Religious Combat Silliness

[Nixalo]

I kinda like it. But it comes too late for me.
Priests fighting via miracles and magic is Ancient era. Classical the latest. Okay.... Maybe Medieval

Ancient-Medieval : Power of Zeus/Thor/Set/Oya/Thunderbird
Renaissance - Modern: Old man yelling
Atomic Onward: Throw computers

 

[homan1983]

The are not fighting with magical forces, they are debating theologically and phylosophically, hence why the improved combat stat promotion for the apostle is called great debater. The animations are there to look good.

If you insist you can mod it so the have a trump-hillary style debate every time they combat

 

[Zaarin]

I think the gameplay mechanism (of strategizing your conflict location so you can influence surrounding cities) can be a fun, good addition to the game. However, I do not think religion was the right theme/topic/concept in the game to be using this mechanism.

I don't know what exactly could have used this mechanism, perhaps merchants engaging in "bidding wars" at trade posts or something for some form of economic victory (at least these units can upgrade with time in a way that makes sense, into corporations and such). But I do know after watching all these let's play videos that religion does not fit this mechanism.

I thought the "Plague Inc"-like mechanism of passively spreading your religion (with some help of missionaries) was both fun and appropriate in Civ5. I think the focus on active "combat" for religion was really unnecessary.

Ummmmm...in what context would theological combat make sense for anything but religion? Also this exact mechanic pretty well exemplifies how Christianity spread through Rome.

Age of Empires I and Age of Empires II didn't have its monks use lightning bolts to show doctrinal differences--they used sound (Wololo chanting) and monks waving arms to show that. I don't see why Civ can't do something similar to show religious conflicts Renaissance era onward. The Reformation, after all, did not rely on monks with magic lightning for its success. It relied on debate, vigorous argument, and military conflict (only because Catholics declared war on Protestants, but anyhow). Nor did the spread of Shinto Buddhism or Islam rely on magic lightning, so I see little purpose for it other than ancient age fun and/or laughter. Because these lightning wielding monks can't defend against military units at all. Ha!

Maybe it's just me, but AoE's "wolololo" chants were far sillier than Civ6's lightning. Also, as has been said a thousand times in this thread, the lightning is just a visual representation of theological debate--because debating isn't exactly a visually interesting animation. I'm sure that finger-wagging apostle would really feel satisfying when your missionary is damaged.

The are not fighting with magical forces, they are debating theologically and phylosophically, hence why the improved combat stat promotion for the apostle is called great debater. The animations are there to look good.

If you insist you can mod it so the have a trump-hillary style debate every time they combat

Precisely.

 

[sonicmyst]

just think of the lightning bolts as a serious weather disturbance and you will be fine. =D

 

[KrikkitTwo]

just think of the lightning bolts as a serious weather disturbance and you will be fine. =D

Exactly...they are showing who is most willing to serve their god by travelling great distances in adverse conditions (like the mail...neither rain, nor sleet, etc.)

 

[smartcanuck1988]

Ummmmm...in what context would theological combat make sense for anything but religion? Also this exact mechanic pretty well exemplifies how Christianity spread through Rome.

I thought my post was quite clear in distinguishing between the theme and the mechanic. A video game (and elements within the game) is the marriage of both. Great games are made when the mechanism fit the theme perfectly making for a fun (the job of the mechanism) and engaging (the job of the theme) experience.

Here, Theological Combat is the theme applied to this mechanic of resolving conflict between units to affect cities nearby. Unfortunately, like some marriages, this is not a good match and it raises some issues:

1. Real life missionaries/apostles focus on the citizens not other apostles, in majority of the time. Some debates have occurred but not at the scale implied in the game. Heck most debates occur within religion groups that cause separation rather than between different religions.

2. "Health" of an apostle makes no sense. Do apostles get weaker to debate after they engage in one? Do they get intellectually tired? What does their healing mean when they skip a turn? But the mechanism of fighting requires some skill and some health bar so we got to have that.

3. Yes, the lightning bolts. Since the mechanic requires some fight animation, all the theme can offer is this or old people yelling at each other. Silly, but I admit it's down at the bottom of my worry list. But as we can see from this thread and others like it, it's raising concerns with people when other elements of this video game haven't. Because almost all other elements in the game have married both the theme and the mechanism a lot better.

4. My biggest concern: Lack of unit upgrades. The theme cannot offer enough ideas to keep the mechanic fresh over the age of the game. So now we are stuck with a mechanic that will be repetitive throughout the game.

I understand all the good reasons why the mechanism of Theological combat was added. It definitely will give us plenty to do in peaceful times. But it is doing so in a silly way when it did not need to.

The devs could have kept religion the way it is in civ5 with the other improvements to the beliefs system. And introduced the mechanism of non-military units having conflicts with each other to give us something to do in peace, but dressed it up as something else. I suggested merchants doing bidding wars, the OP suggested spies in secret missions. There are plenty of themes that you could have applied to this and kept the game fun and engaging at all fronts.

 

[Aldor]

I don't mind the fighting with lightning and thunder so much, but what I DO mind are the apostle/missionary swarms that I've already seen. Take Marbozir's Kongo game for example. In a later episode (15 or so?) his city gets completey surrounded by apostles. I hated missionary spam in Civ5 (and those great prophets! argh!). And it looks like it may be as bad here, or even worse.

At least it looks like the counters (your own missionaries/apostles/inquisitors) won't be as expensive, so it may be easier to produce more of them.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't mind the fighting with lightning and thunder so much, but what I DO mind are the apostle/missionary swarms that I've already seen. Take Marbozir's Kongo game for example. In a later episode (15 or so?) his city gets completey surrounded by apostles. I hated missionary spam in Civ5 (and those great prophets! argh!). And it looks like it may be as bad here, or even worse.

It looks like some faith generation bug (normal faith production shouldn't allow anything close to it even with AI bonuses), so it's likely to be fixed by release.

 

[RaidandTrade]

Something about the religious combat has me thinking "The force is strong with this one" whenever I see it.

Modding potential here new animations?

 

[qadams]

I haven't played the game yet, of course, but I get the feeling I may not mind religion as much in Civ 6 as I did in Civ 5. It seems that religion may now operate less as a representation of belief in the supernatural, and more as an alternate means of wielding power and influence — which is very much the way it works in the real world.

 

[Jarru]

Moreover faith as countable units, which you can gather and spend, feels out of place, both in civ 5 and 6.

 

[Uberfrog]

Maybe it's just me, but AoE's "wolololo" chants were far sillier than Civ6's lightning.

I think they should introduce "wololo" just to irritate the most people possible

 

[AinEiken]

Age of Empires I and Age of Empires II didn't have its monks use lightning bolts to show doctrinal differences--they used sound (Wololo chanting) and monks waving arms to show that. I don't see why Civ can't do something similar to show religious conflicts Renaissance era onward. The Reformation, after all, did not rely on monks with magic lightning for its success. It relied on debate, vigorous argument, and military conflict (only because Catholics declared war on Protestants, but anyhow). Nor did the spread of Shinto Buddhism or Islam rely on magic lightning, so I see little purpose for it other than ancient age fun and/or laughter. Because these lightning wielding monks can't defend against military units at all. Ha!

AoE I & II are like ... 20 years old.

Our new era of computer technology allows for some lightning bolts, clouds and (I'd like a fireball - but that's only me).

And seriously: the monk's "chanting" was ... really annoying. Like: really annoying. When you heard it, your stress level was rising.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

The are not fighting with magical forces, they are debating theologically and phylosophically,

No, they're fighting with magical forces. If they were debating theology they'd be nailing theses to each other and/or setting each other on fire.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

I am legitimately surprised that there are so many people who either are unable to understand the concept of visual metaphor or simply refuse to acknowledge it.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I thought my post was quite clear in distinguishing between the theme and the mechanic. A video game (and elements within the game) is the marriage of both. Great games are made when the mechanism fit the theme perfectly making for a fun (the job of the mechanism) and engaging (the job of the theme) experience.

Here, Theological Combat is the theme applied to this mechanic of resolving conflict between units to affect cities nearby. Unfortunately, like some marriages, this is not a good match and it raises some issues:

1. Real life missionaries/apostles focus on the citizens not other apostles, in majority of the time. Some debates have occurred but not at the scale implied in the game. Heck most debates occur within religion groups that cause separation rather than between different religions.

2. "Health" of an apostle makes no sense. Do apostles get weaker to debate after they engage in one? Do they get intellectually tired? What does their healing mean when they skip a turn? But the mechanism of fighting requires some skill and some health bar so we got to have that.

3. Yes, the lightning bolts. Since the mechanic requires some fight animation, all the theme can offer is this or old people yelling at each other. Silly, but I admit it's down at the bottom of my worry list. But as we can see from this thread and others like it, it's raising concerns with people when other elements of this video game haven't. Because almost all other elements in the game have married both the theme and the mechanism a lot better.

4. My biggest concern: Lack of unit upgrades. The theme cannot offer enough ideas to keep the mechanic fresh over the age of the game. So now we are stuck with a mechanic that will be repetitive throughout the game.

I understand all the good reasons why the mechanism of Theological combat was added. It definitely will give us plenty to do in peaceful times. But it is doing so in a silly way when it did not need to.

The devs could have kept religion the way it is in civ5 with the other improvements to the beliefs system. And introduced the mechanism of non-military units having conflicts with each other to give us something to do in peace, but dressed it up as something else. I suggested merchants doing bidding wars, the OP suggested spies in secret missions. There are plenty of themes that you could have applied to this and kept the game fun and engaging at all fronts.

1-3 are issues of abstraction/representation

4 is definitely a concern, partially for the swarms, and partially for just generally getting boring.
That however is fixable with expansion

ie add units
Televangelist "religious air unit"...must be based in city with broadcast tower...can do combat and has "charges" that missionize all cities in range

Covert missionary...invisible(doesnt block othervunits just gets pushed off its tile, and can pass through enemy units...unless detected by.)

Secular "Inquisitor"...requres Ideology/8 slot government (can see + attack covert missionaries...provdes "air" cover, reduces dominant religion in a city)

Religious police (upgraded Inquisitor, Theocracy only)..also sees covert missionaries

And of course making spies and trade routes useful.
And some upgrade to Apostles as well (for a strong basic 'land unit')...

 

[smartcanuck1988]

1-3 are issues of abstraction/representation

To me I think abstraction/representation is also an important aspect to enjoy a game and I don't quite dismiss it as non-issue. Yes there are many representation problems in the game as it will not be a 1:1 copy of real-life, but this particular aspect of the game is just clunky in my opinion.

I like some of your suggestions for covert missionaries, but the rest still seem too much of a stretch to try to account for all these mechanics. I don't know what a secular inquisitor is. I don't understand how a televangelist is an "air" unit. Religious Police have nothing to do with the spread or maintenance of a religion as to keep hold on to power in the name of religion.

This is where I am having the bigger issue. All these mechanics of apostles fighting each other are there because we now have Religious Victory. So the actual spreading of religion needs a much more active mechanism compared to Civ5. But to me religion doesn't fit with this idea. Real-life religion was/is very useful to do other things. Religion is useful to setup alliances, claim enemies, and wage wars. Religion is useful to make people pay more tax. Religion is useful to convince people to undertake a big project (think "Tower of Babel"). On its own though, for a civilization, religion is useless. Secular governments can function just fine even when the entire population is extremely religious. That's why to me seeing all these apostles fighting each other is just silly.

Someone mentioned that the frequency of these apostles was a bug. I really hope this is the case. One or two debates are fine. But the frequency I have seen in all these let's play videos is waaaaaay over the top.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Age of Empires I and Age of Empires II didn't have its monks use lightning bolts to show doctrinal differences--they used sound (Wololo chanting) and monks waving arms to show that. I don't see why Civ can't do something similar to show religious conflicts Renaissance era onward. The Reformation, after all, did not rely on monks with magic lightning for its success. It relied on debate, vigorous argument, and military conflict (only because Catholics declared war on Protestants, but anyhow). Nor did the spread of Shinto Buddhism or Islam rely on magic lightning, so I see little purpose for it other than ancient age fun and/or laughter. Because these lightning wielding monks can't defend against military units at all. Ha!

Age of Empires is a real-time. Civ is turn-based. The Monks can afford going Wololo because they repeat their chant (same with other units, like knights with their swords), since those sounds are repeated, your ear will pick up on t hat, and they are repeated SEVERAL times within 10 or so seconds.

In Civ, it's turn-based, and the sound would only be used once, chances are, it would take you an incredibly hard time to notice it. I'm sure very few people can recite the sounds unit make in Civ games at all.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I agree the abtraction is important in the game, but that is also a matter of taste for type/level and it is hard to discuss.

I agree Religious victory itself is a problem
(Although the disconnect between religious population and secular government is reflected nicely in that theological combat happens even when at peace)

I would make religious victory a "diploreligious victory"
Part1 is convert all other civs
Part2 is get the vote (in manner similar to civV..cs suzerain...+for "religious accomplishments" ie founding, etc)

Then have a similar version for later a "DiploIdeology victory"...where Part1 is get everyone to your government

Basically each religion can have 1"Religious Congress" Wonder, and a secular one opens later in the game (all are potentially active, but they aren't all important)

 

[Jaybe]

Regarding missionary/apostle unit spam, there should be a limit or some inhibitors to how many a civ has at any time (e.g., 1 per city or 4-5 total, or substantial cost increase based on how many the civ currently has).