Missing Major Religion

[Houman]

I am a bit disappointed to see that the Persians are included, however their ancient Religion Zarathustranism is not included.

Zarathustranism is the first and oldest Monotheistic religion in the world, which influenced later Judaism, Christianity and Islam.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/04...002-9788098-8697631?n=507846&s=books&v=glance


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/07...002-9788098-8697631?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

See also Ancient Persia
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...bs_b_2_3/002-9788098-8697631?v=glance&s=books

Es kündet Dareios der König . . . (So spake Dareios the King)
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3805319347/qid=1132571399/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_24_1/028-9302018-0269319

After the Arabic Muslim Invasion to Iran in 651 AD, Zarathustranism became after 300 years of occupation a minority religion until today.

This peaceful religion was practiced for thousands of years from River Indus in India to Syria. At it's last centuries; it was placed geographically between Buddism in the east and Christianity in the west.

I hope they include it in the expansion or at least a "Realism Mod" would take care of this.

Kind Regards,
Houman

 

[xGBox]

Well, Firaxis was going for the most popular religions, not every single one or the earliest. Heck, I never heard of it until like... now.

 

[Jack Naples]

Well, you've learnt something then. That's good

There are others who agree that Zoroastrianism (to give it its English name) should be included over, say, Confucianism, which is more a philosophy. It's certainly the religion with the coolest name.

 

[CVDon]

The Tower of Babel was Zoroastrianism ... was it not? It could be their Holy City Wonder building.

 

[madmaven]

There is a religions mod that has that religion in it.

 

[Riothamus]

There are already enough religions in the game, besides the debate over wether confucianism is technically a religion or not really boils down to semantics.

If any religion is going to be added in, I'd rather it be Sikhism.

 

[xGBox]

I'm down for historical accuracy, but doesn't anybody know of the effects of too much religions? Just having a different religion from other AI gives a -4 to the relationship (to Annoyed) and if too many people don't agree on the same religion... all-out war!

It makes sense realistically, but gameplay wise... what do you think?

 

[Red Door]

Play Abbamouses Realistic Religion Mod if you want to have Zoroastranism.

 

[Yooka]

In addition to the great point that xGBox made, I think it is relevant to note that today, Zoroastrianism is only estimated to have between 100,000 and 250,000 followers worldwide. In India, Pakistan and Persia, it is a small population compared to the other major religions today.

I understand and agree that it was influential in forming today's "major" religions. But if we included every religion that WAS popular at a given time, we'd also need to included Greek, Roman, Norse, and Celtic Mythologies, which would obviously be overkill.

So yeah. In terms of the "great" religions (by that, I mean more popular, more prevalent in modern society... it's a strange word to compare religions, and I in no way use it to belittle Zoroastrianism, which I do respect), I think they covered all bases. And I'm a big fan of Shintoism, Sikhism and Animism, which I feel crosses nicely into environmentalism (thus the quote about borrowing the planet from out children). Ironically, when it boils down to it, the only thing that separates how history views a religion is how many people believed it, or still do. Or killed in it's name.

But yeah, look into those mods, by all means. I'm glad the option is available to ya.

 

[Yzen Danek]

Zoroaster is included as a Great Person.

I think it's pretty clear that the 7 religions included are supposed to represent the entirety of religions of similar type.

Take, for example, the fact that despite the fact that the religion associated with Polytheism is Hinduism, the wonder that it lets you build is the Parthenon. I take that as an indication that Hinduism actually represents all polytheistic religions, including Greek, Roman, Norse, whatever.

My thought is that they should have just left the religions nameless, i.e. "Polytheism has spread to Bangalore." Or, they could have let you name them yourself.

 

[madmaven]

Zoroaster is included as a Great Person.

I think it's pretty clear that the 7 religions included are supposed to represent the entirety of religions of similar type.

Take, for example, the fact that despite the fact that the religion associated with Polytheism is Hinduism, the wonder that it lets you build is the Parthenon. I take that as an indication that Hinduism actually represents all polytheistic religions, including Greek, Roman, Norse, whatever.

My thought is that they should have just left the religions nameless, i.e. "Polytheism has spread to Bangalore." Or, they could have let you name them yourself.

I agree with both parts of this. The religions just represent the idea they're associated with. Also, to give the religion a specific name invites debate, when it's really a moot point. They really should have just named them: polythiesm, monothiesm, etc. Replace one name with another doesn't really matter. In the game they represent an institution to combat unhappiness or dissatisfaction with life. But the specific religions represented aren't as important as the effects they all have, and the philosophies they stem from.

 

[Kilroy]

Zarathustranism

Zoroastrianism

Aren't many around nowadays though, and the fact that they're a pretty exclusive group isn't helping. And, considering that every religion currently in the game is Eurasian (or really, Asian), one more is just a slap in the face.

 

[Duuk]

Zoroaster is included as a Great Person.

I think it's pretty clear that the 7 religions included are supposed to represent the entirety of religions of similar type.

Take, for example, the fact that despite the fact that the religion associated with Polytheism is Hinduism, the wonder that it lets you build is the Parthenon. I take that as an indication that Hinduism actually represents all polytheistic religions, including Greek, Roman, Norse, whatever.

My thought is that they should have just left the religions nameless, i.e. "Polytheism has spread to Bangalore." Or, they could have let you name them yourself.

I totally agree. I think they should have gone one of two routes with it.

1) Generic names. "Self-Reflectionism", "Pantheonism", "Monotheism", etc. This would also allow bonuses for certain religions and actual game effects.

2) Civ-specific religions, with each "religion tech" founding your state religion if you are the first to reach it.

IE: Meditation "First to Discover Founds State Religion".

And then each civ would need a religion name defined. Wouldn't even be hard. The religions in this case still have no bonuses. The only "down" side would be "How do you found multiple religions in the same city?" Personally, I'd give up that option for this. In that case it would even work "better" because if Isabella of Spain is the first to reach meditation, polytheism, and monotheism Catholicism would still be her only religion, but 2 other religions would "never get founded" because she hit the research first.

Religious domination could become a viable strategy.

Of course, then I'd want a religion victory condition: "Have 80% of world population following state religion."

 

[Palantir30]

Of course, then I'd want a religion victory condition: "Have 80% of world population following state religion."

That is brilliant!

My highly simplified take is that Zoroastrianism is the "missing link" between polytheism and monotheism. Being a two-god system it's technically a polytheistic religion, although it doesnt have very much in common with them dogmatically, where it is closer to Monotheistic religions.

This difficulty in classification is probably why it wasnt included.

That and many modern Christians harbor Zoroastrian beliefs, dont know they do, and dont want to know that they do.

 

[xGBox]

Well, religion was a touchy subject to begin with. Firaxis didn't want to exactly piss people off if some religions had unique bonuses, and some people might consider one religion to be unblanced compared to others. Some might think too far and say "Wow it's such a coincidence that Christianity is so unbalanced. WTF I SMELL CONSPIRACY!" (The preceding statement was an example, by the way).

Maybe in the later series we'll see some variety between religions but they have to be super careful because they don't want to go too far.

 

[Duuk]

Well, religion was a touchy subject to begin with. Firaxis didn't want to exactly piss people off if some religions had unique bonuses, and some people might consider one religion to be unblanced compared to others. Some might think too far and say "Wow it's such a coincidence that Christianity is so unbalanced. WTF I SMELL CONSPIRACY!" (The preceding statement was an example, by the way).

Maybe in the later series we'll see some variety between religions but they have to be super careful because they don't want to go too far.

Completely understandable, which is why I'd either make civ-specific religions or generic religion names.

Heck, you could even allow multiple versions of the same religion with careful use of adjectives.

"Japanese Introspectionism"

 

[zeeter]

Wait, didn't the Zoroastrics just run around with masks on making big "Z"'s on things with their swords?

 

[snipafist]

Zoroaster is included as a Great Person.

I think it's pretty clear that the 7 religions included are supposed to represent the entirety of religions of similar type.

Take, for example, the fact that despite the fact that the religion associated with Polytheism is Hinduism, the wonder that it lets you build is the Parthenon. I take that as an indication that Hinduism actually represents all polytheistic religions, including Greek, Roman, Norse, whatever.

My thought is that they should have just left the religions nameless, i.e. "Polytheism has spread to Bangalore." Or, they could have let you name them yourself.

I disagree. While researching a tech like "Polytheism" does represent your people beginning to have a religious understanding of a polytheistic system, only the first to get there founds a religion capable of passing the test of time, like Hinduism. Greco-Roman Polytheism was not the religious behemoth Hinduism is, possessing neither the vitality nor the intellectualism of Hinduism. This does not mean it wasn't capable of inspiring peoples (enough to build the Parthenon, in fact ), but that when confronted by a more robust or potentially robust religion (see: Christianity), it would give way over time (aka it would take a couple turns before the new religion spread to your city).

Of course, a certain amount of simplification was included. Christians are not distinguished between Protestants, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses (to name the larger divisions), and Muslims are not divided into Sunni and Shi'ite, and Buddhists are not divided into Mahayanna and Therevada, which are all some pretty large divisions within the church. The last thing we need is even more reasons for the AI to hate you (-4 your interpretation of Protestantism is leaning disastrously close to Laudism ). While religions like Zorastrianism, Greco-Roman Polytheism, Norse Polytheism, Egyptian Polytheism, Worship of the Sun God, Shamanism, Druidism, etc. were all wonderfully diverse and rich, none of them are world religions, and they are mostly incapable of existing beyond the culture which founds them and inevitably they all gave way to the more powerful world religions. So if your people still have no religion yet, but you've got Mysticism, then you can reasonably conceive of them to be practicing some kind of Druidic religion. Upon achieving Monotheism with no world religion, perhaps they've founded something like Zorastrianism.

 

[Depravo]

I can see why they went for real-world religions rather than generic descriptions, even if there's no functional difference.

When I play, I pretend each religion that gets developed is what's appropriate to the culture. In the very enjoyable Roman game I was playing on Rhye's Earth map before the game started crashing, Rome was Hindu, which I zenned as a more institutionalised and vigorous version of Mediterranean polytheism.

 

[Xineoph]

Influenced Judaism...yeah right.

More then likely Judaism influenced Zoroastrianism.

Zoroastrianism was just born as Ancient Israel was already at it's golden age.