Rhye's of Europe Civ Discussion Thread

[Úmarth]

Except that from my understanding of the current mechanics, you couldn't have a flipping city become the capital (as in RFC all the civs have to found themselves a new capital, and need a settler on start up to prevent losing right away).

@Zipzapzup: I thought the concensus was against the papal states as playable - they are a minor civ much like their role in the Charlemagne scenario.

I'm not sure about that. I know that the capital is whichever city you first get, so you can conquer one before founding any cities (I do this with Susa+Persia). Also I'm pretty sure that you get the warning about cities flipping before they found any cities.

 

[st.lucifer]

How about duplicating the AP in Constantinople for the Byzantine Patriarch?

You could have Orthodoxy from the start of the game. Western and Eastern churches were effectively distinct from long before the Schism made it official.

I think that we should have Orthodoxy in from the beginning. I'm not sure about duplicating the AP. It kind of depends on how much we want to script the actions of the AP, and how dedicated to historic accuracy we are. While the Patriarch of Constantinople wielded considerable power (particularly in the early period of our mod), that power waned considerably with the ascendancy of the Papacy. If we set up competing AP's, it's likely that Orthodox Christianity ends up as the dominant religion of the game, and that power is consolidated even further east. I mean, there's going to be some heavy action on the eastern edge of the map whatever happens - there can and should be Crusades; the Byzantines should start out with a fairly extensive empire and cities; the Ottomans and Arabs should be strong civs both militarily and tech/culture-wise - but one of the things keeping Byzantium in check, besides barbarian and rival civ spawns chewing away at their empire, is that they're not likely to get along with anyone. Given the relationship between the Byzantine empire and the Crusaders, that seems entirely appropriate.

So, I'm going to vote no to a competing AP - but perhaps a yes to Orthodoxy starting in Byzantium (with the holy city in Constantinople and no shrine built.)

 

[Depravo]

But Byzantium would be the only Orthodox civ at the start, no? So it wouldn't give them any real diplomatic leverage.

It just seems weird that semi-barbarian western kingdoms get a bonus from religion that Byzantium doesn't, at least early in the game.

 

[st.lucifer]

But Byzantium would be the only Orthodox civ at the start, no? So it wouldn't give them any real diplomatic leverage.

It just seems weird that semi-barbarian western kingdoms get a bonus from religion that Byzantium doesn't, at least early in the game.

True if the semi-barbarian western kingdoms start out Catholic. That's not guaranteed - the holy city's Jerusalem; there'll be at least 2 other competing religions - we may want to nudge them towards Catholicism, but I don't know that having them start with a religion is the best way to do it. Keep in mind also that Islam will be arriving in Iberia pretty quickly after many of the Euro civs spawn, and that may have some effect on which religious direction certain countries take.

 

[Depravo]

The Franks (currently the only power in western Europe at scenario start, correct?) are already Catholic in 500 though. Which means it's highly likely Catholicism will be the first religion to get into Germany, Britain, Scandinavia etc. Plus the independent cities of Spain, North Africa and Italy will be Catholic at first.

 

[Gurra09]

I don't know if someone has said this (because it's 14 pages) but I think that Sweden and Norway should be two different civilizations or two viking civilizations (Swedish Vikings and Norwegian Vikings?) and then be Norway and Sweden under the medieval...


Gurra09

 

[Jaja]

Nah, it's been decided that Sweden's gonna spawn in 1500 and there will be a Norse civ spawning in Denmark much earlier than that.

Anyway, all the swedish vikings did was something as useless as creating russian civlization.

 

[jessiecat]

But Byzantium would be the only Orthodox civ at the start, no? So it wouldn't give them any real diplomatic leverage.

It just seems weird that semi-barbarian western kingdoms get a bonus from religion that Byzantium doesn't, at least early in the game.

Byzantium wouldn't remain the only Orthodox civ for very long, Historically,
the Bulgars converted to Orthodox Christianity in the 860's and Kievan Rus
converted in the 980's. Muscovy and later Russia converted after that.
Maybe they should spawn some missionaries to help that along.

 

[jessiecat]

The Franks (currently the only power in western Europe at scenario start, correct?) are already Catholic in 500 though. Which means it's highly likely Catholicism will be the first religion to get into Germany, Britain, Scandinavia etc. Plus the independent cities of Spain, North Africa and Italy will be Catholic at first.

That sounds pretty accurate historically to me. Islam would soon effect most
of that anyway. Even S. France and Italy were heavily influenced by Islam
when it arrived. So religious conflicts in that area make sense early on.

 

[Depravo]

True. But the point I was trying to make is that it seems weird Clovis' Franks get bonus hammers for being Catholic while Byzantium gets nothing, despite that the Franks have been Christian for four years but the eastern church is well-entrenched.

On a related note, I think this scenario should include inquisitors, so we can strip unwanted religions from cities we own. Would there be any support for giving a happiness penalty to cities with any other than the state religion, with certain civics in force?

 

[jessiecat]

True. But the point I was trying to make is that it seems weird Clovis' Franks get bonus hammers for being Catholic while Byzantium gets nothing, despite that the Franks have been Christian for four years but the eastern church is well-entrenched.

On a related note, I think this scenario should include inquisitors, so we can strip unwanted religions from cities we own. Would there be any support for giving a happiness penalty to cities with any other than the state religion, with certain civics in force?

I don't really understand how being Catholic gives you bonus hammers but
maybe I missed something. If Catholicism and Orthodox are both enabled by
Monotheism and Organized Religion why would one have an advantage over
the other?
I like your idea about inquisitors though. I guess they could be enabled by
researching Theology and adopting Theocracy, could they?

 

[Depravo]

I don't really understand how being Catholic gives you bonus hammers but
maybe I missed something. If Catholicism and Orthodox are both enabled by
Monotheism and Organized Religion why would one have an advantage over
the other?
I like your idea about inquisitors though. I guess they could be enabled by
researching Theology and adopting Theocracy, could they?

Sounds good - I wouldn't limit them to Theocracy either. Spain was a classic feudal monarchy but purged Islam from half of Iberia. Maybe they should be available to all governments but go obsolete with, say, Scientific Method.

The bonus hammers thing. If the AP is catholic and the Franks are Catholic but Byzantium is Orthodox only the Franks will get the bonus, right?

 

[st.lucifer]

True. But the point I was trying to make is that it seems weird Clovis' Franks get bonus hammers for being Catholic while Byzantium gets nothing, despite that the Franks have been Christian for four years but the eastern church is well-entrenched.

On a related note, I think this scenario should include inquisitors, so we can strip unwanted religions from cities we own. Would there be any support for giving a happiness penalty to cities with any other than the state religion, with certain civics in force?

I'm with you on the hammers. I vote to strip the hammer bonus from the AP, as we're going to rework many of its other functions as well - it's going to have a number of powerful and unique functions, and the hammer bonus seems a bit biased and potentially unnecessary.

For inquisitors, I'm going to propose having 'Inquisition' as a police state-style religious civic - we're going to have to redo many civics anyway - which allows inquisitors to be built/used while the civic is active. This civic would have happiness penalties and a fairly severe research penalty, but a major bonus to espionage; I'm not sure if there should be a gold penalty (loss of trade) or a gold bonus (asset forfeiture). Thus, invoking an inquisition would be a big undertaking, with some potentially large bonuses (possibly a gold bonus upon stripping a religion from a city?) and some major penalties.

What do people think of the idea?

 

[Depravo]

Very nice. What religions are we going to have btw?

 

[jessiecat]

Very nice. What religions are we going to have btw?

Thanks for explaining about the hammers. I agree that Catholic and Orthodox
civs should start with a level playing field.And as the AP would already be
built in non-playable Rome then neither should get any effect from it at the
start. Right?

The inquisitors should work well too but there'd have to be a Muslim equivalent
somehow. Maybe something like an iman who could be produced from the
madrassa/library, imans being religious teachers rather than priests. Another
thought for Muslim civs would be a tax on non-state religions in a city, giving
a gold bonus for tolerating Christian and Jewish minorities.
Pretty much what happened throughout Islam anyway.

I think there's only five religions which should matter for our game, Catholic, Orthodox,
Protestant, Jewish and Islam. My idea would be that each civ would start with their
default religion with Judaism a kind of wild card option though I'm not sure what kind of
influence it should have as a religious minority. Protestantism could be a kind of
upgrade option for Christian civs which is triggered by a new tech or a civic.

Including the various heretical movements like Catharism, Bogomiles, Hussites and all
the rest is going to be messy to implement and each was pretty short-lived as far as
influence. Maybe they should occur as events which mess up stability for short periods
like the plague, but I don't think they should have the status of religions.
I'm not really sure how this would work though.
Maybe the rest of you have developed better ideas.

 

[st.lucifer]

Inquisitors would be available to any religion under the civic - they'd become available with whichever tech we made the 'inquisition' civic open up with, and if you're operating under that civic you can build/use inquisitors. Why should Catholics have all the fun? Nobody expects the Bulgarian Inquisition!

As for religions:

Catholicism
Eastern Orthodox
Islam
Protestantism
Judaism*

*We had fairly extensive discussion earlier as to how Judaism was going to work - the apparent consensus is that it's going to spawn through events when cities are large enough, bringing commerce benefits and happiness penalties. It's all discussed in pretty extensive detail either in this thread or in the main thread, which has been buried for a while.

We had talked about having Calvinism when Switzerland was a playable civ, but without it, I don't think it's necessary.

Heresies are probably best handled through events.

It's also been proposed that there be a sort of quasi-Celtic pagan religion in the early stages of the game, common to the German/Norse/English, etc. I've been against that in the past, but I'm willing to consider it if we're implementing methods for removing unwanted religions from cities. I'm still not sure if it's desirable, though, and it's probably only accurate for the Germans and Norse.

I think someone proposed Anglicanism as well, but it was rejected as being too country-specific and not distinct enough from 'standard' Protestantism.

 

[Depravo]

I agree Calvinism and Anglicanism are far too specific, but it might make sense to have a more generic distinction between 'Protestant' (Lutheranism, Zwinglianism, Anglicanism etc) and 'Reformed' (Baptists, Presbyterians, Huguenots, Calvinists etc) Europa Universalis style. There was a great deal of friction there.

Fly-by-night heresies could appear like small-scale plagues in remote or unhappy cities, stick around for a few turns pissing everyone off, maybe spread to one or two other places, then disappear.

 

[jessiecat]

Inquisitors would be available to any religion under the civic - they'd become available with whichever tech we made the 'inquisition' civic open up with, and if you're operating under that civic you can build/use inquisitors. Why should Catholics have all the fun? Nobody expects the Bulgarian Inquisition!

As for religions:

Catholicism
Eastern Orthodox
Islam
Protestantism
Judaism*

*We had fairly extensive discussion earlier as to how Judaism was going to work - the apparent consensus is that it's going to spawn through events when cities are large enough, bringing commerce benefits and happiness penalties. It's all discussed in pretty extensive detail either in this thread or in the main thread, which has been buried for a while.

We had talked about having Calvinism when Switzerland was a playable civ, but without it, I don't think it's necessary.

Heresies are probably best handled through events.

It's also been proposed that there be a sort of quasi-Celtic pagan religion in the early stages of the game, common to the German/Norse/English, etc. I've been against that in the past, but I'm willing to consider it if we're implementing methods for removing unwanted religions from cities. I'm still not sure if it's desirable, though, and it's probably only accurate for the Germans and Norse.

I think someone proposed Anglicanism as well, but it was rejected as being too country-specific and not distinct enough from 'standard' Protestantism.

I agree with much of what's been said except for 2 things.

1. Having inquisitors for Islam is pretty ahistorical. Christian and Jewish
minorities were generally accepted in Islam as "peoples of the book"
but subject to a sort of poll tax. Otherwise they lived pretty comfortably in
Muslim cities. Many famous viziers (prime ministers) were Christian or
Jewish esp. in Andalusia and the Ottoman Empire. And Coptic Christians
were protected in Egypt, playing an important role in government there.
So why couldn't we make the exception for Islam and give them a gold
bonus for tolerating religious minorities rather than rewarding them for
purging non-believers? It's one important feature that makes Muslim cultures
completely distinctive from Christian Europe throughout this whole period.
And especially as the Arabs will hold the holy city Jerusalem from the start.
You don't want them to purge religious minorities from there do you?

2. The idea of a pagan or Celtic religion is OK in the beginning but is going
to be pretty short-lived as all the civs involved would convert in the first
100 turns anyway. Why not just start them with paganism as a civic but
no religion then let them research Monotheism and switch to Catholicism
or Eastern Orthodox after that?

BTW Has anybody got ideas on the years per turn list already posted.
I've suggested 2 years per turn from 900 to 1700. What do you think?

 

[st.lucifer]

I agree with much of what's been said except for 2 things.

1. Having inquisitors for Islam is pretty ahistorical. Christian and Jewish
minorities were generally accepted in Islam as "peoples of the book"
but subject to a sort of poll tax. Otherwise they lived pretty comfortably in
Muslim cities. Many famous viziers (prime ministers) were Christian or
Jewish esp. in Andalusia and the Ottoman Empire. And Coptic Christians
were protected in Egypt, playing an important role in government there.
So why couldn't we make the exception for Islam and give them a gold bonus for
tolerating religious minorities rather than rewarding them for purging non-believers?
Especially as the Arabs will hold the holy city Jerusalem from the start.
You don't want them to purge religious minorities from there do you?

Two objections here: religious minorities were generally tolerated (and taxed) under Muslim rule - except for the infrequent but recurring periods when they weren't. Generally speaking, there was more religious tolerance in the Muslim world than in Europe at the time (although this is not saying much), with different regions being handled differently - as you said, things were generally more open in parts of Egypt, Andalusia, and the Balkans under the Ottomans. That being said, religious minorities were generally tolerated in European countries - except for the semi-frequent recurring periods when they weren't. I'm not comfortable setting up any religion as being inherently more tolerant than another. It might make sense to make the Ottoman UP have something to do with this (no instability, gold or research bonus from additional religions in cities?), but that's more of a civ power than a religious issue.
And no, I don't want Judaism or Christianity purged from Jerusalem - but it seems like it would be pretty straightforward to stipulate that holy cities can't be purged in inquisitions (even though such attempts were made: see the Crusader states ).

Second, I'm not comfortable giving Catholicism any more advantages than it already holds. If we make inquisitions only available to Catholic civs, that's yet another powerful tool that is going to provide a disincentive for civs to switch to Protestantism - think of how stubborn the AI is about changing religions anyway. The reason I propose doing this as a civic is that it's available to all religions, at a cost - it's not just an additional bonus (even with a cost) for a religion that's already going to be the favorite of several dominant powers.

Also, while we never hear about the Protestant Inquisition or the Muslim Inquisition, it's not like there weren't campaigns in England to abolish Catholicism, or massacres of Catholic populations in Germany, Poland, Bohemia, and Scandinavia. There may not have been an institution like the Inquisition in the various Protestant churches, but my sense is that this was due more to administrative differences between the two faiths than a greater tolerance of minority/heretical views in Protestant countries.

2. The idea of a pagan or Celtic religion is OK in the beginning but is going
to be pretty short-lived as all the civs involved would convert in the first
100 turns anyway. Why not just start them with paganism and no religion
then let them research Monotheism and switch to Catholicism or Eastern
Orthodox after that?

BTW Has anybody got ideas on the years per turn list already posted.
I've suggested 2 years per turn from 900 to 1700. What do you think?

Reasonable argument on the pagan issue. This is basically how I feel about the subject, but I felt compelled to bring it back up as long as we're discussing religions again.

I'm going to wait to weigh in on the turn issue - I've got to give it some more thought, and I'd like to hear some more opinions/arguments. So far we've got Disenfrancised's proposal and Jessiecat's proposal, and presumably one vote for each by the parties who made the proposals.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Anyway, all the swedish vikings did was something as useless as creating russian civlization.

Which is why we have the Kievan Rus

I'm with you on the hammers. I vote to strip the hammer bonus from the AP, as we're going to rework many of its other functions as well - it's going to have a number of powerful and unique functions, and the hammer bonus seems a bit biased and potentially unnecessary.

I agree.

For inquisitors, I'm going to propose having 'Inquisition' as a police state-style religious civic - we're going to have to redo many civics anyway - which allows inquisitors to be built/used while the civic is active. This civic would have happiness penalties and a fairly severe research penalty, but a major bonus to espionage; I'm not sure if there should be a gold penalty (loss of trade) or a gold bonus (asset forfeiture). Thus, invoking an inquisition would be a big undertaking, with some potentially large bonuses (possibly a gold bonus upon stripping a religion from a city?) and some major penalties.

What do people think of the idea?

It sounds reasonable, its just in which civics column is this one going to appear? personally I'd say just enable inquistors for org religion and Theocracy, and when one is activated it costs money and has global effects on the civ (Diplo changes, + Happy in state religion cities and -Happy for non state religion cities etc).

Also it should have the chance of coupled "Religious dissendents are fleeing our nation" and "Our persecuted brothers of the faith seek asylum" events.

As for religions:

Catholicism
Eastern Orthodox
Islam
Protestantism
Judaism*

It's also been proposed that there be a sort of quasi-Celtic pagan religion in the early stages of the game, common to the German/Norse/English, etc. I've been against that in the past, but I'm willing to consider it if we're implementing methods for removing unwanted religions from cities. I'm still not sure if it's desirable, though, and it's probably only accurate for the Germans and Norse.

I think someone proposed Anglicanism as well, but it was rejected as being too country-specific and not distinct enough from 'standard' Protestantism.

I agree with this list, but perhaps a sort of "Nationalist Rite" religion would cover both Anglicanism and Calvinism. This one would have no benefit to holding the holy city, and no diplo bonus/other bonuses for sharing the faith, whilst having the advantages of being neither Protestant or Catholic (allowing you to stay out of those wars) and perhaps some sort of war weariness bonus.

Paganism has similar problems as Arianism does, and should be left out.

Muslims and Protestants should get inquistions. Taxes leading to conversion are just as much a forced change as burning people (though one is more humane), and effects are needed to show that. I would recommend that purging religions be made expensive, so that it doesn't happen too quickly.