Expanding of Religions

[Zaarin]

What about Wakan Tanka, Midewiwin, or Longhouse?

Longhouse religion is a syncretism of traditional Iroquois religion (which could probably be safely called Orenda) and Christianity. Personally, I'm not a big fan of including post religions like Longhouse or Bahá'í, unless we see a huge improvement to religion in a future expansion which brings in reformations and schisms and the like.

Also, what about "Code of Laws" as the name for the Mesopotamian religion?

This is another reason I'm in favor of treating older polytheistic religions as pantheon beliefs: they had no particular name because they were just assumed to belong to their parent civilization with very little interest in converts. Ancient Egyptians didn't even believe non-Egyptians had souls or went to the same afterlife as Egyptians until the late New Kingdom, when they were forced to reassess by having foreigners in their empire. Post-Sumerian Mesopotamians had a common stock of gods and a general acceptance that Marduk was the most important, but most people were still henotheists who chiefly worshiped the god of their city. In the context of the other religions included in Civ6 and especially in the context of religious victory, these beliefs make much more sense to me as pantheon beliefs than religions.

(To more directly answer your question, though, if I were to anachronistically attach a name to Babylonian religion I'd probably call it Enlilism, Mardukism, or Ashurism, depending on the era--Sumer, Babylon, or Assyria.)

 

[The Kingmaker]

Pantheons and religions should work the same way as governments, with the card system.

We're already picking features from a list to customize them. Why not expand its versatility to be like the governments?

 

[Greywulf]

Longhouse religion is a syncretism of traditional Iroquois religion (which could probably be safely called Orenda) and Christianity. Personally, I'm not a big fan of including post religions like Longhouse or Bahá'í, unless we see a huge improvement to religion in a future expansion which brings in reformations and schisms and the like.

True point, although then we could argue about Protestantism being post reformation, which is a valid point. I'm not going to go to which Christian religion was first; it would have been safer in that regard to just name it "Christianity", like they have only one title representing all of the Buddhist religions, Hindu religions, and Islamic religions. Reformations and schisms would make sense for the game, and we could end up seeing some form of mechanic that introduces that aspect, which would be interesting (perhaps controversial too).

This is another reason I'm in favor of treating older polytheistic religions as pantheon beliefs: they had no particular name because they were just assumed to belong to their parent civilization with very little interest in converts. Ancient Egyptians didn't even believe non-Egyptians had souls or went to the same afterlife as Egyptians until the late New Kingdom, when they were forced to reassess by having foreigners in their empire. Post-Sumerian Mesopotamians had a common stock of gods and a general acceptance that Marduk was the most important, but most people were still henotheists who chiefly worshiped the god of their city. In the context of the other religions included in Civ6 and especially in the context of religious victory, these beliefs make much more sense to me as pantheon beliefs than religions.

I imagine people would want to see more polytheistic religions represented as religions, as the majority there are monotheistic (or at least claim to be). And I think people would want to see more representation for paganism. It's a bit tricky though, as most of those religions fall easily into the pantheon beliefs system. That doesn't mean we can't take a couple for in game religions, which wouldn't hurt the pantheon beliefs system.

(To more directly answer your question, though, if I were to anachronistically attach a name to Babylonian religion I'd probably call it Enlilism, Mardukism, or Ashurism, depending on the era--Sumer, Babylon, or Assyria.)

What about the tri-god Shamash?

This could be a way around the Inca religion name as well, but how would we do that with Inti?

 

[Zaarin]

Shamash was one of many Babylonian gods (and cognate with Canaanite goddess Shapash/Shemesh/Semes), but to my knowledge not one of the top tier ones. For the Sumerians, the trio of An/Enlil/Enki were the major gods; for Babylon it was Marduk and to a lesser extent Ishtar (who has to be one of the more...grotesque deities); for Assyria, it was Ashur/Assur.

I understand the appeal of having more polytheist religions; it's just that Hinduism is the only one that really developed into a major world religion. Well, Daoism, too, of course, and Confucianism and Buddhism really aren't bound to a specific concept of divinities.

 

[Greywulf]

Shamash was one of many Babylonian gods (and cognate with Canaanite goddess Shapash/Shemesh/Semes), but to my knowledge not one of the top tier ones. For the Sumerians, the trio of An/Enlil/Enki were the major gods; for Babylon it was Marduk and to a lesser extent Ishtar (who has to be one of the more...grotesque deities); for Assyria, it was Ashur/Assur.

I understand the appeal of having more polytheist religions; it's just that Hinduism is the only one that really developed into a major world religion. Well, Daoism, too, of course, and Confucianism and Buddhism really aren't bound to a specific concept of divinities.

The thing about Buddhism is that it does have gods in its teachings and texts, though not focused on so heavily as in Hinduism. According to the Pali Canon, Siddhartha Guatama was conceived by a spirit white elephant (still trying to learn about exactly who this white elephant was, but there seems to be a direct connection with the Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva trinity). In Buddhism, Brahma (who apparently was present at the birth of Siddhartha) is actually an important deity, although generally not focused on by Buddhist members, while millions of Buddhists in some parts of the world actively pray to the Buddha, and he is venerated as a god himself. Secular Buddhists do not view Buddha as a god, and may not even be aware of the importance, or even existence of Brahma in their religion, and may not even care (trust me, I've spoken with a lot of Buddhists...sometimes I feel like I know more about Buddhism than they do, and I'm not even a Buddhist).
Anyway, in a technical sense, Buddhism would be defined as a polytheistic religion. That being said, in practice in much of the world it appears to be more of a monotheistic religion.

 

[Krajzen]

I am torn over this.

On one hand I dislike mods like the popular ones "more historical religions" because in their desperate attempt to cover all civs indigenous belief systems, they basically turn all those primitive pantheons into "religions", sometimes even inventing fancy -ism names that don't exist.

So, on one hand I like limiting the list to universalist, evangelist religions that were not simple "ethnic" pantheons.

On another hand, there are few instances of cultures where I sort of miss they cannot spread "their" belief system and instead have coded some weirdly inappropriate religions. Such as christianity for ancient greece, or islam for ancient egypt.

But especially, I miss some kind of representation of African and Precolombian religions - it just feels so weird how they "have to" found religions of their colonizers.

Personally I would enjoy adding "hellenism", "egyptian religion", "particular precolombian religions" and "particular african religions" but only if they were never founded by ahistorical civs.

I also think it'd be very cool if there were few civs with prescribed religions, guaranteed for them and only for them, integrated with their playstyle. I can think of only two examples of that symbiosis: Israel (Hebrews) and Sikhs. I would really enjoy seeing both civs. Unfortunately the first one could generate too much controversy and I seem to be the only man ever to desire Sikh civ

 

[Greywulf]

I am torn over this.

On one hand I dislike mods like the popular ones "more historical religions" because in their desperate attempt to cover all civs indigenous belief systems, they basically turn all those primitive pantheons into "religions", sometimes even inventing fancy -ism names that don't exist.

So, on one hand I like limiting the list to universalist, evangelist religions that were not simple "ethnic" pantheons.

On another hand, there are few instances of cultures where I sort of miss they cannot spread "their" belief system and instead have coded some weirdly inappropriate religions. Such as christianity for ancient greece, or islam for ancient egypt.

But especially, I miss some kind of representation of African and Precolombian religions - it just feels so weird how they "have to" found religions of their colonizers.

Personally I would enjoy adding "hellenism", "egyptian religion", "particular precolombian religions" and "particular african religions" but only if they were never founded by ahistorical civs.

I also think it'd be very cool if there were few civs with prescribed religions, guaranteed for them and only for them, integrated with their playstyle. I can think of only two examples of that symbiosis: Israel (Hebrews) and Sikhs. I would really enjoy seeing both civs. Unfortunately the first one could generate too much controversy and I seem to be the only man ever to desire Sikh civ

Thank you for your input. Which pre-colonization religions would you add? And what would you call them? They are generally the more difficult ones to find names for, as I have found.

 

[Zaarin]

I also think it'd be very cool if there were few civs with prescribed religions, guaranteed for them and only for them, integrated with their playstyle. I can think of only two examples of that symbiosis: Israel (Hebrews) and Sikhs. I would really enjoy seeing both civs. Unfortunately the first one could generate too much controversy and I seem to be the only man ever to desire Sikh civ

No, I'm with you--I think a Sikh civ would be fascinating.

Thank you for your input. Which pre-colonization religions would you add? And what would you call them? They are generally the more difficult ones to find names for, as I have found.

I think they're harder to find names for because all the names you've attached to other pagan/polytheistic religions are actually neo-pagan movements. Certainly no Ancient Egyptian would have called his religion "Kemetism," nor a Gaul call his religion "Druidism," etc. Again, this is part of the problem of treating them as religions rather than pantheon beliefs. As Krajzen points out, Civ6 religions are really mechanically designed to represent evangelistic universalist religions. So while I'd love to see more diversity, I also think the mechanics need to change to support that (which I'd be a big fan of--I don't think religions as they work right now make much sense).

 

[Greywulf]

I think they're harder to find names for because all the names you've attached to other pagan/polytheistic religions are actually neo-pagan movements. Certainly no Ancient Egyptian would have called his religion "Kemetism," nor a Gaul call his religion "Druidism," etc. Again, this is part of the problem of treating them as religions rather than pantheon beliefs. As Krajzen points out, Civ6 religions are really mechanically designed to represent evangelistic universalist religions. So while I'd love to see more diversity, I also think the mechanics need to change to support that (which I'd be a big fan of--I don't think religions as they work right now make much sense).

That is true, however we have little choice here. I'm completely open for hearing about what these cultures call their own religions, but for the time being, and for the sake of convenience, I'm working with what titles we have. I do feel that they are fitting however, as they are based off their progenitorial religions. Druidism may be more of a modern religion, but it is based off the historical Druid religion ~ it wouldn't exist without its ancient heritage. Kemetism may also be a modern form of ancient ideas, nevertheless "Kemet" is certainly closer to it than "Egypt" when it comes to terminologies, and what words they may have used themselves. I think we will have to give ourselves some leeway with this for some of these options to work, otherwise we will be stuck solely because of the names, at least in some cases.

 

[Zaarin]

That is true, however we have little choice here. I'm completely open for hearing about what these cultures call their own religions, but for the time being, and for the sake of convenience, I'm working with what titles we have. I do feel that they are fitting however, as they are based off their progenitorial religions. Druidism may be more of a modern religion, but it is based off the historical Druid religion ~ it wouldn't exist without its ancient heritage. Kemetism may also be a modern form of ancient ideas, nevertheless "Kemet" is certainly closer to it than "Egypt" when it comes to terminologies, and what words they may have used themselves. I think we will have to give ourselves some leeway with this for some of these options to work, otherwise we will be stuck solely because of the names, at least in some cases.

Agree to disagree. In my observation there's a lot more fantasy than history in neo-paganism.

 

[Greywulf]

Agree to disagree. In my observation there's a lot more fantasy than history in neo-paganism.

Well I don't disagree with that. It is true that they base much of their practices off ancient pagan religious practices ~ although they tend to have a mixture of practices from a range of sources from different parts of the world. Lots of modern religions continue to practice a mixture of some very old practices too, and couple it with some new ideas (take Easter and Halloween for examples of this). Really, it's the best I can do with the information that I've got. Ideally we will find the real names for said religions, however in some cases this does seem unlikely. I don't know about you, but I would easily feel more comfortable seeing "Druidism" or "Kemetism" as titles for in game religions, rather than say "Celtic religion" and "Egyptian religion"...It would be rather odd if China adopted "Celtic", while the Norwegians adopted "Egyptian" (even more odd if those civs are in the game at the same time, lol..).
At any rate, the Civilization game series has hardly been adhering to actual history, so it's not really going to make a difference either way in that regard.

 

[turingmachine]

I saw the thread on the 2K forum but also just wanted to most here, I highly recommend using Tomatekh's mod. It has both a full and light version along with denomination pack options to add a little to a ton of new historical and indigenous religions to the game.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=870850597
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/tomatekhs-historical-religions.25699/

I have to say I also disagree with the somewhat racist and uneducated response of calling indigenous religions "primitive" in this thread or dismissing them as "ethnic". Indigenous belief systems are just as complex and culturally valid as modern world religions. It's also a very slippery slope. Both Hinduism and Shinto, which are in the game, are essentially pantheon belief systems. Neither religion is evangelical (technically you can't convert to Hinduism, you need to be born into it) and are primarly ethnic religions (Shinto doesn't even have a large population base). They're also not codified in the same way as organized religions such as Christianity. You can't really make an argument to only include universal, evangelical, modern religions when the game itself includes ones which aren't. The only real "rule" for the included religions in the game is that they are all still living religions practiced today (but there's also little reason to keep this "rule" since the series as a whole focuses on historical civilizations).

It's also important to remember that the modern organized world religions still exist because they belong to cultures that survived and conquered. The civ series as a whole is about the what-if of if the Aztecs, etc. survived to modern day. If history played out differently, there's no reason to believe various ancient or indigenous belief systems wouldn't still exist in a more organized way today (complete with names), which is what including their religions as a choice in the game would represent.

 

[Greywulf]

I saw the thread on the 2K forum but also just wanted to most here, I highly recommend using Tomatekh's mod. It has both a full and light version along with denomination pack options to add a little to a ton of new historical and indigenous religions to the game.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=870850597
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/tomatekhs-historical-religions.25699/

I have to say I also disagree with the somewhat racist and uneducated response of calling indigenous religions "primitive" in this thread or dismissing them as "ethnic". Indigenous belief systems are just as complex and culturally valid as modern world religions. It's also a very slippery slope. Both Hinduism and Shinto, which are in the game, are essentially pantheon belief systems. Neither religion is evangelical (technically you can't convert to Hinduism, you need to be born into it) and are primarly ethnic religions (Shinto doesn't even have a large population base). They're also not codified in the same way as organized religions such as Christianity. You can't really make an argument to only include universal, evangelical, modern religions when the game itself includes ones which aren't. The only real "rule" for the included religions in the game is that they are all still living religions practiced today (but there's also little reason to keep this "rule" since the series as a whole focuses on historical civilizations).

It's also important to remember that the modern organized world religions still exist because they belong to cultures that survived and conquered. The civ series as a whole is about the what-if of if the Aztecs, etc. survived to modern day. If history played out differently, there's no reason to believe various ancient or indigenous belief systems wouldn't still exist in a more organized way today (complete with names), which is what including their religions as a choice in the game would represent.

Wow, nice! Thank you for sharing this...would you mind sharing it in the 2K Forums as well?
It's great to see that they have been trying to name these religions as well, and came up with some good ones. I'll have to edit my OP to use alternative terms, such as Teotl (Tlateomatiliztli). I see that they also use Druidism for the Celtic religion, and that they use the term "Intiism" for Inca religion (that one is a step up from "Sun Worship" at least). They've included heaps of religions...That is cool, but I am also thinking of the angle of civs representing each included religion. This would, for me, rule out religions like Dream Time, which do not have a representing civ in the game.

 

[Zaarin]

The civ series as a whole is about the what-if of if the Aztecs, etc. survived to modern day.

Um, they did. The Triple Alliance may not have, but there are still over 1.5 million Nahua, a small minority of whom still practice traditional Aztec religion (minus the human sacrifice, presumably, since that's frowned upon in most societies now...).

 

[Greywulf]

Um, they did. The Triple Alliance may not have, but there are still over 1.5 million Nahua, a small minority of whom still practice traditional Aztec religion (minus the human sacrifice, presumably, since that's frowned upon in most societies now...).

I'd like to know what they call their own religion.

 

[Zaarin]

I'd like to know what they call their own religion.

I pulled all this from the Nahua Wikipedia page, where it simply said "a few still practice traditional Aztec religion," so I don't know. (A few other notes from the Wikipedia page: the Mexican census doesn't count people by ethnicity but by language, so the number of ethnic Nahua is probably considerably higher than the roughly 1.5 million who speak Nahuatl. It also doesn't count children under five. So conceivably we're talking about several million Nahua.)

 

[Greywulf]

I pulled all this from the Nahua Wikipedia page, where it simply said "a few still practice traditional Aztec religion," so I don't know. (A few other notes from the Wikipedia page: the Mexican census doesn't count people by ethnicity but by language, so the number of ethnic Nahua is probably considerably higher than the roughly 1.5 million who speak Nahuatl. It also doesn't count children under five. So conceivably we're talking about several million Nahua.)

Perhaps it really is called "Tlateomatiliztli" then.