No point in religion?

[Ranbir]

*jumps on a bad bad bad misconception*
Sikhism is NOT a schism of Hinduism. Not one bit. Since when has the sheep given birth to the lion?

 

[Xineoph]

I know Sikhism is much different then Hinduism...

But, what other things can we give it?

Hmmm how about Jainism? =D

is that fine?

 

[Smidlee]

I going to wait and see how religion is used in the game. If it bring variety to Diplomacy then it would be a big plus in my opinion. for example If I decide to declare war with my neighbor (nation A) and wanted it's neighbor (nation B) to join the war. But A and B is of the same religion so B refuses to join. Then I would have to spend time before the fighting begins converting nation B before they join with me.

Probably how well religion fits into civ 4 will determine if they will add unique bonuses and units to the expansion.

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

Personally, I'd like to see the option for Humanism, Agnosticism, and Atheism. Although technically not a "religion" per se, they serve the same functions as dictated a system of belief.

especially since atheism is the state religion of two very prominent communist countries of the last 100 years.

I guess my main problem with religion is that the complexity of how the different religions interact, how they spread, how they affect the governments of their lands, etc. is difficult to simulate. I see it adding a lot of difficulty to the game without appreciable gameplay benefit. Having it affect diplomacy would be interesting (as an extension of the culture idea), though I can't say that being of the same culture affects my gameplay right now. Also, while a Religious victory condition (convert the whole world to your religion) might be fun, the specifics they've released about the unit/city interaction of religions just sounds confusing. Besides, if a civ is being difficult at the negotiating table, I don't see how a leader sending missionaries into that civ's land would be a logical response or even effective.

Also, while I can divorce myself from my patriotism and bomb the Americans into the stone age, and remove myself from my admiration of democracy to play a monarch (because after all, how democratic is a government where the leader still wields virtually absolute power?) it's more difficult to remove myself from my religious values. It's going to feel odd trying to convert people to Hinduism. There's so much more emotion invested in a person's actual religion, that I wonder if Firaxis wouldn't have been better served to create pseudo-religions (for instance - Monotheism creates people who are less likely to get upset and more likely to submit themselves to authority(less unhappiness, less WW), Polytheism allows multiple religious buildings in the same city with all their benefits, Sciencism doubles the effect of libraries, etc. but temples and cathedrals give no benefit, Hedonism converts other nearby cities much more rapidly than they otherwise would and can weaken the religious benefits of other religions in nearby cities) that they could manipulate for gameplay value (much like the Civ III civ attributes) without potentially stepping on anyone's toes.

After all, when I play Civ, I don't feel like I'm trying to historically recreate the Ottoman empire. I feel like I am building and strengthening my own civ to stand the test of time and this civ happens to be scientific, commericial, and has Sipahi. I guess I hope religion will play out the same way.

and maybe it will. Maybe I just don't understand it yet. After all, I felt similarly (but not equally) skeptical about culture and that worked out beautifully.

 

[Global Nexus]

It seems to me that religions not offering any real bonuses is pretty accurate. o.o Religions shouldn't offer innate bonuses as all religions go through different stages -- take a look at Islam and Christianity during Europe's middle ages and look at them now. It's wrong to think that any one religion has any truly specific traits as they all can probably be and have been used for different purposes. So I'd be incredibly disappointed if religions had innate bonuses.

Now, gaining bonuses and penalties over time due to your usage of the religion? That's a good idea.

 

[cpikey316_]

Will you have options when you capture a city with a different religion? It would be nice to have different approaches, i.e crush the opposing religion, or alternatley allow its followers to follow their religion in peace.

 

[mitsho]

- religions are generic, but of two exceptions: name/symbol and perhaps the special wonder.
- atheism or humanism or agnosticism aren't religions because they can be set in the civic options (category: religion)

These two facts do seem really good for me. This way, the religions do not have bonusses/penalties, the wonder which probably will offer different bonusses can only be built by one nation of the faith.

- Religions spread and you get bonusses if your religion is sprawling
- Religion is spread by missionary units.

First thing is good, second nullifies the effect (as it looks now).

- Polytheistic and mystical faiths aren't included.

The big question! It'd be really sad, if all religions would be monotheistic or 'philosphical', because this does not represent real life. But maybe, the developers only didn't show us all the information, perhaps polytheistic religions are the generic religions of each civ, but just don't sprawl and have other effects. We do not know.

And to finish: What is the 7th religion?

mitsho

 

[KrikkitTwo]

As far as I can tell, each city has 1 religion, and your Civ has a certain generic 'religious policy'. So your civ's policy could be Local Religions, or Enforced Tolerance [one being more like the Roman Empire, the other more like the Western Democracies of today, where regions can't have official religions, only individials can] as well as State Sanctioned Religion, or Theocracy (where followers of any religion other than the official one is 'discouraged' to some degree)...I'd imagine the fifth option to be general religious suppression.

 

[oldStatesman]

Also, while I can divorce myself from my patriotism and bomb the Americans into the stone age, and remove myself from my admiration of democracy to play a monarch (because after all, how democratic is a government where the leader still wields virtually absolute power?) it's more difficult to remove myself from my religious values. It's going to feel odd trying to convert people to Hinduism. There's so much more emotion invested in a person's actual religion, that I wonder if Firaxis wouldn't have been better served to create pseudo-religions (for instance - Monotheism creates people who are less likely to get upset and more likely to submit themselves to authority(less unhappiness, less WW), Polytheism allows multiple religious buildings in the same city with all their benefits, Sciencism doubles the effect of libraries, etc. but temples and cathedrals give no benefit, Hedonism converts other nearby cities much more rapidly than they otherwise would and can weaken the religious benefits of other religions in nearby cities) that they could manipulate for gameplay value (much like the Civ III civ attributes) without potentially stepping on anyone's toes.

I agree 100% with your sentiments.

I wonder about how using tactical missionary units to convert other cities is going to work out. Traditionally, states have sponsered missionary efforts, but usually only when it fit in with their nationalistic goals. Usually it is the Religion itself that sponsers these efforts that know no borders. I am afraid that missionaries will simply become an exploit in the game to be used as a psuedo combat unit to help weaken your enemy. Or that we will have to continually buld them because the other civs will keep reconverting the cities we convert. I really really cringe at the thought of having to be a nation that sends out missionaries all the time...I will have a hard time personally with that concept as my personal convictions will be challenged. As CE said, I can deal with the nationalistic stuff - personally that doesn't bother me as I am not a fanatical flag waver. Nation states come and go. But my religious convictions are deep seated and I will have to meditate long and hard to violate them for a mere game, no matter how good it is. But I am reserving judgement until I see the finished product.

 

[HourlyDaily]

Yes, I am all for athiesm and humanism - they must be included or modded in. In the tech tree they could appear (Humanism is from the Low Countries is it not?) when (modern) Universities do.

Certainly religion should be divided within a civ whether by schism or by enforced military control over un-receptive border areas.

I think adding a possible control that limits the spread of religion later in the game would be a good idea - arguably the world is becoming more hardline in its beliefs. You don't see the Vikings raiding, colonzing and converting to Celtic christianity anymore.

 

[Nobody]

How about Religion can be used to increase score, for example if your christain then you are encouraged to change certain civics, if you set these civics you get a small bonus in score, different civic combonations will be for different civilizations

 

[Louis XXIV]

especially since atheism is the state religion of two very prominent communist countries of the last 100 years.

Atheism isn't a religion. To represent the state atheism of the Soviet Union, it would be a state with no religion and no religious freedom (or something like that). Its a forced absense of religion, not a forced religion.

BTW, I've said this before, but I'm hoping that religion might also slowly spread, instead of always requiring a missionary.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

They have already indicated that it will slowly spread, but that missionaries 'help things along'. I have a feeling that, without an underlying 'religious strength', your missionaries will have precious little chance of successfully 'spreading the word'. That is all well and good, I just wish they could do it WITHOUT having to actually move missionary units around!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Ardeshir Shah]

I hope religions do a little bit more than just diplomacy bonuses, LOS, and their wonders; in multiplayer games no one's going to feel constrained in their diplomatic options because of another player's religion! Thus, unless more effects are planned religion will end up being a glorified reconnaisance system with an attached wonder.

 

[mudblood]

I agree 100% with your sentiments.

I wonder about how using tactical missionary units to convert other cities is going to work out. Traditionally, states have sponsered missionary efforts, but usually only when it fit in with their nationalistic goals. Usually it is the Religion itself that sponsers these efforts that know no borders. I am afraid that missionaries will simply become an exploit in the game to be used as a psuedo combat unit to help weaken your enemy. Or that we will have to continually buld them because the other civs will keep reconverting the cities we convert. I really really cringe at the thought of having to be a nation that sends out missionaries all the time...I will have a hard time personally with that concept as my personal convictions will be challenged. As CE said, I can deal with the nationalistic stuff - personally that doesn't bother me as I am not a fanatical flag waver. Nation states come and go. But my religious convictions are deep seated and I will have to meditate long and hard to violate them for a mere game, no matter how good it is. But I am reserving judgement until I see the finished product.

It was only in the 20th century that nations stopped trying to convert others to their religion. But anyway, I think that religion will be the key component in the early game, but will not be as important for the end game, as I suspect established nationwide religions will severly limit the more useful civics options that will appear as the game progresses. If it bothers you too much, try to always convert to the religion of your choice or mod the names of the religions in the game to the different factions of your own religion -- there have to be seven species of almost every religion, and that has to be more tolerable.

I suspect the first thing there'll be a lot of mods for is religion, so you'll have lots to choose from.

 

[Ranbir]

I know Sikhism is much different then Hinduism...

But, what other things can we give it?

Hmmm how about Jainism? =D

is that fine?

We can have Sikhism be one of the seven religions, because it's the world's fifth largest!

Again, there's the problem of having set religions. Oh well.
I guess I'll just use the editor.

 

[ogmoir]

It was only in the 20th century that nations stopped trying to convert others to their religion.

They stopped? As far as I know, there are missionaries at work e.g. in New Guinea even today.

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

I wonder about how using tactical missionary units to convert other cities is going to work out. Traditionally, states have sponsered missionary efforts, but usually only when it fit in with their nationalistic goals. Usually it is the Religion itself that sponsers these efforts that know no borders.

Your "without borders" comment really captures the essence of my main problem with guiding the religion of my civilization.

You don't see the Vikings raiding, colonzing and converting to Celtic christianity anymore.

Certainly, not nearly as much as you see them just plain raiding and colonizing nowadays.

Atheism isn't a religion. To represent the state atheism of the Soviet Union, it would be a state with no religion and no religious freedom (or something like that). Its a forced absense of religion, not a forced religion.

Granted. Some would argue that a forced absense of a religion is a type of religion, but that's not important to our debate. The point was that if Christianity, Islam, etc. are included as religions, the forced absense of religion like from the USSR and China should be included as well. Their atheism certainly affected the world quite a bit, as would the the atheism of those in more liberal countries (even here, we see the difference between hard line and soft line differences).

They have already indicated that it will slowly spread, but that missionaries 'help things along'. I have a feeling that, without an underlying 'religious strength', your missionaries will have precious little chance of successfully 'spreading the word'. That is all well and good, I just wish they could do it WITHOUT having to actually move missionary units around!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

You may be onto something there. If religion was in the game, but not something that the player controlled the spread of, it might not be so bad. Religions would grow, spread, and interact through the control of the AI and according to certain rules (for instance, it'll spread between two cities that are roaded much more quickly than two unconnected cities separated by mountains). The player, then, reacts to religion. Diplomacy is easier with civs that are populated by adherents of similar religions and War Weariness less against civs with different religions. The player could use civics options, such as "Suppress Religion" to try to prevent cultural flip, but at the risk of more unhappy citizens. Different tiles could have different religious values, some areas more pious than others. The player would have to react to the religion the same way the player would have to react to the terrain. The player could build religious buildings to "improve" religious value in that area or... for lack of a better term... secular buildings to lower the religious value in the area, depending on that players strategy. The players would also have to react to the religious climate - highly pious areas might react badly to the use of slaves, while less pious areas would have no problem with it. And so forth.

Now, what I laid out above would be intensely complex and I have no idea if it's at all feasible to implement. But it would remove one of my problems which is the idea of religion being nothing more than a tool for world leaders to manipulate to achieve their ends. For it to exist as a gameforce that one reacts to (like terrain) seems far more realistic and palatable.

In the end, I still would prefer generic religions. Like OldStatesman, I have great difficulty removing myself from my religious beliefs just for the sake of a game. But the above would be better than nothing, if it's even possible.

It was only in the 20th century that nations stopped trying to convert others to their religion.

Maybe so, but that was more conversion by the sword than with missionaries. I feel that that type of conversion was adequately simulated by the culture aspect of Civ III. In the end (if I am thinking about the same type of instances that you are), those sort of conversion efforts were more about worldly power than heavenly aims.

They stopped? As far as I know, there are missionaries at work e.g. in New Guinea even today.

Yes, but those are the work of Churches rather than nations. I think mud blood was focusing on conversions as a matter of national policy, not those sponsored only by churches. Most missionaries I know were not commissioned by a government to do their work.

 

[Graadiapolistan]

I'd think that religions would have seperate benefits, but not insulting. Daoism- people will be happy and such.

Confusianism- improves social order

Hinduism- improves social order

along those lines- differences in religions that aren't insulting

 

[oldStatesman]

I'd think that religions would have seperate benefits, but not insulting. Daoism- people will be happy and such.

Confusianism- improves social order

Hinduism- improves social order

along those lines- differences in religions that aren't insulting

Edit: sorry I misread your post. Never mind.