Religion for 7

[Saxo Grammaticus]

First off, very much in favor of strengthening passive spread at the expense of units and removing/refining religious victory. All victory conditions have a certain arbitrary nature about them, but religious victory feels particularly under-supported. Were the game to scaffold a bit the rationale for why religious victory would be achievable in-game, perhaps that would help. As an example, imagine a game where the world was up in flames--constant warfare, razing cities, immense cost in human life--perhaps then, religious victory might organically follow from evangelizing in a way that led to widespread and lasting peace.

As for units, I personally find religion too easy to handle as opposed to strong passive spread. In Civ VI, one can easily devote early faith to establishing one's religion or countering/eliminating a competing one (both by aggressively training missionaries). In the worst case scenario, one's faith can be overwhelmed by, I don't know, Peter? In general, however, there are a lot of options when there is low passive spread and units are empowered. In Humankind, for instance, passive spread is strong and there are no religious units. It is very easy for things to get out of hand, i.e. one's religion swinging between the brink of extinction and global hegemony. In Civ VII, I would prefer strong and early passive spread with restricted missionary and debating functions carried out possibly by units.

In the case of empowered passive spread, I would be sympathetic to an events system. For example, calamities might have a significant negative or occasionally positive effect on early spread. There could also be a possibility that foreign military activity could result in a Mithraic or local cult being brought back and elevated with varied results.

On the other hand, though, Civ VI's fully hands-on religion design leaves the random elements (faith bonus from tribal huts, Astrology boost being completely spawn-dependent) as detractors, when they're some of the most realistic elements of the system. Of course some religions would develop faster or differently based on inspiring landmarks. But, since religious control is so heavy, any realistic uncontrollable factors feel out of place.

I find it a bit odd looking back that we have pre-religion pantheons but no pre-civilization cultures. If Civ VII indeed adopts a nomadic start or some extended early phase, I can imagine an organic form of religion following. During the nomadic phase, encountering different resources or terrain could prompt the player to choose from an early selection of pantheons. Should one encounter a natural wonder, maybe elements of the tribe would refuse to leave, instead forming an early settlement. Perhaps at the end of the early phase, the map would reflect religious presence through pantheons at different percentages depending on the paths of the early cultures, with new settlements incorporating this local influence.

And, of course, people's identification of themselves and their Group ('Nation', Tribe, City State) almost always included their Religion as part of their Culture - and therefore Religion is also part of any Loyalty or Political Cohesion mechanic in a game.

This intertwining pantheon-culture phase could then influence a sense of identity later. Perhaps a new religion moves in, but syncretizes with the local pantheon, or not, both at its own peril. Or, a leader embraces a new religion that upends the pantheon (looking at you Akhenaten), and there ensues popular/institutional resistance to abandoning the old ways. Perhaps even allowing passive spread to take over the empire could lead to a resurgence of belief.

I recall a refugee mod for Civ V, and perhaps this could influence the political identity question. Neighboring (or not so close for ports) conflict, especially tied to city-razing and conquest, would produce refugees who would import cultural and religious identity into their destinations. These religious customs could assimilate/be assimilated/move on, or even supplant core beliefs.

 

[Zaarin]

First off, very much in favor of strengthening passive spread at the expense of units and removing/refining religious victory. All victory conditions have a certain arbitrary nature about them, but religious victory feels particularly under-supported. Were the game to scaffold a bit the rationale for why religious victory would be achievable in-game, perhaps that would help. As an example, imagine a game where the world was up in flames--constant warfare, razing cities, immense cost in human life--perhaps then, religious victory might organically follow from evangelizing in a way that led to widespread and lasting peace.

As for units, I personally find religion too easy to handle as opposed to strong passive spread. In Civ VI, one can easily devote early faith to establishing one's religion or countering/eliminating a competing one (both by aggressively training missionaries). In the worst case scenario, one's faith can be overwhelmed by, I don't know, Peter? In general, however, there are a lot of options when there is low passive spread and units are empowered. In Humankind, for instance, passive spread is strong and there are no religious units. It is very easy for things to get out of hand, i.e. one's religion swinging between the brink of extinction and global hegemony. In Civ VII, I would prefer strong and early passive spread with restricted missionary and debating functions carried out possibly by units.

In the case of empowered passive spread, I would be sympathetic to an events system. For example, calamities might have a significant negative or occasionally positive effect on early spread. There could also be a possibility that foreign military activity could result in a Mithraic or local cult being brought back and elevated with varied results.



I find it a bit odd looking back that we have pre-religion pantheons but no pre-civilization cultures. If Civ VII indeed adopts a nomadic start or some extended early phase, I can imagine an organic form of religion following. During the nomadic phase, encountering different resources or terrain could prompt the player to choose from an early selection of pantheons. Should one encounter a natural wonder, maybe elements of the tribe would refuse to leave, instead forming an early settlement. Perhaps at the end of the early phase, the map would reflect religious presence through pantheons at different percentages depending on the paths of the early cultures, with new settlements incorporating this local influence.



This intertwining pantheon-culture phase could then influence a sense of identity later. Perhaps a new religion moves in, but syncretizes with the local pantheon, or not, both at its own peril. Or, a leader embraces a new religion that upends the pantheon (looking at you Akhenaten), and there ensues popular/institutional resistance to abandoning the old ways. Perhaps even allowing passive spread to take over the empire could lead to a resurgence of belief.

I recall a refugee mod for Civ V, and perhaps this could influence the political identity question. Neighboring (or not so close for ports) conflict, especially tied to city-razing and conquest, would produce refugees who would import cultural and religious identity into their destinations. These religious customs could assimilate/be assimilated/move on, or even supplant core beliefs.

I just want to take a moment to endorse every single word of this post. Absolutely yes to all of this.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I just want to take a moment to endorse every single word of this post. Absolutely yes to all of this.

Thank you!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I find it a bit odd looking back that we have pre-religion pantheons but no pre-civilization cultures. If Civ VII indeed adopts a nomadic start or some extended early phase, I can imagine an organic form of religion following. During the nomadic phase, encountering different resources or terrain could prompt the player to choose from an early selection of pantheons. Should one encounter a natural wonder, maybe elements of the tribe would refuse to leave, instead forming an early settlement. Perhaps at the end of the early phase, the map would reflect religious presence through pantheons at different percentages depending on the paths of the early cultures, with new settlements incorporating this local influence.

This intertwining pantheon-culture phase could then influence a sense of identity later. Perhaps a new religion moves in, but syncretizes with the local pantheon, or not, both at its own peril. Or, a leader embraces a new religion that upends the pantheon (looking at you Akhenaten), and there ensues popular/institutional resistance to abandoning the old ways. Perhaps even allowing passive spread to take over the empire could lead to a resurgence of belief.

I recall a refugee mod for Civ V, and perhaps this could influence the political identity question. Neighboring (or not so close for ports) conflict, especially tied to city-razing and conquest, would produce refugees who would import cultural and religious identity into their destinations. These religious customs could assimilate/be assimilated/move on, or even supplant core beliefs.

The whole post is excellent, but I want to focus on this: that Civ VI separated Religion from Culture in almost every in-game mechanic, and therefore inexplicably 'downgraded' culture in the first half of the game because they tied Culture to Tourism and didn't implement the Tourism mechanics until the last half of the game.

Culture predates Religion. That is, Religion in the Civ VI sense, an organized spreadable attribute of your Civ that, in the game, is used as an offensive influence on your opponents or a defensive influence to 'defend' against Furrin Religions
That kind of behavior and attitude is really a very late Classical and later Eras thing. The Classical Greeks commented a lot on foreign peoples from Scythians to Persians to Egyptians to Celts to Indians, and don't even always mention their religion except to put Greek Gods' names on foreign Gods and call it a day. No archeologist bothers looking for imported Fire Temples in Greek or other cities conquered by the Persians, because there aren't any - religion stayed at home, conquest was Political, not cultural or religious.
Religion, in fact. was an integral part of Cultural Identification - your were Greek because you spoke Greek, lived like other Greeks in a Greek Polis, and, by the way, worshipped, however intermittently, Greek Gods. A Persian worshipping a Greek God would just be weird, and why, in that context, would a Persian conqueror even bother to make Greeks worship Persian Gods unless he also demanded that they stop being Greek in all the other aspects? The later Religious Wars would have been incomprehensible to Ancient and Classical peoples, and an offensive/defensive mindset for your religion would have made no sense at all - why bother when no one thinks that way?

 

[Zaarin]

That kind of behavior and attitude is really a very late Classical and later Eras thing. The Classical Greeks commented a lot on foreign peoples from Scythians to Persians to Egyptians to Celts to Indians, and don't even always mention their religion except to put Greek Gods' names on foreign Gods and call it a day. No archeologist bothers looking for imported Fire Temples in Greek or other cities conquered by the Persians, because there aren't any - religion stayed at home, conquest was Political, not cultural or religious.

Just a tiny nitpick: while there's general agreement that Zoroastrianism originated somewhere around Afghanistan around the same time as the Vedas were being written down in India, there is no solid evidence of Zoroastrianism in Persia until the Sassanid period so it makes sense there would be no fire temples in the places the Persians conquered since there weren't even any fire temples in Persia yet. (There is some sparse evidence that the Achaemenids at least had a proto-Zoroastrian or Zoroastrian-influenced religion based on their invocations of Ahura Mazda, but not enough to say specifically that it was Zoroastrianism per se. The Parthians were unambiguously pagan, practicing a religion much more like that of the Scythians than anything resembling Zoroastrianism.)

Moving on to the general thrust of your post, though, I would love to see more variety in how religions work in terms of converts. Some religions never became universal or proselytizing; if you're not born a Druze or a Parsee, you cannot become a Druze or a Parsee. Judaism takes a more middle of the road position, with most varieties accepting but not seeking converts (though there are still some rabbis who insist that if you're not born a Jew you're not a Jew). It would be great for in-game religions to be able to have varying attitudes towards conversion and evangelism, instead of all religions being aggressively evangelical like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism have been. And, as you bring up, it doesn't even make sense for religions to be evangelical until a certain point in the game. (I also really like @Saxo Grammaticus 's point about cultural syncretism, and this was happening long before evangelism. Cf. how the Semitic gods took on a very different flavor under Sumerian influence in Mesopotamia vs. their Western Semitic counterparts, how Canaanite religion was influenced by both Mesopotamia and Egypt [plenty of Phoenicians have theophoric names dedicated to Horus, Isis, Ptah, and Osiris], or how the Hittites more or less wholesale adopted the Hurrian pantheon.)

 

[BuchiTaton]

As an example, imagine a game where the world was up in flames--constant warfare, razing cities, immense cost in human life--perhaps then, religious victory might organically follow from evangelizing in a way that led to widespread and lasting peace.

Or you can found/reform your religion to be fanatics militarist and won your final "holy war".
For me the game should not be about "victory types" but about "ways of control" to achieve victory. Religion would be personalized to synergy with different routes to victory, for example a pacifist, humanist, universalist and/or syncretic religions would help for Diplomacy but Religion itself would be neither just about peace or be a "victory type".

In the case of empowered passive spread, I would be sympathetic to an events system. For example, calamities might have a significant negative or occasionally positive effect on early spread. There could also be a possibility that foreign military activity could result in a Mithraic or local cult being brought back and elevated with varied results.

The relation of each religion tenets with others population "identity values" would be a nice way to trigger events/decisions. Some religions could spred faster within slaves and peasants, others between warriors or merchants, NOTE that by this I do NOT mean that would be religions just for specific groups, what I mean is that X group would have a 0.6 rate of conversion while group Y and Z is 0.3, so one social class works as a vector to convert the others elements of the society.

Of course the Proselytist tenet, sponsor Missionaries and a way to turn in to a Theocracy would be the stronger option to spread a religion.

I find it a bit odd looking back that we have pre-religion pantheons but no pre-civilization cultures. If Civ VII indeed adopts a nomadic start or some extended early phase, I can imagine an organic form of religion following. During the nomadic phase, encountering different resources or terrain could prompt the player to choose from an early selection of pantheons. Should one encounter a natural wonder, maybe elements of the tribe would refuse to leave, instead forming an early settlement. Perhaps at the end of the early phase, the map would reflect religious presence through pantheons at different percentages depending on the paths of the early cultures, with new settlements incorporating this local influence.

This intertwining pantheon-culture phase could then influence a sense of identity later. Perhaps a new religion moves in, but syncretizes with the local pantheon, or not, both at its own peril. Or, a leader embraces a new religion that upends the pantheon (looking at you Akhenaten), and there ensues popular/institutional resistance to abandoning the old ways. Perhaps even allowing passive spread to take over the empire could lead to a resurgence of belief.

I recall a refugee mod for Civ V, and perhaps this could influence the political identity question. Neighboring (or not so close for ports) conflict, especially tied to city-razing and conquest, would produce refugees who would import cultural and religious identity into their destinations. These religious customs could assimilate/be assimilated/move on, or even supplant core beliefs.

I am of the idea that each POP unit should have Identity Parameters:
> Profession (basically their social class like labourers, warriors, academics, etc.)
> Heritage (the equivalent of Nationality, Ethnicity or Culture).
> Beliefs (this included three kinds cult, religion and secular).
- CULT, come from the Shrine in the City Center, where the player would chose one cult similar to CIV6 Pantheon options, the Shrine/Cult itself is a specialization/bonus mechanic for each city. These represent all kind of deities (gods,angels,saints,etc.) that provide a clear bonus for THAT city like the cults of Fertility, War, Death, Sun, etc. Like in real history was kind of common to find syncretism of deities with the same role, so POPs would have no problem moving between cities with the same kind of cult.
- RELIGION, this is a more complex and organized level that could (usually would) replace cults (but the city would keep the local specific bonus from the Shrine). Each religion have slots for a number of tenets that would apply to any city through their followers. This is the key because the player could exploit religions without "BE" one religion.
- SECULAR, at late game some new civics/goverments could propitiate POPs to become some kind of secular, each with their own bonus and sources.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

The whole post is excellent, but I want to focus on this: that Civ VI separated Religion from Culture in almost every in-game mechanic, and therefore inexplicably 'downgraded' culture in the first half of the game because they tied Culture to Tourism and didn't implement the Tourism mechanics until the last half of the game.

Culture predates Religion. That is, Religion in the Civ VI sense, an organized spreadable attribute of your Civ that, in the game, is used as an offensive influence on your opponents or a defensive influence to 'defend' against Furrin Religions
That kind of behavior and attitude is really a very late Classical and later Eras thing. The Classical Greeks commented a lot on foreign peoples from Scythians to Persians to Egyptians to Celts to Indians, and don't even always mention their religion except to put Greek Gods' names on foreign Gods and call it a day. No archeologist bothers looking for imported Fire Temples in Greek or other cities conquered by the Persians, because there aren't any - religion stayed at home, conquest was Political, not cultural or religious.
Religion, in fact. was an integral part of Cultural Identification - your were Greek because you spoke Greek, lived like other Greeks in a Greek Polis, and, by the way, worshipped, however intermittently, Greek Gods. A Persian worshipping a Greek God would just be weird, and why, in that context, would a Persian conqueror even bother to make Greeks worship Persian Gods unless he also demanded that they stop being Greek in all the other aspects? The later Religious Wars would have been incomprehensible to Ancient and Classical peoples, and an offensive/defensive mindset for your religion would have made no sense at all - why bother when no one thinks that way?

From a game perspective, I generally agree that Civ VI separated religion and culture and then downgraded the latter. The exception would be that in Civ VI the holy city generates tourism from the founding of the religion. Why this exception skews less significant is that aside from a few niche strategies, cultural victory cannot be reliably achieved in the early game. More generally, I think what you are saying was better modeled in Civ V, where there was less incentive to spread one's religion to others, as there was a recurring ability to reestablish one's religion, and there was no religious victory. Hence, the natural spread of religion was largely confined to the religion's founder and any neighbors who had not founded a religion of their own. I would like this represented as an early phase where civilizations had been established but religion was largely restricted by culture if present beyond a pantheon.

Some religions never became universal or proselytizing; if you're not born a Druze or a Parsee, you cannot become a Druze or a Parsee. Judaism takes a more middle of the road position, with most varieties accepting but not seeking converts (though there are still some rabbis who insist that if you're not born a Jew you're not a Jew). It would be great for in-game religions to be able to have varying attitudes towards conversion and evangelism, instead of all religions being aggressively evangelical like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism have been.

I am glad you brought this up, as I had in mind quoting you from another thread. The default equation of religion and evangelization in Civ VI bothered me after the relatively nuanced introduction of pantheons and faith in Civ V. You just explain it better.

And, as you bring up, it doesn't even make sense for religions to be evangelical until a certain point in the game. (I also really like @Saxo Grammaticus 's point about cultural syncretism, and this was happening long before evangelism.

As I see it, the early game could have three distinct phases for religion. First, the "nomad" or "culture" phase, where terrain, terrain features, and resources have the ability to inform but not determine early identity and pantheons. Second, the early civilization phase, where civilizations can found religions but religious activity is largely culture-restricted, in that the inclination will be for cultural-pantheon identity to determine religious support, outside of events. Third, the Exodus of the Evangelists, where religions can be founded with free proselytization, in the sense that cosmopolitan religion transcends local identity and has more appeal outside the founding culture, though it would probably be easier to convert pantheons than cultural religions.

I think it was quite smart in Civ VI to add the Exodus of the Evangelists dedication--the relics even largely reflect this. For one, many world religions surged forth at varying points with clear proselytizing waves. This could last through the medieval, perhaps, but it could become rarer that a new religion would unlock proselytizing abilities of this magnitude. Probably some element beyond events and refugees would be needed to represent the pre-evangelical cultural syncretism you describe.

I am of the idea that each POP unit should have Identity Parameters:
> Profession (basically their social class like labourers, warriors, academics, etc.)
> Heritage (the equivalent of Nationality, Ethnicity or Culture).
> Beliefs (this included three kinds cult, religion and secular).

I quite like the granularity of many of your ideas, especially that different beliefs would appeal to different segments of society. My main reservation, however, is I cannot recall anything like this level of population differentiation from the game or mods since, perhaps Civ IV, if that. I know that both population differentiation and identity have been discussed elsewhere here, so I'm certainly not saying it's off the table.

 

[Zaarin]

I quite like the granularity of many of your ideas, especially that different beliefs would appeal to different segments of society. My main reservation, however, is I cannot recall anything like this level of population differentiation from the game or mods since, perhaps Civ IV, if that. I know that both population differentiation and identity have been discussed elsewhere here, so I'm certainly not saying it's off the table.

I've also been a big proponent for stronger pop identity, and I usually point to Endless Space 2 for an example of doing that well (with caveats--ES2 ties specific bonuses to pop species, and that could get...dicey with real world references).

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

. As an example, imagine a game where the world was up in flames--constant warfare, razing cities, immense cost in human life--perhaps then, religious victory might organically follow from evangelizing in a way that led to widespread and lasting peace.

This is just the average Civ game. At least the ones I play.

 

[dagriggstar]

Currently finishing up a mod that, among other things, adds passive religious pressure based on the follower belief that is chosen. For example - libraries and universities increase passive spread if you have Jesuit Education as your follower belief.

What I'd prefer, is that the game determine a set of circumstances that would encourage a religion to appear there. Let's say you want the religion with Lay Ministry to spread into your empire, you might create some theatre squares and holy sites, this adds religious pressure for that religion to spread to you.
Almost like working in reverse. Less we the player are going to determine the beliefs, more we are going to encourage the right set of circumstances to get the right religion we want to spread throughout our empire. It should feel like you are working with the religion, not dictating to it.

 

[GeneralZift]

I vote for a more refined version of the Religious system we already have.
Anything else would probably be headache inducing

 

[reddishrecue]

I was thinking, like humankind, or civ 1, if religion could provide women an opportunity as well. Since religion was known to be a more manly man-made belief system (sort of like Adam and Eve in the beginning of the bible) and that woman that appears in the beginning of civ 1. I guess you could ask whether you're a man or a woman at the beginning and then you have the choice to start with deity as a male or start as a nomad as a female-A reason why they call it mother earth?
I mean, in history there was Mesopotamia where man finally settled but then there was also the beginning which most religious history books believe in. I guess Mesopotamia, the first agricultural settlement could be more of a female suited start while a believer could have a more religious male start in the beginning start like it does in the story of Adam and Eve. Different bonuses will appear from choosing a different type of mysticism or primitive religion such as Mesopotamian or mother earthly friendlier starts will provide more food and more culture, while more religious starts would provide more production or faith... Eventually leading to other resources like gold, tourism or technology.