Piety change

[McSaucy4418]

Since religious tolerance (get the belief of second most popular pantheon) seems to be widely considered the worst policy in the piety tree why not change it to something more befitting of a theocracy. I propose a switch to religious intolerance, it could either have the passive effect of slowing down the spread of foreign religions (like the opposite of religious texts) or a more active effect of lowering the cost of inquisitors.

 

[fyar]

I don't think religious persecution is something that should be portrayed as having a positive benefit. That wasn't the case in history, and it shouldn't be the case in a game. Equally importantly, speaking as a person of faith, I don't believe that religious hatred qualifies as an attribute of piety.

I'm going to copy/paste something I wrote in the Fall patch thread. My idea for Religious Freedom (a name that I MUCH prefer to Religious Tolerance) was to give you ALL of the pantheons in a city, not just the second most popular pantheon, and even if you don't have a majority religion. Sort of like how the Candi currently counts religions.

For realism purposes, this is clearly much more aligned with the notion of Religious Freedom: it should respect the freedom of all people of faith, not just the second one. Would you call it religious freedom if the United States welcomed Christians and Jews but not Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus? And why would that secondary religion not be respected just because the primary religion isn't over 50%?

For gameplay purposes, I think this would be a huge buff to the policy, not just because you'll generally have more pantheons, but even more importantly because you can control which pantheons you want in your city. Do you want desert folklore in a city? Just send a trade route between that city and the civ which has adopted that pantheon. Sure, you might only get 1 convert, but that's all you need.

 

[McSaucy4418]

The idea behind piety as a social policy is that the government is establishing a theocracy (as opposed to a monarchy in tradition or a republic in liberty). Historically theocratic governments have not been particularly in favor of religious freedom. We can go back to Israel, Egypt even early Rome or all the way to present day Iran.

Now on the notion of game play certain pantheons are already very powerful, namely desert folklore. If I were able to have a capital city in the desert with just some of the most common beliefs such as desert folklore, fertility rites, religious idols, goddess of protection and god of war (all are often picked by the ai) that city would be insanely powerful.

On the other hand most people seem to not like the current religious tolerance because the belief they get does not always benefit them, however my religion is always tailored to whats best for my empire so of course I would want to ensure that I keep it the majority in my cities by forcing other ones out.

To address your first point which I really hope doesn't take us way off topic, you are right that religious persecution is a bad thing and I am grateful that I live in a country which has outlawed it. However (get ready to rehash an old cIV point folks) slavery also is terrible but it is undeniable that in the right circumstances there are benefits to both policies and I think we are all adult enough to acknowledge that.

Without getting too off topic it is a shame that ciV has gone the route of everything is a benefit and nothing has a negative consequence (excluding India) otherwise I would propose that a policy like religious intolerance give unhappiness in cities with followers of another religion, but alas it is not to be.

 

[civ54lyfe]

nuclear war and war and razing cities isn't positive but it's part of the game.

 

[bonafide11]

The idea behind piety as a social policy is that the government is establishing a theocracy (as opposed to a monarchy in tradition or a republic in liberty).

tl;dr...

Your opening statement is based on false premises. Who is to say that developing a civlization based on 'piety' must be theocratic?

 

[McSaucy4418]

tl;dr...

Your opening statement is based on false premises. Who is to say that developing a civlization based on 'piety' must be theocratic?

Without being insulting look up the definition of "piety" and "theocracy" and if you still have questions I'll explain.

 

[fyar]

The idea behind piety as a social policy is that the government is establishing a theocracy (as opposed to a monarchy in tradition or a republic in liberty). Historically theocratic governments have not been particularly in favor of religious freedom. We can go back to Israel, Egypt even early Rome or all the way to present day Iran.

I disagree that Piety is supposed to model a theocracy; I believe that its purpose is to strengthen your religion, theocratic or otherwise. Pretty much every civilization in history has "adopted Piety" as far as Organized Religion, and probably Mandate of Heaven. But not every civilization has adopted a theocratic government. That's why Theocracy is a separate social policy within Piety.

Now on the notion of game play certain pantheons are already very powerful, namely desert folklore. If I were able to have a capital city in the desert with just some of the most common beliefs such as desert folklore, fertility rites, religious idols, goddess of protection and god of war (all are often picked by the ai) that city would be insanely powerful.

Yes, that would make the policy MUCH more powerful. Are you saying that it would be overpowered? Compared to Consulates? Compared to Tradition? Compared to Rationalism? I don't think it would be overpowered at all, if anything it would just give Piety a chance to compete with those other options.

To address your first point which I really hope doesn't take us way off topic, you are right that religious persecution is a bad thing and I am grateful that I live in a country which has outlawed it. However (get ready to rehash an old cIV point folks) slavery also is terrible but it is undeniable that in the right circumstances there are benefits to both policies and I think we are all adult enough to acknowledge that.

Well since you don't want to get off topic, I'll leave slavery out of it. But regarding Piety, again I believe that the policy tree is about strengthening your religion. You seem to be saying that it weakens your religion to have citizens of another religion in your city; I disagree, and I believe that the game mechanics properly reflect history. Man's faith has always been strongest when it has been chosen freely, not imposed. In that regard, I do believe that the Religious Freedom policy does strengthen your religion by allowing you to accept other religion's pantheons as well.

 

[fyar]

Without being insulting look up the definition of "piety" and "theocracy" and if you still have questions I'll explain.

I know it was directed towards someone else, but to be perfectly honest that sounds pretty insulting to me. I believe that you may not have meant it that way, but you could've used better word choice in that case.

 

[MattZed]

tl;dr...

Your opening statement is based on false premises. Who is to say that developing a civlization based on 'piety' must be theocratic?

The argument, I believe, is that Tradition has a policy called 'Monarchy," Liberty has a policy called 'Republic,' and Piety has a policy called 'Theocracy.' You don't have to take any of these policies to have the tree, but to get the most out of it requires that you do take these policies. In the world of Civ 5, it would certainly appear that a maximally pious state is realized in a theocracy.

I will, however, disagree on the point that religious intolerance is necessarily befitting a pious state, and it's certainly not a positive characterization either way.

As for actual gameplay mechanics, I think that a buff is certainly in order and allowing ALL pantheon benefits sounds like a reasonable buff.

And for the "religions intolerance idea," there's really not much point in having foreign religions spread more weakly in your land. If you're going piety, it's highly unlikely that your own cities can't hold up to the influence of other religions, anyways.

 

[civ54lyfe]

it's strange that people are stuck on a concept being portrayed as "positive". should an Autocracy (police state) be presented by the game in a "positive" way for us to accept it in the game? like, should the Iron Curtain have a pleasant description in order for us to bring it upon our game civ?

but good point about religious intolerance being less relevant to a Piety taker. however i think religious intolerance should be a belief in this game and chooseable by anyone.

 

[fyar]

it's strange that people are stuck on a concept being portrayed as "positive". should an Autocracy (police state) be presented by the game in a "positive" way for us to accept it in the game? like, should the Iron Curtain have a pleasant description in order for us to bring it upon our game civ?

but good point about religious intolerance being less relevant to a Piety taker. however i think religious intolerance should be a belief in this game and chooseable by anyone.

Well, if we're going to attribute positive benefits to a policy, then it should be a policy that had positive benefits in real life. Believe it or not, there actually were some benefits to an autocratic style of government. Not all of them murdered millions of Jews. But if "Holocaust" was ever introduced as an Autocratic ideological tenet, and worse yet, it actually had positive benefits, you damn well better believe that I would be opposed to it.

(For what it's worth, I have been sufficiently brainwashed by my education to believe that "Freedom" is a better "ideology" than "Order" and "Autocracy", whatever those words actually mean. That doesn't preclude the fact that there were certain things that even the Fascist governments did right. Did I mention that I'm not a Nazi?)

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Piety is not about the government establishing a theocracy.

Piety is about the Society (social policies) being religious.

one option is theocracy.. another is religious tolerance.. some societies work at mixing the two concepts. (like Mercantilism and Entrepreneurship)

I would perhaps have it Also give a small (1/2 of a normal source worth) internal pressure for the 'local minority religion'
That would be
1. the religion/pantheon of the founder of the city if it was NOT the major religion in the city
OR
2. the second most popular religion/pantheon in the city

so you would
1. always have 2 pantheon beliefs available
2. have your religion be able to come back

 

[isau]

The problem with a theory about Piety being about tolerance is that this game has an actual unit called an "Inquisitor." The main point of Piety is building a religion so strong it can beat other people's out, by force if necessary. The civilization may not necessarily qualify as a full "theocracy" but Piety is about religious tolerance about as much as Honor is about peaceful guardsmanship, which is to say only in a cheeky, euphamistic sense.

I don't think just letting players pick 2 pantheon beliefs would be overpowered. Beliefs like +10% food production are still weaker than the finisher in Tradition, and they can be acquired by other civs who get your religion. When you go Tradition you don't have to share anything you get.

Desert folklore should be nerfed whether they do this or not. Limit it to the same tiles as Petra. Or reverse it to only flood plains in deserts. Or only desert tiles without hills. Something other than every single desert tile.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The problem with a theory about Piety being about tolerance is that this game has an actual unit called an "Inquisitor." The main point of Piety is building a religion so strong it can beat other people's out, by force if necessary. The civilization may not necessarily qualify as a full "theocracy" but Piety is about religious tolerance about as much as Honor is about peaceful guardsmanship, which is to say only in a cheeky, euphamistic sense.

I don't think just letting players pick 2 pantheon beliefs would be overpowered. Beliefs like +10% food production are still weaker than the finisher in Tradition, and they can be acquired by other civs who get your religion. When you go Tradition you don't have to share anything you get.

Desert folklore should be nerfed whether they do this or not. Limit it to the same tiles as Petra. Or reverse it to only flood plains in deserts. Or only desert tiles without hills. Something other than every single desert tile.

Piety is not about Tolerance.. it is about religion... one thing a society can do with religion is be tolerant.

The gameplay Problem with it currently is
1. you don't get to see what the benefit is
2. you don't get to control the benefit

If you had that small internal pressure then you would know where that second belief is coming from. (and you would at least have an inquisited religion/pantheon able to come back)

Perhaps you get to pick a Second pantheon* (Choice) AND
you get the benefit of any Pantheon from a secondary religion...AND
there is a small pressure in each city for the founder's pantheon/religion.. might make it harder to fight religiously.. but at least your religion will still give its two pantheon beliefs. (even if it is in the minority)

Also this makes it easier to play defense in a religious war.. someone comes and prophets all your cities.. you still have some internal pressure in each of those, that can help your religion come back... and maintain its strength

*even if you don't have a religion yet you still get a 2 part pantheon.. this would mean you could go a little bit into piety without getting a religion.. you would be able to maintain those two pantheon beliefs (and get the beliefs of the major religion that is sweeping your empire)

Desert folklore only applying to flat desert would be good.

 

[troublmaker]

I don't think religious persecution is something that should be portrayed as having a positive benefit. That wasn't the case in history, and it shouldn't be the case in a game. Equally importantly, speaking as a person of faith, I don't believe that religious hatred qualifies as an attribute of piety.

Religious intolerance is not the same thing as religious hatred. Religious intolerance is simply the theoretical belief that your religion is the correct one and other's have the wrong belief.

Not only is this idea of a positive benefit but was implicit in early civilizations. It was the idea that Christianity was the true word of God that brought Rome to conquer the world and spread this belief. They spread their culture far and wide converting the Britons, the various German tribes, and large parts of Africa to their belief. The result was they were able to maintain an empire that was more cohesive and was able to maintain common values and common laws.

The same was true of Islam. It spread by the sword and while the Ottoman Empire existed you saw peace in the Middle East among the most incohesive and most warring people of all time. Once the Ottoman Empire was dismantled in 1919 you saw constant conflict in the Middle East that still continues today. Without one cohesive religion ruling the land it all fell apart very quickly.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire you saw a larger consequence, people began to interpret the Koran differently... and thus our modern take on terrorism, war, conflict, and another distinct (and majority) group of peaceful Muslims.

That's not to say all religiously intolerant regimes are successful or that it always gives them a massive edge. The High Lama of the Gulag Regime of Tibetan Buddhism, also known as the Da'lai Lama, was the ruler of the small country of Tibet.

To the north was China, a country ruled by a monarchy which eventually became a Communist country that was anti-religious in overall feeling (as the nation of China was never particularly religious anyway). When China conquered Tibet they created highways through Tibet, supported the local farmers, provided universal healthcare, provided K-12 schooling, gave scholarships for universities, and provided new job opportunities in actually running their own country.

To this day the lash back of annexing this religious theocracy is massive, as would be the same with any religious theocracy.

 

[Xenocidius]

One of the problems with the current Religious Tolerance policy, which would be made even worse by changing it to give the benefit of all pantheons in the city, is that it's anti-synergistic with the rest of the tree, and the entire concept of religion in Civ. You don't want there to be multiple religions in your cities - the less, the better. Especially if you're going with Piety, you want to spread your religion as widely throughout the world as possible and exterminate all other religions. Piety's other policies, which give you extra faith and reduce faith costs, only support this, as they let you buy more Missionaries, Inquisitors and Great Prophets to spread your religion and remove others. And yet Religious Tolerance pushes you to keep other religions strong and not to use Inquisitors or Prophets in your cities, or spread your religion nearby too much, which seems counter-productive.

 

[fyar]

The problem with a theory about Piety being about tolerance is that this game has an actual unit called an "Inquisitor." The main point of Piety is building a religion so strong it can beat other people's out, by force if necessary. The civilization may not necessarily qualify as a full "theocracy" but Piety is about religious tolerance about as much as Honor is about peaceful guardsmanship, which is to say only in a cheeky, euphamistic sense.

Maybe that's how YOU want Piety to play, but what you call "piety" is insulting to people of actual faith. The only people who call that "piety" or people who are not pious at all; they either claim that religion but have warped it from a God-centric faith a me-centric power struggle, or they are do not claim that religion and have shoved a stereotype of "religious nutjobs" onto the authentically religious.

If Piety is about strengthening your religion, there's nothing inconsistent about saying that it's made stronger by religious freedom.

 

[McSaucy4418]

One of the problems with the current Religious Tolerance policy, which would be made even worse by changing it to give the benefit of all pantheons in the city, is that it's anti-synergistic with the rest of the tree, and the entire concept of religion in Civ. You don't want there to be multiple religions in your cities - the less, the better. Especially if you're going with Piety, you want to spread your religion as widely throughout the world as possible and exterminate all other religions. Piety's other policies, which give you extra faith and reduce faith costs, only support this, as they let you buy more Missionaries, Inquisitors and Great Prophets to spread your religion and remove others. And yet Religious Tolerance pushes you to keep other religions strong and not to use Inquisitors or Prophets in your cities, or spread your religion nearby too much, which seems counter-productive.

Hit the nail on the head as far as game play is concerned. CiV seems to have a constant problem of grouping similarly themed policies together without tying them together which automatically makes seem less useful or even worthless. As Xenocidius pointed out what benefit is a policy geared towards having multiple religions when the rest of the tree is about spreading your own? That is beside the obvious luck of the draw of getting the second most popular pantheon.

As a side note while desert folklore does need a nerf applying only to flat desert tiles would be virtually useless. Bear in mind that you only get the faith for tiles you work and in the early game where a pantheon can be the difference between getting a religion or not you are probably not working those flat tiles. Applying it to hills and floodplains would probably have the same early game effect it has now. I would propose to work it similarly to the celts and provide flat faith for surrounding desert.

 

[fyar]

Hit the nail on the head as far as game play is concerned. CiV seems to have a constant problem of grouping similarly themed policies together without tying them together which automatically makes seem less useful or even worthless. As Xenocidius pointed out what benefit is a policy geared towards having multiple religions when the rest of the tree is about spreading your own? That is beside the obvious luck of the draw of getting the second most popular pantheon.

What is inconsistent about spreading your religion and also encouraging religious freedom? The optimal way to play your religion is to convert the majority of citizens, but there are ways of doing that without wiping out the competition.

 

[Xenocidius]

But Great Prophets and Inquisitors are very much about "wiping out the competition" - they quite literally remove all enemy religions from cities. Even the very act of spreading your religion and making it the majority religion in foreign cities reduces the influence of other religions on your cities and makes it more likely that enemy religions will vanish from your cities. It seems silly to have a policy which discourages the use of Great Prophets, Inquisitors and even Missionaries, especially when two other policies in the tree strongly encourage their use. Piety should not have you hesitating about how much you should spread your own religion.

Anyway, there are plenty of better alternative policies that it could be changed to. How about one that puts extra religious pressure on all your cities? Or one which makes your citizens more difficult to convert?