Lacking differences between religion

[kibousha]

Kinda dissapointed when I realized there are no differences between religions except for aesthetic reasons. I meant from gameplay point of view, like +1 health in all cities for Hinduism (cause they are vegeterian ).

Not sure what the dev-team were thinking, but I assume such feature might not be a good idea considering religion is a 'sensitive issue'. Some people might get offended by the dev-team's definition of 'advantage' toward some religions.

Any thought ?

 

[King Flevance]

I saw a post earlier about how you want ALL religions in a city earlier as well and was thinking, having them all in 1 city should cause like unhappy citizens. Like inner turmoil, or have a penalty as it is in real life. I think it would be cool to have specifics added to all the religions.

 

[scarl]

Hinduism should rather give -1 health, as the all want to go for a dip in the same river. Just go to India once and you'll see that health & hygene is a major issue there.

 

[Disguise]

See, this is what happens. People will bicker over which religion is better both game wise and real life wise. Invariably, one of the religions are going to get shortchanged and people will complain about how Sid is being anti Semetic/Muslim/Christian etc. There's nothing stopping people from making mods though, I'd bet my first born that sooner or later there will be a mod that differentiates religions.

 

[Gorbad Ironclaw]

Actually, I thought it was one of the good things about the whole thing.

I never really liked how rigid the government forms was in previous games. I always felt that it was to stereotypical and not really accurate in any way. The civics system took care of that, but introducing a similar system with religion would have been just as bad.

Aside from the fact that it would be virtually impossible to actually assign some modifiers that made sense, the specifics in a given religion means less than the cultural and political circumstances and conditions a given religion is place in anyway so I don't think a given religion should give specific benefits anyway.

 

[kibousha]

Hinduism should rather give -1 health, as the all want to go for a dip in the same river. Just go to India once and you'll see that health & hygene is a major issue there.

LOL ... this was what I was talking about, some people might see it as the truth, while some other get offended ... LOL.

I saw a post earlier about how you want ALL religions in a city earlier as well and was thinking, having them all in 1 city should cause like unhappy citizens. Like inner turmoil, or have a penalty as it is in real life. I think it would be cool to have specifics added to all the religions.

Hehe ... yes, I think the current religion system is not very well polished. I haven't been playing a lot, but I get the feeling that most people will get Hinduism/Buddhism early and then you pretty much control culture through out the game. No other strategic gameplay to get other religions beside the additional commerce.

 

[Anima Croatorum]

Its the way it should be. There arent any significant differences between religions in the first place, they all share similar moral values. It is good that the game focuses more on what we have in common that what keeps us apart. And the last thing the world needs right now would be computer games that would discriminate religions or promote conflict and violence between different religious groups. While leaders might fight, there is no reason for pops in cities to do the same.

 

[LlamaGod]

I want some of the "pagan" religions in the game.

Asatru better make it in if they ever add Scandinavians.

 

[Pyrion]

This was addressed in the manual. Page 77.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

I am very happy the way they implemented religions.

1) It doesn´t matter which one you get.

2) Can you imagine all the discussions going on (Why +2 experience points for islamic units we are a friggin´peaceful religion ; Christianity +1 Happy faces in cities??? They are making everyone feel miserable with their sins;...)

 

[mostly_harmless]

They could give religions both positivie and negative effects and hopefully balance things out. Anyone ever play Europa Universalis 2? In that they had different effects for different religions, I think Catholic countries would produce more missionaries but their tech speed would suffer, protestant countries would produce more money but suffer instability and the eastern religions would get tech speed penalties but improved stability. Can't remember the exact details but there were never any complaints about it.

 

[King Flevance]

They could give religions both positivie and negative effects and hopefully balance things out. Anyone ever play Europa Universalis 2? In that they had different effects for different religions, I think Catholic countries would produce more missionaries but their tech speed would suffer, protestant countries would produce more money but suffer instability and the eastern religions would get tech speed penalties but improved stability. Can't remember the exact details but there were never any complaints about it.

If you do it right you wont get complaints about it. IMO if you get offended over VIRTUAL religions you are a person that is easily offended. Also, very narrowminded. I still say it should make city population unrest grow. As 2 or more religions obviously always cause unrest. Look at this forum.

 

[Anima Croatorum]

There is a difference, complainers arent religious, theyre simply narrowminded, which was definitively the way to go if you wanted missionaries in EU2. But EU2 was a historic strategy game. Civ 4 is not a historic game.

 

[Cironir]

Yeah, I agree that the differences are only marginal. On the flipside, I understand why they went for this option. It's more "politically correct", because it does not upset anyone or upsets everyone equally much. I very much wish for differences between religions, but I don't see that happening. It takes much longer (and more effort) to found Taosim or Christianity than it requires to get Buddhism or Hinduism. The game should consider this. I played an "always peace" game earlier today where I focused on religion and deiberately went for Taosim -- in a "real game" I would have been overrun by my opponents.

 

[*Satis]

It takes much longer (and more effort) to found Taosim or Christianity than it requires to get Buddhism or Hinduism. The game should consider this.

It does, but very subtly. The four later religions - Islam, Taoism, Confucianism and Christianity - come with a free missionary to compensate for all those years of Paganism. Can't see anybody getting offended by that.

In fact, if anybody's going to get upset I'd imagine it's be pagans - Paganism is portrayed in the Civics screen as the default "non-religious" state. White witches and Ancient Egyptians 'cross the world must be writing letters to Firaxis as we speak. Hehe.

 

[TerraHero]

Well, imagine the whinning you hd with all teh civs in Civ4.

Imagine the whinning you get when you give each religion its unique thingy.

"Hey, no fair. Christianity is supsoe to be alot more like that then the Islam-dogs"
"O no you didnt!"
*flame fest*

nuff said.

 

[Cironir]

Ah, I actually didn't notice the free missionary in my game. Still it doesn't really compensate for the fairly long wait and the significantly higher number of techs that are required. In my "religion-focused" game today, it took me until 100 AD to get to Taoism. Granted, I could have gotten it a few years earlier, but Budhism was founded 3500+ years before. There should be more benefits for the later religions, though the "political correctness" would falsely imply that the later religions are somehow "better". From a game's view, Buddhism and Hinduism have still provided benefits for thousands of years in comparison to the later belief systems.

 

[Meglomania]

Looking at the entries for the Holy temples in the Civilopedia there definitely seems to be some favouritism for Judism / Christianity, with all of the other non "God" religions mentioning that Mohammad supposed to have, they believed in etc, with the Christian based ones mentioning Jesus and God as pure fact (also shown by all the technology quotes being Christian). If I was fanatically religious, I'd be a lot more upset by a developer saying my religion is supposed to be, and another is fact, than say being assigned as a financial religion.

 

[Shakes]

I think it would have been awesome if they just went and stereotyped the religions and waited to see the whinging.

 

[narmox]

It's fine the way it is. The way it's implemented simulates the influence of religions over civilizations and city development over history, rather than simulate specific elements of each religion.

Considering the scope of civ4, that works pretty well.