Worldreligions or Generic-only-Religions

[rhialto]

I see your point, I guess you guys are just a bit more liberal with what you consider acceptable. Come to think of it, a "comic book" mentality for Civ wouldn't be too far off, nor would it be particularly unenjoyable. I really got a kick out of the Elvis advisor in Civ 2. "Wise man say that only a fool runs an empire without entertainment."

I'm not entirely happy with giving some religions certain features that are prohibited in other religions. But that's neither here nor there, for as many arguments as I can make about gameplay balance and realism, there are just as many counter examples for realism and giving the player interesting choices.

Exactly. If you make all religions the same, you reduce it to what we already have plus a religious victory by converting your enemies and messing up their temples.

I still think that sticking with a few general groups (monotheism, polytheism, animism, dharmism, humanism) is optimal for both simplicity AND realism. It's realistic without having to get into the nitty gritty of which sect likes which value, and which religion is allowed to conduct which action -- it's simple. And moreover, it's flexible enough to deal with numerous possibilities that never happened, like a dharmic holy war, or non-institutionalized monotheism, or animists who believe in Jesus.

ok, lets examine polytheism. There are a huge number of potential wonders, and each historical polytheistic religion undeniably had different characteristics, judging from how they ranked their various gods. Germanic religion can justify having a military bonus, while Egyptian a scientific bonus, Chinese an anti-corruption bonus.

How would you disntiguish between these? So far, the only way that has been suggested is to tie these into the cultural groups, which is more restrictive than my main idea where anyone can discover any religion.

 

[menwia]

I don't think it shoud be based on cultural groups.

One must research and clarify the different types of Polthystic relgions, then give them each the certain numbers according to history, and then let the player choose which Poltystic Religions S/he wishes to choose and let the player decide what flavor to give it by the wonders/buildings and units S/He can decides to build.

So far - in my mind - generic and Real models are bascially nearly exactly the same. Where as one doesn't say exactly what you are the other one does. Now the three benifts so far for world are, your have core world religions, you can research the reliigons chronoligically and you have a much simplier, must striaght forward classification.

Just like the arabs were the first muslims - doesn't mean no one else can be a muslim. One must define them fairly as possible and give each historically accurate Choices - wonders/building/units and then let the player decide.

Teh next things we need to look is at Denominations and Sects.

1: Should we implement Denoiminations or Sects in either model cause there will be problems.

2; If so what would those denominations and Sects be and what are their characteristics and effects?

 

[rhialto]

I think the main problem with generic religions comes when we try to implement wonders. It is much more satisying to build "JS Bach's Cathedral" than "Big religious musical thingy". These no way you can keep the wonder names generic, and by that point you are implying real world religions anyway if you have any model that prevents the same religion having both "Sistine Chapel" and "Qa'aba".

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Ummmm, Rhialto, I can assure you that I NEVER suggested that Wonders or even improvements be given 'generic' names. In fact, I felt it was important to keep the real world names so that players could 'envisage' the look and feel of their religion. Small Wonders I am not so sure about, though, I think they could be either generic and/or specific-depending on what they represent.

Also, my idea to name religions that you form I think can solve this argument once and for all. That way you can have your real world religions like Christianity, Islam and Judaism, but you can also have generic named religions or really off-the-wall religion names which you come up with yourself! By allowing people to name their 'generic' religion, you also don't shackle them into what specific improvements and wonders they build either. So a player comes up with a European monotheistic faith, calls it Judaism (so long as no one has already come up with it) but then decides that their religious buildings are going to be Synagogues and wonders like the 'Torah', 'Ark of the Covenant' and 'Temple of Solomon' (again, assuming no-one has gotten in before you on these!)
As DH quite rightly pointed out, specific religions are fine for scenarios with a real-world map, but really limit the full imaginative potential of the player! You also point to the fact that we play specific Civs, so why not religions, but that doesn't really work for me. First of all, the civ you play can often have precious little bearing on historical reality-so Rome can build the Pyramids and Egypt can build the Great Wall. Also, though, I have long felt that you should be allowed to name your civ (and its leader) when you start the game, and have the option to change that name at the end of each era. So, for instance, you're playing the Germans but, at the start of the Ancient age, you get the option to change the name-which you alter to the 'Goths'. At the Start of the Classical Age, you might change that name, or keep it as is-same with Middle ages and so on. Your Culture group and Unique Unit will stay the same but, as I also support evolving civ traits, everything else is up to the player-either directly or as a result of how they play the game. If Civ4 can bring in one new element, it should be much greater flexibility-where the player can play as true to histpry as they want, but also has near limitless freedom to shape history to his/her whims! The same for religion too!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rhialto]

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you had suggested generic wonder names. But let's see, we have generic religion names, customisable if desired. And everything else that can be built is named for something that appeared in a real world religion. Why not just go the whole nne yards then?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Because, as I have said repeatedly, Wonders and improvements don't limit your choices, wheras Specific, PRE-SET world religions will limit your choices-at least they will if the designers don't want to unleash 'holy hell' (pun intended) with all those interfering busybodies in the right wing religious community! As I said in one of my most recent posts, I think that the ability to name a religion at the moment you form it really does address the concerns of both the 'real-worlders' and the 'generics'. It maintains the existence of real-world religions IF you want them whilst still allowing maximum flexibility for everything else. After all, if I choose to be non-deist WHY should I have to be Bhuddist or Taoist? Can't I be an Oprahist or a Donahueist? Or if I am Monotheist, why must I ONLY be a Jew, Christian or Muslim, can't I be a Pepsist or a Coca-colist? And then, if I want to encourage my Pepsist religion to sacrifice people in order to appease my God, then why shouldn't I be allowed to? After all, isn't that what civ is about-completely rewriting history? The wonders, improvements, units and stuff are really just there to make it 'culturally' recognizable and 'flavoursome' to the player. So if my Pepsist religion builds Mosques, then I know that my religion has an Islamic FLAVOUR to it (though perhaps no other relation to Islam AT ALL!!) If you want complete historical accuracy, then go watch some documentaries ! For my part, though, I want to re-write history, not merely re-live it!

 

[rhialto]

Another argument against this generic optin just occurred to me. The AI.

Let's consider two possibilities.

1) The AI does not name his religions, or names them with a random syllable generator. You'll lose a lot of flavour. Those seeking a historical anchor will be dissapointed to find that the Indian civ worships the Bloowaham cult instead of something from history.

2) The AI names them from a list of real world religions. In this case, the AI has great potential to build a religion that will offend members of the religion named, espcially as there is no longer any specific restriction on making the religion it has named Buddhism into a blood cult that has the Sistine Chapel. The alternative with this naming choice is to hobble the AI options, which is a poor design choice.

 

[menwia]

Assuie - I understand your desire for complet freedom, but you've gone to the other extreme - you can't have absolute freedom to do anything you want in Civ - it has to have some parameters. And even though I respect your desire to be create a relgions called Pepsit or Coca-colaist - I don't thinkg you should.

Same reason why you can't just discover any tech that never existed. Same reason why you can't build any wondres which never existed, same reason why you can't be any civ that never existed. Its the same reason why you shouldn't be any religion that never existed.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying your Christian Relgion has to be this way or that - no, you have the choice. But your Choices will be limited to actuall historical facts. If Christainty never built it - you can't have it, if Christianty never done it - you can't do it. Your own unique blend of Christianty with these considerations in mind ,will be up to you.

Also - why would any one be in an uproar. You're not hard wiring Chritianty or any other relgion in a certain way. All you are doing, is saying this is what has happened in historty with this relgion, these are its wonders and these are the effects and these are the buldings and the units. You CHOOSE how you want to blend them together . . .and all you choice will be backed up historically.


P.S. I think the next question is should we include Denominations or Sect for either models?

If so, what would they be and what would their effects be?

So long as the Generic model has no hard wiring, has no Civ Group influences, and has Implist relgions within the Generic lables - and no made up wonders. then - even though I prefer World Relgions - it is still acceptable.

But now we got to move on to denominations and Sects.

 

[menwia]

rhialto - do you think we should include denominations or Sects?

One more thing. With the Polythistic Relgins - is there some Chronological historic order that they have to be in - or is the philosphy of their religon not require this -eg, does one relgions have to exist before the other could have like the Monothism Religion.

I think that in Each Relgious Class - if there is no need for chronological orders for the religons within them - then there should be no Shared Relgious Wonder - however, others like the Monothism Relgions who need each other Philophiscally speaking should have a shared Relgious Wonder.

We should map out a model - Core World Relgions as well as a Generic one.

We can add the denomiinations and such later on once we've decieded either way.

 

[rhialto]

Denominations and sects - Where these can be represented by a small wonder, I think they should be included. Effects would usually be a small happiness bonus, but in cases where they can affect the local economy in a major way (Amish?) they should have other effects too.

Polytheism - In the tech tree, I envision a parent tech (called polytheism, funnily enough). This tech is a pre-req for each specific polytheistic religion. All the historical pantheistic religions (except Greek vs Roman, which we are telescoping together anyway, and arguably teh three branches of Germanic religion) were independant, so shouldn't be pre-reqs for each other.

I'm a bit leery of implementing sects, simply because those who identify themselves as a part of a sect tend to be more vocal, and more likely to raise a media-worthy complaint if the game doesn't reflect their idea of their religion. With all but the most well-known sects, it is probably safer to ignore them, but leave room for modders to implement them.

 

[menwia]

could you give me an exaple of the Polythesim relgions and how they would follow each other or which ones would be independant. This is only so I can put them in a kinda of diagram tree.

Remeber - denominations and Sects are two different groups. Denominations can be a much broader group - such Catholic and then you can have hundreds of sects withinin that denomination.

Civ Group
Civ
Relgious Class
Religion - Implist or Explist
Denomnionat - Implist or Explist
Sect - Implist or Explist

There is a good arguement for Sects being a mod. You'd have endless depth and freedom and could incorporate it into the prresent structure.

But in my mind its still open . . .

 

[dh_epic]

I'm still with Aussie, sticking with generic religions that you can name. And you push religion towards a well-defined, real world example by picking which wonders you build (specific, real world wonders).

You also need to look at things holistically -- if you just grab a whole bunch of things you think might be cool, especially with realism as the goal, you might do more damage than good.

Let's say you use real world religions, and you also want to have sects/denominations/subcategories. What about religions that weren't fortunate enough to be split along some sub-categorical line? You don't run into this problem with the generic model, because no generic religion (monotheism) is hardwired to reality in a one-to-one way. Therefore, these religions have links that are believable, but are still flexible enough to do things that never happened in history. For example, a "dharmic" religion could split and diverge, whereas Buddhism couldn't because it was never defined in history.

And a game where you're forced to walk through historical steps is certainly no fun. Picking christianity lets me maneuver and change throughout history, while if I pick Norse Polytheism I hit a dead end and stagnate before the Middle Ages even begins? Thanks, but no thanks.

But hey, if people love the the kind of realism that limits their choices and forces them to race through a predefined obstacle course that describes history ... then I guess that's their perogative.

 

[rhialto]

@menwia
My mistake earlier - I was abusing the terminology. Denominations would be defined by mutually exclusive wonders or great wonders. The main denominations I feel that could be implemented are:

Christian - Catholic / Protestant / Orthodox
Muslim - Shi'ite / Sunni
Germanic - Norse / Anglo-Saxon

Note that within the game logic, there is no need to define a denomination. Each individual wonder description should, however, those wonders that it would lock out / would lock it out. In some cases, it may be useful to create game concept pages in the pedia for each denomination in order to bring all this information together. But the game logic shouldn't need to know what a denomination is, just as it should not need to know what religious archetype (mono vs poly vs etc) a given religion is.

Sects can be implemented by a wonder (great or small depending on how geographically widespread they are), but only where they have a notable effect on teh economic structure, or have a clearly definable in-game effect, such as the Hashishin group of Muslims from the 11th-14th century or the modern Amish or some of the Graeco-Latin mystery cults. Some sects may be incompatible with certain wonders from their religion.

I'm still with Aussie, sticking with generic religions that you can name. And you push religion towards a well-defined, real world example by picking which wonders you build (specific, real world wonders).

I'm still waiting on an AI model for generic religions that will have the AI using real world religion names and simultaneously avoid offending religious groups. Short of hobbling the AI by restricting him in ways the player isn't, I don't know how it can happen.

You also need to look at things holistically -- if you just grab a whole bunch of things you think might be cool, especially with realism as the goal, you might do more damage than good.

Let's say you use real world religions, and you also want to have sects/denominations/subcategories. What about religions that weren't fortunate enough to be split along some sub-categorical line?

If a historical religion didn't split into denominations, then all of its wonders are mutually compatible. This is a good thing for any civ following that religion.

And a game where you're forced to walk through historical steps is certainly no fun. Picking christianity lets me maneuver and change throughout history, while if I pick Norse Polytheism I hit a dead end and stagnate before the Middle Ages even begins? Thanks, but no thanks.

I see picking the norse polytheism religion as the religion equivalent of picking a dynasty government - god for war, but not something you'd want for the late game. Or you could work with us and help define some modern age wonders for dead religions. I don't think extrapolating dead religions would offend too many people.

But hey, if people love the the kind of realism that limits their choices and forces them to race through a predefined obstacle course that describes history ... then I guess that's their perogative.

I also like the kind of realism that restricts me to building spearmen or swordsmen, and not optimised killing machines. No unit workshop, no religion workshop.

 

[dh_epic]

Two sets (core religion X sect) of five variables -- 25 possibilities in all -- would balance realism with flexibility. As much as I prize realism, I prize flexability just as much, if not more. I prize a game where I can rewrite history, not a game where I'm forced to repeat it. I would hate a game where making an a-historical choice led me to a dead end with no progress or evolution.

Norse polytheism is a fair example of such a dead end, but not the best example. Sure we can extrapolate from a dead religion. But what about religions that are alive and well today? Sure, Christianity has branched out into multiple tangible sects with many names (Protestant, Orthodox, etc.), and so has Islam. But Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, even Judaism (when you the impact Judaism had on Christianity and Islam) have all remained largely in tact throughout history. For all the energy you'd put into the realism of having these proper religions, you'd lose realism the second you'd need to do a schism or evolution.

Of course, you could have no such schisms or sects, and keep religion as a very minimalist addition to Civ. I am, to some degree, a fan of making religions into teams + buildings and nothing else. (By picking a religion, you are constrained to a certain "team" on the same religious side, and are restricted to certain buildings, but no other factors.) But you'd have to be willing to let go of all kinds of other wonderful features. I'd be okay with that, if Firaxis felt that having specific real religions is more important than flexibility. I think the minimalist approach would then make the most sense.

But I like the balance between flexibility and realism that comes from staying generic.

I think the best way to do the automated naming of generic religions with the AI is to either not name them at all (kind of disappointing), to give them a state oriented name (The Anglican Church, The Cult of Anglican, The Anglican Orthodoxy, etc.) or to name a very specific religious sect after a leader or philosopher (Calvinism, The Augustinean Church, The Cult of Joan D'Arc). Maybe any of the above at random. Personally I don't care too much about names, but I can see how someone might. I think you could come up with names that are sensible using these formulas. (Maybe "Plato's Blood Cult" is a little too absurd.)

 

[menwia]

so we could in a sense leave out denominations and Sects. The varying flavors in the Relgions the Players makes will be sufficent differences within the model.

I don't think that Denominations and Sects should be complelty ruled out. Rather they'd be an excellant addition as Mods as I think - were you can diverge into much more intricate detail and stuff.

I'm pretty okay on that issue myself. Could we not have a Generic/World Religion wthout Denominations or Sects.

I mean after we got the actuall basic model all worked out - one could then tackle the Denominations and Sects issue. Even without Denominations and Sects as such - it would still be quite a robust model with alot of added features and strategy.

Denominations and Sects to an extent will still exist in the form of differnt flavors of each relgions that a player brings about by his/her own Choices.

 

[rhialto]

Some sects would be cool. It'd be kinda fun to build the Bacchanalia (+3 happy, -10% shields) in a Graeco-Latin polytheism.

@dh_epic
You've proposed either naming the religions by the founding civ name, or by historically famous people from religion. That still doesn't avoid offending any religious group. The problem with naming by founding civ is that calling a religion, say, "The Russian Faith" will be associated in the minds of any Russian Orthodox people with that religion. Similarly, for almost every real world civ name, some religious person will associate "country faith" with their religion. And the association is even stronger with historical figures. And under teh generic model, it will be possible for the AI to accidentally generate a religion that will be offensive to those whom identify with the nation-faith or historical figure chosen. With such an open ystem, I really can't see how anything less than a random syllable generator can avoid causing offence. Even if it defaults to [culture group] [mono/poly/dharma], it will still risk being identified with a real religion and with no constrainst on how that generic religion can develop, teh law of really large numbers insists that a religion offensive to those who identify with the name will be generated.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I have already presented an incredibly comprehensive model for Generic Religions and sects, with sects and sectarianism occuring as a result of ingame behaviour (i.e. too many luxuries=high corruption=higher chance of an ascetic sect appearing within your religion. They still identify is the civs base religion, but have different viewpoints when it comes to personal possessions!) Aside from that, though, I would simply refer people back to the original post(s) to see how it would all work. As for Religion names, I have plenty of VERY simple games where the AI came with excellent names for ground units, ships etc-all from an extensive database system. The same could be done with religions, using a list of names going from the sublime to the ridiculous. At the end of the day, though, its about giving the PLAYER greater choices, not simply 'shoe-horning' him down a specific path, which I fear is what Specific world religions will do (and I am YET to see you guys give me ANY convincing arguments as to why that WOULDN'T happen!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rhialto]

ground unit and ship name generators are in a compleltey different class. No one is likely to take offence to teh extent that they declare a holy war or ask the game to be withdrawn from those. With religion names and an engine that allows the AI any conceivable combination of attributes for that randomly named religion, all bets are off.

While there are atmosphere aspects of the generic model I disagree with, this single aspect is one that will knock the product off the shelves if mis-handled.

 

[dh_epic]

I don't think you need to sidestep the offensiveness issue too much. Especially if you dodge "Anglican Church" and "Jesusism" and go with more obscure "The Cult of Windsor" and "Falwellism".

The real issue, for me, is avoiding direct comparisons with real world religions where people would say "that's not what Christianity is!" (regardless of whether it was offensive or not). If you make up a name for a religion, the comparisons are indirect at best. Indirect comparisons are never possible to rule out, but are better than direct comparisons in that they immediately diffuse the connotations of the original label. "Falwellism" may conjure up images of Christianity, but it is easier to write it off as a 'distortion' of Christianity, as opposed to the pure, real thing. Like how you can indirectly compare "forced relocation" to "genocide", but they're not the same thing -- people might get a little agitated at seeing 'forced relocation' in the game, but certainly not as much as they'd feel about genocide.

Certainly more politically correct than Christianity + Traits and Abilities. Although my goal is not political correctness but historical correctness. And Christianity + Wonders and Buildings (no Traits, no Abilities) is actually pretty historically "safe". That's kind of the reason why I wouldn't object to that being the model of religion for Civ 4.

The difference is with generic religions, you *could* model some traits, abilities and bonuses, and still be historically accurate and politically correct... that is if you're careful.

 

[rhialto]

Falwellism is a distoritio of Christianity, but also represents the single most likely Christian group to launch a campaign to get the game banned if they are offended. Bad example. Really bad example. I don't think I could have picked a worse famous person to name a game religion for.

Now, my main model is religion + wonders + buildings + units. While I think we should leave modding room for religions to have traits/default abilities for a religion, I don't think the shipped game should have traits in the default epic game.

Now, you say traits can be modelled for specific religions in a generic model. But conversely, in a generic model, I can't see what traits would make sense. For example, which is more militaristic, generic polytheism or generic monotheism? The differences within these broad categories are far greater than the differences between them.