Nine Ideas

[Phallus]

Shintoism has even less reason to be in the game than Taoism.

At the moment, China and Japan's shared religion makes them good friends, which is not realistic. Giving Japan its own state religion would make them rivals, which would be more fun and realistic.

It's called Buddhism.

But if that's not possible then I am not really a fan of having the disabled-Judaism (state religion not possible) because that would undermine gamplay.

How would it undermine gameplay in any way?

 

[Blasphemous]

@Blas
I see your location is Jeruzalem, Israel, so i think you are Jewish, and that's why you want judaism in the game, i think?

I'm Flemish, a descentent from the (Salian) Franks, they are not in the game , but they were very important in the course of history (for the whole world). Should I demand the Franks to be in the game?

Jeez. I thought I went over this like three pages ago. Let me repeat: I am a descendant of Jews but I do not see myself as part of the Jewish faith and there are some Jews who don't even consider me a part of the Jewish people (and I don't really care because nationalism is stupid imho anyhow.) I am Israeli but I would gladly give up on Israeli citizenship because I don't intend to live here, ever. (I'm moving away in less than a year.) And to illustrate that I am not demanding the inclusion of Israel as a civ, you may want to ask some people who were here during RoX development when I was the main opponent of adding an Israel civ (I only conceded at the end because it was either that or have both Babylon and Sumeria which is patently ridiculous; the one replaced the other.)

But juedaism is too closly tied to the ethnic group and as such could neve become the state religion of other civs as the religion is the ethnic group...

As we have (sorta) discussed already, the real-history nature of the Jewish religion is not the issue here. It could have easily become something very different from what it eventually did. Imagine, like I said, if one of the empires who conquered the region (Egypt, Babylon, Persia, iirc) were to decide to leverage the local religion for control. The priesthood would, at first locally, become corrupt and deeply entangled with the reigning imperial overlords. The religion would be altered all the way down to the holy scripts to suit the monarch. Within a century its principles could have little to do with those that existed before.
I beg you to exercise your imagination here and remember this is not only a mod about what has been, but a mod about what could have been.

I am not really a fan of having the disabled-Judaism (state religion not possible) because that would undermine gamplay.

State religion not possible would indeed undermine gameplay. State religion disfavored would actually enrich gameplay.
Here is how it can be implemented:

• AI will not choose Judaism as SR unless its capital has it, more than half of its cities have it, and only if there are two cities or more with it.
• When a Jewish AI is asked to convert to the second-biggest religion in its empire it will always agree.
• If Judaism is outspread in an AI's empire, it will switch to the top-spread religion in its empire.

That would be enough to ensure Jewish states will be rare (and it's relative simple to do as scripts, I would guess). This would enrich gameplay because then you would have Judaism spread widely as a non-state religion (it would do well to have it spread rather broadly for one turn whenever a Jewish city is conquered by a non-Jewish state. That would actually make sense for all religions.) It would be a highly-spread religion that is few civs' SR, but then you'd get small fading empires adopting it suddenly as a last measure for odd reasons. It would be very interesting and add variety. Not to mention it would be realistic, as Jews have been all over the place for ages (a very non-regional religion for most of history) but there have only ever been one, two, three or four Jewish states (depending who you ask: Kingdom of Israel, Judaea, Khazars, State of Israel).

 

[Phallus]

If all these suggestions by Blasphemous over the last few pages were incorporated, I think the following would be an ideal list:

Hinduism - Judaism - Zoroastrianism - Buddhism - Confucianism - Christianity - Islam

w. Free Religion
Under the FR Civic, we may want to make all the empire's religions automatically minor for as long as the Civic persists.

I don't know how I missed this last time, but I'm not so sure about it. Consider India and the United States of America as two particularly prominent examples.

 

[kairob]

the problem with budhism is that it is founded in india and rarely reaches japan in time, secondly, and as much as this mod is about what could have been the have to be limits, lets have the celts in because the is a possibiliy they might have been stronger if they had completely different charactoristics than they do now, it is a stupid argument. Why have something in as a religion that we do not want to be the state religion of any current civ? Its stupid, put one in that will increase accuracy and gameplay that we would be happy with at least one civ having please!

 

[Blasphemous]

Temper kairob, temper.

I don't know how I missed this last time, but I'm not so sure about it. Consider India and the United States of America as two particularly prominent examples.

It was just a random idea thrown in, it wasn't a main point. Maybe in FR all chances of going minor should be doubled and all chances of going major halved, so by the regular process you slowly get fewer and fewer major religions. (Remember, major religions are supposed to represent not only the majority religion but that which has the most political and cultural influence; in free societies religions tend to have this kind of influence to a lesser degree and not in such a widespread way as in societies with a State-imposed religion.)

@kairob: Back to your argument, you aren't getting me here. I'm saying Judaism could have developed in a different way than it did in ways that the game can reflect. If and when Israel is added as a one-city MC (which makes sense) you may see Judaism as that civ's state religion and you'll see it elsewhere but it won't be the state religion (this has to be done somehow if Judaism is left in because the current situation is ridiculous.) Then you may see Persia conquer Yerushalayim and rather than historically going against Judaism, it can start spreading it across the empire and the rest is alternate history (as I have already described once or twice in this thread.)
This is not about random changes and things that could have started out different. It's about the game being able to take things that start as they did in reality and have them end otherwise. I agree that Judaism should rarely be an SR, but I don't agree that this should be impossible. I don't see why we can't have more than 7 religions, and I don't see why we can't have religions that are set to rarely be SR or even a robust major-minor religion system.

 

[kairob]

The game could reflect a celtic empire, it just shouldnt. Babylonia did invade juedaism but didnt spread it and I cant see why they would, its historically inacurate and just a little silly, hey I know lets have the zulu then they can invade the US in an alternative history. Dont get me wrong I am a huge fan of alt history but only if it makes at least a little bit of sence, this just doesnt...

 

[Tom Veil]

No, no, we're the People's Front of Judea. We hate the Judean People's Front.

 

[kairob]

are we? I thought we were the popular front

 

[Blasphemous]

kairob, I can't argue with you when you exaggerate so much and use so much sarcasm. If you want to argue to the point, I'll be glad to reply, but I really can't spend the time and energy to take apart your offensive comparisons myself.

 

[Phallus]

(Remember, major religions are supposed to represent not only the majority religion but that which has the most political and cultural influence; in free societies religions tend to have this kind of influence to a lesser degree and not in such a widespread way as in societies with a State-imposed religion.)

Though this is the case in most free societies (India included), America is again a notable exception. Fair enough if the idea was just a quick suggestion, but unfortunately free religion doesn't guarantee a secular government.

Edit: For anyone who wants to dispute this, let's not forget how George Bush Sr did not cause a public outcry when he said atheists shouldn't be considered patriots or even citizens.

 

[kairob]

I dont really want an argument, its just that juedaism has not been a major influance in the way the civ 4 engine shows it, and to allow it to become that is just unrealistic. Period.

 

[Blasphemous]

Well, the same can be argued for some of the civs included. What kind of influence did the Inca have in the way cIV can show it? And now look at that thread where they took over the world. The point is they could have, in a way the game can mirror. It was never likely but it was theoretically possible.
Anyhow, this discussion is getting old. Let's leave it be until other posters decide to add some input; you and I, kairob, are obviously clear on this issue already.

 

[kairob]

Fair enough, but could you do me one last favour? point me in the direction of a tutorial for changing it myself?

 

[lumpthing]

In reply to Phallu's comments...

Buddhism rarely (ever?) becomes the state religion of Japan.

Actually the earlier idea of Protestantism would probably be more fun than Shintoism, but would be more difficult to implement effectively.

Assuming we cannot have 8+ religions, a disabled Judaism would mean one less state religion to cause conflict and complexity in international relations, which would be a bad thing in my opinion.

Anyway my main aim is simply to introduce Zoroastrianism and replace or disable Judaism.

I beg you to exercise your imagination here and remember this is not only a mod about what has been, but a mod about what could have been.

Evangelically Jewish Roman, Persian or Egyptian empires are certainly imaginable but never came remotely close to happening. I'd rather imagine an alternate history which involves a Zoroastrian Persia and a Christian Rome which is much closer to historical reality without in any way undermining gameplay. Faced with two alternatives I'd much rather go for the infinitely more historically plausible "what if?" history than the very outlandish "what if?" history. Persia's Zoroastrian religion was a fundamental part of it's character and the politics of the region. When I want to play with Buddhist English or Jewish Persia I play with vanilla civ. The whole point of RFC, for me, is that the civs feel and behave vaguely like their real-world counterparts.

To turn the question around, why should Zoroastrianism or Taoism not be included when they wouldn't involve the same radical re-imagining of the religion that Judaism requires every single game.

What kind of influence did the Inca have in the way cIV can show it?

I don't understand your point. RFC simulates the Incas perfectly adequately. They appear, take over Peru and the surrounding regions, build roads, armies and cities and all the other things that empires did. There is nothing about the nature of the Incas that means they were destined to be destroyed. If they hadn't been in the midst of civil war, or Spain hadn't been so aggressive, there is every chance they would still be around as a significant state to this day. Taking over the world? It doesn't require much effort to imagine that they could have put their sophisticated bureaucracy and centralised power to good use and adopted a Japan-style policy of modernisation and imperial expansion.

The real-world Incas behaved as much like a civ-nation as the other civs. In contrast, real-world Judaism behaved radically differently from the other civ-religions.

 

[Phallus]

Buddhism rarely (ever?) becomes the state religion of Japan.

It would be far easier (and more accurate) to speed up the spread of Buddhism than it would be to incorporate Shintoism.

 

[kairob]

I agree strongly with Lumpthing on this.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Post 135

That could cause Buddhism in Middle East and Europe. I've seen Buddhism in Japan only few times, but 3 times in RFC:W beta.

 

[lumpthing]

Well if Buddhism could be modded so that, in general, it gets to Japan faster, Japan prefers Buddhism to Confucianism, but Buddhism still stays away from Europe, then that would be fine. I'm not desperate to have Shintoism, I just don't really want Judaism in at all if we can't have have more than seven religions.

 

[kairob]

Yeah, it seams a waste to give a slot to a religion we dont want to be the state religion of anyone, also would that not be too determanistic to send a religion in one direction or not? also whenever I play as rome christianisty spreads to rome almost strieght away, is this planned or coincidence? if it is planned could we make budhism spread to Lasa in the same way if it does not already, which would put it directly next to china, ready to expand...

 

[McA123]

I see buhddism spread into Japan every now and again. Confucianism is the more common state religion, and taoism a bit less so. But buhddism does spread into Japan if the chinese religions aren't already there. I, for one, think it would be better to replace taoism than judaism. NOT because of historical importance or anything at all like that, but just because there's already confucianism in China and sometimes buddhism, plus whatever else happens to spread in. If we're going to scrap any religion, I think it should be taoism.