Anyhow, just my 2 cents.
 
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