Religions are represented horribly in BTS. They're one of several half-baked mechanics like global warming and corporations, but attempts to improve them (make later religions spread faster!) don't really make them interesting imho. The modding community hasn't really fixed the core issues with it.
Here's my proposal: have three "base" religions: Hinduism, Judaism, and Confucianism. These will spread only within the borders of a civ which has them as their state religion, and cannot build missionaries. They can also spread to larger or high-culture cities in other civs once their shrine is built, although not in cities that already have a religion. There are also "daughter" religions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Confucianism respectively (Islam can be a daughter of Christianity). These would have missionaries and would also spread more easily than base religions.
I think that a daughter religion should be able to spread naturally (provided its shrine is built) to cities where its parent exists, while the parent should not be able to do the reverse. Spreading an alien religion, e.g. Islam to a Confucian city, should be possible only with missionaries.
Natural spread should happen fairly quickly within a civilization that has converted, but spread to other civs should absolutely require trade contact and open borders. One failure of BTS is that this is very loosely tied to distance - a religion can pop up seemingly anywhere. I don't think religions ought to expand in an orderly line, there should be *some* predictive trend to it. And religious buildings should make it harder for rival religions to exist in the city - perhaps temples would resist natural spread while monasteries would resist missionaries, and cathedrals both.
I'd use a mechanic like the one in RFC: DoC's reformation event to ensure that the daughter religions can compete with their parents. Let me lay out how this will work: upon gaining the required tech, a civ that either has converted to Judaism, or owns the Jewish holy city will found Christianity. All Jewish civs will have to make a choice:
Option one: Christianity replaces Judaism in most cities, but may coexist with it in large cities. The civ converts to Christianity.
Option two: Christianity spreads to a few cities and will rarely replace Judaism entirely.
Option three: Christianity may spread only to larger cities, and the civ will declare war on those that choose option one.
The process should be similar for the other paths (Hindu/Buddhism, Confucian/Taoism).
Each religion has a focus: Hinduism on culture, Buddhism on happiness and health, Confucianism on production, Taoism on gold, Christianity on science (this is historical, yes), Judaism on Great People, Islam on Golden Ages. I also think that base religions should not have cathedrals, since none of them seem to have had a tradition of ornate temple building in real life.
Religious decay is also made more interesting. The chance of a religion decaying are tied to the shrines that are built, the religious buildings in the city, the religion and civics of the owner, the relationship between the religions (daughter religions should be more durable than their parent), etc. I'm also thinking of a persecution building which if built sends the city into revolt, removes non-state religions, destroys their buildings and recoups gold and production from them. (I've always hated the inquisitor unit- what's the point of producing a unit to perform a city-based action?)
Finally, missionary mechanics could work differently for some religions. Suggestions: Buddhism has missionary cap removed, Christianity does not allow missionaries to be built but spawns them completely automated in cities with Christian monasteries. And the founder of Islam receives a Great Prophet, to make up for the difficulty of getting one later in the game.
Pretty workable imho.
Here's my proposal: have three "base" religions: Hinduism, Judaism, and Confucianism. These will spread only within the borders of a civ which has them as their state religion, and cannot build missionaries. They can also spread to larger or high-culture cities in other civs once their shrine is built, although not in cities that already have a religion. There are also "daughter" religions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Confucianism respectively (Islam can be a daughter of Christianity). These would have missionaries and would also spread more easily than base religions.
I think that a daughter religion should be able to spread naturally (provided its shrine is built) to cities where its parent exists, while the parent should not be able to do the reverse. Spreading an alien religion, e.g. Islam to a Confucian city, should be possible only with missionaries.
Natural spread should happen fairly quickly within a civilization that has converted, but spread to other civs should absolutely require trade contact and open borders. One failure of BTS is that this is very loosely tied to distance - a religion can pop up seemingly anywhere. I don't think religions ought to expand in an orderly line, there should be *some* predictive trend to it. And religious buildings should make it harder for rival religions to exist in the city - perhaps temples would resist natural spread while monasteries would resist missionaries, and cathedrals both.
I'd use a mechanic like the one in RFC: DoC's reformation event to ensure that the daughter religions can compete with their parents. Let me lay out how this will work: upon gaining the required tech, a civ that either has converted to Judaism, or owns the Jewish holy city will found Christianity. All Jewish civs will have to make a choice:
Option one: Christianity replaces Judaism in most cities, but may coexist with it in large cities. The civ converts to Christianity.
Option two: Christianity spreads to a few cities and will rarely replace Judaism entirely.
Option three: Christianity may spread only to larger cities, and the civ will declare war on those that choose option one.
The process should be similar for the other paths (Hindu/Buddhism, Confucian/Taoism).
Each religion has a focus: Hinduism on culture, Buddhism on happiness and health, Confucianism on production, Taoism on gold, Christianity on science (this is historical, yes), Judaism on Great People, Islam on Golden Ages. I also think that base religions should not have cathedrals, since none of them seem to have had a tradition of ornate temple building in real life.
Religious decay is also made more interesting. The chance of a religion decaying are tied to the shrines that are built, the religious buildings in the city, the religion and civics of the owner, the relationship between the religions (daughter religions should be more durable than their parent), etc. I'm also thinking of a persecution building which if built sends the city into revolt, removes non-state religions, destroys their buildings and recoups gold and production from them. (I've always hated the inquisitor unit- what's the point of producing a unit to perform a city-based action?)
Finally, missionary mechanics could work differently for some religions. Suggestions: Buddhism has missionary cap removed, Christianity does not allow missionaries to be built but spawns them completely automated in cities with Christian monasteries. And the founder of Islam receives a Great Prophet, to make up for the difficulty of getting one later in the game.
Pretty workable imho.
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