How would you like to see religion changed, if at all?

[untitledjuan]

Religions were often spread through migration and trade. What if the same were the case here? Somewhere in-between active and passive. Perhaps carried by units doing other things on the map, and not necessarily devoted missionary units.

I might be in the minority here in that I kind of like it being tied to the cultural legacy path. But generally speaking, I never much cared for religion in Civ games.

Also, I bet that a settler that leaves a city and founds a new one elsewhere also must come with their original religion. It makes no sense that a new settlement is founded by people who came with a city with a religion and the new city has no religion. Somehow the migration made them atheist or what happened?

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

I’m definitely for stripping religion out of culture and making it a legacy path of its own (if only so I can ignore it entirely if it stays in its current form). The religious victory in Civ VI didn’t interest me as a way to play but the faith economy at least meant religion had a secondary purpose.

As it is in Civ VII, I just ignore my own cities and research enough civics and convert enough foreign settlements/city states to get the relics I need, based on the reliquary belief I choose. That frees me up to focus on the other paths but feels like a shame - I’d like to feel motivated to get my own cities following my religion.

 

[MistroPain]

I'm a huge fan of what Mohawk Studios did with Old World's religion mechanics. Like Civ 4 its not completely under your control (although owning the Holy City really helps) and you have to appease the religion itself which in return nets you Civ wide happiness boons. If there was an Old World mechanic to take, I'd love to see a rework of Religion nick components of that (maybe lessen the potency of owning the Holy City so that it becomes more competitive). A religious victory could be becoming the Hegemon of the worlds leading religion where x% of the world populace follows that religion.

 

[Kulko]

I think its an okay mechanic. A bit of busywork to collect the neccessary Relics and apart from that the mechanic doesn't intrude too much into the game. Turning it inot some kind of always on warfare where you constantly have to defend your settlements would just more unneccessary workload to the thing.

 

[Chuy1530]

Complete overhaul for sure, and it looks like they put a minimum amount of effort into it knowing they’d be overhauling it later. Like, we don’t even have a religious map.

There needs to be some way to defend yourself besides having missionaries sitting there ready to reflip your city. I should not be able to walk into a massive city that’s been following Religion A for decades/centuries, with 2 missionaries, and flip them in one turn.

If you were going to keep the current system I would, at a minimum, add a rural improvement that’s like an Abbey or something, and then require each of those along with temples to be flipped.

I figure they’ll release an expansion that brings it somewhere closer to a mix of Civ 6 and Millenia though.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

The current system could really use a go to city for religious units. Just like traders and the add to remote leader.

I do like the civ independent religion idea. Exploration age you try to make a religion your official religion

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I absolutely hate that every Civ gets it's own religion, I much prefer having a decision to make as to whether or not to pursue one and if so how hard. Religious blocs should form up like Civ IV.

 

[ThichN]

Also, I bet that a settle that leaves a city and found a new one elsewhere also must come with their original religion. It makes no sense that a new settlemenet is founded by people who came with a city with a religion and the new city has no religion. Somehow the migration made them atheist or what happened?

That's a good point, that is a bit funny. One narrative link to explain this would maybe be settlers leaving a religion because of persecution? Or wanting to go off and make their own community, a la protestants in the new world.

I'm a huge fan of what Mohawk Studios did with Old World's religion mechanics. Like Civ 4 its not completely under your control (although owning the Holy City really helps) and you have to appease the religion itself which in return nets you Civ wide happiness boons. If there was an Old World mechanic to take, I'd love to see a rework of Religion nick components of that (maybe lessen the potency of owning the Holy City so that it becomes more competitive). A religious victory could be becoming the Hegemon of the worlds leading religion where x% of the world populace follows that religion.

Oh I totally forgot about OW's religion mechanic. That is a nice system.

In slight defense of religion being tied to state, it doesn't take much digging in the history books to find this reality worldwide. But one thing that would be fun (and doesn't this also kind of happen in Old World?) is for there to be different combos. Like if religion X and religion Y both have a certain # of followers in a city, perhaps that specific, unique blend creates Z effect. This would simulate multi-faith, layered religious cities, just as the game has done with layered multiculturalism.

In Old World, I remember too that you could be lenient with religious spread in your borders, or incredibly strict, and anywhere in between. There was a fun seesaw there with different impacts.

 

[Draco84]

The current system could really use a go to city for religious units. Just like traders and the add to remote leader.

I do like the civ independent religion idea. Exploration age you try to make a religion your official religion

If we are going to keep as is, we really need a religious lense, show me where I can use my missionaries, city center is easy enough to pick out, but rural tiles tend to get more difficult to spot.

 

[bonafide11]

I absolutely hate that every Civ gets it's own religion, I much prefer having a decision to make as to whether or not to pursue one and of so how hard. Religious blocs should form up like Civ IV.

I agree. Religion should be created independently and civs can choose whether to adopt a religion or not, but it shouldn't be owned by a civ.

Rome didn't create Christianity, it was created outside of the State, but Rome eventually adopted it. Other empires could have adopted it if they wanted to too. We need it more independent of the civs and let civs influence it or adopt it, but not own it.

 

[TheGrayFox]

I wish they went back to the Civ4 system. It was waaay more fun and it made much more historical sense. Religions don't tend to be owned by specific nations and many nations have shared religions that cover entire continents. You don't see Spain, France, Portugal, etc. each with their own religion, they're all Catholic. Or Islam, which has many followers from many nations, cultures and languages, not a single civilization that "owns" it (well, at least nowadays and for many centuries by now). Of course various indigenous groups have their own religions linked to their cultures, but these particular "ethnic" religions weren't meant to be proselitised like the large "world-religions".

The current system, which basically appeared back in Civ5 with some changes, i sees religion as something managed by the State, but during most of history, it was more of an external and internal force that governments had to deal with, not much something they directly controlled (of course, with some major exceptions, such as China).

While I agree, that IV's model was better than VII.

Civ V's religion worked very similar to IV in this regard. Not every civilization founded their own religion and there ended up being religious blocs of Civs who all shared a faith as well. The only difference between the two entries was that founding and enhancing religions in V let you customize what unique abilities and buildings the religion had. Which I think was a change for the better and made religion way more dynamic.

 

[ZeroSuitSenpai]

Compared to 5 or 6, this is the worst recent religion system we have seen in a civ game imo. Extremely one dimensional and has none of the flavor the previous games had when it came to religion.

 

[untitledjuan]

I agree. Religion should be created independently and civs can choose whether to adopt a religion or not, but it shouldn't be owned by a civ.

Rome didn't create Christianity, it was created outside of the State, but Rome eventually adopted it. Other empires could have adopted it if they wanted to too. We need it more independent of the civs and let civs influence it or adopt it, but not own it.

And other States did adopt it. Ethiopia and Armenia also adopted Christianity around the same time as Rome. It wasn't exclusively "the" Roman religion.

 

[lymond]

I just started my first Explo Age last night and was flabbergasted by the religion mechanics. It made my brain hurt lol. I could see it being completely overhauled in a later expansion. The early Pantheon is nice. Religion does not seem useful to me and a lot of work for little. Like you have to pick these beliefs based on situations you can't even see yet. No sense at all.

Also, I'd like to see religion more fleshed out in Antiquity. Maybe have some more mechanics available and early religions that you can evolve in later ages.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The missionary game is inherently repetitive and unfun and was one of the least liked designs of Civ6. The fact that each city now seems to require two conversions does not help with this issue at all.

There's a nuance - in Civ7 this game spans for one age only and it doesn't feel as repetitive as it was in Civ6. But it still surely need some rethinking in expansions.

 

[Datian]

Religions are so bland and meh that I stumbled on the AI when discovering Theology : I could add one belief, said the game, but couldn't click on anything... I tried reloading, same thing... I forced the end turn, only to see that it was there again at the next turn...
Until I realised that the religion displayed on the "choose your belief" windows wasn't mine !

 

[MistroPain]

Oh I totally forgot about OW's religion mechanic. That is a nice system.

In slight defense of religion being tied to state, it doesn't take much digging in the history books to find this reality worldwide. But one thing that would be fun (and doesn't this also kind of happen in Old World?) is for there to be different combos. Like if religion X and religion Y both have a certain # of followers in a city, perhaps that specific, unique blend creates Z effect. This would simulate multi-faith, layered religious cities, just as the game has done with layered multiculturalism.

In Old World, I remember too that you could be lenient with religious spread in your borders, or incredibly strict, and anywhere in between. There was a fun seesaw there with different impacts.

I can't recall events between religions, would need to replay it; I know theres the 'apprehend that guy in the market' event that spreads religion but thats the only one I remember. I would be curious how that would work with customizable religions, definitely doable if you tie the interactions to the chosen tenets of the faiths, otherwise you'd need to give the players a set number of pre-created faiths (real world faiths) and have the interactions between those.

With regards to the strictness I believe it was tied to Laws you could adopt. Polytheism for example allowed you to build multiple copies of Shrines that were tied to your Civ (and therefore easily spread the polytheistic religions); Orthodoxy allowed you to remove religions and Tolerance allowed you to spread non-state religions, etc. etc. They could use Social Policies here for that.

 

[Patine]

idk if there is a reason to convert your own cities.

Well, to be fair, the Holy Roman Empire, historically, spent several centuries doing this.

 

[Wabnosa]

Give me better icons for customizable religions. Specially the medicine wheel for the Shawnee. It would also serve as a nice alternative customizable Christianity denomination.

 

[Big J Money]

Having not played it yet, the thing I find most odd is the decision to remove builders/workers, but depend more on missionary micromanagement. I'm a fan of the decision to remove builders, but even I will point out that at least the play around builder units was more interesting and felt integrated with the core game of Civ. Missionaries are a unit I would choose to remove before even removing builders.