Nine Ideas

[NeoT]

Adding more religions would provoque caos in RFC. Also the paganism "system" would eliminate most of them.

Now, about Schisms. Im only familiar whit christian schism so i´ll not talk about the other religions´s schisms.
The first nation to adopt Christianity is automaticly Catholic. Every time a nation converts to Christianity they choose between the three schisms that gives different bonus (Schisms don´t spread, that would be much complications):
Catholicism:
No tech Requeriment
+1 (The Papacy helps to control population)
Protestantism:
Needs Printing Press to be chosen
+2 (Money is something almost all protestant nations have, in great cuantity)
Orthodoxism:
Needs Theology? to be chosen
+2 (I don´t know about this, but seems fine)
Relations between Nations whit different schisms but same Religion would be +0 (They don´t make civs happier nor unhappier). Other religions could also have schisms, islamic nations still fight today because of this divisions. Even religions like Confucianism could have, that could prevent that nations like China, Japan and Mongolia have very good relations because they share the same religion.

 

[McA123]

I think there should be some sort of diplomatic bonus to civ's of different schisms, in christianity at least. (stereotypically speaking) A Catholic is going to like a protestant over any sort of muslim.

 

[NeoT]

I think is better to not give bonus. That way there would be more wars in europe, and we avoid to have them all friendly because of the religion.

 

[Blasphemous]

In my experience you still get pretty huge wars thanks to AIWars... I did say before that scripting schisms for Christianity alone is fine, but the best way to do schisms is by making the Religion Civics reach represent a different approach to religion (only a fine difference from representing a different government attitude towards and use of religion) and making civs like each other a bit less than they do right now when sharing SR but not RC.

 

[fearuin]

Maybe Judaism could be the only religion not to cancel the Pagan bonuses, so it would spread slowly and not bother the Pagans (as far as their choice of SR) long enough for history to right itself.

This is something I didn't considered, but I am not agree. The reason is more historical than practical: Jews didn't tolerate paganism. Or so the Bible says, what can be wrong, of course. But I understand that if Judaism cancels the Pagan bonuses, there should be a way to remove religions, and early on. Maybe military units may have this option, and doing it would cause some for a several turns.

However, if gameplay suggests to do it, I would agree. And I am definitevely agree to try the Paganism thing. If it doesn't work, then we may create an unreal, fictitious but practical "Pagan religion" to fill the hole.

EDIT: about schisms, I like NeoT idea. And +2 Culture for Orthodox is fine. The protestant bonus is right: the protestant nations had and have that amount of bonus because Catholicism and Orthodox disencourages the use of debt interests in economic relations (but today this has been removed of both sects, so maybe the +1 Money should become +1 Production from the discovering of Economics).

 

[MrThing]

At this point in history there are people all over the world of all sorts of different religions, just not en masse. I'm sure there are Islams and Jews and so forth in Nova Scotia, I just don't know any. They are small minorities in religions, just the same as christianity is most likely a minority religion in some areas.

Where in Nova Scotia are you?
I live in Halifax and know plenty of Jews and Muslims and am not a part of either community.
Halifax has more Muslims per capita than any other city in Canada, which is still not all that high a ratio but it is on the rise.

 

[MrThing]

It's not accurate to say "that though the god takes many forms it is one god" in Hinduism. There is one Divine, but many gods. OK, so I'm nitpicking.
Regardless.
I agree that hinduism is much more sophisticated than any other polytheist religion. The main reason, though, is that it was given a chance. Greek Religion was on its way to an incredible flowering whne Christianity and Gnosticism teamed up to snuff it out. I suspect that any other highly developed society could have developed their own complex polytheistic religions if more attractive monotheist and nontheist religions hadn't pushed them aside. The "big" question is whether that happened for nontheological reasons, or whether polytheism is somehow less fit. And that's a question that none of us mortals are equipped to answer.

This is true, Greco-Roman polytheism was becoming very sohisticated when is was combined with Greek Neo-Platonic philosophy. This happened, however, largely in response to the Christian/Gnostic (the Pagans did not differentiate between the two) threat.

Iamblichus was the first to produce a system that incorporeated Pagan cult beliefs and mystery rites with a Platonic schema of all the levels of reality, resutling in a theogony of the gods, angels, and daemons. This system came to a sort of completion in Proclus' Platonic Theology and the Elements of Theology (written in deductive axiomatic style like Euculid's Elements). While this movement would have much infulence on both Islam and Medieval Christinity, there is much that has been lost. From my point of view, the engagement with Monotheism was necessary, but the wrong side won.

 

[MrThing]

As result we should include Mediteranean Polytheism or Mesopotamian Polytheism You should read "ROMA AETERNA" of Robert Silverberg ... A book science-fiction author ...

I agree, the Mesopotamian, Egyptain, Greco-Roman Polytheisms are simular enough to be grouped together. In fact the Greeks themelves thought that their gods were derivered from the older Egyptain religion.

 

[MrThing]

No, religions don't have benfits per se - adopting a state religion is what has benefits, and these benefits are indeed realistic and more than what you had in nations without an organized religion.

You make a good point but Paganism was becoming organized in opposition to the Catholic church, especually under Julian the Apostate, who's theological model was the Most Divine Iamblichus. Thus, had the Pagans won, Roman Paganism would have become an organized religion.

 

[MrThing]

Nero killed many people, he didn't get rid of Seneca due to Philosophy. On to more common thinking. You agree that the henotheistic beliefs of the Ancient Mediterranean is totally not suitable as a religion? Good, so we have a lot of common ground already. The Philosophical thinkings are something different than what happened in India, I don't think it can be compared. But it is true, that there exists a huge bias towards the Greeks (and I might have fallen a bit into that trap) as can be seen easily if you go to any university...
I am sorry but I have to resent as I don't think I can back up myself (I really have more important things on my hand) and thus just have to give in. either way, I was just brainstorming.

mitsho

The dominant philosophical movement of late-antiquity, Neoplatonism, was in the process of philosophically grounding and systematicising the pagan and mystery cult beliefs. The most famous moment being the Neopagan movement initiated by Emperior Julian the Apostate. In the very cosmopolitian and pluralist world view all of the Medeteranian religions were one religion in principle and help together in a Neoplatonic schema.

 

[Blasphemous]

The reason is more historical than practical: Jews didn't tolerate paganism.

Again we reach the important dichotomy between a religion's political presence and basic actual presence. Judaism is intolerant of paganism when it's the majority religion and involved in political control. When there are just some people in the city who are Jewish that doesn't really displace the pagans. The civ will switch away from Paganism anyhow once Judaism becomes available in enough of its cities... This effect will only matter in the interim period. And for balance, Temples and other World Religion buildings should be unbuildable under Paganism (so you have to stop being Pagan to support the local Jewish community. This way the cities with Judaism will only do marginally better than pure Pagan cities.)

 

[Prestidigitator]

From my post in another thread...

Perhaps what we can have is specific temples for each area.
Egypt under Polytheism would build Mastabas.
Babylon under Polytheism would build Ziggurats.
Greece under Polytheism would build Parthenon-like temples .
etc...

Indians, well, they would just fit into Hinduism so no prob.

I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to work civ-specific polytheist temples, as it would only be for about 4 civs no more . How about that?

EDIT: oh and we won't need movies and all so no need to worry about that.

Basically what we can have is one religion by the name of 'Polytheism', which would be the base for Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Celtic tribes and maybe even Rome. We can then add civ-specific polytheistic temples for each of the 5 civs listed above...
Babylon -> Ziggurat.
Egypt -> Mastaba.
Greece -> Greek Temple (?).
Aztecs -> Aztec Pyramid.
Rome -> would do with the Greek graphic.

This way we wouldn't run into the 'multi-religion' issue.

EDIT- as for the graphic assets, no need to worry ,
I have done the Ziggurat of Ur, it just needs texuring:


Egyptian Mastabas are simple, anyone with basic 3D knowledge should be able to create them.


The Aztec Pyramid can be obtained from the excellent Mesoamerican city graphics by Chamaedrys.

And a Greek temple can just be a varient of the Parthenon.

Voila, all done .

 

[SadoMacho]

A mastaba is a grave, not a temple.

 

[NeoT]

I don´t like the idea of making a new religion for politheisms. Too much work to represent too little. The idea of giving bonus to cities whitout religion under paganism civic, i found it quite better, no need for new buildings or religions and it easily represent politheisms and pagan religions which didn´t spread to other countries. Also having a politheistic religion could change gameplay too much, too much civs were politheistic: Rome, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, Vikings, Carthage, Inca, Aztec, China, etc... there won´t be space for the other religions expand.

 

[McA123]

Where in Nova Scotia are you?
I live in Halifax and know plenty of Jews and Muslims and am not a part of either community.
Halifax has more Muslims per capita than any other city in Canada, which is still not all that high a ratio but it is on the rise.

Well, I live in the 'burbs of Halifax.

Also, I remember reading somewheres that Halifax has the biggest budhist community outside of Asia...

 

[Crayton]

Rather than making another religion, why not only make the temples (ziggurat, acropolis, etc...), give them a religion requirement, and set the religion to NONE.

This way we don't have to worry about diplomacy modifiers, impediment of world religions, or deciding upon a name (usually the crux of conversation).

These can be built only before the spread of world religions, which I believe is the intent; or, do we want a 'default' religion with separate diplomacy modifiers, etc...?

I still do like an idea from some time ago. The Diplomacy hit: "I find your like of faith disturbing." I promote this separate from the discussion concerning "pagan temples".

 

[Marmoteo]

I don't know if this was already mentioned before, but in order to create some balances with religions, why don't make something like the inquisition in the Total Realism mod, in that way you can add more ancient religions, but at the same time encourage civs with one of the "great religions" as a state one to eliminate all pagan. In this same way you could eliminate christian, muslim, jewish religion spread in cities you don't really wan't them to have. Of course, the inquisition causes some angry citizens for some turns.

Apologies if this was already mentioned.

 

[fearuin]

Well, I have already mentioned it, and please forgive for repeating myself. The best way to boost Paganism so the AI doesn't convert too easily is just to give a +2 to any city if Paganism civic is triggered, non state religion is chosen, and the city has no religion. That way, when major religions arise, people would loose the bonus happiness until you have converted AND built a temple. That will reflect the nature of that era: people were happy, then came that nasty people bothering the community with all that chat about Yahve, Brahma, God, Allah, or the Nirvana, and the people were afraid. "If this people is right... have we wasted our life worshipping the wrong god? Will they be right?" But when the king said: "No problem, I believe in all this stuff. You'll get salvation if you follow these guys", and "these guys" started building temples, blessing the homes and the new born, giving endless speeches and the like, people got accostumed and abandoned their old religion for the major one.

OK, this was the comic version. If anyone got offended by this joke of argument, please accept my excuses. What I mean is that pagan (in the sense of "the followers of religions that do not appear in CIV") do not need to demonstrate their belief. You don't need a huge temple to worship the sun. You can build it, if you want, but it is not definitively needed. But when new beliefs come along, they have to battle with tradition and inmovilism. And this is represented both by the ruler's sanction and the building of infraestructure that adoctrinates people on the new religion and new tradition.

So you don't need to introduce new graphics, make a lot of new code, etc. The more complex you make it, the more like it will get bugs, and the more difficult to balance the game. It's better to start with small changes. If my proposal fails, than you can do all the stuff you like until you scrap the whole mod. Remember the tech pop-up of Engineering: "An engineer knows when a design is complete not when there is nothing to add, but when there's nothing to take".

 

[McA123]

I just don't see why we can't just have it possible for cities without religions in them to build "Pagan Temples" that would either be taken over or just destroyed by the first religion to spread in. That would be so much simpler and wouldn't disrupt the current religious system.

 

[fearuin]

You don't need a huge temple to worship the sun. You can build it, if you want, but it is not definitively needed.

This is it. If you want to introduce a Pagan Temple; or, I would call it better a "Pagan Altar" to remark the difference between "minor" and "major" cults; you can. But nothing about ten thousand million new buildings.

@McA123: Sadly, the system it's currently unbalanced, as long as every civ dislikes paganism, and traditionally many civs should keep pagan for a good while. AI understands better the civics that the buildings, so a new building it's fine, but not enough. However, I dislike major changes because they'll likely make the game even more unbalanced. That's why I think on giving just some little benefit to paganism. If not enough, it can be increased. If too much, it can be easily removed. If you make major changes, by Heisenberg's Principle you won't ever know what went wrong.