Worldreligions or Generic-only-Religions

[Loppan Torkel]

Of course they might cut religion if it's too hard to implement in a good way but I suspect that they, like me, would like to have a major new feature in the game just like culture was new in civ3.
Improving culture, negotiating etc and implementing civics, provinces or whatever doesn't sound as impressive as adding religion into the game, not from a selling point anyway. In the end it's up to Fireaxis to decide if it's worth it or not.

Either way I think religion deserves to be parted from culture and rather than religion being a form of culture I think that culture in many ways is formed out of religion.

 

[dh_epic]

Not to get terribly off topic...

But there's plenty of killer features that would sound pretty good.

"Install puppet regimes, establish colonies, and rule the world by proxy"
"Hit your citizens or other nations with different kinds of propaganda"
"Secretly interfere with your allies and enemies, all under the guise of peace"
"Use social engineering to shape the will of your people"
"New ways to win, including victory through wealth, and victory through happiness"

Religion definitely is a selling point though, I'd be stupid if I didn't admit that. I just think you'd either end up with a complex and confusing idea of religion, or a view of religion that's so simple that your game doesn't even resemble a POSSIBLE way history could have turned out.

 

[sir_schwick]

But lets agree that theorhetically religion is going to be included. Now we can discuss implementation. It also assumes that 'culture' is either eliminated, or a combined form of the others things I discuss. Here is how my idea works so it can be spread.

1A) There are 'religion producing' buildings such as Temples and Cathedrals(more included in Civ 4)
1B) There are 'learning producing' buildings such as Libraries and Universities.
1C) There are 'product producing' buildings such as Marketplaces and Banks(coins).
1D) There are 'architechtural producing' buildings such as Walls and Aqueducts.
1E) There are 'entertainment prouducing' buildings such as Colliseums and Theatres.

2) National borders are no longer determined by cultural borders. However, any parts outside your cultural borders will often try to maintain their autonomy(non-aggressive) and usually require a military prescence to keep under control. These autonomous states will appear as villages, but might produce military units for defensive purposes.

3) For this discussion I am going to use the term 'influence' often. In Civ 3 that was whenever culture reached 10, 100, or 1000 and it gained 'influence'. >10 was 1 Influence, >100 was 2 etc.

4) Vector is being used as an easier term for religion/learning/products/architechture/entertainment

4) The influence of a vector increases its radius of effect around a city the same way cultural influence did in Civ 3. Other cities that fall into the range of this radius also start earning the same points per turn for the vector that the original city was. Whenever zones overlap the most poweful zone of a particular vector of a particular civ is the points per turn used.

5) The influence of a vector increases the 'culture'(blanket term for an amalgam of all these, but is a seperate number) by the infleunce of the vector per turn. It also increases the points per turn for that same vector by the influence. So increasing in influence over time starts to accumulate and accelerate.

6) The 'cultural influence' increases all vectors by the 'cultural influence'. This feedback effect makes it so cities will not be powerful in products, for example, but have no religion. It also adds to the dispersion effect of culture.

7) Any of the vectors are spread through trade to other cities besides being in the vector or cultural zone. When trading with foreign civs, the culture is only directly contributed to the first city traders will pass through. That includes any border cities along the roads, and all harbours and ports that are accessible. In order for your culture to penetrate further the vector in the border city has to grow enough it is touching other cities, which will eventually cause a chain effect over time. Of course if you can hold some territories for even a few turns you already helped the process if influence is increased to one, because it will then self-perpetuate.

8) The rate of spreading is the same for trade as it is for overlapping zones. The highest vector influence for civ x is what is used for civ x. This prevents ICS from becoming the dominant strategy so that you can have 20 influence 1 cities versus 5 influence 2. In my system civ a would only send 1 and civ b would send 2.

9) You can make one of the vectors to your society closed. This is a way to slow down another culture from adding a lot to yours. The pro is that the maxiumu amount of vector points that can be sent for any one vector from a foreign civ is 1. This does not take into account additional points per turn given by the influence of foreign vectors in your city. Of course there is a con to a closed society, intolerance of change. All vector and cultural production is halves(rounded down). This actually would be a good strategy for a culturally powerful island that wanted to keep their lands from looking good to strangers because of cultural integration.

10) You can actually try to rid your society of a particular vector from a foreign vector. You declare a 'cleansing campaign' against whatever, and it starts to be deducted and all growth is slowed to one, no matter what in that vector. Duration is based on how strong your own vector is and your culture. Also, the international community and the home nation will really hate you, besides citizens that subsribe to vector x. Expect some armed resistance from those citizens if it happens enough.

---------------------------------------------------------
This may look complicated, but most of it is handled automatically. As for displays in city, you would have a basic display that had two sections: most popular, and fastest growing. Next to each vector would be the civ whose vector won that title. This way you could see if there was anything needing further investigation. There would also be a table that had growth rate and acucmulation listed for all civs in that city and vectors.

The map would only show national borders, which are not cultural borders. To see any of the vector or overall cultural borders you could pull up a simple overlay with pretty colors.

I have not even mentioned further additiosn and changes this would allow. Wonders also would now have different significance becuase they could make your religion, or products, or whatever a lot more powerful. Also, not only buildings would contribute to accumulting vector points. I am not mentioning till I found out if people like or hate this idea.

 

[dh_epic]

"religion/learning/products/architechture/entertainment" --> culture

I dig the model though. Particularly the part that lets you outlaw or limit the effects of one of those aspects. That would be valuable enough to model the change in history -- products and entertainment make a lot of rounds, whereas religion stands a lot more still than it used to.

 

[phorvath2110]

It would be nice to be able to model the dynamic between different types of religion, as well as the relation between the state religion and minorities (as you pointed out). After all, many of the great religious issues of the past have been Christianity vs. Islam, or something similar, and not so much simply "Monotheism" vs. "Polytheism" or such. I do think having religious options linked into the new civics system would be great also.

Perhaps the following would be a way to "have our cake and eat it too." On the civics menu you could have the following:

All of these are "technology enabled" meaning you need to reach a certain tech to get it.

Government Choices:
-Despotism
-Feudalism
-Monarchy
-Republic
-Fascism
-Theocracy
-Democracy

Religious Choices:
-Tribal Beliefs
-Polythesim
-Monotheism
-Secularism

Certain governments types would disallow certain religious choices eg a theocracy cannot chose secularism. That would be like saying a devout atheist

Once a person discovers monotheism, they can chose one of a number of small wonders to build which will determine their religion: eg. The Crucifixion, Martin Luther's 92 Theses, The Appearance of the Burning Bush to Moses, Angel Gabriel Appears to the Prophet Mohammed.

Once one of these small wonders is built, then only monotheism and secularism are left in the civics menu options for religious choices. Perhaps small wonders might be appropriate for polytheistic religions too?

If the city with the wonder is destroyed, then that civ's religion is "destroyed," but they can "convert" to another by building one of the other remaining religious small wonders.

If the city with the wonder is captured, then the civ who lost the wonder can either convert by building a new wonder or try to recapture their old city. The conqueror of the city can either raze the wonder or keep it as a "tourist attraction." If the conqueror is the same faith, then the wonder is destroyed, but rebuildable.

I put a lot of work into this, actually more than what my job requires


EDIT:
Now that I saw the previous post I'm thinking it would be good to have multiple small wonders based on religious lines and that each could produce religion points.

 

[sir_schwick]

Dh_epic, you bring up a good point about how differente aspects are more premanent then others. Products and entertainment would require constant contact or else they would start to deteriorate. This is where isolation is very important. Architecture and learning are pretty hard to eliminate, but take a while to be built up. Religion is subject to change a lot and major shifts can occur. It woudl be between permanent but hard to build and temporary but easy to accumulate.

at phorvath2110, you need to include seperate economic models as well. Political and economic systems are very different.

Here are some ammendments/changes to my system.

1) The places where overall 'culture'(the one that requires the others to be accumulated to gain points) gains more influence needs to be adjusted. I figured out that under my model at turn 31 of a city that produced just 1 point per turn in a vector that culture would grow at 5 a turn. The first ten turns get vector up to influence 1. Now culture grows at 1 a turn. Whenever culture reaches 10, all the other vectors get 1 per turn, plus the orgiinal gets 2. Now when all the vectors grow to 10, they will add 1 each to the culture growth per turn. So adjusting the landmarks would help keep this balanced.
2) A city gets 1 products point per turn per unique luxury in its worker radius. This will help early trade cities get a leg up.
3) Certain advances increase the efficiency of buildings or even give free points per turn without a building investment. Certain wonders will also do that.
4) Once accumulation of your 'culture' was the highest in a city, you could request to 'annex' the city. Refusal of this request could be grounds for a war that is considered justified, but only if it recaptures just the disputed grounds.
5) Overlapp of 'cultural' borders can lead to territorial disputes, since both have cliams over the territory.
6) You can sponsor military or terrorist resistance of groups in terriotry that belongs to another nation but has your culture over it. This does not include cities and their would be a minimum size of sponsored territory to prevent you from trying to ruin every size two city.

 

[rhialto]

I think the player should choose his religion much like his government. I assume of course that the player represents not teh national leader, but the zeitgeist of the people. This does of course requrie a modified model for when the player changes religion. Possible religionsa re:

Tribal/animist (default)
Polytheist
Pantheist (a group of gods that work together - the norse gods were arguably polytheist not pantheist, as they did not usually cooperate)
Monotheist (whether this is divided up I leave to masochists to decide, possibly in special mods or scenarios only)
Secular
others?

Each religion choice allows certain small and great wonders to be built. These wonders are only active under the correct religion. If you build a wonder then change religion, the wonder is disabled. Some of these wonders will also be disabled by advancing technology. Forex, the Status of Zeus (pantheists only) becomes obsolete with monotheism, when the idea of a leader of a pantheon gets overtaken by the idea of a solo deity.

Note that the only solid game effect is to enable/disable certain wonders.

 

[dh_epic]

I think for all that's worth, Rhialto, it might be just fine to simulate that as culture-linked wonders. If the western civs build "Michaelangelo's Chapel", the near east Civs could build the "Ka'ba", and the far east Civs and Meso-American Civs could build ... well ... something else. And having them become obsolete with technology (or reactivated with other factors / technologies) is still conceivable.

I think it's an idea worth exploring -- more variety in the wonders, particularly the forms they take. What would a Pyramid look like if the Japanese embraced it first?

 

[sir_schwick]

Maybe religion could also be a special kind of tech tree. It is one-way, meaning each time you research on a branch you can only choose one path. The others are then lost forever. The results would be minor abilities and mostly wonders/improvements, maybe special units. This model could also be applied to non-purely-academic developement(civics, economic models, political models, philosophy)

 

[dh_epic]

Yeah, I really like the idea of turning tech into a web. You don't just choose a branch, you choose a *direction*. You can choose to democratize and relinquish more control to your citizens, or you can consolidate your power at the cost of having relatively stupid people in your borders. And on occasion, you can make your way between the tracks, but not without some effort.

 

[North King]

Why not customizable religions? The AI can choose randomly from religions that spring up in that area, and you can invent your own, select its doctrines on heaven/hell, war, how many gods, etc. from lists. With this in mind, the computer calculates how likely the religion is to be accepted amongst different demographic groups, and if it is likely to spread far, etc.

 

[sir_schwick]

Actaully it would not be a web, but all those components would be seperate trees. Also, at the cost of realism, your research strategy would be a decision of when and how you wanted your religion/culture/civics/economics/politics to be strongest and when you had to amke them weakest. This would force players to decide on strategy.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Here is an idea, how about 'Sects' appearing as a semi-random event. With the factors effecting it being your 'religiosity', your 'culture levels', the culture levels of neighbouring civs, religious techs obtained, your civs preferred and shunned religions (as compared to the one you are currently in), and your nations current religion. Sects can be very similar to your current religion, like the Shi'ite, Sunni and Wahabi sects of Islam, or Protestant, Catholic and Calvanist sects in Christianity. Slightly different, like Orthodox vs non-Orthodox Christianity and Judaism. Or radically different, like the Mithras Sect in Rome or Buddhism in India (Monotheistic sect in a Polytheist civ, and a non-deist sect in a Polytheist civ!)

Just a thought!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[menwia]

Religion adds a very interesting ting to things. I don't know how its gonna be done. But if world religions are put in - then to be true one religion must come before the other. Forget about all this political correct crap - its a basic fact - that you couldn't have had one religion without the other. Example, Islam could not have come about with out Christianity -Christianty could not have come about with out Jewdasim - and so on and so on and so on - gong back all the way to the beginning. of course, there were different stirring in different parts of the world - due to cultural and enviormental differences. So we should have a tech tree where you need to research one religion before getting another. You can't have Christianty before Jewdasim, and you can't have Islam before Christianty -just as an example.

But if there were world religions - I wouldn't be able to resist creating a Papal State and sending out my crusaders to all four corners of the world . . . triumphing where the other crusades failed. But a thought has just occured to me. In the middle ages I could get away with it, and even maybe a bit later - of having a crusade or holy war against the so called infidals - but later on - Christainty in a modern society won't really allow me to declare a holy war - especially in modern day democracies - so where would I be - I could always switch religion's maybe go to Islam in the modern age and then continue a Holy War agaisnt the rest of the world, but then that would mean having to change the beliefs of my entire nation. How would that work out in the game? How would it be done?

 

[dh_epic]

Menwia, you raise some good ideas, but you're obviously opening many huge cans of worms.

It IS a historical fact, "forget all that politically correct crap" that you can't have Islam without Christianity. But it IS a historical fact, "forget all this politically correct crap", that you can't have America without England, or Rome without Greece/Hellens. Even Spain couldn't really exist the way it does without the Moors. The only way every person could start with the same religion -- in a "historical fact" kind of way -- is if everyone started as the same Civ. And modelling this kind of evolution is pretty damn hard, if not just completely un-Civ-like. (it's too different from Civ 3!) Obviously historical fact can't dictate how things should go in the game.

Assuming that there is an actual benefit to religion beyond that of "well, it's a historical fact"...

Let's assume we can decide which religions are conducive to papal states and crusades. According to you, Islam is. And according to you, Christianity is, but not in the Modern Age. If Christianity forbids said behaviors in the modern age, why? Is it just a fact of evolution that "Crusades are forbidden under this religion in this age", or are their complex factors where some could leverage it and some could not? And if Crusades and Papal States are forbidden, what other benefits do religions offer? With different rules for different religions for different ages the game becomes extremely complicated.

Also, Buddhism is a non-violent religion (it IS a "historical fact") so Crusades would be completely forbidden under it, and exercising a papal state would essentially tie your hands. If Buddhism sucked this much, would anyone ever end up following the path of history and embracing Buddhism? Probably not, if religions were this unbalanced. In other words, when you implement "religious facts" into Civ, the game actually becomes LESS historical because some religions just plain suck. (Pardon the lack of politcally correct crap.) You'd need to change the fundamentals of the game design in order to implement these "historical facts" because you'd need to give people an incentive to play "historically".

And you're right about switching religions. 7 turns of anarchy for a switch from democracy to communism is just barely palattable enough to work. But switching religions has never happened, and there is a reason. It spreads and evolves naturally in different directions, with philosophers popping up and influencing people... and when military domination occurs, it usually brings religion only incidentally, not deliberately. And to have Judaeism influence Islam is about ten times more complicated than having Persia give rise to Iran, not to mention that I think think the two are completely dependant on one another.

So to just say "enh forget the whole natural evolution thing" and just do a "religion switch" is not just a-historical, but loses pretty much any of the gameplay value that comes from religion. Religious wars happen BECAUSE people refuse to change their beliefs. If you can just flip a switch after the crusades and say "you know what, that whole Christianity thing was stupid, we're Muslim now too, so now we can put those crusades behinds us!" -- that pretty much breaks down the gameplay.

Again, to summarize:

You end up trying to simulate the evolution of religion which requires taking it out of the player's hands. Religion has to change, split, re-combine, and spread (usually by force). Religion is a real *force* that works for you and against you, within your nation, and between nations. But this evolution is hard as hell to simulate -- about as impossible as simulating the evolution of the Babylonians to the Americans while leaving room for the Americans to not appear at all.

So you put religious control completely in the hands of the player. And when you do this, the impact of religion the game is gone because it's just a few switches you flip at your convenience instead of a force that you leverage and battle at the same time. The only impact is allowing a player to label a war in the middle ages as "a religious event" instead of a military event -- something that's all in your perception.

Not worth it.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

It IS a historical fact, "forget all that politically correct crap" that you can't have Islam without Christianity. But it IS a historical fact, "forget all this politically correct crap", that you can't have America without England, or Rome without Greece/Hellens. Even Spain couldn't really exist the way it does without the Moors. The only way every person could start with the same religion -- in a "historical fact" kind of way -- is if everyone started as the same Civ. And modelling this kind of evolution is pretty damn hard, if not just completely un-Civ-like. (it's too different from Civ 3!) Obviously historical fact can't dictate how things should go in the game.

Of course religions can't be reprented absolutely correct but in the same time it there have to be things brought from the real world to immerse the player into the game. If religion is to be handled through semirandom events, it wouldn't be dificult to make Abraham come before Jesus and Jesus before Muhammed.

Again, to summarize:

You end up trying to simulate the evolution of religion which requires taking it out of the player's hands. Religion has to change, split, re-combine, and spread (usually by force). Religion is a real *force* that works for you and against you, within your nation, and between nations. But this evolution is hard as hell to simulate -- about as impossible as simulating the evolution of the Babylonians to the Americans while leaving room for the Americans to not appear at all.

So you put religious control completely in the hands of the player. And when you do this, the impact of religion the game is gone because it's just a few switches you flip at your convenience instead of a force that you leverage and battle at the same time. The only impact is allowing a player to label a war in the middle ages as "a religious event" instead of a military event -- something that's all in your perception.

Not worth it.

I think you're overcomplicating the whole thing.
The way I would like to see religion implemented would be by random events, supported or unsupported by the player, possibly combined with direct control to build and 'research' the religion in certain directions.
You shouldn't have absolute control over religion but through the events you should be able to steer, approve or prevent the outcome.

Adding religion would add another dimension to the game. Religious blocs could be formed and it would give reasons to go to war, make the diplomacy more complex and there would be a new way to win.

OT: It would be nice if Fireaxis somehow implemented ideal(?)based conflicts, like capitalism contra communism. Usually the relations between the civs get pretty messy in civ3, it would be nice if the blocs were more stable.
It could be a victorytype, where you would have to proclaim your intentions some while ahead, that you're the defender of communism/capitalism/christianity/Islam/etc, and try to gain enough support to your teachings.

 

[sir_schwick]

While Religion will add to gameplay, there is a direction I would rather see civ go for this installment. I would prefer they upgrade the culture model considerably to be able to do all the things we have been disscusing here. Then they make the engine capable of handling multple-dimensions of culture. In reality that would mean you could simulate multiple kinds of forces of the kind that define an individuals culture, including religion, products, tradition, ethnicity, music, food, and the others. The game would probably not ship with these implemented, but it woudl be easy for modders to play-test the idea rather than have Firaxis waste the moeny doing so.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

While Religion will add to gameplay, there is a direction I would rather see civ go for this installment. I would prefer they upgrade the culture model considerably to be able to do all the things we have been disscusing here. Then they make the engine capable of handling multple-dimensions of culture. In reality that would mean you could simulate multiple kinds of forces of the kind that define an individuals culture, including religion, products, tradition, ethnicity, music, food, and the others. The game would probably not ship with these implemented, but it woudl be easy for modders to play-test the idea rather than have Firaxis waste the moeny doing so.

That sounds like a good idea, but in the end I guess that they would probably earn more money than they would waste by implementing at least religion to the game themselves, even if it's just a second dimension of culture. Having the concept of religion officially made in the game from the start would probably do more for the sales than a sea of moddermade versions, even if they're good.
There are probably a lot of people on these boards that download modpacks and maps and stuff, but I'm not sure they make up a big part of the total sales.
I, myself, haven't played anything else but civ with exp.packs and patches and would like to see big features, as religion, in from the start.

 

[rhialto]

Also, Buddhism is a non-violent religion (it IS a "historical fact") so Crusades would be completely forbidden under it, and exercising a papal state would essentially tie your hands. If Buddhism sucked this much, would anyone ever end up following the path of history and embracing Buddhism?

Buddhism a non-violent religion? Perhaps. But that hasn't stopped Buddhist nations from going to war on a grand scale. China and Japan, for example.

Christianity and Islam also preach non-violence by the way. Don't believe your stereotypes too much.

 

[dh_epic]

It's not a matter of believing stereotypes. It's the fact that you can leverage crusades as a war against heathens -- non-violence against whoever suits you, violence against the rest. You can't leverage Buddhism in war because it even preaches non-violence against everything, even stuff insignificant to you -- although it doesn't mean that Buddhists are prohibited from going to war. They just don't use it as a justification. They ignore it. The point being that sometimes war is justified by religion, and sometimes it isn't. But who cares, war is still war.

There are dozens of other reasons to go to war that haven't been modelled in Civ. According to Civ 3, the only reasons to go to war are 1) acquire more land, 2) eliminate a rival, 3) dragged into it. What about economic reasons? What about ideological differences such as government? What's so special about religious war, or do people just have it bad for religious War since 9/11?

I like random events because they *are* realistic without being complicated. Maybe that's the best suggestion so far. The problem with random events is they'd unbalance the game. If Jesus appeared in my nation and my nation became a Christian nation, any war I'd wage would be taken harder because it would be a religious war, cementing a deeper grudge. Basically there would always be a benefit to having a secular society. The continent that would kill off a Jesus or a Buddha would end up with the most control over their alliances. Control is highly beneficial to success.

Unless EVERYONE had a religious leader appear? And how realistic is that, for every civilization to invent its own religion? I dunno. Still, I'm curious how religion would get outside my borders if I were lucky (unlucky) enough to get Jesus to appear there. Domination doesn't count, that's obvious.

The idea has more promise than the completely user-controlled approach, and an approach that tries to model all the complex factors. I'd like to pursue this "random model" -- but try not to take it personally if I'm constantly playing devil's advocate attacking the concepts.