IndieStone D.U.C.K.S mod

[filli_noctus]

Are you planning on allowing polytheistic religions to 'share' deities? For example the Romans identified many Greek gods with their own and even adopted a few from other religions whole cloth (Mithras springs to mind).

As an idea for how it could work, if you have a sun god and have been exposed to another religions sun god by their piety affecting one of your cities then you may spend a small amount of piety to identify the two. If you haven't got a sun god in your religion instead of finding one for your own religion you may adopt the sun god of the other religion.

This could have a game effect of reducing the amount of piety a city recieves from a foreign religion based on the amount of gods shared/identified as your religions followers view the foreign gods as aspects of their own. Although this approach would only make sense for devout cities, perhaps reduce the chance of a follower of your religion changing belief to the other system.

 

[lemmy101]

Hey. Well you split religions with a great prophet, so if for example Greece set up a polytheistic religion and picked Sun God as one of their choices, and then the Romans got the Greek religion in their borders, they could adopt that as their state religion, and split it with a great prophet, which would mean that their own religion very much had the same deities as the Greeks, though any they chose after that point would be their own.

We'd like to get a system for naming the gods themselves in there, but it would have to be a passive 'click to change' thing as a pop-up name entry dialog would be a pain each time you got to pick one.

 

[CaptainBinky]

The other important thing we are doing with Polytheism which hasn't been mentioned so far is that the power of Polytheistic Gods will be linked to natural wonders. So for example, there will be bonuses to the thunder god effect if Mt. Fuji is within your borders. To this end, natural wonders will work a little like monotheistic Holy Cities with the difference being that you may have control over many (or no) natural wonders rather than having just the one Holy City, and that (obviously) natural wonders cannot be destroyed.

This provides an incentive to scout lands early, and war to take territory later on.

The other incentive with exploration is that it's not going to be a case of "ooh, I think I'll have a mountain god... click!". You will need a mountain (or mountainous natural wonder) in your borders. Same goes for sea gods - you will need a coastal city, etc etc. Obviously certain gods will be available from the start - sun, moon, celetial, rain, etc. But it is the environment that ultimately drives which gods are available to worship. Regardless of where you start - be it in desert, tundra, an island, mountains, etc, there will be ample available gods to pick and choose between, but exploration drives further choice.

 

[Putmalk]

Will there be an incentive or penalty to taking Holy Cities?

 

[lemmy101]

Holy Cities will be what drives wars in the same way as religion generally drove wars in Civ 4 (though not to the same arbitrary amount). It is expected that a good few of the Civs will not maintain their own religion and will end up taking another one, purely because not everyone goes for culture / religion in a game, and in those cases it's very useful to piggy back on someone else's religion and get all their doctrine for free, without building all the temples and so on (though there are repercussions to this).

They will then likely branch off their religion at some point with a Great Prophet, especially if the religion is heading in directions they don't like (since they don't pick the doctrine). Even when splintered off like this, the Holy City of the new religion remains that of the original religion.

As well as this, a whole bunch of the doctrine will apply to the Holy City itself, or will only have an effect if you control the Holy City. Therefore the temptation will grow very strong to give your Civ a big boost by being in control of the Holy City of your religion.

Hence we envision a lot of conflict over the control of holy cities that are sacred to two or more world religions.

OH also, if the religious leaders get high levels of influence in your government, through certain doctrines, then they may demand a holy crusade for you take the holy city.

 

[CaptainBinky]

Also, it should be noted that if you were playing a domination game without religion as a driving force, there would be a considerable advantage in razing the Holy Cities of your religious competitors.

 

[Ymir9]

Glad to hear natural wonders will play a part in this mod.
(Although I'd imagine some kind of fire god would be more appropriate to associate with Mt. Fuji; it seems worship of the mountain usually focused on appeasing its eruptions)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asama_Shrine

 

[CaptainBinky]

Cheers Ymir9. To be honest I picked the Mt. Fuji / Thunder God purely for the sake of example. When it comes to the final version, which natural wonders associate with which Gods will be a decision based on what makes sense (as in your example) vs what works best for balance.

 

[CaptainBinky]

WIP Great Prophet - Approx 950 triangles:

 

[Putmalk]

Make Jesus!

 

[Twahn]

Very nice prophet.

Can't wait for the alpha release of this baby!

I'm sure I'm not the only person who checks in religiously (pun!) every day for updates...

 

[chrome-rome]

Definitely not Twahn; I'm right here with you.

Question: will happiness tie in with religious developement or will the two be seperate?

 

[rikkia]

Twahn, I'm checking daily too. Its one of the few mods that holds any interest in civ 5 for me atm.

chrome-rome, If happiness is tied in somehow, I'd quite like lemmy and CptnBinky to consider unhappiness too.

Maybe a poly. god or two could provide major OP bonuses to war or mining etc, etc, but the op bonuses are offset by major growth/happy penalties? Either way looking at how they have both implemented their ideas has me really excited to get my grubby mitts on an alpha.

 

[lemmy101]

Of course happiness as well as everything else will factor heavily into the doctrine / god effects. Don't forget that, for one, we're working with lua here and anything we can affect we'll likely jump on because our choices are not as abundant as we'd like at the moment

So worry ye not happiness effects are definitely a big part (and out of design, too ).

 

[CaptainBinky]

Great Prophet is in!

Interface icon

Functioning in-game​

 

[Oberon James]

Cool! Are you planning on releasing the Great Prophet itself as a standalone unit for use in other mods?

 

[CaptainBinky]

Update: The Enlightenment tech now fully working (with funky icon )

Also, re: Great Prophet. Once we've released our mod any assets included would be available to other modders. However, I hope you understand that it would rather defeat the purpose of doing a whole bunch of custom art for our mod if we were to release it all before our own mod is finished.

Also also, if you want to keep completely up-to-date on this mod's progress, you might like to check out this thread, which is our primary place for releasing info. Ta.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm just curious-should Scientific Theory come *Before* The Enlightenment? I always thought of it as following on from the Enlightenment. All the same, looks really excellent. I love how increased piety impacts on the research rate-very nice touch, as it will lead to difficult decisions for the players-something which was unfortunately lacking in Civ4 religion.

Aussie.

 

[CaptainBinky]

Thanks, A_L.

As far as placement goes, well it was an interesting decision for us. Without scientific theory of some kind, could The Enlightenment have happened at all?

The other consideration is that The Enlightenment tech has to be a dead end so that it's not completely unfair on civs pursuing a religious strategy - imagine how screwed they'd be if they were unable to research Scientific Theory because its pre-requisite - The Enlightenment - was ludicrously expensive because of all the piety they'd amassed.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Thanks, A_L.

As far as Scientific Theory goes, well it was an interesting decision for us. Without scientific theory of some kind, could The Enlightenment have happened at all?

The other consideration is that The Enlightenment tech has to be a dead end so that it's not completely unfair on civs pursuing a religious strategy - imagine how screwed they'd be if they were unable to research Scientific Theory because its pre-requisite The Enlightenment - was ludicrously expensive because of all the piety they'd amassed.

Nope, thats completely fair, & a very decent rationale. I'm getting *very* excited about this mod-& very relieved that I don't have to do all the work .

Aussie.