More complex Religion mechanics in VoxPopuli allowing more strategic possibilities

[CivTheGame]

Hi, long time Civ player, currently couple hundred hours into VoxPopuli.

It's a brilliant add-on, makes vanilla game obsolete. And even better thing - it's constantly evolving.

So, after couple hundreds of hours I've naturally started noticing things which are "missing" in current gameplay. The most noticeable of them is the ability to manage Religion as a strategic mean for diplomatic ends. Current possibilities are quickly becoming too limited and restrictive.

But they don't have to stay that way.

Out of those "restrictions" has grown a simple idea promising complexity without overcomplexing existing management. This idea could be implemented as a BASIC modification or as a more ADVANCED one.

A quick sketch:

1) BASIC:

When Civ becomes able to create Missionaries, then 2 new options appear in the Trade Window between two Civs: CONTAIN RELIGION and SPREAD RELIGION.

CONTAIN RELIGION - means that Civ is forbidden to spread it's Religion on opposite territory (for example for 50 or 30 turns).

SPREAD RELIGION - means that Civ is allowed and encouraged to spread it's Religion on opposite territory without any penalties (for example for 50 or 30 turns).

Of course, the calculated cost for agreeing on those options in the Trade Window would depend on mutual relations, on already having own Religion, how widespread is it, etc., similar as with Resources or War/Peace trading. CONTAIN RELIGION is basically the same as "Stop sending missionaries..." option in the Discuss Window, so it could have been removed from there entirely, and instead it would be possible to achieve the same effect not only with friendly Civs.

Example possibilities:

When negotiating peace with high War Score you could negotiate terms that defeated Civ would agree to CONTAIN RELIGION or/and allow you to SPREAD RELIGION. So after winning a war you could start converting them without suffering penalties or religious retaliation.

Or - in case you negotiate peace with 100 War Score, there could be a CONVERTION option (similar to CAPITULATION). It would make the defeated Civ to have immediate majority of winners' Religion in all Cities.

Another example - allowing another Civ to SPREAD RELIGION would be very helpful if you benefit from having multiple religions in your cities.

In short:

+ You could pay Civs to allow you to spread your Religion on their territory.
+ You could pay Civs to stop spreading their Religion on your territory.
+ Civs could pay you to allow them to spread their Religion on your territory.
+ Civs could pay you to stop spreading your Religion on their territory.
+ You could use Religion as terms when negotiating peace.
+ You could convert another Civ after fully defeating them in war.

Of course, taking money and then breaking the agreement would be seen as very, very upsetting, also by others, especially more religious Civs. Or different possibility - Missionaries ability to Spread Religion could simply be inactive on territory of agreement.


2) ADVANCED:

All of the above, and additionally:

The CONTAIN RELIGION and SPREAD RELIGION in the Trade Window working similar as MAKE PEACE / DECLARE WAR options. So, it would be possible to pay other Civs to stop sending Missionaries to certain Civs and/or certain Cities. Or - to pay them to start spreading their Religion to other Civs and/or Cities.

Now that is an option, which would give much more depth and flexibility in diplomacy, allowing to undermine and weaken (or strengthen) specific Civs without the need to manage everything and every Missionary manually. Simply by having enough gold/resources you could pay others to spread your (or other) Religion without the need to do it yourself. Almost like modern information war with paid foreign trolls and influencers. Brilliant. Machiavelli would be proud.

In short:

+ You could pay Civs to allow you to spread your Religion on their territory.
+ You could pay Civs to stop spreading their Religion on your territory.
+ You could pay Civs to spread their Religion on other Civs/cities territory.
+ You could pay Civs to stop spreading their Religion on other Civs/cities territory.
+ Civs could pay you to allow them to spread their Religion on your territory.
+ Civs could pay you to stop spreading your Religion on their territory.
+ Civs could pay you to spread your Religion on other Civs/cities territory.
+ Civs could pay you to stop spreading your Religion on other Civs/cities territory.
+ You could use Religion as terms when negotiating peace.
+ You could convert another Civ after fully defeating them in war.

So this full implementation could allow about a dozen new strategic possibilities to alter relations between you and other Civs, and give much more lever to disrupt or form alliances.


Is it even possible in terms of current game mechanics to make it work this way?

 

[bahamut19]

I will say I really like this proposal. I imagine it would be very difficult to implement.

 

[CppMaster]

Cool idea! It does however require code for AI to handle it, which may not be trivial.

There probably will be regular VP proposals after 34UC integration, so be sure to propose it!

 

[CivTheGame]

Right now, AI doesn't usually start sending Missionaries to your cities until you start doing it first. So you can assume there is some kind of existing "trigger". Also, there already exist in-game mechanic that contains AI from doing that for X turns. So I guess it would be more of a UI workaround, than doing it from scratch.

Anyway, current gameplay for sure is missing some obvious possibilities to use Religion.

Even today, when I dominated Suleiman culturally, militarily and religiously, he offered capitulation - and it would be really intuitive to have an option to negotiate also religious conversion (like instant majority of my religion in all his cities).

 

[msw1]

Sounds like a cool idea. I'm not a modder but I would guess at least the "basic" version is implementable. Telling the AI to spread or not to spread is already a thing, and the AI letting you spread in their cities or getting mad about it is already a thing, so I don't see why it would be very difficult to make those tradable things rather than things that can only be demanded.

 

[CivTheGame]

If it does work towards the Player the same way it does between AIs, then it also shouldn't be impossible to trade spreading/not spreading towards other Civs, not only towards the Player. Question if its possible towards specific cities.

 

[bahamut19]

A variation of this is diplomatically through an agreement, your religion will exert more pressure than normal, instead of a permission to use missionaries. It would be like an Open Borders solely for religion, with a high cost if a civ has a Holy City.

I think missionaries should be more of a hostile act towards a civ who has a holy city, not something to negotiate. I couldn't really imagine the Pope inviting the descendants of Muhammad to the Vatican to spread Islam.

 

[balparmak]

A variation of this is diplomatically through an agreement, your religion will exert more pressure than normal, instead of a permission to use missionaries. It would be like an Open Borders solely for religion, with a high cost if a civ has a Holy City.

I think missionaries should be more of a hostile act towards a civ who has a holy city, not something to negotiate. I couldn't really imagine the Pope inviting the descendants of Muhammad to the Vatican to spread Islam.

Yep I've been also thinking about this, we definitely need a way to invite religions, would also make non-founder plays more viable, while also making non-invited spreads more of a hostile act. I'd rather have open borders for religious units all the time, but if you decide the curtail the spread of a religion, those units would suffer attrition (and maybe suffer a penalty to strength), while invited ones would get a boost.

(on a tangentially related sidenote, I wish we had non-domestic actions for all GPs, which would act like a softpower/influence thing as ideology replaces religion. we kinda have that but not really)

 

[CivTheGame]

Historically, nations invited religion through diplomacy. Poland for example, agreed to convert to christianity to form an alliance with Czechs. Also, I believe vassals sometimes converted to religion of their master.

But I like the idea of an agreement that exterts more/less religious pressure. But - it should also come with automatic inabilty to spread with Missionaries on agreed territory, otherwise you could make an agreement to create less religious pressure, take money for it, and then still use your Missionaries to convert cities.

In this form of exterting pressure, it would be possible to spread/contain religion only between two consenting sides. Still, there is a tempting idea of paying someone to start sending their missionaries to enemy we want to destabilize. Or, if we have a friend with the same religion, we could convince them to start converting someone else and keep our hands clean. Or simply be able to pay someone to stop trying to convert specific city-state...

 

[azum4roll]

It's too easy to screw somebody's religion over if non-founders can pick which religion can spread in their cities.

Still, there is a tempting idea of paying someone to start sending their missionaries to enemy we want to destabilize. Or, if we have a friend with the same religion, we could convince them to start converting someone else and keep our hands clean. Or simply be able to pay someone to stop trying to convert specific city-state...

How do you make a player comply with that after paying them?

 

[CivTheGame]

One of the possibilities could be turning off missionaries ability to spread religion in cities belonging to certain civ - similar like with musicians who can't begin tour on territory you're culturally influential.

In other aspects - maybe add some kind of check, like when you agree to start spreading to other civ, then you should for example use at least 3 missionaries in 20 turns, or suffer negative penalties with other civs meaning you're untrustworthy and an agreement breaker, so they will be less willing to make similar agreement with you.