RELIGION (ver1.0): Hosted by Stefu

yin26 · May 20, 1999, 08:01

Everybody, the topic and Thread Master that even God has been waiting for, here's Stefu on Religion!

Stefu · May 20, 1999, 08:56

Thank you, thank you, I love you all.

Anyway...

Here's my view of religion (can thread masters do this?) feel free to comment or present alternate views or whatever.

When some of your city grows beyond the size of, shall we say, 5, there is a chance that some prophet begins to spread his dogma there. Note that religions born and prosper without any act from your civilization. Well... at start this is. Anyway. This dogma may be standard "Worship my god" one or maybe something more unusual, for instance prophet may say that everyone should be vegetarian. This would have some effect on his worshippers, I can't say exactly. Anyway. If this religion is left unchecked, then it slowly it converts all members of this city, and begins to spread to other cities. Trade routes are good religion-spreaders, in fact big trade cities may, and propably will be multi-religional. However, you have some options about how do you tolerate this religion.

Prosecuted: Religion is very, very disliked. Members or religion are brutally hunted down, if this is ancient times they meet the sword, if this is modern times they try to immmigrate to more friendly cities. This is good way to get rid of some pesky little religion, but if it is pesky big religion its members get quite unhappy. Revolutions have big chance of happening. Also, if one religion is fundamentally worshipped in one nation and prosecuted in other, conflicts will happen.

Tolerated: Religion is not actually hunted down, but looked down to. Members of church have to pay heavy taxes, don't have all citizen rights and they cannot spread their religion. Example could be Christians in Istanbul after Turkish conquest. This is not a good way to make people happy either.

Official: Default setting. Religion is official and can be spreaded. Believers don't have to do anything. No pluses or minuses.

Fundamentally worshipped: Religion is the only official. Others are automatically disabled. All unconverted people are converted in one turn. This gives you some bonuses, like morale and happiness, and you can use the religion as a political weapon against the unbelievers. Fundamentalist states with different religions don't get along very well. Fundamentalist states with same religion are best friends.

Anyway. Churches have got some diplomatical power. This means that their heads sometimes appear to your screen and demand something like "Proclaim us to be only official religion, or I will start preaching against your nation."

You can encourage some religion by giving them monetary gifts. These help these religions to grow faster.

Anyway, life should be very fun indeed in multi-religional empire.

Well. Comments?

willko · May 20, 1999, 09:18

very interesting...

and i thought this thread would be empty forever! silly me.

i like the idea of these soapbox religions popping up out of the growing cities and vying for dominance. it adds another element of social engineering in a way. instead of fundamentalism being merely a social choice, if we follow your model, stefu, and decide to espouse religion x over religion y, then the spaniards (devoutly worshipping religion y as we speak), might denounce us as infidels and heathens! cool.

my spin on matters would be to introduce religions that espoused different social tenets at the core of their belief systems. whether or not "real" religions are used is a dicey matter in some ways, but here goes:

let's say a pantheonic religion similar to ancient greek, roman, or norse mythologies pops up and you decide to hook onto it. this may allow you in game terms to gain small bonuses in several areas (seeing as how the people are placated in various ways by their belief in different gods for different needs). i.e. small bonuses to production, growth, luxuries. but the flipside is that pantheonic religions require more upkeep in terms of sacrifices and temples (to a whole family of squabbling gods rather than one unified deity). this introduces inefficiency through lost tax revenues that go toward various sect's upkeeping their separate god's agendas.

let's say a monotheistic religion starts up (after the proper tech advances are found). this is where some of the bread and butter of the whole religious soup of effects will probably be found. for who is to say that the one true god is a nice guy, or a clockmaker, or a judge, or an executioner? as these various gods vie for dominance, espousing one over another will yield different social effects. let's say the god of a renaissance era scientist is deterministically removed from human events but has laid down a set of laws for his believers and the world itself to follow for all time. this model of religion would yield a scientific bonus in helping people root out the nature of the physical world that their god has created while stifling discoveries of a more unorthodox nature (again, this is dependent on a variation of the current tech tree paradigm in which different _types_ of advances are effectively scaled in research by different socio-economic factors... another topic entirely).

at any rate, you could have ancestor worship, something akin to zen buddhism, nihilism, who knows? but the question of how to model these societal choices is the difficult and interesting question.

how would this vast departure from previous civ titles be accomplished to satisfactory results?

i'll have to think on this some more but these are the preliminary thoughts.

/willko.

Stefu · May 20, 1999, 09:34

Gotta say unh. I just realized that I was shooting down an idea. I feel sorry.

[This message has been edited by Stefu (edited May 20, 1999).]

MBD · May 20, 1999, 15:34

While it's certainly true that many of the wars in history were based on religion (and I for one am always happy to help my opponent die for his beliefs), if you're going to make religion a major aspect of the game, then you're also going to do the same for ethnicity/race.

crusher · May 20, 1999, 15:48

What religoins do you plan to have? Monotheism, Polytheism, idol worship, Nature lovers, Cults?

Also, what would cause a certain religoin to be formed. Religion as a tech is ludicrus! Maybe certain govs would cause religions to form,or a war would create certain religions. Oh,how about cults and nature lovers begin near the end of every millenium.

Next, wouldn't fudamentally worshiping one religion be the same as prosecuting all others? Turning off all new religions so there is not backlash should not work.If I hated cults all I would have to do is make a free religion sociaty,then when monotheism comes into my sociaty also,make it fundamentally worshiped. And Heavens gate is not soposed to be mad about this?

Oh,by the way heavens gate is\was a cult.

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"War does not determine who is right,It determines who is left."
-Crusher-

[This message has been edited by crusher (edited May 20, 1999).]

kmj · May 20, 1999, 16:01

there should definitely be more than one type of monotheism in the scenario you guys are proposing.

And shouldn't that be persecute, instead of prosecute?

May 20, 1999, 16:18

I also these ideas on religion, especially multiple competing ones. However, they should not be based on current religions if possible, as that might cause some legal problems. We could use some religions that have died out or fictitious religions.

Also if a religion appears in a certain region, it would be interesting to make that area a holy shrine where happiness would increase or unhappiness would decrease and/or make it an area of competion for control of that area. For example, if nation A controls the holy shrine of a certain religion that nation B follows, but nation A does not follow - there would be extremely strained relations between nation A and B.
Like: "Your heretic nation occupies our holy land, give it back or else feel our wrath."

evil conquerer · May 20, 1999, 16:41

Another suggestion/elaboration: The government you're using will determine which tolerance settings (i.e. persecute, official, etc.) you can use. The closest ways I can explain that in non-CivIII terms are:

<h3>SMAC</h3>
Pacifist nations (-3 police) cannot persecute religions

Nations with the fundamentalist social engineering are required to pick some religion to fundamentally worship.

<h3>Civilization II</h3>
Republics and Democracies cannot persecute a religion.

Fundamentalist governments are required to pick a religion to fundamentally worship.

Communist governments cannot fundamentally woship any religion at all. Optional: Communist governments cannot have any setting higher than "tolerated". This might weaken communism too much, though.

Also, size 5 seems a little low for a religion to develop. This would cause way too many competing religions. I would recommend a threshold of 7 or higher.

Ecce Homo · May 20, 1999, 16:50

I think all civs should start out with Animism. Then they can build Megaliths (stone formations like the Stonehenge) which will give a chance that a more advanced religion develops.

As a new religion advance comes, the ruler could accept it or reject it (with the risk of a schism).

Trachmyr · May 20, 1999, 20:17

Religion has been disscussed somewhat in Socail Engineering\Goverment Thread...
I glad it has it's own thread now.

My suggestions:

Religions should be customizable, similar to social engineering ala SMAC.

You should be able to select the primary structure: Monotheism, Polytheism, Pantheonic, Animism, Mysticism

Important aspects such as the Afterlife and the status of priests (Druids had power, Catholic priests "hear" god's word, ect.).

You should also be able to add TENETS (Aescetic, Malthieism, Monastic, proselytic)

In order to inact changes, you need DOGMA (I suggested CULTURE earlier, to be used for both Social engineering and Religion). You can get Dogma from priests (a city proffession- Dogma used to "change" the religion, will subtract from the priests ability to instill FERVOR, see below) or from Religious-Type wonders (instead of absurd advantages).

Dogma then slowly changes the religion to your presets.

Outside influence can convert you people, or even generate dogma to cause changes in you religion(s) if you worship a religion the same as theirs (i.e., When you alter a religion, you alter it WORLD-WIDE unless you also change it's name.)... however you can spend DOGMA to counter foreign changes. (there will be a button to AUTOMATICALLY COUNTER FOREIGN DOGMA)

There should be a maxinum of about 50 religions in any one game. But your civ could contain all 100!

Your RELIGION MASTER SCREEN shows the breakdown of your total population by the % following each religion. From this screen you can edit (as mentioned above) the religion or set STATE ACCEPTANCE. Also, next to each religion is it's FERVOR, how strongly on average it's tenets are held. High Fervor multiplies afeects, low fervor reduces effect. Dogma can be spent (and is defaulted to be spent this way) to increase fervor or alter Acceptance (No repruccusions for altered acceptance via dogma, nasty repruccsions if done w/o dogma)

Micromanegement won't be much since you'll only change religions once or twice, and only make minor adjustments. You'll set allocation of Dogma to fervor likewise only a few times per game.

what do you think?

Eggman · May 20, 1999, 23:08

Aha. You folks want to open a big can of worms, huh? Religion can be a very testy subject and I'm not sure that it would be a good idea for this game.

However, if you insist, it would probably be for the best if instead of having specific religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.) or even categories (animism, cults, polytheism, monotheism, etc.) that you go with completely fictional religions. Just give them some sort of nice sounding name and give them random properties. Silly examples: Scooby-Dooism could produce higher morale in exchange for lower food supply while Hulkamania creates superior militaries with crap science. But the next game, Hulkamania produces a morale bonus and nothing else. And these religions would have different effects and start up in different locales every game.

This would be more realistic from a player point of view as you have NO CONTROL over which religions come into existence. You can only work with what you are dealt. Also, you don't have to worry about various religious folks getting very annoyed over how their religion is portrayed (I am still riled up at the portrayal of Christianity in SMAC - couldn't he come up with something more original than the right-wing fanatic stereotype? Like the other 99.5% of the Christian population?). With the random religion formula, you wouldn't know any of the specifics of the religion (monotheistic vs. polytheistic, views toward sex, women, etc.), just the effects it produces and hence no controversy.

Anyway, I would never pick any non-monotheistic religion even if another form of religion was available. I am sure that there are others out there like me. This generic religion treatment would allow me more real options. And I won't have to flame the newsgroups with BR makes me out to be a gun-weilding intolerant fanatic.

In addition, you should consider having "dangerous" religions that are just bad news in general. Dangerous cults or just evil garbage that can only hurt your civ. Gives even the most tolerant player some problems to deal with.

Also, you may consider giving each religion a "tolerance" property. This would be the ability of the religion to tolerate those that don't agree with them. It could range from zero (convert or die, heathen) to total (live and let live, join if you wish). You could even have tolerance for each specific religion (or groups of religions for simplification). This would rule those diplomatic and domestic relationships that you all have talked about.

My two cents.

Trachmyr · May 20, 1999, 23:32

I believe the reason people feel that religion is inconsequential to game play is because the majority of us come from one of the MAJOR RELIGIONS (Catholisism, Christianity, Muslim, Judisim - forgive my spelling), they have a lot in common... but countries that follow eastern religions are MUCH diffrent cultrualy than the rest of the world. Similarly, in ancient times, the variety of religions went hand in hand with a variety of cultures... An Animistic society (take American Indians for example), have a hugly diffrent view and cultural attitude about things than any person from one of the major religions. To disclude the variety and diveristy of religions is to do a great disservice to the game.

On being PC, you are going to offend some one, no matter what you do (The term Heathen, which means "People of the Heath", refers to pagans in a negative conotation. I am pagan, and if I was whiny, I would be offended... but I'm not.)

Stay away from "evil" or "bad" religions, since their have truely been no real "Evil" religions in history. (A very few cults started by messed up people, but that's not the same thing as an ACTUAL religion)

Mo · May 21, 1999, 00:52

This would also allow religous crusades. If the city where the religion was founded was captured by a different religion, then the church might ask you to go on a crusade. The units on the crusade would have a high moral, and they wouldn't cause unhappyness in their home cities.

Lancer · May 21, 1999, 01:18

I think that whoever puts religion in Civ 3 should pray about it first.Just possibly an Act Of God could get it done without someones personal animosities against the faith of others screwing it up.

Stefu · May 21, 1999, 08:50

Hmm. Here's odd idea about naming a religion: Maybe you have pool of ancient god, which are all worshipped when polytheistic, and monotheistic religions start to worship one of them, and religion is named after that (ie if it is Zeus then Zeuism, if Apollo then Apollonism) granted, this is not the manner religions are usually named but it allows somewhat respectable sounding names while going past the PC problem.

crusher: I also worry about prosecute all problem. Maybe civilization without religions starts to slowly gain morale and happiness problems, as they do not have stable moral grounds. Fundamentally worshipping one religion is not same as prosecuting all the others, as it gives you bonuses: and if you prosecute all other religions, it would practically be wisest choice to start to fundamentally worshipping the remaining one.

evil conquerer: in my opinion, 5 is good size. Recently one of my friends said that size 3 would be better! Religions have got relatively small chance per turn to coming to exist, and size 5 is mainly to prevent them coming to small nothingburgs which get overran by barbarians in next turn.

Eggman · May 21, 1999, 10:08

I think Trachmyr has proven my point. If they use anything even RESEMBLING real religions, there are going to have problems. I wasn't even trying to slight anyone and I managed to without an effort. And even with generic religions that consist solely of a name and a group of effects, you are still going to have to deal with the atheists and agnostics out there.

The problem is that no one understands exactly the truth about religion. Some people think it is a cultural phenomenon that should be studied. Some think it is superstition. Some think that their particular religion is a recognition of the spiritual reality. Some believe all religions are a reflection of the truth of the "other" world and others believe there is the one true way. Etc. No matter what position you take on the subject as far as this game goes, you are opening a HUGE can of worms. And if you use REAL religions, God help you. It *will* be ugly. And to be quite honest, you will deserve it.

Also, I have to question the effort to "regulate" religions like government types or other social engineering. Historically and culturally, religion has proven a whole lot more survivable than civilizations. Look at Judaism. It has survived unspeakable horrors and atrocities from every direction but it has outlived it persecutors. Also, persecution for the most part has usually proven to be a disaster, resulting in such fun things as civil war, population loss from murder and emigration, stripping the nation of important citizens (Germany Jewish scientists for example), etc. often followed by the target religion winning. How a strategy of religious intolerance would be a good idea is beyond me. And even attempting forced conversion of the population fails when the locals are very religious. This is a very complicated factor that will be difficult to simulate properly in Civ3.

As for my "bad religion" point, I was thinking about cults. Think Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian. Or Nazism (close enough). Or the Rev. Jones. While, for the most part, these religions have not prospered, they certainly could which requires dealing with them.

Stefu · May 21, 1999, 10:29

So, you think Activision opened huge can of worms by representing Cleric? I mean, doesn't it mean that all organized religions are state-run things that only exist for the money. At least they didn't use real names.

Or, maybe Monotheism as an advance? Was it really an advance? Or why were there only Cathedrals, not mosques? Why wasn't atheism represented?

Doesn't Fundamentalism try to represent all Islamic societies as Fanatics?

Sorry, I'm not trying to shoot down anyone, I'm just discussing.

Why isn't there Animism?

Doc Dee · May 21, 1999, 13:32

***First post in this topic***

I like the idea of random religions popping up, with the option to ignore, support or persecute the faithful. Each would have advantages: if you support the religion , then you get (1) the ability to build clerics of that faith (a la CTP - convert cities, maybe for money, definitely for political gain (2) happiness bonuses - you can only build religious improvements if you support at least one religion, and only followers of that relgion are affected by this.

Tolerance (ignoring the religion) would be necessary if the bonuses for supporting a religion diminish the more religions you support. This would mean (spot the random numbers) if you support one religion you get 3X the temple bonus for that proportion of your population, if you support 3 religions, you might only get the base value for a temple. Thus you'd better only support the key religions.

Persecution would be important to prevent foreign religions gaining too much power over you. Thinking about it, clerics should not be stealing money from cities, merely extending spheres of influence. If you have a lot of religious support in a city, then you could cheaply incite a revolt to make that city join your civ. Plus all followers of the 'true' religion would be very annoyed (all believer's riot) if the their civ goes to war with you. And if they're suppressed for longer than say 5 rounds, they leave (host city loses population) and join you (gain of population plus a chance to learn any advances they have that you don't).

I concede that this will make religion far more dominant a factor in the game, but generally this is true for world history. Besides, if everyone joins the same faith, then you might have a peaceful world - maybe this could be another victory condition - 'world united (>90%) in one faith'. Bit scary though.

Diodorus Sicilus · May 21, 1999, 17:36

-First Post in this Thread-
Eggman stole most of my thunder, but I'll drop a few more cents' worth in:
First, I agree completely: DO NOT use Real religions in the game - there is simply no way to avoid problems if you do. BUT we can define religions based entirely on their effects in Game Terms. Examples:
1. Is it a proselytizing religion or not? In other words, do they go out and seek converts or act as an exclusive group - this makes a diference in their likelihood of declaring a Holy War on Unbelievers - whether the government (you) wants a war or not!
2. Is it Pacifist or Militant? Some religions glorified military/warrior skills, an obvious benefit in a society in conflict. Pacifist religions, on the other hand, might give a real benefit in internal peace (lack of riots) and happiness while lowering your Military rating - trade-offs that you can't control as a government.
3. Does it actively support the government or not? And the opposite- does the government support it? An anointed God King has some real advantages if the entire organized religious structure supports him - not a lot of revolts against the Pharoah in ancient Egypt! On the other hand, a case could be made that such a system stifles independant thought, so Growth & Science would get minuses.
Define the religions strictly in general terms: Animism, Polytheism, Monotheism, etc, and by their organization: literate priest class could be a benefit to keeping records and extracting taxes, while simple Shamanists might be less likely to foment Organized Revolt - more Trade offs

Religion is NOT a researchable Advance. Changes in the religion or religious structure should be a (unintended) by product of Advances or events. Examples:
3 Nasty Random Events in a Row : Gods are against Us! Let's Change!
Charismatic Leader random event - who happens to be a New Prophet
Lost a War to a country with a different religion - some folks are going to convert.
Conquered another set of cities/country with a different religion that is better organized (religious bureaucracy, literate priests, etc) - they start converting

All of these should make both problems and opportunities for the government (you the player) to react to - for instance, with an organized religion, make sure the religious center is built (St Peters, Hagia Sophia, Kamakura Buddha, whatever) in the capital - otherwise, a rival political center is certain to rise up around the religion.

Religious Crusades could be started by the governemt, or started by the religion and supporteted by the government, or might be started whether the government was involved or not: historically, a lot of militay activity went on without any central authority went involved, and not just Religious Crusades or Jihads: think Viking Raids or Fuedal Barons whacking their neighbors...
Some Wonders will have to be very carefully thought out if Religion becomes a Social/Cultural Factor in the game. Think how many wonders or city improvements in the current games are Religious in nature, and then figure out how to get the effects we want in the Wonders while keeping them "Religion Neutral".

Eggman · May 21, 1999, 21:22

If you want religious persecution, it better be an Big Time atrocity. For a civ that is friendly toward that religion or to a tolerant nation (see democracy), it should be the near equivalent of lobbing nukes across the border. Especially in the modern age.

Persecution should also have other serious drawbacks such as revolts, loss of population (refugees and dead), etc. It should also be possible that the persecuted religion "win" and have the whole strategy backfire (serious morale loss and/or mass conversion). However, there needs to be an advantage to having a unified religious population to make this rather dispicable activity to be useful. Short-term morale bonuses could apply (drive out the unbelievers) and long-term advantages (a unified religion results in fewer problems in the future plus getting the religion bonuses you want).

There should be the possibility that persecution will happen without interference (see Lebanon). It should still have the diplomatic penalty, though not as severe. However, the natural variety should be much more dangerous (civil war). These spontaneous persecutions should happen most often in bad times or when two religions really hate each other (or the ethnic groups are different and they hate each other). Spontaneous Crusades/Jihads should also be possible (someone mentioned that earlier I think).

Religions should have a starting rating of devotion. Low devotion religions should naturally slowly disappear when faced against higher devotion religions. See any modern religion vs. idol worship, Greek mythology, etc. for an example.

Religions should become more devoted over time. Once a religion is intrenched, the possibility of conversion (voluntary or otherwise) should be greatly reduced. When faced with highly devoted population, forced conversion should result in all sorts of ugly results. Non-devoted populations will convert without much fanfare.

Under no circumstances should the civ be able to "create" a religion. It may use it to its advantage (the examples of this are plentiful and diverse unfortunately). It should be much harder (and often either impossible or extremely risky) to force a religion down the throats of its citizens once devotion is strong.

There should be a less disgusting way of encouraging religion. I would suggest that making a religion "official" will draw more people to that religion as it provides advantages to those that wish to be upwardly mobile. This result in shifts in the population depending on the level of devotion (highly devoted will have minimal effect, non-devoted will have huge effects).

There should be a bonus for religious freedom. Greater immigration and greater science for example. Non-tolerance will result in some friction and possible happiness penalties.

Religon should spread naturally. It should start in one location and spread outwards (as expressed in other posts). You should have NO control on which direction is flowing in. If your people don't like it, you can't force it on them unless a substantial percentage of the population converts willingly.

There should be special effects for specific social choices. Fascism should get big bonuses for persecution, Democracy shouldn't allow persecution at all (not totally realistic but what they hey). Communism should result in across the board persecution. Theocracy will REQUIRE a large percentage of the population to be of the same religion to be effective.

There should be the possibility of schisms in religions. A special event perhaps.

Unhappy populations should be more willing to convert than happy ones.

Religions should pop up throughout the game (like real history). New ones should be fairly common earlier on and be very rare once all the major religions are entrenched.

And I thought I would just repeat myself one more time. If you use REAL religions or even semi-generic REAL religious classifications that can be connected with a real religion (polytheism, monotheism, animism, etc.) it is going to be a disaster. You would have to be insane to even TRY to assign game values to each real religion. They will be extremely biased no matter who assigns them. Going with nonsensical generic names with no details is safer and just as effective in simulating the effect of religion.

Lancer · May 21, 1999, 22:13

Call every major religion and ask them to send a priest over to Madison Square Garden so that they can all work out numerical values for their religion.Say umm,three falls with a ten minute time limit?

Lancer · May 22, 1999, 00:49

The cleric unit in CTP is a tool of the State.State religions only work if you can torture people who start other churches.

If I am seen in church today giving money I won't be gutted tomorrow,or burned at the stake.

Or crusified for that matter.

True religions can be discerned as having no duel loyalty.The people gather of their own free will out of love for their God.

I suppose in a way state religions could be counted as polytheism,God and country.

If you go forth from the standpoint that religion is man made you will have a slow evolution,ie a priest shows up and starts chatting with the people in one of your cities.

If you view religion as an act of God you will have a dynamic system,the citizens become the priests.

After some time a clergy sets in and in the process of the degredation of the faith assumes political power.

The Catholic church ran europe before its schism with the faithful.

In todays world the 700 club,though it does many good things,is trying to assume political power.

Any assumption of political power on the part of the clergy is a dimunization of power on the part of the rulers.

If a king was excomunicated by the catholic church in 1400 he lost his kingdom,and his head.(read civ here)

People who owe thier loyalty to God make great rulers.David,Solomon,Lincoln,Jefferson.Kings who owe their loyalty to a corrupt clerical system will put all the taxes into a Swiss bank account,or its equivelent, every time.

Certain cities where religions begin should have special status.The kings of the countries that derive their political power from the faith that began in that city will be told to conquer it for the faith by the corrupt clergy.

Ooooppppssss,gotta go

yin26 · May 22, 1999, 05:37

-=*BUMP*=-

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CIV3 DEVELOPMENT LIST COORDINATOR

**(un)Officially Making Lists for Firaxis Since SMAC Enhancement 3!**

Stefu · May 22, 1999, 05:42

Uh, Yin, what was that supposed to mean?

Me not get it.

NotLikeTea · May 22, 1999, 10:44

Government and Religion - Governments should not be restricted to religions. Saying Communist nations cannot have a religion, or Democracies cannot persecute a religion is too limiting.

Instead, a communist nation with a religion should have a harder time than one without a religion. A democracy persecuting religion should have a lot of problems. Either way, anything should be possible.

The only limit would be that fundamentalist nations must have a religion. This makes me think that fundamentalism should not be a governing option, but something else, entirely. Fundamentalist communism? Why not?

HolyWarrior · May 22, 1999, 22:18

eggman, by your logic we shouldn't have specific cultures such as German or Chinese, but instead just greens and purples and browns.

We have wonders of the world based on history.
We have cultures from history.
we have technologies from history.
Specific religions have shaped our history, and still do today. Check out Israel and Kosovo.

We should have specific religions in the game.

Now, there seem to be 3 approaches to take.

1. Make them technological advances, like the Wheel and Banking, etc.
2. Make them social engineering choices, as in SMAC.
3. Religion 'happens' based on the level of population and development, which seems to be the consensus of the thread so far.

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"I'm a warrior, not a saint". Michael, paraphrase

MagyarCrusader · May 22, 1999, 22:26

Yes, prehaps religons can be named and even controlled which one your government has, just to add flavor in scenarios. Like trade commodies but you can choose in building scenario what religon each civ has.

Oh yes, there should be an option to disable it. It could be a terrible factor that destorys scenarios.

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Quote:

I am not an atheist because I do not have enough faith.

Eggman · May 23, 1999, 13:56

HolyWarrior: Cultures in Civ2 ARE, in reality, overglorified "greens" or "browns." The only differences are (1) they have a name based on history, (2) they have cities and leaders named after real cities and leaders and (3) they have some minor AI personalities that makes them less or more warlike based on historical fact. Everything else is totally generic. There is no real difference between the Romans and Chinese and the Americans when you come down to it. True, they could have done a SMAC deal and given them cultural bonuses and weaknesses, but again, these can be based on hundreds if not thousands of years of real history.

The Wonders and the Technologies and Governments are based on history. But they are also historical facts. We can look back at the historical record and see the results.

Now, back to the topic. Religion has a historical record but its impact can't rightfully be measured. Did Christianity lead to the eventual dominance of Europe? That can't be answered (though I am sure that their are plenty of opinions on the subject). Is Islam better than Buddhism or Shito? Again, no definitive answer. Which religion produces greater happiness or military ability? Which religion is the right one? Is religion inherently good or bad? Again and again, there are no answers except personal ones.

So if you want religions to have an impact (providing bonuses or negatives), you can't use real religions for the simple reason that quantifying it is impossible. Any attempt to do so will be arbitrary and biased (no matter how objective they intend) and probably will be HIGHLY insulting to some if not all religious people. And I don't need computer games pushing someone's religious agenda (Lord's Believer's anyone?).

Then you have the sticky situation of which religions will take root in which cultures. Having the Americans as predominantly Buddhist or the Arabs as Jews would make an interesting Sliders episode, but it would be historically weird which is something Civ games have tried to avoid for the most part. And for those with strong religous beliefs and/or patriotic pride, they may and will find these combinations deeply insulting and offensive.

There are ways to use real religions and not cause these problems. A culture always gets the same religion. Religions have no impact except on diplomatic relationships. But at this point, the whole concept has been neutered so that it has little real impact and probably the entire religion concept could be shoved into a catch-all, safer and more PC ethnicity trait.

I dislike that idea heavily. I like the concepts of (1) religions popping up and spreading or fizzling out ON THEIR OWN, (2) governmental interaction with religion, like it has happened in real history, (3) religions impacting their people to excel in certain areas and to shun others, (4) cultures changing religons over time and (5) religion having a life of its own, resulting is such things as backlash against certain government actions and other religions (morale loss, riots, civil wars, Crusades, etc.). And the only way to do it without causing a well-deserved uproar from the religous community is to have generic religons. If you want to change the names to real ones, I am sure that they will be in a text file for your personal enjoyment.

Before I shutup, let me explain my position. I am a member of the Christian Coalition. For the past number of years, I have been described at an anti-American, gun-toting religious fanatic. This view has been adopted by many in politics, Hollywood and the press, even though they KNOW this is not true for the very large majority of conservative Christians, who are generally very patriotic and just want the right to have their voices heard just like everybody else. Because of this, I have become very sensitive on how religion in general and Christianity especially have been portrayed. To unfairly portray a religion, or anything else for that matter, is just WRONG. You are free to all your opinions on religion - I have my own too. But unless you have real proof (which is impossible in most cases with religion), I don't need your OPINIONS on a particular religion put forth as FACT. And that goes for all other topics as well, but especially such a personal and faith based topic as this.

OK, I think I have said my peace. I will *try* to be quiet for a while (unless I come up with some good ideas).

NotLikeTea · May 23, 1999, 17:46

Been thinking about religions for a while, and it's a lot more complex than it seems.

First off... "religion" is a bad word to use. Athiesm is, per definition, NOT a religion. However, it is possible to imagine a fundamentalist athiest state going in a "holy war" against a religious state.

Also, religions aren't as simple as monotheism and polytheism. Some religions believe there are multiple gods, but only worship one. Or worship a few. Or believe in gods, but don't worship any. Or believe in reincarnation, but not in any specific gods. Or that gods do not really exist, but worship them anyways (this is an odd one... Buddhism is like this, in a way. They'll say that it's just made up, and pray anyways)

I also agree with the opinion that they should never be researched, or under direct control of the government, like switching from a republic to a democracy. They should evolve on their own, and span civilizations, ignoring borders. A fundamentalist government should have more control over a religion than any other form, but it should not be able to rewrite it drastically.

In a similar vein, religions should not infer any specific bonuses. No culture has a high birthrate, or good troops as a DIRECT result of having that particular religion. This is something that could be nudged by the governments and holy leaders. In other words, a religion should not appear that naturally gives a +1 morale, but it should be possible to consciously influence the religion in that direction. The religion done not control the people, but the application of the religion.