Religion should be reworked in a major expansion

[Oberst Kraft]

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 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.

I really like the idea as a concept for a more serious strategy game, but it's too rich and too complicated for the nature of a Civ game IMHO.

 

[stealth_nsk]

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.

Religious victory was a bad gameplay in Civ6 because it was out of pacing with the rest of the game. If none of other civs are interested in religion, you could win it very early, if some other civs are focused on religion and are far away, it's almost impossible.

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.

That's an interesting theme for debates. I'd say every country with dominate religion has some form of religious authority, they just differ a lot.

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.

All this is great, it's just not for this game. The religion being the cultural legacy path requires everyone to have a religion. And if it doesn't get this role, some other system needs to take this niche and religion should take some other role, totally redesigning the game in process. Not to mention what your proposal for religion affecting diplomatic relations means total rebuilding of diplomacy, another novel part of Civ7.

 

[Arcaian]

All this is great, it's just not for this game. The religion being the cultural legacy path requires everyone to have a religion. And if it doesn't get this role, some other system needs to take this niche and religion should take some other role, totally redesigning the game in process. Not to mention what your proposal for religion affecting diplomatic relations means total rebuilding of diplomacy, another novel part of Civ7.

I fully agree that my discussions there aren't about how Civ 7 will be on release - it's very clear how religion works, IMO to its detriment. I don't think it's a 'total redesign' of the game to change the cultural path for the Exploration age - if you want to add a very detailed cultural legacy path, it would be a lot of design work, but it's not like there aren't many legacy paths that are relatively simple at the moment - basically all the Cultural ones are, actually. I also don't think the religion affecting diplomatic relations would require a total rebuilding of diplomacy - it seems like it'd fit very well in to the various Influence mechanisms in Civ 7, and doesn't seem like it's that far away from the way Ideologies are going to affect diplomacy in the Modern age.

That being said, it is a bit of a stretch to see this being added in an expansion - I suspect that you're correct that it isn't for Civ 7, but not because it's incompatible with the Civ design ethos, just because they've already chosen to move in a different direction for the game, and it'd be a fair bit of work to change that.

 

[Zaarin]

Religious victory was a bad gameplay in Civ6 because it was out of pacing with the rest of the game. If none of other civs are interested in religion, you could win it very early, if some other civs are focused on religion and are far away, it's almost impossible.

I disagree. It's bad gameplay because it made religion into a tedious minigame. However, in Civ6 you could still benefit from keeping your own religion without spreading it; Civ7 has made it even worse by making there be almost no benefit to religion if you don't evangelize it. I'm firmly of the opinion that religion should give small boosts to your gameplay in various areas but not be a victory condition in itself.

That's an interesting theme for debates. I'd say every country with dominate religion has some form of religious authority, they just differ a lot.

I mean...the entire point of the Protestant Reformation was rejecting temporal religious authority (to varying degrees, but the point stands that there is no Lutheran pope). Likewise, to my knowledge there is no head of Hinduism, Buddhism*, Shinto, Taoism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism...

*The Dalai Lama is not the head of Buddhism; he's the head of a particular sect of Buddhism.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I disagree. It's bad gameplay because it made religion into a tedious minigame. However, in Civ6 you could still benefit from keeping your own religion without spreading it; Civ7 has made it even worse by making there be almost no benefit to religion if you don't evangelize it. I'm firmly of the opinion that religion should give small boosts to your gameplay in various areas but not be a victory condition in itself.

I think the connection between real-world things and their gameplay role is purely subjective and game dependent. There's no universal game implementation - some game may have faith as resource, some don't. Moreover, what you consider a religion could vary a lot - whether it's founding concept, particular sect or something else?

I mean...the entire point of the Protestant Reformation was rejecting temporal religious authority (to varying degrees, but the point stands that there is no Lutheran pope). Likewise, to my knowledge there is no head of Hinduism, Buddhism*, Shinto, Taoism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism...

*The Dalai Lama is not the head of Buddhism; he's the head of a particular sect of Buddhism.

As I said above, that's just different definition of religion. Despite using global religious symbols, Civ7 religions are more like Church of England or Russian Orthodox Church - country-specific branches with their own authority, but sharing a lot of believes with other similar churches.

P.S. And yes "church" or "sect" would be more fitting here, but "church" is totally Christianity-oriented, while "sect" has too negative meaning.

EDIT: As I understand, there are a lot of eastern implementation of similar religious branches, like State Shinto

 

[friendlysavage]

I'm just waiting for the Civ game that has the confidence to go back to Civ IV religion

 

[Zaarin]

As I said above, that's just different definition of religion. Despite using global religious symbols, Civ7 religions are more like Church of England or Russian Orthodox Church - country-specific branches with their own authority, but sharing a lot of believes with other similar churches.

Even then, the monarch's role as the head of the Church of England has been very nominal/ceremonial post-Elizabeth I, who essentially made the changes she wanted and then put a moratorium on reform; since then the Anglican Church has largely done its own thing internally (to the extent that Anglican beliefs are extremely varied and difficult to pin down or define, especially taking into account the global Anglican Church). ROC is a weird example as it has been time and time again been neutered by the tsar, but nominally at least it still acknowledges the Patriarch of Constantinople as its head. (Likewise, the non-Chalcedonian churches are autocephalic but acknowledge the pope of Alexandria as "first among equals.")

I'm just waiting for the Civ game that has the confidence to go back to Civ IV religion

A part of me enjoys customizing religions and what not, but another part of me thinks Civ4 religion was perfect. And I don't view Civ4 with particularly rose colored glasses.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Even then, the monarch's role as the head of the Church of England has been very nominal/ceremonial post-Elizabeth I, who essentially made the changes she wanted and then put a moratorium on reform; since then the Anglican Church has largely done its own thing internally (to the extent that Anglican beliefs are extremely varied and difficult to pin down or define, especially taking into account the global Anglican Church). ROC is a weird example as it has been time and time again been neutered by the tsar, but nominally at least it still acknowledges the Patriarch of Constantinople as its head. (Likewise, the non-Chalcedonian churches are autocephalic but acknowledge the pope of Alexandria as "first among equals.")

There are a lot of real-world nuances, which just have no place in a strategic game. What I'm trying to say is - Civ7 has enough historical basis (for a strategic game) to depict the religion the way it does.

 

[Zaarin]

There are a lot of real-world nuances, which just have no place in a strategic game. What I'm trying to say is - Civ7 has enough historical basis (for a strategic game) to depict the religion the way it does.

I'm not denying other people's right to like it, but that won't make me stop hating it with a burning passion or prevent me from modding it out of my game no matter how badly it breaks the Exploration Age legacy path.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

What I don't like about the Civ 7 religion game is that there isn't really much in the way of passive bonuses for just having it inside your own cities.

I'm fine with the legacy conditions depending on evangelical spread. That's pretty much what has happened in the 1400s-1900s.

But I want there to be some point in having a religion if you don't want to mess around with missionaries.

 

[Zaarin]

What I don't like about the Civ 7 religion game is that there isn't really much in the way of passive bonuses for just having it inside your own cities.

Yes, this is extremely disappointing.

 

[Krajzen]

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…

One thing which I hated about faith yield in civ6 was its unbalanced nature, where it could be produced and multiplied ad infinitum with no limitations, turning religious competition into yield multiplication arms race and making it all even more micromanagey hell of producing and managing X religious units every turn (which you can afford with a zillion faith points per turn)

Lack of faith yield may finally introduce some sanity checks such as "missionaries are rare units spawned slowly like great people or built with production", more passive spread and passive influence management etc.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

What I'd really like to see are Reliquary Beliefs that are basically, "No relics, but each domestic city with 100% piety receives +5 Happiness." And other similar options.

That way, you can have a Religion that benefits you without having to do the dirty work of converting heathens abroad.

 

[Krikkit1]

What I don't like about the Civ 7 religion game is that there isn't really much in the way of passive bonuses for just having it inside your own cities.

I'm fine with the legacy conditions depending on evangelical spread. That's pretty much what has happened in the 1400s-1900s.

But I want there to be some point in having a religion if you don't want to mess around with missionaries.

There are social policies for that.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

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.

My proposal interacts with the mechanics of the rest of the game in several discrete ways:

• Prayer can be made into an extremely effective means of weathering the Crises (representing religion as a source of perseverance in times of trial)
• Evangelism together with Moral Doctrines creates the interesting gameplay choice of Influence (from spreading your Religion to foreign Settlements) or Happiness (by spreading to your own) so long as you play according to the moral precepts (representing that people want leaders which are moral according to their standards)
• Religion is an opportunity cost; while it can be used to farm Influence or Happiness, pursuing a Religious victory will usually slow down progress towards other types
• Morals offer an incentive to avoid certain behaviors which might otherwise be beneficial (e.g. it might not be worth Befriending Independent Powers if you're punished for doing so thanks to Holy War)

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.

When I capitalize words, that signifies I'm using a gameplay term. Of course in the real world there are religions that are polytheistic, atheistic, henotheistic, etc.
However, polytheism seemed to go well with the idea of building a pantheon of multiple different gods, so I built the Polytheism mechanic off the preexisting Pantheon mechanic.
Strictly speaking, the new terms of Polytheism and Monotheism weren't necessary; Pantheon and Religion could have been the only terms used for the mechanics.
But Monotheism and Polytheism better communicated that now they're a mutually exclusive binary choice, unlike how Pantheons and Religion work in the base game.

 

[AD1730]

I will never understand why we haven't seen ecumenical council mechanics since Civ 4. The choice to make each civ have its own religion completely destroys that ability.

 

[Isengardtom]

I’m also not a fan of religion in Civ 7 but :

As with “chopping for production” I’m glad the faith yield is gone and I would prefer it stays gone.

 

[Caprikel]

I like the pantheon idea a lot to the point where I want every civ to have access to it. Perhaps pantheons could be brought back for the Antiquity age similar to how every civ started with pantheons in previous titles, but expanded with that idea of having different bonuses in each city depending on which god in the pantheon they worship.

 

[Krikkit1]

I like the pantheon idea a lot to the point where I want every civ to have access to it. Perhaps pantheons could be brought back for the Antiquity age similar to how every civ started with pantheons in previous titles, but expanded with that idea of having different bonuses in each city depending on which god in the pantheon they worship.

I think maybe for a Pantheon you choose 3 of the "Pantheon beliefs" each belief is only active when you build an Altar of that deity in the Settlement (only one Altar per settlement)
(Beliefs are eliminated once 2 civs have taken them)

You can get things like allowing Captured cities to keep their Altars (partially incorporating their gods into your pantheon) as opposed to just automatically destroying them
Focusing on One god in your pantheon (for a bonus)

Some civs could get additional or fewer pantheon beliefs, the ability to have multiple types of Altars in a city, etc.

 

[AW Arcaeca]

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.

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.