Religion should be reworked in a major expansion

[Zaarin]

All religions are functionally identical. There is nothing that, say, Christianity does that Islam does not. This is really half-assed in a game series all about the historical theming. Civ5 adding a belief system was massive improvement.

Yes, but I'd also say Civ5/6 overemphasized religions differences by making beliefs exclusive. Don't get me wrong; I think that's appropriate as a gameplay element. But simply speaking of historicity, Ceremonial Burial is an element of virtually every religion, and Pilgrimage is a part of most of them. Just as a couple examples.

I agree with the rest of your post, and despite overall disliking Civ5 I agree that Civ5's take on religion has probably been the best (though it still leaves a lot that could be improved).

 

[AW Arcaeca]

Yes, but I'd also say Civ5/6 overemphasized religions differences by making beliefs exclusive. Don't get me wrong; I think that's appropriate as a gameplay element. But simply speaking of historicity, Ceremonial Burial is an element of virtually every religion, and Pilgrimage is a part of most of them.

I have expressed before that having religious beliefs be exclusive doesn't make thematic or historical sense, but got told that would just lead to everyone picking the same, strongest beliefs.

Which... (1), yes, as you noted, many religions do share many beliefs, so I consider that a feature, not a bug, and (2) if it is such a gameplay issue, then it seems like the obvious solution would be to just nerf the general purpose, "strongest" beliefs e.g. those dealing with Holy Sites in favor of more situational beliefs like Civ5's terrain or resource based beliefs.

It also kind of bothers me that if you're not the one to found a religion, you get 0 input on how it functions - not even within your own borders, not even if you're 99% of its population.

I saw someone bring up ecumenical councils before, so here's an idea - what if, one time per religion, you got to swap out one of a religion's beliefs for a different one, for the purposes of how that religion works within your borders, and the beliefs of the religion that your missionaries and pressure spread. This could include Founder beliefs, where you are now considered the founder of this new split off the religion, and the Holy City is the city where this reforming "ecumenical council" was held. This gives everyone some control over how the religions in their borders work, but not as much control as if they had founded them themselves.

For example, imagine Arabia founds Islam with the beliefs (using Civ5's belief system as an example):

• Pantheon: Desert Folklore
• Founder: Pilgrimage
• Follower: Mosques
• Enhancer: Just War
• Reformation: Unity of the Prophets

When they spread this to Persia, Persia gets the opportunity to swap out one of these beliefs for a different one, to produce a new offshoot called, say, Persian Islam. Let's say:

• Pantheon: Desert Folklore
• Founder: Pilgrimage
• Follower: Mosques
• Enhancer: Religious Texts
• Reformation: Unity of the Prophets

Then let's say Persian Islam spreads to Turks, and they also get to swap out one belief to produce a new offshoot called Turkish Islam:

• Pantheon: God of the Open Sky
• Founder: Pilgrimage
• Follower: Mosques
• Enhancer: Religious Texts
• Reformation: Unity of the Prophets

And then let's say Turkish Islam spreads to the Caucasus to, say, the Circassians, who again get to swap out one belief to produce a new offshoot called Circassian Islam:

• Pantheon: God of the Open Sky
• Founder: Pilgrimage
• Follower: Mosques
• Enhancer: Religious Texts
• Reformation: Religious Fervor

Perhaps this mechanic could be called "denominations".

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Civ4's religion system was largely nonsensical:

• All religions are functionally identical. There is nothing that, say, Christianity does that Islam does not. This is really half-assed in a game series all about the historical theming. Civ5 adding a belief system was massive improvement.
• Having the same state religion as another civ gave you a diplomacy boost with them, and having a different state religion as another civ gave you a diplomacy penalty with them, to the point that some civs would declare war on you for that alone. This sounds intuitive, but in reality, states of the same religion have fought each other all the time, as much as if not more than they fought the outside world (mostly because "people of the same the same religion as us" tends just to be... your neighbors), and being a different religion has rarely been a casus belli in and of itself. Civ5's toned down approach to the effect of religion on diplomacy was more realistic.
• Because civs will constantly demand that you convert to their religion if you have even one (1) single city with it present, and declining (because it's such a ridiculously bad idea) angers them, you have an incentive to prevent their religion from spreading into your civ - but there isn't actually any way to do this short of running Theocracy the entire game. In Civ5, you can't demand someone else covert to your religion to begin with, because there is no state religion, only majority religion.
• Religions never, ever disappear once spread. (You know, just like Armenia is famously still Zoroastrian?) They are never slowly replaced by changing demographics and culture; there are also no inquisitions and no putting conquered peoples to the sword if they don't convert. Civ5 has inquisitors and religious pressure to erase religion.
• Religions spread, spontaneously, across continents and oceans, without missionaries evening trying to spread it, to random cities that you may not even trade route with, even to civs unknown. In Civ5, religion is always spread by some kind of identifiable vector - missionaries, great prophets, or pressure from trade routes or surrounding cities.
• Religion is founded by being the first to a specific technology. This, presumably, is to force religions to be spread out in time. But the effect is to inextricably tie religion to science output - the religious race is the science race. Compare with Civ5 where civ bonues including UBs (some available very early, like the Ethiopian stele), goody huts, and beliefs that yield faith from terrain can give a civ an edge in the religion race independent of their science output. This also makes more sense historically - Jews were not the first to invent the concept of Monotheism nor were Muslims the first to invent the concept of Divine Right, for example.

What Civ4 did do right that Civ5 didn't:

• Multiple religions can be present in the same place at the same time. There's no reason a city shouldn't be able to be half-Christian, half-Muslim. Civ5 treats this as equivalent to a city of atheists (except for exerting pressure) - e.g. they for some reason can't build a cathedral or produce Christian missionaries despite a substantial Christian population. Because religious minorities never build large and impressive places of worship, right?
• Multiple religions can be created by the same civilization - China should be able to found both Confucianism and Taoism.

The system in IV was far from perfect, I don't think it has ever been great. Honestly, the main thing I like in IV is that you can choose your state religion. I enjoy the customisable nature of religion in V and VI but this does come with problems, I really dislike that you either have to found a religion to get its full benefit, or wait for it to be spread to you, with no agency. You should be able to choose your state religion, and this should have a diplomatic modifier, though perhaps toned down from IV. I also dislike faith as a yield, and all missionary units in all Civ games. I would rather religion could only spread passively.

 

[Krikkit1]

I have expressed before that having religious beliefs be exclusive doesn't make thematic or historical sense, but got told that would just lead to everyone picking the same, strongest beliefs.

Which... (1), yes, as you noted, many religions do share many beliefs, so I consider that a feature, not a bug, and (2) if it is such a gameplay issue, then it seems like the obvious solution would be to just nerf the general purpose, "strongest" beliefs e.g. those dealing with Holy Sites in favor of more situational beliefs like Civ5's terrain or resource based beliefs.

It also kind of bothers me that if you're not the one to found a religion, you get 0 input on how it functions - not even within your own borders, not even if you're 99% of its population.

I saw someone bring up ecumenical councils before, so here's an idea - what if, one time per religion, you got to swap out one of a religion's beliefs for a different one, for the purposes of how that religion works within your borders, and the beliefs of the religion that your missionaries and pressure spread. This could include Founder beliefs, where you are now considered the founder of this new split off the religion, and the Holy City is the city where this reforming "ecumenical council" was held. This gives everyone some control over how the religions in their borders work, but not as much control as if they had founded them themselves.

For example, imagine Arabia founds Islam with the beliefs (using Civ5's belief system as an example):

• Pantheon: Desert Folklore
• Founder: Pilgrimage
• Follower: Mosques
• Enhancer: Just War
• Reformation: Unity of the Prophets

When they spread this to Persia, Persia gets the opportunity to swap out one of these beliefs for a different one, to produce a new offshoot called, say, Persian Islam. Let's say:

• Pantheon: Desert Folklore
• Founder: Pilgrimage
• Follower: Mosques
• Enhancer: Religious Texts
• Reformation: Unity of the Prophets

Then let's say Persian Islam spreads to Turks, and they also get to swap out one belief to produce a new offshoot called Turkish Islam:

• Pantheon: God of the Open Sky
• Founder: Pilgrimage
• Follower: Mosques
• Enhancer: Religious Texts
• Reformation: Unity of the Prophets

And then let's say Turkish Islam spreads to the Caucasus to, say, the Circassians, who again get to swap out one belief to produce a new offshoot called Circassian Islam:

• Pantheon: God of the Open Sky
• Founder: Pilgrimage
• Follower: Mosques
• Enhancer: Religious Texts
• Reformation: Religious Fervor

I like the swapping Idea

What I'd like to see is no "Founder" benefit, instead only "Adopter" benefits
The first Civ that adopts the religion gets to add one belief to it
Then the First Civ that researches X theology civic while having adopted the religion gets to add the next belief
etc.

Then you start getting the schisms... when you schism it settlements of it in your civ at least 1/2 convert to the new version.. which gets to swap one belief.

So you get Christianity.... picks up some new beliefs (schismed religions get a slight spread bonus over non schismed ones)
Then Schism forms Catholicism from a civ following Christianity (swap out one of Christianity's current beliefs)
Later Schism forms Orthodoxy from a civ following Christianity (so it would be 2 different from Catholicism... or only 1 or 0 depending on what changed)
Later schism forms Protestantism from a civ following Catholicism
Later schism forms Ming Orthodoxy from a civ following Orthodoxy

So 2-4 religions start floating around free to be improved, only late in the era does everyone get to use the religion they adopted to make their own religion.

 

[gunnergoz]

My two bits: Include whatever religion aspect suits your fancy, as long as there is an option to play the game without it.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I don't have strong objections to traditional civ approaches to Religion but I would prefer if they took it in a different direction. Perhaps makes world religions something you interact with like other civs, rather than something you control. Your people start joining a Religion which you don't yet know the benefits of. Do you encourage it or discourage it? If you want to pick the benefits of a Religion you have to give up some of your authority as leader (aka you leader attributes).

 

[Krajzen]

I just want religions to not all be functionally Islam (yes Islam, not even Christianity) with all religions being completely tied to the political realm and commanded by the imperial centers to spread by missionaries and war in order to cover the entire world. Every religion in three civ games in a row always works like early caliphates - centralised, political, exclusive, expansive, with heathen minorities and countries being tolerated as long as they never convert your people and compete with *your* faith.

But what if we could play as, like...
*Judaism style religion: not about spreading across the world but mastering the inner workings of your civ
*Catholic Church style religion: there is a global multicultural institution separate from any civ which you cultivate relations with and unlock interactions
*Casual pagan approach: you hang out with your initial basic pantheon waiting until some cool global religion comes by and you willingly convert to it as a follower state not founder, and this is sometimes quite beneficial strategy
*Roman approach: your own religion starts very basic, but it can adapt beliefs and gods from other religions, as long as they are compatible with the imperial cult (some religions are not)
*Confucian approach: religion without missionaries and holy wars, spreading via cultural and political influence
*Modern secular state: in modern era you stop giving damn about religion (unless people revolt against this approach), losing bonuses but choosing from set of powerful secular "beliefs" instead
*State antitheism, hard communist style but any ideology allows it: you vow to forcibly subjugate or just wipe out any religious belief!

 

[aelf]

I'd like to echo sentiments that Civ4 got religion most right, IMO. And the Free Religion civic is just

For that matter, the civics system in Civ4 rocks too.

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.

Oof, it's not safe to say such things around here

 

[Krajzen]

One more idea for an alternate religious path I had

*Stubborn Heathen - your civilization doesn't want to have any organised religion at all, instead prefers to keep to the olden ways of cult of nature, spirits and ancestors. You have no access to religious beliefs, buildings, normal units, actions and spread to other civilizations. Instead your ancient pantheon gets upgraded to the Resilient version of itself, granting bigger bonuses, being much harder for foreign missionaries to handle and unlocking few unique actions (unique shaman unit which works like inquisitor + has some unique skills; unique sacred grove improvement on not upgraded forests etc). In essence this path is about foregoing expansionist and more refined benefits of the usual organised religion in favour of focusing inward on simple local terrain bonuses of your small corner of the world. 85% of the time it is better to follow one of the aforementioned pathways of the organised religions, but sometimes it pays off to pray to the trees (until modern secular states at least).

This idea is based on Japanese Shintoism and Chinese folk religion, which survived onslaught from like all global religions at once, pagan Lithuanian empire which converted only on its own terms and very late, and some of the more resilient African religions - especially Guinean forest belt civilizations resisting Islam for centuries.

 

[Tanel]

I certainly hope we don't ever see Faith as currency or Religious victory ever again. If anything I would prefer something like the Old World does where religions aren't founded by players but by events and then the player can choose to either adopt it or supress it. This also makes it possible for multiple civs to share and benefit from the same religion.

 

[UnknownHuman]

What I'd like to see from a reworked/expanded religion system:

• Missionary reworked to work like Merchant, meaning instead of manually giving them directions and using charges when they reach their destination, which is just obnoxious busy work, you instead establish a "mission route" by selecting two or three cities and they automatically go there until the mission ends, and you create a new one.
• Going back to having each population of a settlement following a religion, rather than the current system where a settlement has two population type to be converted. It's not only more realistic, but it allows for more mechanics to exist, such as some listed bellow.
• Having others ways to passively or actively spread religion, getting back the religious pressure from Civilization 5/6 where settlements within X amount of tiles from a holy city, or another settlement dominated by one religion, or trade routes exert pressure.
• More options while founding your religion in the second age, such as not creating a new religion, but instead keep your pantheon and expand on it with new effects, which would also make the altars of the previous age "ageless". That would be an interesting way to distinguish religions meant to be spread to other civilizations in order to get their bonuses, and pantheons meant to be spread mostly to yourself to get local bonuses.
• Unique diplomatic actions such as declaring a holy war, an endeavor to convert another civilization, amongst others.
• In general having more civics in the unique religion civic tree, and unique civics for pantheons, alongside having unique religious policies, such as Jizya (gold for population not following your religion in your cities) amongst others. I wouldn't say no to one or two unique units too, alongside a few unique wonders there (St. Peter's Basilica, Masjid al-Haram, Mahabodhi Temple ...).
• A new civic tree in the modern age with perhaps mutually exclusive civics with one line leading to become a theocracy (which could be a fourth ideology), and the other leading to secularism.

 

[Krajzen]

If anything I would prefer something like the Old World does where religions aren't founded by players but by events and then the player can choose to either adopt it or supress it. This also makes it possible for multiple civs to share and benefit from the same religion.

...wow, so there's a game that has actually managed to succesfully introduce the concept? I have been entertaining this idea of religions being player-independent "forces of nature" for a long time but was unsure how to make it work in a video game, and then it turns out Old World has had it all this time. A shame this game hasn't got more popular.

Strangely enough, I would prefer this solution, despite "hurr durr it's so cool to found your own religion and name it and give it colors". Mainly because religions as they work now are just "cultural empires" that provide more (mostly yield) bonuses the more you paint the map with them and kill other religions in a zero-sum game. It's not the worst religious system, I've always had fun with it and in 2012 when it debuted it felt incredible, but I'd gladly exchange it or enhance it into something deeper, more complex and more dynamic (and more historical by the way).

Imagine religions being very different in their workings and appearing like forces in the world you deal with, either by resisting them, adapting to them, using them for your own needs, or developing your own civ's spiritual response to them; religions which can coexist, syncretise, have crusades, impact diplomacy; with modern era being a struggle between old religions, secular ideologies, liberal secularism and militant state atheism...

 

[Arcaian]

...wow, so there's a game that has actually managed to succesfully introduce the concept? I have been entertaining this idea of religions being player-independent "forces of nature" for a long time but was unsure how to make it work in a video game, and then it turns out Old World has had it all this time. A shame this game hasn't got more popular.

Strangely enough, I would prefer this solution, despite "hurr durr it's so cool to found your own religion and name it and give it colors". Mainly because religions as they work now are just "cultural empires" that provide more (mostly yield) bonuses the more you paint the map with them and kill other religions in a zero-sum game. It's not the worst religious system, I've always had fun with it and in 2012 when it debuted it felt incredible, but I'd gladly exchange it or enhance it into something deeper, more complex and more dynamic (and more historical by the way).

Imagine religions being very different in their workings and appearing like forces in the world you deal with, either by resisting them, adapting to them, using them for your own needs, or developing your own civ's spiritual response to them; religions which can coexist, syncretise, have crusades, impact diplomacy; with modern era being a struggle between old religions, secular ideologies, liberal secularism and militant state atheism...

It's fun in Old World when there's a conflict between your original pantheon and one of the more organised new religions going on, with different noble families adopting different religions - there are consequences for whatever choice you use to try and fix that situation. With the leaders of religions, even your own pantheon, being people who might have conflicts with you as well as each religion having an opinion of your civ, it's definitely an interesting setup - and it even maintains the ability to alter your religion with choices of what policies you want for your religion.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

If anything I would prefer something like the Old World does where religions aren't founded by players but by events and then the player can choose to either adopt it or supress it. This also makes it possible for multiple civs to share and benefit from the same religion.

I had forgotten that about Old World, if I even knew it in the first place.
I couldn't stand being limited to a small number of orders per turn.
However, I did love Old World's lineage system, and wish Civ VII had adopted it or something similar.
There's almost certainly no way it could be introduced in any kind of expansion;
we'd have to wait for Civ VIII, at which point Firaxis should more so look to Age of Wonders heroes and Democracy 4's citizens for its Leader system
If the latter, it'd certainly be easier to model the entire population both having individual religious beliefs and those beliefs affecting their support for policies and Leader behaviors

 

[Zaarin]

However, I did love Old World's lineage system, and wish Civ VII had adopted it or something similar.

It works great for Old World, but it would never fit for Civ for a number of reasons. One is that historical leaders are just part of Civ's identity. Another is that you'd be changing leaders five times a turn in the early game.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

It works great for Old World, but it would never fit for Civ for a number of reasons. One is that historical leaders are just part of Civ's identity. Another is that you'd be changing leaders five times a turn in the early game.

We already have immortal Leaders, so I don't necessarily see any harm in "elven" Leaders who live about fifty turns, irrespective of the number of game years.
Your dynasty could last for an Age, after which you start with another historical Leader upon Age transition.
Mostly, I just want to be able to engage in Crusader Kings III style marriage alliances, romantic pursuits, and secret amorous liaisons
I could even imagine a bonus for Franklin in which he is better able to seduce female characters

 

[Zaarin]

Mostly, I just want to be able to engage in Crusader Kings III style marriage alliances, romantic pursuits, and secret amorous liaisons

That's great in CK3, but that's not a Civ game to me.

 

[Taefin]

Mostly, I just want to be able to engage in Crusader Kings III style marriage alliances, romantic pursuits, and secret amorous liaisons

I’d recommend trying a few more games of Old World to see if the pacing of the order system starts to feel more natural. The games where orders have felt most restrictive to me are when I try to build too many workers. Orders are really the only limit on how many workers and improvements you get. Once I let myself neglect one use of orders (workers) when I need another (military) everything felt better (if a little on fire), and then I can focus on fewer elements at the same time, switching focus back and forth every 10-20 turns or so.

Old World has so many of the elements you describe and it does well at making it fun to have much more limited agency (which would just be too frustrating for Civ).

Regarding VII, I’m curious how the non-missionary forms of conversion will feel, using the higher tier beliefs. It seems you could spread entirely through conquest etc.

 

[Tanel]

I’d recommend trying a few more games of Old World to see if the pacing of the order system starts to feel more natural. The games where orders have felt most restrictive to me are when I try to build too many workers. Orders are really the only limit on how many workers and improvements you get. Once I let myself neglect one use of orders (workers) when I need another (military) everything felt better (if a little on fire), and then I can focus on fewer elements at the same time, switching focus back and forth every 10-20 turns or so.

Old World has so many of the elements you describe and it does well at making it fun to have much more limited agency (which would just be too frustrating for Civ).

Regarding VII, I’m curious how the non-missionary forms of conversion will feel, using the higher tier beliefs. It seems you could spread entirely through conquest etc.

I really love the orders system because now warfare/moving armies has a real cost beyond just the production cost and upkeep. If you go full out on war you will completely have to pause your economic development. In civ when a unit is built you always want to use it as much as possible to maximize it's efficiency and if you have a big army built up they will just keep giving returns on that investment with no extra cost but in Old World it's always a consideration which units you want to move and how much, do you want to fully commit to a war, is the war beneficial at all etc.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

There are some interesting ideas here but i doubt FXS will drastically change the system during Civ7 life cycle (they might for Civ8 if they keep religion). However i think the current system could be tweaked to be much more interesting. Here are some ideas :

• Change the way religion is applied to settlements. Rather than having 2 slots (rural/urban) each having their own religion, a settlement could have any number of religion in either of 2 states : present (the religion exists in the settlement, there are people following it) or dominant (a majority of the settlement's population follows this religion). This way we can have something approaching Civ4's multi-religion cities while keeping it simple and easily represented (you can have a large symbol for the dominant religion followed by smaller ones for each religion present with no need to hover your mouse to get numbers and try to figure how long it would take for the pressure to change the situation, only to have the pressure itself change ...) This would be easy to understand and represent, but still flexible. Beliefs could be implemented so that they give you bonuses when your religion is present and bigger ones if it's dominant, giving you a choice between spreading to many settlements without trying to reach dominant status, or concentrating on a few.
• Modify missionaries. I'm not super fan of missionaries to be there in the first place but at least they give the player some control when, how and where their religion spreads which is important given it's the core of one legacy path and important for another one. FXS could try to abstract religion spread like they abstracted tile improvement into settlement growth but, again, i doubt they will alter the religion to that extend before Civ8.
  But what if instead of being mass produced and sent out with limited charges missionaries borrowed some of the characteristics of Commanders and Merchants. You would gain a free one with Piety, and could produce more at a growing cost, effectively soft-limiting you to only a few missionaries per game but those wouldn't have charges and wouldn't be used when you spread your religion. Instead when they arrive to a settlement they could start a "spread religion" mission that would last for a number of turns during which they would be removed from the map (like a merchant starting a trade route). After a variable, but fixed amount of turns the mission would complete and your religion would now be present in the settlement. You would then get a pop-up asking whether you want to move on (you get your missionary back, ready to move to the next city), or keep proselytizing. Staying longer would apply pressure to make your religion dominant (but possibly annoy the founder of the previously dominant religion). The exact number of turns it would take to progress would vary based on the size of the settlement, your relations with the settlement's civilization (it's easier to persuade a friendly population than an hostile one) and possible policies/other bonuses which would make your missionaries better. Overall this would slightly reduce micromanagement due to less production of missionaries and not having to start from your cities each time and while you would still click twice to become dominant, it probably wouldn't feel as annoying as clicking twice in a row (possibly on the same turn if you use 2 missionaries). It would also provide opportunities for choices "do i want to piss off my friend making my religion dominant or am i content being merely present for smaller benefits?", "should i spread quickly to friendly settlements or take time to become dominant in my enemies settlements, possibly weakening them?".
• Add special religious policies. Crises have showed we can have multiple sets of unrelated policies to choose from. What if Exploration age had a special category for Religious policies where you could choose how your government interacts with religion and how tolerant you are of other beliefs being present in your settlements. Do you want to be God's right hand, ruling by "Mandate of heavens" and reaping big benefits from your religion in your cities, beware then of other religions undermining your authority. Or maybe you just don't want to deal with that and let your citizens pray to whoever they want (i'd like to see Civ4 Free religion coming back). Or something in-between. Many options could be implemented with 1-2 religious policy cards to slot in which could drastically alter how you use (or don't use) religion in your game.

None of those are huge in-depth changes (unlike making religion an external force à la "old world") but combined i think they would make religion's role more varied and interesting.