New religion mod...is this doable? Input please...

[Felzor]

Hi all. It's understandable that the developers of Civ IV wanted to avoid controversy with religion, so they decided to make all religions one and the same. However, I wish somebody would make a mod that does give each separate religion particular advantages.

However, this would NOT be a "realistic" religious mod (i.e. Judaism can't use pigs). At the start of every game, this mod would randomly assign each religion with a different set of pre-assigned characteristics. Here are a few examples of some possible characteristics, some of which are similar to civ leader traits:

Militaristic Faith - This represents a faith that is fairly aggressive and militaristic in nature, using force as a means of conversion. If this is the state religion, all units produced from cities with this religion get a free upgrade. In addition, military units receive +15% combat bonus when battling civilizations who are not also part of the militaristic faith.

Peaceful Faith - This represents a faith that is peaceful and pacficist in nature. If this is the state religion, all cities with this religion construct non-military buildings 15% faster. Tile resources that require farms (wheat, rice, etc.) add additional health and commerce--vegetarianism.

Artistic Faith - This represents a faith that enjoys creating entertainment and producing grandiose feats of art and architecture. If this is the state religion, all cities with this religion receive an additional happy face (in addition to the ones already provided by religion). These cities also construct wonders 15% faster.

Missionary Faith - This represents a faith that is both peaceful yet passionate about its religion, attempting to be a cultural bastion. If this is the state religion, all cities with this religion receive +15% culture. In addition, the rate of natural religious spread is also increased by 25%.

Exploration Faith - This represents a faith that acknowledges it is still searching and exploring its place in the universe. If this is the state religion, all cities with this religion receive +15% science. A free civilization advance is granted every time five new cities anywhere adopt this religion.

Universal Faith - This represents a faith that believes in the universality and cooperation of all religions. If this is the state religion, this civilization receives improved standing with all other civilizations. In addition, the rate of making great people is increased by 25%--great people are attracted to such a universal messsage.

Spiritual Faith - This represents a faith that believes more in "soul" and balance rather than in a religious figure, text, or dogma. If this is the state religion, all religious structures in a city provide additional health (in addition to happiness). Worker speed is also increased by 25%--balanced workers mean better workers.

Those are just some possible examples--they are certaintly not fully balanced. The point is: What religion receives what characteristics differs every game. For example, one game Buddhism might randomly be assigned as the "Exploration Faith," while Islam might be assigned as the "Artistic Faith." In short, every religion IS different, but in a way that is arbitrary each game and will not offend anyone.

This system is ideal, in my opinion, for the following reasons:

1) Right off the bat, religion is made more interesting and more important. Many people complain that religion doesn't do enough or is too dull. Not anymore.

2) It allows customization of each civilization at any point during game. For example, if one player wants to make sure it maintains peace with its neighbors, seeking out and converting to whatever religion is the "Universal Faith" might help. If another player wants to boost the quality and population of its cities, adopting the "Peaceful Faith" is a good idea.

3) There's a ton of strategy because not every religion will be available to everybody! So if the "Artistic Faith" is on another continent far, far away, even though one player is seeking a wonder victory, that player might consider seeking a cultural victory instead because they were the first to discover the "Missionary Faith."

4) Dozens of random religious characteristics could be created, but only seven can be in a game. Thus, in some games some characteristics will be unavailable. If one civlization is seeking the "Militaristic Faith" but it ends up not making it into that particular game, too bad for them.

The only real downside I can forsee is that the "Free Religion" civic is made nearly useless with this mod. Maybe it could be given a boost? What do you think? Is this doable?

ﻢﻜﻴﻠﻋ ﻢﻼﺴﻟﺍ

 

[Mylon]

It all sounds pretty reasonable. However, you're not really limited to just 7 religions: One could have more, though displaying them might be difficult given the GUI is only coded to display 7. An eight will show up on the city detail screen, but it'll be mostly cut off.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

My advice would be to determine the traits at the beginning of the game and show the actual traits in the tech tree. It's no fun to found a religion and get a trait totally useless to the plans one has for the current game.

 

[Turner]

Moderator Action: Thread moved.

The Completed Modpacks forum is for, well, Completed Modpacks. Requests/discussion go in the main forum.

 

[Felzor]

Thanks for the input. Sure, whoever creates the mod can put in as many religions as they want. As to whether or not the player should be able to see which religion goes along with each characteristic in the tech tree, that's up to the modder. Although I have to say it would make for a more interesting game if it was a surprise upon founding the religion

Again, I don't mod so I will not be making it. But I hope somebody does.

ﻢﻜﻴﻠﻋ ﻢﻼﺴﻟﺍ

 

[niffweed17]

i think its an interesting idea, but what absolutely must be done is that the user must be allowed to pick his own trait of those that remain. i.e. whoever founds buddhism gets their choice of trait, and only islam has to pick whatever is left.

 

[Felzor]

Yes, yes, that's another possibility. Again, I think that takes away some of the fun, but I realize that most gamers would rather have certainity that uncertainty. I rather like the idea of the religion I founded being random--that more closely mirrors the case in real life, after all. What ruler gets to choose the belief systems of the religions that grow in his empire?

 

[DSChapin]

In terms of implementation, I see some tricky questions: is this based solely off state religion? Some of these (military units, workers) seem like they would be, but others (building speed) are not so clear.
I'm not sure that all the changes you want will be possible with the .py and xml changes - some of them might have to wait until we have access to the C++ code.

 

[jbfballrb]

i think they were all state religion. and it might be nice to have an option "Random Religious Traits", sort of like the random personality option for leaders

 

[Felzor]

I don't know anything about modding, but I figured the random implementation might make it tricky. We might have to wait, because a non-random implementation sort of defeats the whole purpose and might offend people.

They are based off state religion AND the city (this is possible, no?). If you're state religion is the Artistic Faith, then only cities who have the Artistic Faith within their walls can build wonders 15% faster. That was my thinking, anyway. In other words, just like the normal game, you want to make sure that you get your state religion to all of your cities or not all the benefits would work. Also, I don't mean to bump. I only check this every couple days so naturally I want to post and see if there is new feedback.

I'm also worried that, combined with the civics, the benefits from religion would be too huge. For example, if you're a theocratic, "militaristic faith" and an aggressive civilization, then each military unit you produce is getting a free promotion, +2 exp points, and a +15% combat bonus. That's gotta hurt.

 

[MrUnderhill]

With all due respect, I'm not too sure about generic religions. They sound alot more like civics or something similar.

With this system, you could end up with a Civ3-style "Monarchy Switch" technique, where a human player will automatically switch to "Militaristic Faith" as soon as they go to war, even if the other Civ also has that faith.

Religious wars don't have much of a point if both sides end up with the same religion.

Just my thoughts,
~Underhill

 

[maxpublic]

I like your system. Perhaps because I've already done something similar. ;-)

I changed the religions to national philosophies: Rationalism, Evangelism, Collectivism, Individualism, Commercialism, Militarism, and Ecotopianism. The buildings for each philosophy give specific benefits, and only function if you choose that philosophy as your national philosophy. With a bit of code I was apprised of earlier, it's possible to have the building of a 'temple' for, say, Rationalism destroy all other 'temple' types in the city upon completion. That means the objection of a previous poster about switching to Militarism when at war no longer applies, as you'd have to build a Militarism temple in your cities to get the benefits - which'll automatically destroy all other temples when you do so. Make the temples expensive enough and switching for the sake of convenience will be very expensive. Not only that, the war might be over by the time you complete the temples.

Note: Ecotopianism is specific to the scenario I'm working on. It would be a rather silly philosophy in a normal civ game.

One thing I did notice: all of my above philosophies encompass or incorporate every civic except for an increase in government efficiency. That means I have *no* civics in my game other than this government efficiency increase, which is linear. Buildings can do everything interesting that civics can do, and more. If the civics were more flexible I could whip up some interesting stuff to replace them with, but they aren't, so they're out. You might end up in the same boat.

Max

 

[Red Threat]

This is a very good idea!!!

By the way, I think that your kinds of "faiths" might be linked to the original religions, so we would have:

Militaristic Faith - Islamism

Peaceful Faith - Taoism

Artistic Faith - Hinduism

Missionary Faith - Christianism

Exploration Faith - Judaism

Universal Faith - Confucianism

Spiritual Faith - Buddhism

Obviously it is only an idea, I don't want to offend anyone...

 

[Felzor]

I'm really just trying to make religions more strategic and dynamic. If you read a lot of reviews, people say that religion in Civ IV isn't all that important (because everybody ends up getting religion anyway and they're all the same). While they are similar to civics, there are some fundamental differences. For example, every civ has access to all the civics, but only certain civs will have access to certain religions depending on their location, etc. That way, religions will be like a curve ball thrown in there as opposed to something that everybody simply "expects" to have. Also, as max public pointed out, it can be coded so as to not make religions be instantly switchable like civics are.

Also, Red Threat, the whole point of making them random is so as to not offend anybody or label a particular religion a certain way. For example, to call Islam militaristic is offensive and demeaning. To call confucianism universal is equally so.

Max, can you tell me more about your mod? What benefits did you give each "philosophy? How polished is it and is it available for download? What symbols did you give each philosophy, etc? It sounds very cool!!

ﻢﻜﻴﻠﻋ ﻢﻼﺴﻟﺍ

 

[TBox]

Actually, I'm fully comfortable with the idea that Religion is a separate set of Civics-like options that the owner of the Holy city controls.

I feel this way because I think the "Militaristic Faith" can change over time. Wahhabists now are in the position Crusaders were in several centuries ago (Ugh, generalization, work with me), and I seem to recall a period of militant Buddhism at one point in time.

To some extent this is covered by the "Religion" civic (Militaristic faiths are "Theocracies"), and I like that. A proper mod of this kind would, to me, have to carefully balance it so that there is a pleasing mixture of State and Ecclesiastical control over the interpretation of Dogma.

To be helpful to Felzor, though, an easily doable "first draft" of this Mod would be to mix up the monasteries.

Right now they're always +10% research. But they could also be any of: Cash (not commerce, cash), culture, production, happiness, and healthiness. Hmm... need a seventh, but can't quite justify a monastery producing food. Can I? I suppose a religion that stresses self-sufficiency might have its monastery produce +2 food, so that they can feed their own priest specialist.... or something else.

At first I'd assign them statically, then start looking into possible ways to randomize them, or make them settable on discovery. I really like niffweed17's "First come, first pick" model.

 

[maxpublic]

Max, can you tell me more about your mod? What benefits did you give each "philosophy? How polished is it and is it available for download? What symbols did you give each philosophy, etc? It sounds very cool!!

I'm still building the mod, but it's almost finished. Doing the buildings as we speak.

I haven't changed the symbols. No artistic talent of any kind, so I don't even bother trying.

The 'missionaries' are now named: scholar, missionary, socialist, libertarian, militant, environmentalist, and businessman. They're called 'representatives' in the text files, which I rewrote to make sense for the mod. You can only have two at a time and they cost 500 shields each.

The philosophies keep their 'religious' buildings (again, no artistic talent), but they're all renamed. For example, the various monasteries become: business office (Commercialism), church (Evangelism), recruitment center (Militarism), community collective (Collectivism), government watchdog (Individualism), national park (Ecotopianism), and research facility (Rationalism). The monasteries/temples/cathedrals can only exist for one philosophy type at a time, and they're *very* expensive to build. Switching philosophies is a costly move.

As for what each philosophy governs, here's the text straight from the CIVICSRELIGION file:

Commercialism: As militarists define self-worth through warlike activities, commercialists do the same through business ventures. They emphasize mercantile activities and profit-seeking, attempting to expand economically into every corner of the globe. Unfortunately commercialists aren't particularly concerned with the negative effects of their endeavors. Commercialist specialists are merchants; their buildings increase commerce at the expense of health. Their representative is the businessman.

Evangelism: The belief that religion should be central to all things in society, including law and personal conduct. Heretics are in need of conversion,
by force if necessary, and dissenters against the tenets of the religion aren't tolerated. Evangelists often believe it's perfectly accept to persecute others, even murder them, in order to 'save their souls'. Evangelical communities tend to be content wells of conformity, as the entrenched nonconformists have all been put to death. Evangelist specialists are priests; their buildings produce happiness but impose a penalty to research. Their representative is the missionary.

Militarism: An emphasis on military achievement and endeavor, coupled with the belief that conquest is a perfectly acceptable tool for achieving the goals of the nation. National fervor and glory-seeking encourage the people who share this belief to launch military adventures at the drop of a hat. Militarists have no specialists; their buildings increase military unit production and reduce war weariness, at the expense of culture. Their representative is the militant.

Collectivism: The belief that individual human beings aren't as important as the group, and are obliged to make themselves subservient to the desires of the group. People who believe in collectivism often justify their arguments with the phrase "for the greater good", especially if they're about to personally screw someone for their own benefit. Collectivist have no specialists; their buildings increase production but decrease commerce. Their representative is the socialist.

Individualism: The opposite of collectivists, individualists believe that you can't do anything for the "greater good" without directing your efforts to the individuals that comprise the group. That is, it isn't possible to do good for a group if you're injuring the individuals that belong to that group. The emphasis is on personal achievement, choice, and happiness; the social contract doesn't extend to mandated sacrifice or subordination. Individualists specialists are entertainers; their buildings increase happiness at the price of production. Their representative is the libertarian.

Ecotopianism: The belief that humans do not rule the Earth, but are merely it's caretakers. Ecotopians put the needs of human beings second to the needs of the Earth, whatever those needs are defined as by the people in charge. Ecotopians will pursue 'green' policies no matter what the cost in human labor or misery. Ecotopian specialists are priests; their buildings improve health at the price of research and growth. Their representative is the environmentalist.

Rationalism: The belief in the empirical and the rejection of the mystical. Rationalists tend to discount those things which can't stand up to the examination of science, or which are thought to be superstitious nonsense - e.g., psychic powers, ghosts, UFOs, crystals, pyramid power, and so on. Rationalist specialists are scientists; their buildings benefit research while receiving a penalty to culture. Their represenative is the scholar.

Note that as implied by the text, every building increases certain bonuses while also increasing specific penalties. This means that a player won't want to automatically go all-out for a specific philosophy. For example, you might become an evangelist for the happiness, but decide you don't like the higher penalties for research so you decide to only build 'monasteries'. Enough to give you what you want but not so much as to cripple your game-play style.

Hope this helps.

Max

 

[MrUnderhill]

If you don't mind, maxpublic, I came up with another philosophy I didn't see on your list.

Moderation: The belief that what one believes and does not believe is solely that person's business and that, except when such inaction may allow direct harm to another person, government should stay out of it. Moderates tend to be more tolerant of other beliefs and dislike idealistic wars, seeing that the other side is just as entitled to their opinion as they themselves are. Moderate specialists are cultural historians; their buildings contribute a small amount of culture at the cost of slight unhappiness in large cities (especially during times of war), caused by radicals within the population, constantly trying to force the government to pick a side on various issues. Their representative is the moderate.

I know it probably sounds like individualism, but what do you think?

 

[MrUnderhill]

{Oops, never mind, there it is! Sorry...}

 

[Fachy]

2 questions here:
1) Will these traits be assigned to the TEMPLE or simply any city holding the religion, or the civ-with-state-religion cities?

2) Does anybody know how to make it longer before civs can switch religions? (eg. 200 turns instead of 5)

I'm trying to make a mod similar to abbamouse's, but with much more details: Jews would have triple trade routes with triple their income, but their growth rate halved. Christians would have more happiness in their cities, 1/4 of missionary cost production. Moslems and Taos would have more city growth, Moslems NEGATIVE war weariness and Taos more research. Confucs will have a millitary production boost.. etc

But it's crucial to prevent civs from switching religions, otherwise it can go to each faith, build its temples (which grant this special effect), thus having all the benefits

و عليكم السلام Felzor