Religion and its effects

[Princeps]

Just came up with this...

Well, there's been lot of debates about should religion be in civ IV. If it is, here's my idea how should it function:

Spreading of the religion

Every citizen face should have it's own religion marked in it. the faces would carry their religions symbol.Religion would spread trough temples, churches, mosques... well, trough religious buildings.

And, there would units called priests. They would spread the religion of the government they serve. When you would place a priest into a other civs or yours city. The priest would automaticaly start to spread the word.
Religious building would spread your religion more faster.

Zeal

This idea I got from the Medieval Total War: Every city would have also a zeal
rate that would caculate the dedication to the religion. If you have high zeal the science would be very low in that city, but drafting into a ''holy war'' would cause much less unhappiness and war werainess would not be an issue.

Holy wars

Well, almost every religion have had, or have a holy war of their own.
So, it should be encluded as well in the game.

For example christians would have a crusade and muslims would have a jihad.

You can name some war as holy war. As long as these conditions are met:

-The civilization that you're fithing agaist has to have a diffirent religion.

-You have to have a high zeal rate in general.

-You must not have meny supporters of the other civilization's religion.

-Your government has to be fundamentalist.

Goverment's religion

Government's religion should be very popular religion in the civ. Otherwise if the religion that is the largest and very zealious is going to rebel agaist the governments rule. The official religion can be changed the same way as the government can.(Trough a switch )

After such tech like nationalism or communism, you could make your government an unreligious one. Like under communism you could not have a religion and the government would be an atheist, and it would spread it to (but very slowly).Under Fascim you can have your religion, because it can be used to spread hatred. So if you have a relgious fascism, it would be called fundamentalism.

In a republic or democracy you could have these european and american style governments where you would seperate the church and the state.

Diffirent Religions

At the beginning you would have this innocent tribal religion. It would be very primitive and would'nt be sufficent to fufill peoples spiritual needs soon. After the invention of polytheism you would start to see more advanced religions that would really effect your actions. After the invention of monotheism you'll start to see religions like christianity and Islam, that would be very revolutionazing... You don't need to change the polytheistic belives of your civilization, but the tribal believes you have to change.

Relgions would be born when the needed advancement is uh, advanced...

But, if you have invented the advancement that allowes your religion, You can't trade it the same way:

When there's two civs living close together. And the other civ is advancing monotheism: and (for example) the islam would be born, the religion would spread inside your civilization, at the beginning it would be very zealious and almost unstopalbe. If becames your dominant religion, you have to change to it. Now it starts to spread with the remaining zeal to the neighbouring countrey automaticaly, but you can either start a holy war to fasten to procress or trough diplomacy and ask promission to send priests.

 

[Civrules]

Well, there's been lot of debates about should religion be in civ IV. If it is, here's my idea how should it function:

Yes, religion will be in Civ IV.

 

[Princeps]

Yes, religion will be in Civ IV.

Wohooo!

 

[Chazbagel]

Or some of your people flee your country, due to religious persecution.. Ex:British Quakers

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, if you want to see some of the outcomes of the single biggest debate on Religion in CivIV, check out this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=84950&page=1&pp=20

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

What I've wondered is how different religions pop up. My idea is this:

After Philosophy, the Asian civs get Daoism (that's Taoism, properly spelled), Confucianism, and Legalism (an atheist, rather harsh philosophy that was the state philosophy of the Qin Dynasty)

After Monotheism, the European and Mediterranean civs get Christianity. Mideastern and African civs get Islam.

After Theology, the Asian civs get Buddhism.

I don't know what the Americans could get; possibly the Cult of Quetzalcoatl or the Great Spirit.

Prior to this, all religions could not expand beyond their original civs.

All nations would have favored religions, not necessarily the one they get; the Egyptians would favor Islam, the Americans would favor Christianity, blah blah blah. And each civ would have a degree of attachment to their religion; America would be strongly attached to Christianity, and never switch away from it, while the Koreans would be weakly attached to Buddhism (Christians are one of the largest religious communities in South Korea).

Religion would not be something that the state alone determines; each citizen would have their own religion, rather like nationality. However, when the national religion changes, everyone doesn't just convert. How many convert depends on two factors. First is how strongly you proseltyze the national religion; you do this by sending Priests throughout the land. Second, the religion has an innate quality of "spreadability", i.e., it attracts converts. Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism spread quickly; Legalism, Confucianism, and Daoism spread more slowly. In addition, Religious civilizations convert faster.

You can also spread your faith by sending Preists to other nations. If you have a new religion, you can agree with another nation to spread the faith in their nation; they allow a limited number of your civilization's Preists into their cities to spread the faith. Send a Preist to the rival's capital and you might just convert the leader himself (which would benefit his mood toward you). You can also send in Preists in a more dubious fashion; send a Preist into their territory and order it to found a Monestary in your rival's territory outside one of their cities; the Priest is consumed, and conversion goes slowly, but it happens.

 

[dh_epic]

Oh God, not this one again.

Not to be negative, but there are a lot of disasters waiting to happen in the implementation of religion.

Not to mention that 90% of the suggestions that will come will assume that Civ 4 will add 100 new features before they actually implement religion. And funny enough, those 100 new features are usually pretty complicated by themselves.

 

[Civrules]

Why does everyone assume that religion will be bad in a game?
Spain in C3C was originally going to be Fascist, but later Firaxis made the decision to remove that.
That should tell people that there's nothing to worry about. Frankly, I've never been worried about such "sensitive" game concepts! And that's because the people making the game are wise about what they are considering or doing.

 

[dh_epic]

You've confused me with people who are politically correct.

I'm concerned about historical correctness.

And the problem with religion is that it's a moving target. It's peaceful in one breath (God would frown upon the treatment of our colonies), and warmongering in the next (the crusades). It's a vehicle to criticize the powers that be and take them down (Jesus taking down the Romans), and then it's a power to be taken down itself (Luther taking down the Pope), and then back again (The Pope taking down President Bush).

All this in a game where NOTHING is a moving target. So many attributes and traits are hardwired, and nothing's role changes in history. Civ is made to model the difference between riflemen and spearmen, not for modelling the difference between Christianity in the 4th century, 12th century, and 20th century. In other words, if you want to implement religion as a changing dynamic entity, you have to change the face of Civ first.

For example, make it so your people can be influenced about their favorite government, or their favorite building-type. Only later do you model your peoples' attitudes on religion.

For example, create the ability for you to be dragged into wars based on your political system and similarity to neighboring nations. Modelling the ability to be dragged into wars based on religion comes after.

For example, create the ability for you to have an argument with ANYONE who's not an AI -- a mayor, a special interest group, or your people as a whole. THEN model the ability to argue with a pope, and have schisms and excommunication and the like.

Add the dynamism we all desire for Civ first, then tack religion on afterwards.

The alternative is pretty lame: model religion such that it's the same thing from 4000 BC to 2000 AD. And the differences between religions are hardwired. You end up with something that's not only lacking in realism (verisimilitude), but offers absolutely NO new gameplay. You can declare wars? I can already do that. You get traits? I already have those. You can build more wonders? Wow, that's exactly what I want in Civ 4 -- the exact same thing as Civ 3 but with more wonders.

Political correctness doesn't even enter into it.

 

[Chazbagel]

Why can't civs with the same religion have holy wars. I think that two Catholic Civs would want to own the most catholic city in the world.... Wouldn't they fight over this city?

Jeruselem for instance ( i know i spelled that wrong and im too lazy to look), everyone fights over that city.

 

[Chazbagel]

And now there would be Great religious leaders popping up. We would have Military leaders, Scientific leaders, and now religious leaders....

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, at the risk of getting caught up in YET another religion debate, I still say that we should leave religions 'generic', with an option to name them if you wish. Why should Egypt be hardwired to become Islamic when they discover Monotheism? Why can't they just remain Polytheistic or Nature Worshippers if they want? Same with the Europeans or the Asians. I mean, what if a religion closely resembling Judaism actually first appeared in CHINA ! That is ultimately the point of Civ, isn't it? The rewriting of History? So it should be with the religious component of the game. If you have a look at the thread I linked to, my thoughts were to have the generic titles for the religions, with the specifics determined by the underlying nature of the civ which promotes it. For instance, Christianity isn't militant by its fundamental nature, but if the bulk of its current proponents are all very militant, then that is how it will appear.
Of course, I went further by suggesting that a civs 'civics' settings might have a hand in generating a seperate SECT within the mainstream religion. All I ask is that people have a look at that thread BEFORE they start this debate all over again

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Chazbagel]

BUT THERE IS TOO MANY LEADERS NOW!!!!!!

 

[Loppan Torkel]

dh_epic - you can't tell me that the governments not are a moving target just like religions, still the governments hold are pretty given spot in civ. It makes sense that Religion have a place in civ too, and there are ways to implement Christianity and Islam just like Democracy and Communism are implemented, not totally accurate from all perspectives but good enough to make the game better than without them.
I'm not saying that Religion is the best thing to improve the game, I'm not sure how it will end up, you just seem a bit negative towards the whole concept...

Aussie_Lurker - Having specific religions in does not mean they have to be hardwired to specific civs. I haven't seen any info on how they're implementing religions but if Abraham/Moses popped up in China then China probably would become the home of Judaism, wherefrom Christianity and Islam later would spread.
However, the easiest thing would probably be to atleast tie the religions to their culturegroups - Abraham/Mose would show up in a middle-east civ.

 

[Chazbagel]

I was just thinking about this. How about religion Specific UUs.... Like the christians make the Crusaders, after they build the knights templer ( which would only be available to christians ) ... but i dont know of any other units that they could make.

 

[Princeps]

I was just thinking about this. How about religion Specific UUs.... Like the christians make the Crusaders, after they build the knights templer ( which would only be available to christians ) ... but i dont know of any other units that they could make.

Thats a nice idea... I agree

 

[Chazbagel]

But what would be some Muslim, Jewish (etc.) units... I cant think of any off the top of my head.

I thought of that idea, while i was playing, i built the knights templar (As Japan) lol.

 

[dh_epic]

How Religion Offers Nothing

As a game designer coming up with new features, you should ask "what does the user do?" -- not "what do I call the feature?". The feature is called religion. What does the user do? Start wars and build unique units. Things you can already do that religions do not change or improve. (So I can build a unit that's 4/3/1 instead of 3/3/1? So I can declare two different kinds of war on somebody, both of which do the same thing?)

Cool Things I'd Like to Be Able to Do

Alternatively, religion COULD do totally new things. Your people demand that you take some kind of moral action based on their religion. Or you have to find a way to unify your people of different religions. Or you could get into a political battle with the pope, who demands that you cooperate with him, at risk of being excommunicated. Or you get dragged into wars against your will because religion defines the battle lines.

I'd LOVE if religion did these things. But the question I'd ask is "why do we need religion to do those things?" (Balance factions in our civilization, have political tug of wars...)

In a game design that has to limit the number of cool features, is religion really the "killer feature" that everyone wants?

How Religion Will Be Implemented

Loppan Torkel, ultimately, the comparison you make is very telling. Government and Religion. Governments are a moving target in real life, but in 1990, Sid Meier had to choose the abstract and simple route. This is because it would be too complex to make government a moving target. It's better to come up with a form of Republic that makes sense in the Ancient and Modern age.

The downside to this simplicity is you lose a lot of interesting possibilities. Government doesn't impact international relations (the Cold War), doesn't divide your people (America today), doesn't gradually evolve (Communist China), nor does it become a challenge to attain (Iraq today).

The upside is that you avoid the tough debates. Ancient Greek Democracy, Modern Western Democracy, and Japanese Democracy -- keep it simple, they're all the same thing. Never get into arguments about whether the Japanese system is better than the Western system. This is an intellectual debate that is inconclusive, so sidestep it completely.

This is even more important for religion. I don't want to hear debates about whether Jews, Hindus, Christians, or Muslims are the best at making money, or the best at making war. Not because it would make me cry, but because it would make me laugh... at someone ignorant enough to say "___ people are just smarter than ___ people!" It would be a lot like playing "John Rocker's Civilization".

Religion will choose to remain abstract so it still basically makes sense in 2004, 1204, and 404. The downside of this is it won't do all the cool things we hope it would. But by keeping it simple and abstract, they avoid stupid overgeneralizations that would make Civ 4 into a cartoon instead of a strategy game.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

As I have stated over and over again religion CAN be made a very interesting and NEW aspect of the game WITHOUT causing offence or seeking to pigeonhole an entire culture. For starters we can stop this Eurocentric obsession, in the tech-tree, with reaching monotheism-as if that is the ultimate goal of ALL nations in the world. Truth is, only 3 religions can be truly defined as Monotheistic (4, if you count Zoroastrianism). Everyone else is either Polytheistic, Non-Deist, Wiccan/Nature deification-that kind of thing!!
Secondly, the thing is to leave the naming of the religion up to the player, with perhaps the most LOGICAL/HISTORICAL suggestion being the default. Thirdly, once a civ from a certain culture group gets a certain religion-type (such as monotheism), then civs of that culture group which follow will most likely adopt the religion of that civ (in much the same way as the European nations adopted the form of Monotheism adopted by Rome). Of course, the likelihood of this may depend on how many 'converts' the latter nation has within his borders. Of course, nations can adopt any sects which appear within the mainstream religion-but that is another story.
Another issue is how important the religion is to the state. A level of Theism should be used to define how closely the state tries to align itself to the major religion of its people.
Anyway, those are just the key issues, there are many other ways to make religion truly interesting, though!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

Truthfully, I think you're onto the right track. That implementing your nation's overall "religiousity" as something you can tamper with through a slider and giving choices based on the TYPE of religion (as opposed to actual religions) would empower players. And sidestep the overgeneralizations.