Huge New CIV Update, Largest to Date

[Aussie_Lurker]

Oh and, something else that I found disturbing, in the 'Tech Discovered' screenshot, is that Polytheism LEADS to Monotheism! Why should it? I fear that this again represents the VERY Eurocentric (and Western Europe_centric, for that matter) view of religion that has been present in previous iterations of Civ.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Snoopy]

8 new screenshots are now online at my site. You can find all 24 released screenshots at MRex Online, which you can get to through the link in my signature.

Thanks for that; have you had any 'officials' ask you to take the screenshots down yet?


Love the picture of the pryamids.

 

[dh_epic]

Hey Aussie, not to say "I told you so"...

But that's exactly what I was saying. Your "very simple" suggestion, while arguably quite straight forward, relies on several features that do not exist in the game (at least to our knowledge). The culture spreading model, regionalism and seperatism, AND the will of your people having an impact on your diplomacy (including who they like and dislike). Those features all offer bang for buck, and religion on top of those would be meaningful.

But alas, there's no indicator that they've built the features that are necessary for your model.

Religion had the potential to do more harm than good. But if there's one benefit for their minimalist design it's that it can't do much harm. If it's just "team names", then it can't ruin the game like little mohammed units running around trying to fulfill prophecies, and picking your religion based on which one is more industrious.

That's the consolation.

 

[Commander Bello]

[..]
As for religion, I definitely feel it lacks 'bang for the buck'. It seems like little more than a label which has an effect on happiness and diplomacy-all things which could have been done within the existing culture system. [...]

Well, being far away from being a Firaxis-Fan, I have to admit that at least they put in an interesting option - if you have a look at the "ChinaandReligion.jpg", you'll see that you can switch religions (obviously for your whole nation) with the penalty of only one turn of anarchy. Depending on the number of cities which are linked to that religion, this may pay off due to the increase in happiness. As soon as you have gained other cities, it may be advisable to switch religion again...
This indeed adds another feature to the game, and I could imagine that it wouldn't be a bad feature. I even assume that you would be able to link certain improvements to the religious orientation of your cities - this might give you certain improvements in some cities, whilst others couldn't get them. At least, I hope that ideas like this may be modded into the game.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

I'm actually beginning to like the look of Civ 4. From the screenshots and everything, it seems they have fixed many problems which originally plagued Civ. For example, one of the screenshots shows the known world where resources are clearly identified, solving the "invisible resources" problem. Hopefully, they'll solve the other massive problems (ICS, AI building cities where resources not yet revealed are, how winning by war is almost the only way to play the game because the AI will always gang up on the player, etc.) It also seems that the perspecitve you view the world can be changed, which I like. The units don't seem as large and busy as they used to.

As for religion, I'll withhold my opinion for now. As long as they don't go down that bloody Politically Correctness bullcrap path, it probably won't be as bad as you fear.

For schisms and separations, maybe that could be in but they aren't saying anything about it. Think about it... there are 9 left over leaders (or if it was a typo like some people are thinking, 19), there is clearly a slot for a part of a civ splitting off. Maybe if the leader starts persecuting people of a certain religion, if there are enough of them they'll split. There could be other reasons for it to happen, like the fall of the capital in Civ 1 and Civ 2, massive corruption problems, poor / disagreeable government choice, and so forth.

What I'm more worried about is how that you might have to pick a leader whose personality is the same as yours, from that confusing Genghis Khan snippit.

 

[Thunderfall]

For example, one of the screenshots shows the known world where resources are clearly identified, solving the "invisible resources" problem.

That's a very nice little feature indeed.

The new look of rivers in that screenshot looks pretty good.

I hope they fix the coastlines to make them more natural. Right now it's too rectangular.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Trust me, my mind is not absolutely 'MADE UP' just yet-I am just saying that, on the basis of what I know now, the bad elements appear to outweigh the good elements (and there ARE good elements!) If more good elements come to light, or if existing bad elements are improved so that they are no longer 'bad' (or if they are just better explained), then my opinion will certainly change!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[MeteorPunch]

@ the topdown viewpoint a la Civ I!!


GRIPE: The units for 2 different civs are the same color ...just the flags are different. I spent a lot of time (10+ hours) customizing the *colors* of civs in III and I was hoping they would be more flexible in allowing us to expand on this .

...still hoping .

 

[MeteorPunch]

Oh and, something else that I found disturbing, in the 'Tech Discovered' screenshot, is that Polytheism LEADS to Monotheism! Why should it? I fear that this again represents the VERY Eurocentric (and Western Europe_centric, for that matter) view of religion that has been present in previous iterations of Civ.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I think monotheism should come first. If you believe the bible (I do), than the first people believed in one God, but soon after started making up many other gods. Besides, how can you have more than one before having one?

 

[MSTK]

I just hope they don't go for the flashy looks over gameplay.

 

[bkwrm79]

Historically, Polytheism *does* precede Monotheism. Some people argue that this change wasn't an improvement, and in some places (India, parts of Africa) it hasn't happened. But wherever monotheism emerged, it was preceded by polytheism.

 

[dh_epic]

Covenant, so nobody ignores your very very thoughtful post.

For all the good they have thrown in, it seems they ignored the two worst problems in civ 3, the victory conditions and diplomacy, and have introduced a new one, religion.

I agree. I think it was much more important to look at the flaws from Civ 3 and find ways to build on those, rather than implementing a new feature just because it's such a "cool part of history".

Be that as it may, it doesn't mean that they're not improving diplomacy and victory conditions. When it comes to marketing, you tend to emphasize "what's new" over "what's fixed". So I'm still faithful that they've done SOMETHING about diplomacy.

If the victory conditions are the same, there is no reason to play the game differently then it is now in Civ3, where territory is the only important thing. For all the good some of these great sounding features can bring, if it still comes down to territory the game fundementally stays the same, and therefore will have the exact same problems as civ 3 a good but fundementally flawed game.

I definitely agree with you. They could implement the coolest new feature -- from economics to culture to diplomacy -- but if those are all subordinate to how much land you can take, then none of those features will matter a lick.

Diplomacy is probably the most important interaction in human history, deciding everything under the sun.

I'm with you 100%. If you expand on religion, taking it from temples and cathedrals to "teams", or "city-religions versus state-religions", you'll only add to the middle ages. ( And maybe a bit just outside the middle ages.)

If you expand on diplomacy, you impact the entire game, especially the modern and industrial ages. The late game is incomplete at best, and to be more frank, it's broken.

But I still have a shade of hope. And that's that the diplomacy stuff may still be coming. "Fixed Diplomacy!!!" doesn't sound nearly as interesting as "New Religion!!!" -- which is probably why they mentioned one and not the other.

 

[bkwrm79]

I agree, there's hope for diplomacy. Even if there's nothing there that improves over SMAC, I could still be quite happy. And they probably wouldn't boast about "we took the best stuff from this other game we forgot to add to Civ III" even if they were smart enough to do it.

 

[dh_epic]

Meteorpunch --

The early evolution of religion is covered in a lot of history books. Villages attributed things to their god, and when they met people in another village, it was easy to reconcile that they both had gods. Also, people would attribute a natural phenomenon like rain to a rain god, and the sun to a sun god, and before you knew it, there were entire mythologies of how the world was created and how it worked.

The big step was for the Hebrew people who had a God, Yahweh. In his earliest conception, Yahweh wasn't the only God, but just the only God worth praying to for the Hebrew people. It was the intermediate step between polytheism and monotheism. But that wasn't the biggest step. One was the fact that God had a covenant with the people, rather than just being a finicky guy who might get mad and fire off a volcano if he was having a bad day with one of the other Gods. The covenant was if you do X, then God will do Y. God cares very much about what you do. That became a common thread in many religions.

Of course, even as a Christian, I joke about the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and how God became much more happy. But it's true. Forgiveness started to become an important diplomatic strategy. And even Gandhi said "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind". You could see this evolution even within the Old Testament, as a sense of cooperation grew from your city, to your state, to your country, to everybody.

I don't think this history of religion is incompatible with being a member of said religions. The nature of the universe is not revealed to us with absolute certainty. It is revealed to us gradually, and scriptures and laws are re-written the more that we know.

... don't mind me. It's a slow night for me.

As a side note, the fact that religion has changed this much over the past 6000 years is evidence to me enough that you'd have to do a complex model of religion to do it right... and it would be better to not implement religion at all than to half-ass it. Or at least what it looks like they're doing -- keeping it very simple and minimal.

 

[Marsden]

I really don't think that Civilization has ever really had a good view on religion in general, straight out of the Marxist philosophy that "religion is the opiate of the masses." In other words its just somethink to keep people quiet or controlled. Example: spend some production on a temple and your unhappy citizen shuts up and goes back to work, or, your people are war weary so you give them a cathedral and the war doesn't really bother them that much any more. Now I'm not saying I have a better model to use and I am happy they tried to include social and developement in the game, but who really thinks a nation or empire would really research Music Theory, when that money would well be spent on something (like Military Tradition or Leadership) that gives them better troops? Are we going to wave sheet music at the enemy. Maybe your people should make these things happen. You can be directing your sages to work on gunpowder for example, then you get a message from the cultural advisor that something incredible has happened and the musicians in your capital city have developed a new Music Theory that will make our civilization the envy of the world. Or back to religon. You could be the Khan ruling a vast horde and then some missionary comes to visit and half of your army refuses to go and fight because they want to sell what they have and give to the poor. You could either convert yourself, like Roman emperor Constantine, or fight and oppress them, like the Romans before him. This could be where your leader does not like how you are running things because he thinks you should burn these guys and you think wow my culture has become really advanced.

hope i did not take up too much time thanks

 

[MeteorPunch]

@dh: I was really refering to Pre-Hebrews/Genesis era before law and covenant. At this time it was God *then* other gods. But, I would highly doubt this making it in the game and it's fine to me that it's not .

 

[King Squanto]

What religion is founded when the technology "Giant Death Robots" are discovered?

surprsingly, a valid question, for even though 'giant death robots' isn't the tech I'd be thinking of, what religons would rise in the modern age? Gameplay wise, half of the game would have new religons coming out about every 700 years (if its historically correct), and then after Islam it would poop out. I wonder if this will make any sort of impact on gameplay... its for this reason, and reasons of creativity, I think religons should be at least renamable or even a bit customizable. For historical scenerios, they could be locked, but for random games it would be fun to change things up a bit, after all, earth looks nothing like it does with random maps, why would the religon be the same? This would also reduce the possibility of offending anyone. Also, I think it would be cool if every culture type had one religon the whole game that would evolve, and even though this is a little eurocentric, from polythesitc to monotheistic. (really, it can apply to Asia to- Acient Hinduism is alot different from Modern Hinduism with islam and bhuddist influences) For each era, when your culture has evolved enough, or if you build enough temples, or what not, your religon wouuld evolve, until it reaches a peek. Then you'd need a prohpet to advance to a monotheistic version. There would be one prophet every age, and it would be born in the country with the least offensive wars or treachery or citizen abuse, (rewarding something other than complete totalitarinism in governing style), where it would greatly increase culture, happiness, and restart the updating cycle of the religon (i.e. Buddha). If you didn't have a prophet, it would also be a danger, because their religon might convert your cities, which can make you more vulnerable to city flipping or seperatism if there was such a thing :-(.
Those are just my shouts into space

 

[Furius]

I wonder, what does it mean to be founder of a religion? Does it mean that your civ has influence over other civs that adopt this religion? What happens if the Founder is eliminated? Is its pre-eminant position taken by someone else? Can they be overthrown from their position from within?
Perhaps Bahai'ism could show up in the modern age?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Isn't it obvious King? Branch Davidism, Oprahism and, the Cult of Jerry-Springer, that is-are obvious examples of modern day religions !
Related to religion, though, is the fact that pop heads and happiness seem to be directly linked-AGAIN ! Again, I hope that I am wrong, and we are just seeing the earliest development stages, but I have SERIOUSLY wanted them to change the happiness and population models for YEARS. Even if Pop-heads remained, though, I still believed it should be possible to make both citizen specialization and citizen happiness seperate from the population heads (which would act simply to tell you the number of people in your society). My biggest beef with the 'pop-head' system is that it makes things like mood-and the collection of extra science and tax etc-much easier to exploit, thus favouring the micromanager over the grand strategist. Personally, I wouldn't see anything wrong in adapting the system from CtP I and II, where happiness was % based, and where you assigned your specialists at the empire level (with an option to adjust at the city to city level!)
Anyway, fingers crossed that I am wrong on this score too!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Che Guava]

something I don't get: you have to discover agriculture, hunting and fishing...what do your people eat up until that point???