Project For A Better Rhye's; Religion

[kairob]

Is anybody willing to work on a project to make a modcomp changing religions in RFC?

My idea is to have more than 7 religions, but having religions being able to be removed from cities and even die out.

The under Theocracy and Organised Religion we could have a slow rate at which none-state religions would slowly die out, along with unhappiness for none-state religions and an inquisitor unit to allow religions to be removed.

Also more stability boosts for having more of your cities with your state religion and more penalties for having more with none-state religions (for theocracy and organised religion ONLY) would also be cool if people like it.

We could then have some of the following religions;
Greek Pantheon
Egyptian Pantheon
Zoroastrianism
Nordic Pantheon
Hinduism
Buddhism
Toaism
Confucianism
Islam
-Sunni
-Shiit
Christianity
-Catholicism
-Orthadoxy
-Prodistantism
Other

The names of the pagan religions could of course change but I am finding it difficult to find appropriate names.

Now I think we should only have religions that were the state religion of civs we have in the game for long enough for them to have an effect on gameplay. I have put the list up on the poll to see which ones are popular but what I am realy asking for is someone with a knowlage of coding and modding who is willing to work on this community project for a more accurate rhye's.

Now if anybody has any ideas that they would like to bring to the table that would also be welcome. Hopefully this will change the way religion works in RFC for the better.

I did intend a poll but I messed it up so instead just post suggestions about the religion list if you dont like it.

EDIT:

This is what I feal we have (kind of) come to so far. The civics are the most contested I feal. If you dont like anything or have suggestions then keep posting

Current Religion List;

Spoiler :

Religion - Tech Required - Best Founder (as in the civ we want to found it)
Greek Pantheon - Metal Casting - Greece
Egyptian Pantheon - Masonary - Egypt
Zoroastrianism - Monarchy - Persia
Celtic Pantheon - - Vikings? Celts?
Hinduism - Polythiesm - India
Buddhism - Meditation - India
Confucianism - Mathematics - China
Toaism - Calander - China
Mesoamerican Cults
Islam - Divine Right - Arabia
-Sunni - Divine Right - Arabia
-Shiit - - Persia
Christianity - Theology - Rome or Greece
-Catholicism - Philosophy - Rome
-Orthadoxy - Philosophy - Greece
-Prodistantism - Printing Press - Germany

Current Civic Changes;

Spoiler :

Changing Pacifism for Leader Cult;
1. Adding 1 + happiness per city if you're either in monarchy or police state
2. Decreasing military upkeep by half
3. Additional stability if also in police state/nationhood or occupation; negative stability with representation/US or free speech
4. Making it available at Monarchy and no later

Current Game Mechanic Changes

Spoiler :

Schism mechanic for Christianity and Islam
% Chance of religions leaving in Organised Religion and Theocracy
Making later religions grow faster and die out slower than old ones in order
Inquisitor unit (possably only for Organised Religions and/or Theocracy)
Religions Spread naturally to cities that already have a religion
Islamic Missionaries have access to Independant Cities
Down sides to the AP through inteferance from the Papacy

 

[kbk]

This would be really cool.

I think you should add Shinto and Celtic or Gaelic paganism. Celtic and Gaelic should be the same religious group. The Celtic or Gaelic religious group would have a decent effect on the Britons and northern europe.

Further, you can probably do away with the Nordic Pantheon, since it doesn't really affect anyone but Vikings, and by the time they are founded its basically already time for them to convert to Christianity.


You also should provide a religion for Amerindians, and Mali. This could be simplified into a single archetype of tribal/shamanistic religions, but I'm not sure if that's ideal.

 

[Quotey]

IMO too many religions spoil the diplomatic broth. Conflict between Asians, Muslims and Europeans is good, but when you get into conflict between Greece and France and England because of religion, tech pace will be slowed due to less trading and more wars.

 

[monolith94]

The greek pantheon tech could be available with metal casting, seeing as the greek civ gets that tech so much earlier than others.

One thing that I think should be in play, is that religions should be able to spread naturally to a city that already has a religion in it.

 

[kairob]

Good ideas from everybody.

@kbk;
I figured the were enough eastern religions, or should we swap confucianism for shinto? That area isnt really my expertise.

About the Cealtic/Gealic Polythiesm you suggested, thats the same kind of effect as I was hoping the nordic pantheon would have, an apponant to early christianity in northern europe. I don't mind swapping Nordic polythiesm for Gealic though if its more accurate.

@ Quotey;
About too many religions, the would not be all of those religions at any one point in time, just like civs they would rise and fall dynamically.

By the time Christianity is breaking into different sects most of the ancient polythiestic religions should be extinct for example. Another example is the far east. If we have Confucianism, Taoism, possibly Shinto and Buddhism in China and Japan, most of these will fade out of importance or existance, as there are only limited factions in that region.

@monolith94;
Metal Casting sounds good the whole thing will nead balanceing but thats a good starting point for the greeks.

I also like your second suggestion about religion spreading. As it will help balance the ability to remove religions.

@Everyone;

Keep the ideas comming. Also any coding volunteers would be great

 

[AnotherPacifist]

What happened to religious tolerance? The Romans were fairly tolerant of other religions unless you don't worship the Emperor or if your religion was a threat to the state. If religions slowly die out, it makes free religion much harder later. Pacifism comes too late to be helpful. I would vote for giving paganism some more benefits (like more happiness from more religions) until you're able to go to free religion.

 

[kairob]

A good point pacifist.

What do you think would work better, a more powerful Paganism, an earlier pacifism or both? Also what Tech for Pacifism if its brought forward?

Does +1 per religion and +1 per religion sound good enough to rival Organised Religion early game without being overpowered?

Finally although Religions can get wiped out and leave cities there are more religions altogether so they should balance out and we can fiddle with spread rates and dissapearance rates when its done if the are too many or not enough religions late game.

 

[Panopticon]

This could come up with some decent results. The more I think about it, the more I believe Taoism can go and be replaced by something else...

Communism!

 

[kairob]

Thats an interesting thought. Whats the public view on having 'Personality Cult' or 'Athiesm' as a religion civic?

 

[FenrirWolf]

Further, you can probably do away with the Nordic Pantheon, since it doesn't really affect anyone but Vikings, and by the time they are founded its basically already time for them to convert to Christianity.

Um, Elves and Dwarfs? Williams the Conqueror's (1066 and all that) favourite curse was "Loki's Bones". They maintained a form of polytheism for quite some time (to this day Polytheists in India will have an idol to Jesus and an idol to a Hindu God or Goddess [seen them]). "Dancing around the Christmas tree" also comes from the Scandinavians. So yes, Norse and Germanic (closely related) could be included

I don't like the idea of paganism being portrayed as a form of Free Religion civic. Roman records talk about religious wars among the Egyptians even when they were ruling them (around 1st century). And of course Jezebel of Bible fame had many of Israel's prophets murdered and brought in her own Baal and Ashteroth prophets. There are plenty of other examples. The Romans idolized the Greek Culture which is why they thought so highly of the Greek Gods but this did not mean they counted as tolerant.

What would be accurate (don't know if possible) would be to set old religions as being replaced by new one's (maybe the new one's even taking over the old one's buildings, Vatican was a "holy place" long before Jesus walked the earth after all). If its possible then to prevent unbalancing it could be set that only certain religion could replace certain others (for instance if you have Zoarasterianism it would be replaced by Hinduism or Islam [yes, I KNOW they are still around in India, but their heartland has been taken over by Islam]). You could set the Old European's as being replaced by "Christianity" but Judaism wouldn't be able to replace any so you wouldn't have the massive Judaism we usually get.

I'd imagine this applying as a Modern religion starting and each time it spreads to a city it automatically kills off any Ancient religions that are set to die before it (e.g. Greek and Egyptian Polytheism with Zoarasterianism in city, in comes Christianity and it kills the Greek and Egyptian polytheism but can't touch Zoarasterianism. But later Islam comes and it replaces the Zoarasterianism).

PROBLEM: Cathedrals don't come till much later so no problem with them but Monastery's and Churches would pose difficulties. If you just destroy them then there's no point in making them. But if you pass them to the new religion you could have multiple copies Christian monasteries in same city.

Possible soloution. Limit buildings Ancient Religions can so greek poly build becomes Chris monastery while Egypt build becomes Chris church. But that would be difficult for coding and balancing.

Alternatively just be more cruel about how many religions can be in a city.

 

[Panopticon]

My views on atheism on the game is that there isn't enough of it. Seriously, does every civ (barring Netherlands and India) really need a state religion by 1950?

I think Atheism can be represented fairly well as a religion, but with some problems. Buildings would not be relevant. Atheism also isn't a major factor in the diplomacy of modern countries. So I don't really see a benefit of adding a modern religion of that sort.

This is the broader sense in which religion needs to be useful in the game. There's not much point to including, say, Germanic/Norse beliefs if only one or two states could realistically adopt those.

The solution might be to allow temples to be built by any civ for their "national religion" - but only after discovering a certain time criteria or tech, so it can't be just a replacement for regular religion. It would be most useful for the national religions without a non-domestic missionary tradition, from Egyptian mythology to Japanese Shinto-Buddhism.

If this project is going anywhere, I can give a hand. I've already coded a small religion mod with a schism dynamic that might be useful.

 

[kairob]

@FenrirWolf
About paganism, it would encourage more religions to spread in your cities but at the same time you would still have a 'state religion' and so would still have diplo penalties with nahbours. Also paganism is a broad term and so hard to represent, but I think the examples you gave would be better discribed as Organised Religion than Paganism civic-wise, although the religion itself was pagan.

Religions changing by scripted events I think arn't flexable and dynamic enough. It would be unfair for your religion to be suddenly gone, holy city et al, just because its 'replacer' has appeared. Slow deterioration is better in my oppinion than religions auto-dying. With the obvious exception of Shisms, which are special.

@Panopticon
How about instead of Athiesm being counted as a religion we had it as a civic (say an earlier changed form of Pacifism? extra great people but no religious benifits and penalties for religion instead of the military penalty?) then it would literally be the absence of a religion

Thanks also for the offer of help.

Also @Everyone
What religions should the be in mesopetamia? Zoroastrianism, Egyptian, none or its own?
And what about a native american religion? It would be cool but might just slow down christian expansion in the region...

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Atheism is not historical, i.e. it is really a mid 19th century re-invention; even though there were Greek and Indian schools of thought on the subject, it was never a historical, cultural phenomenon like religion was.
Regarding the benefits of paganism, it is really too weak to just have 1 happy and 1 culture because early cities are too small to benefit from them. Maybe we should replace it with the civic polytheism (just like the tech) which gives 5% more money (more religions meaning more religious trade) in addition to the happiness and culture. To quote the wikipedia on the Temple of Artemis:

The Temple of Artemis was located at an economically robust region, drawing merchants and travellers from all over Asia Minor. The temple was influenced by many beliefs, and can be seen as a symbol of faith for many different peoples. The Ephesians worshiped Cybele, and incorporated many of their beliefs into the worship of Artemis. Artemisian Cybele became quite contrasted from her Roman counterpart, Diana. The cult of Artemis attracted thousands of worshipers from far-off lands.

 

[kbk]

Um, Elves and Dwarfs? Williams the Conqueror's (1066 and all that) favourite curse was "Loki's Bones". They maintained a form of polytheism for quite some time (to this day Polytheists in India will have an idol to Jesus and an idol to a Hindu God or Goddess [seen them]). "Dancing around the Christmas tree" also comes from the Scandinavians. So yes, Norse and Germanic (closely related) could be included

Sorry, I was more talking about in game than historically accurate. Of course the Nordic pantheon played a large role in Norse culture and expansion and as a result in modern culture. But, in game, we're talking of a span of about 50 turns from when the Vikings spawn, to when we want to start to see Christianity making a dent. Not sure how this is related to Hindu polytheism...

Of course you see Christianity spread at different rates in Viking lands depending on the random seed, but my point is the arc of the game for simply having a Norse religion is so small compared to many of the other time frames for other religions. Certainly the Nordic religion has roots well past around 600 AD, but in game terms, that area is completely unoccupied, or occupied by unplayable Celts and Barbarians.

A solution may just be to have a generic European pagan religious group, but of course, that's a gross oversimplification.

 

[kairob]

How about Hero-worship/Personality Cult/God-King then? The Ceasers had a personality cult, the pharoahs were worshipped as gods too...

Polythiesm sounds good, but I think they should still have a state religion, so those diplo-bonuses are saved for free religion.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

How about diplo bonuses for polytheism if the AI has religions like Hinduism (definitely polytheist) /Confucianism (if it even has gods)/Taoism (more like pantheist)/Greek and Norse paganism (polytheist)

BUT negatives for monotheist/bitheist ones (the more common ones) like Christianity, Islam, Zoro and Judaism?

 

[kairob]

Sounds good as long as it wasn't too complex. What do you think about the Leader Cult idea as an alternative to Athiesm to replace Pacifism?

 

[Rod]

Regarding dieing out of Religions :

Variant No1 :

If a new major religion is founded it will replace older religions, so in this case you could maintain more religion without having more religions :

E.g. if Christianity is founded then it will slowly replace Greek Panthenism, Nordic Cults, MesoAmerican Cults etc.

If Islam is founded then it will replace Zoroastrism, Isis Cult and so on.

When I say slowly then I mean that

See not all Religion are founded at the same time. So you could have up to 6 Religions in Ancient Times, but then when the 7th one is founded (lets say Jewism) then I will start replacing 2 or 3 of these old religions. At first just slowly, but then when the 8th religions is founded then 1 old religion (best the smallest one) is forced to die out and is replaced by its successor (that was already starting to replace it)..

 

[kairob]

would you prefere that sort of scripted, pre-determined extermination to an organic one, where the old religions die out because they are no longer state religions, but still have a chance to servive (say you play as rome and dont switch to christianity when the AI would)?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The leader cult idea is good but it doesn't last long or spread like a religion (i.e. there has been no leader cults that actually persisted, other than the pharaoh god-kings which in RFC turns last only the first 80-100 moves in Egypt).

I would not replace pacifism or make it earlier because you alter the tech rate if there are lots more great people early on.