Chandrasekhar
Determined
Wow, religion sure has come a long way from vanilla Civ IV in this mod. From all being identical they're now arguably the most consequential choice you can make. I think that there can and will be more differences, and I'm going to discuss one particular aspect here.
In vanilla Civ IV, and this one too, the AI has a real problem with you if you happen to follow a different religion. What both vanilla and FfH lack is a reason for this to be so. As things are now, the only (moderately) big reason for a Civ to hate you is if they happen to have founded a religion and you haven't adopted it, and even then only if they have built the Shrine for that religion. There must be more reasons for the Diplomacy modifiers because of religion!
I know that this subject has the potential to become extremely complex. Even just considering a few possibilities, it becomes clear that having global consequences for this sort of thing can be tough. It should probably be kept simple in the beginning, if for no other reason than the designers' sanity. I guess we should just throw a few suggestions out there and let the designers do their job.
It would appear that all our possible motivators boil down into two types: positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement (the carrot and the stick, respectively). We're either going to give boni to the AI for being part of a big happy religious family, or we're going to hand out penalties to the AI when their religion isn't adopted. Whether these will be in the form of (un)happiness, wealth/poverty, or some other unfathomable factor remains to be seen, but it should be expected that it will all come down to the carrot and the stick eventually.
Whether we use the carrot, the stick, or both, I think we should aim for everyone wanting to be part of the religion with the most people. Thus, the penalites should be lighter, and the boni more potent, if everyone in the world is the same religion. The only thing disturbing this harmony is the fact that, eventually, someone's going to found another religion. This player should be set to auto-convert to that religion, even though I hope the penalties for being alone should outweigh the boni for founding the religion that you're part of. This founder should then set about attempting to convert as many other players as possible to their religion.
This might require some more advanced diplomacy. For this third party, who has founded neither the first nor the second religion, it should be clear that being part of a big religious family is much more advantagious than being part of a mere two-player one. Therefore, I propose making a longer diplomacy deal (30 turns in normal mode, maybe) that can be used to bribe and bind a Civ into staying in a religion until it actually becomes more profittable than reverting back to the old one. As this process takes place, with converts to a religion also trying to get new converts, the founder of this religion benefits even more from the spread of his religion than the other Civs that are part of it, while the first religion loses converts, and thus begins to face penalties. Of course, the founder of the first religion would also be fighting this second one, as well, as would be those that stayed with him. As the third, fourth, and fifth religions are founded, the sytem would get even more complex, though it would be an inherent complexity, not an painstakingly programmed one.
As for the boni and penalties that accompany being in a small or large religious group, I, for one, propose having that be based on the religion, as follows:
The Fellowship
A health bonus/penalty seems most obvious, but it would have to be more than that. Perhaps forest, and maybe ancient forest, spawn rates (locally or globally) could be affected. If there is a concrete number of turns being set for a forest to turn to an ancient forest, as I've heard, maybe this could be affected as well.
Runes of Kilmorph
I'm thinking a gold bonus/penalty would be likely here. The formula could be quite simple, with the modification being simply the percentage of Civs that follow Runes of Kilmorph -50% being the modifier to the current amount of gold. Perhaps this number could be toned down or amplified to keep it at the best level of significance.
Octopus Overlords
Culture is what this one focuses on, right? I was thinking that we could use the same modifier to culture as the RoK uses for gold here. Also, perhaps the likelyhood of a defeated unit becoming a slave could be half the percentage of the world's Civs that follow Octopus Overlords (minus 50% if the Civ doesn't have Slavery as a civic). I think this would work out nicely.
The Order
I'm not sure what the exact formulae would be here, but I'm thinking that happiness, maintenance costs, and military unit production would be the affected factors. These would seem to suit The Order's "flavor."
The Ashen Veil
Seems to me that science, modified by the same formulae as gold for RoK and culture for OO would be the thing to change here. Perhaps unhappiness could be affected as well, but keep in mind that science is a pretty important concept, and might be enough by itself.
Anyway, this is just what I've thought up. Please, throw out any ideas at all that you have for incentives and religion. Maybe if we throw enough ideas out there, one will get adopted!
In vanilla Civ IV, and this one too, the AI has a real problem with you if you happen to follow a different religion. What both vanilla and FfH lack is a reason for this to be so. As things are now, the only (moderately) big reason for a Civ to hate you is if they happen to have founded a religion and you haven't adopted it, and even then only if they have built the Shrine for that religion. There must be more reasons for the Diplomacy modifiers because of religion!
I know that this subject has the potential to become extremely complex. Even just considering a few possibilities, it becomes clear that having global consequences for this sort of thing can be tough. It should probably be kept simple in the beginning, if for no other reason than the designers' sanity. I guess we should just throw a few suggestions out there and let the designers do their job.
It would appear that all our possible motivators boil down into two types: positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement (the carrot and the stick, respectively). We're either going to give boni to the AI for being part of a big happy religious family, or we're going to hand out penalties to the AI when their religion isn't adopted. Whether these will be in the form of (un)happiness, wealth/poverty, or some other unfathomable factor remains to be seen, but it should be expected that it will all come down to the carrot and the stick eventually.
Whether we use the carrot, the stick, or both, I think we should aim for everyone wanting to be part of the religion with the most people. Thus, the penalites should be lighter, and the boni more potent, if everyone in the world is the same religion. The only thing disturbing this harmony is the fact that, eventually, someone's going to found another religion. This player should be set to auto-convert to that religion, even though I hope the penalties for being alone should outweigh the boni for founding the religion that you're part of. This founder should then set about attempting to convert as many other players as possible to their religion.
This might require some more advanced diplomacy. For this third party, who has founded neither the first nor the second religion, it should be clear that being part of a big religious family is much more advantagious than being part of a mere two-player one. Therefore, I propose making a longer diplomacy deal (30 turns in normal mode, maybe) that can be used to bribe and bind a Civ into staying in a religion until it actually becomes more profittable than reverting back to the old one. As this process takes place, with converts to a religion also trying to get new converts, the founder of this religion benefits even more from the spread of his religion than the other Civs that are part of it, while the first religion loses converts, and thus begins to face penalties. Of course, the founder of the first religion would also be fighting this second one, as well, as would be those that stayed with him. As the third, fourth, and fifth religions are founded, the sytem would get even more complex, though it would be an inherent complexity, not an painstakingly programmed one.
As for the boni and penalties that accompany being in a small or large religious group, I, for one, propose having that be based on the religion, as follows:
The Fellowship
A health bonus/penalty seems most obvious, but it would have to be more than that. Perhaps forest, and maybe ancient forest, spawn rates (locally or globally) could be affected. If there is a concrete number of turns being set for a forest to turn to an ancient forest, as I've heard, maybe this could be affected as well.
Runes of Kilmorph
I'm thinking a gold bonus/penalty would be likely here. The formula could be quite simple, with the modification being simply the percentage of Civs that follow Runes of Kilmorph -50% being the modifier to the current amount of gold. Perhaps this number could be toned down or amplified to keep it at the best level of significance.
Octopus Overlords
Culture is what this one focuses on, right? I was thinking that we could use the same modifier to culture as the RoK uses for gold here. Also, perhaps the likelyhood of a defeated unit becoming a slave could be half the percentage of the world's Civs that follow Octopus Overlords (minus 50% if the Civ doesn't have Slavery as a civic). I think this would work out nicely.
The Order
I'm not sure what the exact formulae would be here, but I'm thinking that happiness, maintenance costs, and military unit production would be the affected factors. These would seem to suit The Order's "flavor."
The Ashen Veil
Seems to me that science, modified by the same formulae as gold for RoK and culture for OO would be the thing to change here. Perhaps unhappiness could be affected as well, but keep in mind that science is a pretty important concept, and might be enough by itself.
Anyway, this is just what I've thought up. Please, throw out any ideas at all that you have for incentives and religion. Maybe if we throw enough ideas out there, one will get adopted!
