Suggestions and Requests

In response to @mccp77, noting of course the risk of this thread becoming a real 2000s style Christianity-Atheism style debate, I want to offer a rebuttal as I think earlier definitions of secularism and tolerance were more in line.
Using binary definitions of civics is a false path to go down. My preferred dictionary, Wiktionary, gives at least three pertinent definitions, "not specifically religious; lay or civil, as opposed to clerical" being the most relevant here. Your mistake is that you describe the civic as being about "religiosity is not a gov't policy", which is the real problem, as the religiosity civic describes the structure of religion, its role in society, and its relation to society, and not just the state. After all, deifiction, clergy and monasticism were rarely hard and fast rules. Medieval England was known for its vast, wealthy monasteries rich on wool exports, while also maintaining a highly structured clergy system. The Sumerian, Babylonian and Egyptian societies embodied paganism and the deification of a God-King, while also having advanced and organised clergy systems to enforce their beliefs, so on.
Again I would avoid literalism by looking at the other civics, most notably Conquest. "An act or instance of achieving victory through combat; the subjugation of an enemy" - well shouldn't the US have Conquest as its main civic for much of the 18th and 19th centuries then?

@Publicola is correct. While it's undeniable the Founding Fathers were motivated by deistic if not atheistic reasoning, they were all Christians who would fall under the banner of Protestantism in RFC DOC. If the social structure of that society whatever its form spits out an elite that is a single religion, then that Civilization in game has that religion as its State Religion. Tolerance then fits as either a policy of pragmatism, like as you said in (at least our popular conceptions of - I know many scholars (and also nationalists) of the Balkans and India that would greatly dispute this)) the Ottomans or Mughals, or arising out of debate and reason such as in the United States, or in the United Kingdom following Catholic Emancipation in 1829.

Where does secularism lie, then? I think we've touched on it above, with the USSR's State Atheism, French Lacite, Ataturk's reforms being the prime examples. The state here takes active role to exclude religion from civil society. It does not Tolerate it - it Secularises against it. Should the US and UK fit this definition? Murky waters. I'm from the UK and frankly I think most Brits would be uncomfortable describing our state and society as totally secular, faith schools are prominent throughout society, the House of Lords includes the Lords Spiritual, the King is the embodiment of the church. The US lies far closer to a secular society today, but that's not true in memory. As mentioned above many states embodied faith in their constitution, the Federal Government considered recognising the rights of the Mormons to Deseret, candidates and judges swear on bibles, and numerous Presidential candidates as recent as Ronald Reagan were brought to power promising stringent adherents to values of faith. If the US is to be secular ingame, it's much more appropriate under when the Warren Court repeatedly established secular principles in its rulings, and the failure of the American right to overturn those in the 1990s.

Lastly, I think that map is deeply erroneous in its implications. Russia today has an incestuous relationship between Presidency and the Moscow Patriarchate which has intimately endorsed the Putin regime and invasion of Ukraine - Russia is an Orthodox State. India demolishes Muslim mosques and protects the rights of cows - India is a Hindu state. Indonesia and Malaysia introduce laws regulating behaviour on the basis of Islamic values - they are Muslim states. To summarise: it is not solely the relationship between religion and the state, but religion and society that the religion civic should represent. I'll say no more to not get into a flame war.
 
In response to @mccp77, noting of course the risk of this thread becoming a real 2000s style Christianity-Atheism style debate, I want to offer a rebuttal as I think earlier definitions of secularism and tolerance were more in line.
Using binary definitions of civics is a false path to go down. My preferred dictionary, Wiktionary, gives at least three pertinent definitions, "not specifically religious; lay or civil, as opposed to clerical" being the most relevant here. Your mistake is that you describe the civic as being about "religiosity is not a gov't policy", which is the real problem, as the religiosity civic describes the structure of religion, its role in society, and its relation to society, and not just the state. After all, deifiction, clergy and monasticism were rarely hard and fast rules. Medieval England was known for its vast, wealthy monasteries rich on wool exports, while also maintaining a highly structured clergy system. The Sumerian, Babylonian and Egyptian societies embodied paganism and the deification of a God-King, while also having advanced and organised clergy systems to enforce their beliefs, so on.
Again I would avoid literalism by looking at the other civics, most notably Conquest. "An act or instance of achieving victory through combat; the subjugation of an enemy" - well shouldn't the US have Conquest as its main civic for much of the 18th and 19th centuries then?

@Publicola is correct. While it's undeniable the Founding Fathers were motivated by deistic if not atheistic reasoning, they were all Christians who would fall under the banner of Protestantism in RFC DOC. If the social structure of that society whatever its form spits out an elite that is a single religion, then that Civilization in game has that religion as its State Religion. Tolerance then fits as either a policy of pragmatism, like as you said in (at least our popular conceptions of - I know many scholars (and also nationalists) of the Balkans and India that would greatly dispute this)) the Ottomans or Mughals, or arising out of debate and reason such as in the United States, or in the United Kingdom following Catholic Emancipation in 1829.

Where does secularism lie, then? I think we've touched on it above, with the USSR's State Atheism, French Lacite, Ataturk's reforms being the prime examples. The state here takes active role to exclude religion from civil society. It does not Tolerate it - it Secularises against it. Should the US and UK fit this definition? Murky waters. I'm from the UK and frankly I think most Brits would be uncomfortable describing our state and society as totally secular, faith schools are prominent throughout society, the House of Lords includes the Lords Spiritual, the King is the embodiment of the church. The US lies far closer to a secular society today, but that's not true in memory. As mentioned above many states embodied faith in their constitution, the Federal Government considered recognising the rights of the Mormons to Deseret, candidates and judges swear on bibles, and numerous Presidential candidates as recent as Ronald Reagan were brought to power promising stringent adherents to values of faith. If the US is to be secular ingame, it's much more appropriate under when the Warren Court repeatedly established secular principles in its rulings, and the failure of the American right to overturn those in the 1990s.

Lastly, I think that map is deeply erroneous in its implications. Russia today has an incestuous relationship between Presidency and the Moscow Patriarchate which has intimately endorsed the Putin regime and invasion of Ukraine - Russia is an Orthodox State. India demolishes Muslim mosques and protects the rights of cows - India is a Hindu state. Indonesia and Malaysia introduce laws regulating behaviour on the basis of Islamic values - they are Muslim states. To summarise: it is not solely the relationship between religion and the state, but religion and society that the religion civic should represent. I'll say no more to not get into a flame war.
Civics are about the rights and duties (rights being the key one here) of a citizen in relation to the state and an element of political science. The relation between religion and society would fall under the purview of sociology. That relationship is not a civic one.
 
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Agreed with Banefire here in the gameplay sense / historical sense. More specifically the contrast between allowing religious culture to be associated with the government and the state excluding religion entirely from government.
A classic case in Canada is the federal RCMP (mounties) allowing (tolerating) observant Sikhs to wear turbans in uniform contrasting with Quebec's ban on any and all religious iconography and head coverings for public facing provincial employees.
The recent Paradox game Victoria 3 implements this well as religious toleration vs state atheism. In state atheism, atheism becomes the official religion - other religions are persecuted.

Back to the topic - per the recent "state of civics" poll - now that religious tolerance and secularism are unlocked around the same era, there are suggestions to improve tolerance. I agree the improvement should be under tolerance religions should behave like in vanilla Civ IV: blanket + happiness and culture per religion in a city (+for all cathedrals) - not just favoring the official religion.
This would lead to a true trade-off between happiness & culture for toleration and science & faster buildings for atheism. Insert Marx's opiate of the masses quote here.

Hypothetically this could allow civs to convert to religious tolerant and no official religion to foster diplomatic ties. One could argue that most modern nations are currently religious tolerant yet have no official religion.
 
This is the Republic vs Democracy debate all over again.
No, that is a nonsensical debate only spawned by a semantic oddity of the USA, this is actually interesting to read (in my opinion).
 
My preferred dictionary, Wiktionary, gives at least three pertinent definitions
The posters above looked up "secular" not "secularism" on Wiktionary, which is the in-game civic. (Screenshot below.)

1. It appears they made up a counter-definition based on a faulty starting point.

2. I will have to go in and edit Wiktionary now though. "Laicity" is not a synonym of "secularism" but a sub-type or "brand." It's only synonymous if one is speaking French, and this dictionary is supposedly English-language. (I teach this. :p) Wiktionary readers everywhere stand in the posters above's debt. :)

Screen Shot 2024-01-24 at 11.32.29 AM.png
 
Tolerance seems like a very weak civic, especially if you are enacting Monarchy and so can easily offset the unhappy penalty from non-state religions.
Usually I only select Tolerance for stability's sake.
I have a suggestion to slightly buff Tolerance.
How about adding "+2 Happiness from Cathedrals of non-state religions" (so that non-state religion cathedrals grant the same amount of happiness as state relgion ones)?
This would also incentivize players to spread religion and build cathedrals in the Industrial and later eras.
This is a suggestion I made for the Tolerance civic some years ago.
 
It's still significantly weak compared with clergy (buff production), monasticism (specialist economy) and secularism (speed up research building and unlimit wonder). Culture is the least useful thing in the game without uhv concerns.
 
I don't want to resurrect the old civ-specific victory ranks thread, but I was rereading Ynglinga saga and I think that Dómaldi is probably a better candidate for the bottom position for the Vikings than my initial suggestion of Fjölnir. Where Fjölnir just had an embarrassing death by falling into a vat of mead, Dómaldi was king during a disastrous famine, and his own subjects decided to sacrifice him. They're both legendary kings, but Dómaldi is, I think, more dramatically disastrous all around.
 
Can we script Indonesia to settle specific locations? And change their spawn point 1N?
So they start Jambi, then settle Jakarta on stone and Sukadana 1N from banana on third island? I played several games with Khmer and England, and start was with Indonesia - i settle this cites, then time come - switched to new civs. And noticed, that with this 3 city at start Indonesia do much better and settle all their historical area and quiet stable. Very often now (1.17.1) Indonesia settle 3 sity on started island and that's all for entry game. 3 poor city and no expansion
For example, year 1520
Indonesia ex.png
 
Indonesia will be split into two civs in 1.18, so it would be counterproductive at this point. Let's wait until the map branch gets merged into develop to see how the two new civs will fare there.
 
Is it better if you modify their initial settler in not one, but two galleys? If two settlers are in the same ship, they seems to move consistently and will always land in the same island.
 
This is something that has been fixed on the 1.18 branch.
 
I feel like the Nuke isnt a big enough thing, Getting the first Nuke should be a project IMO, triggering an event for the other players.
 
This is way out there thought because it would require a lot of rebalancing of the map, but it occurred to me, should not horses go obsolete in the late game as whales and beavers do?
 
Is it possible for war maps to change over time? That would be great if France/HRE were coded to attack Byzantium+the Levant (crusades including 4th) in the middle ages, also adds extra challenge to player as Byzantines/Turks/Arabs. Three games so far in 1.17 I notice France prematurely Napoleons the HRE very early on resulting in France stretching to Vienna.
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