Religions discussion thread

[mitsho]

I want to agree that the religion system as we have it doesn't make much sense. And as stated, the Gods were practically the same, only the name changed and each civ had its own... gods were taken over (like apollo) or abandoned. I don't want to see "Greek Polytheism", it's rather easy to simulate that by civics:

Natural Religions - Polytheism (all god are equal) - Henotheism (all gods exist, but this one is special for my city/country/people) - Monotheism - Tolerance and Cults (like in late rome with the battle between christianity and mithraism)

The question rather needs to be asked what effect the religions should have (culture, produce civ antagonism, happiness, ???) ? If you want to simulate culture groups you can do that with "religions", but what do you do with the "unique religion-civs" like Israel (Judaism) or Persia (Zoroastrism). It seems a bit pointless? (and besides, what's the point in making Rome and the Greeks like each other better?)

As for Christianity, it simply comes too late to be effective, I would thus revamp the corporations system to "movements that spoke to the individual and had less of a city wide communal aspect". Meaning Cults (and Philosophies). The seven here could include

Christianity
Mithraism
Zoroastrism (was tried to be spread elsewhere)
Manichaeism
(Judaism - similar effect as others, but way earlier?)
(Aton - confined area?)
----
Stoa
Epicureism
another philosophical strand....

 

[onedreamer]

I wouldn't use the religious civics at all instead, and leave it all to buildings. The religious civics are already senseless in Civ4, but in this mod would be even worse, first because coming up with different boni for those categories would be a challenge, second because the civic system in Civ4 is designed so that civic options improve with "time" (tech advances), but in this case it would be just plainly wrong. Plus who would want to see a monotheistic greek civ just cos the AI chose a historically silly option in the religious civic tree ?

I would make up to 6 different buildings for poly. religion to represent 6 different gods, like god of sea, god of sun, fertility, etc. Finding boni for these that make sense will be much easier, and only one can be built in a city.
The other 3 religions can have peculiar religious buildings with boni that are appropriate historically. Finally, I'm thinking that religions should be hard coded for civs, and civs would only be able to convert to Christianity. I also disagree that it would be too late, since the last turns are closer in date, and it all depends on what it will give. Even modern armors or the internet come late in Civ4, but they're all but uneffective.

 

[ZachScape]

Like in Gods of Old (top part of post #6), or Rapture?

 

[BurnEmDown]

onedreamer, what about the many converts to Hellenism? Also Zoroastarism should spread in Persia and some other parts of Mesopotamia, with civs converting from old polytheistic religions.
How about Civs with Polytheistic religions can convert to any religion but Monotheistic religions can't convert to Polytheistic ones?

 

[onedreamer]

Hellenism ? Is that a religion ?
with "the other 3 religions" I meant Judaism, Zoroastrism and Christianity.

 

[mitsho]

Hellenism is not a religion, but a cultural phenomena which includes the Greek religion (but also dressing style, architecture, philosophy, language) which spread to the whole Eastern half of our map during Alexanders reign. I think that should be represented somehow. Especially as we don't really have many religions.

But I like your suggestion as it is, especially now that we have more late game turns which makes it worthwhile. You're right about the henotheistic religions (what you call polytheism)*, the system would work. I see different phases:

"the polytheistic phase": Several gods which you can chose from
"the low-polytheistic phase": Polytheism still exists, but is more of a cultural ritual and is somehow replaced with "philosophical" ideas.
"the real religions": In the late game, several cults (Christianity, Zoroastrism, Mithras,) spring up and battle for the dominance against each other in the Roman and Persian empire.

Summing up, this could be simulated by:

Corporations system for the old Gods/: ~4-5 "gods" (fertility, war&sea, culture&commerce, diplomacy&espionage) and 3 philosopical strands (Stoa, Epicureism and perhaps Heliocentrism). These two types give direct bonusses a la corporation and you cannot have two corps of the same kind in the same city.

Religion system for the religions and cultural phenomena: Judaism, Hellenism, Zoroastrism, Mithras, Christianity. Other possibilities are "Semitism" representing the cultural area from phoenicia, carthage, israel and egypt (?), and Mesopotamian, basically the last two of rhyes ideas. This way you have 4 early religions that have a low spreading rate (except hellenism which is macedonias up and the greek cities that flip to rome) and 3 late ones which ignore present religion and spread like hell.

* The difference is that in Henotheism, one god is preferred over all the others, which is what you simulate with only being able to build one "tempel" in each city.

 

[onedreamer]

good stuff Mitsho, I think your proposed solution is definitely good.

 

[Úmarth]

I like the idea of splitting religion into two game mechanisms (corporations for polytheistic gods, religions for later 'cults') but I'm still not convinced 'Hellenism' should be in the latter category. Sure, Alexander's empire spread Greek gods, philosophy and language around the world. But then the Roman empire spread Roman gods, philosophy and language around the world, as did the Persian, Phoenician and every other Empire in history. This is already represented in game (albeit poorly) by captured cities slowly being converted to the conquerors culture. I would stick to Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Mithraism and Christianity for the religions. Maybe add the Cult of Isis or split Christianity into Catholicism and Arianism if four isn't enough.

 

[The Turk]

I'm a bit confused, what would the religion for Carthage and Phoencia be, since there is no good reprsentation of there religion of the worship of Baal, and I would have to disagree that religion was not important in the Classical age, in fact I would even say that it was very important due to the fact that for a long time the empires of mesopatamia and egypt were theocracies.

 

[The Turk]

"the low-polytheistic phase": Polytheism still exists, but is more of a cultural ritual and is somehow replaced with "philosophical" ideas.

I would have to disagree with you over this phase of philosophical ideas due to the fact that only Greece and to a later extent Rome were the only civilizations to have such a deep culture of philosophy while the vast majority of civilization was still VERY religious, so having this philosophical phase would have to only reprsent greece and maybe Rome

 

[mitsho]

good stuff Mitsho, I think your proposed solution is definitely good.

Let's just hope that Rhye thinks similarly ;-)

@Umarth fair point. The thing was just that Rhye had them in his original post and it really seems to be that the Greek and Roman (Hellenistic) style seemed to convert more than the Persian or Egyptian equivalents. We can easily drop it though ;-) I only thought it would be a neat way to represent the spread of Greek culture everywhere which it really did (in comparison to Persian one), the Roman then is just a variaton of the Greek culture...

Both works probably.

I really like the Cult of Isis idea (which btw was merged into Christianity and resulted in the "virgin mary"/madonna-cult that still exists).

@Turk What do you mean with "What are the religions for Phoenicia/Carthage?" The thing I proposed was more of a "cultural group" in opposition to the Hellenistic culture group. This can be reduced to a heliocentrism only for Egypt. You are right, the religions are important, but they work different than they do in the normal game. That's why I proposed the different model.

EDIT: As you see in my proposal (regarding second quote), the "low-polytheistic phase" is merged into the first ;-) And if you look at the map, most of the map was actually greek, roman or persian at that time. It's more of a design question than one of historicity, which we could continue discusing forever.

 

[The Turk]

I'm sorry but I'm still very confused on what this "philosophical" stage would entail? Could you please further explain on your idea

Oh, and I would not allow Zorastrianism to try to spread everywhere due to the fact that it was strongly confined to Persia and maybe a bit into Mesopatamia (ie. Babylon)

 

[ZachScape]

Please look at the Rapture thread. It really has some innovative work which we can feature as a well... new feature to the game, along with stability, spawns, dynamic names, and plagues. It took us a while to get used to plagues, but most of us like the feature, except jgbaxter. It has all the religions we are looking for!


Rapture:

Spoiler :

Hello and welcome to Rapture.

What is Rapture? It is a spiritual expansion to BtS. It is not just religions. Of course it is about religions, but it adds a whole new commerce just like espionage or research. It is spiritual commerce. Everything is based on whether or not you have the spiritual points. The entire mechanics of the game will be change on how religions are found.

First of all there is a split into what types of religions are planned so far. This is minus any future or modern religions at this point. There are 4 groups.

1.Families--These are basic culturally related religious beliefs. These are the names you see as Nordic for example. These are the first stages of religion, and are founded at the start of your civilization building its first city. Basic mythology

2.Cults--These require a family in order to be made. Similar to how religions are in the Gods of Old mod. Each are focused on one god from the family. These will require a building to built similar to Gods of Old. Like in the case of the Mythra cult in Rome.

3.Faiths--These are the standard religions as found in BtS. These are founded via a technology. These from the parent in a parent child relationship with the child being the denominations. For example Catholic being a parent and Protestant being a splinter off of Christianity.

4.Denominations--These are like the faiths but are founded by a prophet performing a religious schism. Schisms can occur in two ways: Via a prophet mission, and based on game years.

Spread and decay of the religions are based on spiritual commerce. In case of families the spiritual commerce determines the holy city.

Now to try to explain why the ideas versus normal BtS. The earlier aka pagan religions were not spread as present day religions are. Most older religions were simply related to particular group of people, and even could be argued for some of the present religions. I wanting a civilization to spread cults in these times. For example Rome did not convert to a Persian or Vedic religion just because they took in Mithra nor did they loose faith in their other gods because of this new cult.

If a religion was not commonly spread through missionaries converting people and it is a very old religion attached to a culture group then it is considered pagan in Rapture. If a religion is a secret group and/or focusing on one particular god while at the same time accepting other gods it is a Cult. I plan to give a list of all religions in development for Rapture. I hope for suggestions on improvement.

WoC Lite Rapture Download thread.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=321507

Some screenshots.

Mesopotamia:
-Generic
-Sumerian
-Assyrian
-Marduk

Hellenism:
-Generic
-Apollo
-Athena
-Zeus

Egyptian:
-Generic
-Horus
-Osiris
-Ra

Iranian:
-Zoroastrianism (Generic)
-Zurvanism
-Manichaeism
-Bahá'í Faith

Do you see? We can have both cultural unity per civ, and individual city state identity.

Spoiler :

These are four religions. One is a mythology of a region. Then there 3 to a specific god called cults. You only get the mythology by being a particular civ. The cults can be only founded by having a mythology. You can get a cult by another civ spreading it to your civ.

Olympian is not a proper name for various Mediterranean religions. This is not a Greek exclusive religion. Hellenism mythology goes beyond the borders Greece. It is not Olympian nor is it a religion that builds cathedrals, monasteries, and shrines. You cannot spread Hellenism in my mod.

What do you think?

 

[onedreamer]

I'm still not convinced 'Hellenism' should be in the latter category.

Well I didn't notice Hellenism in the list of "regular" religions. First I reiterate that Hellenism isn't a religion, second I agree that it should just be in the polytheism/henotheism category. Besides the Greek religion was heavily based on the middle eastern ones.

I'm a bit confused, what would the religion for Carthage and Phoencia be, since there is no good reprsentation of there religion of the worship of Baal.

Phoenicians didn't worship just one god. It would be polytheism... if I am not wrong both the phoenician and mesopotamian religions had three "major" gods and other minor ones.

The thing was just that Rhye had them in his original post and it really seems to be that the Greek and Roman (Hellenistic) style seemed to convert more than the Persian or Egyptian equivalents.

I'm not totally sure about this matter, but I doubt it's a matter of conversion, rather of conquest and colonization, fields in which Romans and Greeks were respectively more successful than Persians and Egyptians.


On further thoughts on your proposal, I have seen some technical problems concerning the use of Corporations. Obviously, these would need to be heavily modified. First off, the income in the corporate HQ would need to be scrapped, along with maintenance costs and probably even corporate agents. Not a big deal to modify these. The technical problems concern the creation and HQ of corporations. Let's suppose that Polytheistic cults (corporations) would be made available with an early tech such as Polytheism, or each cult would be made available with different early techs (stupid examples: Cult of Fertility with agriculture, Cult of the Sun with mysticism, etc), the problem is that there would be a founding Civ and a city with the Cult HQ, while, as far as I understood, we want each early polytheistic civ to be able to choose which cult (corporation) to install in its cities (I suppose on founding them).


About the "regular" religions, I think Zoroastrism and Judaism shouldn't have missionaries. All the 3 religions should have different effects. The cult of Mithras was more of a cult than a religion so I am unsure how it should work and even if it should be a religion rather than a corporation. I think religions should be called such in our game when a civ has made of one the "state religion".

 

[Úmarth]

I think religions should be called such in our game when a civ has made of one the "state religion".

I agree that's an important distinction. Even Christianity had all the trappings of a late antique "oriental cult" until it gained the support of the state. The problem is that in game terms that severely limits our options. Aside from Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity I'm pretty sure the only other cults/religions which gained the exclusive support of a state were situations where a particular despot would take a liking to one cult figure -- Aten, Elagabalus, etc. -- and they never lasted. I suppose maybe Sol Invictus is an exception.

 

[onedreamer]

True but I don't think that's a problem, IF we want religion to be realistic.
Consider that if Zoroastrism and Judaism aren't allowed missionaries, they will just be the religions for Israel and Persia while the other civs make use of the Cults. With the advent of Christianity, civs can convert to it and spread it where they want (only if they have it as state religion, IMO).
This is as close as we can get I think, the only problem is making corporations work as we want.

 

[The Turk]

Consider that if Zoroastrianism and Judaism aren't allowed missionaries, they will just be the religions for Israel and Persia while the other civs make use of the Cults.

Ya I have to agree with you on this one we wouldn't want Zoroastrianism spreading to Carthage for example, oh and by the way what is the time span for this game because I think it would be really cool if we could have Christianity spring up, but if it doesn't allow it then thats ok

 

[ZachScape]

So.... what do you guys think of my posts? You wouldn't even have to worry about that issue!
Jeesh!!!
(Amanda Show moment... sry)

 

[Úmarth]

Perhaps we could go the other way, let them have missionaries but don't let them spread "naturally", so Judaism and Zoroastrianism will only spread if the player/AI makes a conscious effort to do so. I think that's more realistic, Henotheistic religions weren't likely to be adopted by neighbours without any prompting and I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that there was a time when the Persian state actively tried to spread Zoroastrianism.

 

[The Turk]

I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that there was a time when the Persian state actively tried to spread Zoroastrianism.

The Persians trying to spread Zoroastrianism outside of Persia OR the Persians trying to spread Zoroastrianism within Persia, because you have to remember that the Persian Empire was very religiously tolerant with Cyrus II even making the first Human Rights declaration not to mention freeing all the Jews in Babylon to go back to Jerusalem.