Religions discussion thread

[Rhye]

Let's compare again:

Greek World featured:

Spoiler :

Judaism
Christianity
Zoroastrianism
Hinduism
Mesopotamian Polytheism
Greek Polytheism
Egyptian Polytheism

The Ancient Mediterranean features:

Spoiler :

Judaism
Christianity
Zoroastrism
Animism
Mesopotamian Gods
Olympian Gods
Heliopolitan Gods

This is my list instead:

Spoiler :

Judaism
Christianity
Zoroastrianism
Triplism (Celtic Polytheism)
Mesopotamian Polytheism
Olympian Polytheism (Greek)
Heliopolitan Polytheism (Egyptian)

Greek World, IIRC, dropped cathedrals, monasteries and shrines. Religion wasn't that important in classical age, and there's some lack of buildings.
There were only church, synagogue, fire temple, mandir, ziggurat, temple, obelisk.
Maybe now we could have more material to work on.
What do you think?

 

[Cethegus]

I think your list is spot-on. I'm not sure about including the Celtic faith but why not? It must be there for a reason.

I'll have to ask how this affects the shrines, though. Should Holy Cities receive X amount of additional culture for every city affected by the same faith or ditched altogether? I wouldn't mind a more secular mod for a change.

 

[Panopticon]

During this time period, it seems that religion was more strongly linked with:
1. nationality, and
2. social elites
than in the period of RFC. That is to say, religion was strongly tied to the country itself, and mass participation was limited. I'm thinking especially of the Egyptian religion. This divide between the standard perception of religion and the practice of religion in the classical world is clear when we see proposed religions that are essentially "Celts", "Carthage", "Greece/Rome" and "Egypt". There is something counter-intuitive about a Greek city without Olympian religion, or an Egyptian city without its local cult, that doesn't seem so strange in the context of later civilisations.

What I am trying to say is that religion was an "expression" of "nationality" in the classical world, with a minor role for specifically missionary activity independent of ordinary migration, and that needs to be taken into account.

I don't see why we need four different types of polytheism, other than for diplomatic purposes, unless we introduce changes in religious game mechanics that justify the diversity of religion. For instance, changes to stability, or the likelihood of rebirth of a dead civ, should depend on whether a non-state religion is present. Civs closely associated with a religion should be severely punished if they switch, whether through unhappiness or instability - Greece shouldn't be able to switch to Baal-worship without negative consequences. We will also need some role for the dynamic removal of religions.

 

[SadoMacho]

World Wonders linked to religion, maybe not all of them, but for some...

Pyramides, statue of Zeus,...

 

[BurnEmDown]

I think maybe only 1 religion should be available to each city, so if say the Greeks conquer Egypt they will send their Olimpyan missionaries to the Egyptian cities and spread the religion there, also eradicating the old Egyptian religion.
It could work well with how the Greeks (or rather Macedonians) spread their religions across the middle east and later on the Romans spread their religion to Gaul and Iberia.
If we're looking at religions as something that represents only the elite of the city, makes even more sense, as if the Greeks conquer Egypt, they'll send people to govern their cities and their religions will stay the same as in Greece, thus affecting their governing skills and decisions.
What do you guys think?

 

[ZachScape]

For RFA, I searched other mods for their religious buildings. I have never played GW (I didn't discover mods until way after I got BtS), so I don't know what buildings you had back then.

Religions will probably be the easiest thing to do in Ant. We already have all the buildings we need for 6 different religions in different mods:
RoM
Extra
That Warlords mod with the Sumerian religions.

Religions:
-Sumerian
-Amon Ra
-Hellenism
-Zoroastrianism
-Judaism
-Christianity- So far, game is set to end in 50 BC. Christianity is now voided.

I have been researching a lot, so leave the Etruscans to me.

Finally finished finding the buildings for the religions proposed.

Spoiler :

Top image is from Gods of Old.
Bottom left and bottom right are from Extra.
Middle is from Rise of Mankind.

I don't exactly like a lot of the Greek buildings in this pic, but I think we can use the
Statue of Zeus as the Holy Shrine.

 

[Metal Alloy Man]

Statue of Zeus as the Holy Shrine.

Good idea, but if we go along those lines we'd have to have the pyramids for Egypt as well.

 

[Cethegus]

I, for one, don't mind it. We'll have to have something different for Mesopotamia, though.

 

[TDK]

During this time period, it seems that religion was more strongly linked with:
1. nationality, and
2. social elites
than in the period of RFC. That is to say, religion was strongly tied to the country itself, and mass participation was limited. I'm thinking especially of the Egyptian religion. This divide between the standard perception of religion and the practice of religion in the classical world is clear when we see proposed religions that are essentially "Celts", "Carthage", "Greece/Rome" and "Egypt". There is something counter-intuitive about a Greek city without Olympian religion, or an Egyptian city without its local cult, that doesn't seem so strange in the context of later civilisations.

What I am trying to say is that religion was an "expression" of "nationality" in the classical world, with a minor role for specifically missionary activity independent of ordinary migration, and that needs to be taken into account.

I don't see why we need four different types of polytheism, other than for diplomatic purposes, unless we introduce changes in religious game mechanics that justify the diversity of religion. For instance, changes to stability, or the likelihood of rebirth of a dead civ, should depend on whether a non-state religion is present. Civs closely associated with a religion should be severely punished if they switch, whether through unhappiness or instability - Greece shouldn't be able to switch to Baal-worship without negative consequences. We will also need some role for the dynamic removal of religions.

I'll have to agree here. The religions of that time were grounded in locations(often cities) and specific states, so the religions dynamic will have to be changed.
Of course Judaism, as an example of a very early "personal" portable religion, could use the old religion system.

 

[Panopticon]

I'll have to agree here. The religions of that time were grounded in locations(often cities) and specific states, so the religions dynamic will have to be changed.
Of course Judaism, as an example of a very early "personal" portable religion, could use the old religion system.

Yes, as should Christianity and Zoroastrianism. Even though Judaism and Zoroastrianism were also strongly tied to specific civs in Greek World, they had sufficient diaspora populations to justify being treated more like typical Civ religions.

 

[ZachScape]

I have never played it, but go to Johny Smith's Rapture Project thread. You will like what you see.

 

[King Coltrane]

while i mostly agree with what everyone is saying, i have a few ideas:

1) we should somehow represent the "Amarna Heresy" of Akhenaton, which was possibly the first monotheistic religion in the world (cult of the Aton). this allowed Akhenaton to centralize power on an unparalleled level in Egyptian history (other than the beginning of the monarchy) it also gave Akhenaton lots of wealth in land and funds that he took from the temples that he shut down. it made lots of people upset overall, but it gave him a lot of power during his rule. this makes me think:

2) maybe we should have religion represented as a civics thing rather than going too much into different religions. for example, polytheist could decrease maintenance costs slightly, add happiness, but take away from the income and scientific progress of a civ while monotheism would increase the income and production but cause instability. there could be more options later like theocracy, tolerance, etc. but these are just ideas.

3) for sumeria i think it would be cool if the holy shrine could be picked up and moved a la the Dragons Hoard of Fall From Heaven. Sumerian wars often centered around taking the shrine of another city's primary god to show your dominance or that this god favored you. you would have to launch a campaign to retrieve this shrine if it was taken... as in real life. Also, i think that the sumerian religion should have +1 exp per city with religion, rather than +1 gold.

 

[Panopticon]

while i mostly agree with what everyone is saying, i have a few ideas:

1) we should somehow represent the "Amarna Heresy" of Akhenaton, which was possibly the first monotheistic religion in the world (cult of the Aton). this allowed Akhenaton to centralize power on an unparalleled level in Egyptian history (other than the beginning of the monarchy) it also gave Akhenaton lots of wealth in land and funds that he took from the temples that he shut down. it made lots of people upset overall, but it gave him a lot of power during his rule. this makes me think:

2) maybe we should have religion represented as a civics thing rather than going too much into different religions. for example, polytheist could decrease maintenance costs slightly, add happiness, but take away from the income and scientific progress of a civ while monotheism would increase the income and production but cause instability. there could be more options later like theocracy, tolerance, etc. but these are just ideas.

3) for sumeria i think it would be cool if the holy shrine could be picked up and moved a la the Dragons Hoard of Fall From Heaven. Sumerian wars often centered around taking the shrine of another city's primary god to show your dominance or that this god favored you. you would have to launch a campaign to retrieve this shrine if it was taken... as in real life. Also, i think that the sumerian religion should have +1 exp per city with religion, rather than +1 gold.

This could be addressed with a "Heresy" mechanism, because it applies to lots of religions (e.g. Socrates in Athens, Arian Chistianity). I think the RFC Europe team discussed heresy along the way, so they would know about the details of such a mechanism. The civics idea would work for the classical polytheist religions - certainly you could represent "Atenism" as Egyptian Monotheism. But I don't see how a Christian country should be allowed to run the Polytheism civic.

 

[Úmarth]

As other people have said, religion in ancient polytheistic societies was different to the way we understand it. It was more like state-sponsored folklore, there certainly weren't polytheist missionaries or crusaders running about. Even ancient Judaism wasn't a religion in the full sense of the world as it is used today. It had some elements: monotheism of course, a moral code, an organised priesthood and the recognition and exclusion of "heretics". But it was still inherently nationalistic. The Jews never proselytized and that's crucial for civ.

I think the best way is to make generic polytheist temples available to civs with no religion and only use the civ religion system in the late game when it becomes relevant. In which case you'd only include Judaism and Zoroastrianism (but try to stop them from spreading outside of their home civ too often) and then perhaps just Christianity which later on would be a bit of a threat because it would cause instability when it spread and challenged the existing order.

 

[onedreamer]

Polytheisms were essentially all the same, with different civs giving different names to Gods. Cities would have a Patron Deity, as it still happens in most christian countries, since Christianity itself is a merge of those polytheisms with judaism and some new -for the time- ideals.
The only worth distinction besides the first three IMHO is between Animism and Polytheism.
IMHO the religion system should be changed to represent the fact that it was a city matter, not a national one... if we also consider the fact that in this time period the gov. and administration was highly decentralized.

 

[Bonci]

maybe for the early religions there should be some wonders like the pyramids and the statue of zeus that could allow some religious buildings in all the cities of the civ that builds them...so every early religion could be tied to only one civilization...

 

[SadoMacho]

Maybe using the corporations as polytheistic religions?

 

[ZachScape]

All your quarries can be solved by Johny. You can look at the Hellenistic, Iranian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Celtic Threads.
It adds the Hannah Montana to the game: Individual Religious Identity, and Unified Religious Identity. We don't have to code it, Johny has taken care of it. I bet none of us will get used to it right away, but it can be a new feature. Please check it out.

 

[General Toad]

While this may be hard to code, perhaps when founding a city as a Poly. Civ, you can chose which god to devote it to (God of Wisdom, War, Afterlife, ect), which would grant a specific building to that city, which would give a small bonus. For example, all new units built in the City whose patron is the God of War get +1 experience.

 

[TC01]

While this may be hard to code, perhaps when founding a city as a Poly. Civ, you can chose which god to devote it to (God of Wisdom, War, Afterlife, ect), which would grant a specific building to that city, which would give a small bonus. For example, all new units built in the City whose patron is the God of War get +1 experience.

All you would need is a random event that triggered when you found a city, if you have the correct religion. The options would have a building built for each god.

Dune Wars did something similar on completing a building.