Religion should be reworked in a major expansion

[TheSpaceCowboy]

I’ve never been particularly a fan of the implantation of religion in any of the civilization games. In past iterations, beliefs had been exclusive to a single religion, and selected merely on the basis of what would ultimately produce the most yields. Religion in VII’s base game has been so scaled back that we have to assume it’s merely a placeholder for a much more robust system in one of the major expansion packs. Currently, there is too narrow a focus on evangelism and relics, to the exclusion of other aspects of real religions like rituals, faith, theology, morality, and more. I have a proposal for more robust religion mechanics that try to model these to an extent.

Pantheons
Once Mysticism is researched, the player is given a choice as to whether they wish to engage in the Religious gameplay or not in the form of deciding between Monotheism or Polytheism. If the latter is chosen, instead of developing a Religion, the player will build a Pantheon that primarily helps develop Culture.

If a player has a Pantheon, each city can build a Temple dedicated to a different god. Depending on the god, the Temple will offer a Cultural adjacency with different tiles, representing the Temples’ purely aesthetic value. For example, Zeus would have a Cultural adjacency bonus for tiles fertilized by a thunderstorm, Vulcan would have a major adjacency bonus with Volcanoes, and Tyr could have an adjacency bonus with Barracks and Fortifications.

A Pantheon can only select a single god in a given domain. For example, both Neptune and Poseidon would be part of the Water domain, and give the same adjacency bonus for Marine tiles. If a civ already has a Temple of Neptune and conquered a city with a Temple of Poseidon, the later Temple would be destroyed. However, by completing a Polytheism-exclusive Civic called Interpretatio, conquering a city with a god of the same domain would not raise the Temple.

In addition to Temples, Polytheism would have access to several unique Wonders and Great Works. Only a Polytheistic civ could build the Statue of Zues, the Temple of Artemis, or get the Iliad, Odyssey, or Aeneid Great Works of Writing, among other exclusives.

Religions
If at Mysticism a player chooses Monotheism, a Religion is immediately founded. Religions have three main gameplay components: Rituals, Morals, and a Corpus Doctrinae.

Rituals
Rituals are the main means of generating a resource called Zeal. While Relics and religious buildings such as Churches, Cathedrals, Synagogues, Mosques, etc. (each exclusive to a different Religion, but mechanically all the same) generate a small amount of Zeal per turn, the main means of generating Zeal is through Rituals, which all require the player to actively do something. Rituals, like religious buildings, are exclusive to a Religion.

Example Rituals would be:

• Baptism - generates a large amount of Zeal when adding population to a tile on or adjacent to a River
• Circumcision - generates a large amount of Zeal when assigning a Specialist to a Settlement following this Religion
• Communion - Wine slotted in Settlements following this Religion grants large amounts of Zeal during Celebrations
• Pilgrimage - generates a large amount of Zeal when completing a Trade Route between two cities with the religious building of this Religion

Morals
Morals are a special type of Doctrine (more on those in a minute). Morals prescribe certain behaviors for the player (human or AI). Following these generate Influence for each follower of your Religion in foreign Settlements, and Happiness for each follower in your Settlements. Violating these results in penalties to Influence and Happiness in foreign and domestic Settlements, respectively. When choosing Morals, a binary choice is offered.

Examples of Morals could include:

• Pacifism vs. Holy Wars - Pacifism is rewarded when a relationship with another civ becomes Friendly or when a hostile Independent Power is Befriended, and is penalized when the player declares War against another civ or clears an Independant Power; Holy War is rewarded when capturing a Settlement following a foreign Religion and is penalized when agreeing to Endeavors with a civ following a foreign Religion.
• Rationalism vs. Romanticism - Rationalism is rewarded when completing Tech Tree masteries and penalized when producing Great Works of Writing, Art, and Music; Romanticism is rewarded when producing Great Works and settling Natural Wonder tiles and penalized when slotting Specialists onto Science buildings.
• Traditionalism vs. Progressivism - Traditionalism is rewarded for having Traditions slotted into policy slots and penalized for researching Civic masteries; Progressivism is rewarded and penalized for exactly the opposite.

Corpus Doctrinae
You Corpus Doctrinae is your body of doctrines, the set of beliefs held by your Religion. Doctrines have no inherent bonuses, and different Religions can all adopt the same Doctrines. Doctrines come in binary pairs, such as Deism vs. Theism, Divine Immanence vs. Transcendence, Fate vs. Free Will, Natural Law vs. Divine Command, General Revelation vs. Special Revelation, etc., with twenty pairs of binaries in total (including Moral Doctrines). Each time a Theologian is purchased with Zeal, four Doctrines may be chosen. Later, Reformers may be purchased with Zeal, allowing one Doctrine to be changed to its binary opposite.

But what are the benefits of Doctrines (especially the non-Moral kind), and why would one want to reform them? The Corpus Doctrinae is a mechanic that models the fact that followers adhere to a Religion because they believe it to be true. Theologians and Reformers don’t believe in doctrines because they give certain yields; they believe them to be true. Importantly, Civ VII would be making no statements as to the nature of God; it’s only making reference to the sincerity of religious adherents searching for Truth.

As such, at the start of every game, it’s randomly determined which of the Doctrines are true and which are false. When picking four new Doctrines through a Theologian, you will not initially know if they are true or false.

However, when subsequently performing a Prayer (more on that below), its chance of success will be modified by the number of correct Doctrines. Reformers allow you to modify chosen Doctrines in order to change them to the correct one, but because multiple Doctrines were chosen at a time through Theologians, it might not initially be obvious what needs correction, and trial and error are involved.

Every time a Doctrine is reformed, Heretics are spawned and try to convert your Settlements. Heretics function similarly to hostile Independent Powers but with religious combat, and are named after historic heresies such as Marcionism, Pelagianism, and Arianism.

Because Morals are a type of Doctrine, a player might choose for strategic reasons to stay with a Moral which is false because it better fits their strategy. For example, a player with a militaristic Leader might keep the Holy Wars Doctrine for most of the game, only choosing to Reform it at the very end in a type of deathbed conversion.

Completing the Corpus Doctrinae completes the Summa Theologica Religious Legacy Path for the Exploration Age, with Religious Legacy Points awarded for seven and fourteen Doctrines (whether correct or not).

Zeal
Zeal replaces Faith as the religious currency. Whereas Faith has a positive connotation, Zeal is more neutral; it’s possible to Zealously believe in all the wrong doctrines and morals. But a zealous population is still more likely to produce theologians and reformers than a population which is blasé about religion.

Prayer
Prayer is one of the primary mechanical benefits of Religion. By spending a set amount of Zeal, certain matters can be prayed for (often related to Crises and Disasters):

• Pray for Peace - Ends Rebellions in low Happiness Settlements
• Pray for Deliverance - Stops hostile Barbarians from continuing to attack a Settlement
• Pray for Safety - Prevents Natural Disasters from destroying districts, buildings, and improvements for a set number of turns
• Pray for Healing - Ends the Plague in a Settlement

Prayers are never guaranteed to be efficacious. Upon praying, a D20 die pops up, and the player rolls it, a la Baldur’s Gate III, needing to get a certain number or higher, depending on the severity of the situation. The roll is modified by the number of correct Doctrines held by the Religion followed by the Settlement.

The randomness of the die roll is meant to represent the *seeming* randomness of Divine intervention. Some prayers are answered “Yes”, and some are answered “No”, and no man knows the mind of God and can say for certain why. Moreover, no man can force the arm of God; thus why Prayer is not depicted as efficacious simply by spending enough Zeal. Nevertheless, the prayers of those walking in Truth (as modeled by the Corpus Doctrinae) are represented as more efficacious than those walking in darkness.

Religious Units
In addition to Prayer, the other use for Zeal is purchasing religious units. The function of Theologians and Reformers is to complete and correct the Corpus Doctrinae. The first civ to get a Religion is rewarded with a special Theologian known as a Prophet. It’s come with one Doctrine already chosen correctly.

Apologists are extremely effective at defensive religious combat, especially within Settlements following your Religion and against Heretics. Evangelists are used to spread your Religion. They’re essential for completing the Modern Age Religious Legacy Path, Great Commission.

Religious Legacy Paths
The Antiquity Age path is called Mystery Rites. It requires a certain amount of Zeal to be generated from Rituals.

The Exploration Age path is called Summa Thologica. It requires your Religion to have twenty Doctrines.

The Modern Age path is called The Great Commission. It requires you to convert a number of foreign or Distant Lands Settlements for the first time in the Modern Age.

The standard Religious Victory is won by completing a project called Revival. However, if all twenty Doctrines in your religion are correct and the Great Commission is complete, a special project called “Immanentize the Eschaton” is available. Pursuing it makes the Modern Age crisis much, much more intense, but completing it unlocks a unique victory video called Parousia, in which the End of History is reached.

Exploration Age Cultural Path
Because Religion would get its own Legacy and Victory type, the Exploration Age Victory would be reworked to become Renaissance. It would reintroduce Great Works of Writing, Art, and Music, and require a number of such to be displayed.

 

[pokiehl]

Without having played the game I’m hesitant to call for things to be reworked, but I agree in principle that religion seems like it has room to be expanded upon.

However I really think the removal of the Faith yield was a brilliant streamlining move, and I’d rather not see the return of religious “currency”/“mana.”

It just ends up feeling to me like another artificial bucket to fill and always kinda makes religion seem tacked on rather than wholly integrated with the rest of the game…

 

[Krikkit1]

Good idea for a mod/alternative play

I do like the Pantheon idea (say adopt 3 bonuses, only one applies each city, and you can research the ability to incorporate others into your Pantheon….Monotheism could be a social policy that shuts down all types of Altars that don’t match the one in your capital..but gives bonuses to those)

What I would rather see for religion itself

Initial # of Religions Founded is limited (3-4 depending on map size…maybe based on Wonders…or founded by IPs…you get to name it if you are the first to get good relationships with them (Suzerien not required)

If you have a Temple and all religions have been founded, you can adopt a religion. You continue to get Relics and some Benefits for completing your religion’s tasks (mostly spreading it to others…but you can get additional ones)

The Theology civic tree would eventually let you schism your religion ie if you adopted Islam you could become Sunni or Shiite (or just Ming Islam or Inca Islam if those are already taken and you could rename it) That way it would be one you founded, you take benefits for it. If you’ve adopted a schism religion, then it can still be schismed again (but the same base…if you adopted Catholicism or Orthodoxy, you can still schism to Protestantism or to Chola Christianity)

That way there is a period where you have religious blocks (and there would be some other blocks even later…ie Catholics and Orthodox would probably be neutral as compared to Catholics+Catholics(bonus) or Catholics+Shiites(penalty)

 

[Siptah]

I don’t really like the modular and close-up take of religion. That’s fine for a game like CK3, which lets you interfere but also directly interact with your religion and culture.

For civ, I’d prefer it more abstracted: you choose a religion. Religion doesn’t give a bonus aside from happiness. Some other bonuses you can collect (CS, buildings, civs, narrative events) give you a bonus for each religious pop. It is spread purely by pressure. You can direct pressure more specifically with an endeavor, and strengthen it with buildings or improvements.

 

[Xyael]

I don't like the idea too much. Mainly because all your proposals are focused on the West, and even a certain idea of the West. Especially the religion legathy path, it's really based on Christianity, and doesn't fit at all to other existing religions in history. And I can say exactly the same thing for all the examples given.
Finally, all the structures you bring, in reality, give very little room to the player's imagination. This is all a bit the opposite of "build something you believe in"

 

[stealth_nsk]

Civ is a historically-themed strategy game, not a historical simulator. From what we've seen so far, religion seem to be quite good from gameplay standpoint. Any additional complications are likely to make it worse.

 

[UWHabs]

I don’t really the modular and close-up take of religion. That’s fine for a game like CK3, which let‘s you interfere but also directly interact with your religion and culture.

For civ, I’d prefer it more abstracted: you choose a religion. Religion doesn’t give a bonus aside from happiness. Some other bonuses you can collect (CS, buildings, civs, narrative events) give you a bonus for each religious pop. It is spread purely by pressure. You can direct pressure more specifically with an endeavor, and strengthen it with buildings or improvements.

Yeah, from an initial glance, religion could use an overhaul, but I agree with the above that I'm fine not bringing back faith as a currency.

The problem from a gameplay perspective is that you want there to be some bonuses for founding and spreading religions, but at the same time, if you have that as too strong, then there's no real good way to be able to, say, passively accept a neighbour's religion.

I wonder if maybe there's a way to design the religion program to be somehow dominated or influenced by city-states, and handled that way. So when you reach the exploration age, you would have a number of religious city-states that would appear, and become the centre of their religion. The spread would be passive, and give some bonuses when cities convert, but you could also maybe donate your influence into the city-state to gain some of the "founder" bonuses from it.

But yeah, with anything like this, there's always a balance. Either things end up being fairly boring with passive spread, or you have the lightning theological debates from civ 6. It's always been one of the harder balancing acts of past versions, never mind even just trying to figure out how much importance to put on it in a game.

 

[bahamut19]

I was ok with religion in V and did not enjoy religion in VI, with all the actual fighting that needed to be micromanaged in addition to your military units. You have to remember a game mechanic should be fun, not just merely a simulation of reality. It is a game after all. I like how VII is looking to streamline religion, but I do feel at first glance it might be too simple. I'm interested in how the religious relics of the Exploration era relate to your game in the Modern era, and how your beliefs influence things such as your Modern ideology. So.. my hope is everything stays simple but the religion of Exploration can influence the choices you make in the Modern era. Pantheon --> Religion --> Ideology.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think the main question here is - what are you trying to achieve from gameplay perspective. In Civ7 religion is exploration age cultural legacy path mechanics and it's designed for it. In Civ6 religion was a victory mechanic, intertwined with other uses for faith resource. That's why it was more complex.

 

[Zaarin]

Civ is a historically-themed strategy game, not a historical simulator. From what we've seen so far, religion seem to be quite good from gameplay standpoint. Any additional complications are likely to make it worse.

To me, "everyone gets a religion" is a big problem, both from a gameplay and a historical perspective. I honestly don't care if it breaks the Exploration legacy path: I have every intention of using a mod that reduces the number of foundable religions to two or three. Also, from the Exploration gameplay I watched, the religious gameplay at present looks awful.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I'm not obsessed with the idea that Civ IV is the best, but I think it was the closest to getting religion right. If it were me, I'd adopt this system with a few tweaks.

 

[Arcaian]

I think this is quite a bit too much detail, to the point where it'd actively detract from my enjoyment. I also do think the wording isn't great in places - for instance, polytheism isn't a religion? Only monotheism is a religion? That's weirdly dismissive of a large set of religions, in my opinion.

 

[kaspergm]

I think, as with several other aspects of the game, they somehow managed to take the worst aspects of Civ6 religion and keep them in Civ7, and throw away the best aspects. But like others have said, I'm ok with faith not being a currency, as it ended up being kind of redundant (early civ6 versions it was useless if you didn't focus on religion, and then they added more uses for it and it ended up being overpowered in late versions of civ6 (although that was just as much a result of poor era system design - yes, I'm looking at you, Monumentality)). But the fact that Civ7 religion seems so focused on spreading your religion (yuck) and getting relics just seems extremely underwhelming.

 

[stealth_nsk]

To me, "everyone gets a religion" is a big problem, both from a gameplay and a historical perspective. I honestly don't care if it breaks the Exploration legacy path: I have every intention of using a mod that reduces the number of foundable religions to two or three. Also, from the Exploration gameplay I watched, the religious gameplay at present looks awful.

From gameplay perspective it clearly makes total sense, because everyone should be able to fill some progress in any of legacy paths.

And from historical perspective it's quite interesting, because it could be argued what Catholicism is the only real case of external religious authority. In almost all other cases, each country generally controls each own version of the religion. I.e. Protestantism and Orthodox both have their national versions for each country.

 

[Xandinho]

I think religion and culture will be reworked in the future. All cultural victories, especially the modern one, feel like provisional systems to me. I like the idea of religion being integrated into culture, but I don’t like it being a major focus only during the Age of Exploration. I also don’t like the idea that every civ needs to found a religion.

 

[Zaarin]

From gameplay perspective it clearly makes total sense, because everyone should be able to fill some progress in any of legacy paths.

I'd argue making religion the cultural legacy path is also bad gameplay. I never thought religious worked well as a victory condition; it was better when it contributed to other victories.

And from historical perspective it's quite interesting, because it could be argued what Catholicism is the only real case of external religious authority. In almost all other cases, each country generally controls each own version of the religion. I.e. Protestantism and Orthodox both have their national versions for each country.

Yes and no. Catholicism is unusual for having an external religious authority. It's also unusual for having a religious authority. I've been arguing for a long time that religion is something that should exist outside the civ.

 

[Siptah]

I think religion and culture will be reworked in the future. All cultural victories, especially the modern one, feel like provisional systems to me. I like the idea of religion being integrated into culture, but I don’t like it being a major focus only during the Age of Exploration. I also don’t like the idea that every civ needs to found a religion.

I think having alternative legacy paths would be the best option here. At the start of the age, you decide whether you want to have the legacy path about religion/relics or the one about great works of art („masterpieces“). Whatever you choose enables the respective active mechanics, and disables some other aspects. I.e., you can‘t have relics and masterpieces. If you go for art, you can‘t found a religion and can‘t have missionaries - but benefit from other people’s religion. If you go for religion, you can only sponsor/commission relics and not the usual masterpieces.

 

[Arcaian]

From gameplay perspective it clearly makes total sense, because everyone should be able to fill some progress in any of legacy paths.

And from historical perspective it's quite interesting, because it could be argued what Catholicism is the only real case of external religious authority. In almost all other cases, each country generally controls each own version of the religion. I.e. Protestantism and Orthodox both have their national versions for each country.

I think the advantage of limiting the number of religions is that it opens up all sorts of interesting gameplay about civs that share religions. You've got the potential positive diplomatic benefits from that - in the Age of Exploration at least, it should be a pretty big deal. At the same time, there's also the opportunity for schisms, for religious upheaval, and for civs fighting for influence and control over their shared religion. Surrendering that control over the religion also would make it feel less weird if you had mechanics like heresies popping up. I think it'd be much more interesting for Christianity to be present at the start of the Age of Exploration (or Chalcedonianism or some similar term if Christianity feels vague), whether that's founded by a civ or something independent of civs entirely, and then representations of things like orthodox christianity, catholicism, reformation-era religions, the coptic church, heresies like the cathars, etc, can all come about from gameplay. You adopt Christianity at the start of the exploration era, as does your neighbour, and the two of you are buddies; then they try and assert control over the religion and you don't want them to have it, so it splits into two competing variants of the religion. The independent people/city states that also followed the religion now have to pick which variant they go for, or if they make their own one. That all seems really compelling diplomatic interactions, and it gets at the role of religion in history that I think is better fitting for Civ than OP's proposal - I don't particularly care about the Corpus Doctrinae of my religion, but I do care about how the Spanish and the Normans are grappling for control over Christianity, and the diplomatic fallouts from this.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I think the advantage of limiting the number of religions is that it opens up all sorts of interesting gameplay about civs that share religions. You've got the potential positive diplomatic benefits from that - in the Age of Exploration at least, it should be a pretty big deal. At the same time, there's also the opportunity for schisms, for religious upheaval, and for civs fighting for influence and control over their shared religion. Surrendering that control over the religion also would make it feel less weird if you had mechanics like heresies popping up. I think it'd be much more interesting for Christianity to be present at the start of the Age of Exploration (or Chalcedonianism or some similar term if Christianity feels vague), whether that's founded by a civ or something independent of civs entirely, and then representations of things like orthodox christianity, catholicism, reformation-era religions, the coptic church, heresies like the cathars, etc, can all come about from gameplay. You adopt Christianity at the start of the exploration era, as does your neighbour, and the two of you are buddies; then they try and assert control over the religion and you don't want them to have it, so it splits into two competing variants of the religion. The independent people/city states that also followed the religion now have to pick which variant they go for, or if they make their own one. That all seems really compelling diplomatic interactions, and it gets at the role of religion in history that I think is better fitting for Civ than OP's proposal - I don't particularly care about the Corpus Doctrinae of my religion, but I do care about how the Spanish and the Normans are grappling for control over Christianity, and the diplomatic fallouts from this.

Hopefully they consider this in the future. Religious gameplay only belonging in the Age of Exploration would make religious schisms a prime mechanic to implement.

 

[Krikkit1]

Hopefully they consider this in the future. Religious gameplay only belonging in the Age of Exploration would make religious schisms a prime mechanic to implement.

And that also makes sense for the declining importance. Early in exploration it unites different civs..by the end each civ has their own religion so it doesn’t have diplomatic effects anymore