IndieStone D.U.C.K.S mod

[Valkrionn]

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.

I am too... As is the Eden team.

 

[CaptainBinky]

We've updated our other thread with some info about how we've re-organised the religion trees to make Polytheism more interesting throughout the game. It's a fairly radical change but it is something we felt was necessary from a gameplay perspective whilst also unifying the various religious options in one single system.

Link to the post

 

[KillerClowns]

*Drools.* Can't wait to get my greasy palms on this. I've been wanting to lead the Aztecs on a real religious crusade for a while now!

Speaking of which, will any civs be included/modified to have special effects related to the new religion system? Say, the Aztecs gaining piety instead of or in addition to culture upon slaying enemies? A civ UB being upgraded with piety related effects? Something of that sort?

Finally: who do I need to sacrifice the still-beating heart of a black goat to in order to get this thing's release hastened?

 

[Oberon James]

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.

Of course. I don't actually have any use for the model right now anyway, I just think your art work is impressive and I like collecting units, just in case.

Also, I must admit, I didn't like the idea of this mod using non-established religions, but of course, it does make perfect sense and the more I think about it, the more exciting it gets. The two of you, by the way, are damn good and very creative. How do you come up with this stuff?

 

[CaptainBinky]

Speaking of which, will any civs be included/modified to have special effects related to the new religion system?

Definitely - the mod will come with two new leaders, Alfred the Great and Boudica (see here) which were intended to free up room for religious leader traits without sacrificing existing UA. It's likely that a (very) early version of the mod will be ready before the leaders are since there's a lot of animation to do as well as fixing a few glitches, but we'll get them in as soon as possible.

@Oberon: Thanks It helps that there are two of us working on it since it allows us to bounce ideas back and forth. It also means that we can often get art done at the same time as script/code, which always helps

 

[Zyxpsilon]

This really feels awfully promising... if i must keep track over any MOD (altering gameplay for better or worst!) for later personal implementation -- that's IT, baby!

Might as well ask while i'm here; Any plans on tackling a slick, lean, efficient Espionage system -- later on if ever??

Keep up the excellent work, guys. We're watching.


PS--- Want an all new UI? Click here for some beta-stuff of mine.

 

[MindXX]

IN AWE!!! This gonna really help out the guys making thier own fantasy and sci-fi mods!!!

 

[Babri]

I have an idea for this mod. Instead of becoming more conservative when having high piety & forced to unlock new doctrines, there should be a menu called 'Religious Decisions' where you can set your tolerance level towards other religious groups, how much strict or lenient your religions would be etc for different bonuses & penalties. Historically there were some cases where a highly religious nation was tolerant towards other religions. And of course there are many examples where Pagan/atheist rulers showed religious tolerance (Genghis Khan) or who bitterly opposed religion (Stalin).

 

[HedBanger]

^ I really like that idea! I try to check this thread out every day and I keep getting blown away by the progress so far. I'm waiting to start playing CiV again once either this or the new patch are released. There is more and more promise for CiV!!

 

[CaptainBinky]

It's kind of the whole point that the religion trees lead down the path of fundamentalism. If you're pumping out piety points like nobody's business - every city is full of religious buildings, religious schools, your entire Civ is centred around worship and the truth of your beliefs (and therefore the untruth of all others)... that the religion would be one of tolerance doesn't really make any sense.

Religions which tend to be tolerant are the moderate religions in countries where there is free expression. In other words, religions which are non-compulsory happen in cultures which have been through the Enlightenment and there is some separation between a person's beliefs, education and politics.

If you want to create a moderate religion in your Civ, you would be moderate with your piety, research the Enlightenment and then choose not to take the more extreme doctrines.

The equivalent would be churning out loads of science from specialists, libraries, and universities, and then setting a little option that says, "ignore that, this Civ is religious and doesn't buy into all that science guff". The high amount of science you're outputting simulates the opposite. You can't have free great scientists without being a scientific civ. You can't have huge piety without being pretty damn religious, and religions (especially monotheistic ones) are not naturally tolerant.

Don't worry about it not being possible to create a nice tolerant moderate religion with our system - you will be able to. Just that if you don't watch what you're doing, things can start to spiral out of control.

 

[Ryan F. Mercer]

There should be some kind of "Apocalypse" policy, probably at the end of a monotheistic path. I like the idea of a great beast that eats population. :]

 

[KillerClowns]

There should be some kind of "Apocalypse" policy, probably at the end of a monotheistic path. I like the idea of a great beast that eats population. :]

While that wouldn't happen in this mod, given that it is attempting to remain attached to reality, it would be nice to see the groundwork for such a policy laid out for fantasy mods to use. Though something like a crusader-spawning policy might be a nice proof-of-concept.

 

[CaptainBinky]

Though something like a crusader-spawning policy might be a nice proof-of-concept.

There are promotions unlocked with various doctrines for creating a crusading army

 

[Babri]

It's kind of the whole point that the religion trees lead down the path of fundamentalism. If you're pumping out piety points like nobody's business - every city is full of religious buildings, religious schools, your entire Civ is centred around worship and the truth of your beliefs (and therefore the untruth of all others)... that the religion would be one of tolerance doesn't really make any sense.

Example of tolerant but religious nation is Ottomans (to some extent). The Jews were kicked out from all over the Europe & they were welcomed by the Sultan. Another example can be the early Muslims, The Rashidun Caliphate. Similarly Enlightenment ideas don't necessarily encourage Religious Tolerance. We've many examples where religious groups were persecuted by a modern government to reduce their hold in politics etc.
So I would suggest to make a separate menu for tolerance & strictness while Piety Tree focuses more on beliefs & policies for the pious population.

 

[Valkrionn]

Example of tolerant but religious nation is Ottomans (to some extent). The Jews were kicked out from all over the Europe & they were welcomed by the Sultan. Another example can be the early Muslims, The Rashidun Caliphate. Similarly Enlightenment ideas don't necessarily encourage Religious Tolerance. We've many examples where religious groups were persecuted by a modern government to reduce their hold in politics etc.

Of course you can easily find counterexamples for his generalization; That's always the case.

However, this is ultimately a game mechanic. And when looked at purely from a design perspective... The ability to control how open your society is, down to the smallest detail, would be a horrible mechanic.

Like he said, you can't focus on science only to tell the game your society doesn't believe all that science mumbo-jumbo. It needs to be a cohesive mechanic; That capability acts against the cohesiveness of their design.

 

[Ryan F. Mercer]

...that wouldn't happen in this mod, given that it is attempting to remain attached to reality...

<head scratch>

I thought this mod was about religion?

How about 4 horsemen that appear as great generals. Maybe a unique promotion for each horseman? Any similarity to any known horseman would be entirely coincidental. :]

 

[CaptainBinky]

Example of tolerant but religious nation is Ottomans (to some extent). The Jews were kicked out from all over the Europe & they were welcomed by the Sultan. Another example can be the early Muslims, The Rashidun Caliphate. Similarly Enlightenment ideas don't necessarily encourage Religious Tolerance. We've many examples where religious groups were persecuted by a modern government to reduce their hold in politics etc.

The way to simulate this using our mod would be not to go completely nuts with piety - religious but not fundamentalist - then not persecuting the population of your cities in which other religions have spread or taking any doctrines which do. So you see, we already have a mechanism for being a nice open religion just from the manner in which you play out the mod without requiring some literal mechanic where you set up a tolerance independent of the way you have progressed through the trees.

Of course, the downside of playing in this way will be you will suffer the penalties associated with having another civ's religion in your borders (which will vary depending on the religion) and you will be less likely to get devout cities. The advantage will be that you will also get the perks associated with those religions (which will also vary).

And yes, we are aware that the Enlightenment isn't historically essential for tolerance or even necessarily leads to it. However, it does provide a nice neat way to transition from religious to rationalism. You could, if you wanted, take the Enlightenment tech and then tear down your religious buildings and persecute all your religious population until you have eradicated it entirely from your borders. Or you could take the Enlightenment tech and remain, generally, a religious empire. Your choice.

And going from a religious-centric government style to secularism is arguably the best thing for religious tolerance.

 

[lemmy101]

There are always going to be contentious points in any religion mod which dares to go further than having bland and identical religions, we've made religions 'custom made' and unspecific to any real-world religions partly to avoid passing any judgements on real world religions.

So at the end of the day we have to take the stance 'gameplay trumps all' and the current mechanic of 'The Enlightenment' and forced piety spending is in essence the glue that holds the entire mod together, and probably the most interesting mechanic in the mod. So we're not going to change this for the sake of a couple of historical precedences where it may not be the case.

 

[CaptainBinky]

The other thing to bear in mind is that since religions can be founded by either creating one entirely from scratch or splitting a religion which has spread into your borders into a new religion via a great prophet, you will probably be naturally fairly tolerant of religions formed in this second way (which are, in other words, fairly similar to your own) and less tolerant of the ones which are the most different.

That is, of course, until you start fighting for control over your shared Holy City

 

[malonkey1]

I like the idea of an "apocalypse policy" but honestly think that it should be broken up into different ways your religion believes the world *could* end, such as:
Destruction/Creation Cycle (The world is repeatedly created and destroyed, as in Hinduism)
Final Moral Battle (the final, world-killing battle between good & evil, basically Ragnarok)
World in Flames (The world is subjected to an inordinate amount of suffering, save for the faithful)
Human Ascension (The faithful leave for some higher plane of existence, with the unfaithful being simply left on the Earth)
or the self-explanatory No Ending, in which the world just goes on.
What do you guys think?