Robi D
Minister of (Dis)Order
Religion is a significant influence in the world, and as far as i know everyone who's played civ has wanted it to be included in the game for that reason. Now that it going to be in civ4, no one seem happy about it, because its just a bunch of names with no special abilities or charcteristics, that firaxis have just done the PC thing. Personally think that's being a bit unfair, i don't believe that religion could have been incoporated into the game any better, and i'll give you the two major reasons why.
1) How do you put a value on spirituality?
A lot of people wanted different religions to have different qualities and charactersitics, but religion isn't physical, its spiritual, and essence of spiritual things can't be defined with physical values. A persons spiritual beliefs don't make them stronger or faster ect. it might make them feel that way, but thats a mental aspect of people. A persons menatality can affect their physical capabilities, people with a happy state of mind will do a job better than unhappy people, but that doesn't mean happy people have increased physical abilities because they are happy, it just means they are able to work closer to their potential. Religion and ones spiritual beliefs are one part of a persons mental state. If i was to change my religion today, would that make me a different person all of a sudden, no of course not, it wouldn't change one physical thing about me because its spiritual. Take for example mohummed ali, did changing his religious faith make him a better boxer, well yes and no. No, its didn't suddenly make his jabs faster or his hooks harder, but also yes because he felt his own spiritual beliefs were reflected in islam, changing to islam would have made him happier and therefore mentally stronger, which would make him a better boxer in that sense.
2) Religion is a very sensitive subject !
You just have to read some of the topics on the forum to see this, the fact that all religions will have missionaries upset people as in real life thats not the case. Now this is a minor thing as in the game there needs to be a physical means of spreading religion and migration isn't modelled in the game this was the chosen method, but it caused a major debate. Now if that caused a big debate, image the debate that would be caused by making a religion produce more happiness or more aggresive/militaristic. Its not an issue of PC here, but a fact of life, religion is a very personal thing, so people will take things about their religion personnally. And as i stated above, religion is spiritual, which makes it impossible to assign physical values. To try to assign physical values would be inviting mayhem as no one would agree and everyone would be upset.
Having said that, in civ 4 religion is more than just a name in the background. It opens up many more posibilities in the game, for instance it will be a factor in relations with other civs, which might start wars or help create alliances, as well as the line of sight bonus if your state religion is the same as that of cities in other civs, ect. Civ is successful because it offers a player choices and possibilites, so as i see, introducing religion and with it more choices and possiblities can only be a good thing.
1) How do you put a value on spirituality?
A lot of people wanted different religions to have different qualities and charactersitics, but religion isn't physical, its spiritual, and essence of spiritual things can't be defined with physical values. A persons spiritual beliefs don't make them stronger or faster ect. it might make them feel that way, but thats a mental aspect of people. A persons menatality can affect their physical capabilities, people with a happy state of mind will do a job better than unhappy people, but that doesn't mean happy people have increased physical abilities because they are happy, it just means they are able to work closer to their potential. Religion and ones spiritual beliefs are one part of a persons mental state. If i was to change my religion today, would that make me a different person all of a sudden, no of course not, it wouldn't change one physical thing about me because its spiritual. Take for example mohummed ali, did changing his religious faith make him a better boxer, well yes and no. No, its didn't suddenly make his jabs faster or his hooks harder, but also yes because he felt his own spiritual beliefs were reflected in islam, changing to islam would have made him happier and therefore mentally stronger, which would make him a better boxer in that sense.
2) Religion is a very sensitive subject !
You just have to read some of the topics on the forum to see this, the fact that all religions will have missionaries upset people as in real life thats not the case. Now this is a minor thing as in the game there needs to be a physical means of spreading religion and migration isn't modelled in the game this was the chosen method, but it caused a major debate. Now if that caused a big debate, image the debate that would be caused by making a religion produce more happiness or more aggresive/militaristic. Its not an issue of PC here, but a fact of life, religion is a very personal thing, so people will take things about their religion personnally. And as i stated above, religion is spiritual, which makes it impossible to assign physical values. To try to assign physical values would be inviting mayhem as no one would agree and everyone would be upset.
Having said that, in civ 4 religion is more than just a name in the background. It opens up many more posibilities in the game, for instance it will be a factor in relations with other civs, which might start wars or help create alliances, as well as the line of sight bonus if your state religion is the same as that of cities in other civs, ect. Civ is successful because it offers a player choices and possibilites, so as i see, introducing religion and with it more choices and possiblities can only be a good thing.
!) It doesn't bother me that religions are going to be Vanilla when Civ4 initially comes out. For me, all of these extra bells and whistles can wait-I am just stoked that religions are in this time around. I just think that even in Vanilla form, this new element will add heaps to the game-play.
