Why such an uncreative approach to religion?

[VanCrayden]

God, why is Firaxis so attached to this religion system from the fifth game? In Civ V, it was fresh; in VI, they developed this system, which was okay. But in VII, it's the same again, only now it's even worse—it's basically a leftover mechanic from VI. Who told them that having one religion per civilization is so wonderful? It's completely unhistorical, and moreover, this same mechanic across three games has become tiresome. Why not create a religion system that is independent of civilizations? Just look at Old World or Civ IV. They have excellent systems. Why does everyone always play to see who has the better religion? Where's the global block of Christianity? Where's the global Islam? Why can't a civilization that develops religiousness become a world center for religions and establish 2 or 3 religions at once? These are unanswered questions. Yet for the third time, we're being fed the same religious mechanics as if it's the most successful approach. Come up with a new approach to religion, Firaxis!

 

[Zaarin]

Yes, I was extremely disappointed to see religion not only based on the same mechanics but made worse in every possible way. I would be overjoyed if the first expansion were a new Gods & Kings, overhauling religion and government. (I'm not holding my breath, though.)

 

[bbbt]

It feels very placeholder/rushed, like a lot of things in the game. The stripped down version of 7. The 2 civic 'theology' tree.

Like they decided they needed religion, and wanted a mechanic that was different in each era, and were like "well we don't have time to figure it out, just figure out a low effort version of 6's"

Ideology feels similar to me tbh. They know players liked it in 5 and wanted it back, but gave a very barebones version of it.

It feels like they could have come with a more fleshed out mechanic and it used it for both - ie religious pressure and spread can also be used for ideological pressure and spread in the modern age or something like that.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I suspect this is intended to be a core feature of an upcoming DLC. The base religion mechanics are stream-lined versions of Civ 6's, likely because they chose not to devote programmer time to this area for the base game, and instead allocated it to an expansion.

 

[tman2000]

God, why is Firaxis so attached to this religion system from the fifth game? In Civ V, it was fresh; in VI, they developed this system, which was okay. But in VII, it's the same again, only now it's even worse—it's basically a leftover mechanic from VI. Who told them that having one religion per civilization is so wonderful? It's completely unhistorical, and moreover, this same mechanic across three games has become tiresome. Why not create a religion system that is independent of civilizations? Just look at Old World or Civ IV. They have excellent systems. Why does everyone always play to see who has the better religion? Where's the global block of Christianity? Where's the global Islam? Why can't a civilization that develops religiousness become a world center for religions and establish 2 or 3 religions at once? These are unanswered questions. Yet for the third time, we're being fed the same religious mechanics as if it's the most successful approach. Come up with a new approach to religion, Firaxis!

It really does feel like they developed this system in the last 12-15 months from scratch as a bare minimum product. I don't know how you spend 6-8 years to make... this.

 

[evonannoredars]

Fingers crossed a DLC rework also has religion options that aren't just Eurasian religions!

 

[Zaarin]

Fingers crossed a DLC rework also has religion options that aren't just Eurasian religions!

Here's hoping Tomatekh ports his Historical Religions mod in its entirety when modding tools are more complete. And that Civ7 eventually makes me care enough about my religion to make it worthwhile.

 

[Banazir864]

God, why is Firaxis so attached to this religion system from the fifth game? In Civ V, it was fresh; in VI, they developed this system, which was okay. But in VII, it's the same again, only now it's even worse—it's basically a leftover mechanic from VI. Who told them that having one religion per civilization is so wonderful? It's completely unhistorical, and moreover, this same mechanic across three games has become tiresome. Why not create a religion system that is independent of civilizations? Just look at Old World or Civ IV. They have excellent systems. Why does everyone always play to see who has the better religion? Where's the global block of Christianity? Where's the global Islam? Why can't a civilization that develops religiousness become a world center for religions and establish 2 or 3 religions at once? These are unanswered questions. Yet for the third time, we're being fed the same religious mechanics as if it's the most successful approach. Come up with a new approach to religion, Firaxis!

I always thought that the religion system from Civ IV (where religions arise organically* and you simply choose how to react to them) was the most realistic. For that matter, I preferred Civ IV's civic system over V-VII---it felt the most like an actual government adopting core philosophies on each of the main issues before it rather than just specific policies (like in VI-VII) or traditions that stuck around permanently (like in V).

*-Yes, you can see which techs will unlock each religion and deliberately try to ensure one or more of them is founded in your nation, but that's part and parcel of the player knowing what techs/units/etc. will become available later in the game and planning for them. It's not realistic, but there's no reasonable way around it.

 

[Patine]

Why can't a civilization that develops religiousness become a world center for religions and establish 2 or 3 religions at once?

You mean, like India, China, Iran, Israel, or the U.S.? It is a very good question.

 

[Patine]

Where's the global block of Christianity? Where's the global Islam?

Both are far too internally (and violently) divisive to be properly called, "blocs," but again, a very good point. Also, with Buddhism.

 

[jaegermeister]

Religion in civ7 is terrible tbh. It's just an annoying mechanic to deal with, does not add any flavor to the game. Devs just couldn't design a system that goes beyond 'Spam missionaries and micro'. There is no organic growth, even the neighbouring cities do not get affected. I found my religion and convert far away lands, but my mainland still does not follow my own religion because oh, I had to send missionaries to the town that's next to my religious city lol

Yeah religion needs a complete rework not gonna lie

 

[stealth_nsk]

Unpopular opinion - Civ7 has the best religion system in Civ games so far. It's still mediocre, but previous ones were worse.

First of all, in Civ4-6 religion is fully optional you could play a game without founding a religion and on highest difficulty levels that was pretty common (Civ6 even has a special leader to ensure player founding a religion if you really want to play the game). Having complicated but fully optional system is bad already. On top of this, religious spread system was automated behind the scene math system. You can't control it, you could only slightly affect it by spamming units. If you try to win religious victory in Civ6 by converting another continent, you'll need a flow of apostles, compared to which Civ7 religion doesn't have any micromanagement at all.

Now, what's good about Civ7 religion is that once you get its two modes, it become really nice system to play. Simple mode is there you use religion to fulfill legacy paths. It's clean and totally manageable gameplay. Advanced mode is when you try to bring some religious bonuses to the next era. In this mode you convert as many settlements as possible and engage in countering enemy missionaries. It's important to not mix those modes - if you only want to fulfill legacy paths, don't convert more settlements than you need to either get military score (one time) or produce relics.

What's bad about Civ7 is this advanced mode being bogged down micromanagement. We've discussed it already, I believe adding more policy cards to simplify gameplay would help a lot. For example, policy cards adding more charges to missionaries (there's one already, but it's not enough). A policy, which allows spending 2 charges to convert both rural and urban population in a single action. That sort of things.

 

[UWHabs]

Unpopular opinion - Civ7 has the best religion system in Civ games so far. It's still mediocre, but previous ones were worse.

First of all, in Civ4-6 religion is fully optional you could play a game without founding a religion and on highest difficulty levels that was pretty common (Civ6 even has a special leader to ensure player founding a religion if you really want to play the game). Having complicated but fully optional system is bad already. On top of this, religious spread system was automated behind the scene math system. You can't control it, you could only slightly affect it by spamming units. If you try to win religious victory in Civ6 by converting another continent, you'll need a flow of apostles, compared to which Civ7 religion doesn't have any micromanagement at all.

Now, what's good about Civ7 religion is that once you get its two modes, it become really nice system to play. Simple mode is there you use religion to fulfill legacy paths. It's clean and totally manageable gameplay. Advanced mode is when you try to bring some religious bonuses to the next era. In this mode you convert as many settlements as possible and engage in countering enemy missionaries. It's important to not mix those modes - if you only want to fulfill legacy paths, don't convert more settlements than you need to either get military score (one time) or produce relics.

What's bad about Civ7 is this advanced mode being bogged down micromanagement. We've discussed it already, I believe adding more policy cards to simplify gameplay would help a lot. For example, policy cards adding more charges to missionaries (there's one already, but it's not enough). A policy, which allows spending 2 charges to convert both rural and urban population in a single action. That sort of things.

There's parts of the system I like. I like how it has its own policy tree which competes with the other cultural progression (similar with ideologies, you kind of have a choice of which priority to focus on). I like how there can be narrative reasons why you get extra bonuses. And agreed that you sort of have the "required" amount of religion to handle the legacy path, and the "optional" other part of the religion. And religion in every civ game has been polarizing at best, and forgettable at worst.

But yeah, the current beliefs/bonuses are underwhelming. I have to guess at what terrain opponents cities are in? Having to convert like 90% of the world to get a bonus belief is like laughably terrible.

Give me more traditions related to religion. Give me some more flexibility in beliefs. Give me some of those choices between cheaper missionaries vs having more boosts for converted cities. Give me some legit reasons why I might want to convert my homeland vs a neighbour's lands. Give me some punishments for not converting my home cities. Even if it stays a whack-a-mole, if I at least have a few more choices about how to whack the moles, or a reason beyond checking off a box to do it, maybe it can work.

 

[stealth_nsk]

There's parts of the system I like. I like how it has its own policy tree which competes with the other cultural progression (similar with ideologies, you kind of have a choice of which priority to focus on). I like how there can be narrative reasons why you get extra bonuses. And agreed that you sort of have the "required" amount of religion to handle the legacy path, and the "optional" other part of the religion. And religion in every civ game has been polarizing at best, and forgettable at worst.

But yeah, the current beliefs/bonuses are underwhelming. I have to guess at what terrain opponents cities are in? Having to convert like 90% of the world to get a bonus belief is like laughably terrible.

Give me more traditions related to religion. Give me some more flexibility in beliefs. Give me some of those choices between cheaper missionaries vs having more boosts for converted cities. Give me some legit reasons why I might want to convert my homeland vs a neighbour's lands. Give me some punishments for not converting my home cities. Even if it stays a whack-a-mole, if I at least have a few more choices about how to whack the moles, or a reason beyond checking off a box to do it, maybe it can work.

The religion system surely could benefit from some additional things and I totally agree that the current belief unlock conditions need changing. I just don't think it needs too many investments, because competition to convert as many settlements as possible is still optional (and nearly unreachable at highest difficulty levels).

 

[reddishrecue]

I don't really consider it a religion. I would consider it a relic system because that's all I try to go for when I get a religion on the exploration era. Added bonuses such as defense in each city with the religion, added happiness or science, etc., etc. as well as narratives come and might make it feel like a religion, but I still don't consider it a religion because of the achievements that you can have accomplished through relic making beliefs. It's too customized to feel like a religion and up to the player rather than up to the god or gods. I have even felt discouraged on the relic making system with certain narratives before and it's just more of the hidden exciting consequences of having a religion during the exploration era which might be where the god or gods come in but I still don't feel like it's a religion... I remember having a new physician unit necessary to carry on a religion when I was trying Chola out. My objectives were getting those relics and temple and then getting the added bonuses to whatever other achievement that might need it such as defense or science but I was attacked and went for the pax objective instead, abandoned making missionaries and maybe that's why the god or gods or dietic being or whatever didn't feel like I was being really worshipful and I got this bad omen where physicians were needed to clean up the mess that my religion would need. IMHO the religion system is fine... It's been fine since civilization 4.

 

[uppi]

Unpopular opinion - Civ7 has the best religion system in Civ games so far. It's still mediocre, but previous ones were worse.

First of all, in Civ4-6 religion is fully optional you could play a game without founding a religion and on highest difficulty levels that was pretty common (Civ6 even has a special leader to ensure player founding a religion if you really want to play the game). Having complicated but fully optional system is bad already. On top of this, religious spread system was automated behind the scene math system. You can't control it, you could only slightly affect it by spamming units. If you try to win religious victory in Civ6 by converting another continent, you'll need a flow of apostles, compared to which Civ7 religion doesn't have any micromanagement at all.

Religion in Civ 6 was not fully optional. You had to care at least enough that no one else won a religious victory. The AI did not do no threaten a victory very often, but sometimes it got close enough that you had to do something about it (especially on smaller maps). But I do agree that one positive quality of the Civ 7 system is that converting a foreign city does not have you jumping through hoops.

Now, what's good about Civ7 religion is that once you get its two modes, it become really nice system to play. Simple mode is there you use religion to fulfill legacy paths. It's clean and totally manageable gameplay. Advanced mode is when you try to bring some religious bonuses to the next era. In this mode you convert as many settlements as possible and engage in countering enemy missionaries. It's important to not mix those modes - if you only want to fulfill legacy paths, don't convert more settlements than you need to either get military score (one time) or produce relics.

In my opinion, this simple mode is too simple and just becomes a box to tick. You make one meaningful decision: Which reliquary belief to take (and even that is often a non-decision, because of the imbalance of the beliefs, but that could (maybe) be fixed). The rest is very automatic: You find cities that fulfill the requirements and covert them without thinking about it. It is made somewhat more annoying that the UI does not tell you, which ones these are, but once you have identified the cities, there is pretty much no decision making involved.

What's bad about Civ7 is this advanced mode being bogged down micromanagement. We've discussed it already, I believe adding more policy cards to simplify gameplay would help a lot. For example, policy cards adding more charges to missionaries (there's one already, but it's not enough). A policy, which allows spending 2 charges to convert both rural and urban population in a single action. That sort of things.

But even the advanced mode is too simple. Again, there is only the decision on how many missionaries to make. It does not matter which cities I convert. The 6-population town has the same effort and benefit as the 50-population city. There needs to be something interesting to it. Something that makes me think. Something that needs meaningful decisions. And not just busywork.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Religion in Civ 6 was not fully optional. You had to care at least enough that no one else won a religious victory. The AI did not do no threaten a victory very often, but sometimes it got close enough that you had to do something about it (especially on smaller maps). But I do agree that one positive quality of the Civ 7 system is that converting a foreign city does not have you jumping through hoops.

Yes, I agree. But if you don't found a religion in Civ6, the only way to really stop opponents from religious victory is through conquest.

In my opinion, this simple mode is too simple and just becomes a box to tick. You make one meaningful decision: Which reliquary belief to take (and even that is often a non-decision, because of the imbalance of the beliefs, but that could (maybe) be fixed). The rest is very automatic: You find cities that fulfill the requirements and covert them without thinking about it. It is made somewhat more annoying that the UI does not tell you, which ones these are, but once you have identified the cities, there is pretty much no decision making involved.

Well, in addition to getting relics, you also need religion for military legacy path, which requires a bit more management to do this in sync. Other than that, yes, it's deliberately simple, but that's because it replaces previous civ "I didn't found a religion" situation.

Also, while it's not great by itself, it really messes things for players who actually try to play for religious domination, so in SP it makes AI create complications for you. And in MP this should be quite fun.

But even the advanced mode is too simple. Again, there is only the decision on how many missionaries to make. It does not matter which cities I convert. The 6-population town has the same effort and benefit as the 50-population city. There needs to be something interesting to it. Something that makes me think. Something that needs meaningful decisions. And not just busywork.

Yes, they 100% need to reduce busywork and, in perfect world, add some meaningful decisions too. I just think focus should be on less optional systems and adding more complexity to religion is not something which requires polishing right now.

 

[tman2000]

Unpopular opinion - Civ7 has the best religion system in Civ games so far. It's still mediocre, but previous ones were worse.

Unpopular or not, I just don't find this statement credible. To each their own, but, it's hard to argue that this system is better than all of 4,5, and 6 and their much more interesting religion systems.

First of all, in Civ4-6 religion is fully optional

This is what Civ 7 needs. Conversion should be a race in the first 1/3-1/2 of the age, after which cities are what they are and conversion events will be rare.

Meanwhile, rather than one player gaining all the benefits from their religion, they should get a "founder's bonus" but the benefits of the religion should apply to other players.

There should be one civic which allows a leader once per the exploration age, to switch their religion to receive the bonuses of another religion. Then, theology policies will be available based on what kind of religious geography you have (diverse religions, uniform religion, what type of religion).

For the last 1/2-1/3 the contours of religion will shape the game. Some religious beliefs create antagonism against other religions (relationship changes, forced), but add combat bonuses. Others create relationships improvements, but combat weakness.

The way you get relics should be different/easier. They should be tradeable and you should be able to steal them by conquering cities. They should be slottible on commanders, in science, culture, gold buildings.

 

[UWHabs]

Unpopular or not, I just don't find this statement credible. To each their own, but, it's hard to argue that this system is better than all of 4,5, and 6 and their much more interesting religion systems.

This is what Civ 7 needs. Conversion should be a race in the first 1/3-1/2 of the age, after which cities are what they are and conversion events will be rare.

Meanwhile, rather than one player gaining all the benefits from their religion, they should get a "founder's bonus" but the benefits of the religion should apply to other players.

There should be one civic which allows a leader once per the exploration age, to switch their religion to receive the bonuses of another religion. Then, theology policies will be available based on what kind of religious geography you have (diverse religions, uniform religion, what type of religion).

For the last 1/2-1/3 the contours of religion will shape the game. Some religious beliefs create antagonism against other religions (relationship changes, forced), but add combat bonuses. Others create relationships improvements, but combat weakness.

The way you get relics should be different/easier. They should be tradeable and you should be able to steal them by conquering cities. They should be slottible on commanders, in science, culture, gold buildings.

At one point I was thinking religion should be like influence to spread, like the current espionage, but now that you mention it, I wonder if maybe religion should be almost more like independents/city-states. Basically you spend something to start to convert settlements, and once they convert, they basically get locked in at that.

It might be a little too tight if it's just the 30 turn timer like independents, but maybe the cost is the same befriending an independent, but it's put on like a 50 turn timer. Or you keep it on a 30 turn timer, but you add a mechanism to basically fight someone else's influence. As in, once it hits 30, whatever everyone puts in gets reset to 0 per turn, whoever wins gets the conversion, but someone else can battle you with now a 40 turn timer to convert your city.

It would solve some of the whack-a-mole of the problems, it gives you some balance in terms of spreading your influence around for a low of slow conversions, or concentrating it in faster ones, and you'd at least get rid of all the manual moving units around, and would also give you an interesting option for influence in the era to choose what to do.

 

[tman2000]

At one point I was thinking religion should be like influence to spread, like the current espionage, but now that you mention it, I wonder if maybe religion should be almost more like independents/city-states. Basically you spend something to start to convert settlements, and once they convert, they basically get locked in at that.

It might be a little too tight if it's just the 30 turn timer like independents, but maybe the cost is the same befriending an independent, but it's put on like a 50 turn timer. Or you keep it on a 30 turn timer, but you add a mechanism to basically fight someone else's influence. As in, once it hits 30, whatever everyone puts in gets reset to 0 per turn, whoever wins gets the conversion, but someone else can battle you with now a 40 turn timer to convert your city.

It would solve some of the whack-a-mole of the problems, it gives you some balance in terms of spreading your influence around for a low of slow conversions, or concentrating it in faster ones, and you'd at least get rid of all the manual moving units around, and would also give you an interesting option for influence in the era to choose what to do.

Nice idea, but that would require Firaxis to make UI menus which apparently is beyond their ability.