Religous Unique Units

[Impaler[WrG]]

I'm wondering as to the ability to create a "Fundamentalist" Promotion that would alow a unit to recive a combat bonus against units that are of another religion.

It might require a new Unit type for each Religion, the promotion would then give +X% power -X% vs units of the same Religion type so it will not have to hard code in any religions and will be more flexible.

Dose this sound possible?

 

[Fachy]

Assets\XML\Buildings\CIV4BuildingInfos.xml

<HolyCity>NONE</HolyCity>
<ReligionType>NONE</ReligionType>
<StateReligion>NONE</StateReligion>
<PrereqReligion>NONE</PrereqReligion>

I didn't see any with a StateReligion prereq used, but the shrine required HolyCity, and the standard religious buildings required ReligionType.

Looks like the same setup with units as well.
Assets\XML\Units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml (from the missionary section)

<HolyCity>NONE</HolyCity>
<ReligionType>NONE</ReligionType>
<StateReligion>NONE</StateReligion>
<PrereqReligion>RELIGION_JUDAISM</PrereqReligion>
<PrereqBuilding>BUILDING_JEWISH_MONASTERY</PrereqBuilding>
<PrereqTech>NONE</PrereqTech>

Again the problem is, any state can switch to a given religion (as long as it has it in one of its cities), build the special buildings, then go on to switch to another religion to build its buildings! We need to extend the period of no-state-reilgion switching from 5 turns to 200 to prevent that from occuring. But I dunno how!

The lines you're using prevent you from building a certain improvement unless your state religion matches with it (example: can't build Islamic temples without Islam being state religion), but once build, you can switch to Judiasm and still have the Islamic temple's benefits

Why not add a new building in where you train the UU, that building would require that its religon is the state religon (perhapse in free religon only one of those for every religon) it would also require let say in your own empire: 6 tempels, 2 cathedrals, and 6 or 7 monastries, and, (I am not realy sure about this point yet) the shirne of the religon must have been build(anywhere), after all those things are build you can build 2 buildings and 2 more for each 6 tempels, 2 cathedrals, and 6 or 7 monastries, not 1 more for 3 tempels, 1cathedrals, and 3 or 3.5 monastries. The problem with this are the early religons Hinduisme, Buhdisme and Jewidisme, because these are founded much before music, so or change something for those religons or make their UU's strong enough to be usefull after music.

This was just an idea, if you don't like it let me know i while try to change it.

Anjf two problems with your idea: first is the same with Mike C's. And secondly we'd be making life difficult for small civs who have a small # of cities. Most importantly, you can be a jewish state, build 6 jewish temples, then switch to islam, build 6 islamic temples... etc

Has that been your experience? I find the spread rate drops sharply after the first religion hits a city, so if you aren't mass producing missionaries, getting every religion in every city can be a real challenge.

I mean, you could theoretically build new, empty cities next to target religions that the AI created (Unless you're proposing to discover all 7 yourself?) in the hopes that it will spread into your civ, but otherwise you're at the mercy of the AI's missionaries for collecting all the religions.

Not really.. once any religion hits any of your cities you can build its monstery there, produce tons of that religion's missionaries, and send them to YOUR cities to be able to build their temples and reap their benefits

 

[Merum]

If you tie it to having built a given religion's holy shrine, then "religion-hopping" would not be a possiblity. It would also force you to get/spend a great prophet to enable the unit.

Well, this would encourage the player to become a "religious front-runner." What I mean by this is that the player would convert to whatever religion would give him the military advantage for that time...

For example, let's say Islam recieves a unique unit for modern times... During the "middle ages" portion of the game the player would be Christian, and by the time that the Islamic UU became available, the player would convert to Islam. If each religion had their own UU then its quite possible that a player will have had every single religion as their state religion in one point of the game.

 

[Fachy]

You're right Merum, but UUs should be available to anyone with that religion as a STATE religion, not only the founder. For example, Mojahid (Islamic fighter) exists now in Iraq and in Palestine, though Islam was founded in Saudi Arabia.

Anyway do you know how to edit holy city settings so as to make it produce units?

I'd like anyone interested in this thread to check my ideas and I welcome any feedback!
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=147778

 

[heroes182]

I think this is a great mod idea, if we can only find a way of making players stick to a religion...

Here's a thought;
Presumably, those "religious warriors" are so devout to their respective faiths that they wouldn't just stand idly by while you decide to abandon that faith, sooooo... how about the UUs either gift themselves to a worthier civ (ie, one with that state religion, and in the case of a tie, the one with the holy city), or become barbarians when you switch?
Furthermore, civ-wide religious conversion should be more difficult than just "one turn of anarchy"; There's idols to smash, temples to deface, and people to persecute! to reflect this, maybe 50% of the previous religion's buildings should be smashed, and/or cities could experience an unhappiness factor directly related to the percentage of citizens of the scorned religion.

An idea I've been contempleting for a while, but which might benefit this mod, is that of letting your civ decide what your state religion is. This would mean that the player has no direct control over state religion. Instead, whatever religion is most represented in your civ determines what you are.
This means that if you do want to switch religions, you'd have to take a much more involved approach, and churn out the missionaries to convert large portions of your population to your way of thinking. Once enough of them agree, they'll automatically switch!

 

[Seven05]

An idea I've been contempleting for a while, but which might benefit this mod, is that of letting your civ decide what your state religion is. This would mean that the player has no direct control over state religion. Instead, whatever religion is most represented in your civ determines what you are.
This means that if you do want to switch religions, you'd have to take a much more involved approach, and churn out the missionaries to convert large portions of your population to your way of thinking. Once enough of them agree, they'll automatically switch!

I think that exists already, or is in the works. Check the completed mods forum

 

[Merum]

I had posted this idea a little bit before reading and responding to this thread... I wonder if some of the ideas from there would be useful here?

It's at: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=148138

 

[anjf]

Anjf two problems with your idea: first is the same with Mike C's. And secondly we'd be making life difficult for small civs who have a small # of cities. Most importantly, you can be a jewish state, build 6 jewish temples, then switch to islam, build 6 islamic temples... etc

You are right about this but I think that for instance make this UU only availble at thercarcy would stop this effect a bit first for ristricting the use of the uu and second for preventing other religons, and I always make all my cities have as much as possible religons, so i think that its almost impossible to prevent a civ to get the UU they want, and I have noticed that the AI not very often has cities with 2 or more religons and that they don't spread religons actieve.

For the small civ problem I use to play on big maps, and there civ or almost always bigger then 6 cities, except small lonely island, but they usely don't have a religon until far in the game. For smaller maps just change the number to 5, 4 or even 3

 

[MikeC]

Again the problem is, any state can switch to a given religion (as long as it has it in one of its cities), build the special buildings, then go on to switch to another religion to build its buildings! We need to extend the period of no-state-reilgion switching from 5 turns to 200 to prevent that from occuring. But I dunno how!

The lines you're using prevent you from building a certain improvement unless your state religion matches with it (example: can't build Islamic temples without Islam being state religion), but once build, you can switch to Judiasm and still have the Islamic temple's benefits

True, you can indeed swap State Religions, build the specials, then switch again; it's only a part of a possible solution.

I think what you're looking at is anarchy - I think the game lumps Civic & Religion changes together. If you change Civics, going into anarchy, then try to change your State Religion, you get the message that you can't change while in anarchy.

Instead of extending anarchy for changing State Religions, how about looking at it differently? What if you increased the negative aspect to flipping religions? People like stability - so if you switch, increase unhappiness. Other civs like civs of the same religion - so increase the diplomatic penalty if you switch.

Actually, a thought on those lines. Instead of all of that, adjust the Happiness rating of your special buildings. A Christian High Cathedral (to pluck a name from mid-air) causes -100 (minus one hundred) when built; however, it causes +120 (plus one hundred & twenty) if Christainity is your State Religion. (Cancelling out the negative, giving you a net +20 )

A built in bonus & penalty for that one building. If you have the wrong State Religion, big time rioting. If you have the right SR, lots of parties. If you build it & then later change SR, rioting again.

 

[Fachy]

Good idea MikeC, but it will be virtually impossible to switch religions as the old buildings will basically stop all ur cities from producing (you can't demolish buildings can you?)

Also another question: would the AI understand these effects?

 

[MikeC]

There is a mod that lets you raze buildings from inside the city view, although I didn't look closely at it. No idea if the AI would raze buildings, or understand the effects, but I'd think they would... after all, it has to "know" to build things to reduce unhappiness, etc.

You'd also have to change the Globe Theatre, as I think it's the only building to eliminate unhappiness. There's a line for "NoUnhappiness" set to 1, probably a 0/1, on/off switch. Simply setting it to add high happiness, 30 or 40, should be enough.

 

[Fachy]

Good ideas, only if the AI would understand to elliminate buildings though

Guys, there are 2 lines which are all set to NONE and 0 in all buildings:
<bPrereqReligion>0, <StateReligion>NONE
Now, one of them means you must have that specified religion as a state religion to build the building. Anyone has an idea what does the other line does?

 

[heroes182]

well... surely it means that that religion has to be present in the city, even if it's not the state sponsored one, no?

 

[MikeC]

Looking at the Civ 4 modding wiki on Apolyton:

StateReligion - means the building can only be built if that is the current State Religion.

bPreregReligion - if 'ON', building can be built if any religion is present in the city.

 

[trundle]

I think you guys might be overthinking the problem -- why worry so much about people swapping state religions all the time? I think you should go back to the beginning, and have only one UU for each religion and allow players to swap religions the same as they can now.

Yes, that may encourage some players to swap just for a unit, but you're not looking at the whole picture. If they switch to a religion not present in most of their cities, they stand to substantially cripple their civilization by losing all the bonuses from the religious civic column. They could build missionaries and try to spread each religion, but then they're spending valuable production points that could be used elsewhere.

They also stand to dramatically shift their diplomatic relations each time they switch religions.

This is also, in my cynical opinion, a little closer to achieving a similar effect to how state's adopt religions in the real world. Were most of Europe's states Catholic in the middle ages just because people were inclined to believe that way? Maybe, but I tend to think it was because Christianity offered distinct advantages to their rulers. Don't forget that England rejected Catholicism just so the King could get divorced...

 

[Fachy]

Heroes you're wrong, because that condition already exists in all temples. And as I said, all of the buildings have it as 0 or none.

MikeC thanks for the site, I only had:
http://www.civ4wiki.com/wiki/index.php/XML_files#Assets.5CXML.5CBuildings.5C which is good, but missing some points too

Trundle: The UU makes a small part of the problem. We also want each religion to have special abilities. The problem with abbamouse's mod is that it attaches that to temples. So any city can have all 7 (contradicting) effects just coz it has all 7 religions in it, with no weigh given to the state religion.

 

[trundle]

Trundle: The UU makes a small part of the problem. We also want each religion to have special abilities. The problem with abbamouse's mod is that it attaches that to temples. So any city can have all 7 (contradicting) effects just coz it has all 7 religions in it, with no weigh given to the state religion.

That's about an entirely different mod in an entirely different thread. The discussion here is about Religious UUs and whether or not switching religions to capitalize on them would be a problem.

 

[Fachy]

err... is it? o.o

Well anyway I suggest we increase the length of religious anarchy to both give "Spiritual" trait some fairness and also make it harder to switch religions all the time

 

[Leonel]

I saw a documentary about Iran and how they formed this brigade in which young men would even run into enemy fire armed only with a Qu'ran and would actually overwhelm the enemy and take over the enemy's weapons. Perhap's this could be a moderm Islamic UU? Perhaps dirt cheap and can take over enemy land units when attacking but would have a highly reduced chance of actually succeeding in taking over the unit to offset the inexpensive cost?

 

[trundle]

err... is it? o.o

Well anyway I suggest we increase the length of religious anarchy to both give "Spiritual" trait some fairness and also make it harder to switch religions all the time

I can understand wanting to improve the usefulness of the Spritual trait. As it is now, it doesn't seem to have a great deal of impact in most of my games. Ironically, I think it's probably most useful for warmongers, as they can quickly switch back and forth out of "war mobilization" (i.e. theocracy, vassalage, nationhood, etc.).

I don't really see that switching religions all the time should be any more difficult than switching civics all the time, though. Going from a state of slavery to one of emancipation has been just as difficult in many civs' histories as adopting a new religion.