Having the Shia islam religion in the game

ShinobiHus92

Chieftain
Joined
Aug 3, 2019
Messages
84
I was wondering what you guys would think by having the Shia faith added in the game. I think that would make the medieval and renaissance middle east an unique experience. Especialy since the Fatimids and later the Safavids had Shia as their primary state religion. Also the skirmishes and rivalry between the Ottomans and Safavids would make a lot more sense

Just like when Catholicisme splits from the Orthodox east the same would occur between Sunni and Shia. Perhaps also adding Shia holy sites or Shia only world wonders.

What do you guys think about this? And is it possible? :)
 
The suggestion of splitting Islam into Sunni and Shia has come a few times in the past. The general concensus is that splitting Islam is not a bad idea by itself. The main reason against it is that in the current situation it doesn't add much to the game. The Shiite branch would only be adopted by Iran. The impact to the game is just too small to be worthwhile. The branches of Christianity work because it effects many civs. That said, if/when more civs are included which should adopt Shia Islam, it likely does become worthwile to include.
 
Fatimids too, and it would make a lot of sense for diplomacy, but the last thing needed right now is more -12 Bad Relations collapsing civs.
 
The Fatimids are not a full civ, but only a respawn of Egypt. And only if Egypt respawns before the 12th century. Otherwise it does more represent the Ayyubids or Mamluks which were Sunni Islamic. So still not really worthwile.
 
It could use Shia Islam in civilizations like Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Oman, Nigeria, and (non-playable) Bahrain / Kuwait / Azerbaijan / Lebanon (if any of these are used). With minority spawn in regions like Syria, Pakistan, india, turkey, afghanistan, tajikistan, tanzania.
 
I'm generally an advocate. While only one major in-game civ is consistently Shi'ite throughout history I don't think that precludes other civs from having Shi'ite dynasties. I think Sunni/Shia should still have lower relationship penalty than Christianity/Islam. Similar religions have lower penalties in-game afterall.
 
The suggestion of splitting Islam into Sunni and Shia has come a few times in the past. The general concensus is that splitting Islam is not a bad idea by itself. The main reason against it is that in the current situation it doesn't add much to the game. The Shiite branch would only be adopted by Iran. The impact to the game is just too small to be worthwhile. The branches of Christianity work because it effects many civs. That said, if/when more civs are included which should adopt Shia Islam, it likely does become worthwile to include.

Ahh yes I see what you mean. However there are religions in the game for example Taoisme that aren't even active in use but are still there. Also religions like Confucianism are very few civs that truly addopt it mostly China and sometimes Korea. Now I am only a casual player so I don't know the true mechanics of each religions. But China and Persia are a good example that has a state religion very few others had yet it runs most of the time smoothly without huge penalties or collapsing issues.

Hopefully in future updates then, but it would make the game more interessting and dynamic. It would create many alternate what if's scenario like what if Arabia decides to addopt Shia or the Mugals or Ottomans and the Safavids would addopt Sunni instead etc.
 
I liked it in Sword of Islam mod, (I really recommend you try that mod)

But really, I don't think it would work very well in this mod. It just seems like it would be so hard to implement in any historical way, and not actually bring much benefit.
 
Ahh yes I see what you mean. However there are religions in the game for example Taoisme that aren't even active in use but are still there. Also religions like Confucianism are very few civs that truly addopt it mostly China and sometimes Korea. Now I am only a casual player so I don't know the true mechanics of each religions. But China and Persia are a good example that has a state religion very few others had yet it runs most of the time smoothly without huge penalties or collapsing issues.

Hopefully in future updates then, but it would make the game more interessting and dynamic. It would create many alternate what if's scenario like what if Arabia decides to addopt Shia or the Mugals or Ottomans and the Safavids would addopt Sunni instead etc.
Very true, Taoism is very rarely run by any civ and not even usually present outside China. Zoroastrianism is usually only run by Persia and MAYBE Babylonia or briefly the Turks. I think not only adding a layer of diplomacy having Shi'ism split off could provide a religious disunity challenge for Islamic civs. I'm always in favour of adding extra flavour and I think there are enough gameplay reasons to add it too. I think it makes even more sense than adding Sikhism, which is a perennial suggestion of mine.

I think the concern in the past has been having a Islamic schism would make the very few Islamic civilizations have even fewer friendly relations but I think there should be enough Islamic civs and perhaps more to come with the new map. Also, side note it'd be nice to see Islam spread more actively in Southern India/Indonesia. I feel I very rarely see Islamic Tamils/Indonesia in game, which could help with the -not having enough friendly Muslim civs- problem.

To further this discussion into the territory of possibility... I beg the question. Would the temple, monastery, cathedral have particular names for Shi'ism? What would they be? Would it just be Shi'ite Mosque, Shi'ite Madrassa and Shi'ite Grand Mosque or something particular? What would be the religious wonder for the founder of Shi'ism? What wonders would be tied to Shi'ism? Alamut Fortress for sure, any others? What would be the conditions for an Islamic schism? Can't really model the real life conditions of a disagreement of succession, so would it be more like the Orthodox/Catholic schism where the spread of the religion is the major factor or like protestantism founded by discovering a tech or something else entirely? Any other considerations?

Unrelated, on the new map should Alamut Fortress require opium? I know it's associated with cannabis but barring addition of a second intoxicant of central asian origin as a resource I guess opium is the closest analog.
 
That's a rather weak argument, because not having Zoroastrianism and Taoism in the game would mean not having Zoroastrians and Taoists represented. Not having Shia Islam would still have Shiites represented as Islam.
 
I think this has potential on the new map, but I think it would also depend on having medieval Egypt implemented as full civilization instead of a respawn (which I think should and hopefully will happen, as a relatively high priority among new civilizations), the inclusion of which makes the medieval Middle East more interesting. It still seems difficult to implement the Shia/Sunni split properly since the centers of Shia Islam have historically moved around a lot, and places where they were once powerful (Egypt/North Africa) they later became essentially extinct while places where they were long irrelevant later became major centers (Iran), and also, unlike the splits in Christianity, the Sunni/Shia split dates back to the very beginnings of Islam, so both religions ought to be present from very early on if not immediately after the foundation of Islam.

What wonders would be tied to Shi'ism? Alamut Fortress for sure, any others?

Image of the World Square would also require Shia. There's currently no wonder representing medieval Egypt, but if they were added, they should have a wonder (maybe the Fatimid Great Palaces or the al-Azhar Mosque (which is particularly interesting in that it remains in use today after being converted to a Sunni facility, a bit like Hagia Sofia) that would also require Shia. I think a lot of the Islam-and-Hinduism wonders could become (Sunni-or-Shia)-and-Hinduism wonders as well. And some other currently Muslim wonders could be Sunni-or-Shia wonders, too, potentially, in places where Shia had at least some influence.
 
Last edited:
I think this has potential on the new map, but I think it would also depend on having medieval Egypt implemented as full civilization instead of a respawn (which I think should and hopefully will happen, as a relatively high priority among new civilizations), the inclusion of which makes the medieval Middle East more interesting. It still seems difficult to implement the Shia/Sunni split properly since the centers of Shia Islam have historically moved around a lot, and places where they were once powerful (Egypt/North Africa) they later became essentially extinct while places where they were long irrelevant later became major centers (Iran), and also, unlike the splits in Christianity, the Sunni/Shia split dates back to the very beginnings of Islam, so both religions ought to be present from very early on if not immediately after the foundation of Islam.



Image of the World Square would also require Shia. There's currently no wonder representing medieval Egypt, but if they were added, they should have a wonder (maybe the Fatimid Great Palaces or the al-Azhar Mosque (which is particularly interesting in that it remains in use today after being converted to a Sunni facility, a bit like Hagia Sofia) that would also require Shia. I think a lot of the Islam-and-Hinduism wonders could become (Sunni-or-Shia)-and-Hinduism wonders as well. And some other currently Muslim wonders could be Sunni-or-Shia wonders, too, potentially, in places where Shia had at least some influence.

That seems like a quite difficult task.. I think the Shia holy site should stay in Mecca since it was just as important as for the Sunnis, Historical area's should be the around the Maghreb and Egypt and perhaps core area in Persia maybe? It was just a thought exercise I do hope in the future when the new update and the new map comes out it can be implemented as well. :)
 
I don't think anyone has ever fully thought through this particular idea, I'd love to talk about about more concrete suggestion than just adding Shia and having it be the Persian/Iranian state religion and maybe Egypt. Shia Islam is not the same as Protestantism or Catholicism, which branched off what was though of as mainstream Christianity and after a comparatively limited amount of time were strongly associated with certain geographical regions and nations. Meanwhile, Shiite Islam has always been a minority within the larger Islamic world that existed mostly in pockets surrounded by Sunni majorities and both sects have coexisted from basically the beginning. Besides Iran, Shiite dynasties have been shortlived exceptions, and over the course of history Shiite presence in the Islamic world varied less based on proselytisation than political power relations. There is no religion that works like this right now, and I'm not sure how to model it given the existing system, and I am especially not sure that the effort to invent and implement a system that represents this accurately is worth the benefits, which are also poorly defined beyond a vague "Iran can have a different state religion".

Comparisons to Taoism and Zoroastrianism fall flat for all of those reasons. Also I should probably save this reply to just paste it again when this discussion inevitably comes up again in the next months.
 
Comparisons to Taoism and Zoroastrianism fall flat for all of those reasons.
Zoroastrianism sure, but I think this is actually rather similar to Taoism and its relationship with Confucianism, no?
 
This cyclical pattern of suggesting adding Shia Islam makes me wonder why no one is ever suggesting to split Buddhism into Theravāda, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna. Not that it would be a good idea, but at least with Buddhism the cyclical part would be thematic!
 
Taoism is a separate religion/philosophy from Confucianism but both are often in syncretism with each other. There isn't really a common shared world view these philosophies fall under, unless you are being simplistically broad with "Chinese religious philosophy", which is as descriptively useful as "Abrahamic religion". Having only Confucianism or Taoism (as this mod did for a while in the old, old past) elides the existence of the other, instead of covering it. In that sense it is different from having Islam as an overall religion including Shia and Sunni Islam (plus whatever minor sects exists within Islam as well).
 
This cyclical pattern of suggesting adding Shia Islam makes me wonder why no one is ever suggesting to split Buddhism into Theravāda, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna. Not that it would be a good idea, but at least with Buddhism the cyclical part would be thematic!
Haha yeah, but I'm fairly certain that is precisely because we have a Sword of Islam mod in the RFC world and no South East Asia mod that actually splits into Buddhist schools (even though RFC SEA would be sick). SoI is responsible for a lot of highly specialised knowledge in this part of the community for a very specific period and region in history, without necessarily the context of its importance in the rest of world history this mod has to cover. Level of detail and all that.
 
That's a rather weak argument, because not having Zoroastrianism and Taoism in the game would mean not having Zoroastrians and Taoists represented. Not having Shia Islam would still have Shiites represented as Islam.
I mean I know a few Shi'ites who would take issue with that level of representation... but ok. Alright, let's talk Sikhism.
 
Top Bottom