Single Player bugs and crashes v40 download - After Oct 2019

The point is this "event" is a quick fix for the real bug. Not having it happen seriously hampers the AI because they wont change to any religion they get only their favorite. Fix the real bug and give them a favorite religion by Era or something. It will still hamper them but not as much.

Just based on what you are saying (sorry I didn't the rest of your post when you mentioned it being a fix for a bug), it seems like the problem is that they won't change to any religion except their favourite. Favourite should just mean they are more likely (to whatever extent) to switch to that one when it is available surely?
I think a favourite per era might cause problems for them if they keep switching religions. I would suggest keep one favourite, have them take whatever is available and prefer their favourite (including converting to it quickly when available), and keep the sages event but with one of the modifications I described.

/edit Yeah what toffer said, although I quite like the idea of the sage event, but just with more realistic constraints.
 
The point is this "event" is a quick fix for the real bug. Not having it happen seriously hampers the AI because they wont change to any religion they get only their favorite. Fix the real bug and give them a favorite religion by Era or something. It will still hamper them but not as much.

If I remember correctly having this in means the player can almost play on one difficulty lower and the AI does as well. Remove this and you will need to up the difficulty level for the player again.

Yeah, the AI should consider adopting any religion, just prefer the favourite one if it's present in at least 2/3'ds the amount of its cities as the current state religion is present in.

Then the favourite religion spread thing should simply be a check when two civs meet, and a check on what contacts a civ already have when it founds a religion.
I feel that some leaders should prefer to switch religions frequently so as to collect as many benefits as they can, while others should prefer to stick with one very faithfully. It should be an area where the leader differs in his strategic approach based on Leader XML guiding the AI. The difference is also something that could help to weight a leader towards one or another religious trait option. TBH, there are strengths and weaknesses to both approaches and some of how strong or how much those pros and cons exist in these kinds of decisions is based heavily on what game options are in play. This is not a straightforward issue.

I would therefore think of it as extremely contrary to the point of the 'favorite religion' mechanism that a leader's favorite religion should change by era - we don't have enough in given eras for that and the point of a favorite religion is to get the leader to want THE religion that the leader historically supported (in the case of Lenin, a perfect example of why Atheism (or to some: Anti-Religion) should be a religion itself.) Throughout history, the devotion some leaders have had towards the religion they believed in was the major determining factor in their entire political theory and weighed heavily on every choice they made. And therein is also a big part of why it should vary - some leaders would have been completely dedicated while others would be more strategic.

From a perspective of designing the AI, this shouldn't be THAT hard to resolve in a more advanced manner that reflects this variation.

To be clear, the 'bug' as is being identified and complained about here, is that some leaders who have never had contact with the civilization where a religion was founded could get access to that religion as soon as it has been founded. To that, I somewhat agree that it can be spread by citizens who have their crazy journeys and adventures and events that are taking place outside the game scope. However, that's a little iffy when you literally have no technological explanation for the blending of 2 civilizations to even be possible. There were cultural divides, geographically speaking, that were as impossible to overcome as interplanetary interaction would be for a Human trying to spread his ideas to Alpha Centauri in the middle ages. Are we really wanting to say that all cultures were known to all people through at least one or two intrepid personal adventurers who's accomplishments never went historically noted or became public enough for the leadership of the culture to learn of the existence of the other? I can overlook this for now but if we ever had a game start where there were multiple Earth planets developing in parallel (a truly old vs new world scenario), then this would really become untenable unless we changed the spreading to the capital of any religion where the leader considers the religion his favorite at the moment the religion is founded anywhere as being a result of a sudden insight for people in that city, as opposed to being due to some back channel interaction between the civilizations (wandering nomad).
 
It is there for one reason only, to give the AI a chance. If you want you could change it so that no player benefits from the event.

It is unreasonable to assume that a nation has no religion.
 
It is there for one reason only, to give the AI a chance.
I disagree with your first statement. I believe it's there to give each leader his historic flavor in a more powerful expression into the game setting. It's hard to imagine Saladin fighting for Mormonism and is more easily embraced to think of him as promoting his classical beliefs in Islam.

If you made this effect to begin with and you're stating this from the perspective of its creator, then I get that you're saying that it's INTENT is as you explain. However, for the player, the flavor support is where it really ends up becoming a benefit. It has a strong impact on the role-playing side of the game experience.
Dancing Hoskuld said:
It is unreasonable to assume that a nation has no religion.
True, and although Divine Prophets could give a nation the ability to invoke a religion that's already been previously founded, while not getting the benefit of having a holy city in the process, we can also admit that a religion, or at least the more generic elements of it, can be concurrently founded in different places around the same time. And DP is not always on for all games. It's not so strange to think that the same ideas occurred to people on the other side of the planet and ONCE they interact or find each other as cultures then they quickly realize they see things very eye to eye if they've both embraced those sets of beliefs at a state level. So simply rewording the event a little might help with the sense that there's somehow a bug that it might spread to a civ you've never encountered.

Not sure if the Apostolic Palace and its diplomatic effects requires the civs have had contact and maybe some funny stuff might be going on there, or effects that reveal all cities that have the same religion. All would be fairly small inconvenient breaks in game vs real world logic, rather than what I would call a 'bug' per se. Just side effects of this favored religion auto-spread interaction.

Still...I don't see why we'd want leaders to have multiple favored religions based on different eras. Seems to be going strongly against the flavoring benefit of the design we have.
 
The event is only there to help the AI. It uses the already existing Favorite Religion, which is flawed in any game that has either many religions or to few religions to go around.

I was more thinking of era as religious era not technological era. In Civ these are Atheist, Polytheist and Monotheist eras if you will.
 
a perfect example of why Atheism (or to some: Anti-Religion) should be a religion itself
Strictly speaking, Atheism should rather be considered a set of worldviews, not a single worldview. Or would you think that Voltaire and Stalin had the same "religion"?

There would have to be Naturalism (probably what most would associate with Atheism today, that there simply is no supernatural), Communism as a worldview / Dialectical materialism (not the same as the former, but believing that history has a goal with respect to the development of society), and probably several supremacist attitudes.
 
a perfect example of why Atheism (or to some: Anti-Religion) should be a religion itself
Strictly speaking, Atheism should rather be considered a set of worldviews, not a single worldview. Or would you think that Voltaire and Stalin had the same "religion"?

There would have to be Naturalism (probably what most would associate with Atheism today, that there simply is no supernatural), Communism as a worldview / Dialectical materialism (not the same as the former, but believing that history has a goal with respect to the development of society), and probably several supremacist attitudes.

Edit: Sorry for the doublepost, there was a connection problem.
 
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Strictly speaking, Atheism should rather be considered a set of worldviews, not a single worldview. Or would you think that Voltaire and Stalin had the same "religion"?

There would have to be Naturalism (probably what most would associate with Atheism today, that there simply is no supernatural), Communism as a worldview / Dialectical materialism (not the same as the former, but believing that history has a goal with respect to the development of society), and probably several supremacist attitudes.
I think it's only the first example, whereas the second is built onto the first with other views that the first enables but doesn't require.
 
Atheism is what is selected on the religion screen before you select your first religion.
 
I'd say that's more 'agnosticism'
Well, once your civilization has knowledge of other religions then it could either imply atheist (because you don't believe the religions to be true), OR agnostic as you aren't sure. You can't be agnostic about something if you aren't even aware of it though.
 
It's kind of an insignificant philosophical quandary, are animals intrinsically agnostic or atheistic?
Can those word even apply to animals that isn't aware about organized irrationality?
How one defines those words complicates the question too, some put more meaning in them than others.

I don't really care though, seems kinda absurd to put too much thought into it.
The game has several state religions, in addition to "no state religion". Why complicate it further than that. ^^
 
Well, once your civilization has knowledge of other religions then it could either imply atheist (because you don't believe the religions to be true), OR agnostic as you aren't sure. You can't be agnostic about something if you aren't even aware of it though.

It's kind of an insignificant philosophical quandary, are animals intrinsically agnostic or atheistic?
Can those word even apply to animals that isn't aware about organized irrationality?
How one defines those words complicates the question too, some put more meaning in them than others.

I don't really care though, seems kinda absurd to put too much thought into it.
The game has several state religions, in addition to "no state religion". Why complicate it further than that. ^^
I don't see it as a quandry at all. If you don't know about something, you aren't sure about it. You may be so unware as to not KNOW you are unsure about it, but it still means you have no opinion. Atheism is an opinion, that there ISN'T a god or gods (or forces of nature or anything that intelligently guides anything, which by definition means a belief (a religion) that there is no guiding force aside from cause and effect alone.) But Agnosticism simply means "I don't think I know the answer to this question." Even if you don't know the question, you still don't know the answer to it.
 
It's kind of an insignificant philosophical quandary, are animals intrinsically agnostic or atheistic?
Can those word even apply to animals that isn't aware about organized irrationality?
How one defines those words complicates the question too, some put more meaning in them than others.

I don't really care though, seems kinda absurd to put too much thought into it.
The game has several state religions, in addition to "no state religion". Why complicate it further than that. ^^
I would call a set of convictions a religion if it gave answers to the following questions: How/Why does the world exist? What is good/evil? What is the worth of people? There doesn't need to be anything supernatural involved, just answers to these questions. Of course, any such convictions that involve supernatural entities almost have to give answers to these questions. And this is why nobody's religion can be science - you don't get answers to these questions via the Scientific Method. The "religion" in this case would usually be Naturalism (a much more hostile word for the same thing would be Scientism). Another case of an (at least possibly) atheist religion would be Buddhism, then there are some "pseudo-atheist" religions that glorify certain abstract ideas, like the state or your own people, or a certain class to the point where it almost becomes a "replacement god". And esoteric convictions don't need divine entities either. Just a little reminder that being atheist doesn't imply in any way being rational.

And if you want an idea for a new, hypermodern and very much theistic religion, there is the Matrix, where the "universe" was very much created by a conscious decision, and where supernatural powers can exist simply because someone might get access to the root level. Of course, this religion might be a bit too meta for C2C. For some possible reasons to believe in this in real life see here: https://www.simulation-argument.com/ I'm not convinced myself, but I cannot see any irrationality here.
 
I don't see it as a quandry at all. If you don't know about something, you aren't sure about it. You may be so unware as to not KNOW you are unsure about it, but it still means you have no opinion. Atheism is an opinion, that there ISN'T a god or gods (or forces of nature or anything that intelligently guides anything, which by definition means a belief (a religion) that there is no guiding force aside from cause and effect alone.) But Agnosticism simply means "I don't think I know the answer to this question." Even if you don't know the question, you still don't know the answer to it.
I can't say with the conviction you do that animals must have the philosophical mindset to naturally distance themselves from a religious belief presented to them by actively arguing that there is no way to know any of this for sure; that wouldn't mean that this person would strongly oppose others beliefs, only that (s)he would not believe it with conviction without first leaving the ideological mindset of agnosticism.
That is one definition of agnosticism. a simpler one is that an agnostic person is someone who will neither strongly support nor oppose religions as they are convinced neither they nor others can know for sure that which cannot be proven, either way. The later doesn't disqualify a religious person from also being agnostic, however the former does, but then again there is the philosophical question of what actually defines a religion or being religious, which further complicates things.

An atheist could be defined as someone who religiously oppose all other religious beliefs as they themselves have a strong conviction that there cannot be anything divine, this kind of atheism can organize into church similarly to how other theism's do and can thus be just as irrational as any other religious entity. Organized or not, they would actively argue that other beliefs are absurd and that it is obvious that there's no such thing as gods or divinity, the atheist doesn't need rational arguments to support their viewpoint in this, just like any other religious person.
Another definition of an atheist is simply one who don't believe in gods or the divine, without necessarily strongly opposing it, in such an atheists can be agnostic or vice versa.
If we define being religious as simply favoring a belief or belonging to a religion, then even a religious person can be an atheist or an agnostic person.

I would say that an animal is neither intrinsically atheist nor agnostic, but then again, it all depends on how you define these words.
One could say animals are religiously inclined by nature, historically humans seemed to mostly have eaten up any religion presented to them the first time a religion is presented to an individual, could very well be the same for any other animal if you managed to present it to an animal in a way it could understand, presented to it by someone it trusted. Some species may be quite different though, but I do think the lack of education causes most beings to be religiously inclined.
And if you want an idea for a new, hypermodern and very much theistic religion, there is the Matrix, where the "universe" was very much created by a conscious decision, and where supernatural powers can exist simply because someone might get access to the root level. Of course, this religion might be a bit too meta for C2C. For some possible reasons to believe in this in real life see here: https://www.simulation-argument.com/ I'm not convinced myself, but I cannot see any irrationality here.
It's a good late-contemporary-era-unlocked religion idea for C2C.
It's an interesting concept, but to believe in any hypothesis with conviction long-term is always irrational my friend. Doesn't matter what that hypothesis is, organizing a religion around it is always irrational as it includes dogmas created by fallible humans based on a fantasy. It is even more irrational to become a follower and say that those fallible person who defined this religion must have been right about it all as god must have controlled their bodies and minds. lol
 
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I can't say with the conviction you do that animals must have the philosophical mindset to naturally distance themselves from a religious belief presented to them by actively arguing that there is no way to know any of this for sure; that wouldn't mean that this person would strongly oppose others beliefs, only that (s)he would not believe it with conviction without first leaving the ideological mindset of agnosticism.
That is one definition of agnosticism. a simpler one is that an agnostic person is someone who will neither strongly support nor oppose religions as they are convinced neither they nor others can know for sure that which cannot be proven, either way. The later doesn't disqualify a religious person from also being agnostic, however the former does, but then again there is the philosophical question of what actually defines a religion or being religious, which further complicates things.
I'm saying they have no opinion on the subject because they haven't considered it. That would also fall under the header of 'agnostic', as to 'not know or believe you know' whether you know you have this stance or not or even whether you know there's even a matter at hand to have a stance on or not.

Humans might ARGUE for agnosticism as a rational position to take since we cannot trust any conclusions we may have. Animals probably wouldn't even think about it that much. Either way, agnosticism, the 'I dunno' position in the religious spectrum, is really the default. I suppose its possible that some animals may have a form of religious belief, though it would be hard for them to express it in any manner and might be quite fascinating to us if they could.

An atheist could be defined as someone who religiously oppose all other religious beliefs as they themselves have a strong conviction that there cannot be anything divine, this kind of atheism can organize into church similarly to how other theism's do and can thus be just as irrational as any other religious entity. Organized or not, they would actively argue that other beliefs are absurd and that it is obvious that there's no such thing as gods or divinity, the atheist doesn't need rational arguments to support their viewpoint in this, just like any other religious person.
Generally my take on what Atheism means. Some organize, many don't, but it's just an anti-religious outlook, such as what Raxxo has been arguing. Often scientifically minded folks may fall under this, not because they don't lean agnostic, but because they cannot find any proof that there is any divine force at work in the universe and therefore feel that after all of the observations having been made, that's a large body of evidence to suggest that no divine force IS at work.

No matter how faithful one may be in their professed religious outlook, they would always be a little agnostic (unsure), although some may chastise themselves endlessly for it in the belief that they should have unwavering faith.

It's a good late-contemporary-era-unlocked religion idea for C2C
Agreed... and we even have a tech that proves it to be the true religion just before the end of the tech tree.
It's an interesting concept, but to believe in any hypothesis with conviction long-term is always irrational my friend. Doesn't matter what that hypothesis is, organizing a religion around it is always irrational as it includes dogmas created by fallible humans based on a fantasy. It is even more irrational to become a follower and say that those fallible person who defined this religion must have been right about it all as god must have controlled their bodies and minds. lol
We should still admit that religion is probably going to be a factor in the future and one we haven't nearly begun to explore concepts for as much as we should.
 
I'm saying they have no opinion on the subject because they haven't considered it. That would also fall under the header of 'agnostic', as to 'not know or believe you know' whether you know you have this stance or not or even whether you know there's even a matter at hand to have a stance on or not.
I disagree in that definition of agnosticism, I see it as impossible to be agnostic about something without knowing what that something is.
Hence my original standpoint that it is not a straight forward question, the question "are animals intrinsically agnostic?"
If someone accepts new ideas as the absolute truth without proof, then that person is not agnostic, seems to me that if the majority were intrinsically agnostic at the dawn of religions then religions would never have become a big thing historically.

Someone who is agnostic is to me in the extreme case someone who simply cannot accept something significant (like world views) just on faith, thus an agnostic person would not accept religions, or atheism, or anything else for that matter without proof.

There are many definitions and thus degrees of agnosticism, so I'm not saying one is more correct than the other, I'm just arguing that the original question posed is a philosophical quandary.

My point of view on it:
Before religions humans were, just as most other animals, simply superstitious, but not generally agnostic even though some individuals probably were agnostic both before and after religions appeared.
 
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If someone accepts new ideas as the absolute truth without proof, then that person is not agnostic, seems to me that if the majority were intrinsically agnostic at the dawn of religions then religions would never have become a big thing historically.
That would be an active agnosticism. Some people believe in Christianity but don't press others to. Thus some are actively Christian and would argue for it, while others are passively Christian and generally just accept it as a truth for themselves. Just as some people don't know what to believe (the definition of agnostic) and would urge others to adopt that view because they find it's the only rational outlook, whereas others would just maintain that view for themselves.

If you are only defining someone as agnostic if they are actively agnostic, then no, animals wouldn't fall under that header, however, if we have a situation where every person MUST declare a religious status, whether they even have thought about religion or not, then clearly, passive agnosticism would be the default. Agnosticism would not defy the possibility of some supernatural superstitions - most supersitions are simply a failure to correctly connect an experienced effect with its actual cause and that's not really the same thing as a religion, though I suppose it could be argued that a religion is just a fully defined set of superstitions adopted to answer questions we don't otherwise have answers for.

The reason I feel this matters is for when I get to the point where the Ideas project is in place and we're needing to pie chart out the % of citizens that believe what religion with 100% fully accounted for. There will need to be a default non-religion differentiated from anti-religious at that point so that all can be categorized.
 
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Doesn't matter what that hypothesis is, organizing a religion around it is always irrational as it includes dogmas created by fallible humans based on a fantasy. It is even more irrational to become a follower and say that those fallible person who defined this religion must have been right about it all as god must have controlled their bodies and minds. lol
In that case you shouldn't adopt pretty much any elaborate theory outside of - perhaps - the natural sciences. Not to mention that your own mind could never be considered infallible either. Or even mathematics (just ask Goedel).
 
If someone accepts new ideas as the absolute truth without proof, then that person is not agnostic, seems to me that if the majority were intrinsically agnostic at the dawn of religions then religions would never have become a big thing historically.
That would be an active agnosticism. Some people believe in Christianity but don't press others to. Thus some are actively Christian and would argue for it, while others are passively Christian and generally just accept it as a truth for themselves. Just as some people don't know what to believe (the definition of agnostic) and would urge others to adopt that view because they find it's the only rational outlook, whereas others would just maintain that view for themselves.
What I said there has nothing to do with imposing beliefs on others, rather the opposite. An agnostic would not find it natural to urge anyone else to adopt their way of thought as there is no way an agnostic can provide sufficient rational grounds to argue that human reason is incapable of deriving truths without rational ground. An agnostic doesn't actively oppose that which cannot be proven, because then (s)he would not be truly agnostic. I don't think what you describe as an active agnostic can exist, it would be a paradox. There's a difference between actively opposing the seemingly un-provable, and to never personally accepting something equally un-provable as the absolute truth.
If we have a situation where every person MUST declare a religious status, whether they even have thought about religion or not, then clearly, passive agnosticism would be the default.
It's a good argument within your definition of agnosticism, but an ism is an ideology, ideologies are not arrived at without relevant deliberate though preceding it. Your example is that someone for the first time in his/her life is forced to choose between multiple complex stories about the world which (s)he has never heard the likes of before that day, and declare one of those stories as part of his/her identity. Without time to decide anything, most persons would declare a random religion, very few would be convinced about the correctness of any of them or even have an opinion regarding whether they are rational or irrational, so most would be undecided about what to actually choose until perhaps years after the initial choice was made.

That person may never take a stance on whether knowledge has to be based on rationality or if feelings can be enough reasoning for knowledge to be valid. If that person in the end decides that feelings are not enough to base knowledge off on, then that person has become agnostic and will most likely stop deliberating seriously on any of the religions (s)he has up to that point identified as based on feelings rather than rationality. Becoming agnostic changes the deliberation from being lost in an impossible choice between equally confounding choices that seems very important to get right, into a realization that the choice no longer seems as pressing or important as one accepts that there are certain questions in life that one can never actually answer, like which one of these are correct for me to choose. So the agnostic would then pretty much stop doubting the initial choice and if allowed to might even stop declaring it as part of their identity. Sure there are those who has practiced a religion for so long when they become agnostic that it would be uncomfortable to live life without the rituals/traditions that was part of practicing that religion, but it would be more of an lifestyle habit than a true conviction.

I don't think anyone is born agnostic, I think most are born as undecided individuals in every and all ways. Becoming an agnostic is to have made a general realization that there are a certain set of factors that qualifies something as undecidable.

Defining agnosticism as simple as (passive agnostic = undecided, active agnostic = "decided when to be undecided") seems crude to me.
Present a religious zealot from the year 649 AD with the question: "decide now if the world is flat or round", a question that zealot never have contemplated before, then clearly, passive agnosticism would be the default.
It just doesn't seem right to water down the meaning of agnosticism like that, you know. Agnosticism is a mindset that zealots just don't have, and if they got it then they would stop being zealots, no.
In that case you shouldn't adopt pretty much any elaborate theory outside of - perhaps - the natural sciences. Not to mention that your own mind could never be considered infallible either. Or even mathematics (just ask Goedel).
Was kinda the extreme case I described, but sure, as long as you have no reason to doubt your own ability to determine if something you see or hear is based on rational thoughts or not, you don't necessarily have to know exactly how it is proven to consider it true, especially if it can be empirically observed day to day, or if you simply know that proper scientific methods is behind that knowledge and consider scientific methods to be based on rationality.
An agnostic could hear a rumour about someone from a trusted source and believe it, perhaps more take into account than believing. People with principles usually break them once in a while without noticing, doesn't mean they don't have those principles in general, just means they are people.
 
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