New Capabilities for Religions

[Khan Quest]

It has been suggested before that each religion should have a unique capability such as the ability to produce a Crusader or Jihadist or whatever. And the idea is always shot down, and fairly so, due the sensitivity of offending the passionate follower. But what if the capabilities were generic and randomly assigned? Afterall, random events are one of the best parts of BtS.

Here are some suggested capabilities and how it could be implemented.

When a religion is founded, one of the capabilities below is randomly assigned to that religion. The capability is known if you have at least one city with that religion. The (known) assigned capabilities are presented on the religion screen. Only one capability at a time, that of the state religion, may be in affect for a civilization. There may additional requirements for some of the capabilities.

Tenet 1 – Piety
All cities with the state religion have -1 unhappy citizen. “Stoic faith denies physical displeasure.”

Tenet 2 – Blessed Justice
Your Crusader, Jihadist, holy warriors, etc.
Suggestion: Each melee or gunpowder unit has a 10% chance of being a holy warrior.
Alternate suggestion: Each melee or gunpowder unit created during a golden age is a holy warrior.
If some sort of morale system is implemented, holy warriors always have 100% morale, unless their parent civ no longer follows a state religion. Holy warriors get a free Combat promotion.
If this is deemed too powerful, perhaps an additional requirement of running organized religion or theocracy, or being a religious civ could be added. “The sword of justice shall slay those who stand against ____.”

Tenet 3 – Beautification
Patronization of religious arts and architecture. +20% culture in the cities with the religion.

Tenet 4 – Evangelism
The state religion is 50% more likely to spread, internally and externally. Cities with the religion are 50% less likely to accept an additional religion.

Tenet 5 – Enlightenment
Missionary units do not require open borders, and can not be destroyed. There movement is 3X rather than 2X. Outside cultural borders visibility is 1 tile and support is required (to prevent abuse).

Tenet 6 – Divine Inspiration
Cities with the religion gain +2 Great Prophet points.

Tenet 7 – Devout Community
Villages, hamlets, etc., grow 50% faster. “We got ourselves a barn-raiser!”

Tenet 8 – Tithing of the Faithful
Cathedrals reduce city maintenance by 10%.

Tenet 9 – Chosen People
More likely to ‘We love the king’?

 

[GuitarHero]

I guess it could work if it were molded to fit in the game better.

 

[Arkatsson]

I like it, but Piety has a negative effect... how about the nation that founded the religion gets one of the effects, it would add an additional bonus to founding a religion and it would represent how the nation who holds the holy city (like how Italy is full of Roman Catholics and pretty much no deviations but England on the other hand has lots of deviation such as Protestants) keeps the founding principals of the religion but the other nations who adopt it as the state religion may deviate from the founding path.

Example:

Christianity is founded and goes to Rome (lets call Rome the Holy City), the Italians (who follow the founding sect of Christiananity, Catholicism) does things differently like sees Mary in a major role and have a pope, but the religion spreads to Germany and its changes from the founding form to another form, they don't care too much about Mary, they don't have a pope, so they don't get the bonus, but if the Germans took Rome and Christianity was still the state religion they would get the bonus because they hold the founding city, so they hold all the cards of the religion, and they made their religion the official sect of Christianity.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

I like it, but Piety has a negative effect...

Not true. -1 unhappy is good, as I recall.

While the random assignments of traits is much better than the standard way proposed for differentiating religions (which by and large rely on stereotyping..."Muslims are religious wingnuts, Taoists are relaxed mystics, Jews like money, Hindus are chilled-out philosophical polytheists, Confucians are cryptic martinets, Buddhists are peaceful and at one with the Universe, and Christians are just AWSOME! Jesus!!!!!11111!! "), the mechanism probably needs work.

 

[alms66]

What I'd like to see is a build-your-own religion system. You'd found a religion via tech, just like now (or there could be a new method devised), you'd assign it a name (or pick a real-world default), then pick what bonuses you'd want from a premade list of bonuses, each with it's own point cost. You could take a max of 10 points of bonuses, but the final cost of the package can't be more than 0, so you'd have to take some penalties to offset the cost, as penalties (again, from a premade list, each with it's own point cost) would have a negative point cost.

An example religion might look something like this (remember, just examples):
Name: Civinism (Cost: 0)

Bonuses: (10)
(+3)+2 in all cities with religion
(+6)Tripled Spreading Rate
(+1)+1 Health in all cities with religion

Penalties: (-10)
(-4)-1 relations with civs of other religions, -2 relations with civs of no religion, -4 relations with civs of free religion
(-1)Temples cost 10 hammers extra
(-5)No Missionaries Allowed

Of course, there should be an option to just randomize the bonuses and penalties too...

 

[Mknn]

Religions have "flavors," that should be reflected. All religions (even Buddhism) have both militant and pacifist traditions, and the development int he game should reflect that. I don't know about it being a matter of choice--what if it adapted to the gameplay of the founding civilization?

That is, if the fouding civ is a warmonger, the religion adopts those characteristics over time. If it spreads to a peacemonger civ, after X years, it splinters off, becoming a competitive offshoot of the original religion.

So, the Civ that founds Daoism goes off and conquers three of its neighbors, what emerges is a martial Daoism, one that has harsher penalties against nonbelievers and one that is able to spawn religously inspired fighters. But it spreads to anotehr Civ that hasn't participated in a war in 200 years--eventually the characteristics of that civ's daoism adapt, becoming a new "flavor."

I'm just spitballing ideas, but do folks think that has legs conceptually?

 

[alms66]

Not touching the splitting of religions, it could be done Mknn, but a snowballing effect is what you're talking about right there and I don't like those. It's like the granting of 2 free techs to the first to discover something - if he's in the tech lead, why push him more? Now, if it had a 50/50 chance of having either a snowballing effect or the opposite effect... that, I could get behind.

 

[Mknn]

Sure, religious splinters are usually painful and horrid things. It could entail something like a -8 relations hit against the other person, etc. I mean, after Luther tacked his note on the door, things weren't exactly hunky-dory. Likewise after the meetings of the Buddhist monastic groups when they were ironing out just what the rules for the sangha were.

 

[GuoYuanQiaoZhi1]

Religions have "flavors," that should be reflected. All religions (even Buddhism) have both militant and pacifist traditions,?

I disagree with the point about Buddhism - as I am a Lamaist (Tibetan Buddhist) and i cannot think about any religious aspects that encourage violence.

Also there could be a limited number of offshoots and a Tolerance civics scetion.

It could also require a special unit GP to create a break.

SUGGESTIONS

Buddhism - Lamaism, Thervada Buddhism, Zen Buddhism
Christianity - Catholic, Anglicanism, Lutheism
Confucianism/taoism/hinduism - please add to this
Islam - Shi'ia Islam, Sunni Islam, Sufism
Judaism - Hasidism, Askenazism, Sephardism

 

[GuoYuanQiaoZhi1]

What I'd like to see is a build-your-own religion system. You'd found a religion via tech, just like now (or there could be a new method devised), you'd assign it a name (or pick a real-world default), then pick what bonuses you'd want from a premade list of bonuses, each with it's own point cost. You could take a max of 10 points of bonuses, but the final cost of the package can't be more than 0, so you'd have to take some penalties to offset the cost, as penalties (again, from a premade list, each with it's own point cost) would have a negative point cost.

An example religion might look something like this (remember, just examples):
Name: Civinism (Cost: 0)

Bonuses: (10)
(+3)+2 in all cities with religion
(+6)Tripled Spreading Rate
(+1)+1 Health in all cities with religion

Penalties: (-10)
(-4)-1 relations with civs of other religions, -2 relations with civs of no religion, -4 relations with civs of free religion
(-1)Temples cost 10 hammers extra
(-5)No Missionaries Allowed

Of course, there should be an option to just randomize the bonuses and penalties too...

that is the BEST idea i have heard in a long time. I thought similarly, like you could have a religion bank, the only problem is the Computer programming aspect

 

[alms66]

that is the BEST idea i have heard in a long time. I thought similarly, like you could have a religion bank, the only problem is the Computer programming aspect

Thanks. I've refined the idea a bit here.

 

[Mknn]

I disagree with the point about Buddhism - as I am a Lamaist (Tibetan Buddhist) and i cannot think about any religious aspects that encourage violence.

Both Chan and Tibetan Buddhism have a military history. It's small, and ultimately unsuccessful, and over 400 years ago, but it's there. That wasn't my point though--clearly, Buddhism and Daoism have the most difficulty supporting organized violence.

Buddhism - Lamaism, Thervada Buddhism, Zen Buddhism
Christianity - Catholic, Anglicanism, Lutheism
Confucianism/taoism/hinduism - please add to this
Islam - Shi'ia Islam, Sunni Islam, Sufism
Judaism - Hasidism, Askenazism, Sephardism

Lists like these are meaningless within CIV without some sense of what the flavor might do within the game. I think it would be more productive to look at something like this:

You found a religion. To avoid getting responses that are based solely in individual experience, I'm going to use one that I suspect is outside this forum's personal history:

o You are the founder of the Shakers.
o You have the choice of establishing the original religion as expansive, introspective/mystical, or civil. (the terms are arbitrary, and can be changed at will, the idea is that it can either be supportive of missionary work and warfare, supportive of culture and happiness, or supportive of production and infrastructure--other possibilities are there obviously as well)
o Say you select expansive. After some number of turns, your priests start clamoring for more missionaries or a war against heathens. Or, you select introspective and war wearinesss is increased.
o Then, if you continue to peacemonger as expansive, eventually you are challenged to change flavors. Doing this costs something fairly significant, a GP or a lot of anarchy, as well as dramatic negs in relation points with the other civs of that stripe.

It is very similar to the build your own idea, it just throws some boundaries and guidance on top of it.

 

[GuoYuanQiaoZhi1]

ok its just that its quite a small portion

the idea about the split off is good.

 

[GuoYuanQiaoZhi1]

I still dont now how it would actually be made as a file that works with the game
eg changis it

 

[Spitefire]

When starting a religion i would suggest 2 ways for it to be able to start by useing a Great Person or by spending a starting cost in gold.
A suggestion to get rid of the useless and overly micromanagement inducive missionarys setup a system so that when a religion is first started and small it will only grow if (A.The religion is started With a Great Person) or (B.The player founding the religion is willing to support the cost in gold) or (C.If this religion is a populace religion and thus supported by the citizens) just to note the Great person effect would fade over time so if the religion is not able to grow large enough to support itself then the player/players or the populace will have to start funding it or risk the religion fadeing into history.

The idea behind the system i suggest would fill 2 roles 1 as stated above would be to remove the micromanagement of missionarys and any other problems that come with it.

The other role would be to allow a player a return on there investment.
Example of what i mean is (Small religion needs money to servive and grow Medium size religion needs less money and can grow a little on its own and a large religion can support itself and can be taxed for a little extra money or alot if for some reason you want to try and kill or get rid of a religion in your land).

 

[GuoYuanQiaoZhi1]

I think missyonaryes are a good solution but they should be instant to build (after 1 turm) like when you hurrie somthing

 

[The Fishman]

Sounds like a good idea, much better than the traditional stereotyping that people often do when they want to make the religions different. I think it would make the game better as it adds variation to it, which is one of this things that Civ seems to be striving for. We already have unique buildings and unique units, unique religious benefits sound like the next step...