Religon in Civ3? (NOT A ANTI RELIGON THREAD!)

[Ozymandius]

Find out how many foreign churches there are in Saudi Arabia.

The characteristic of a religious society is one that does not believe in change or in questioning the one in control.

Galileo had to recant his belief.

The Hindus believe in acceptance of one's fate today for a better existence in the next life. Don't rock the boat
The Muslim religion(s) are frozen in the middle ages. After being the most scientific and advanced society at its height, it never entered the modern era and does not tolerate dissent.
The Catholic Church is still hung up over the question of equality of both ( or more) sexes. It is too paternalistic and refuses to change to the modern era even though it regrets the Galileo period.
The one sure way to get on a hitlist is to say that one is then better than another.. they are just different.. Only God knows

:

 

[Caranamrta]

In certain civilizations, some unique beliefs appeared, which try to expand themselves. Christianity, for example. Only these religions had so great impact on history. Maybe the possibility of a convertive religion's appearence should be only in the civs which have the religious ability. The religions should appear randomly, and maybe have schisms, where new religions could born. (And all the abilities, include religious, have to change in the different civs. Thus all civ can make his unique convertive religion.)
These convertive religions expand themselves; easier, when there aren't borders in their way, a little difficultier, when they must cross a border, and very difficult, when there are an other convertive religions (for example, Islam could expand easily in Iran, when there was only the with-Iran-born, non-convertive Zoroastrianism, but didn't expand so easily in the today's Spain, while there was Christianity). The "original" religions expand only within the borders of their birthstates, but there they could push out the there-born convertive religion (as the non-convertive, original Indian Hinduism pushed out the Buddhism from India).
These religions can live together in a state, when they aren't hostile to each other. In a city in civ3: one head Hinduism, one head Christianity, two head Muslim etc. The hostility towards each other is determinated on the states' agression.
Maybe there would be a technology, named Official Religion. With this technology, you could edit a new original or convertive religion for your civilization.

 

[bobgote]

Someone mentioned SMAC earlier, could someone please explain what they did in religion there?

I think at the start of your civilization, you should choose what traits your religion has, and that these cannot be changed. For example patriotism (affects ease of conquer), zealotry (affects war units in some manner, maybe conscription) etc etc. You have a certain number of total points that you can put into these categories, which gives your individual religion it's strengths and weaknesses.

Hope this isn't too hard to follow.

If you end up having christian, islam etc specific religions, you can only have one for each civ, otherwise things will get confused. It should be an inherent part of your nationality.

Oh, and how about a footballism religion?? We have one in Australia and with the World Cup on, I think it's extremely relevant. It is todays religion for sure!

 

[etj4Eagle]

Originally posted by bobgote
Someone mentioned SMAC earlier, could someone please explain what they did in religion there?

They did not do religion persay in SMAC. However, they had a social engineering screen where you set the traits of your society. I think there were around five different categories with five different traits each. So you had categories for the economy, philosophy and like. I forget now exactly what they were, but in essennc you got to tweak what your factions society was like.

 

[bobgote]

Originally posted by etj4Eagle


They did not do religion persay in SMAC. However, they had a social engineering screen where you set the traits of your society. I think there were around five different categories with five different traits each. So you had categories for the economy, philosophy and like. I forget now exactly what they were, but in essennc you got to tweak what your factions society was like.

That sounds like a good system. Just a few tweaks for CIV3 methinks

 

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Quiet Sound
Christianity hasn't always been peaceful ya know. Being Catholic you should be especially aware of that.

To speak more precisely, Christianity has always been a-military. That is neither pro military or anti military. Christianity as a religion does not grow via military conquest. Of course, there have been many military wars in the name of Christianity, but these were promoted by a political organization that was guided more by its internal agenda than Christian principles. For example during the Crusades, this was only the Roman Catholic slice of Christians. The Orthodox Catholics did not get involved.

In civ3 religion is mostly ignored and just treated as an entertainment thing and not as a moral movement. With cathedrals there is no default corruption reduction or increase in productivity, both of which were seen in history. If other religion's identifiable subgroups are as vocal with their dissents as Christian siblings are, then adding religions to the civ mix would not seem to add to much to game play.

Ideas that do seem to make some sense in bringing religion into civ game are:
1- "cathedrals" are representative of a moral culture and reduce corruption
2- Cathedrals could be a double edged sword:
decrease WW in wars where you are attacked but increase WW where you are the attacker
3- Cathedrals in city plus cathedrals in your three closest cities increase productivity by one,
4- Cathedrals should generate more happiness than colosseums. {Colosseums increase happiness or sadness for 1 day, cathedrals increase happiness for years}, and
5- beyond temples->cathedrals, there should be a small wonder for each civ, something parallel to "heroic epic", like "mountain top religious anthem". Whereas the heroic epic increases the odds of a GL appearing, the religious anthem would decrease the odds of city flipping slightly and reduce empire corruption by 1/city.

 

[Homie]

Originally posted by danielhart
Hey, I'm new here too.. just found it odd that you lumped the Muslims and the Satanists together, and the stats you had for Islam mainly focused on war. That doesn't seem right... Aside from the things happening now, Islam has been a pretty peaceful and tolerant religion.

Again, yet another mislead person on the history of Islam and Arabs. They have always been war-like. The religion started by Muhammed in todays Saudi, and then it spread BY MILITARY CONQUEST across the Middle-East, Turkey, ALL of NORTH-AFRIKA and Indonesia(do not know if that country was by conquest).

And were to you get 'tolerant' from, this is quite the opposite of the thruth for most islamic cultures, today and in the past. Do not get me wrong, I do not mean that that is necessarily bad, in many western and christian countries today there is too much toleranse. We cannot tolerate everything IMO.

BTW, I am christian and thus not anti-religious, I agree that we should have religions in Civ3. But they should be fictional, like Quiet Sound said, I think he explains well why it should be so.

 

[Homie]

Originally posted by curufinwe
Just something very interesting I read, Judaism and all of the religions spawning from it, was in origin a fertility cult that held very sacred a mushroom that looked like a penis. Weird but true.

Where did you get this? Please tell us your sources when making such a questionable claim, because I have never heard of the jews holding a mushroom sacred?

 

[planetfall]

Curufinwe-- what planet do you inhabit? Mars? Location is null. Is logic also null? Asserting something as true with the only evidence is your own statement "weird but true" is totally unconvincing. It would make a good "live at 7 news report" as they tend to have only entertainment values for selecting "news events", but is not scientific.

Have you ever read/heard anything about Judaism? Doubt it or you would have known one of their biggest enemies were fertility cults. If nothing else go rent "Ten Commandments" to get some minimal idea of Judaism.

To imply Judaism and Judo-Christianity belief systems are nothing more than fertility cults is either wishful thinking or gross ignorance.

 

[God]

Originally posted by Homie


Again, yet another mislead person on the history of Islam and Arabs. They have always been war-like. The religion started by Muhammed in todays Saudi, and then it spread BY MILITARY CONQUEST across the Middle-East, Turkey, ALL of NORTH-AFRIKA and Indonesia(do not know if that country was by conquest).

And were to you get 'tolerant' from, this is quite the opposite of the thruth for most islamic cultures, today and in the past. Do not get me wrong, I do not mean that that is necessarily bad, in many western and christian countries today there is too much toleranse. We cannot tolerate everything IMO.

BTW, I am christian and thus not anti-religious, I agree that we should have religions in Civ3. But they should be fictional, like Quiet Sound said, I think he explains well why it should be so.

I don't see what Christians did was any better. They conquered and forced people to become Christians like in North America. And I gave examples like Spain and India. I guess they don't "count".

And in the Dark Ages some of the Christians kings weren't all that great. They forced the pagans to convert too. And then Catholics and Protestants fought. The Thirty Year War was a massacre as the Hapsburgs crushed the German states early on in the war.

The Mongols, for example converted to Islam on their own choice. The Khanate of the Golden Horde is one of them. I don't think the Arabs forced them, now did they? Same with the Turks. They also became Muslims on their own choice.

And I ask again, why isn't India a Muslim state? The Muslims have ruled there for about 1000 years.

The Ottomans allowed alot of the different relgion groups to live under them equally. Infact they employed a special service made to protect Jews from radical Muslims.

 

[Ozymandius]

Food for thought:

At Easter time we have the symbols of eggs=fertility and rabbits= fertility
Easter comes from "Ishtar" the ancient goddess of fertility
We celebrate Easter in the spring to celebrate the beginning of the planting season

There is some truth that Judaeo-Christian beliefs have adapted former pagan festivals for their own use.

Christmas, the birth of the son resembles the pagan festivals of the rebirth of the son after Dec 21-22 the Winter solstice

 

[TETurkhan]

I believe all religions preach peace, it is man that distorts this message and uses religion for his own purposes. You cannot take the actions of men with their hidden agendas and imply a religion is so because of the man who follows it.

So much in our history has been done in the name of God, but religion or god had nothing to do with it. Look at all the Catholic priests today, all those abuse cases, did they act in the name of God? I think not, thus the religion should not be blamed for an individuals’ actions.

That comment about Islam expanding and being adopted as a faith only because through warfare is wrong. The Mongols and Turks beat the Arabs and converted out of their own free will, they were not beaten into submission.

I think religion would be a great new dimension to the game.

 

[Ozymandius]

If there was a way to use religious ethics or characteristics as opposed to business, expansion militaristic etc. ..how would they be different?
Do they multiply faster because they can't use birth control, or practice fertility rights, do the enemy take greater losses because they get sacrificed as the Aztecs were want to do...does science progress faster or slower, do they build slower because they keep the sabbath holy and "waste" a day?

There are too many religious variations that might counter other characteristics of their 'race'

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by teturkhan
. . .That comment about Islam expanding and being adopted as a faith only because through warfare is wrong. The Mongols and Turks beat the Arabs and converted out of their own free will, they were not beaten into submission. . .

Since when did the Mongols become Muslims??

 

[andrewgprv]

Well Actually there are many studies that suggest early jews did do a whole lot of shrooms. Shrooms actually are belived to be the sacred mana (was that what it was called?) (the stuff that fell from the heavens to feed the israelites in the desert) anyhoo many studies suggest that mana very well describes shrooms. Also this would hint toward circumsion making the penis look more like a mushroom.

Also I think the games current religon system is good.

 

[God]

Originally posted by Zouave


Since when did the Mongols become Muslims??

The khanate of the Golden Horde converted to Islam. I'm not sure, but I assume that Chigtai (sp??) khanate also became Muslim. The Golden Horde didn't force the Russians to convert.

They did as their own choice (who could tell them what to do?)

 

[etj4Eagle]

Originally posted by Ozymandius
Food for thought:

At Easter time we have the symbols of eggs=fertility and rabbits= fertility
Easter comes from "Ishtar" the ancient goddess of fertility
We celebrate Easter in the spring to celebrate the beginning of the planting season

There is some truth that Judaeo-Christian beliefs have adapted former pagan festivals for their own use.

Christmas, the birth of the son resembles the pagan festivals of the rebirth of the son after Dec 21-22 the Winter solstice

Yep the Christian church made smart move to eliminate the problem of pagan festivals like the winter solstice by incorporating them. They found some religous celebration that they could stick on a day close by and then appropriated various aspects of the pagan holiday (like the christmas tree). Much easier than trying to tell your newly "converted" subjects to stop their traditional festivals.

And to andrewgprv on the shrooms. Actually I believe the general concensus is that the manna was bug droppings. Its been a while since I took my religion writing seminar in college. But there is an insect native to that area which leaves a white residue very similar to the description of manna, and also which would be laid a new every morning. Of course likely the manna was multiple different items and there time on the manna was much shorter.

 

[TETurkhan]

lots of Mongols converted to Islam, especially the western empires - the Golden Horde and the empire under Helugu.

 

[danielhart]

Originally posted by Homie


Again, yet another mislead person on the history of Islam and Arabs. They have always been war-like. The religion started by Muhammed in todays Saudi, and then it spread BY MILITARY CONQUEST across the Middle-East, Turkey, ALL of NORTH-AFRIKA and Indonesia(do not know if that country was by conquest).

And were to you get 'tolerant' from, this is quite the opposite of the thruth for most islamic cultures, today and in the past. Do not get me wrong, I do not mean that that is necessarily bad, in many western and christian countries today there is too much toleranse. We cannot tolerate everything IMO.

BTW, I am christian and thus not anti-religious, I agree that we should have religions in Civ3. But they should be fictional, like Quiet Sound said, I think he explains well why it should be so.

Ok, that is totally wrong. First of all, Islam is VERY tolerant. As an example, I'll use the Jews in Spain. While the Muslims ruled Spain, Jews and Christians were allowed to practice both their religions freely, and recieved money from the state to repair their churches and synagogues. The Jews and Christians were treated excellently. When the Christians won control of Spain again, one of the first things they did was to start the Spanish Inquisition, torturing and killing Jews and Muslims left and right.
If you'd actually done any research prior to posting, you'd see that most of the areas you've mentioned were converted prior to being integrated into the Islamic state. As in Spain, anyone could practice their religion freely, but could not build new places of worship; they had to repair the old ones.
I am not ignorant of Islamic history. I know quite a bit about it, actually, and I'd love to talk about it with you some time; your view of it seems quite distorted.

 

[Homie]

Originally posted by danielhart


Ok, that is totally wrong. First of all, Islam is VERY tolerant. As an example, I'll use the Jews in Spain. While the Muslims ruled Spain, Jews and Christians were allowed to practice both their religions freely, and recieved money from the state to repair their churches and synagogues. The Jews and Christians were treated excellently. When the Christians won control of Spain again, one of the first things they did was to start the Spanish Inquisition, torturing and killing Jews and Muslims left and right.
If you'd actually done any research prior to posting, you'd see that most of the areas you've mentioned were converted prior to being integrated into the Islamic state. As in Spain, anyone could practice their religion freely, but could not build new places of worship; they had to repair the old ones.
I am not ignorant of Islamic history. I know quite a bit about it, actually, and I'd love to talk about it with you some time; your view of it seems quite distorted.

The toleranse in Spain that you speak of, seems to be the exception. Didn't the muslims capture the holy city of Jerusalem. And they prohibited christians from pilgrimming to it, and this is what set off the crusades.

Since you are not ignorant of Islamic history, you must have heard about muslims soldiers killing, raping and plundering christian nons IN THE CHURCHES in Etiopia.(This is not an exaggeration, it is fact.) However, these incredibly dispicable acts were probably the exception, even the leader of that army did not like the way it's soldiers acted.