Why no religion in civ 5?

[Txurce]

Keep in mind that Civ4-esque religion would completely break the city-state system. Instead of carefully balancing requests and trying to keep your alliance stable, you could send in a Missionary, convert, and enjoy 3000 years of an alliance without doing much else. It would really take a lot of the fun out of the new system.

Agreed. This is effectively what Jon Shafer said in noting the connection between dropping Civ4-style religion and improved diplomacy. Almost by definition a separate "tech tree" makes for a vastly more complex game, no matter how smooth the surface may seem.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Keep in mind that Civ4-esque religion would completely break the city-state system. Instead of carefully balancing requests and trying to keep your alliance stable, you could send in a Missionary, convert, and enjoy 3000 years of an alliance without doing much else. It would really take a lot of the fun out of the new system.

I must respectfully disagree ShaqFu, for a couple of key reasons.

1) We already know that you can spend money to improve relations with a City-State. How is that any less arbitrary or artificial than using a missionary for the same effect?

2) That said, we've been reliably informed that relations with City-States decay relatively rapidly, making the scenario you've described highly unlikely-whether you're using gold or a missionary. Even in its unchanged state, Civ4 religion would represent just another tool for trying to win over City-States. Indeed, adoption of a religion might well be a *quest* given to you by a City-State to win their favor.

3) Of course, if you bothered to *read* my previous post, you'd see I never advocated a 100% Civ4 religion system. Done correctly, Religion can be a fantastic part of the overall game-including diplomacy. I'm talking about a system where you have to acquire significant levels of piety in order to even have a chance of founding a religion. A system where you actually have to spend culture to spread religion to foreign cities. A system where there are limited slots for religions in each city, & multiple levels of religious influence (from, say, 0 to 4 per religion). A system where simply adopting a religion will be insufficient to significantly alter diplomatic relations-but where you actions *after* that will have a greater influence (like which religious settings you have; how actively you spread or remove religions from your cities; how often you respond to the call for Holy War against Foreign or Heretical religions etc etc). A system where different settings can bring negative impacts from spamming religion. A system where you can potentially *remove* religions after they've spread to your cities. What bothers me is that, rather than have the *vision* to see the BENEFITS of a proper religion system in the game, they've instead taken the easy way out & removed it completely-which is "throwing the baby out with the bath-water" if you ask me!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

However, this would still thwart the attmepts ot make the AI behave like a human, because human players still wouldn't care if an AI was the same Religion as them or not.

With all due respect, that is a fault of the AI diplomacy system, not a fault of the religion system. Remove religion from Civ4, & you're still left with the problem you've mentioned-an AI which is bound by certain behaviour, whilst you-the human-can behave as you wish without penalty! I've long advocated a system where your nation's happiness is at least partly tied to how you behave in diplomacy. So though you *can* back-stab an ally you've had for 2,000 years, it will result in reduced happiness in your empire. This alone would solve at least some of the problems you mention in relation to religion. So too would a system where any positive or negative relationship factors decay over a relatively short space of time (as they apparently do with City-States).

Aussie.

 

[Txurce]

I must respectfully disagree ShaqFu, for a couple of key reasons.

1) We already know that you can spend money to improve relations with a City-State. How is that any less arbitrary or artificial than using a missionary for the same effect?

ShaqFu didn't call it "arbitrary or artificial" in the comment you quoted. He said that "instead of carefully balancing requests and trying to keep your alliance stable, you could send in a Missionary, convert, and enjoy 3000 years of an alliance without doing much else." That is true of Civ4 religion, and untrue of Civ5 city-state relations, as you note: "Relations with City-States decay relatively rapidly, making the scenario you've described highly unlikely-whether you're using gold or a missionary." Again, the difference is that a Civ4 missionary's influence doesn't decay remotely as rapidly as we expect all city-state influence to do in Civ5.

Now if you want to say that there was an alternative to throwing out Civ4-style religion and replacing it with Social Policy and city-state diplomacy... I'm sure you're right. But that has nothing to do with preferring what Civ5 offers over Civ4 in this regard.


2) That said, we've been reliably informed that relations with City-States decay relatively rapidly, making the scenario you've described highly unlikely-whether you're using gold or a missionary. Even in its unchanged state, Civ4 religion would represent just another tool for trying to win over City-States. Indeed, adoption of a religion might well be a *quest* given to you by a City-State to win their favor.

3) Of course, if you bothered to *read* my previous post, you'd see I never advocated a 100% Civ4 religion system. Done correctly, Religion can be a fantastic part of the overall game-including diplomacy. I'm talking about a system where you have to acquire significant levels of piety in order to even have a chance of founding a religion. A system where you actually have to spend culture to spread religion to foreign cities. A system where there are limited slots for religions in each city, & multiple levels of religious influence (from, say, 0 to 4 per religion). A system where simply adopting a religion will be insufficient to significantly alter diplomatic relations-but where you actions *after* that will have a greater influence (like which religious settings you have; how actively you spread or remove religions from your cities; how often you respond to the call for Holy War against Foreign or Heretical religions etc etc). A system where different settings can bring negative impacts from spamming religion. A system where you can potentially *remove* religions after they've spread to your cities. What bothers me is that, rather than have the *vision* to see the BENEFITS of a proper religion system in the game, they've instead taken the easy way out & removed it completely-which is "throwing the baby out with the bath-water" if you ask me![/QUOTE]

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

ShaqFu didn't call it "arbitrary or artificial" in the comment you quoted. He said that "instead of carefully balancing requests and trying to keep your alliance stable, you could send in a Missionary, convert, and enjoy 3000 years of an alliance without doing much else." That is true of Civ4 religion, and untrue of Civ5 city-state relations, as you note: "Relations with City-States decay relatively rapidly, making the scenario you've described highly unlikely-whether you're using gold or a missionary." Again, the difference is that a Civ4 missionary's influence doesn't decay remotely as rapidly as we expect all city-state influence to do in Civ5.

My whole point, though, is that the argument that Civ4's religion system would wreck City-State diplomacy is *not* backed up by the available evidence. Indeed, given that you'd only be able to spread the religion to the City-State *once*-wheras you can keep giving them more & more gold-the religion system is *less* exploitable than the gold mechanism for maintaining good relations with City-States.

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Now if you want to say that there was an alternative to throwing out Civ4-style religion and replacing it with Social Policy and city-state diplomacy... I'm sure you're right. But that has nothing to do with preferring what Civ5 offers over Civ4 in this regard.

Sorry but this, I believe, represents a false argument. You're basically suggesting that we couldn't have had City-States/Social Policies & Civ-4 religion in the same game. I'm saying that Civ4 religion could have fit into the existing Civ5 diplomacy system-with only a few minor adjustments. This fact suggests to me that the reasons claimed by the developers for removing religion are patently false, & instead reflect a lack of ambition!
Thank goodness the same defeatist attitude didn't hold sway in the shift from Civ3 to Civ4-otherwise we would have lost Culture & Resources due to the problems they had with their original implementation!

Aussie.

 

[Txurce]

AL,

I said the long-lasting effect of Civ4-style religion is what the designers wanted to change. They chose to do it via the keep-watering effect of Civ5-style city-state diplomacy. I'll take the latter over the former.

Again, an imaginary compromise along the lines of what you're suggesting (where Civ4-style religion is modified) may have worked. A lot of ideas floated on this site would have been worthy of considering. Instead they went in a direction which, unsurprisingly, initially pleases some and displeases others.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

AL,

I said the long-lasting effect of Civ4-style religion is what the designers wanted to change. They chose to do it via the keep-watering effect of Civ5-style city-state diplomacy. I'll take the latter over the former.

Again, an imaginary compromise along the lines of what you're suggesting (where Civ4-style religion is modified) may have worked. A lot of ideas floated on this site would have been worthy of considering. Instead they went in a direction which, unsurprisingly, initially pleases some and displeases others.

OK, I *really* hate to repeat myself, but you're leaving me with no alternative. The problem you've described was a problem with Civ4 diplomacy *as a whole*-not Civ4 religion. Namely, *all* the diplomatic bonuses/maluses-once earned-took a ludicrously long time to lose. Had this model been retained for Civ5 City-States, then City-States would have *sucked* anyway-even without Civ4 religion in the game. After all, if diplomatic influence decayed very slowly in Civ5, then a few gifts of gold &/or succeeding at a quest would earn you a friend for life-just as surely as spreading religion to them (though, in truth, there would be nothing to stop you losing that friend for life if they converted to a different religion-which would leave gold gifts as a much bigger exploit than religion for gaining City-States as allies).
Now, given that they obviously decided to go with a rapid decay mechanism for diplomatic influence, I see no reason why Civ4 religion couldn't have worked with City-States. Indeed, in a rapid decay influence system, religion still remains *less* of an exploit than gold gifts-because you can only convert a City-State to your religion ONCE, wheras you can keep giving gold gifts over & over again! So, again, I say that your "had to be one or the other" argument simply doesn't stack up logically, even if Civ4 religions had been ported-unchanged-into the game!

 

[Txurce]

AL,

I dislike repeating myself even more. So much so, that I won't.

 

[Charybdis]

Religion is an important historical concept, it's emotionally driven memes that propagate and give their controllers power, which is all society is, who gets to be top dog of various points.


Religion in Civ IV however is summarised into three points:

1. Gave you gold if you had the city.
2. Gave you happiness, some science, and other bonuses from your religion civic.
3. Gave you diplomacy modifiers.


I'm sorry but they don't represent the ideas of religion very much (outside of some happiness) to me. Adopting certain concepts, such as fundamentalism, or theocracy, or monotheism vs polytheism etc through the civics sounds like it would represent a cultures religious evolution far far better, all you lack is a name. But who cares really?

Sure a little option to "You have discovered religion, what would you like to name your religion?" then customise it, then ask other civilizations to follow your choices could be fun I guess, but it really doesn't matter too much.

Global religious spread was just boring/stupid and done for economic/political reasons, not for the cultural reasons it should be used for (yes I know today religion is mostly economic/political for those in power).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Global religious spread was just boring/stupid and done for economic/political reasons, not for the cultural reasons it should be used for (yes I know today religion is mostly economic/political for those in power).

Hmm, I'd argue that this is what religion has *always* been used for by those in power . That said, I concur that religion could be so much more-which is why its sad that its been largely dropped from the game (from what I've seen of the Piety Soc Pols, they're not nearly as detailed as the Religious Civics were in Civ4-& there are no cathedrals or priest specialists in the game either ). I suspect that at least some of the lead designers of Civ5 are Atheists, & that this was the *real* reason for them dropping religion from the game (the diplomacy stuff was just a convenient excuse). Don't get me wrong, I'm an agnostic myself, but that doesn't stop me from recognizing that the Civilization Franchise *benefits* from a decent representation of religion-both the good & the bad!

Aussie.

 

[craig123]

EDIT: Moved my post to a new thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=375104

 

[ShaqFu]

Don't get me wrong, I'm an agnostic myself, but that doesn't stop me from recognizing that the Civilization Franchise *benefits* from a decent representation of religion-both the good & the bad!

The issue with creating any halfway-respectable model of religion in Civ is that it collapses under its own complexity. Look at the system you posited earlier - it sounds good on paper, and it's a more accurate representation than Civ4's, but in implementation, it'd be overly complex to the point of taking focus from the rest of the game (1 for tech, 2 for worker orders, 3 minutes for build orders, 5 for maneuvers, 15 for micromanaging religion).

Civ games - Civ5 in particular - are designed as lots of simple parts, and the depth comes from the interaction between them. Religion doesn't model well in this system; you'd either get simple religion that interacts poorly (Civ4) or complex religion that interacts well (yours). Maybe someone in the future will find a model that manages to be simple enough to not overwhelm the player and still interacts well with Civ5's diplomatic game, but Jon Shafer couldn't, and I'm inclined to agree with him right now.

 

[StStutter]

The main reason religion isn't included is that the developers weren't trying to add any flavour through the civs, they built the civ AI to play to win. They tried to remove the disparity between the AI who were affected by arbitrary (gameplay-wise) modifiers.

They added diplomatic flavour through the addition of the city states. They don't play to win so can force the winning strategy to also be the one that is historically accurate. I think a great way to add in religion was mentioned in a new thread by craig123. That would maintain this city state - civ balance that they've struck.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The issue with creating any halfway-respectable model of religion in Civ is that it collapses under its own complexity. Look at the system you posited earlier - it sounds good on paper, and it's a more accurate representation than Civ4's, but in implementation, it'd be overly complex to the point of taking focus from the rest of the game (1 for tech, 2 for worker orders, 3 minutes for build orders, 5 for maneuvers, 15 for micromanaging religion).

Civ games - Civ5 in particular - are designed as lots of simple parts, and the depth comes from the interaction between them. Religion doesn't model well in this system; you'd either get simple religion that interacts poorly (Civ4) or complex religion that interacts well (yours). Maybe someone in the future will find a model that manages to be simple enough to not overwhelm the player and still interacts well with Civ5's diplomatic game, but Jon Shafer couldn't, and I'm inclined to agree with him right now.

What complete & total hogwash. You get a Great Prophet (by building Temples & Sacred Sites), & you use said Prophet to found a religion....oh my God, its all so very, very HARD (SARCASM). Compared to the new combat system, the religion system I'm suggesting is actually incredibly *easy*. Unfortunately, the game designers seem more keen on building a complex war-game than they are on building an interesting & well-rounded representation of history.

 

[stealth_nsk]

What complete & total hogwash. You get a Great Prophet (by building Temples & Sacred Sites), & you use said Prophet to found a religion....oh my God, its all so very, very HARD (SARCASM)

Founding a religion is easy - you could even use pre-founded religions (like suggested in holy city-states thread). The problem is religion spread and effect. That's there all the complexities come.

 

[ShaqFu]

What complete & total hogwash. You get a Great Prophet (by building Temples & Sacred Sites), & you use said Prophet to found a religion....oh my God, its all so very, very HARD (SARCASM). Compared to the new combat system, the religion system I'm suggesting is actually incredibly *easy*. Unfortunately, the game designers seem more keen on building a complex war-game than they are on building an interesting & well-rounded representation of history.

So far you've suggested:

-Using some sort of system to buy religion, either via culture or another piety counter
-A completely new AI layer to monitor religious activity
-A new city attribute, religion slots, that the player must keep track of
-Scaling religion bonuses with the amount of a religion in a city
-City-states intelligently handling religion in diplomacy
And this all gets rolled into one big new system for the game to handle.

None of these are easy or simple by any stretch of the imagination. Compare against the new combat:

-1upt
-Units that can fire over other units
-Hexagonal tiles
-Enhanced military AI that can handle the tactical difficulty of 1upt

Notice how the war aspect of the game was completely revolutionized by three mechanical changes, adding depth without complexity, and one necessary coding one. Religion can't be fixed like that; it would need something like you're suggesting, where you're adding so many mechanics/tweaks/systems that it would overwhelm the player's attention. Ultimately, that's not very fun for the player, as it draws the player away from the richness of the rest of Civ and into the minutiae of the religion system.

In short, from what I can tell from design and interviews, the mantra behind Civ5 seems to be "depth through simplicity." For better or for worse, there's no place for religion in that kind of design philosophy.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

In short, from what I can tell from design and interviews, the mantra behind Civ5 seems to be "depth through simplicity." For better or for worse, there's no place for religion in that kind of design philosophy.

So you keep saying, but you actually have *zero* evidence for any of your claims. Also, your belief is based entirely on your own personal *hatred* of Religion within the Civilization Game-a hatred which borders on the outright *irrational*! Social Policies, the new combat system, acquiring tiles via culture, the new AI & the new resource system are all incredibly complex systems-yet somehow they've supposedly managed to make them all work together. My ideas-no matter what you claim-are no more or less complex than that-in fact, most of them simply adapt already existing mechanisms within the game-like the purchase of Piety to increase your chance of founding a religion (by giving you access to new religious buildings), the construction of religious buildings & subsequent assigning of priest specialists to those buildings in the early game. The use of a Great Person (Prophet) to found a Holy City (Great People are already able to construct special buildings), using culture to spread religion (culture is already used to buy Social Policies & Tiles in the game) & an AI that tracks player behaviour throughout the game (again, we've been told the AI already does this in other parts of the game-like settling near its borders & the like). The stuff about City-States is just complete & total rubbish, because I would expect the City-States to handle religion the same way they handle gifts & the completion of quests. So, once you put aside your blind hatred of Religion in the game, ShaqFu, it becomes readily apparent that my idea adds NO NEW LEVELS of extra difficulty to the game. Still, your mind is clearly set on this issue, so I really don't see why I'm even bothering to try & convince you. No doubt if there is a religion-specific expansion for Civ5, you'll spam this board with rants about how it can *never* work!

BTW, one last thing, just because *you* hate religion in the game does not mean that Civ5's Designers made a good choice in removing it. I've seen several polls throughout this board which suggests the overwhelming majority of Civ fans want *some* form of religion in the game-& the bulk of them actually had no problem with Civ4 religion (the rest wanted a modified version of Civ4 religion in the game). That would suggest that your views are clearly in THE MINORITY here ShaqFu!

Aussie.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Don't want to dive into other's fight. I'm not absolutely against religion, but I need it to:
1. Work well. The religion spread in Civ 4 is quite bad.
2. Have some gameplay reason. City-state influence is quite weak, because you may not want to influence them at all - i.e. playing Songhai.

I didn't heard anything about these points.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Another thing to deal with if you try to apply Civ 4 religion with Civ 5.
In Civ 4 you was able to prevent non-state religions from spreading to your cities with Civic. Without switchable civics that mechanic will not work well.

And one more though:
Every specialist in the game provides:
- GP points.
- Something appropriate to the city (production/science, etc.)

For priests - what should they produce? Food? Or which additional bonuses should they give?