Idea for Religion: Holy City States

[GigaNerd]

Mormons - Salt Lake City, USA

HOLD IT!!!

Perhaps each (major) Christian denomination should receive its own Holy City? Mormons are Christians too, y'know!

Catholocism - Vatican City
Mormonism - Salt Lake City
Protestantism - Wittenburg(?) [Could a Protestant please give their opinion on this one?]
Orthodox - ??? [I'm a bit clueless here. Help? ]
Anglican - Canterbury


A few more ideas to top the cake!

• Not every religion should be available simultaneously in every game - the player should be able to decide how many can show up at a time.
• Also, Holy Cities don't have to be the "literal" holy cities - Jerusalem works for Jews, but Vatican City works for Catholics.

 

[Ahriman]

If you're going to have 5 flavors of Christianity, how many flavors of Islam (just Shia/Sunni or Wahabbist, Sufi, ....), hinduisum, and so forth?

And why just the European Christians? No Coptic christians or Monophysites?

Getting into this kind of detail is a mistake I think.

[If you did pick an Orthodox Christian Holy city it would be Constantinople.]

 

[johny smith]

Well the idea is not bad. But it always could just come back to why not have a faction of religion in the game that the city states nor civilizations have control over. I am always for adding more features that player has little control over.

But as for this idea of city states being the religious centers...It depends how many religions you want to determine holy cities. If you are just looking at the previous model in Civ4 like I assume then Mecca should be the city state and Baghdad the capital of the Arab Caliphate. I assume the Arabs are being represented as the caliphate. America's first capital was not Washington but was built as the capital. The same case applies to the Arabs. Baghdad was built as the capital for Caliphate.

Now Judaism and Christianity is another issue. Catholics see the Vatican as holy city, but not all Christians. I would suggest Jerusalem for Judaism, and Bethlehem for Christianity. Which most people would find lame because you want the Vatican in.

So why not just expand the number of religions? Then have Catholics in the Vatican, Orthodox in Constantinople. We could on go with a large list. How complicated would you want religion?

Confucianism was very important as well in that effected all of the surrounding East Asian civilizations. More so then Taoism did. But I would agree Taoism is more of a religion.

Buddhism's holy city is not in Tibet. Vajrayana Buddhism is in Tibet, and it is not the largest group. I have no clue on what would be a better place though for Buddhism.

Hinduism is similar to the Buddhist question. What is the most important city?

I don't know what the proper amount should be for religions. If just 7 I would suggest Zoroastrianism to be added.

Here is link to show followers if you split up the religion into denominations.
http://www.adherents.com/adh_branches.html
Scroll to the bottom of the linked page to see a break down by denomination.

I am not saying this idea is bad. It is simple and better than most. I just don't think anyone has thought out what religions would be attached to what city states.

PS:
Click my Rapture signature if you want to see an insane amount of religions that I was trying to add to Civ4.

 

[D712]

HOLD IT!!!

Perhaps each (major) Christian denomination should receive its own Holy City? Mormons are Christians too, y'know!

Catholocism - Vatican City
Mormonism - Salt Lake City
Protestantism - Wittenburg(?) [Could a Protestant please give their opinion on this one?]
Orthodox - ??? [I'm a bit clueless here. Help? ]
Anglican - Canterbury

HOLD IT!!!

You are being way too christiancentric. That would upset so many people. Generalizations make people less upset because when you say "christian" that includes all christian groups, "Muslim" includes Sunni and Shi'a, and so on and so forth. It makes everything better.

 

[craig123]

I don't think this means much, but you have my support!

It does - the more the merrier! (You can show you're support in your signature too )

Would offend way too many people no matter what.

I dunno; civ4 managed to avoid any offense AFAIK.

HOLD IT!!!

Bloody hell! Was not expecting font that large! Not many would be brave enough to go for

 

[Cull]

Exactly why this idea is bad.

Hinduism similar to Buddhism? Then why isn't the religions of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism put together, not even just including Mormonism, Catholicism, and so on? How about Shi'a and the other one? How about...?

And too much is based on opinion. X holy city is Y that you believe is true but what if somebody else thinks its Z?

 

[johny smith]

Well as for offending or not...I think it has more to do with being somewhat close versus being total lost on the religion you are representing. And that is why I argued it is the same for civilizations as well. So I will hush now, but there is no simple way of making everyone happy imo.

It may be possible though to go into a little more detail but keeps the mechanics just as simple. Anyway I will hear people tell me I don't want to do that I like my games simple. I am not suggesting complicating the mechanics. I am only suggesting expanding the selection and the AI would simply randomly choose from a larger selection. I know I will me hammered at now. I don't care to argue about the issue though.

Here are the real world stats on religion, but we are playing history not the present time remember. This applies only on who you might offend.

Spoiler :

Catholic Christianity 1,050,000,000
Sunni Islam 940,000,000
Vaishnavites Hinduism 580,000,000
Orthodox/Eastern Christian Christianity 240,000,000
Shaivites Hinduism 220,000,000
Conservative Protestant Christianity 200,000,000
Mahayana Buddhism 185,000,000
Liberal Protestant Christianity 150,000,000
Theravada Buddhism 124,000,000
Shiite Islam 120,000,000
African indigenous sects (AICs) Christianity 110,000,000
Pentecostal Christianity 105,000,000
Anglican Christianity 73,000,000
Sikhism Sikhism 23,000,000
neo-Hindus
and reform Hindus Hinduism 22,000,000
Lamaism
(Vajrayana/Tibetan, etc.) Buddhism 20,000,000
Jehovah's Witnesses Christianity 14,800,000
Latter Day Saints Christianity 12,500,000
Ahmadiyya Islam 10,000,000
Veerashaivas (Lingayats) Hinduism 10,000,000
Baha'i World Faith Baha'i Faiths 6,000,000
Conservative Judaism 4,500,000
Unaffiliated and Secular Judaism 4,500,000
Svetambara Jainism 4,000,000
Reform Judaism 3,750,000
Seicho-No-Ie New Japanese 3,200,000
Shinto all branches Shinto 3,000,000
Tenrikyo New Japanese 2,800,000
PL Kyodan New Japanese 2,600,000
Orthodox Judaism 2,000,000
New Thought
(Unity, Christian Science, etc.) Christianity 1,500,000
Sekai Kyuseikyo New Japanese 800,000
Sthanakavasis Jainism 750,000
Zenrinkai New Japanese 600,000
Druze Islam 450,000
Tensho Kotai Jingukyo New Japanese 400,000
Friends (Quakers) Christianity 300,000
Ennokyo New Japanese 300,000
Digambaras Jainism 155,000
Reconstructionist Judaism 150,000
Parsis Zoroastrianism 110,000
Gabars Zoroastrianism 20,000

 

[EvanMeisterX]

HOLD IT!!!
Why put religions in the actual city? Why not just put them go random cities? Not offending anyone>Realism.

 

[Caeserportugal]

This is a lis of holy cities

Judaism - Jerusalem

Catholicism - Rome, Jerusalem Santiago de Compostela and Fatima that is in Portugal by the way.

Orthodox Christianity - Constatinople , Antioch , Jerusalem , Moscow since it is the Third Rome and Alexandria

Protestantism - Wittenburg

Calvinism - Geneva

Anglicanism - Canterbury

Islam - Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem (I don't know if there are specific ones different to Shia or Sunni)

Hindusism- Varanasi?

Buddhism - Lhasa

Confucionsim - some city near southern china

Taoism - I don't know as well

Hellenism - Athens or Sparta perhaps

 

[Cull]

Lolwut.

Links or better proof, not broad claims.

 

[Schuesseled]

why not just one religion appropriately called "mass delusion", and have that in.

Personally i hate how you needed religions in civ 4, there was no atheist religion for the non-believers.

 

[johny smith]

This is a lis of holy cities

Judaism - Jerusalem

Catholicism - Rome, Jerusalem Santiago de Compostela and Fatima that is in Portugal by the way.

Orthodox Christianity - Constatinople , Antioch , Jerusalem , Moscow since it is the Third Rome and Alexandria

Protestantism - Wittenburg

Calvinism - Geneva

Anglicanism - Canterbury

Islam - Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem (I don't know if there are specific ones different to Shia or Sunni)

Hindusism- Varanasi?

Buddhism - Lhasa

Confucionsim - some city near southern china

Taoism - I don't know as well

Hellenism - Athens or Sparta perhaps

Calvinism I would just drop. It was a movement really within Protestantism.

Shia does has an extra layer really imo. The best is the first of 12 Imans probably.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imam_Ali_Mosque (The same place that was blown up in Iraq you can see why it angered Shiites probably better now)

Hellenism was never unified. No other groups really followed Hellenism. It was more of a culture features of the Greeks. I mean there was never really an organized religion around it.

Anyway you could see how the makers of the game dropped religion. Probably too much work for them to do it right.

 

[marioflag]

I support your excellent idea

Lol, we should copyright that signature only for supporters if we wanna make a successful campaign

 

[stealth_nsk]

Generally idea is good, but without the general religion mechanic it's useless. How religion is spread? What bonuses it gives? etc.

 

[Sonereal]

why not just one religion appropriately called "mass delusion", and have that in.

Personally i hate how you needed religions in civ 4, there was no atheist religion for the non-believers.

Atheism isn't a religion.

The easiest way to pull it off in Civ4 would be able to allow Theocracy to run without a state religion and you'll pretty much have an Atheist State.

I had another idea regarding religions which would make them slightly more realistic and interesting gameplay wise. The problem with the city-state idea is that more often than not, these cities were not city-states but part of a larger nation. Trying to put branches of each major religion would seriously cut down on the abstraction factor.

Spoiler :

Actually, it may be a full point against religions unless reimplemented correctly with Schisms and all.

It could be simple too. Don't need to throw in "Protestantism" or "Sunnis" into the mix at all. Just need to change the name of the state religion of the resulting schism. Say that France and England are Christian and relations between the two nations sour to an extreme. France has the Christian holy city so England can either suck it up and bow down to Paris or break off from the church so now there are two Christian churches, English Christianity and French Christianity and a random city (or capital) of England becomes the holy city for EC.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I don't see how it would detract from the player's fun. Especially if the religions are founded at the very start of the game - the player wouldn't 'miss out' on anything. There could always be the option of taking over the city - which would be very hard if it had lots of followers.

Don't feel bad, Craig. ShaqFu has displayed his unrelenting hatred & opposition to any representation of Religion in the Civilization Franchise on multiple occasions. I personally don't understand why someone can be so utterly opposed to *any* representation of religion in the game-especially when they don't even give very good reasons for said opposition.

Aussie.

 

[Pouakai]

If we're adding 50 different types of christianity, islam, hinduism etc. We CANNOT forget the allmighty...


SCIENTOLOGY!!!

 

[chaotoroboto]

If you're going to have 5 flavors of Christianity, how many flavors of Islam (just Shia/Sunni or Wahabbist, Sufi, ....), hinduisum, and so forth?

And why just the European Christians? No Coptic christians or Monophysites?

Getting into this kind of detail is a mistake I think.

[If you did pick an Orthodox Christian Holy city it would be Constantinople.]

I think this falls under the the same issue as city-states generally, which is that there's no real reason not to just have all of them. Scientology, Wicca, Kim Il-Sungism, Asatru, World of Warcraft, I'm sure there's millions we could think of. We certainly came to bat in the missing city states thread.

Knowing what we currently know of Civ 5 without having actually played it, here's how I'd run this in a mod:

Step 1: Script religions into the Civs
- Religions would be empirewide, not by city.
- There are no religion-specific buildings* or units.
- Civs would ignore Religions for Civ-to-Civ diplomacy, as City State diplomacy should play well enough.
- Civs can switch religions from start of game with no direct penalty*, or choose not to have a religion.

Step 2: Create and script "Religious" City States (as opposed to MAritime, Cultural, or Militaristic).
- Provide Happiness and a modicum of Culture.
- Are ascribed a relevant religion.
- Can ally with ALL Civs that share their religion, are never worse than neutral with Civs that share their religion.
- Are never happier than neutral with Civs that are another religion, and never above friendly with Civs that have no religion.
- The first Civ to ally with a religious city-state receives the "Holy City" wonder for that religion in a random city. This provides happiness, culture, and gold. If the Civ changes religion or abandons religion, it loses some or all of this bonus.
- The City State only declares war if ALL allies have declared war, and never on a Civ that shares its religion.
- Other city states do not ascribe to a specific religion and play as normal.

Step 3: Script events, quests, and what not for the Religious city-states to pursue

Step 4: Script Religious city-states into the world creation
- Balance so that ~25% of city states are religious in any given game. Say 3 to 4 on a standard map.
- To allow for lots of variety, have City States that otherwise would be parts of Civs, only pop if the related Civ isn't playing - So Boston(Puritans) and Salt Lake City wouldn't show if Americans were in play.

Step 5: Adjust SocPols as needed (Hard to tell what needs to be tweaked without having played the game)

I think this would provide a realistic and interesting enhancement to gameplay, without bogging like religions can tend to in 4. The existing City States mechanics should carry it the rest of the way.

Oh, hey, Port au Prince could host Voudon, and Kingston Rastafari.

 

[wapamingo]

from a civ-simulation perspective of 'what if' where the theme of the game is: why tie existing cities to religions. this would mean that if that city state is not in game then that religion is not in game.

make it random amongst the spawned city states per game map.

 

[grant2004]

Hmm, interesting idea. I think this is a very good suggestion for how to bring religion back to Civ V while avoiding the problems we saw in Civ IV. I imagine this might even be something that a strong modder would be able to create. I have no doubt that this will be tried eventually.