Improvements to Civ VI Faith and Religion

[PhoenicianGold]

Civ's religious system is probably my least favorite aspect of the game. It feels like several disparate and incomplete ideas about what religion is, strung haphazardly together. Not so much a religion system so much as a shallow way of signalling religious diversity without actually holding any religious import.

I'd like a more robust faith system in place that reflects what faith actually is: cultural unity through a common fiction. Having something ideological to unify a national/ethnic identity is what Civ is actually measuring--it fairly directly translates to "faith in your people," which is the counterpoint to personal happiness. Both in a constant flux of equilibrium between the emergent values of the complex system (collectivism) and the fundamental values of its constituent parts (individualism).

• A second God-King government available after building your first shrine. Integrating religion and government more strongly in the early game. I think the inclusion of a "celebrity" authoritarian figure in the game is actually a fairly accurate way of representing ideological unification (it's not the person so much as the idea of a strong ideological paragon), but the bases for cultural unity have changed over time and weren't always clearly separated into religion and government. First, it was blood relations. Then, it was common cultural mythology (religion). Then, as power accumulated and vaster conquests were made, statist, aristocratic authority was implemented on religious justification. And its only in the most recent centuries that statism has sufficiently divorced itself from religious justification and now purely rests on a vague balance of democratic and aristocratic merit. Point being, that if the beginning of the ancient era represents tribalism by blood, then there should be a God-King phase between the Chiefdom and Classical era governments that inextricably tied to your common cultural mythology. Say, it unlocks as soon as you build your first shrine. A slightly more robust chiefdom that better represents the origin of religion, government, and economy in a single proto-political entity.
  
• Customizing your founded religion based on a pantheon in your empire. A more logical connection between pantheons and religions should exist (an easy fix would just be to make one of your "gods" THE god of your religion, a simple fix since all of the base religions are monotheistic or panpsychist). I like that pantheons can remain, but there's a weird disconnect in how the transition is displayed, as if the devs don't want to force players to recognize that most modern "Gods" are just the more memetically successful gods of older pantheons (and, ironically, the majority of them derive from Dyeus Phater: "Sky Father"). A simple fix would be to just make one of your gods THE God of your religion. This requires no political maneuvering, since all of the religions in VI are monotheistic or panpsychist (meaning their belief lies somewhere on a spectrum between singular deity and unifying force).
• Holy Sites should evolve into culture centers with lower faith yields in Modern era; Government/Commerce and Entertainment/Arts Districts should generate faith in Modern era. There should also be a logical transition away from current religions (which constantly have one foot in past mythology and ignorance) toward modern, secular "religions." This is a demonstrable phenomenon. As people are moving away from mythological fictions, they are unifying over secular fictions. I would argue functionally you would need two systems to accurately represent modern faith: community, and nationalism. Nationalism is already represented on a macro-scale by Government/Economics; and so I imagine this could be tweaked a bit to be a little more "fluid" and "partisan" like the religious system is (and probably directly tied to if not outright replacing city loyalty). Community in the secular world is centered around Entertainment and Pop Art; new rituals and fictions to bond over. Thus, the role of Holy Sites as faith generators should diminish as a civ finds new sources of "faith," while modern artifices and infrastructure should replace those as more diverse, interrelated sources of faith. Note: Theocracy and other specifically theocratic policies could still create synergy to boost Holy Site faith yields in later eras; I just don't think this should be mandatory.
• Government/Commerce and Entertainment/Arts Districts should have some sort of negative faith feedback loop. As stated previously, collectivism/individualism (responsibility/indulgence) are in constant equilibrium. Once the authoritarianism of Holy Sites is weakened, you now have two competing ideologies. Social responsibility, or personal fulfillment? Investing heavily in bread and circuses should necessarily weaken centralized authority. And investing heavily in centralized authority should necessarily weaken bread and circuses. This could affect loyalty/gold/amenities/culture as well, but faith should be included in the equation as the defining balancer.
• Political and Consumer Ideologies should have a similar system to Religions. There should be a similarly limited list of political and consumer ideologies that can be founded by a civ, spread to other cities, displayed in their name bars and in overlay lenses, and affect victory conditions. The Politics could take names from prominent political parties throughout history. The Consumer Ideologies could be split into something very basic like Music, Literature, Film, Athletics, Games, Fashion, Automobiles, Tech. Or maybe in a fan mod even further split into stuff like Jazz, Rock, Pop, EDM, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, etc. Point being these facets of a leisure culture are just as prominent and cultish as religion and should be represented as such.
  
• Faith and Encampments should have positive synergy. If faith represents cultural unity, then cultural unity represents military unity (propaganda is a thing, for better and worse). The Military Academy output should scale up (reasonably) with faith generation. Akin to happiness.
• Faith and Campuses should have negative synergy. If faith is a cultural fiction, then all fictions are inevitably destroyed by the discovery of truth. The faith generation of all buildings in a city should be reduced once a Research Lab is built in the city (or just attach a single negative faith value to the Research Lab). This should be compounded for observatories, supercolliders, or any alternative energy buildings that may happen in future expansions.
  
• Some sort of positive feedback loop between Campuses, Encampments, and Industrial Zones. This isn't faith-related, but I feel if so much effort should be put into checks and balances, I think this would be a necessary inclusion to make a faith overhaul more robust. Campuses come up with innovative ideas. Those ideas are usually streamlined and mass produced by the military. And then overstock is then trademarked and mass marketed to civilians. And then IP protection of current mass-marketed products incentivizes further innovation in Campuses. Maybe Campuses make great generals, Encampments make great Engineers, and Industrial Zones make great Scientists. Maybe an "energy" resource and Energy Grid district could be implemented to add some further complexity to the the loop. There are several directions this could be taken to represent iterative innovation, GDP increase, and collective knowledge.
  
• Religious Victory or some equivalent should require full ideological conversion. What does converting half the world actually mean? It's a lazily designed victory condition that largely exists in the form it does to shallowly pat a player on the back for staying with it, while preventing them from going through the tedium of actually achieving anything. It should first be renamed "Ideological victory." and I think it should happen when all cities on the map either follow the same religious, consumer, or political ideology. Giving the player three lines of attack makes full domination much more achievable, especially if the effects of ideological warfare overlap (say, you often convert two or even all three when bombing a city).
• Faith, Culture, and Loyalty need to be better defined or consolidated. Looking at this, I've started to blur the lines between several resources/mechanics, so I'll try to more clearly define them. Faith should be as defined. Loyalty should remain a trait of cities, but it should be a calculation based on both amenities (happiness) and faith. Culture should remain a resource as a means of measuring "respect," namely the faith in your civ acquired from other civs. To add a similar system of checks and balances, culture should be generated by different districts each era (except ancient): Holy Sites, Encampments, Harbors, Industrial Zones, Campuses, Entertainment Complexes, Energy Grids.

Note that these changes are not meant to make a religious/ideological victory more difficult. I would think that such an implementation (or something in the spirit of it) would make all victories equally difficult by forcing you to weigh options more carefully. I would also hope that more clearly defining what faith is, what religion is, and what their effects are on society would not only make a religious/ideological victory more distinctive, but more fun to achieve.

Let me know what thoughts you have on this, both critical and contributory.