Religion and its effects

[Sirian]

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.

When it comes down to it, religion is a set of ideas and beliefs. In this regard, it is akin to technology. The key difference between religion and technology, however, is that technology encourages itself to be modified, while religions claim to have found "the" truth, in whatever particular form, and then work to "protect" and "spread" their version of the truth.

Science holds to the scientific method as a way to learn more about the physical world via experimentation. Ideas are tested. Those that fail tests are discarded. Those that pass every test are regarded as laws. Those who have not failed tests yet but cannot fully be tested are regarded as theories.

Religion holds to holy writings as the truth and tends not to encourage independent thought. Any thought that conflicts with anything in the holy works is de facto considered to be erroneous or blasphemous thought, and religions tend to be hostile (or condescending) to those who do not believe.

On the same hand, science can be condescending as well. In every era, there are competing schools of thought and theories. Any who do not ascribe to scientific methods are subject to being dismissed as unknowledgeable by the snobbish scientists. The chief difference from religion is that science tends to consolidate over time, where old disputes are resolved as more and better evidence is collected. Religions oppose the idea of evolution of human knowledge, having already long ago figured out (or been handed) the "truth". Thus it is easy to model a "tech tree" where ideas continue to progress. A "religion tree" probably is not possible. Even though some religions borrow from and build on others, each is packaged as divine intervention, where spiritual forces have handed down the truth and you either believe or you do not.

Religions become a bit of a freeze frame from the times in which they were founded. However, for Civ's purposes, the game would want to uncouple religious ideas from our linear history, just as it does for technologies. If you can discover techs sooner or later than we did in actual history, then religious concepts would also need to arrive on the scene sooner or later than they did in history, and need to be discoverable by any playable faction.

Trying to define what a religion "is" or "was" could only hurt the game. If religions offered DIFFERENT benefits, then some would be "better" than others in the gameplay and that would spark bad publicity and controversy. If we assume Firaxis would steer clear of that kind of pitfall, then the scope of any religious system would already be narrowed to the following:

* All religions are the same in gameplay terms and become interchangeable.
* There would have to be several religions, at least, or why bother?
* Religions become a form of "currency" of some type: a definable asset.
* There would have to be a "founding" of a religion: by researching it, by building it, or by being awarded with it in some fashion, including randomly.
* One would presume that founding a religion should offer some benefit.


I could be wrong about some of this, of course, but I think the five points I listed follow simple logic from obvious starting points. That still leaves a lot of room for how they might implement it. Could be any number of ways.

For instance, researching a religion. Suppose religion were tied directly to a tech. Get to the tech, obtain the religion. Eventually everybody would get the religion. That sounds like "tech bonuses" with a religion label slapped on them. I wonder how that could be made to work.

What if you had to build a religion, like you can build a world wonder, and only one civ could control it? That sounds more strategic, but then it's just a wonder with a religion label slapped on it.

Maybe they've got new ideas? Something else that is not as obvious? With Soren's "simplify" mantra, I wouldn't imagine that it could be too complex. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.


- Sirian

 

[dh_epic]

Sirian, I think many of the comparisons you made between religion and technology are on the right track. There are few things that I'd argue. But they all mainly focus on how your explanation is incomplete, not incorrect.

I would expand your explanation to the difference between technical progress and social progress. For whatever reason -- including some of the reasons you mentioned -- they proceed differently. They can both be belligerent, true. Not all religions shun the idea of knowledge progressing because not all religions are conservative, although they are generally conservative institutions. But that's a whole other debate.

Regardless, I think you're right. Firaxis would be foolish to get into certain pitfalls with religion. But also, they're probably not going to turn religion into a moving target. They're going to abstract it so they can have it both ways -- something that stays the same for 6000 years (which isn't true), but always applies (to some degree true). Like government.

Unfortunately, I think this offers very little gameplay benefit, even though it's inevitably coming. Like you said, will it just be a wonder with a religious label slapped on it? Or will it be a technology that you research, and then pick from a drop down list like government? In either of these cases, you sabotage any of the interesting things religion has done over history.

What's the point of the barbarians embracing Rome's religion if it benefits Rome more than the barbarians? What's the point of Pakistan being converted if they can pick another religion from a drop down list, or secularize at will? Of course there are answers to these, but they involve a whole other level of complexity. They won't just simplify these questions. They'll sidestep them completely by remaining abstract.

In which case, rather than adding another one dimensional concept, I'd rather they develop a current feature (like Government) into a 3 dimensional concept.

But I'm not sure that Soren Johnson is a Sid Meier or a Chris Crawford or a Will Wright-- he might be more like a John Carmack. Someone who doesn't think about new gameplay, but someone who adds new bells and whistles that "look or sound cool". We just don't know -- this IS his first design, and he's bounded by the constraints of a sequal.

 

[mhIdA]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we can antecipate how religion works in Civ4 in Rhye's Mod. It's allmost culture it was seeing in Civ3. It could be in a static way in sense a civ dont change from one monotheist religion to another, like Koreans seems to do passing from Budhism to Christanism, and assume the historic accurancy of the civs in their religions in real life. And the divisions in a religion like in Islam (xiits and sunits) and Christianism (catholics, protestants, orthodoxs) aren't contemplate.
Afterall could be a way to allow more units and wonders with a religion conotation.
If the citizens have an attitud facing war, how this could be see facing religion, culture, migration and tech advance.
Otherwise if we could send missionaries or priests to proletize other civs then we can achieve a kind of religion type of victory if we are the main civ of a religion and our religion is the bigger in # of adherents.
The religions also evolve, their are not static, mainly due the society evolution, to facing the news realities.