The Ancient Mediterranean MOD

[onedreamer]

Civics specific to certain religions sounds good to me. Also later religions should have much better spread statistics.

Personally, I like the idea of settler religion (taken at random from the religions present in the city), plus weak spread numbers for early religions, rampant spreading for later religions, and missionaries only available for later religions. Plus some sort of Jyhad/Crusade option for later religions that you can set when at war with a heathen nation.

You can already enjoy all this in other mods. Why making all mods the same ? Religious persecutions, religious wars, inquisitions... they are not TAM stuff in my opinion and would ruind the "historical feel" of the mod.
Religion and Religious competition can be as fun without having to use medieval events at all costs.

 

[Mesix]

We've thought about it a lot and couldn't come up with anything better. Make suggestions!

I like the earlier idea of renaming the Egyptian Pantheon to the Cult of the Sun God. I think that the Greek Pantheon could be reamed the Olympian Pantheon. Druidism seems alright to me as it is not specific to Gaul. I don't have an idea for the Mesopotamian Pantheon unfortunately.

Does anyone else have suggestions?

 

[Shqype]

Olympian Pantheon is still too specific for my liking.

Cult of the Sun God works because there were a few religions that believed in, and worshipped, sun gods, but "Olympian" is actually a reference to Mount Olympus in Greece. Something more generic would be better.

 

[thamis]

The Greek and Roman Pantheons are actually Jupiter Worship, which was also practiced in some regions of the Levant.

The Egyptians worshipped the Sun God, thus Sun Worship sounds good actually. Cult has negative connotations somehow.

Druidism could be renamed to Nature Worship.

I'll look into the Mesopotamians.

 

[thamis]

Ok, I did some research:

The Mesopotamian High God was An, the God of the Skies and Heavens. He was a deus otiosus, a "God without duties" (i.e.: He did not have anything to do with the world apart from governing other gods). See: Soden, Wolfram von (1994). The Ancient Orient - And Introduction to the Study of teh Ancient Near East. Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Thus, we can safely rename the Mesopotamian Pantheon to "Sky Worship".

Now, for Druidism I found that it is quite unclear how Druidism was practiced, as the Romans didn't care much for their mythology and simply mapped Roman gods and practices onto them, and that's all we have in texts.

But: It is a widely-believed theory that the earliest forms of religious worship were directed towards the moon, especially in prehistoric Europe. As Druidism is the first religion that is founded in the game, I sugggest we rename it to "Moon Worship". The Moon played an important part in Druidic mythology, and in many modern forms of Druidism (aka new-age pseudo-spirituality) the moon is seen as the main factor of life.

So now we would have:
- Moon Worship (Druidism)
- Sun Worship (Egyptian)
- Sky Worship (Mesopotamian)
- Jupiter Worhsip (Greco-Roman)
- Judiasm
- Zoroastrianism
- Christianity

 

[Greenlocke]

@Thamis: I like these ideas SO much better. Exactly what I was thinking!

For druidism, rather than moon, could we emphasize stars? Because there religion was based around moon, stars, venus, and nature. The Night Sky, the Solstices, placement of sun in the sky, etc, were all fundamental scientific/philisophical druidic beliefs.

But, I would be happy just keeping it druidism, to tell you the truth...just because the fundamental element of the religion is the druids themselves - the keepers of knowledge (their equivalent of the bible.)


It would be nice if we could include the worship of Baal-Moloch (Carthage and Phoenicia). But, I don't know if 2 civs are enough to add a whole new religion.
(Although, it might be interesting to note that many prominent world leaders still worship this god... )

 

[thamis]

Star worship could be confused with Sky worship. Also, we don't need to call it Druidism, as Druidism was limited to Celtic peoples. Moon worship was a common feature among many early civilizations. Taurus worship was one of the earliest religious forms, and the Taurus often also represented the moon.

 

[thamis]

Hmm... why has our rating dropped to 4 stars?

 

[Drogear]

I suggest not to take to much notice of the forum ratings. Guess thre always be people who like to take a piss on success.

 

[Maniac]

I am still not quite sure what you're aiming at. Do you essentially suggest to remove all early-game religions?

Yes. Just having some temple buildings represent the local pantheons seems to have just the same effect as keeping early religions, but removing their missionaries and seriously reducing their spread rate. But the remove-early-religion proposal has two advantages: it's much simplier than the other proposal, and it frees up more slots for univeralist religions.

You've got to be kidding.

Please elaborate a bit more. Anyway, I was just repeating what others have said in this thread.

 

[Ingvina Freyr]

So now we would have:
- Moon Worship (Druidism)
- Sun Worship (Egyptian)
- Sky Worship (Mesopotamian)
- Jupiter Worhsip (Greco-Roman)
- Judiasm
- Zoroastrianism
- Christianity

I like the idea of non-specific names of the earlier religions, but perhaps it would be more consequent to change Jupiter too? The name is linked to "god father" and exists in many other cultures and religions as well, but I´m not sure about the traits...

Jupiter - Deus Pitar - Deus - Zeus - Tiwaz - Tyrs

Tyr is the old norse wargod, Tiwaz is his name among the continental germanic tribes. Are Zeus and Jupiter gods of war too?

 

[jimkirk]

i cant get tam to work after d/l it wants to be extracted to a windows temp folder so i change it to c:/program files / firaxis / civ4/ mods where all my mods go but when i go to choose the mod it isnt there

 

[Greenlocke]

@Ingvina: Just to clarify. Jupiter worship - in the mod - is the worship of the planet Jupiter, not the God "Jupiter". (Which, for the Romans, is the same thing.)

I can see how the name could cause problems. Perhaps we could make it a bit more general by emphasizing either the father or weather characteristics of these Gods.

How about:

Father-Worship
Storm-Worship (Weather)
- But this could cause problems with Christianity and Judaism, since the Biblical God of Moses was a Caanaite Storm God..

Also: Ares and Mars are the actual Greco-Roman gods of war...

 

[feydras]

These new religion names are too generic and flavorless for my taste. Sun Worship, Sky Worship, Storm Worship, etc...

Way back (i searched and couldn't find the entry) there were some good suggestions that bridged between nation identified and sterile generic. I'm sure other people will have better suggestions but something like Cult of Ra, Worship of the Sky Father, Cult of the Bull.

I don't see a problem with Druidism. Historically they may have come from the Celts but there is no Celt in the name and historically the Pyramids were built by the Egyptians but nobody is discussing changing the name of them to something else. Another example - Judaism, Jewish people.

Olympian Pantheon is fine with me as well, but then i generally play on random map instead of the historical map so i can see where this may be an issue for folks. Maybe Pantheon of the Mountain Gods

I'd like to see the religions keep some of flavor, but not be named specifically after a rival civ.

One last point - this has popped up in several places under the religion discussion. I have never understood the negative connotation with the word cult. Without researching the words (i'm too tired tonight) i would guess their isn't many (any?) major religions that didn't begin as a cult. Certainly Christianity did.

- feydras

 

[Mesix]

These new religion names are too generic and flavorless for my taste. Sun Worship, Sky Worship, Storm Worship, etc...

Way back (i searched and couldn't find the entry) there were some good suggestions that bridged between nation identified and sterile generic. I'm sure other people will have better suggestions but something like Cult of Ra, Worship of the Sky Father, Cult of the Bull.

I don't see a problem with Druidism. Historically they may have come from the Celts but there is no Celt in the name and historically the Pyramids were built by the Egyptians but nobody is discussing changing the name of them to something else. Another example - Judaism, Jewish people.

Olympian Pantheon is fine with me as well, but then i generally play on random map instead of the historical map so i can see where this may be an issue for folks. Maybe Pantheon of the Mountain Gods

I'd like to see the religions keep some of flavor, but not be named specifically after a rival civ.

One last point - this has popped up in several places under the religion discussion. I have never understood the negative connotation with the word cult. Without researching the words (i'm too tired tonight) i would guess their isn't many (any?) major religions that didn't begin as a cult. Certainly Christianity did.

- feydras

You expressed my thought well. I don't have much to add except that I agree. I do not see a problem with calling a religion Olympian or a Cult. I think that the only names that should be avoided are names that refer to civs in the game (e.g. Egyptian, Greek, etc.). I thik Druidism work well already and there is no need to change it.

I like your point about wonders. The game allows any civ to build the Pyramids or the Parthenon. Why not allow any civ to found the Olympian pantheon or the Cult of Amon Ra?

By making the religions too genaric you would be taking away their Ancient Mediterranean flavor.

 

[Drtad]

For the Mesopotamian religion, if you want to have the Babylonians as the nation representing Mesopotamia, then the worship of An will not work. The Sumerians worshiped An, Enlil, and Ninurta as their major gods, but when power in Mesopotamia was transferred to Babylon, Mesopotamia began to worship Marduk as their major god only. So worship of An, or the sky god, would not be correct

 

[EugenB]

Hi, i'd like to add my 2 cents about religion:

I definitely agree with feydras and Mesix about religion, it must be chosen a very fine line between not linking religions to civs but avoiding making them too generic, which loses its historicall flavour . Btw, Druidism seems ok to me, only Greek, Mesopotamian and Egyptian Pantheon are problematic.

About what Drtad said:

For the Mesopotamian religion, if you want to have the Babylonians as the nation representing Mesopotamia, then the worship of An will not work. The Sumerians worshiped An, Enlil, and Ninurta as their major gods, but when power in Mesopotamia was transferred to Babylon, Mesopotamia began to worship Marduk as their major god only. So worship of An, or the sky god, would not be correct

AFAIK Marduk was a part of the same Sumerian pantheon of gods, in which An was the creator of the Universe, so it would not be very wrong to stick with "An". As i remember, Marduk was a "rebel" god, kind of a Satan


About linking religions to civics: could be a good idea, BUT it could get realy bad if it would greatly limit the options you have as a player. If you are decided to stick with this idea, maybe instead of limitations to religions/civics combinations it would be better to add penalties/bonifications for combinations... Would not be much better, but anyway...



Now some game feedback:
Playing as Teuta on Prince level, i failed to reach an early religion and now i'm just a mediocre player, , with no means to compete with Arminius, who holds the Greek shrine and is getting rich on my back He converted all its neighbours (including me) to its religion, and i cant attack him, as i would uppset Caesar, Viriato, Vercingetorix and that warmonger chick Dido .
Eh... I was attacked by Agammenon and whiped him out with my powerfull Kambsor-s, but i couldnt keep all the cities i've conquered, i just couldnt afford it, i had to raze them, against my own beliefs

One other thing, i've noticed that chariots dont stand any chance against spearmen (i know its be design), so i dont make much use of them, as i cant use them in attack or defence. All armies are mostly formed from spearmen that have no trouble against chariots, especially as they can take advantage of terrain features getting +10%..+75% bonuses.

Also, i have large periods when i dont have much to build but units, but i cant afford a war cose i dont have money to sustain new cities Maybe i've just chosen the wrong path through the tech tree.

All in all, is very nice after all . This mod is a captivating story that is keeping me hooked while playing.

Eugen

 

[thamis]

@Religions:
- I like the idea of keeping original names and at the same time not linking it to civilizations. So please do me a favour, all of you who are thinking about it, and make precise suggestions how to rename the religions!

Egyptian Pantheon - ?
Greek Pantheon - Olympian Pantheon
Druidism - ?
Mesopotamian Pantheon - ? (remember, "Mesopotamian" does not refer to a civ, but a region)

@Civics tied to Religions
That's too complicated for my taste. I like to keep things as simple as possible. More is not always better.

 

[Mesix]

One other thing, i've noticed that chariots dont stand any chance against spearmen (i know its be design), so i dont make much use of them, as i cant use them in attack or defence. All armies are mostly formed from spearmen that have no trouble against chariots, especially as they can take advantage of terrain features getting +10%..+75% bonuses.

I agree with you here. I never build chariots, but the AI does. I leave a few heavy spearmen in each city and watch them gain xp as the AI throws hoards of chariots at them. It's kind of unfair, but not much you can do about how the AI builds its armies.

 

[John Stalin]

Druidism is the best, I can now die happy