Theocracy should work like Mercantilism

[Rusty Edge]

I would like the option to remove a religion from a city totally (even if it meant using hammers, or something or unit) with obviously a hit with the holy city civ.

How about deportation? The heathens and heretics in the city are transformed into workers/settlers/ partisans and priests and scurry
over the borders to join countries that have their religion as the official religion. You would lose population, and you couldn't be sure that one didn't remain behind as a spy.

 

[Jaja]

I agree with the latest poster. For realism-related reasons, you should lose the pop. Not ALL (during the Inquisiton, lots of jews converted to christianity, not that it helped them in that case though...) but a good fat chunk.
Say if I dig taoism, and München does not agree that this is the finest view of the world there is, they prefer "buddhism". So I convert to theocracy, and this 10 pop city shrinks to a pop 3-4.
Otherwise at least I think that theocracy would be far too overpowered. If not, if you have a well-spread religion to the heathen states around you, they would probably change to theo pretty fast, to stop you from getting that precious gold.

 

[Innawerkz]

Actually, i think Theocracy 'nullifying' foreign religions sounds very good (as one can argue the government might not wipe them out but it can drive them underground (so they don't get to build any Temples, cathedrals, or Monasteries

Adding to the above stoppage of foreign religious buildings, perhaps Theocracy cancels the spread of Foreign Religion & allows the creation of Inquisitors. However the AP votes are still involved and income still is sent to the Holy City.

Inquisitors remove the foreign faith & population. How much population is lost would be difficult to determine. 1 per religion? The use of Inquisitors stops after any civ researches Liberalism. That way you can hold off on researching liberalism while you purge your lands, but it may cost you the free tech as you avoid the beeline.

 

[ASL Veteran]

This thread is like a tank of gasoline sitting near an open flame - but I just can't help myself so I'm going to post anyway. I know that people are probably just posting here because they are perhaps frustrated with the Apostolistic Palace, but you guys are forgetting some very famous attempts at religious eradication. The most notorious and organized example would probably be the Nazi attempt to eradicate the Jews during WW2. Stalin killed quite a few too. Just think, you could play Civilization as Stalin of Russia and happily eradicate Jews in game. Another famous example of attempted religious eradication would be the Roman attempt to eradicate Christianity. Yeah, that attempt at eradication went pretty well didn't it? One should also keep in mind when talking about Protestants eradicating Catholics and vice versa that those are both sub groupings of Christianity, so in game terms it would be invisible. Same thing for Iran with Shiite and Sunni Muslims - both Islam (and Sunnis are still in Iran and still practicing btw). Completely eradicating a major religion (as opposed to a cult or sect) is pretty difficult to pull off because you are dealing with people's fundamental belief system that shapes their world view. A cult would be small enough to eradicate but a major religion? Sure, you can knock it underground and or force portions of a population to shift around (perhaps between your own cities), but complete and total eradication? Not so sure on that one.

A game comparison between theocracy and mercantilism is perhaps appropriate only in terms of game effects, but in reality you are comparing a set of laws to a set of beliefs. Someone will go to their grave as a martyr before changing their fundamental world view (think Christians being fed to the lions) whereas with Mercantilism, if you can't make a profit in country X because of the contract laws or tax situation then you are simply going to do business somewhere else. Completely different situation.

I suppose in game terms if a religion is persecuted it would cause unrest ... the religion being persecuted would have their temples and monasteries destroyed (that you would have spent hammers building) and the actual presence of the religion in your city would either remain (albeit "underground" yet still present) or possibly shift or even spread to another of your cities.

 

[Quagga]

I think the Gods of Old religions are just fine and could easily replace the more recognized religions in the epic game. Then there wouldn't be this problem with people being offended by what happens to a particular religion. Basically I think it was a mistake that Firaxis used current religions.

 

[marioflag]

The things i would like to see added to Theocracy:
-other civs can not perform influence religion espionage mission if you adopt Theocracy
- +25% espionage defense against civs adopting another religion
- +25% espionage cost to perform missions against civs adopting other religions

 

[DomA]

I agree with ASL Veteran that altering Theocracy and introducing mechanisms to eradicate religions would be a bad move because of all the historical background.

A more "passive" effect of Theocracy could be to remove all effects of non-state religious buildings in the civ (a cultural hit) and remove the player from the AP votes (it would emulate the fact the followers of non-state religions are no longer allowed by the civ leader to participate in international forums) for as long as theocracy is run. This should come with some benefits but it would need to have a big enough penalty (eg: diplomatic hit with every civ which state religion is now oppressed in the civ running theocracy) to balance it, because it would make the AP victory terribly difficult (the AI would switch to theocracy just to block you). Right now, you may already have to work quite hard to manage this victory if a civ is running theocracy - leaving you with three choices : build up espionnage and manage to influence the religious civic long enough to spread your religion, or destroy the civ running theocracy, and in some cases vassalizing it might work. If as soon as you've managed this other civs block you, as well abandon the hope of winning this way.

I'M not sure it's the AP victory that has to be made tougher to get. It can be a challenge and it already turns into a dead-end often enough as it is, and when it's too easy I feel it's probably because I'm not playing at the difficulty level I should. What might be interesting (or needed) is a counter-strategy to prevent the AI from winning when you don't build the palace - other than conquering/razing the owner of the palace, that is.

A much more simple way to re-balance a bit the AP victory so the players who do not build it and don't use it don't suffer from it as much could be to add a second victory condition, like for Domination : the religion of the AP needs to be present in all civs and to spread to X% (20 or 25%, probably) worlwide before the vote can take place. This would allow the players who didn't build the palace to counter it by spreading their own religion(s) worlwide, and this would make the victory more difficult if you built the palace because you would need to spread your religion more widely first, with the risk that bigger civs adopt the religion, spread it and try to win the vote themselves (actually, this already happens with maniacs like Isabella).

I'm guessing it's more the conquerors who find the AP unbalanced because the AI can stop an excellent conquest campaign short by a surprise AP victory, or make your life hell with holy wars and cities switching back to previous owners until the AP owner is conquered or the city it's in razed (this should come with a massive and lasting diplomatic penalty + a holy war...). The builders types don't seem to have as much of a problem fitting the AP into their strategies, whether they've built it or not, and are not complaining as much about it either.

 

[hoopsnerd]

This thread is like a tank of gasoline sitting near an open flame - but I just can't help myself so I'm going to post anyway. I know that people are probably just posting here because they are perhaps frustrated with the Apostolistic Palace, but you guys are forgetting some very famous attempts at religious eradication. The most notorious and organized example would probably be the Nazi attempt to eradicate the Jews during WW2. Stalin killed quite a few too. Just think, you could play Civilization as Stalin of Russia and happily eradicate Jews in game. Another famous example of attempted religious eradication would be the Roman attempt to eradicate Christianity. Yeah, that attempt at eradication went pretty well didn't it? One should also keep in mind when talking about Protestants eradicating Catholics and vice versa that those are both sub groupings of Christianity, so in game terms it would be invisible. Same thing for Iran with Shiite and Sunni Muslims - both Islam (and Sunnis are still in Iran and still practicing btw). Completely eradicating a major religion (as opposed to a cult or sect) is pretty difficult to pull off because you are dealing with people's fundamental belief system that shapes their world view. A cult would be small enough to eradicate but a major religion? Sure, you can knock it underground and or force portions of a population to shift around (perhaps between your own cities), but complete and total eradication? Not so sure on that one.

Aren't you forgetting about all the countless (then major) religions that both Christianity and Islam completely destroyed? Sure, you might be able to provide a few examples of the failed destruction of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but where are all the worshippers of the polytheistic religions such as Egyption, Roman, and Greek Polytheism? The only reason Christianity makes it "into the game" (or life) is because it destroyed and converted more developed religions in that time -- same goes for Islam.

 

[hoopsnerd]

I agree with ASL Veteran that altering Theocracy and introducing mechanisms to eradicate religions would be a bad move because of all the historical background.

I think this "historical background - people will be offended" stuff is nonsense! I can conduct a genocide in the game (raze all of the Aztec cities, for example) but I can't kick a religion out? That doesn't really compute... Civilization is not and should not be perfectly "politicly correct" anyways, because it relies on stereotypes to provide bonus' etc. Don't think it relies on stereotypes? The Germans and The Chinese are just more industrious people than the French and the English? Japanese people don't like trading as much as other civs? French people have more "culture" than people from other countries? Native Americans are inherantly better archers than Americans? Indian people are faster workers? German people are better engineers than anyone else? These stereotypes are ALL in civ, and whether you like it or not they are in fact stereotypes. Some may be less offensive than others, but that doesn't change the fact that they are stereotypes after all. I don't know, but wouldn't the game be a lot less fun if we took away any bonus that was in any way related to a stereotype? All the civs would have to be the same -- and bland. Kinda like the religions are now. I would actually propose that each religion should have a specific bonus -- built on stereotypes of course .

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The point is Mercantilism DOESN'T eliminate Corporations, it just makes them 'invisible'... they have no effect on their city.

I think that makes perfect sense for Theocracy.. it drives religions 'undeground' but it doesn't eliminate them.
(overall this is a negative effect, you lose Temples/Monasteries/Cathdrals... however, some Shrine owner may lose Gold, and it increases your espionage defense against civs with that religion)


Option # 2 the idea of an Inquisitor would also be interesting... however given that it is mostly a Negative effect in game, you would have to tie it to things, for example
... with Divine Right (an otherwise useless tech) introduce
-1 Happiness our religion is being suppressed could be introduced (for each non-State Religion.. for All religious Civics that have a State Religion)
+1 Happiness for the State Religion (for all Civics)
[This would give you Some reason to eliminate other religions]

The Inquisitor unit, cost ~80, if sent to a city with one or more non State religions, will randomly* select one of them, and has a chance of removing the religion and all Religious Buildings for it, if it is not a Holy City.

Made obsolete with Liberalism

*could be player guided too

Or else give this ability to the Missionary of the State Religion, once the state religion is there... perhaps it only has a small chance of removing the religion, but automatically removes the religious buildings.

Cost= the unit, and maybe 1 population or some whip type unhappiness (and of course all the religious buildings)

With option 2 though I would make it something available with ALL religious civics [that have a state religion].

 

[ASL Veteran]

Aren't you forgetting about all the countless (then major) religions that both Christianity and Islam completely destroyed? Sure, you might be able to provide a few examples of the failed destruction of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but where are all the worshippers of the polytheistic religions such as Egyption, Roman, and Greek Polytheism? The only reason Christianity makes it "into the game" (or life) is because it destroyed and converted more developed religions in that time -- same goes for Islam.

No, I'm not forgetting about the old polytheistic religions that disappeared ... those are already represented in game by the "Paganism" religious civic and the fact that you have no religion in your cities (default - polytheists). I don't have anything handy about the death of polytheism, but while violence by Christians etc against polytheists (an example would be the defacing of various monuments in Egypt and the destruction of Delphi in Greece IIRC) active eradication policies didn't eliminate those religions. People simply stopped worshipping the old gods because they just didn't believe in them anymore. They just sort of 'faded away'. I'm primarily disputing the fact that the player would have absolute certainty of the outcome of any religious eradication policy that they implemented. History shows us that an active eradication policy doesn't always work out the way the policy was intended and in fact can actually make the followers more radical and facilitate the spread of that religion. The penalties for any eradication policy would have to be severe ... ie anarchy in the city that has the policy, and a chance of failure or of actual spread of that religion (as people of that faith flee the city for other locales and gain new converts in the process) once the period of anarchy is over.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

No, I'm not forgetting about the old polytheistic religions that disappeared ... those are already represented in game by the "Paganism" religious civic and the fact that you have no religion in your cities (default - polytheists). I don't have anything handy about the death of polytheism, but while violence by Christians etc against polytheists (an example would be the defacing of various monuments in Egypt and the destruction of Delphi in Greece IIRC) active eradication policies didn't eliminate those religions. People simply stopped worshipping the old gods because they just didn't believe in them anymore. They just sort of 'faded away'. I'm primarily disputing the fact that the player would have absolute certainty of the outcome of any religious eradication policy that they implemented. History shows us that an active eradication policy doesn't always work out the way the policy was intended and in fact can actually make the followers more radical and facilitate the spread of that religion. The penalties for any eradication policy would have to be severe ... ie anarchy in the city that has the policy, and a chance of failure or of actual spread of that religion (as people of that faith flee the city for other locales and gain new converts in the process) once the period of anarchy is over.

Actually, given the minimal benefits of eliminating a religion, perhaps the results of using an Inquisitor type unit could be
X% = eliminate religion in this city
Y% = religion appears in several nearby cities

So the only real 'cost' would be spreading that religion Farther, necessitaing the use of large numbers of Inquisitor units to 'effecively eradicate' a religion.

The other (and much more reasonable idea) is the OP make Theocracy like Mercantilism, official persecution drives the other religions 'underground'. [of course this is overall a bad thing so Theocracy would have to be strongly improved]

 

[Rusty Edge]

I'm primarily disputing the fact that the player would have absolute certainty of the outcome of any religious eradication policy that they implemented. History shows us that an active eradication policy doesn't always work out the way the policy was intended and in fact can actually make the followers more radical and facilitate the spread of that religion. The penalties for any eradication policy would have to be severe ... ie anarchy in the city that has the policy, and a chance of failure or of actual spread of that religion (as people of that faith flee the city for other locales and gain new converts in the process) once the period of anarchy is over.

Those are the things I was getting at suggesting a purge could generate priests , partisans, and a spy as well as the loss population = settlers /workers.

 

[hoopsnerd]

Those are the things I was getting at suggesting a purge could generate priests , partisans, and a spy as well as the loss population = settlers /workers.

that sounds very exploitable.

 

[Rusty Edge]

that sounds very exploitable.

That's a common problem with my ideas and suggestions to modify the game to better represent historical aspects. Some Napoleon is always there to cast aside their ethics for the win


Except for the Praetorian /Legion thing. I don't see how that suggested change would hurt gameplay.

 

[hoopsnerd]

That's a common problem with my ideas and suggestions to modify the game to better represent historical aspects. Some Napoleon is always there to cast aside their ethics for the win
Except for the Praetorian /Legion thing. I don't see how that suggested change would hurt gameplay.

Hehe yeah, I can see it now . Izzy spawns Buddhism, spreads it to her second city, inquisits it... settles more cities, inquisits them... My favorite idea is that when you conquer a city under Theocracy that it spreads the religion.

Actually my favorite idea is to give religions differnet abilities and have one of them spread by conquest...

 

[Rusty Edge]

Hehe yeah, I can see it now . Izzy spawns Buddhism, spreads it to her second city, inquisits it... settles more cities, inquisits them... My favorite idea is that when you conquer a city under Theocracy that it spreads the religion.

Actually my favorite idea is to give religions differnet abilities and have one of them spread by conquest...

Have you tried "Gods of Old"?

 

[hoopsnerd]

No I haven't tried any mods except Rhye's and Fall. I'm not too big on MODs because I like to frequently play friendly MP games with my girlfriend and friends. I also like to compare my games to the games of other Civ Fanatics so those two factors combine to keep me away from mods. I've also heard things about the instability of mods, though they are nothing but heresay to me I have to admit I'd hate to be forced to end a game early..

 

[Rusty Edge]

No I haven't tried any mods except Rhye's and Fall. I'm not too big on MODs because I like to frequently play friendly MP games with my girlfriend and friends. I also like to compare my games to the games of other Civ Fanatics so those two factors combine to keep me away from mods. I've also heard things about the instability of mods, though they are nothing but heresay to me I have to admit I'd hate to be forced to end a game early..

I think it's great that you've turned CIV into something that re-enforces your social ties rather than competes with them.

I've only noticed some pauses/lags which I assume are due to Python checks.


Gods of Old is a scenario based on the Pantheon of the Ancient Summerians ( or was it Babylonians?) The war god grants his followers some promotion options such as "Unbridled Fury" (25% city attack )and another which is an experience multiplier.

The other gods have their own unique abillities which can help their followers and hurt their follower''s enemies. The wind gods can grant ships extra movement and send tornados against the enemies of it's worshippers.

Some gods help crops and growth, one boosts culture. I found myself using and gifting InqUisitors and priests, and destroying shrine cities more than the epic game. Lots of flavor, little political correctness.

 

[Jaja]

The most notorious and organized example would probably be the Nazi attempt to eradicate the Jews during WW2. Stalin killed quite a few too. Just think, you could play Civilization as Stalin of Russia and happily eradicate Jews in game. Another famous example of attempted religious eradication would be the Roman attempt to eradicate Christianity. Yeah, that attempt at eradication went pretty well didn't it? One should also keep in mind when talking about Protestants eradicating Catholics and vice versa that those are both sub groupings of Christianity, so in game terms it would be invisible. Same thing for Iran with Shiite and Sunni Muslims - both Islam (and Sunnis are still in Iran and still practicing btw). Completely eradicating a major religion (as opposed to a cult or sect) is pretty difficult to pull off because you are dealing with people's fundamental belief system that shapes their world view. A cult would be small enough to eradicate but a major religion? Sure, you can knock it underground and or force portions of a population to shift around (perhaps between your own cities), but complete and total eradication? Not so sure on that one.

The Nazis attempt clearly would have worked. They started the whole (just from thetop of my head) mega holocaust-thing in -44. A year later, they were no more. And during that time they killed ca 10 million jews/minorities. If they would have started this whole thing earlier, say 1940, and put their powder there instead of in the Soviet Union, then they would surely have "eradictated" a heckuvalot of minorities in Europe. (yes I do know that stalin was going to invade hitler sooner or later but whatevs)
The Spanish Inquisition was quite efficent as well. It didn't kill all the muslims/jews in Spain, but pushed away almost all to the Ottomans and Moors. That's two different ways of removing religions.
And Islam (and christianity too for that matter, I just lack examples right here and now) wiped out lots of well organized religions on their way. Zoroastranism, manuism and all that jazz. How can you say that the people there just stopped to believe in it? It was simply a widestretched genocide, as that was how stuff worked in ancient times. You and your army comes to a city of non-believers, raze it, kill the people inside and build a new one. It's when the other religion gets worked into society that pushing it out gets hard.

Alas, the point is you can really wipe out anything and anyone if you just want it bad enough.