Unfair to Islam and Taoism?

[NintendoTogepi]

It seems to me that they get founded so late into the game compared to the other four religions.

Those are pictures of the religious advisor right before I won, from two separate games.

As you can see, in both of the games Islam and Taoism had extremely low levels of influence.

I'm not sure how to fix it, but there has to be a way to make the religions more balanced. (like how Hinduism or Buddhism are usually the most popular)

Maybe someone could edit so Hinduism and Buddhism spread slower and Islam and Taoism spread faster?

 

[Verge]

If you have BTS, "Choose Religions" gives you the opportunity to vary the religious scene from game to game. It's actually a nice touch.

Otherwise, I don't see the problem with Islam and Taoism having less influence due to their later research dates. Religions are all equal, their names don't mean anything.


The only real issue I can see with the late emergence of Islam and Taoism is that it's somehow politically incorrect, but obviously that would be a very shortsighted complaint.

Let me know if I'm not thinking of something.

 

[AlessioCerci]

Those Taoism dates seem very late to me, seeing as its on the way to liberalism. Anyway the simple answer is to just use choose religions. Can be a bit alarming if you forget you select that option and see taoism being founded in 3500BC.

 

[WTBCzero]

How about the founder of Islam or Taoism receiving two or three missionaries instead of one?

 

[eewallace]

When I'm playing a game with a religion-based economy I usually found Islam alot sooner than that in order to get the spiral minaret, and I've seen it be a pretty powerful religion in some games. But Taoism does seem to be at a disadvantage...I've never seen it be dominant or even close. Historically speaking, Taoism probably should come well before Christianity, not to mention Islam. But historical accuracy is not a feature of this game: Just yesterday, I was playing a confucian Ghandi against a jewish Isabella...

 

[Morgrad]

Well.. if the Islam founder in 1450 spammed Islamic missionaries all over the world, the influence would be much higher. But the later founded religions usually do have dramatically less influence - which is why I also promote the "Choose Religions" option in BtS.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Imagine Islam starting with 10 free missionaries. Now that will make Divine Right a lot more interesting.

 

[obsolete]

I think the missionaries you get should be based on the ratio of cities you have? I guess the # of turns gone by is also good.

 

[noto]

Well, first of all, Islam is technically the newest major religion on the planet, so it is historically accurate. Second, many civs have a favourite religion and some of them favour islam, so it can create interesting late game religion switches, particularily if you bombard your neighbour with missionaries. I don't check the "choose religion" box for this very reason. That option, believe it or not, seems to actually reduce the difficulty by about one setting. The reason is because the AI will naturally pick different religions and a game like that is very easy. If the AI are mostly one religion the game is much more difficult and you actually have to work at converting some of them.

 

[vanatteveldt]

I agree with the OP that it is unfortunate the the later religions never really spread, and the world is often divided between Buddhists and Hindus.

In terms of gameplay, what I find missing is the game factor of a late religion having a strong effect by quickly spreading and (for example) causing rifts between long-time religious buddies or altering the balance of power. IMHO, at the moment founding a late religion has little or no effect, while it would be fun to deal with that as a strategic factor.

Although historical accuracy is not the final argument as CIV is a game, not a simulator, consider the historical implications of Islam spreading from spain to the indus river within a hundred years after its founding, or the spread of protestantism in the sixteenth century. Both had long-term consequences.

I would advocate increasing the natural spread rate for the later religions. It might also be fun to have a chance that a spread replaces the original religion(s), with newer religions having a greater chance than older religions.

Edit: the real consequences are probably in players adopting a new state religion rather than the #cities that have the religion. The likelihood of this happening is probably only high if the spread does replace old religions, or if some other bonus is given to switchers (maybe a quest "inquisition"?)

Edit2: it might also be an idea to model the energy of new religions by having the spread/replacement speed depend on date since founding, so any religion would be 'viral' in the first 10-200 years or turns, declining to a relatively low (or zero) natural spread after that

 

[Shadow Lord]

I agree with the OP that it is unfortunate the the later religions never really spread, and the world is often divided between buddhists and hinduists.

In terms of gameplay, what I find missing is the game factor of a late religion having a strong effect by quickly spreading and (for example) causing rifts between long-time religious buddies or altering the balance of power. IMHO, at the moment founding a late religion has little or no effect, while it would be fun to deal with that as a strategic factor.

Although historical accuracy is not the final argument as CIV is a game, not a simulator, consider the historical implications of Islam spreading from spain to the indus river within a hundred years after its founding, or the spread of protestantism in the sixteenth century. Both had long-term consequences.

I would advocate increasing the natural spread rate for the later religions. It might also be fun to have a chance that a spread replaces the original religion(s), with newer religions having a greater chance than older religions.

Edit: the real consequences are probably in players adopting a new state religion rather than the #cities that have the religion. The likelihood of this happening is probably only high if the spread does replace old religions, or if some other bonus is given to switchers (maybe a quest "inquisition"?)

Edit2: it might also be an idea to model the energy of new religions by having the spread/replacement speed depend on date since founding, so any religion would be 'viral' in the first 10-200 years or turns, declining to a relatively low (or zero) natural spread after that

I agree everything yo just said except for "hinduists". It's hindus.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Thanks for the correction, no offense meant! (original post edited)

 

[Artichoker]

On the contrary, I think Taoism and Islam have some significant advantages over the other religions.

The main advantage is that they come later down the tech tree, which means that competition in founding them will be much less fierce due to the differences in how each civ researches techs.

For instance, you might find that AI civs get the upper hand when founding Hinduism and Buddhism, making it nearly impossible to found them yourself with assurance. This is because many civs begin with Mysticism, allowing them to found a religion on the next tech.

For Taoism and Islam, on the other hand, you can at least plan for them in advance. Since other civs probably won't be doing the same thing, chances are better you're the first one to get there.

 

[Silence101]

I think that having user defined religious traits, a religious victory condition, and an inquisition aspect to the game would solve the issues around the latter religions. I'm hoping that maybe a future expansion might add this type of demension to the game.

 

[obsolete]

To be honest, Taoism comes very early on Deity, and on Immortal it's not really that late either, so who cares.

Furthermore, Islam was only added as a FIX because the player who is the first to catch that beloved tech which gives +1g per religious building is somewhat screwed if he doesn't have his own religion. Understand?

So... if Firaxis leaves it as is, I have no real worries now that I think about it. I don't think it's too bright to try to FIX a FIX here.

 

[Riker]

@antichoke and, then? You have taoism and you can build a shrine for 2-10 gpt... It's better if you settle the prophet...

 

[Ormur]

In my games I'm usually the one to grab Islam because of the Spiral Minaret (because I usually found Hinduism). Even if I'm not running a religion based economy (where I often found up to four religions) it's nice to have another shrine so I usually try to spread it around my empire before I reach Scientific method.
It's seldom a major religion but Taoism even smaller in most of my games. There are always a few civs that switch to Christianity and Confucianism because they founded it but there have been very few Taoist civs in my games.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I have to agree with many people in this thread, the "Choose Religion" option makes the game much more diverse. It did bug me that Islam and Toasim were always left behind and the Hindus and Bhuddists were starting all the holy wars. I always, always play with this option now.

 

[AmazonQueen]

In my current game I founded Islam to build the wonders but it spread to faithless Hattie who spread it around her cities then got dogpiled by the rest of the continent who I'd spread Buddhism to.

 

[Echo of Celts]

I usually found Judaism myself, usually no mater what civ I am.

Then through my efforts, it is usually Judaism and Buddism/Hinduism duking it out for religious supremacy. Rarely do any of the other 3 religions come into play.