posted May 20, 1999 08:56                

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.

posted May 20, 1999 09:18                

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.

posted May 20, 1999 15:48                

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-

posted May 20, 1999 16:41                

SMAC

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

Civilization II

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.

posted May 20, 1999 20:17                

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.

posted May 20, 1999 23:08                

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.

posted May 20, 1999 23:32                

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)

posted May 21, 1999 08:50                

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.

posted May 21, 1999 10:08                

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.

posted May 21, 1999 10:29                

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.

posted May 21, 1999 12:49                

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

posted May 21, 1999 13:32             

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).

posted May 21, 1999 17:36                

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.

posted May 21, 1999 21:22                

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.

posted May 22, 1999 05:37                

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CIV3 DEVELOPMENT LIST COORDINATOR

posted May 22, 1999 10:44                

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.

posted May 22, 1999 22:18                

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

posted May 22, 1999 22:26                

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

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quote:

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

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posted May 23, 1999 13:56                

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.

posted May 23, 1999 17:46                

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.

posted May 24, 1999 17:16             

Use actual religions.
Give them BASIC qualities (evangelistic/not, militant/pacifist, tolerant/not; -1,0,1 as in Civ2)
Let them develop on their own, but a civ can create its own religion (maybe restrict it to emperer-[sp?] worship?)
Give each religion its own AI, and ways to interact with the different civs.

I think if value judgements are left out of the programming, everyone will be happy.

posted May 24, 1999 17:43                

If you go with historical religions, do NOT script it to historical progression and spreading of religons. I do not want my Celtic Civilization becoming christian (from Druidism) unless I am conqueroed by the Romans. But then would you (no one in particular, you as in the reader) be willing to accept your civ if a random religion can develop within it? Especially if you are pre-disposed to a particular religion, or baisised against the one that appears?

Let us design religions, through use of Clergy generating DOGMA for that religion. We can name it, and give it attributes that we feel it deserves.

The argument that leaders have no control over which religions develop or how they evolve is ENTIRELY wrong. Leaders did just that, either by acceptance/persuction, propaganda, slight changes in interpertaions, and out-right manipulation (Do you really think that the Egyptian Pharohes had nothing to do with that whole "We are gods thing"?).

You can impose riots, religious revolutions, ect. for those who play god to frequently or with out subtlty.

One final note, Leaders weren't the ones (usually) who named cities, or game or decided (especially in the late game) what structures to build... we are given that control because we are above "leader" level, we are sculpters, we (like the active hands of destiny) shape our civs at levels no leader ever did or ever could. Religion is yet another componet of destiny for civs, and we should be able to sculpt that as well.

posted May 25, 1999 10:32                

Even religions with very minor differences (see Romand Catholic vs. Protestant) have been party to serious conflicts, many of them insanely stupid. Maybe it isn't as important what the civ's religion is, just that it is different enough and the people are willing to fight for it (or not). That probably could be pulled off without having to use real names or dogma. Of course, this loses some of the value of religion and probably could just be merged into an ethnicity trait (which BETTER be in this game).

posted May 25, 1999 15:38                

Let us assume for the moment that "social engineering" will exist in Civ III similar to SMAC - in other words, you will change not only government types but also economic models, religions, etc. What religion your society follows will effect science rates, happiness, support of units, economics, etc.

With these assumptions, there is no need to name actual religions. Instead, you offer a number of different religious categories which represent actual religion as it has developed over time. Notice I say developed, not progressed. Many of us belive in religions which are near the middle of this list. I may have too many here, but I'm thinking the following:

ANAMISM -- The initial setting, representing tribal American and African religions.
POLYTHEISM -- Hinduism, for example.
PHILOSOPHICAL -- Confusicsim, Taoism - religion based on philosophy rather than worhsip. Would come with Philosophy.
MONOTHEISM -- Catholicism, Judaism, Islam
REFORMED -- A more scientific version of monotheism which makes less people happy but leads to more science. Protestantism, Reform Judaism, etc. New tech advance "The Reformation."
FUNDAMENTALISM -- a more stringent version of monotheism. Leads to less science but more police powers and unit support. Represents religions like Iranian Shi'ism, American Evangelicalism, and Jewish Hasidism.
DEISM -- the one I'm not sure we need, it represents the halfway point between REFORMED and our next choice... and represents the ideals of Jefferson and Franklin, for example.
ATHEISM -- The most scientific, but may create happiness problems as people become hedonists.

Notice that with this system, the Fundamentalist government choice is no longer existant. It would be replaced with a government choice "Theocracy," which would be similar to Fundamentalism in Civ II but cannot be chosen if your religion is ANAMISM, PHILOSOPHICAL, REFORMED, DEISM, or ATHEISM. They also might want to create a bonus for choosing both the Theocracy government choice and the Fundamentalism religious choice.

I think it is also a good idea, like SMAC, to make governments which have differing religious views more likely to have wars, and governments with more "advanced" religions like MONOTHEISM and FUNDAMENTALISM are more likely to send "spy" units (or a unit like CTP's Cleric) to try to stir civil wars in cities of Civilizations with earlier religions. This would represent missionary work, a very important historical movement throughout time.

posted May 25, 1999 15:53                

I think this is exactly the kind of thing that could get Firaxis in serious hot water . . . that and, who's to say what effects each religion would have?

posted May 25, 1999 16:11                

"I think this is exactly the kind of thing that could get Firaxis in serious hot water . . . that and, who's to say what effects each religion would have?"

I think you missed my point, Bell. The religions represent classes of religious beliefs which have been existant at different times. Actual names of actual religions would not be used. Therefore nobody should be offended.

As far as "who's to say what effects each religion would have?" the answer is the Firaxis developers. But I think it can be easily accepted that, for example:

1) Atheistic societies show a quicker development of science, but less happiness because "the great questions of the universe" go unanswered and life lacks structure.
2) Fundamentalist religions have very little scientific development but have an enormous morale boost.
3) Temples have a greater effect in polytheistic or monotheistic religions than they do in anamist religions because of a greater organizational effect of having specific gods (or one god) to worship.

As I said, these are just examples. But I would not want to see the names of actual religions used in the game under any circumstances.

posted May 25, 1999 21:17                

I think that the four types ANIMISM, POLYTHEISM, PHILOSOPHY, and MONOTHEISM pretty much cover the ground; REFORMED and FUNDAMENTALIST are just variations of monotheism, and DEISM/ATHEISM is a variant of philosophy. If you start with those four basic types and add two scales -- one for "degree of faith", and one for "toleration of infidels" -- then you've said as much about religion as needs to be said, for game purposes.

posted May 25, 1999 22:12                

I. How religion works

Religions spontaneously appear in cities. For example, I cold be hapilly worshipping Judaism one turn when I get a message that Christianity has been founded in Jerusalem. Firaxis will give a "growth statistic" to every religion. If Christianity has a growth rate of, say, 5, and Judaism one of 4, then Christianity will slowly displace Judaism in my empire, starting from where it was founded and slowly reaching new cities. I can elect to stop its growth by persecuting it like Stefu said, which will maybe make it a bit less appealing to people. Also, there might be some innate resistance based on the amount of time people have been worshipping Judaism in my empire. If it's a very new thing, then it will be easy for faster-growing Christianity to replace it. If it's been practiced faithfully for thousands of years, it may be so ingrained in the minds of my citizens that Christianity will have to spread somewhere else, like in Greece. As it grows, the religion Christianity will become almost like a minor civilization. It will have a capital in its oldest city (which can be moved), and might conduct negotiations with you (say, capture this city for the Church and they'll give you some gold.) You can shut down the official centers of religion, but it isn't going to make your people all that happy. It also might strain relations between you and the other Christian powers.

II. The effects of religion

Each religion would have various benefits. Firstly, the effectiveness of temples and cathedrals (or whatever their equivalent is in Civ3) might depend on your religion. A Buddhist, who believes in moderation and a humble setting, would get signifacantly less happy from a grand cathedral than, say, a pagan who feels he must honor the gods. Some religions could have small effects on science or even trade (become a Scientologist state and watch your gold shoot straight up ) Additionally, if you can keep good relations with the Church (or organized Islam, or the Greek Gods), your people might get a benefit in fighting "heathen"

III. Various suggestions

Animism: Your whole civilization has this at the start. It doesn't do anything special. Growth-1

Paganism: Might generate itself after you discover something about equivalent to Mysticism. Slightly better than Animism, and spreads a bit faster. Pagans get large benefits from their temples. Growth-3

Judaism: May generate after monotheism. Gets a small science bonus. Growth-3

Christianity: Might generate in a Jewish city after (?). Bonuses include a very strong central orgaization and high growth rate.
Growth-6

Islam: Generates in a Jewish or Christian city after (?) Maybe a very small science bonus as well as some military plus.
Growth-4.5

Buddhism- Generates in an advanced city that hasn't discovered monotheism. Gives some bonus to luxuries or happiness, but a minus to military. Growth-3.75

Atheism-Comes after development of Age of Reason or something. Increases science by quite a bit and makes you not have to worry about keeping organized religion happy, but religious states don't really like you. Growth-3.5

Of course, you can persecute, encourage, or just destroy any religion you want, if you're prepared to accept any penalties.

------------------
Invertebrates of the world, UNITE! Don't just be a bunch of spineless....ah....never mind
<=O=>)=E

posted May 26, 1999 06:31                

Maniceanism - random religion that unifies the good sides of existing religions. However likely to be persecuted as heresy. Growth 2.

Mithraism - Followers get militarity bonus. However efficiency suffers: This is more of secret society than religion. This will spread quickly among Talents. Growth 2.5

Confucianism - This gives small bonuses to efficiency, military and science. However, it spreads efficiently only in the nation where it first came to life. This is religion of perfectionist, not expansionist. Growth:4.

I'd give Christianity 4, too. It's not that fast spreading.

posted May 26, 1999 07:33                

Giving cristianity a bonus over judaism is essentially the same as saying that it is better, and that animism (still important in modern native culture) is the most primitive, and therefore the worst. Ug.. we don't want to be implying this.

No religions should have any innate bonuses. Period.

However, application of religion should. Religion in itself does not impede research. It is the application of the religion that might do so. Same with growth rate, millitancy, etc. Any religion has the potential to be millitant, or grow, or dislike research.

There is no reason why you cannot have a millitant animistic religion, or a fundamentalist athiest state, having "holy" wars with other groups.

I also hate with a vengance the idea of "diabolism" as a choice. Sure, allow sacrafices if you want (important in most religions, at one point or another, human, animal or otherwise (Buddhism leaves little bowls of rice, or a mirror for the drahlas)), but don't call it "diabolic". That's the name for religions we don't like.

posted May 26, 1999 08:53                

No civilization is agressive by nature saying so verges on racism.

However, a civilization can be agressive by culture. What determines culture? Past actions, and leaders. A civilization that fights a lot, and chooses agressive action becomes agressive. Who makes the civilization fight, and makes these decisions? The leaders.

If a civilization is going to be agressive, it should be because their leader (Shakka of the Zulu's) is an agressive leader. This would be a good factor to randomize. That way, you could have te agressive Zulu's under an agressive Shakka, or peaceful Zulu's under a different leader personlaity.

posted May 26, 1999 14:00                

I do like the idea of religion existing, though. Look at history.. it was important. In Civ games, the only identifying factor for a citizen is their nationality at the moment. Greeks are greeks, russians are russians.

Religion could be a trancending factor. Religion A may encompass the Greeks and helf of your Russian civilization. The half with the same religion as the greeks would have a better attitude towards them. A war against the greeks would be frowned upon more by this segment of the population. Afterall, borders change all the time, but the people stay more or less the same.

If I conquer a civilization with anotgher religion, they would be under my control, but would retain this former identity, and a resentment towards me, which could be trouble...

posted May 26, 1999 14:39                

That's why the government type is called "Democratic," not "Congressional" or "Parliamentary." This is why the economic system in SMAC is "Planned" and "Free Market," not "Russian" or "American."

When you make suggestions, remember not to make them so confusing that they are undoable in the actual game. As I said before, it seems to be that 85% of the suggestions being made on these lists are simply way to complex to include in a game designed to be sold to the general public. Even adding two "sliding bars" for amount of faith, as suggested by MBrazier, is a bit too complex. Let's not even talk about these suggestions to have half your Civ be one religion, half of it be another, etc.

The idea is not for specific religious categories to be better than others any more than specific government types are better. Each has an advantage and a disadvantage. You choose what fits your empire-building strategy best.

As an added point, I would think upheaval costs for changing religion types should be much higher than to change government types.

Finally, I don't think this thread should become an argument about religious history, but to quickly respond to CormacMacArt, who states: "I for one, would not like Christianity and Judaism to be grouped with Islam. Hashem and Allah are nothing alike."

This is not a suprising statement coming from a self-described conservative Christian. The concept of "Judeo-Christian values" is put forward by political conservatives in this country who are looking to get Jews and Christians to agree on a set of principles and see Islam as a political enemy (which, at present, they are). However, these the three Western religions have much more in common with each other than they do with Hinduism or Bhuddism.

In fact, if you wanted to choose one to be "different" it would not be Islam, it would be Christianity. If you look both historically and in current teachings, Judaism and Islam have much more in common with each other than either has in common with Christianity. Neither Judaism or Islam is concerned with the concept of salvation as much as Christianity is, and the trinity concept can be troublesome for both. Both are primarily legal religions, with the Talmud and the Shar'ia, as opposed to the more faith-oriented Christianity which has no comparable legal code.

If anyone wants to discuss this elsewhere, feel free to contact me.

posted May 26, 1999 15:25                

Imagine an AI player that is not a civ. It can negotiate with civs, build temples and other structures in their cities, collect tithes, use propaganda against enemies and even raise small armies!

Each civ would be able to make different "treaties" with religion civs (Promote to state religion, allow, tolerate or persecute).