[poll] Prophets founding specific religions

[megabearsfan]

One of my consistent pet peeves with Civ V and Civ VI has been that the civs that have the highest flavor and priority for founding religions tend to prefer founding one of the Christian religions. So I almost always see Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, or Protestantism be the first religion(s) to be founded. I'd kind of like to see more of the ancient religions get founded first. Religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism (which is almost always the religion that I pick simply because NO A.I. ever seems to found it).

Civ IV's religions were tied to the tech tree, so that earlier historical religions had to be founded before the later historical religions (like Christianity and Islam). This got me thinking that maybe the Great Prophet system should make it such that each prophet founds the specific religion that they are associated with. So John the Baptist would specifically found Christianity, Confucius would specifically found Confucianism, and so on.

This may require changing up the prophet list so that there's more representatives of the ancient religions. So a hypothetical prophet roster could be:
?Rishi? = ancient prophet, founds Hinduism
Zoroaster = ancient prophet, founds Zoroastrianism
Abraham / Moses = ancient prophet, founds Judaism
Parshvanatha = classical prophet, founds Jainism
Confucius = classical prophet, founds Confucianism
Siddhartha Gautama = classical prophet, founds Buddhism
Laozi = classical prophet, founds Taoism
O no Yasumaro = medieval prophet, founds Shinto
John the Baptist / Simon Peter= medieval prophet, founds Catholicism
Irenaeus? = medieval prophet, founds Eastern Orthodoxy
Haji Huud = renaissance prophet, founds Islam
Martin Luther = renaissance prophet, founds Protestantism

The actual religions could still be customizable, and the player could probably still be allowed to change the default religion when you found it, but the A.I.s would use the default associated with the given prophet.

What does everyone think? Do you like this better than the current system of civs picking their favorite religion?

Personally, I'd also like to see there be some benefit to getting additional great prophets after you've already founded a religion, so that Great Prophet points (and Holy Site specialists) feel more useful throughout the game. But that's a conversation for a different day ... probably ...

 

[unpossible251]

i take your point - great artists, for example, are tied to their specific great works. the question is, then, why not extend a hard lock on Simon Peter to catholicism? makes sense, right?

indeed it makes sense, but i'd still not support that particular change. I think one of the best aspects of civ 5 and 6 is that the religions were treated entirely in the abstract, with not even the era tied to them. Inevitably, older religions were at a massive advantage than the newer ones, which made them. ahem. better.

partly the answer is about avoiding causing offense, and i hope we can all have a nice conversation about that without breaking the furniture. but civ is all about the alternate worlds - the worlds where the aztecs didn't lack horses or flu immunities and hence crumble, the worldwhere Rome didn't expand too far or fast, the world where china didnt become inward looking, the world where the mongols didnt raze the caliphate.

yeah, so I like it how the religions are unconnected to our world. What if Juadism was more prosletysing? what if christianity was less so? what if zoroastrianism hadn't declined, or rastafarianism took off? that's all part of the fun, i think.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I usually just always pick Judaism because no civ picks it by default so I mix up religions.

 

[kaspergm]

I'm impartial, but as long as we can change it, I don't mind.

 

[Spudsie74]

Isn't it just a name? The founder of a religion defines it (picking pantheon & selecting all beliefs). Weather you call it Zoroastrianism, Judaism, or Zen, the beliefs have nothing to do with the name of the religion. I always assumed this was so no specific religion could be stereotyped as "good, better or best." I agree that for "flavor," it would be nice to see more variety, but it shouldn't affect the actual play of the game.

That said, I would like to see Great Prophets continue, but it would mean tweaking the Apostles function. Perhaps additional prophets could give ancillary beliefs, or otherwise augment the religion; it would mean redesinging the religion system. Probably more of a Expansion pack change, as opposed to an update.

 

[nzcamel]

John the Baptist / Simon Peter= medieval prophet, founds Catholicism

i take your point - great artists, for example, are tied to their specific great works. the question is, then, why not extend a hard lock on Simon Peter to catholicism? makes sense, right?

Well here's your first issue that the Dev's won't want a part of creating - Neither John the Baptist nor Simon Peter were Catholic by any measure and there will be enough annoyed players for it to not be worth suggesting they were.

 

[megabearsfan]

Well here's your first issue that the Dev's won't want a part of creating - Neither John the Baptist nor Simon Peter were Catholic by any measure and there will be enough annoyed players for it to not be worth suggesting they were.

True. I was trying to use as many of the existing great people as possible. It was just a hypothetical sample roster. The actual names could, of course, change.

 

[nzcamel]

True. I was trying to use as many of the existing great people as possible. It was just a hypothetical sample roster. The actual names could, of course, change.

Yeah. Given "Christianity" isn't in the game as a whole religion you'd remove the Simon Peter's and John the Baptists altogether and put in people more specific to those main branches of Christianity who are present. i.e. Constantine wasn't Catholic per say either; but as he's much much closer to Christianity "transforming" into Catholicism, I think Christians around his time or later are more fair game. Better still if they were known for creating the canon that defines Catholicism as separate to the other main branches however.