raystuttgart
Civ4Col Modder
Spoiler :
One of my oldest concepts for a feature to be implemented in RaR was "Religions".
It actually also o major reason to name the old mod "Religion and Revolution".
Recently some team members asked me if I cound post the concept and explain it, so here we go.
(Also sorry for posting so many new feature concepts recently and thus scaring some community members.

The concept I post now by the way is only "the light weight" version of my last concept.
So don't worry it is not extremely game changing.
The "heavy weight version" I had designed for my "Sci-Fi total conversion spin off of RaR" ("Path To the Throne" - which was "Dune Inspired" but never even close to being finished and thus abandoned)
would cause too much disagreement and would probably not be accepted anyways.
Disclaimer:
- This feature concept is not about religion A is better than religion B. They will just be balanced a bit different.
- This feature concept will also not have Religious Wars or anyhting as controverse as that.
- This feature might not represent "Native Religions / Believes" appropriately because it simply does not add to the game play. Still we do not intend to be disrespectful to "Native Religions / Believes" at all.
- This feature might also not represent all believes from the Old World that were brought to the new World like e.g. Judaism. Still we do not intend to be disrespectful to those believes either.
In a game however you sometimes need to be allowed to do some abstraction to keep this simple.
Feature Concept:
General:
This concept will change the game play of course but really only a little bit and mainly add immersion, flavour and some small events.
It would add a tiny bit more "managing aspect" (by adding a new game mechanic) and would feel a little bit more like Civ4 BTS.
A) Adding more / actual Religions that are "authentic" to the theme of Colonization
The basis of this feature is, that every European Nation (Colony and King) will have one specific Core Religion - ideally authentic to the time period and the Nation. (e.g. Anglican, Lutheranian, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox ...)
- I have not yet done enough research to know exactly which religion would fit best to which European Nation.
- Generally it does not really matter for the game concept if a few European Nations share the same Religion (e.g. Catholic being more common than Orthodox)
- Native Nations will just all have "Native Believes" as Religions
B) "Core Religion" advantages and disadvantages and effects of other features to it
- It will generally be similar to Traits currently (but configured in a new XML) and will give Nation Wide modifiers (e.g. on Immigration, modifiers for different % of believes immigrating, Diplomacy Relations to "Archbishop", modifiers on Yields, ...)
- Thus every Colonial Nation will get a bit more unique.
- Those advantages and disadvantes might get modified by other features like Civics (e.g "Free Religions" or "State Religion") or Techs (e.g. like "Printing Paper").
- The Core Religion of the Nation can not be changed (e.g. by something comparable to "Declaration of Independence" or whatever)
- Not all Colonists acquired for your Nation will however have that Core Religion. Some might have one of the other Religions.
- For Immigrants the chances will be configurable in the XML for Nations. (CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml)
- For Growth the chances will depend on the current distribution of Religions in your City.
- For Captured Colonists they will simply inherit their religion.
- For Converted Natives it will be the Core Religion.
- For African Slaves / Native Slaves it will be "Native Believes"
- All other Units that can not work in a town do not need any Religion and will not display it.
- Well, this is what this feature is about. Religion rates need to do something.
- To simplify it, you should always try to have most of your population have your Core Religion.
- Having a high rate of your Core Religion will make your "Archbishop" and your population happy and trigger positive events and game effects.
- Having a low rate of your Core Religion will make your "Archbishop" and your poulation unhappy and trigger negative events and game effects.
- Nothing of that will be game breaking or overpowered though.
On National Core Religion Rate:
- Archbishop offering Missionaries cheaper / more expensive
- Archbishop sending another Archbishop / event not being triggered anymore
- Achbishop asking for Gold less often / more often
- Conquistadores joining your cause
- Influences on Immigration Rate for Specific Religions (depending on XML settings for Religions)
- Affecting Attitude of other European Nations that have a similar or the same or a completely different Religion
- ...
- Python Events like "Heretics", "Wiches", "Religious Celebrations", ...
- Colonists from your Core Religion from other Nations joining your City.
- Colonists from "not Core Religion" leaving you for another Nation's City.
- ...
- Producing lots of Crosses in the City (just like increasing "Revolutionary Rate" by Bells)
- Lots of Immigrants with other Religion will impact your religious stability negatively
- Lots of Native Slave and African Slaves will impact your religious stability negatively
- Conquering lots of Cities from AIs with other Religions will impact your religious stability negatively
- Producing Crosses (and thus Converting) will improve religious stability again.
- More events and a few effects (positive if religious stability is high, negative if religious stability is low)
Spoiler :
List of things that this concept does not use from "heavy weight concept" for "Path to the Throne"
- No separate Yields for each Religion (You only produce Crosses for your own Core Religion)
- No different Religious Parents (We will still have only the "general" Archbishop.)
- Converting Religions in both direction (You only convert for your Core Religion)
- Religons to be founded
- Religious Wonders to be build
- No way of sending Missionaries to European Cities (but of course you still do that for Native Villages)
- No changing of Core Religion (by a big event like a "Religious War")
- No Religious Wars between European Nations
- ...
It would also make this concept way too complicated.
Technical Considerations:
A) Graphics:
- We should already almost all of the graphics we need.
- Maybe a few buttons for Colopedia for "Religions" would still need to be created.
- New Category in "Colopedia" for listing the Religions.
- Visualization of "Core Religon Rate" on Map Screen and in City Screen
- Realtively simple adjustment for Mouse Over / Selection Texts for Colonists (e.g. Map Screen, City Screen and Europe Screen).
- This is quite some effort to implement and considering balancing. (But other suggested concepts are way more.)
- Some parts of the implementation could however eventually be adapted from Civ4 BTS.
- Well yes, this could introduce bugs of course if implementation is messed up.
- But it is generally quite well isolated to other game mechanics and should not have too many side effects.
- Only very little problems for AI to be excpected.
- It should however produce more crosses than now.
- But to be sure, negative effects / events could be deactivated for AI.
- The calculations are mainly on City Level and on Nation Level. Thus the impact should not be that much.
- Very highly configurable in XML.
- But it cannot simply be made completely deactivateable by XML without considerable effort.
Let us see what community and team think.

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