How do you see the new 'concept' of Religion changing the game?

[Lockesdonkey]

I would have to say that the two single BIGGEST religions are Buddhism and Hinduism-NOT Judaism, Islam or Christianity!

Um, no. The two largest religions are:

Christianity: Over 2 billion adherents (more than 1 billion of them Catholics)
Islam: Over 1 billion adherents and growing very quickly.

Then what you thought:
Hinduism: Approaching 1 billion adherents.
Buddhism is on the top five list, but it's well behind the others.
I don't know about Judaism.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I just figured that, with a population of around 1 billion people-in India alone-most of them Hindus, that Hindus would be very close to the top 3. Same with Bhuddism (China, South East Asia). The problem with Christianity is that, if you asked a lot of Americans (North or South) or Western Europeans about their religion, most of them will say Christian and/or Catholic. If asked how often they go to church, or the depth of their religious convictions, then many of them would say very little, because they only tend to pay 'lip-service' to their beliefs, wheras Bhuddists and Hindus, like Muslims, seem to take their religious lives VERY sreiously, and that is how I was looking at the numbers!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rhialto]

Thing is, you can't judge a person's religiosity by how often he attends his local religious building. Quakers, for example, don't even have churches. And Shintoists don't typically attend a shrine except for special events in their life.

I've been contemplating a model where religions are non-player actors. They spawn randomly (perhaps weighted to appear within their historical civs). You can negotiate with the religions (embodied as that religion's highest earthly representative). Wonders are tied to the religion, so you can only build that religion's wonders if sufficient citizens in the city are of the correct religion. Same goes for religious city improvements.

Religions may occassionally decalre a holy war, excommunicate a civ, or make weird demands on your civ. If you anger a religion sufficiently, it may call on its allied civs to declare war on you, and it may scrap all religious buildings (of its type) in your cities (no refunds).

 

[Loppan Torkel]

But yes, before Yahweh was the one and only God, he was the God of the Israelites. At least, that's what many historians believe. There are many other "surprises" in history that aren't given enough attention, either.

I won't argue with that. It's not a clear or 'interesting' enough distinction between the two concepts to discuss. I wouldn't make the cut between them being monotheistic or polythesitic on this basis anyway. One problem still lies in how you see the people of Israel - either Israel-the descendants through blood or Israel-the descendants through religion. The second problem lies in the acknowledge of other 'gods' - If their god went from being their god, still the only god they should worship, to this god becoming the only god, but still their exclusive god, then this could be the result of a clearification of the concept god.
My point is that Judaism and the Israelites are different things, but still intervowen(?) and to speculate about Israelites' beliefs several thousand years ago and then applying them to Judaism back then, changing the religion seems 'complicate'.

I have no problem agreeing that religions change, I'm just a bit sceptic. There are a lot of new populistic discoveries being made, especially when it comes to religious things, just take the Da Vinci Code for a stretchy example, people like this stuff, so new theories and discoveries will come in similar veins of thought.

And from CIA - factbook : Christians 32.71% (of which Roman Catholics 17.28%, Protestants 5.61%, Orthodox 3.49%, Anglicans 1.31%), Muslims 19.67%, Hindus 13.28%, Buddhists 5.84%, Sikhs 0.38%, Jews 0.23%, other religions 13.05%, non-religious 12.43%, atheists 2.41% (2002 est.)
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/xx.html#People

 

[dh_epic]

Loppan,

One thing we have to acknowledge is that many historians are wrong. We don't have detailed records back then. But the point is that religions do change. And many of the most important innovations would be hard as hell to model.

Which leads me to the point -- polytheism and monotheism aren't exactly a great way to dilineate religious progress ANYWAY. But they're kind of terms of convenience. "They had many Gods, then they had one God, and it changed EVERYTHING," says Sid Meier in 1991.

I think it's about time we left 1991 behind.

(And as a side note, probably one of the most tricky things about talking about Judaism, Israel, and Hebrews is you're dealing with 0.23% of the world's population. They're a religion, a "race", and a nation. You can't really say the same thing about any other people.)

Rhialto and everyone,

I think an automatic model of religion is much more effective because it can do things that players can't or won't do.

Leaving it in the player's hands would ensure that a religion will always benefit a player -- and you can't find an example in history where religion favors one nation above all others. (Unless the religion was unique to that nation, and even then, it would sometimes be a thorn in the side of the emperor or king.)

Automating it would let certain events occur that do not benefit any player. Or that benefit multiple players. This is much more like how religion impacted history. No European nation chose Christianity, it chose them. The European nations learned to work with it, and sometimes even tried to fight it or control it.

But a lot of people would have a problem with this because it verges on "natural disasters" -- a volcano randomly erupts, or an earthquake randomly hits a continent. The key to good automated model would depend on how much it upsets the game balance. Nobody wants to play a game where random luck can take them out of the lead, or put them into the lead for that matter.

 

[yoshi]

I'm presently working on a scen that includes all major religions:

Christianity (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox)
Islam (Shia, Sunni)
Budhism (Nikaya, Mahayana)
Hinduism
Judaism
Chinese (Confucianism, Taoism)
Japanese (Shintoism)
Tribal (Animalist)

They're untradable techs given to corresponding civs. Each has its own temple type (gave temples the 'replace all buildings with this flag checked' ability previously for power plants so you can't can't have two if you capture an enemy city).

The scen covers Middle Ages to Modern Age so there's no transition from ancient religions to deal with. Changing religions would have to work something like changing governments (but not be controlable by player (nor should government changes for that matter--a request heard often: uncontrolled revolutions).

I tried to stay away from researching new religions in the scen, but in Civ4 this will probably be the case unless they tie it in with civ characteristics (assuming there are civ characteristics).

I have certain special religious wonders that require certain resources to be within city radius (in addition to a Temple of the same religion) thus ensuring that only colonization of these areas by a certain civ will result in these holy sites being formed. (Kind of like what Aussie was talking about earlier where religions are also determined by map features).

Another requirment that I use for some religious improvements is government (e.g. Cathedrals require Catholic Church improvement but will not function under Communism).

Thing is, in my scen, religion (buildings) only affects hapiness whereas it would be nice to have it play a role in citizen resistence (i.e. functions like nationalism--without having either one or the other) and other aspects of your civ.


Basically, the way I look at it is, 'what aspect of religion can't I already mod into Civ3?' That's what should be in Civ4.

Where the question of how to make religions be generic without resorting to the simplistic nature of 'Polytheism' and 'Monothesism' (which are simply stages of research and do not determine which direction a civ will follow): leave this up to Firaxis.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, the only problem that I have with random appearance of religion is 'how do you determine the factors that effect WHAT religions appear for which civs?' If you make it based on the Civ or Culture Group, then you risk both Strait-jacketing the player too much AND possibly causing some groups offense. Although it is not TRULY realistic, I think that 'researching' religions is OK because-as Rhialto often points out-you are the 'Gestalt' of your people and, in this case, successful 'research' of a religious 'tech' could simply represent 'revelations' within certain sections of your community. eg. 'hmmm, all this belief in dozens of different Gods has led to so much needless pain and bloodshed in the region. If, however, we all believe in one, all-powerful God, then it could unite all the people in that single belief' and, before anyone dismisses this out of hand, this was EXACTLY the social situation Mohammad faced at the time he recieved his own religious revelation!!
Of course, like governments, 'discovering' a religion is not the same as adopting a religion. However, once you have 'discovered' a religion, the chance of sections of your population changing to that religion becomes a real possibility, as does the proximity of other nations with that religion. Once you have a ground-swell of support for a given religion, then it is up to you, the player, whether to give it state sanction, or try and repress it instead (a dilemma faced by the Roman Authorities in the face of Christianity).
So, what exactly am I saying? First, that 'researching' in the case of religion is a way of representing the abstract concept of religious revelation. Second, that religious paths are NOT mutually exclusive, or on a Linear Research Path, but that you can move from any ONE Religion to any other. If anything, religious 'techs' should grow out of non-religious Social Techs, NOT other religious 'techs'.
Thirdly, I am saying that your people can embrace a religion not endorsed by the State, but that this might threaten a religious schism within your society!
Anyway, hope that makes sense!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Heffalump]

My thoughts about religion

* Use real religions

* Religions offer differing benefits, buildings, wonders. They do not offer negatives.

* Each religion has an implicit 'conversion strength'. Some religions may not offer all the great benefits of others, but perhaps they are spread more easily.

* That said there is a progression in religions. Some of the earliest religions may not offer the same benefits or conversion strength as some of the later religions.

* Some religions are available from the very start of the game.

* Other religions appear later. They are started by a Prophet unit, or great religious leader

*If a prophet does not appear in your lands, you may ask a foreign civ to establish a missionary in your capitol. This will begin the process of converting people in your cities.

* A prophet may be used to build a great religious monument or center.

* A religious center acts as a strong influence on the citizens of that city and surrounding cities.

* A city with a majority of citizens of a given religion may build improvements, units specific to that religion.

* Building religious buildings has a domino affect. Once a city is converted to Islam, for example, it may begin construction of a mosque. This mosque then will have an influence on citizens of neighboring cities, gradually converting them until the majority of that city too is Islam. And then they too can build a mosque.

*Religion is not entirely under your control. Citizens in your outlying cities may be affected by the religious influence of cities from neighboring civs.

*Religion and culture are closely tied together. The religion of a strong culture civ will travel much more easily across borders and affect a low culture civ, rather than vice-versa

*You may similarly attempt to spread your religion by establishing missionaries in other civs. A civ may allow you to do this for free (if they want your religion), for a price, or not at all. Vassal states (another great feature to implement) would be obliged to allow you to establish your missions.

*Having cities of different religion in your empire increases the risk of civil war, or schism.

*Secularism appears as a tech in the latter half of the game. It allows you to maintain cities of different religion in your empire with a reduced risk of schism.

*New Victory Condition: unite the world in one faith. (You will need to control the seat of the religion)

 

[rhialto]

ok, let's suppose you have the following civs in a particular game:

Rome, China, India, Germany, Russia, Aztecs, Greece

And the following religions:
Aztec polytheism, Graeco-Roman polytheism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodox

Each religion would have a matrix of civs that had that religion historically, weighted according to numbers of worshippers, with a minimum score of 1 for every civ. So they might be:

Aztec polytheism : Aztecs - 10, all others - 1
Graeco-Roman polytheism : Rome - 5, Greece - 5, all others - 1
Eastern Orthodox - Russia - 3, Greece - 3, all others - 1

And so on. Note that as religions get more modern (I'm defining this as the most recent peak in their numbers of worshippers), the extremeness of the regional weightings will drop. Orthodox Christianity is a modern religion, so the weightings are low. Aztec polytheism died out a few centuries back, giving it a strong weighting that makes it almost certain to spawn first in an Aztec city.

Next, each time a civ researches the releasing tech for a given religion, the game engine rolls the dice. If this roll indicates the religion will spawn in your civ, a random city is chosen. Note that this avoids giving any weighting bonus to a big civ, thus subtly encouraging religious uniformity in any given civ (before cross cultural contact and other religions get researched of course). The dice roll to determine spawning is adjusted each time a civ fails to make it spawn in their territory, such that teh last civ to research the tech will always spawn that religion if it hasn't spawned already.

(whew!)

----

Now, once a religion has spawned, it becomes an independant entity which you can negotiate with in diplomatic screens. It immediately begins converting citizens first in its starting city, then in surrounding cities. Diplomatic actions can encourage or discourage it from converting people in your or a foreign civ. As it gains power, it may start building religious improvements or claiming a tithe, and it may even ask your civ to declare a religious war, with civil disorder problems if you refuse (what Christian king dared refuse the Pope when he ordered a crusade?). naturally different religions will have different AI personalities. For example, the Buddhist AI should be very unlikely to call for a holy war.

If a player-civ strongly identifies with a religion (or just suddenly notices that 99% of his citizens are that religion), he may declare that religion to be the official religion. This allows the player to directly fund religious city improvements (instead of hoping the religion's AI builds them for him), and allows him to build religious great wonders from the relevant religion. it also puts him in the pocket of the AI religion, making it rather harder to disobey that AI. Depending on the exact level of official support (and the AI religion may call for higher levels), citizens of other religions in your empire may be unhappy or persecuted.

Thoughts?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, Rhialto, I do support the broad THRUST of your ideas but-in principle-I am still broadly opposed to using realworld religions, with the exception of in Scenarios and any realworld names players want to give their religions 'In-game'.
So, what we are looking at with religion, IMHO, is the seperation between 'Divine Revelation' of a small minority of Believers, the broader understanding of the belief system by the people and, finally, the official sanction of the state.
So, I believe that the initial 'conversion' of a small minority of your population to an as yet 'unknown' faith would occur almost spontaneously-based on a very small % chance (checked every x turns). This chance will be weighted by certain cultural factors, how 'close' your nation currently is on the 'phlyogenetic tree', whether or not your nation has come to 'understand' the religion (i.e. 'researched' it) and the proximity and religious culture of similarly-faithed nations you neighbour and/or trade with. Having converts within your nation boosts the chance of your nation 'learning' that religion. Once the nation, as a whole, achieves a broad 'understanding' of the faith, then it can choose to adopt it as the official religion. Otherwise, as Rhialto pointed out, it will remain a seperate faction within your nation with whom you deal with in a similar fashion to another civ.
Anyway, thats at least how I might like to see it work.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rhialto]

I forgot to mention that although the religion's AI will convert the citizens, that doesn't mean that the civ loses the citizens. I'd probbaly work it so that the AI acquires 1 tithe point for each converted citizen, and can then spend tithe points placing religious buildings, or perhaps even raising its own armies.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I think that a religions overall 'strength' (i.e. its ability to convert, the amount of tithes it collects, how quickly it builds religious improvements and the like) would be based on the # of converts the religion has (in ALL nations), whether your nation officially sanctions that religion and your nations degree of Theism.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

I'm not opposed to real religions. Although I am concerned that they raise issues of verisimilitude, if you implement a dynamic, abstract enough religious model, then all these things will make sense.

But I AM opposed to hardwiring religions. Almost as much as I'm opposed to randomly founding religions in different civilizations. Hardwiring religions straightjackets the player, to steal Aussie's word. Randomly distribution religions just kind of makes the whole thing ... odd. It's a balance between finding a systematic way to distribute religions based on how the game unfolds, without predictably knowing your Civ's religious sphere before the game starts.

 

[Princeps]

I'd like to see religion uniting civs... Like of the Babylonians, germans and americans have fought against each other long time, but they have been christians. Than another civs that have other religion comes to invade them, germans, americans, and babylonians will somehow ally against the infidels.

All religions should have their own temples and larger temples, the temples would not spread the owning civ's culture, but only the religion. Also, every religion should have a priest unit that spreads it's faith, it can also work as a spy. Also, every religion has it's UU in every era.

Religions would change. The religions would be born in some areas, and start to spread from there.

 

[dh_epic]

Naziassbandit, I'd come up with a similar scenario you're describing using cultural unity.

The Babylonians, Germans, and Americans can fight and then suddenly find themselves attacked by an outside force, and thus unite in the face of adversity. This happened in the Crusades with Christians uniting against Muslims. But this also happened in Greece, with Sparta and Athens uniting against Persia. The idea being that it doesn't matter what kind of similarity two nations/city-states share -- it could be language, values, rituals, or similar institutions. If they're more similar to each other than an outside force, they'll unite.

The first thing you'd need is a way to transmit culture points, so you have something to measure. Each Civ would start out with a unique culture, and producing temples and libraries and so forth would increase the number of points of that culture. Culture would "bleed over" into nearby nations automatically. Suddenly Babylon has 100 Babylonian culture points, but 10 American culture points. New York has 100 American Culture points, and 15 Babylonian culture points. Cultural transmission would be slowed, even reversed, by war and hostility. It would be sped up and increased by trade and admiration. You now have a mechanism to transmit culture between Civs, more or less.

The second thing you need is a way to measure cultural similarity. It's quite easy, really -- it's as simple as counting wood blocks. If my castle has mostly blue blocks, and yours has mostly red blocks, but we both have some blue and red blocks, we can measure how similar (different) we are from each other.

Me: RRRRRRRRRRBBBB
You: BBBBBBBRRR

We engage in some cancelling to find subtract the intersection, leaving out the "difference". Note that no culture points are destroyed in the process, but this is just a theoretical mathematical calculation.

Me: RRRRRRRRRRBBBB = RRRRRRR
You: BBBBBBBRRR = BBB

It's hard to see how these values help. But if we add "somebody else", with their own culture, represented by green... suddenly it's easy to see that there are HUGE differences between us and them. Cultural similarity is, thus, always a matter of triangulation -- me, you, and them.

Me: RRRRRRRRRRBBBB --> RRRRRRRRRRBBBB --> RRRRRRR
You: BBBBBBBRRR --> BBBBBBBRRR --> BBB
Them: GGGGGGGGGGGGG --> GGGGGGGGGGGGG --> GGGGGGGGGGGGG

The amount of culture that remains uncancelled is "the difference". Look at "Them" -- their difference is much larger than ours. Thus we can say that you and me have more in common with each other than them.

The last thing you need is a mechanism that drives similar nations closer together and different nations apart (and everyone in between). To me, the mechanism is THE PEOPLE. Popular opinion. As the leader of your nation, you may hate "me" as much as you hate "them". But your people look at my people getting attacked by "them", and say to you "we're starting to get upset that you're not doing anything about 'them'. While they haven't attacked us, we see them as a threat to our way of life, having killed neighbors of ours who share similar dress, language, and rituals." In order to boost your peoples' happiness, you might just bail me out!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think religion would probably best be implemented as an advanced form of the culture groups ie a Multi Civ Identity (and possibly sub-Civ identity as well)

This means that it would affect your diplomatic and domestic relations... easier to declare war on someone of a different religion than your people. (ie Catholic-Protestant wars get more public support than Catholic-Catholic wars and less than Catholic-Sunni wars... Probably something like two or three Levels of difference.. so both Catholic and Sunni could be of the 'Mosaic' base; 'Christian' and 'Islamic' branches, 'Catholic' and 'Sunni' subdivisions)

There would be a few significant sites for various religions.. and they would probably tend to share them. (probably one could have something like Mosaic significant site =Jerusalem, Islamic branch ss= Mecca, if Catholic ss=Rome)

I'd probably put religions into 4 categories

1. Tribal (ie starting religion of all)

2. Imperial (ie Pantheon)...exportable:good for keeping multiple civs happy..slowly replaces 'Tribals'.. doesn't spread beyond your empire well though

3. Local (ie Judaism)...resistant: maintains resistance to assimilation..doesn't spread at all, but isn't replaced easily if at all

4. World (the Big 4..Islam/Christ/Hindu/Bhudd)... both exportable And resistant



I'd imagine some version of that would be best because that avoids trying to work out bonuses for different religions. Essentially if it is no more than an advanced Culture group (that can change.. with various technologies and events and consist of only parts of your civ)

The one thing that I could see as bonus would be things that affected the religion itself ie resistance, exportability, internal unity (ie Catholic higher than Orthodox higher than Protestant... if that was a single group)


I'd generate them like so

Tribal.. you start with it

Imperial...you get a tech that allows you to start this (you may also conquer a more advanced civ that already has this and their Imperial then becomes your Imperial ie Greco-Roman)

Local... Probably Rare.. but occasionally once a certain tech is researched (possibly like Philosophy..1st civ to Research monotheism gets a Local Religion)

Global..Mostly formed from splts or developed from othere neighboring base religions (ie Christ+Islam from the same base as Judaism, Bhuddism from Hindu...splits would be rare but enough so that the number of subdivisions by a industrial/modern game could be ~10-20.. triggers could be techs, political situations, etc.)


Governments could set religious policies, basically which religion they sponsor and how strongly (including None as an option)...Note this could also be tied to government type, ie the religion sponsored depends on what your population favors when the government is formed, and the degree of sponsorship could be hardwired to government type. (this depends on the government model)

 

[mhIdA]

naziassbandit
We have the example of european countries who fight a lot among history but they allways allies to face ottomans, or during the Reconquista of Iberian Peninsula against Arabs.

dh_epic
I think your example too complicate. So a better way to give similarities and diferences between civs, is something like that:
I must said that the ratios are mainly arbitrary and the model itself, could be improve, adding some features and discard others. This model is an aproach how S/D could be apply.

S = rR+lL+gG+tT+ aA, D = 1 - S and r+l+g+t+a = 1

S is a given ratio between 0 and 1. S could converge, more close to 1 or diverge more close to 0 trough the culture spread model among time.

S - similitary between 2 civs, D - diference between 2 civs.

R - Religion. How religion is similar or diferent from civ to civ? Religion is considered by their adherents as the truth faith and all others are wrong. So 2 diferents religions are exclusives to each other. So R = 0. If the religion is the same, like Christianism, but their practice is diferent, as Protestants (P), Catholics (C), Orthodoxs (O). So R between this diferent ways of practice the some religion is between 0 and 1. This is completed abstract, but suppose that R between this 3 divisions is 0.7 So R between O and C is 0.7 and R between O and P is 0.7 and R between P and C is0.7. Now suppose R between Portugueses and Spainish is 1,due both are Catholics. And r is weight that religion is in culture similarity and suppose is 0.35.

L - Language. Suppose that we take 2000 words and calcule how many words are similar and understandable between 2 civs. So if we achieve a ratio of 0.8 then this 2 languages are similar in 0.8, once again between Portuguese and Spainish, and once they're latin language this make sense. We could have also have the idiomatic expressions or grammaire, but to simplify we only count with ratio achieve above. And l is weight that language is in culture similarity and suppose is 0.35.

G - Gastronomy. we take the meals, some food and luxuries more commonly used by 2 civs. Some food are forbidden or forbiden in same days. So we can have a ratio between Portuguese and Spainish as 0.6. And g is weight that gastronomy is in culture similarity and suppose is 0.1.

T - Traditions or vice. Poligamy versus monogamy. The heritage go all to primogenit male. Mens take care og cattle. Wedding between childs are allowed. Clothes. And so one. So we can have a ratio between Portuguese and Spainish as 0.7. And t is weight that traditions is in culture similarity and suppose is 0.1.

A - Art. In early stages of game this is fundamentally jewellery, sculpture and architecture. After we add theatre, literature, and so one. The raw materials tied to geography and geology are the main aspects fallowed by style. So we can have a ratio between Portuguese and Spainish as 0.7. And a is weight that art is in culture similarity and suppose is 0.1.

I apply only 0.10 to tradition, gastronomy and art due religion allready include some of this factors and also contribute to modelling it.

If we apply the values to this model we have: S = 0.35x1 + 0.35x0.8 + 0.10x0.6 + 0.10x0.7 + 0.10x0.7 = 0.35 + 0.28 + 0.06 + 0.07 + 0.07 = 0.83.
Then we could say that spainish and portuguese culture are similar in 83%, and so diferents in 0.17%.


To the topic.
If the religion in cIV is the Rhye's approach then we have the problem solve. More religion units and religion improvements.
But if is anything else, some kind of culture spread model apply to religion, then the possibilities are more interstings. I think that we must tied to in real life religions and not push the imagination. Besides that I have same thoughts.

- How and when a particular religion appear.
By a technology. With ceremonial burial we have the pagan, nordic, blood and sacrificial cults. The mhysticism allow a higher degree of religioness. With polytheism we have the antropomorfic religions (Egypt, Greece, Rome, Hiduism, etc). When Monotehism is discover we could start have the monotheist religions. Tied this techs with Great People could be a way.
By a Great People. Lets think about Judaism, Christianism and Islam. They're all religions who come from desert one fallow the other and in some way the're related. Judaism stand tied to one nation/civ so is a spread weaklly religion. Christianism derive from Judaism but had the Roman Empire to could spread and stand mainly in Europe who have a moderate clima. Islam also come from desert and still mainlly a desert religion.
What factors: geographics, climatics and culturals define in what civ a religion came out.

- How citizens are converted.
In Europe the barbs are converted mainly when their king is converted. In America and Africa is due the colonialism and has tied to cultural assimilation of their people. Islam it spread by sword and taxation (the citizens in conquered territories who don't embrace Islam pay a tax). Some cultural similarities between the peoples of desert also contribute (Arabian desert, Sahara, Central Asia, Indonesian is an exception to this model).
The traditions of a civ culture give us the degree of tolerance to a certain religion. So if the beliefs and canones of a religion are in somehow according to traditional culture of a civ then more easily spreading to that civ. Or if the religion is brought frommore tech advanced a civ . The Aton cult is completely discard once the founding are dead. Islam that forbid alcool drinks are more problems to spread in civs who consumme alcool drinks. Civs with poligamy more easily accept Islam as they new religion
Building religion improvements and have active missionaries may increase a particular religion also, but in last case the degree of tolerance give the more fast or lower conversion, or any convertion at all.
Rulers decisions, or government type should also contribute to tolerate or not a particular religion (the intolerance against huguenotes and counter-reform contribute to France and Spain remain catholics).
Civs nearby tend spread each other they're culture and so therefore they're religion. A religion spread model is the more accurate and playable way.
Politheist civs easily accept monotheist religions, due it was one more God. And if replace the old gods by saints more easily they're be convert.

- How religions relate to each others, and with civs.
In early stage of religion, once a religion become an officila state religion they tend to embrace as many as civs at possible whatever the means. A civ recently convert and civs with a particular religion that are the most advance in techs tend to be more missionary and less tolerante with others civs. Schism inner a religion are tied to culture (catholics are mainly latins, protestants mainly germanics and orthodoxs mainly slavics). In Islam Xiits are Parsis and sunits arabs, turkish and malayans. Religion could act as a social, art and scientific constraint. Galileu in catholicism or the forbiden human pictures in Islam. In Budhism Tibetans, Mongols and Koreans are Nikaya and Thais and Khmers are Mahayana. So discovery, say Islam a civ could adopt Sunism or Xiism, like a governmental type choice. The same to Chrystianism and Catholic first and Orthodoxy after and coptas, nestorian and several others forms of Chystianity. Once Protestantism is available with discovery of Printing Press other option appear. In case of Islam the option it was not so long, it could choosed once Mohamad died, some like a trigger event who force that choice. The same to Budhism. The choice of a particular religion could be arbitrary, unless the diferents divisions of a religion, who must have the main religion back, and could be tied to the mainly feel of civics/citizens.
Once a civ discover a religion others civs don't need discover it anymore, something like great wonders. A division of a particular religion act as the same, but could be discover by any civ who adopt the main religion.

 

[mhIdA]

kikkitone
Hindu is a local religion to. Mainly in India. In others countries is dueing indians migrants across Commonwealth.

 

[dh_epic]

mhIdA, I don't have a problem if you think my model is complicated. But then you go so far as to multiply the complexity of my model by 5.

Multiplying the number of cultural concepts by 5 isn't feasible in Civ, a game that has barely introduced culture. Rather than adding 5 different kinds of culture, it's more valuable to change the way the one type of culture works.

Multiplying the number of cultural concepts by 5 isn't necessary. This is because for all the ways you've differentiated between Art and Gastronomy, there's no difference in what the player does. If the goal of culture is "spread it -- using buildings, wonders, units, trade, government policy, and osmosis", you really don't need 5 different kinds of it.

And multiplying the number of cultural concepts by 5 isn't desirable. If they player is doing the exact same thing for 5 different concepts, why have 5 different concepts at all? And if the player needs to do 5 different things for 5 different culture concepts, that's undesireable micromanagement.

Focusing back on religion, you have a lot of great thoughts. But how do you model the actual values that a religion has in common? How can you tell that it's the whole alcohol thing, or the pork thing?

And to apply what I just talked about, who cares if it's the pork thing or the alcohol thing? If they behave in the same way, then it doesn't change what the player can do, and doesn't matter. If they DON'T behave the same way, then the player gets bogged down in micromanaging his policy on every different kind of food.

 

[gianluca790]

The types of religions you could have might be totemic, animist, Ancestor Worship, Eastern Polytheism, Eastern Philosophy, Early Monotheism, Polytheism, Blood Cult, Late Monotheism and New Age Cultist.
Each Religion could also be split into Orthodox and Reformist-if you have the relevent tech

How about different combinations and flavors? The Reformed Church of the New Age Polytheistic Blood Cult or the Orthodox Church of Eastern Polytheistic Philosophy......! Any church could also worship tribal animal totems and ancestor spirits alongside the Orthodox Church, like in Syncretic New Religious Movements such as Voodoo, Macumba and Santeria.