I've just finished a massive, huge map religion victory with Ghandi.
It feels quite incomplete. A good way of turning what already existed in V into a victory condition, but it was deeply unsatisfying. Converting Civs was just a tedious exercise in trying to claim just enough cities to satisfy the win condition without causing a declaration of war - which would have allowed them to wipe out my apostles trivially, and force me to support them with troops, a much harder process especially on the crappy shuffle map I was given. In the end, I wound up doing it easily against Gilgamesh, I had an alliance with him so I just happily wiped out his national religion. Yikes that feels wrong.
These are the thoughts I had while my prophets were streaming across the map.
- Religion needs to be integrated into diplomacy far more. Civs of the same religion should naturally want to befriend and ally each other, and find it really difficult to go to war against each other without having huge war weariness issues. I do realise this isn't necessarily historically accurate, but bear with me.
- I think there should be a slot in the policies for 'state religion'. You have to nominate a religion that has a foothold in at least one of your cities. Any citizens of a rival religion cost double amenities (except for Ghandi, because he's already got a poly-religious aspect to him). At some point you get to the civic "secularism" which allows you to choose 'Secular' instead of a specific state religion, which nullifies the penalty but also prevents you creating religious units except perhaps from the Holy City.
- Asking/demanding that another civ adopt your State religion should be a diplomatic option. Just think of stopping a late-game religious victory by attacking the civ and forcing them to be secular for 30 turns in the peace deal.
- There should be fewer religions. I think Religions < 1/3 Civs. However, somewhere in the mid-game it should become possible to get new prophets who, like Martin Luther, allow you to create a schism within an existing religion. That way, hopefully, you should see large religious blocs form early, only to divide in the mid-game, with slightly different mechanics in play for when religions that have split off each other try and convert each other's cities back. The same religion should be able to split multiple times. The 'split off' religions will all share the same, holy site/city, and should also have the unique ability to completely eradicate each other.
- Founding a religion should not give you permanent control of it. It should certainly help, but there should be some internal politics that allows a rival civ to wrest control, particularly if they have more citizens following it or are generating more faith points. Maybe votes like the old diplomatic victories. So if you're China and get a religion from Stonehenge, maybe you should be careful about spreading it to someone like Ghandi who might take it over from you. This would also open up new opportunities for Religion victories. You don't have a binary win/fail rush early to get a religion, you can sit back, develop your own faith generation capabilities and then decide to take someone else's religion and spread it to the world. After all, Spain didn't found the religion that they tried for religious victory with IRL. Nor did France, and they've had their fair share of Popes. But of course, to claim the religious victory, you do have to have control over the religion that has conquered the world.
Also, instead of the current Civ V style Founder-Follower-additional beliefs stuff. I'd break it down into,
- Pantheon - the pantheon you found should always be yours, and act independently of the religion (I'm not 100% sure it doesn't already work like that). This would simulate the way religions change, just a little, in different civs
- Central tenet - more on this in a moment
- State doctrine - what it means when this is the State religion. Should be things like "Work ethic - bonus to production", "Charity - bonus amenities". Essentially very good civics that might make a civ who is not wanting to go for a religious victory themselves actually choose one religion to spread just for the synergy it provides with their chosen win condition.
- City/Follower - The bonus that the religion will provide in each city that adopts it. Things like the ability to build the appropriate Mosque/Pagoda etc. Could have some interesting combinations with the State Religion - a particular civic, or government (Theocracy?) might automatically extend this bonus to all your cities regardless of what they follow, allowing you to spread the religion more effectively.
- Founder - bonuses that are held by the holder of the Holy Site, and/or the current controller of the religion. Things like the existing 'Tithe' work well for this.
- Conversion - how religions are spread. Should have things like cheaper missionaries, the itinerant preaching, spreading through trade routes etc. Essentially meaning that each religion only gets one of these bonuses, and also making so they all spread a little bit differently.
I said I'd say more about central tenets. This I think should be the basic philosophy of the religion, and unlike the other beliefs, shouldn't be exclusive. Each religion gets to choose from the whole set, and maybe there could be some sort of diplomatic bonuses for religions that have them in common (or maybe penalties). In any case, I'd see them as -
- Monotheism - "thou shalt have no other gods before me" - the one you want if going for religious victory, some sort of bonus to spreading. Perhaps should be the only ones able to have inquisitors?
- Polytheism - bonus to culture generation (many gods = many festivals)
- Animism - bonus faith from animals, mountains, forests etc, handy for Great Person seeking civs
- Spiritualism/Transtheism - something more about individual development. Bonuses based on having taller cities maybe?
Anyway, those are my crazy thoughts. Right now the religious victory feels like the culture one in Vanilla Civ V, an ok idea that is really looking for a proper overhaul in one of the major DLC packs. It's also a bit too easy to totally ignore religion right now unless you're specifically going for that type of victory. Integrating it into the Diplomacy system seems like the right solution of that, it should be one of the main reasons for war, particularly in the mid-game - after blocs have formed but before secularism.
