Religion Reconsidered

[Boris Gudenuf]

The attempt here is not to completely Remake Religion, because that’s not going to happen until Civ VII at the earliest. This, instead, is an attempt to ‘tweak’ Religion into something more closely resembling what I think it should be: a system that is more only Implicitly under the control of the Civ or Player, rather than Explicitly as now. Complicating matters is that I am going to try to retain as many of the current features and mechanisms of Civ VI as possible, because I don’t think we can realistically expect a huge amount of effort and resources to be directed towards Religion in Civ VI compared to the areas of the game that are far more completely broken, like Diplomacy.

I want to make one thing completely clear: these are by no means all or even mostly my ideas, but my adaptations of good ideas from a host of CivFanatics and Modders. I have simply adapted (or warped) them to implement a religious system more to my liking.

So, the emphasis here is:

1. Make the Religions individually more important. Under the current system, whatever ‘Religion’ you found means nothing: it is only a title upon which to hang Beliefs. I’d like the fact that I’ve founded Eastern Orthodoxy rather than Mahayana Buddhism to actually mean something, while still keeping the ability to make many elements of the religion appropriate for my Civ’s in-game situation.

2. Take most religion spread, as it was historically, out of the hands of the Civ’s leaders. IF you actively want to spread your religion, you should have to direct considerable resources at it, and if you are pumping Missionaries into a another Civ that already has an established religion, you can expect to have a Holy Fight on your hands, just against the Passive Establishment if not against the entire Civilization, military as well as religious.

3. IF you are willing to direct resources towards it, give you more wide-ranging religious Buildings, Improvements and effects. Relate religion a little better to the current geography of the game, including ‘disasters’.

With those principles in mind, here are my suggestions to start a discussion going:

Great Prophets:

Right now there are 16 Great Prophets in the game. That’s enough for the current ‘official’ Huge Maps with 12 Civs plus about one step larger. They could be augmented by the following:

.....Classical Era:
Pythagoreas
Paul of Tarsus
Parshvanatha
Augustine of Hippo
.....Medieval Era:
Han Yu
Kukai
Adi Shankara
.....Renaissance Era:
Guru Nanak
Tlacaelel
Jakob Hutter
John Calvin
.....Industrial Era:
Avakum
Jakob Ammann
John Wesley
Joseph Smith
Baha’u’llah
.....Modern Era:
Helena Blavatsky
Mary Baker Eddy
Wovoka
Tsunesaburo Makiguchi
Sadafaideo

The reason for the ‘extra’ Great Prophets is not to start up entirely new religions, but as “Great Theologians”, “Great Followers” or “Great Reformers” to augment your religion after it is founded. Parenthetically, it also provides a use for Great Prophet points after your religion has been founded.

A Great Theologian/Follower/Reformer has 3 Charges, each of which can do one of the following:

Reform Allows you to Replace one Belief in your Religion with another of the same type, including Pantheon, Founder or Follower Beliefs, but NOT Worship Belief or Worship Building.
This can only be done Once per Great Theologian.
Restore Immediately converts all followers of another religion in one of your cities to your Religion.
Rebuild Immediately builds 1 Religious Building or Improvement of a type you are already ‘authorized’. Being built by a Great Man/Woman, this Building or Improvement provides +1 Faith per turn in addition to its normal attributes/bonuses.
Evangelize Immediately converts a foreign city, Civ or City State, to your Religion.

Only the first is limited: the other three can be done as many times as the Great Theologian has Charges left.

Religions
I’ve added a few religions, in some cases by ‘splitting’ current ones into major Sects. The 16 total would be appropriate for about two sizes of larger maps, which would help the Brobdinagian Mod versions of maps so beloved by many gamers (at least in CivFanatics forums!)
I considered, as was discussed in the CivFanatics Forum, attaching a Religious Wonder to each religion, but gave it up. First, because some religions in the list have no identifiable Wonder associated with them (Stonehengepredates Druidism by centuries, before you ask). Instead, as shown next, each religion has a specific Worship Building associated with it: choose the religion, get the appropriate Worship (3rdtier) building automatically for your Holy Sites.

Mahayana Buddhism
Theraveda Buddhism
Catholicism
Confucianism
Eastern Orthodoxy
Hinduism
Sunni Islam
Shia Islam
Judaism
Protestantism
Anglicanism
Shinto
Sikhism
Taoism
Zoroastrianism
Druidism
Calvinism

New Pantheons
There have been Mods made already that massively revise the Pantheon and other Beliefs. I have chosen not to go that route (at least for now) but there are some beliefs that need to be added to ‘fill in’ or ‘update’ the beliefs.

Sacred Groves
Holy Site district gets +1 Faith from each adjacent Old Growth (never Chopped) Woods tile
God of the Fires
+1 Faith from each active Volcano within a city radius; +50 Faith for each Catastrophic Eruption affecting any tile in your Civ.

The reason for these two should be obvious: there are ‘Sacred Groves’ on every single continent except Antarctica, associated with religious observances or shrines going back to prehistory. Volcanos, on the other hand, almost always have some kind of religious significance: Sri Prada, Fujiyama, Tahoma, Thera, and on and on. By linking the Religious Bonus to Eruptions, it gives another ‘balance’ to the destructiveness of the major eruptions. Since there are already Pantheons giving bonuses to Desert, Tundra, Floodplain, and Coastal Tiles (fishing boats), I feel that the other Storm and Flood Natural Disasters already have a religious balance, and that it makes no sense not to include Volcanos.

I made no changes to Founder or Follower Beliefs. Again, Modders have rummaged through these at length, and I am not against changing them, just haven’t got the time to go over all of them trying to balance the changes.

Religious Buildings:

The old "Worship Belief” third tier Holy Site buildings are now associated with the Religion you pick. Some of the associations are more strict than they should be, since historically, Pagodas, Wats, and Stupas were all used by Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists and Shintoists at various times and in various cultures, and of course, “Cathedrals” were used by both Catholic and Protestant faiths. For game purposes, Choices Had To Be Made. I tried to make a few changes as possible to the current buildings for continuities’ sake, because implementing this is still going to require 7 new Building Graphics in the game!
Even with the choices, a Building can be selected by more than one AI/Player in the game when it is appropriate for more than one religion chosen.

Cathedral - Catholicism
+4 Faith, +1 slot for Great Work of Religious Art
Gurdwara - Sikhism
+3 Faith, +2 Food
Meeting House - Protestantism
+3 Faith, +2 Production
Mosque - Islam, All Types
+3 Faith, Missionaries and Apostles +1 Spread Religion charge
Pagoda - Taoism OR Buddhism
+3 Faith, +2 Housing
Synagogue - Judaism
+5 Faith
Wat - Hinduism OR Buddhism
+3 Faith, +2 Science
Stupa - Buddhism, All Types
+3 Faith, +1 Favor, +1 slot for a Relic
Dar-e-Mehr - Zoroastrianism
+3 Faith, +1 Faith for each era since constructed or last repaired
Citang - Confucianism
+3 Faith, +2 Loyalty for this city
Honden - Shinto
+3 Faith, Military Units may destroy another Religion’s Missionaries, Apostles or Gurus within 2 tiles without being at war .
Sobor - Eastern Orthodoxy
+4 Faith, + 1 slot for Relic or Great Work of Religious Art
Mandir - Hinduism
+3 Faith, standard appropriate Adjacency Bonus for any district next to it, so +1 Gold for Commercial Hub/Harbor, +1 Production for Industrial Zone, etc
Abbey - Anglicanism
+3 Faith, +1 Amenity, +1 Loyalty for this city
Nemeton - Druidism
+3 Faith, Effects of any Woods tile within the city radius are Doubled
Kerk - Calvinism
+3 Faith, Can change Civics at any time without penalty

Worship Beliefs:

Now provide religious Improvements: None can be built adjacent to another.
Chapel
Provides +1 Faith, +1 extra Faith if in a tile with a Road, +1 Tourism if in a tile with a road after Combustion Tech is discovered
Can be built on any tile.
Cloister
Provides +1 Faith, +1 Diplomatic Favor
Must be built adjacent to a City Center or Holy Site, receives +1 Faith adjacency bonus from each such site.
Shintai
Provides +1 Faith from this tile, +1 Faith if adjacent to any Charming, +2 Faith if any adjacent Breathtaking tile
Can be built on any tile with a road of any kind.
Madrasah
Provides +1 Faith, +2 Science
Must be built adjacent to a Holy Site district that includes a Shrine
Menhir
Provides +2 Faith, +1 Loyalty to every city within 4 tiles
Must be built on a tile with Charming or Breathtaking Appeal
Scriptorium
Provides +1 Faith, +1 Science, 1 slot for Great Work of Writing
Must be built adjacent to a Holy Site that includes a Temple
Vihara
Provides +2 Faith, 1 slot for Relic
Can be built on any tile.
Sala
Provides +2 Faith, +1 Science
Must be built adjacent to a Holy Site district that includes a Shrine

This is a very miscellaneous collection, because I tried to avoid the Improvements already available from City States. IF anyone wants to also rework the City States, then Moai, Monasteries (with several possible sets of benefits, including Science, Religious, Military or even specialized Spies [Assassins and Ninjas, anyone?]), and such could be added to this list.

Spreading Religion.

Missionaries, Apostles, and Gurus would cost Double what they do now. If you want to field a carpet of Missionaries, you or the AI will have build up a mass of Religious/Faith-producing Districts, Buildings, Wonders, and Improvements first - and then may have your target produce a Great Theologian and wipe out most of your gains in one swell foop.
BUT Religious Pressure from existing population, Districts, Buildings, etc. would also be Doubled.
In other words, most of the spread of Religion would be Implicit, the product of Trade and ‘invisible travelers’ rather than Explicitly done by you. Obviously, this also means that going for a Religious Victory now requires some heavy emphasis on Religious Infrastructure (of which there is more than before) and is not something you can ‘fall into’ while pursuing other goals: you will need not only a Religion to spread, but lots of Religious Infrastructure to generate Great Theologians and enough Faith to buy expensive Missionaries, Apostles, and Gurus for the ‘final push’.

As said at the start, this is a Basis for Discussion, which I welcome. My goal is to produce a Revision of Religion that can be implemented in Civ VI without having to wait for an entirely new game.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Religions

I don't like the new religion splits. Calvinism and Anglicanism beg the question of why "Orthodoxy" isn't split into the Greek and Russian variants, or why Mormonism or Pentacostalism aren't included. The Buddhist split begs why no Vajrayana. Why no Baha'i? Why no Druze? Why Druidism, but not Rodnovery, Asatru, Kemetism, Druwi, or Mexicayotl? Why do we still not have Tengriism? It just opens the floodgates for more disappointment. You either need to stick with the shortlist or go wide here. Also everything about Calvinism rubs me the wrong way.

Religious Buildings

I do like the idea of "official" religions having assigned religious buildings. Taoism should have a worship building separate from Buddhism called a Gong. Pagoda should be Mahayana Buddhism. Stupa or Wat should be Theraveda Buddhism, depending on whether you prefer Burma or Siam to have their own unique. I know there's overlap of structures and beliefs, but that also occurs in the West, and mechanically speaking you want a one-to-one association of religion to building to make everything more intuitive. This also gets increasingly burdensome the more religions you include. Given that I think Civ, as designed in board game sensibilities, would rather have a great mechanic composed of six or so strong, distinct options as opposed to a convoluted mechanic composed of dozens of weakly differentiated options, I would say your list is pushing into redundancy.

Worship Beliefs

I don't dislike the improvements, but the Madrasa is already a perfectly serviceable UI, and honestly by including this you could be impacting the design space for religious civs that would want this as one of their uniques (see, again, the stupa/pagoda impacting Burma's design space or the Wat affecting Siam's design space). And as far as resonance goes, I know that you can only build as many improvements as you have beliefs (which, if like the other beliefs, would likely be only one), but it still does invite some player confusion as to why one set of buildings is subject to one arbitrary set of rules (associated with your religion, can only be build in Holy Sites), while the other set is subject to a different arbitrary set of rules (not associated with your religion, must be built as improvements). Particularly since most of the improvements you've listed are not especially resonant to the average user and would have to work double-time visually to convey what they do. (Also, as a personal matter, I'm in the camp that Astrology and Holy Sites should be part of the Civics tree, and am generally not a fan of portraying religion as a source of "science," given that it was never especially good at doing science, and in fact diverged substantially from it around the time that rational thought started to come into its own)

Great Prophets

I don't like calling them Great Theologians, Great Followers, and Great Reformers. Religion is not logical, following is in most respects the opposite of great, and "reforms" are really just new cults of personality spearheaded by narcissists. But in all seriousness, I do support a new Great Evangelist category having most, if not all of these abilities. Seems only fair if we have three cultural great people and two military great people. And I think the term "evangelist" or "preacher" appropriately differentiates mechanically the spreaders of religions from founders of religions (whereas a "theologian" does not imply spreading religion, and "reformer" implies that the spread necessitates change when it often does not).

An interesting twist on the Evangelist/Preacher concept would be to make a "Great Orator" whose charges could either have religious or political effects. Since I would argue that politics are just another form of strong ideology and typically influenced in many of the same ways (common cultural fiction, youth indoctrination, groupthink echo chambers, principles which are often highly abstracted from or even completely removed from the immediate reality, etc. etc.).

Spreading Religion

I love fielding a carpet of missionaries and faith-bombing cities. I love theological combat. I love tangibly manipulating public opinion, and I love the system as it currently stands. I'm totally fine with a bit more religious infrastructure, but on this general point you're not going to sway me, haha. Zappy zap.

 

[Zoldam]

I always figured the great prophet points after all religions are founded could be used for buying another great person to pick up the evangelized beliefs. They are limited like religions and pantheons, and it seems kind of odd some generic unit you can buy can add something like that. Would be like using a knight to give all your stables +1 production.

I also thought they should have religious policy slots. It just feels odd having them scattered about, but the main ones mostly being in economic slots. It could be less abundant then the other ones ranging from 0-1 (Save theocracy with 2) slots depending on the government type. I am not going to "rebalance" the governments to account for it, but just for the sake of example, let's look at the 20th century ideologies...

Communism - Communist states either banned or suppressed religion because it offered a rival authority to the state. Zero Slots
Fascism - Fascist states often worked with religious leaders to help bring and maintain stability, which was beneficial to the state, while technically not state-imposed, the state promoted it. One Slot
Democracy - While some more theocratic style democracies exist (such as Iran), the majority separate church and state, but the two will work together if they need to. One Slot

Obviously if something like that were to happen, there would be adjustments to each government type, as I said I won't redesign the whole system to keep is simple, but for one example it could be say swapping a military slot for religious one under monarchy, or even just adding a slot to each type (though that might make more secular ones a bit stronger...) I mean there were plenty of monarchies not hellbent on conquest and had at least some focus on religion.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Religions

I don't like the new religion splits. Calvinism and Anglicanism beg the question of why "Orthodoxy" isn't split into the Greek and Russian variants, or why Mormonism or Pentacostalism aren't included. The Buddhist split begs why no Vajrayana. Why no Baha'i? Why no Druze? Why Druidism, but not Rodnovery, Asatru, Kemetism, Druwi, or Mexicayotl? Why do we still not have Tengriism? It just opens the floodgates for more disappointment. You either need to stick with the shortlist or go wide here. Also everything about Calvinism rubs me the wrong way.

At last count there are about 4300 religions in the world, so we've got to draw the line somewhere. Exactly what should be 'inside the line' and what outside is a debatable point. All I'd like to do is set some criteria:
1. Religions included should have some possible and reasonably relevant distinguishing characteristics that can be turned into Game Mechanisms that are worth having (that add something to the game, I believe someone once said)
2. Ideally, the religions included should reflect historical importance, or at least importance to Civilizations included in the game.

By both of those criteria, Tengerism or Tengrism could certainly be included. I would argue that Greek and Russian Orthodoxy are not distinguishable enough to be included, but being neither Greek nor Russian Orthodox myself, I am open to being convinced.
Tomatekh's Historical Religions Mod has almost 100 religions listed, including many of the 'indigenous' religions as they are now termed, but, as in the current game, they are just names: nothing distinguishes them from each other, and it is beyond my capacity (or, probably, anyone's outside of a Theological University) to distinguish them in game terms.
Druidism was included largely because I want a decent Celtic/Classical Gallic Civ in the game, and am not above 'priming the pump' to get it!
Calvinism was included because, partly as a result of its influence in Holland, that country became a haven for Non-Conformists and minorities from all over Europe, including French Huegenots, English Puritans, Jews, Quakers, etc. I liked the idea of an inclusive/flexible religious mechanism. Also, Calvinism was associated with one of my favorite pieces of religious doggerel, the description of Calvinist Theology as:
"You would if you could
You can but you won't;
You're Damned if you do
and you're Damned if you don't."

All religions rub me the wrong way eventually, some faster than others . . .

Religious Buildings

I do like the idea of "official" religions having assigned religious buildings. Taoism should have a worship building separate from Buddhism called a Gong. Pagoda should be Mahayana Buddhism. Stupa or Wat should be Theraveda Buddhism, depending on whether you prefer Burma or Siam to have their own unique. I know there's overlap of structures and beliefs, but that also occurs in the West, and mechanically speaking you want a one-to-one association of religion to building to make everything more intuitive. This also gets increasingly burdensome the more religions you include. Given that I think Civ, as designed in board game sensibilities, would rather have a great mechanic composed of six or so strong, distinct options as opposed to a convoluted mechanic composed of dozens of weakly differentiated options, I would say your list is pushing into redundancy.

I believe the current Chinese transliteration (as of yesterday, it could be different by this afternoon) is guan or daoguan. for a Taoist Temple. The problem I found, was that all the examples I could get were pictures of looked like short Pagodas, and the question became how to distinguish them. Between Pagoda, Wat and Stupa it is particularly vexing, because the 'Pagoda' is architecturally considered a development of the Stupa, and elements of Stupa, Pagoda and Wat were used depending on culture and geography, for everything from Hindu to Buddhist to Taoist to Shinto temples/shrines. I even found a photo of one temple tower that has elements of tower and pagoda but is topped by a Stupa-like dome, all in one building.

As I said, I believe that Decisions Have To Be Made, or we are left with the current meaningless 'religions' that are just titles upon which to hang unrelated Beliefs.

Worship Beliefs

I don't dislike the improvements, but the Madrasa is already a perfectly serviceable UI, and honestly by including this you could be impacting the design space for religious civs that would want this as one of their uniques (see, again, the stupa/pagoda impacting Burma's design space or the Wat affecting Siam's design space). And as far as resonance goes, I know that you can only build as many improvements as you have beliefs (which, if like the other beliefs, would likely be only one), but it still does invite some player confusion as to why one set of buildings is subject to one arbitrary set of rules (associated with your religion, can only be build in Holy Sites), while the other set is subject to a different arbitrary set of rules (not associated with your religion, must be built as improvements). Particularly since most of the improvements you've listed are not especially resonant to the average user and would have to work double-time visually to convey what they do. (Also, as a personal matter, I'm in the camp that Astrology and Holy Sites should be part of the Civics tree, and am generally not a fan of portraying religion as a source of "science," given that it was never especially good at doing science, and in fact diverged substantially from it around the time that rational thought started to come into its own)

Yes and No. While religion certainly has the reputation of being 'Anti-Science' since the Renaissance, that is by no means a Universal. The earliest literacy schools found archeologically were Temple Schools in Mesopotamia, and the religious-based Scriptoria of the early Medieval Era were very nearly the only centers of literacy and book-production in Europe. Even when 'religion' was supposed to 'anti-science' the Scots Presbyterian Church required that every adult (including women, a radical and still not universally accepted belief) must be able to read the bible for themselves, resulting in a Scottish population in the 18th century that may have been the first near-universally literate population in the world (read How The Scots Invented the Modern World for an intriguing study of how this affected the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution) Since the game has always, via the ubiquitous Library building, equated Literacy with Science, I think we can include some Science effects in our religious mechanics.

At the moment, like everything else Religion in the game, 'Madrasah' is just a title.
As for Impacting 'religious' Civs, I would argue back that ALL Civ Uniques are artificial: any such comes about due to specifics of terrain, geography, environment, and occasional Great or Not So Great People in the Civ: Arabs did not set out to be any more religious than Greeks, but marginal environments seem to encourage consideration of the supernatural (recently read a study on the Siberian tribes living in, if anything, an even more marginal environment that the desert, and, I think as a result, having a firm set of beliefs in God or Gods, since they themselves are pretty much at the mercy of the climate and terrain: I think there is a definite connection) Since gaming a 'natural development' of the myriad Civ-Uniques in-game is monstrously hard (Confession: I tried it for the Civ V civs several years ago, and gave up after banging my head against the problem for several weeks: too many wild variables) the designers have stuck with 'built-in' Uniques and all their problems. That doesn't make me like them.

Try playing, for example, Brazil with an inland Tundra Start and see how much good the civ's 'Uniques' do you . . .

Great Prophets

I don't like calling them Great Theologians, Great Followers, and Great Reformers. Religion is not logical, following is in most respects the opposite of great, and "reforms" are really just new cults of personality spearheaded by narcissists. But in all seriousness, I do support a new Great Evangelist category having most, if not all of these abilities. Seems only fair if we have three cultural great people and two military great people. And I think the term "evangelist" or "preacher" appropriately differentiates mechanically the spreaders of religions from founders of religions (whereas a "theologian" does not imply spreading religion, and "reformer" implies that the spread necessitates change when it often does not).

An interesting twist on the Evangelist/Preacher concept would be to make a "Great Orator" whose charges could either have religious or political effects. Since I would argue that politics are just another form of strong ideology and typically influenced in many of the same ways (common cultural fiction, youth indoctrination, groupthink echo chambers, principles which are often highly abstracted from or even completely removed from the immediate reality, etc. etc.).

By making all religions founded by a Great Prophet, I believe the game has already thoroughly embraced the 'cult of personality' mechanism in religion.
Great Theologian has the advantage of including 'explainers' like Augustine of Hippo or Paul of Tarsus, and Reformers like Martin Luther (who turned into a 'Great Prophet', but that was never his intention). A Great Evangelist smacks of being simply an Apostle on Steroids, which can better be indicated by Promotions for the existing Apostles than a new civilian 'unit'.

A new Political/Diplomatic Unit is another discussion entirely, which I think we'd better pursue as part of a Diplomacy Deconstructed Thread on both External (Diplomacy, Envoys, Diplomatic Victory) and Internal (changing Governments, Civics, internal taxes and administration) Politics.

Spreading Religion

I love fielding a carpet of missionaries and faith-bombing cities. I love theological combat. I love tangibly manipulating public opinion, and I love the system as it currently stands. I'm totally fine with a bit more religious infrastructure, but on this general point you're not going to sway me, haha. Zappy zap.

And you are welcome to Carpet the Continents with Missionaries, but you should have to work at it. Maybe it's just me, but in current games I can count on at least half the Civs sending out a Myriad Missionaries, including Civs that have no particular bias towards religion - I don't mind too much that Arabia or Spain has Missionaries queuing up to swamp my cities, but Norway and Brazil?
Let's require some emphasis on religion, either by building on Civ Unique characteristics, or by emphasizing it in a specific game because you feel like it or the situation makes it a good strategy, not just because it's easy to pop out religious units and you don't have any other use for Faith and Great Prophet points that are accumulating.

That you for your Post: this is exactly the kind of discussion that I think the game needs

 

[The googles do nothing]

The reason for these two should be obvious: there are ‘Sacred Groves’ on every single continent except Antarctica, associated with religious observances or shrines going back to prehistory. Volcanos, on the other hand, almost always have some kind of religious significance: Sri Prada, Fujiyama, Tahoma, Thera, and on and on

I would not mind if the move the acquisition of pantheons to a eureka-like system because of what you point out here: The religious significance came because the volcano was there or there were alligators in the Nile near where the fertile land is.

Chapel
Provides +1 Faith, +1 extra Faith if in a tile with a Road, +1 Tourism if in a tile with a road after Combustion Tech is discovered

From a gamey perspective why not just make it available to evangelize as a faith building at Combustion? It might make for more interesting choices then the current system of first come first server. I don't know to much about many religious buildings but I have seen enough while traveling to know that that there design has changed alot within each religion. I got a 'tour' of the local Greek Orthodox church and it was pointed out that they have pews which traditional they did not. When being build they liked the way the Lutherans across the street could sit down. And being on the other side of the world there was no one around to tell them not to.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I would not mind if the move the acquisition of pantheons to a eureka-like system because of what you point out here: The religious significance came because the volcano was there or there were alligators in the Nile near where the fertile land is.

Some of the Pantheons, especially the ones that provide Faith bonuses from having Holy Sites adjacent to Desert, Tundra, Rainforest tiles, etc, are almost like that now: as soon as any Civ that has a Start in Tundra can, they will grab a bonus for Tundra. Others are not so direct in their relationships.
Let me think about this tomorrow, and see what kind of 'Eureka' type bonuses I can come up with for the Pantheons.

From a gamey perspective why not just make it available to evangelize as a faith building at Combustion? It might make for more interesting choices then the current system of first come first server. I don't know to much about many religious buildings but I have seen enough while traveling to know that that there design has changed alot within each religion. I got a 'tour' of the local Greek Orthodox church and it was pointed out that they have pews which traditional they did not. When being build they liked the way the Lutherans across the street could sit down. And being on the other side of the world there was no one around to tell them not to.

This was, I confess, inspired by places like the Wieskirche ("Church in the Meadow") in Germany. A little church/chapel in the middle of nowhere because it served several tiny villages and so was located in between them rather than in any one of them. It is highly decorated inside with paintings/frescoes on every wall, ornate carving of eve4ry wooden surface. And now that there are roads and buses and cars that can get to it, it is a major tourist attraction. Since the Communists stopped using them for secular purposes, a large number of Hermitages and small church in Russia have been restored and returned to the church, and are also becoming tourist attractions: Zosimova's Hermitage near Naro-Fominsk (about 60 km from Moscow) is another example, located in the woods near a small town.

Making the Beliefs and Pantheons available entirely or mostly so through Eurekas and Apostle/Great Theologian Charges is an interesting concept: I'm abashed that I didn't think of it myself, because it dovetails nicely with one of my personal goals, to make Religion less of a system completely under the control of the gamer and more of what it was in historical reality: something that happens to your Civilization, and you have to deal with it rather than control it in most cases.
Such a system will have to include some leeway for the purely controlled actions, like Henry VIII's changing by Fiat a bunch of the Beliefs in the English church, but I think that can be done. . .

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Okay, as promised/threatened, here is a tentative line up of 'Bonuses" for the Pantheon Beliefs. In addition to the two 'extra' Beliefs I proposed in the OP, I've also included a 'currently exclusively Maori' Belief to keep them from falling too far behind in Faith before they settle down and actually have a City Radius.
Pantheons:
Cost: 30 Faith. Bonus provides +15 Faith to the associated Pantheon. Regardless of the number of Bonuses achieved, you can only choose One Pantheon Belief to apply to your Civilization.
City Patron Goddess
Effect: +25% Production towards the first district in this city
Bonus: Start building a District in the first 12 turns of the game.
Earth Goddess
Effect: +1 Faith on tiles that are Charming or Breathtaking
Bonus: Have at least 4 Charming or Breathtaking tiles within a City Radius
Divine Spark
Effect: +1 Great Person Point from Holy Site (Prophet), Campus (Scientist), and Theater Square (Writer) Districts
Bonus: Build a Holy Site, Campus, or Theater Square District
Dance of the Aurora
Effect: Holy Site District gets +1 Faith from each adjacent Tundra tile.
Bonus: Have 6 or more Tundra/Tundra Hills Tiles within a city radius
Desert Folklore
Effect: Holy Site District gets +1 Faith from each adjacent Desert tile.
Bonus: Have 6 or more Desert/Desert Hills/Desert Floodplain Tiles within a city radius
Sacred Path
Effect: Holy Site District gets +1 Faith from each adjacent Rain Forest tile
Bonus: Have 6 or more Rainforest/Rainforest Hill Tiles within a city radius
River Goddess
Effect: +1 Amenity to a city with a Holy Site district adjacent to a river
Bonus: Have a river adjacent to at least 6 tiles within a city radius
Monument to the Gods
Effect: Construct Ancient and Classical Wonders 15% faste
Bonus: Start building a Wonder in the first 18 turns of the game.
Lady of the Reeds and Marshes
Effect: +1 Production from Marsh, Oasis and Floodplains
Bonus: Have at least 4 Marsh, Oasis or Floodplains tiles in a city radius, AND no more than 4 points of Production from unimproved tiles
God of the Sea
Effect: +1 Production from fishing boats
Bonus: Have at least 3 tiles improvable with Fishing Boats within a city radius
God of the Open Sky
Effect: +1 Culture from pastures
Bonus: Have at least 3 tiles improvable with Pastures within a city radius
Goddess of the Hunt
Effect: +1 Food from camps
Bonus: Have at least 3 tiles improvable with Camps within a city radius
Stone Circles
Effect: +2 Faith from quarries
Bonus: Have at least 3 tiles improvable with Quarries within a city radius
Religious Idols
Effect: +1 Faith from Mines over Luxury and Bonus resources
Bonus: Have at least 5 Luxury or Bonus Resources within a city radius
God of Craftsmen
Effect: +1 Production from Mines over strategic resources
Bonus: Have at least 2 Strategic resources improvable with Mines within a city radius
Goddess of Festivals
Effect: +1 Food from wine, incense, cocoa, tobacco, coffee, and tea Plantations
Bonus: Have at least 2 tiles with one of these Resources within a city radius
Oral Tradition
Effect: +1 Culture from banana, citrus, cotton, dyes, silk, spices and sugar Plantations
Bonus: Have at least 2 tiles with one of these Resources within a city radius
God of the Forge
Effect: +25% Production towards Ancient and Classical military units
Bonus: Have a civilian unit captured
Initiation Rites
Effect: +50% Faith for each barbarian outpost cleared
Bonus: Clear at least one Barbarian Outpost within 8 tiles of a City Center by attacking a unit inside it.
God of Healing
Effect: Increases Healing by 30% in your Holy Site districts or any adjacent tiles
Bonus: Have a military unit (not from the Recon line) reduced to -60% strength
God of War
Effect: Bonus Faith for each enemy unit killed within 8 tiles of a Holy Site district that you own equal to 50% of their strength
Bonus: Kill an enemy unit (including Barbarian) not fromgthe Recon Line, within 8 tiles of a City Center
Fertility Rites
Effect: City growth rate is 10% higher
Bonus: Have more Improved Tils than Population Points.
Religious Settlements
Effect: Border expansion rate is 15% higher
Bonus: Have at least 3 Resources within 1 tile outside a city radius
Goddess of the Harvest
Effect: Harvesting a resource or removing a feature receives Faith equal to the other yield’s quantity
Bonus: Harvest a Food-Producing resource.
Sacred Groves
Effect: Holy Site district gets +1 Faith from each adjacent Old Growth Forest tile
Bonus: Have at least 6 Woods tiles within a city radius
God of the Fires
Effect: +1 Faith from each active Volcano within a city radius; +50 Faith for each Catastrophic Eruption affecting any tile in your Civ.
Bonus: Have an Active Volcano within a city radius, or a Catastrophic Eruption within 5 tiles of any city center
Gods of the Endless Sea and Sky
Effect: +1 Faith for each Turn a Settler spends on an Ocean or Coastal Tile without founding a city.
Bonus: move adjacent to 3 or more Resources on Ocean or Coastal Tiles in a single turn with an Embarked Settler.

An for those who desire Tengrism or Tengerism (Mongolian developed animism) in the game, here is a potential Religious Building for it:
Ovoo - Tengerism
+3 Faith, +1 Loyalty, +1 Faith for every Horse Resource within this city’s radius

These are all First Draft Suggestions, so all comments are welcome.

 

[The googles do nothing]

Vet nice. I would allow multiple pantheons at scaling cost. It is polytheism after all.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Vet nice. I would allow multiple pantheons at scaling cost. It is polytheism after all.

One possibility is, since Apostles can add Beliefs to your Religion, the Great Theologians, or whatever we decide to call them, could add a new Pantheon to your religion, or allow you to 'swap' your original Pantheon for another.

That would be another way to keep Religion dynamic throughout the game, and there might even be scope for adding some Pantheons or Beliefs that have no utility until the later Eras of the game to encourage this.

 

[Phrozen]

One possibility is, since Apostles can add Beliefs to your Religion, the Great Theologians, or whatever we decide to call them, could add a new Pantheon to your religion, or allow you to 'swap' your original Pantheon for another.

That would be another way to keep Religion dynamic throughout the game, and there might even be scope for adding some Pantheons or Beliefs that have no utility until the later Eras of the game to encourage this.

Rome gets the ability to automatically add the pantheon of any civ for which they have conquered a city of.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Rome gets the ability to automatically add the pantheon of any civ for which they have conquered a city of.

An interesting Religious Unique or possibly a Belief, and a good counterpart to one already in the game where a city automatically converts to your religion when conquered.

It is particularly appropriate to Rome under Trajan, because he is on record, when a governor asked him what to do about Christians who would not worship the Emperor as required by the Imperial Cult, as having replied that he didn't care what they or anyone else worshipped as long as they paid their taxes! Render unto Caesar, from the Caesar's Mouth . . .
(This incident is recorded by Flavius Xenophontus Arrianus, the governor in question, before he retired to write his Anabasis of Alexander, our best single source for Alexander the Great's career)

 

[Xandinho]

I really like your ideas, especially religious units costing double what they cost, this would force the player to build many holy sites, religious wonders, and get as many relics as possible. For this, I think the current religious wonders are rather weak, and the means of acquiring relics is rather difficult. Here are some suggestions to make religious wonders more worthy to build:

Stonehenge
+6 Faith (instead of +2 Faith)
Grants a free Great Prophet. Great Prophets may found a religion on Stonehenge instead of a Holy Site.
Get boost of faith in invading barbarian camps.

Jebel Barkal
Awards 4 Iron per turn.
Provides +6 Faith (instead of +4) to your cities that are within 6 tiles.

Mahabodhi Temple
+10 Faith (instead of +4)
Grant 2 Apostles
There is a 50% of chance that missionaries and gurus generate religious relics when killed in theological combat.

Hagia Sophia
+12 Faith (instead of +4)
Missionaries and Apostles can spread religion 1 extra time.

Angkor Wat
+8 Faith (instead of +4)
+1 Population in all current cities when built.
+1 Housing in all cities.

Chichen Itza
+2 Culture, +1 Production and +2 Faith to all Rainforest tiles for this city

Mont St. Michel
+4 Faith (instead of +2)
+2 Relic slots
All Apostles you create gain the Martyr ability in addition to a second ability you choose normally.
Provides the same defensive bonuses as the Fort improvement.
Holy sites provide faith equal to 50% of the tile's appeal.

Kotoku-in
+4 Faith
+50% Faith (instead of 20%) in this city
Grants 4 Warrior Monks

Meenakshi Temple
+6 Faith (instead of +3)
+1 Relic slots
Grants 2 Gurus
Gurus are 30% cheaper to purchase.
Religious units adjacent to Gurus gain +5 Religious Strength in Theological Combat and +1 Movement.
Religious relics of this city grant double faith.

St. Basil's Cathedral
+4 Faith
+3 Relic slots.
+100% Religious Tourism from this city.
+1 Food, +1 Production, +1 Culture and +1 Faith from all Tundra tiles for this city.

--------- New Wonders ideas:
Notre Dame
+4 Faith
+1 Relic slot.
+1 Great Work of Religious Art slot
+15% of faith and culture during golden or heroic ages.
Inquisitors are 30% cheaper to purchase and they gain extra strength in theological combat.
Get a boost of faith when an inquisitor kills a religious unit in a theological combat.

Borobudur (player must have founded a religion)
+10 Faith
All the luxury resources within 7 tiles of this wonder receive +2 faith.
Missionaries and Apostles are 15% cheaper to purchase.

Church of Saint George, Lalibela (player must have founded a religion)
+8 Faith
+4 loyalty in this city.
+2 loyalty in every city that follows your religion, including this one.
Religious pressure of trade routes is doubled.
Religious units receive extra strength in theological combats within their territory.

St. Peter's Basilica (player must have founded a religion)
+4 Faith
+2 Relic slot.
+1 Diplomatic Victory point
+1 diplomatic favor per turn for every 2 civilizations converted to your religion (max. 5)

It's just a few ideas to make religious wonders stronger, maybe some of them are just too strong (but we do have overly strong wonders in the game, like Big Ben). At present, I feel no desire to build any of them, even when I am pursuing the religious victory, perhaps except for Hagia Sophia and St. Basil's Cathedral.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I really like your ideas, especially religious units costing double what they cost, this would force the player to build many holy sites, religious wonders, and get as many relics as possible. For this, I think the current religious wonders are rather weak, and the means of acquiring relics is rather difficult. Here are some suggestions to make religious wonders more worthy to build:

It's just a few ideas to make religious wonders stronger, maybe some of them are just too strong (but we do have overly strong wonders in the game, like Big Ben). At present, I feel no desire to build any of them, even when I am pursuing the religious victory, perhaps except for Hagia Sophia and St. Basil's Cathedral.

IF we're going to increase the required emphasis by the player to actually play a Religion Victory game, then the 'religious Wonders' definitely have to be 'buffed up'.

The other side of this, though, is that several of the Wonders currently in the game are religious Wonders/structures but have no religious component at all in the game.
Currently these are:

The Colossus
This was a dedicatory statute of the God Helios, put up to thank him for delivering Rhodes from Demitrius the Beseiger (Demitrius Poliorcetes). Unlike in the game, it had nothing whatsoever to do with Trade or Great Admirals.

Temple of Artemis
This was a 'pagan' worship building to Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt, wild animals and Protectress of Child-bearing women. It's a real stretch to relate this to Bonus Housing, as the game does, and even more of a stretch to do it without any reference to Faith..

Huey Teocalli
An Aztec temple dedicated to both the War God and the God of Rain and Harvest, but in the game without any Faith component.

Potala Palace
Because of the peculiarities of the Tibetan culture, this was both a seat of government and a religious structure. The glaring omission in the game is that it held a huge library of religious writing, yet the game version has no capacity for any Great Works.

And in addition to the new religious wonders you mention, There are a number of other religious 'Wonders' that have appeared in Civs Past or Mods for same that could possibly be 'resurrected':

Iron Pagoda
Shwedagon Pagoda/Stupa
Great Mosque of Djenne
Solomon's Temple
Parthenon (Temple of Athena)

And some more very important religious structures that have never, as far as I know, appeared in the game but should at least be considered:

Pantheon of Rome
Jama Masjid
Blue Mosque
Dome of the Rock
Wat Arun
Westminster Abbey
The Golden Temple (Darbar Sahib)

IF desired, we could probably come up with a Religion-Specific Wonder to 'cap' whatever Religion you got in the game to really Pump Up your Holy City: St Basil's Cathedral for Eastern Orthodox, St Peter's Basilica for Catholicism, Darbar Sahib for the Sikh, etc.
I'm not entirely convinced that's necessary or desirable in game terms, but it's doable.

 

[Jkchart]

Religions

I don't like the new religion splits. Calvinism and Anglicanism beg the question of why "Orthodoxy" isn't split into the Greek and Russian variants, or why Mormonism or Pentacostalism aren't included. The Buddhist split begs why no Vajrayana. Why no Baha'i? Why no Druze? Why Druidism, but not Rodnovery, Asatru, Kemetism, Druwi, or Mexicayotl? Why do we still not have Tengriism? It just opens the floodgates for more disappointment. You either need to stick with the shortlist or go wide here. Also everything about Calvinism rubs me the wrong way.

The thing about the Orthodoxy split between Greek and Russian would be that it would be a very artificial split. The reason why there is "Greek Orthodox", "Russian Orthodox", "Bulgarian Orthodox" and the like is because the Eastern Orthodox churches are autocephalous, so every Eastern Orthodox church division has its own independent head, as opposed to the Catholic Church which has a single head, the Pope (which is one of the big basises for the 11th century West-East schism). The Eastern Orthodox churches are otherwise the same in belief and practice, they are just independent divisions. That may be a poor way of wording it, but it is essentially how their tradition is divided.

There are, however, other "Eastern/Oriental" Orthodox churches such as Nestorianism (Church of the East) and Miaphysitism that are much more distinct and could warrant their own religions within the game.

Mormonism is probably considered distinct enough, especially since most Christians don't consider Mormons to be Christian because of fundamental differences in belief, such as the Mormon rejection of Trinitarianism. Churches such as the Pentacostal would have to fall under a wider Protestant, Evangelical, or Calvinist banner because 1) there are so many Protestant churches where each can have its own individual teachings but 2) Protestant/Calvinist churches, even with their differences, are much more likely to be in agreement and disagree on smaller theological issues with their Protestant/Calvinist bretheren, whereas a meeting with Catholics or Orthodox would be much more...contentious.

I do agree that a two way Buddhism split would be insufficient because of the lack of Vajrayana. Baha'i and Druze could fit in as well, I would welcome the return of Tengriism as well.

I think the designers have otherwise stayed away from naming older faiths for the reasons you are suggesting here, such as druids, ancient Egyptian, Norse religion, the Aztec beliefts, etc. and that is what Pantheons are for. The religion list does have to be limited in some way, or else yes, we need to include everything and that is nearly impossible to satisfy everyone.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

An "Ideal" Religion Game would include the possibility/probability of Religious Diffusion, with Heretics and Sects splitting off from the original by adopting different Beliefs/Pantheons.

Unfortunately, the one apparently Iron Clad Rule in Civ is that the game Shall Be Linear and so no Civil Wars, variant Civilizations, Religions, etc. will be tolerated. If you cannot even move/change your capital (except for Dido) there's not much hope for your original Religion diverging into another type: all variants must be separate from beginning to end.
That makes the potential number of Religions in the game much too large to ever be includable, and frankly, to include them and all the variations of Pantheon and Belief would overwhelm both the game and the gamers.
The alternative, as @Tomatekh did in his Historical Religions Mod, is simply to give you close to 100 different Religion Titles, but with no real variation among them. I'd like to avoid that, but the only alternative I can see that doesn't overwhelm the game is to pick and choose among religions you can include and still make distinctive.

 

[Tomatekh]

I'm going to comment because I was mentioned

In terms of my mod, it was intentionally designed to have no impact on the game, which is why I never expanded the religions to do anything. I've made a ton of complicated mods for Civ IV and V, but HR was only meant to add more flavor without changing game-play; something you could throw into any game and not worry about learning a new system or if it was compatible with mods.

That said, I always thought the idea of a more in-depth religion system with each religion being distinct would be really cool. I'm glad to see someone attempt to tackle it and really like the ideas in your thread.

Now, considering my mod has 168 different religion icons, you'd think I never gave thought to being more selective with the religions added, but that's not actually the case. The reason my mod is as big as it is now is mostly because modders requested for me to add religions for their released civs during both Civ IV and V. I completely agree that it is not the right path to take for a mod aimed at making a new system with distinct game-play religions, which should definitely try for a smaller, specific list.

On a side note, I don't personally even use my full religion list when I play games. Despite my mod, I'm also not really a fan of including denominations as separate religions (and turn off denominations in my games). It creates a problem for leader preferences, in that, if you have the religion "Christianity" you have a valid religious preference for every Christian leader. However, as soon as you split it up that changes. So, the game splits Christianity into Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox. However, you now exclude civs like Ethiopia (a civ included in past entries of the franchise and still a popular mod). Ethiopia is Oriental Orthodox (which despite the similar name is completely distinct from Eastern Orthodox), while it would make sense to have them prefer "Christianity" as a single religion, once it's split into "Catholicism", "Protestantism", "Eastern Orthodox" they no longer have a historical accurate preference to set for them. The second problem with denominations is that there are a ton of them and you need to pick and choose which to include, which will then give you an endless supply of comments in the Steam Workshop complaining about how you didn't include this obscure denomination or that unincluded denomination X is more important than included denomination A. Ideally, I agree denominations would be better suited to a system that splits religions off ones already in the game rather than being founded separately, but that's not really possible without a complete overhaul.

So, how should you make a list of religions? My real suggestion is just include the ones you want to. This is your mod, have fun with it, make what you like or what you think would be a good addition to what you're trying to achieve.

Maybe that's not very helpful, but I think it's good to remember. Even if you make a bigger list, don't be against throwing in a personal favorite even if other people disagree or think it doesn't make sense.

Civ VI's official religion list is mostly just the largest still living religions today. That's it. It's not really reflective of the all the major religions historically. The reason it only includes Christian denominations is also only because the majority of its leaders are Christian and it makes sure every leader in some games won't be trying to found the same religion. Again, it's not really reflective of Christianity having more or more different denominations than say Buddhism or Islam.

A popular suggestion is usually to make a list of the most important religions historically, but that's easy to suggest but difficult to actually make. It all depends on how you define it, what time periods/regions you're considering, and opinion. For example, I personally would argue that list would have to include both Hellenism and Manicheaism as full religions, but I'm sure others would disagree.

Another option you could do is what I do with the lite version of my mod, which is only to include religions that match the included civilizations/leaders. It's an easy way to bypass the problem because you're working off a separate independent list and don't need to decide or justify which religions are important or why you didn't include X, etc. This method also has some issues, but I don't think them not being distinct enough for separate abilities is one of them. At the very least completely separate belief systems are more distinct historically and theologically than even the most different denomination of the same religion, so there's more than enough material to draw from to make abilities. The real issue is that there are many religions that only one civ would ever choose, so it ends up being less a different religion ability choice and more an extra ability for that specific civ in the hands of the AI. Other complaints would be X's religion is more appropriate for a pantheon (Civ is completely inconsistent with how it treats pantheons as technically religions like Hinduism, Shinto, and Tengriism would fall under what the game sees as pantheons but are treated as full religions) or X's religion was never historically important (Though, in this case, Civ is about alternate history. Kongo also never had an empire with land and military that could match the Roman Empire, but in Civ they can. In the same vein, if Kongo theoretically had achieved that in history, their religion would have probably also spread and been much larger today).

Anyway, sorry for the long post. I doubt it was any help but I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I'm going to comment because I was mentioned

In terms of my mod, it was intentionally designed to have no impact on the game, which is why I never expanded the religions to do anything. I've made a ton of complicated mods for Civ IV and V, but HR was only meant to add more flavor without changing game-play; something you could throw into any game and not worry about learning a new system or if it was compatible with mods.

That said, I always thought the idea of a more in-depth religion system with each religion being distinct would be really cool. I'm glad to see someone attempt to tackle it and really like the ideas in your thread.

Now, considering my mod has 168 different religion icons, you'd think I never gave thought to being more selective with the religions added, but that's not actually the case. The reason my mod is as big as it is now is mostly because modders requested for me to add religions for their released civs during both Civ IV and V. I completely agree that it is not the right path to take for a mod aimed at making a new system with distinct game-play religions, which should definitely try for a smaller, specific list.

On a side note, I don't personally even use my full religion list when I play games. Despite my mod, I'm also not really a fan of including denominations as separate religions (and turn off denominations in my games). It creates a problem for leader preferences, in that, if you have the religion "Christianity" you have a valid religious preference for every Christian leader. However, as soon as you split it up that changes. So, the game splits Christianity into Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox. However, you now exclude civs like Ethiopia (a civ included in past entries of the franchise and still a popular mod). Ethiopia is Oriental Orthodox (which despite the similar name is completely distinct from Eastern Orthodox), while it would make sense to have them prefer "Christianity" as a single religion, once it's split into "Catholicism", "Protestantism", "Eastern Orthodox" they no longer have a historical accurate preference to set for them. The second problem with denominations is that there are a ton of them and you need to pick and choose which to include, which will then give you an endless supply of comments in the Steam Workshop complaining about how you didn't include this obscure denomination or that unincluded denomination X is more important than included denomination A. Ideally, I agree denominations would be better suited to a system that splits religions off ones already in the game rather than being founded separately, but that's not really possible without a complete overhaul.

So, how should you make a list of religions? My real suggestion is just include the ones you want to. This is your mod, have fun with it, make what you like or what you think would be a good addition to what you're trying to achieve.

Maybe that's not very helpful, but I think it's good to remember. Even if you make a bigger list, don't be against throwing in a personal favorite even if other people disagree or think it doesn't make sense.

Civ VI's official religion list is mostly just the largest still living religions today. That's it. It's not really reflective of the all the major religions historically. The reason it only includes Christian denominations is also only because the majority of its leaders are Christian and it makes sure every leader in some games won't be trying to found the same religion. Again, it's not really reflective of Christianity having more or more different denominations than say Buddhism or Islam.

A popular suggestion is usually to make a list of the most important religions historically, but that's easy to suggest but difficult to actually make. It all depends on how you define it, what time periods/regions you're considering, and opinion. For example, I personally would argue that list would have to include both Hellenism and Manicheaism as full religions, but I'm sure others would disagree.

Another option you could do is what I do with the lite version of my mod, which is only to include religions that match the included civilizations/leaders. It's an easy way to bypass the problem because you're working off a separate independent list and don't need to decide or justify which religions are important or why you didn't include X, etc. This method also has some issues, but I don't think them not being distinct enough for separate abilities is one of them. At the very least completely separate belief systems are more distinct historically and theologically than even the most different denomination of the same religion, so there's more than enough material to draw from to make abilities. The real issue is that there are many religions that only one civ would ever choose, so it ends up being less a different religion ability choice and more an extra ability for that specific civ in the hands of the AI. Other complaints would be X's religion is more appropriate for a pantheon (Civ is completely inconsistent with how it treats pantheons as technically religions like Hinduism, Shinto, and Tengriism would fall under what the game sees as pantheons but are treated as full religions) or X's religion was never historically important (Though, in this case, Civ is about alternate history. Kongo also never had an empire with land and military that could match the Roman Empire, but in Civ they can. In the same vein, if Kongo theoretically had achieved that in history, their religion would have probably also spread and been much larger today).

Anyway, sorry for the long post. I doubt it was any help but I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

I would be absolutely the Last Person on these Forums to complain about anybody's long post!

And thank you for your comments. They point up a problem that I simply have not addressed, which is the 'matching' of Civs and Leaders with any Religious preferences they might have in the game. It's a major potential problem, especially since some 'Religions' in the current game system are represented only by Beliefs or Pantheons and so leaders like Pericles, Alexander of Macedon, or Tomyris of Scythia don't have any real in-game religious "preference" that is not wildly anachronistic.

Depending on how you define the terms, there are more religions than any game could possibly include and still be playable except as a massive on-line experience/torture. And, of course, there are Belief Systems abroad in the past several centuries that, while not officially religions, have the effect of religions on individuals and populations. Karen Armstrong, in fact, included Greek Philosophy in her book The Great Transformation as among the 'religions' founded all around the dame time period of 700 - 500 BCE, since the philosophers were tackling many of the same questions that the purely religious thinkers were wrestling with.

So, we all make choices, and leave some things out, because, hopefully, we are trying to wind up with a playable, enjoyable gaming pastime and not a Compendium of All Things Religious, which would be both less than enjoyable and probably soporific. . .

 

[AsH2]

What if a "people"-layer would be added in 3rd expansion; would it be preferable to tie all Pantheons to (non-civ/-city-state) people on map and let "leader" of neighbouring Civ/city-state take actions regarding (whether they like or dislike) an influence on their own people?