Why I think religion is broken in CIV

[PurpleTurtle]

I do kind of agree that in the real world religeons do have have differences that could be mirrored in civ. The most obvious example is that there should be "war mongering" religieons (christianity, islam and Judeasim immidiatly spring to mind).

However the problems with this that I see are -

What do you give to the others? The obvious answer is comerce bonuses, but this seems very unrealistic, as I think the christian and muslim worlds have been more advanced for most of history.

The other big thing is commercial. The somewhat crippled religeon has not stoped any of us buying the game, but if one religous nut case proclamed it blasphemous, it could lose many sales.

I think the answer could have been to allow them to be modded differently. However this would have been extra work for the programers that they could not have advertised really.

BTW, I am sure there have been loads of threads like this, I have just managed to miss them all.

Jewish warmongers? Isn't that a little like making Gandhi aggressive? Can ya name one war that Israel has started? They sure as heck finish them, but to my knowledge they haven't actually thrown the first punch...ever...in essentially 3,000 years.

 

[joethreeblah]

I think almost everyone ignored the main point of the OP here which is a good one.

When implementing artificial emotions for the AI, there need to be palpable reasons for the things that they "care" about, in order to make it realistic. If I'm playing a nine player game, with 4 other humans, and 4 AI's, the AI's should behave, as near to possible, as the humans.

It's good that they get angry if you nuke them, or give oil to their enemy.

But for the religious and civic aspect, there needs to be incentive in having the same religion as another civ, besides you care because they care.

Maybe like +1 trade routes to civs with same religions. Or something. ANYTHING. For the AI to be a good player, it needs to care about things that help it meet an objective, IE winning.

As it is, they may fight a war, and finally you convert to the same religion as them. And what have they gained?

They dislike you because of your religion, so they won't take your oil in exchange for money. And they need it. This puts them at a disadvantage.

There needs to be a mechanism that causes harm between two different religions and/or benefits to the opposite.

Perhaps 3 unhappy citizens for trading with a heathen state?

How long has Israel existed?

 

[lightnng]

The claim that religions have no distinguishing cultural traits is simply wrong. We can argue cause and effect all day, but whether Catholicism caused the Crusades, or the desire to Crusade caused adoption of Catholicism doesn't really matter.

I don't understand this sort of claim. EARTH Christianity may have led to the crusades. CIV4 Christianity might be all about the advancement of pedophilia in one game, sacrificing chickens in another, and worshipping cats in yet a third. It could be polytheistic. It could be a manifestation of earth scientology. Heck, it could be anything. That's why this is a GAME, not a SIMULATION.

 

[Samson]

Jewish warmongers? Isn't that a little like making Gandhi aggressive? Can ya name one war that Israel has started? They sure as heck finish them, but to my knowledge they haven't actually thrown the first punch...ever...in essentially 3,000 years.

I was thinking about their early history, basicly killing everyone on the land they wanted. Of course for 2000 of the last 3000 years they did not have a land to be agressive from.

 

[countzero]

I think the christian and muslim worlds have been more advanced for most of history.

this may be partially true, but you are missing a point. There are many factors effecting scientific advance. The eastern world had a great burden, the chinese alphabet, which is (and has been) notoriosly hard to learn. This resulted in less people becoming literate, and slower tech advance. Also the social framework is a lot different than the west, which made a movement like the reinnassance difficult to happen in the east.

 

[Samson]

this may be partially true,

Definatly only partially. cf. China for a good few centuries.

but you are missing a point. There are many factors effecting scientific advance. The eastern world had a great burden, the chinese alphabet, which is (and has been) notoriosly hard to learn. This resulted in less people becoming literate, and slower tech advance. Also the social framework is a lot different than the west, which made a movement like the reinnassance difficult to happen in the east.

I quite agree, but people would use it to complain that that sort of system in the game is unreallistic. I preosonally would like it, but I can imagine the endless arguments here. Not sure that is avoidable anyway though

 

[Xenocrates]

OK what about this:

Religions are all identical, but as in life they have phases and antipathy to one or more other religions.

On the other hand this would make the game less strategic as it would increase the complexity of the decision making process. Actually, now that I come to think of it I already can't even sell bananas to the Romans without worrying how this will affect the relationship between the Japanese and the Mongols. No doubt this is the source of Blair's madness too.

More complexity will actually make the game even more RPGish and less strategic.

Let's think about what we can remove and not what we can add!

 

[sfuller]

I think it's great because I fill in the blanks. If I want to create a Islamic state that is rushing to space, I think about life on the street there: I make my own judgments/little postulations on why I'm doing something. If I want to be a Taoist destroyer of worlds, I can be.

Which is why I like the way Civ4 handles religion. It's an open ended system that doesn't try to get in my imaginative way.

But, I want to clear out my city of non-believers so I can have a uniform state (I'm very meticulous, to a fault probably) and I want a UU for every religion. Those are the things I'm looking for, because I'm happy with every other aspect. I especially like converting cities. And being able to spy on my neighbors.

I really want a monk kung fu unit, a holy knight, and an IAF f-16 with desert camo that does cool yaws through canyons like in Iron Eagle 2.

 

[DrewTate]

Off the top of my head, I can think of

• Christian-based terrorism (abortion clinic bombings)
• Muslim-based terrorism (9/11)
• Jewish-based terrorism (Mossad hits)
• Hindu-based terrorism (India)
• Buddist-(sect)-based terrorism (Japan gas attacks)

Terrorism in the name of religion isn't that uncommon, and is definitely not the burden of just Islam.

It's a written fact that there has never been an airplane hijacked in America by somebody who is NOT a 15-25 year-old Muslim. It's a fact. 100% of the plane hijackings.

Just thought I would throw that out there.

 

[PekkaM]

It's a written fact that there has never been an airplane hijacked in America by somebody who is NOT a 15-25 year-old Muslim. It's a fact. 100% of the plane hijackings.

Just thought I would throw that out there.

Your point being...?

 

[sfuller]

Yeah that's kind of...are we talking about the game? And you're way wrong on a lot of levels. Factually: Atta, the supposed mastermind of the WTC/Pentagon attacks, was 33; as was his second in command. More disturbing: the mechanism that would spur these sweeping, un-informed generalizations reveal a total lack of meditation on this subject. Let's try to talk about implementation in Civ4.

Edited to fix my gut reaction which was not complex, but also, in written fact, silly.

 

[Demartus]

this may be partially true, but you are missing a point. There are many factors effecting scientific advance. The eastern world had a great burden, the chinese alphabet, which is (and has been) notoriosly hard to learn. This resulted in less people becoming literate, and slower tech advance. Also the social framework is a lot different than the west, which made a movement like the reinnassance difficult to happen in the east.

Slower tech rate? Where did the west learn stirrups (which enabled knights and chivalry)? Gunpowder? And a host of other things.

The reasons for the descrepancy between East and West development are legion (and alphabet could very well be one). But many in the West were still illiterate despite having an 'easier' alphabet.

For instance, one argument involves the availability of rice (which can support more people than wheat), combined with the Black Plagues in Europe, which resorted in the absolute NEED for technical innovation to replace lost workers, as well empowering the worker, since there was a greater demand for them, destroyed the feudal system and gave rise to other governing forms. (in the East, cheap manual labor meant little need to develop technology - why invest in a machine when you can hire 10 people for a quarter the cost?)

As far as religion, assigning specific bonuses or maluses to them would be an excercise in the individual's bias - there are more differences, imo, WITHIN a given religion than there are between two religions. When you think Christianity, are you thinking Baptists, Evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Lutherans, Methodists, Angelicans...what? Likewise with Islam...or Buddhism, or Taoism, et al.

I'm pretty happy with religion as it is in the game (though unique units might be interesting, if done well - though I've no idea what they'd be).

Arguing that religions should be like civs, and have gameplay differences, I think is silly, if only because the civ differences are kinda arbitrary. Why do the American leaders get Organized? Why is Washington Financial? Why is Ghandi Industrious? Why not Spir/Philo?