World Relgions Mod - opinons, help?

[Eusebius]

I've been reading and Zoroasterianism only hass 2.6.mil.... and Neopaganism has inbetween 1-3 mil... I am thinking perhaps you should add alot more religions. I've been using wikipedia as a tool... wow sorry im drunk rioght now so if my posy doesnt make any sense im soryy

Been thinking about neo-paganism. Even though neo-paganism researches and tries to reclaim ancient roots, practically I think one would have to view it as a recent religion. Since it basically has no buildings and no missionaries, I think that the civic Environmentalism already represents the effects of this religion well.

Eusebius

 

[Eusebius]

How frequently does this happen? I think it's important to have, at least some of the time, a conquered city "rebelling" and having it's own culture.".

Conqueror's stated religion is added to the city. Then the natural effects of the religion food chain play out. There is about a 50% chance of a successor religion converting buildings of a predcessor religion when the successor religion is a state religion. Additionally, conquering religions that hate idols may destroy buildings of religions that have idols--probably about a 25% for each idol holding religion present in the city.

I also disagree with your placement of Organised Religion and Theocracy. Theocracy isn't so much religion supporting the government as it is religion controlling the government. Theocracy is the very image of "Ordained Government".

By virtue of word definitions, I tend to agree with you. However, if you look at the effect of the civics, I think my placement is better. I am trying to avoid messing with the names of game concepts too much, especially re-using civ iv terms.

Eusebius

PS. Mr. Earl wants to know when this will be available. I am hoping for an alpha release in a couple of weeks, but that is a hope, not an estimate. Editing the all the text entries and figuring out the art has been a lot of grunge work. I'm getting back to the fun parts now and will know more after I start doing some initial testing.

 

[Dryhad]

By virtue of word definitions, I tend to agree with you. However, if you look at the effect of the civics, I think my placement is better. I am trying to avoid messing with the names of game concepts too much, especially re-using civ iv terms.

I still don't think that's the right way of looking at it. You see it as Organised Religion being the government supporting the religion and Theocracy being the religion supporting the government. However, it is quite possible to view this exact same arrangement from a different angle. Organised Religion has the government sponsoring the religion, while Theocracy has the religion controling the government. It's more or less the same set up, the only difference is who's in charge. OR has the government in charge (your view conversely implies a subservient government) while Theocracy has religion in charge (your view implies a religion working hard to maintain a mighty government). The basic hierarchy is the same, but who wears the pants (if you will) is different.

 

[Eusebius]

I still don't think that's the right way of looking at it...

I'll talk about Judeo-Christian history since that is the one I know the most about. After the Exodus, Israel is a loose confederation of tribes that occasionally band together. This is the time of the Judges. ("Divine Patronage", but no "Monarchy" in civ terms). They do have a clear sense that God is on their side and determines the outcome of battles--which corresponds well to the military bonus of the "Theocracy" civic. They also go out of their way to trash competing pagan religions--corresponds to "no state religions pread". Later, the religious authorities appoint first Saul and then David (Add "Monarchy") who serve at the pleasure of the religious authorities--Saul is deposed in favor of David by Samuel.

"Organized Religion" corresponds much better to Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. The government took an outlaw cult and established it. Constantine called the Council of Nicea, in essence forcing the church to solve the Arian crisis by forcing the bishops to come up with a unified understanding of the nature of Christ. Subsequent centuries led to a tight integration of church and state which is much better modeled by the construction bonus in "Organized Religion".

Anyway, that is my take. Do you have historical counter-examples?

Eusebius

 

[Eusebius]

It is pretty nifty, I'm not entirely sure Christianity and Philosophy are that close however... and are there going to be any pantheistic religions for the ancient times?

I think the best way to talk about the early history of the Christian church is to call it the collision of Hebrew religion with Greek philosophy. Most of the early church fathers are trying to explain the gospel to Hellenistic culture. Many of them are neo-platonists. They are also calling "foul" when some Hellenists take the gospel out of bounds--various gnostic movemetnts for example.

There will be the general, default, "Paganism" which comes with "Divine Appeasement", the MesoAmericanism and Hellenism. Haven't really thought about pantheism in particular. Do you have an example religion and any idea about how it would differ from the kinds of Paganism thought about so far?

Eusebius

 

[Ranbir]

Love that enthusiasm Ranbir! I could use a civilopedia reference on Sikhs. Seems to me that the unique thing about early Sikhism was that some of the early Gurus were also military leaders. If you could emphasize that in your write-up, that would be cool.

NOTE: I am tending to emphasize the early aspects of religions. For example, I am making the Temple of Solomon a big deal for Judaism, even though the religion has changed much since those days. Thinking the same way about Sikhism. Changing civics can show the ways religions change over time.

Still need art work. For example, I would love stuff for Sikh temple, monestary, missionary. (Do Sikh's have cathedrals?). Will need something for the Golden Temple too.

Eusebius

Just PM when you need anything or specifically. I will actively try to get something by the weekend. The occasional stuff would be Gurudwaras. They really have no set design set as only the Darbar Hall, where the Guru resides(think throne room), resides. My local town uses the old Church Hall.

As Jas said, it was the 6th guru that employed use of martial arts. Used for when all other means fail. It was the Sikh military discipline that eventually strengthened the Punjab State and was the key for eventually being able to stop invasions through Khyber Pass (As many invaders before had used to enter India) Even after the British annexation, the British Army held the discipline that the Sikhs had in such high regard they only accepted Sikhs that had not cut their hair or had faltered in other ways. Simple logic really, if you can't uphold a few simple disciplines, how could you remain disciplined as a true British Soldier?

The problem I have will come to the mechanical bonuses of sorts. Because really, it's a bit of everything. And has on occasions been considered as what Karl Marx was about (without of course the consideration of an infinite power)

I have a few rough examples of what could be possible, without any knowledge of what the other religions will have of course. So could very well not make sense for balance.

The Institute of Langar. Providing free food to all that require it. One of the key things you'll notice in every Sikh Gurudwara. Any man, woman, caste creed blah blah is welcome to be fed here. Even Akbar the Mughal Emperor came and sat on the floor with the commoners to partake in this great institution.

The Golden Temple is probably one of the few places of worship that have you step DOWN to enter. Again a symbol of humility and bringing all people equal.

I'm also not sure about missionaries, since I'm sure Sikhism doesn't have any! Might explain how actually not that many know about us, despite us being around the world. Just thought I should put that out there.

I'll get to working on an pedia entry and providing some artwork for ya.

 

[Dryhad]

I'll talk about Judeo-Christian history since that is the one I know the most about. After the Exodus, Israel is a loose confederation of tribes that occasionally band together. This is the time of the Judges. ("Divine Patronage", but no "Monarchy" in civ terms). They do have a clear sense that God is on their side and determines the outcome of battles--which corresponds well to the military bonus of the "Theocracy" civic. They also go out of their way to trash competing pagan religions--corresponds to "no state religions pread". Later, the religious authorities appoint first Saul and then David (Add "Monarchy") who serve at the pleasure of the religious authorities--Saul is deposed in favor of David by Samuel.

"Organized Religion" corresponds much better to Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. The government took an outlaw cult and established it. Constantine called the Council of Nicea, in essence forcing the church to solve the Arian crisis by forcing the bishops to come up with a unified understanding of the nature of Christ. Subsequent centuries led to a tight integration of church and state which is much better modeled by the construction bonus in "Organized Religion".

Anyway, that is my take. Do you have historical counter-examples?

Eusebius

I have the very same historical examples. Constantine's government was no more "Ordained" than David's. Indeed, it was much less ordained. As far as I'm concerned, you're putting two and two together and getting five every time. You've got all the facts straight but you're not following them through to their logical conclusion. Your point about divine patronage is a red herring anyway, as there's nothing to suggest that an ordained government does not have divine patronage. I'm not saying Theocracy shouldn't be classified as divine patronage, only that it should be classified as ordained government. In other words, divine patronage shouldn't even be there.

 

[John Stalin]

at the very least put in Asatru, ^^ I like the mod idea and such your obviously a well educated individual but i'd like more choice in the non-abrahamic religion department

 

[Ranbir]

This died?

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

I think he is trying to conver to 1.61 Her he is posting date of just last week

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4126514#post4126514

I had some ideas of my own, many previous atempts to "valuate" religions have proven unpopular because doing so invariably offends someone. Its been sugjested that the only foolproof way to do it is a flexible mannor inwhich the player rather then the Mod designer picks which religion gives which bonuses.

It goes like this, at the start of the game each religion is an empty container with no bonuses. When a religion is founded the founding player may choose a "Gospel" aka set of Bonuses for that religion. The Bonus would be in the form of a Civic which is changable only by changing the state religion. The player can choose from a wide variety of Gospels each with a variety of effects which can be geared towards different play styles. The Gospel becomes perminently stamped on the religion (perhaps only modifiable by some extrodanary means). Now any player convertion to said religion recives that particular Gospel Civic. Their is no restriction on re-using a Gospel for more then one religion and many games would see some Gospels never being realized. This creates an insentive for Founding by guaranteeing the founder access to their prefered gospel. As the game progresses more advanced and powerfull Gospels with greater bonuses may become avalible to incresse the insentive to found more religions but they are never specificaly linked with any particular religion.

By the way I would love to see Egyptian, Greek and Scandanavian belief systems included as very early religions.

 

[alireza1354]

This is what I know.. You should split islam up in 3 groups. SUNNISM, SHIISM and MUTAZILISM (which takes credit of the Abbasid era of islamic scientific, political and military power, NOT SUNNISM OR SHIISM)

Zoroastrianism and Judaism are ethnic religions. Judaism less then Zoroastrianism cause in Judaism only the mother needs to be Jewish. In Zoroastrianism, both parents or else, u WILL NOT be zoroastrian. ALL zoroastrians need to be Aryans, or u CANNOT be zoroastrian.

I would like to see more sects of other religions too.

Greetings!

 

[Ranbir]

I believe Es' mod was potentially the most balanced and detailed. I hope he hasn't stopped this.

 

[Eusebius]

This died?

Nope, very much alive. Definitely one of those projects I wouldn't have started if I had known now how much work it would be! I've exercised the code pretty well and ran through a full game. This led to several design changes in how the religions get founded and how to keep Great Prophet supply and demand in line. I'm getting pretty comfortable with the XML and Python code and plan to release a .01 version within the next two weeks.

The biggest problem I am having now is that the art is a lot more complicated than I originally thought it would be. Much of it won't be working properly in the .01 release. Also, the fonts and some of the other game symbols seem to be screwed up. In addition to some initial playtesting, I am hoping that someone checking the pre-alpha release may recognize what is going on and give me some tips as to how to fix it.

Thanks for the prod,
Eusebius

PS. I'd be making much faster progress if my job didn't keep getting in the way of my hobbies.

 

[Ranbir]

Good to see you're still at it! I give spiritual support and will do my end of what I promised er...after the World Cup!

 

[Eusebius]

UPDATE July 25, 2006 - Mod has been released. Go to: here.