[mod] Extra Realism [for Total Realism]

[Anaztazioch]

Founding religion is one thing.
Making Priests and holy writings is Organized religion.

Christianity. Jesus founded the faith and people followed him and belived. However, it was after his death, that apostols have written the bible.

I think (but not sure) close this is to Islam.

Muhammad founded Islam and brought some people to follow, but it was 4 calipths that brought his writing together and "formed" Quaran.

 

[Quantumf8]

from about 610-23 the qu'ran was being devised, and until 653 it was transmitted orally(supposedly, no flames from you religious people, please!) when Uthman ibn Affan(unsure of the surname?) the third caliph ordered the various verses of Muhammed written and oral to be composed together in the book of the Qu'ran at 653 I believe.

As for Christianity, I believe the perfect time for the "founding" of christianity would be at the death of paul, between 64 and 68, as after his death Christianity was a prominent enough cult to be considered a religion. Around the death of Paul, churches had been established all over turkey, and some in Greece I believe. I could be wrong here though, Christianity isn't my strongest suit.

as for the Judaism thing, after the writing of the Torah we can see a definitive change in the idea of YHVH worship, where it transcends its earlier henotheistic ways and becomes a monotheism, we see a codified presence of worship, priests. The idea of one god also becomes very prominent, so one could argue that the founding of the"religion" of Judaism was with the torah. if you want to take into account the worship of the diety as the religion, well then you may want to place Judaism around maybe 2000-1200 for primitive forms and concepts of the god idea developing from the idea of the sky father or egyptian gods =P.

Of course this means that we bump Zoroastrianism back to about 6000-4000 BCE when the idea of the solar diety, ahr-mazd or was it Ormasad? develops among the indo-iranian peoples, an idea that would be found later among the eastern scyths in a more pure form, or among the zoroastrians as a developed form. Which means we can bump hinduism back to it's development too...=P

My point being here, that the formation of the religion, whether by priest or holy book, or both, and it's rise to become an influential enough religion is what I feel should be taken into account here. so for islam, hinduism, and buddhism, I think the dates of, respectively, 650,1500, and 450 are good solid dates. This also works well in game to help create some diversity of faith, for example, halfway through the 2000-1000 BCE millenia, two major religions will have been founded, then around 500 or so BCE you have religion in china, more indian religion, and Judiasm, etc

Anyways, I'm tired, so I'm off

 

[Inverted]

(1) and (3): I really cant understand any concept that forces you to "endure" certain certain historical events instead of letting you control them. If you want to replay history, why dont you read a history book instead? I personally like to try it my way.

Btw, what if I respectively name my cities after the holy cities of religions? And lets say I also make sure the "real" cities wont exist when the religon is about to be founded? Or even if I dont raze them, I might be lucky and get the religion?
This also shows my main problem with historical events. Since you are very well aware of them, you are effectively seeing the future.

I also like this idea, but only if there would be fictive civilizations, religions and wonders. Mixing alternate history with real history is not very good thing

But the fact that as the incas you can conquer the world is quite the mixing of history and fiction. Following your logic, this should be prohibited too, and ultimately the game would just play by itself.
To be historically correct.

(2) I see your point with this one, even if I find your reasoning with combat system a bit strange. The flaws of one-on-one combat is covered by the aid promotions pretty well IMO, and since that IS the combat system of civ games, its rather pointless to reason with it. Youre talking about army sizes, but if you look at history, a few thousand defenders in a good fortification repelled more than hundred-thousand men armies countless times. Of course the attacking armies werent destroyed either.
I would suggest you to try and resolve your problem with unfairly strong defenders by adding high retreat odds to all units. Would be a lot more realistic, even if it would make defensive wars a real nuisance.

Btw, I like using small but high-quality armies, instead of large numbers, so this concept surely doesnt fit my playing style. I never find any real problem capturing enemy cities, even if it takes 10+ turns of "siege". Its not only about building a big army and throwing it on the enemy, even the AI does better than that.