posted August 16, 1999 15:12            

Now you have made it even less attractive to me to have a state religion.

”d. Any positive effects that other religions have on happiness are eliminated.

Delete that bonus of one less unhappy citizen per religion. Cause if it exists and state religion deletes the bonus, I won’t choose a state religion at all.

”One of the things I liked about Civ2 was that the effects of city improvements could change over time so that there was never any one "right" way to build a city. I think have an Age of Faith would have the same effect. It would also reflect the historical truth that religion had a much greater effect on society in the past than it has in recent history.”

You haven’t answered on what I said. It’s not because religions have smaller effects on the Christian American and European society that that’s true for all other societies and religions.
Again I say Religious Freedom represents it fine.

”I think your religion SE category was a good start at handling religion, but that we've come up with a better system here. Therefore, I think that having a religion SE category would be pointlessly duplicative and complex.”

Du-uh. The religion SE category doesn’t exist anymore. Read my religion screen posts.
A better system???? Deciding yourself the tithes is pointlessly complex if you can just represent it with –2 Tax.

”I considered this option, but worried that it would make it too easy to have "We love the ..." days early in the game. I'll keep it as is pending other comments.”

First, having 4 citizens of the same religion is quite a prestation in the early game. And if you are worried about pop booms in the early game, I eliminated 150 posts back or so on the SE thread the Growth bonus of Golden Ages (other name for We Love The Days).

“Persecution potentially offers a big boost to any civ. I don't want to make it too easy.”

A 25 % research penalty is HUGE. That alone is enough to make persecution a bad option. And having all persecuted citizens become revolutionaries is also huge, since you risk revolting cities that form another new civ.
BTW, I would eliminate that –2 Res since the prosecution only counts for a small part of the population.

Also, I think that in reality, persecution usually caused unhappiness to citizens outside of the persecuted faith.”

That’s what you think. The faithful christians weren’t unhappy that the protestants were persecuted.

”I suppose we could call the option excommunication rather than expulsion. I agree with you that Schism should be an option, as long as there is an open religion slot. (Note that at any time, there is a limited number of religions.) I had hoped that the Church Council would allow such an action, and will revise it to do so.”

You haven’t given me the example of expulsing. And actually I don’t like that Church Council idea at all. Raingoon’s ideas of holy cities are better.
As you describe it, it would be a meeting between civilizations and not between a religious leader and a civ.
Other civs forbidding a civ to have a state religion is impossible. And excommunication (and declaring a civ defender of the faith) is handled by the religious leader (so again Raingoon’s ideas) and not by other civs in a church council.

And about schisma. yea, you’re right the defender of the faith shouldn’t be able to schism.

I’ll try to rewrite part B.

B. Effect of government on religion: the Religion screen.

In this screen you can set the attitude of your civ towards all the religions existing in your civ.
The attitudes your civ can have are :

1.State Religion :

a) You can have only one religion as state religion. Means all other religions can only be tolerated or persecuted.
b) The state agrees to pay all expenses of the state religion, which takes the form of –2 Taxes.
c) For every 4 followers of the state religion in a city, one of them becomes a happy cititzen.
d) Your State Religion gets +20% Evangelism only in your own empire.
e) When you want to deestablish the state religion, just change it’s status to tolerated or persecuted.
When you have deestablished a state religion, you have the option to establish another one.
There will be a 3 year period of between choosing to deestablish and the actual deestablishment.
During that time, your civ will have the same negative effects as SE switching (see the SE/Government summary).

2.Tolerated

A religion that is tolerated has no special positive or negative effects.

3.Persecuted

a) A persecuted religion’s Evangelism and Conviction rate is reduced by 20%.
b) All citizens belonging to the persecuted religion get one lower happpiness rate.
Means happy becomes content, content unhappy and unhappy revolutionary.
c) If your police rate is –2 Police or higher, you get +2 Police against all prosecuted citizens.
d) If you persecute a religion, the diplomatic relationships with other civs that haven chosen it as their state religion, will worsen severely.

[b]4.Other matters in the religion screen.

There are some other things you can do in the religion screen.
The following buttons you can push.

Have Schisma

When you do this, there will be a schism with your state religion and you will form a new religion.
You won’t have interference anymore from the old religion’s leaders.
75% of the believers of your previous state religion will follow you in the new religion and are instantly converted.
25% of the believers will remain faithful to the new religions.
Having a schisma seperates you definitely from the old religion.

Declare Religious Freedom

All the religions’ status will be set on tolerated.
You can’t persecute religions anymore, nor can you have a state religion.
When doing this, you get a +1 Research bonus and a +1 Happiness bonus. You also get a –1 Nationalism penalty.
There will be an option to Repeal Religious Freedom. There will be a three turn switching period with the same negative effects as SE switching.

Enforce Atheism

posted August 16, 1999 15:28            

There is NO SE Religion category anymore. Read the religion screen posts!!!!

Forget that SE crap of Establishment, Fundamentalism, Persecution and Religious Freedom.

To Raingoon :

posted August 16, 1999 15:57            

So, you garrisoned yourself at home for two turns? I hope your budding citizens were made content and/or happy. Congratulations!

Some quick responses --

Re church councils, I'll do the diplomacy section and see if I come up with an alternative way of addressing excommunication. I see some overlap there. I'm willing to keep discussing it.

Small point, and I'm a writer by trade so I tend to edit, but it might be clearer if you re-titled III.A.1. to something like "Making Citizens Happy", and *then* broke that down by system. This would be clearer at-a-glance. You may be sick of editing. Alternatively, with your permission I could do it when I paste your section into the final post. It's up to you.

I think it's good. We'll see if anyone comes up with anything else.

Regarding your notes on conversion:

II.B.4.a. ...I would suggest that... each religion may build a cleric, which can start in any city where the religion has a believer. The cost of a cleric would be equal to the gold value of the shields that a civ would use to make the cleric. Building a cleric would be an option of the religion's AI at the beginning. When the religion became large, a civ could also pay the religion to create a cleric and send it on a specific mission.

Evangelism then becomes largely a function of AI, and the prophet rule in effect already covers this in the beginning, doesn't it?

We also have "missions" and now "ministries", as your next point mentions. Which I think is good -- "missions" are foreign, and "ministries" are domestic.

Hmm... But giving a religion the ability to make their own clerics raises more questions. First of all, is paying for the cleric with money (religion produces it for you) better than paying for it with shields(you produce it yourself)? If the answer is yes...

Does a religion also stockpile its own gold? Or does a religion only acquire gold from civs? I personally think the latter, but maybe that's the crux of the issue.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe religions automatically drain what otherwise would be gold in your coffers. The amount would be proportionate to the number of believers in your civ. Otherwise, a religion could be readily controlled by simply refusing it money, which seems false.

Back to your original note, I do like that a cleric represents the city he was built in -- if only because it's just one step removed from the Civ2 trade caravan model when discussing foreign *missions.* It's easier to understand, and I think we should keep the rule consistent. But you have a point about making fledgling religions autonomous. I think we can help them without giving the AI religions too much power, or making it too confusing. I need some help there.

Currently we are tithing to religions to increase conversion ratings. Does this already, then, imply ministries?

Or maybe we have new subjects here for the outline, "Missions", "Ministries", and "Tithing."

And if we have ministries, I'd change your next suggestion slightly:

II.B.6 ministry.
a. a cleric may establish a ministry in any city within the boundaries of that civ, by garrisoning itself in that city.
b. a ministry increases the conviction factor for citizens of that religion by 50 percent, and has the effects on happiness detailed in section III.
c. when first established, the ministry attempts conversions once per turn; this ceases after five turns.
d. a ministry may be terminated by losing all its members, or by the civ falling in disfavor with that church, or by crusade (military conquer by a civ with an opposing state religion).

posted August 16, 1999 17:00            

Your rendering of the topic of "state religion" seems fair, although I disagree with your impression that their are too many options to eliminate unhappiness and not enough to generate happy citizens. At least the way I play, I find happy people easy to get -- it's the unhappy ones I have trouble with, especially early in the game. I'll keep the happiness effect of each religion as is, but keep my mind open for further discussion. I have taken the liberty of incorporating your suggestion in my proposal of 13 August.

However, I think you've missed the point on toleration and persecution. My goal was to give each option strengths and weaknesses so that reasonable players could choose any of them and still prosper. Your revisions have made toleration so unfavorable and persecution so favorable that both are no-brainers. Everyone will establish a state religion and persecute, unless they have a dicey diplomatic relation with someone important.

I also don't like the idea of describing the effects of religion in terms of the SE factors at this time. Those are still in flux, with about three or four contenting plans that I've seen, so I'd prefer not to make religion dependant on them.

I'll think about your points on atheism. However, given that we've decided that there will be no religion-specific effects, I don't really see the need to have a special category for lack of religion.

You haven't answered on what I said. It's not because religions have smaller effects on the Christian American and European society that that's true for all other societies and religions.
All right. Some examples. Organized religion in the form of Buddhism had a much greater effect in China before and during the T'ang then later. Buddhism in Japan was much more influential during the Heian era than afterward. Islam had a greater effect in almost all of the Islamic countries during the various caliphates -- when primary religious and political power were held by the same individual -- than in contemporary times. It seems to me that in almost all societies there were ages of faith that were terminated by other political ideas, and that it would be realistic to reflect this in the game.

Du-uh. The religion SE category doesn't exist anymore. Read my religion screen posts. I have been reading the SE thread, well, almost religiously. Please do give me the same credit that I give you -- of assuming that you are responding to my points in good faith. There have been occasions when I have thought some of your proposals ill-conceived and sometimes even silly. I have tried throughout to be civil.

I will also point out that your post of 15 August 1999, at 17:00 contains a heading on "religious," and has categries for "high priest," "theocracy," "fundamentalism," etc. Therefore, I think my impression that your SE system still contains a fairly sizable, and in my mind, redundant religious element is justified. Please let me know if there is a subtlety here that I'm missing.

The faithful christians weren't unhappy that the protestants were persecuted. "Happiness" as a game element does not reflect peoples' conscious glee, but their satisfaction with society. I will also point out that almost all marginalized people in Spain, and not just the formal targets of investigation, were demoralized by the Inquisition, and that much of England was made unhappy by the persecution of Protestants under Queen Mary.

You haven't given me the example of expulsing. Here we go:
During the Great Schism, all of the fragments of the Catholic Church expelled all of the adherents of the other fragments.
During the Reformation, Luther and all of his adherents (who wanted to change the church from within) were expelled.
In the modern era, the orthodox rabbinate of Israel has disenfranchised American Reform Judaism.
The Mahayana and Theravada strains of Buddhism each think that the other has entirely missed the point of the Buddha's teachings. However, since there's no church hierarchy, neither can expel the other.

Therefore, I think it's realistic to allow expulsion.

And actually I don't like that Church Council idea at all. Raingoon's ideas of holy cities are better. I agree with many of Raingoon's ideas. The problem with the holy city -- which Raingoon acknowledges -- is that it does not provide a means to resolve a dispute when two enemy civs belong to the same religion. He's said that he'll think about it, and I await his/her ideas.

Raingoon:

Evangelism then becomes largely a function of AI, and the prophet rule in effect aready covers this in the beginning, doesn't it? Most of my proposals are designed first to allow religions to survive without the patronage of a civ and second to maintain them as subsidiary players even after one or more civs adopt them. I think the first objective is necessary if religions are to grow in the beginning, and if new religions are to present a meaningful threat to the status quo later in the game. I think the second objective makes dealing with the religions more interesting than it would be if the immediately became appendages of the strongest civ that supported them. These concerns were the genesis of my giving religions the ability to have their own clerics.

I agree that we should think about how to determine how much money a religion needs, and where it will get that money. I may post a proposal tomorrow.

posted August 16, 1999 17:03            

"Re church councils, I'll do the diplomacy section and see if I come up with an alternative way of addressing excommunication. I see some overlap there. I'm willing to keep discussing it.

Small point, and I'm a writer by trade so I tend to edit, but it might be clearer if you re-titled III.A.1. to something like "Making Citizens Happy", and *then* broke that down by system. This would be clearer at-a-glance. You may be sick of editing. Alternatively, with your permission I could do it when I paste your section into the final post. It's up to you.

I think it's good. We'll see if anyone comes up with anything else."

Raingoon, I get the impression here you consider yourself as the thread master and summary writer of the Religion thread.
But you only include what YOU like in your 'final post'.
Let me remind you that the summary must hold the thoughts of ALL visitors and posters and not one option of one person. So if there's some dispute unfinished, the two options have to come both in the summary.

posted August 16, 1999 17:09            

I missed one of your points, which is whether the current set of benefits/penalties to state religion make sense. As currently structured, early religious tolerance has a benefit in that each religion generates one extra step in happiness for one citizen, either from unhappy to content (my proposal) or from content to happy (your proposal). Thus, early tolerance a la Roman Empire has a big benefit. However, state religion has all the advantages in a larger empire. The player has a much wider range of options for interacting with the religion and with other players. The player can build and control clerics, whose ministries have their greatest effect when large numbers of people in each city are of the same religion. Finally, during the Age of Faith, which occupies much of game time, the effect of a state religion is increased still further.

posted August 16, 1999 18:05            

Same to you as to Raingoon. You seem to consider yourself as the only one to get with his ideas in the summary.

"although I disagree with your impression that their are too many options to eliminate unhappiness"

OK, let's say 4 religions.
= 4 content
One religion has a majority.
= +1 content
You have a Temple, Cathedral and Colosseum.
= +9 content
And I haven't got your post before me right now, but I thought that the state religion doubled the Cathedral effect for it's followers.
= +3 content
But since, if you have a state religion, all the benefits of other religions are scrapped, and in my example there are also 3 other religions, I'll not take in account this +3.
But that still is 17 people made content. And I didn't consider that you have one less unhappy per 4 believers in your state religion.
Let's say a city of 19 with a majority, so at least +2 content.
Means you can keep a city content to 19 without any luxuries.
And since you get free entertainers from the size 21, you don't need luxuries at all...

So your system is very unbalancing.

"However, I think you've missed the point on toleration and persecution. My goal was to give each option strengths and weaknesses so that reasonable players could choose any of them and still prosper. "

Your system is very inaccurate. You could only be Established, Tolerated or Persecuted for all religions.
In my ideas of a religion screen, you can have a different attitude towards each religion.
In your system, State Religion was too weak compared to Tolerated for reasons I already have stated.
And BTW, what do you mean "Toleration unfavorable"? If you are Religious Freedom(=your Tolerance status), you get +1 Res and +1 Hap.
And what do you mean "Persecution favorable"? I think you don't realize how bad Revolutionaries are. They are like Civ2 very unhappy people. They have to be made unhappy first and only then they can be turned content.
And isn't a -25% Research penalty for your entire empire a bit exaggerated? I don't think the Celts in Northern France cared about the persecution of Jezus.
I am willing to give Persecuted -2 research if there are persecuted citizens in the city.
Then in the Jezus example Jerusalem would get a penalty, but Lutetia not.

"I also don't like the idea of describing the effects of religion in terms of the SE factors at this time. Those are still in flux, with about three or four contenting plans that I've seen, so I'd prefer not to make religion dependant on them."

There were three different systems of which two are being melted right now. And BTW, Harel used my factors, so you can't actually call that an entirely different plan. And about the slider guys, they still must have something that the sliders affect.
My SE model perhaps not yet, but my factors are well excepted.

"I'll think about your points on atheism. However, given that we've decided that there will be no religion-specific effects, I don't really see the need to have a special category for lack of religion."

What!?! The lack of religion is a very important part of the world. Do I have to throw all the arguements of Harel to your head? Raingoon probably wouldn't like that.
And BTW, I am talking about ENFORCED ATHEISM, like USSR, not the free atheism where Harel and me believe in.
The free atheism should be a religion just like the others eg Turywenzism, Yahoo, Zooky... not a religion screen or SE choice.
BTW, for the sake of fun, that religion should only begin to be preached in the modern age. Or something earlier, from the Renaissance (scientists don't believe in a god).

"All right. Some examples. Organized religion in the form of Buddhism had a much greater effect in China before and during the T'ang then later. Buddhism in Japan was much more influential during the Heian era than afterward. Islam had a greater effect in almost all of the Islamic countries during the various caliphates -- when primary religious and political power were held by the same individual -- than in contemporary times. It seems to me that in almost all societies there were ages of faith that were terminated by other political ideas, and that it would be realistic to reflect this in the game.
"

Have these countries you called religious freedom or not? If so, it proves my point again. Religious Freedom made religion less important.
And about Islam. You're joking right? Islam losing it's importance in the society... You don't actually believe that, I hope.

"I will also point out that your post of 15 August 1999, at 17:00 contains a heading on "religious," and has categries for "high priest," "theocracy," "fundamentalism," etc. Therefore, I think my impression that your SE system still contains a fairly sizable, and in my mind, redundant religious element is justified. Please let me know if there is a subtlety here that I'm missing."

That were Government choices, not Religion choices.

"I will also point out that almost all marginalized people in Spain, and not just the formal targets of investigation, were demoralized by the Inquisition, and that much of England was made unhappy by the persecution of Protestants under Queen Mary."

I don't know if it's true what you say about Spain, but what you say about England is obvious. THEY WERE THE PERSECUTED!
Before her, the state religion was changed to Anglicanism-Protestantism.
Of course were people unhappy after Mary changed back to Roman Christianity.

"During the Great Schism, all of the fragments of the Catholic Church expelled all of the adherents of the other fragments.
During the Reformation, Luther and all of his adherents (who wanted to change the church from within) were expelled.
In the modern era, the orthodox rabbinate of Israel has disenfranchised American Reform Judaism."

posted August 16, 1999 18:20            

Regarding your post of 17:09.
I don't know what you are trying to prove. Showing that my system is bad and yours good?
The same things count for my system.
+1 Hap means you can rule more cities without getting extra unhappy people.
And what you said about your state religion is also true for my state religion.

And now you said you are perfectionist, it's obvious that you make the game easier for you perfectionist. I even forgot the Clerics. With them you don't even need the buildings to keep large cities content(see 18:05 post for prove).

posted August 16, 1999 20:29            

I am not the threadmaster for this thread. Stefu, to my knowledge, is the threadmaster. Accordingly, I am not planning on posting any summaries of this entire thread unless I am asked to, and considering how much I've invested of my own point of view, I don't know if I am the best candidate for the job.

M@ni@c, you raise some good points. First of all, and this is for Will too, I only meant to say that I would "paste" Will's section onto mine when all 3 were done to everyone's satisfaction. I won't change a word without his approval. While I'm trying to do a summary of this particular model only, it isn't "mine." I hope we are all working on it.

Ironically, I think my attempts at posting as-I-go so everyone can change and critique it, may have raised my profile as some kind of "author." My apologies. I'm really trying to synthesize everyone's suggestions, because they're all pretty well-founded, seems to me. For one, Will, I lean toward M@ni@c's suggestion we all go back to the prophet being a converted citizen, and not a separate unit. I know Mbrazier also supports that idea (unless he's changed his mind). It just makes things simpler.

posted August 17, 1999 11:53            

Raingoon:

Congrats on reaching the coveted "Civer" level. And I hope you continue the post-as-you-go approach, which I think has focused our debate. Now, for substantive points.

If others prefer that the "prophet" be represented by the first convert in the first city where a religion appears, that's fine with me. I think we then get ack to the problem of how a young religion expands. If the new religion gets only a single citizen, it will not be the majority religion and, therefore, will not generate passive conversion outside of its birth city. Within its birth city, other religions will be more numerous -- much more numerous later in the game, which means that the prophet will be unlikely to convert anyone, and may be converted him/herself. To overcome this, we'll need to give new religions pretty substantial evangelism and conviction bonuses that would decrease as they grew, or allow them to have their own clerics from the start.

M@ni@c:

I think your point about having a geographic limit to the effects of persecution is valid, and will add it to my proposal. Your historical analogy, however, is incorrect. During the worst of the persecutions (under Decius), Christianity had converts throughout the empire. Some of your Celts in northern Gaul would have either been Christians and known Christians, and been somewhat upset by the savage repression.

Atheism -- if you accept that "free atheism" is equivalent to religion under the current proposal, a view with which I agree, then "enforced atheism" is functionally equivalent to the establishment of atheism as state religion and persecution of all other religions. Since the model accommodates this option, there is no need for a separate category for atheism.

In my ideas of a religion screen, you can have a different attitude towards each religion. This is an interesting idea. Your 16 August, 15:12 lists only state religion, toleration, persecution, and enforced atheism as attitudes. As I noted in the preceding paragraph, I believe this is functionally equivalent to my system. If you'd like to propose other attitudes, I'm willing to listen.

But that still is 17 people made content [by your system]. . . . So your system is very unbalancing. I think your math is incorrect, but your point is well taken. I was striving to give civs a reason to allow or encourage their citizens to become religion, but apparently made it too much of a good thing. I'd like to make the proposal fit with a variety of options, and have accordingly described it in terms of two different systems, where necessary: (1) the Civ2 unhappy/content/happy citizens model (as Firaxis has requested), and (2) various proposals to use percentages of happiness and productivity, both as a matter of a SMAC-type SE system or something more akin to MOO2. To respond to your complaint, I would propose that if religion were added to the Civ2 model, each religion in a city pay a tithe of 1 gold (i.e., a city of 8 with 3 religions would tithe 3 gold), which would come out of total trade for the city. Further, to keep religion from getting out of hand, I propose that under toleration, religion can only affect a number of citizens equal to 1/4 the total population (i.e. 1 in cities of 1-4, 2 in cities of 5-8, etc.).

My SE model perhaps not yet, but my factors are well excepted. As you have seen from the SE posts, I agree with much of your model, but not all. I totally disagree with the slider guys. I've also seen proposals that there be no city-specific production adjustments or happiness. Firaxis may choose something else entirely. Since I believe religion would work with just about any systems, I'm trying to keep my proposal for religion under a new system very general.

As I recall, it was the Byzantine Emperor that did the Schism. What the Catholic Church did to the adherents after it isn't important to allow expulsion, cause they belonged to another religion then. I didn't know you counted Luther as a civilization. It's a prophet. About Judaism, you say it yourslef, it was already reformed. No expulsion. About that Buddhism, I don't know them.
The Great Schism was the split of the Catholic Church between a French-supported branch in Avignon and another branch in Rome in 1378. Both branches professed to be the true Catholic faith, and ended up expelling each other from their respective religions. (They were later reunited.) Similarly, the parties in the earlier Roman/Orthodox schism both believed themselves to be the true universal apostolic faith, and ended up expelling each other. In both of these instances, the Roman church took believers who professed themselves to be true Catholics, and expelled them from the church based primarily on their political allegiance. Therefore, I reject your argument that expulsion of a group of believers has never occurred.

posted August 17, 1999 17:15            

"I think your point about having a geographic limit to the effects of persecution is valid, and will add it to my proposal. Your historical analogy, however, is incorrect. During the worst of the persecutions (under Decius), Christianity had converts throughout the empire. Some of your Celts in northern Gaul would have either been Christians and known Christians, and been somewhat upset by the savage repression."

In that historical analogy I was talking about 33 AD. Then the Gaulians probably didn't even know Jezus. I believe you when you say they did become unhappy under Decius, but that's more then two centuries later.
So, we agree?
Only the city where someone is persecuted gets the research penalty.
In 33, it would only be Jerusalem, but in 250 it would be almost the entire Empire.

"Atheism -- if you accept that "free atheism" is equivalent to religion under the current proposal, a view with which I agree, then "enforced atheism" is functionally equivalent to the establishment of atheism as state religion and persecution of all other religions. Since the model accommodates this option, there is no need for a separate category for atheism."

'Free' Atheism is a religion.
'Enforced' atheism is an attitude.
So to take the example of the USSR, it couldn't have a state religion, even not atheism. Under Enforced atheism you persecute every religion.
As an added realistic thing, someone said that now Russia is the breeding nest of many religions right now.
Well, that is represented perfectly.
When the enforced atheism is repealed, all citizens are assumed 'animist', just as in the beginning of the game and can be easily converted. So then religions could be spread very easily.

"In my ideas of a religion screen, you can have a different attitude towards each religion. This is an interesting idea. Your 16 August, 15:12 lists only state religion, toleration, persecution, and enforced atheism as attitudes. As I noted in the preceding paragraph, I believe this is functionally equivalent to my system. If you'd like to propose other attitudes, I'm willing to listen."

No no, we don't understand each other.
I don't mean new attitudes.
In your system there are three options.
Established : one is state religion and others all tolerated.
Tolerated : all are tolerated
Persecution : last time I checked your post, it said that you could persecute one or all religions.

With my manner, you can do more fine tuning.

A vertical list of all religions and right to them the three choices State Religion, Tolerated, Persecuted.
You can pick an attitude for every religion, not like in your system 'one persecuted or all persecuted' or 'all tolerated'.

In my system you can pick one state religion and for every other religion tolerated or persecuted. So you can also persecute two religions. Before you say, "too much micromanagement", consider the default option always tolerated, so you should only have to go to the religion screen to set your state religion and to persecute religions (or to declare schism, religious freedom or enforced atheism).

So a list could look like this :

Turywenzism :.................................Persecuted
Apolyton :.State Religion
Zooky :...........................Tolerated
Slinkies :..........................Tolerated
Microsoft :........................................Persecuted
Yahoo :.............................Tolerated

On the left you have all the religions in your empire and to the right the attitude towards it.
I think this is more better than a religious attitude towards ALL religions as your system does.

"I think your math is incorrect,"

Sorry, I don't know your system that well. Perhaps you could give your version of the numbers, so I can comprehend your ideas better.

"To respond to your complaint, I would propose that if religion were added to the Civ2 model, each religion in a city pay a tithe of 1 gold (i.e., a city of 8 with 3 religions would tithe 3 gold), which would come out of total trade for the city."

Now you're giving it more drawbacks. That's not what I want. I'm saying religion has too many advantages. You don't even need Colloseums and Temples to keep large cities happy if a majority has the same religion.
Therefore I suggest to give Religious Freedom (you call it tolerance) a simple +1 Hap or even +2 Hap instead of "one less unhappy citizen per religion".
That would keep the civ2 unhappiness suppression balance and keep keeping cities happy an uneasy business.

"As you have seen from the SE posts, I agree with much of your model, but not all."

?? You seemed against my factors.

"The Great Schism was the split of the Catholic Church between a French-supported branch in Avignon and another branch in Rome in 1378."
I was talking about the _real_ Eastern Schism, not that one of Avignon.

As I recall about the Western Schism the French king had a candidate for popeship, but Italy didn't agree.
Or do you mean the pope's exile in Avignon?

posted August 17, 1999 19:26            

The problem with the holy city... is that it does not provide a means to resolve a dispute when two enemy civs belong to the same religion.

Hmm... I think the answer lies within the problem in this case. Will, tell me if the issue is more complex than I'm remembering, but to me, the holy city is a trump card. First of all, any leader can declare a state religion for their civ at any time. But the one who owns the holy city wins any disputes -- he is considered to "have the Pope's ear", so to speak. This creates a challenge for the other interested party to find a way to possess that holy city.

I still don't favor the church council, for simplicity reasons -- but I like all the ideas for what the church council can do. I think that any expulsions or any religion action that the player participates in, should be a part of religious diplomacy, which in turn should be handled only through holy cities. Excommunication and schisms should also happen without the player's participation. I'm waiting to see definitive definitions of excommunication and schism.

Btw, re holy cities, synthesizing past differing viewpoints I'm now thinking:
a. holy cities are founded when a religion can claim 25% of the world population. Is this the best way to determine this? and
b. holy cities are founded back in the city where the religion first began (as opposed to the largest city currently dominated by that religion). Any thoughts on which is better?
c. Should it be called a holy city or holy capitol? or religious capitol?

Concerning: How much money a religion needs, what it needs it for, and where it will get that money.

Here is one suggestion:

quote:

---

A religion needs money to expand on its own. However this works should also solve Will's problem with enabling small religions to grow. I propose that, in addition to the normal passive spread of religion, we do a gold model for religion similar to the food model for population growth in Civ 1&2. If we modify Will's tithing suggestion a little, so that each city tithes 1 gold per every religion residing in that city, eventually the coffers will begin to grow. Of course, you can still tithe above and beyond that, out of the government coffers. But when the coffers of Turywenzism reach an amount (X+1, where X = total # of faithful), a ministry is automatically established in the city with the fewest number of Turywenzists.

---

3. Ministries... other options for terminating a ministry: attack by an enemy cleric or disbanding of the cleric by the civ that built it.

Will, keeping with my suggestion above, what if all ministries were created by the AI, and all missions were done by the player? Iow, domestic ministries cannot be player controled. Players can only send out clerics to establish missions in foreign lands.

Simpler? Anyway, to answer your question, I'm not crazy about attack by enemy clerics. Imagine getting a cleric to the other side of the world and establishing a mission, only to have another cleric come by and de-establish it. I'm not even sure foreign states should have the power, except as its given in the ability to persecute, etc.

Comments? I'll try to get diplomacy happenin' here...

posted August 17, 1999 20:50            

"Btw, re holy cities, synthesizing past differing viewpoints I'm now supposing:"

I think that "b. holy cities are founded back in the city where the religion first began " is best and simpliest.

"Concerning: How much money a religion needs, what it needs it for, and where it will get that money."

The 20% Tax you loose by having a state religion should end in that religion's treasury.

"I wish there was a way to keep Will's martyrdom rule. Perhaps there is a 10% chance that, when the prophet stops preaching, he is assumed to be martyred and the same rules apply?"

posted August 17, 1999 22:24            

Will: yes, I'm still in favor of starting religions by spontaneously converting one citizen -- at least, in the initial stages when a religion is competing only against the default "animism". As you point out, this works less well when a new religion has to convert citizens of an old religion that retains its strength. One idea that would fix this is to make a religion's Conviction rating decline as time passes. This would mean that the first generation of converts are extremely fervent, but as the years pass and the original inspiration is forgotten, the members become open to new ideas. IOW, a new prophet will typically face citizens who are ready to be converted.

I also heartily endorse the idea of atheistic religions; "religion" here means what the citizens are loyal to, not a specifically theist body of doctrine. The Soviet Union's religious policy could be accurately termed establishment of Communism as a state "religion".

M@ni@c: to tell you the truth, I like your new model a good deal more than the old one. I don't see why a player would want to persecute _all_ the religions, as the effect would be unhappy and rioting citizens with no counter-balancing happy ones. But there's nothing wrong with letting a player shoot himself in the foot.

posted August 18, 1999 03:14            

The 20% Tax you loose by having
a state religion should end in that religion's treasury.

Good idea. But do you mean in addition to the tithing suggestion just made -- in other words a sum of money would be constantly flowing from believers into their religions' coffers, regardless of government attitude. But when a state religion was formed, this 20% tax would be in addition?

If you persecute a new religion the first X turns it exists, it is assumed martyrship... And within that first X turns it should have also increased Evangelism and Conviction.

Absolutely right about the cheaters temptation. Prophets currently exist for 20 turns as veteran units, or experts. Lets say experts are 15 evangelism, 20 conviction (where normal clerics and all base citizen units are 10/15). So for 20 turns they convert at that higher rate and you can't touch them; and if you persecute their religion under your state religion during those 20 turns, they're martyred, and all non-aligned units with 8 squares in any direction are instantly converted.

posted August 18, 1999 03:29            

a. all citizens begin pagan...

I also see "animism"...

gg. setting “Religion SE” factors; choices follow (leaving out the non-religious effects of same):

Animism : (start up) does not effect conversion
Religious Freedom : -2 conviction, -1 evangelism
Establishment : +2 evangelism
Fundamentalism : +2 conviction
Persecution : +2 Evangelism

posted August 18, 1999 09:58            

"A suggestion for the interface, though. As the state religion must be unique, it still makes sense to put the control for it on the main SE screen. You can then have a sub-screen opening from SE, which lists all the known religions (except your state religion, if you have one) and has a flag by each for "persecute/tolerate"."

So then you only determine tolerate/persecute in the Religion window and determine your state religion in the SE window? What advantages has that?

Raingoon :

It would be an addition to the normal tithes.
But I have a question about Will's tithing system.
In your system every citizen gives one gold piece to his/her religion, so tax income = # believers.
But does that 1 gold appears out of thin air, or does the player has to pay it?
I hope it's thin air, cause if the player has to pay it, the burden to your economy and tax income would be too big.

"But should the citizens who now carry on his religion retain the prophet's inflated veteran numbers for another 10 or 20 turns, before reverting back to their base citizen values?"

posted August 18, 1999 10:32            

M@ni@c: I think that we're actually in complete agreement on establishing religious attitudes. My original proposal states that "Under this system, belonging to the persecuted religion is illegal. A government may persecute one or all religions." I intended this to mean that a player can persecute one, two, or as many religions as s/he wants. Do you think it would be clearer if I revised the model to state that "A government may persecute one, several, or all religions?"

The effect of religion. I think we increase our likelihood of being heard if we describe religion both in terms of the Civ2 system (in which concepts like +2 or +1 Hap are meaningless) and generally in terms of the main alternate systems. In that case, I think we need a well-thought proposal for how religion would interact with the existing happiness system and religious improvements. Perhaps we should propose that the temple have no effect by itself, but is necessary for religions to affect happiness, and that a cathedral can be built only by a religion that has a state church. Any thoughts?

Religion screen. This should be the vehicle for both establishing religious policy and conducting religious diplomacy. It would have a button for "establish state religion" that would trigger a drop-down box indicating all available options (including "none") and a window indicating the answer. There would be another button for "proclaim religious freedom." Finally, there would be a button for "persecute," which would trigger a drop-down box indicating the available options. The screen would show all religions subject to persecution.

Funding. I like your funding suggestion. Using the Civ2 system, each believer would take tithes from the trade stream and deliver them to the religion. Each time the total value of tithes reached a certain point, which would vary with the size of the religion, there would be an additional passive conversion calculation. I would propose that, in addition, there be a subtraction from tithes for each active cleric and for the holy city, which would reflect the cost of maintaining a religious infrastructure.

Martyrdom. I like M@ni@c's suggestion, but would amend it so that there is a sliding scale -- the martyrdom effect would decrease with the passage of time. That way, there's no fixed cut-off point where the civs can begin to persecute an infant religion with impunity.

posted August 18, 1999 12:49            

M@ni@c said: "So then you only determine tolerate/persecute in the Religion window and determine your state religion in the SE window? What advantages has that?"

What matters, in my view, is separating "choose a state religion" from "choose how to treat the other religions". You don't want to create the impression that it's possible to have two state religions at once, since in fact it's not. Thus I suggest two controls, a dropdown to pick the state religion and a menu to set persecutions.

Putting the two controls on two different screens isn't, now that I think about it, a particularly good idea.

Will: "In that case, I think we need a well-thought proposal for how religion would interact with the existing happiness system and religious improvements. Perhaps we should propose that the temple have no effect by itself, but is necessary for religions to affect happiness, and that a cathedral can be built only by a religion that has a state church. Any thoughts?"

I've floated several proposals along that line before, but they don't quite fit with M@ni@c's scheme. I think having a state religion should be required for building _all_ religious improvements; you could maintain them during a period of religious freedom, but you couldn't build them.

A temple (I propose) moves citizens of the state religion towards happiness. That is, X% of the state religion's members move up from unhappy to content, or from content to happy, while the temple exists. A cathedral does the same thing, only more so -- 2 * X%, instead of X%. If we decide to scrap the unhappy/content/happy scheme, as Theben suggested, then a temple just improves the city happiness rating by (X * M / P), where M is the membership of the state religion and P is the total city population. Again, a cathedral does the same, only more so.

posted August 18, 1999 15:31            

I suggest you just add an introduction in the "B. Effects of government on religion" part of the 'final post' explaining what we mean with the religion window/screen and what you can do in it.

"I think we increase our likelihood of being heard if we describe religion both in terms of the Civ2 system (in which concepts like +2 or +1 Hap are meaningless)"

What I suggested was also in SMAC and Civ2.
What I call the Happiness factor existed in Civ2, but it was determined by Corruption and in SMAC it was determined by your Efficiency rate. I can post the formulae if you want.

"In that case, I think we need a well-thought proposal for how religion would interact with the existing happiness system and religious improvements."

So my Happiness factor and the effects I give it, already exist. It's nothing new. The only thing I did, was seperating it from Corruption/Efficiency.

"and that a cathedral can be built only by a religion that has a state church."

Scroll to the end of my post to find a consensus.

"Perhaps we should propose that the temple have no effect by itself, but is necessary for religions to affect happiness,"

I would let them keep their effect of 2 content to have a way to keep your citizens happy early in the game when religions are rare.

"Religion screen. This should be the vehicle for both establishing religious policy and conducting religious diplomacy. It would have a button for "establish state religion" that would trigger a drop-down box indicating all available options (including "none") and a window indicating the answer. There would be another button for "proclaim religious freedom.""

Very good idea! "Proclaim religious freedom" doesn't even have to be an independent button. You can also put it in the "establish state religion" drop-down box, since you can never have a state religion if you proclaim state religion. But then you should rename the "establish state religion" button to something else.

"Finally, there would be a button for "persecute," which would trigger a drop-down box indicating the available options. The screen would show all religions subject to persecution."

But with drop-down boxes, you can only choose one thing.
How then can you choose to persecute two religions if you only have one drop-down box?
We are referring to the same, aren't we?
Eg that "Hop to: Select a Forum" box.

"Funding. I like your funding suggestion."

I thought you made that suggestion of one gold per believer some days ago...

"Using the Civ2 system, each believer would take tithes from the trade stream and deliver them to the religion."

I hope you don't mean take away from the city's trade, cause as I said to Raingoon that would be a disaster for your economy.
You should only have to pay money to your state religion, what is well represented by -2 Tax.

About what's done with the religion's money, ok to me what you suggest.

A martyrdom sliding scale is good to me.

"why don't we allow the civ that has the greatest number of believers in that religion to designate the holy city when the religion passes the percentage threshold."

But having a holy city in your territory IS dumb luck. It's not like the civ's leaders 'decide' that some city will become holy.
I stick with the first city where the religion appeared = holy city.

Diodorus :

I know athiesm isn't actually a religion(it's the opposite, but in game terms it is. You can better call it a belief.
BTW, I hope you don't mean all atheists are fundamentalists.

Back to Will :

If there is an Age of Faith when religions are more powerful, I insist that the Age of Faith is followed by an Age of Reason and then Atheism should be more powerful to make it possible to gain a reasonable amount of believers in the late game.

Differences

OK, let's say what I don't like.
Based on your August 13 14:24 post...

Your State Religion

->One on 4 believers made content.
->+10% Eva and Conv strength in own empire.
->Temple and Cathedral value doubled

My worries about it is that then state religions would be too good compared to religious freedom, especially if you can’t build a cathedral if you haven’t got a state religion.
So let’s search a consensus.

New State Religion

->One on 4 believers made happy (you know why)
->+20% Evangelism in your own empire.
->-2 Tax
->You can only build a Cathedral if you have a state religion. Under Religious Freedom or if you haven’t got a state religion they don’t need upkeep. Instead, they generate the an amount of gold equal to their normal upkeep cost (as in Civ2 Fundamentalism)

New Religious Freedom

->+ 1 or 2 SE Happiness
->+1 Research (or +2 if the Research category is deleted (read the SE thread))
->-20% Conviction
->Per religion existing in your city, one citizen is made content with a maximum of ¼ of the city population.

Analysis

Now the two options are more equal.
Under state religion you get one on 4 believers happy. Under religious freedom you get +1/2 Hap.
You can only build cathedrals under state religion. Under religious freedom you have one less unhappy per religion.

Persecution

posted August 18, 1999 15:42            

BTW, you suggested earlier that maybe a religion's conviction values should decline over time (as a way of helping new religions get a foothold). Hopefully, the new prophet and martyrdom rules have done enough to assuage concerns?

posted August 18, 1999 16:24            

Will's suggestion for funding through tithes was one gold piece per religion in a city. Not per believer. You interpreted it as one per believer -- is that what you prefer? The point is for a religion to eventually accumulate X+1 gold pieces, where X = total number of believers currently residing in that civ. This creates a ministry in the weakest city. Now, if I'm not mistaken, in your interpretation this would happen every two turns.

I hope you don't mean take away from the city's trade, cause as I said to Raingoon that would be a disaster for your economy.

Do you feel the same way if it is one gold piece per religion in a city? Personally, I lean toward your thin air suggestion. If the player wants to write a further check out of his own coffers that should be his business.

Will

Great idea for martyrdom. You'd never know just when it was safe to persecute. Perhaps this should be a randomly recurring event throughout the life of the religion, adding a calculated risk to persecuting at any time.

Why don't we allow the civ that has the greatest number of believers in that religion to designate the holy city when the religion passes the percentage threshold.

I think a compromise would be good here -- because it _would_ be better to give the player the ability to try to shape events in his or her favor. By shaping I mean either of two ways:

1) if holy city is established in city of origin, this would mean predicting its occurence by tracking total # of believers, and using military units to strengthen your hold on the city where you knew it would occur. The advantage of this is to suggest the spirit of the crusades that did exist, that is, the relationship between military and religion in the game.

Or,

2) if holy city is established in the city with the most believers, this would mean using population and religious forces to encourage growth in a city of your choosing, such that you try to beat any others vying to create the holy city in their own civ. This has the benefit of encouraging horse races.

Lastly,

3) if holy city is chosen by player with largest representation of that religion in his/her civ, we still have a horse race element -- on the civ level, region by region. This is simple and logical, which is good. But I think M@ni@c is right, there IS dumb luck involved, and it might not have as much drama in terms of game play.

posted August 18, 1999 17:22            

OK, we all agree on Will's tithing system?

"Do you feel the same way if it is one gold piece per religion in a city?"

Yes indeed I do. In the late game, one gold may mean nothing, but in the early game it's a lot. After all, it's the citizens paying, not the player. The player is only supposed to pay his state religion.

So we agree on thin air gold?

You know my opinion about holy cities...
I would love a crusade to Jerusalem.

posted August 18, 1999 22:34            

I believe the current suggestion for crusades is basic -- if a holy city is captured and requires liberation, you are assumed to be on a crusade. Under diplomacy, it's been suggested, and I'm planning on including in the diplomacy section for discussion, that any holy city may request liberation from its current owner and call upon other faithful to lead a crusade. I want to try and incorporate Will's suggestion for a "Defender of the Faith" in the crusade rules. (I think it was Will's.)

Also, there could be a startup option, asking if the player wants real-world, historical religions.

I still think limiting the amount of noise coming from AI entities is best -- sort of a "holy cities are a privelege, not a right" philosophy.

posted August 19, 1999 07:58            

Also, I'm including ideas of my own that I had as I was writing, obviously. If there is a majority of voices opposing an idea of mine, or someone else's that I'm just not for, I'll defer to the majority and it will be reflected in the "final posting."

That said, here's Definition, Origins, and Conversions revisited... also a new Tithing section I'm including under II. Concepts.

B. Defined.

Religion is a game element comparable to trade. Where trade deals with resources, religion deals with population.

1. Religions are synonymous with citizens; each citizen has the ability to belong to one religion.
2. Each city is represented on the game map by the religion practiced by the majority of its citizens.
3. Each religion shall have its own symbol.
4. No religion has greater or less numerical values than any other.
5. Religion names can be edited by the player, thus Firaxis can choose to set the the AI to default to historical religions, defunct religions, or fictional religions, or whatever they deem most appropriate. The player could have the start-up option of choosing which religion “brands” he/she wanted in the game.
6. At any time, there can be up to three more religions than there are civs. If there are ever four more than X civs, the smallest religion shall be eliminated and its members given to the second smallest religion.
7. Religions are visible in the game in four ways:
a. In the city screen by each member of the population holding a flag with its religious symbol on it. When the population gets too large for this to work, there will be a separate graphic showing the number of each citizen adhering to the religion.
b. On the main map you will see the current religious borders of the world, as determined by cities, by filtering for it (e.g., hitting F1 key).
c. Cleric units visually represent both a specific civ (color) and a specific religion (symbol).
d. On the main map, the symbol of the majority religion appears on the city flag next to the number of citizens.

II. Religion Concepts

A. Origins

Once civs have had time to establish a foothold, prophets begin to appear. Religions spread immediately thereafter. New religions will appear through the centuries, some never growing more than a city or two, others becoming recognized world religions. Some that are eradicated will never be heard of again; others might enjoy a revival two thousand years later.

1. Prophets
a. All civs begin pagan (citizens are non-aligned) and will experience the emergence of at least one prophet beginning with the second millenium of the game, but not before the discovery of religion.
b. A prophet is not a unit, but rather a newly born citizen in a given city’s population window, identified by his/her new religious symbol, with higher conversion values (20 evangelism, 25 conviction) than regular citizens (see conversion, below, for explanation of conversion values).
c. After their appearance prophets last for X turns, where X is randomly chosen from between 15 and 30, then convert back into regular citizens; their religious symbol remains.
d. After the prophet disappears from a city, the remaining citizens continue to benefit from the prophet’s greater conversion values for 20 more turns. This is to ensure fledgling religions will have a chance to develop.
e. Prophets can appear at any time during the game.
f. Turywenzism begins with the announcement: "Turywenzo has begun preaching in London."
g. Prophets can appear in any city.
h. Upon appearing, prophets instantly convert one citizen (other than themselves, of course); after that, conversion proceeds under the normal rules for citizen to citizen conversions (see, below).
i. If a government persecutes the new religion while the prophet is preaching, the prophet is considered martyred, the prophet disappears, leaving behind his/her bonus as described in rule “d” above, and all non-aligned citizens within 8 squares immediately convert to the new religion.
j. A religion can re-appear with a new prophet only after its religion has previously been eradicated.

B. Conversion

Each religion is incompatible with all others. Whenever two religions overlap "zones of influence," each will seek to dominate the other. The AI will handle the calculations, and keep track of the results. New conversions are noted in the population window of the appropriate city.

1. Evangelism
a. All citizen units in the population window have evangelism values.
b. Evangelism is the "attack" value of a religion.
c. All religions begin with the same base evangelism value, 10.

2. Conviction
a. All citizen units in the population window have conviction values.
b. Conviction is the "defense" value of a religion.
c. All religions begin with the same base conviction value, 15.
d. The higher conviction rating is so that, all things being equal, citizens should successfully defend against conversion attempts about 66% of the time.

3. Adjusting Conversion Ratings
a. You can increase (or in some cases decrease) your citizens’ conversion ratings by:

• donating money to a specific religion
  
• declaring a state religion
  
• hosting a holy city
  
• building a city improvement
  
• building a Wonder
  
• discovering a technological advance
  
• setting your civ’s attitudes towards religion in the religion screen
  
• 4 like believers in one city increases each believer’s values by .25; thus, a 4 stack of 4 Yahoos at 10 evangelism each is worth 50.

4. Passive Conversions
a. “Citizen to citizen (inner city) conversions”

• calculations are made by “stacking” citizens together by religion and combining their values
  
• passive conversions are calculated once every five turns

quote:

---

4 Turywenzists in London start with an evangelist factor of 10. England has Turywenzism as the state religion, and tithes a set amount of money to that religion each turn, both of which increase each Turywenzists citizen’s base evangelism value to 15. The city of London has a cathedral (+.10 modifier), and 4 of its citizens are Turywenzists (+.25 modifier each). This gives each Turywenzist in London an evangelist factor of 21 (rounding up), for a combined stack evangelism value of 84. This factor is calculated against the conviction ratings of the 2 Londoners who are Yahoos who receive none of the modifiers, but whose higher conviction ratings nevertheless combine to equal 30, increasing the odds they won’t capitulate in one turn. When the calculation is reversed, there is an even smaller chance the Yahoos combined evangelism rating of 20 will have any effect at all on the Turywenzist stack’s combined conviction rating after all the modifiers have been figured in.

---

For more discussion of modifiers and the religion screen, see section III below, “Effects of Religion.”

b. “City to city conversions“

• a city’s dominant religion becomes its official religion for the purposes of city to city conversion.
  
• minority religions do not participate in converting, but do defend themselves when being converted.
  
• cities have a religious influence on all cities within an eight-tile radius.
  
• after inner city conversions are calculated, city to city conversions are calculated.
  
• the dominant religion’s effect on a tile lessens with distance, the distance factor expressed as (10-distance)/8. Thus, a city eight squares away has a factor of 25 percent.
  
• all conversions outside the city are then calculated as if they were within the city.
  
• the effect is further weakened when the other city is an enemy civ.

d. For every successful conversion, one unit in the defending religion stack converts.

5. Active Conversions
a. “Missions”

• cleric units establish missions as caravans in Civ2 established trade routes; like caravans, clerics have no values themselves.
  
• clerics represent the religion of the city they were built in (again, city religion being determined by the religion with the greatest number of believers in that city).
  
• [i]missions can only be established outside your civ.
  
• a mission brings the foreign city into the home city’s zone of influence; the foreign city is now treated as if it resided 4 tiles away from the home city and follows the rules for city to city conversions until the mission is de-established.
  
• when first established, the mission automatically converts one citizen (preferring non-aligned citizens, if any), then attempts conversions once per turn for five turns; thereafter, conversion attempts proceed normally (city to city, once every five turns).
  
• clerics disappear after they have established one mission.
  
• like trade routes, missions are always successfully established.
  
• missions can only be de-established by purging the mission’s religion from that city (see “state religion” and “persecution” rules in Section III.

• when a religion has accumulated X+1 gold pieces, where X = total number of believers throughout the world, the religion creates a ministry in the first city where the fewest number of its believers exist (but not fewer than one).
  
• when first established, the ministry automatically converts one citizen (preferring non-aligned citizens, if any).
  
• a ministry in a city increases the conviction factor for citizens of that religion by 50 percent, and has the effects on happiness detailed in section III.
  
• a ministry cannot be de-established except by purging the ministry’s religion from the city (see “state religion” and “persecution” rules in Section III.

6. Population growth expands religions
a. In the case of new citizens being born, the percentage chance they would be born believing in religion X, Y, or Z would be equal to the percentage that religion X, Y, and Z were represented within that city.

C. Tithing

Gold pieces are what religions use to fund ministries, their most powerful tool for expansion. All religious gold is understood to have come from “under citizen mattresses,” and not from the government coffers; it does not come from the trade stream.

1. Each turn, every city tithes one gold per religion represented, to the respective religion’s coffers.
a. Religious coffers are tracked by the AI.
b. The amount of gold a religion has can be seen in the religion screen, and only if that religion has a holy city (see Diplomacy, below).
2. Religions will ask for donations periodically, and in increasing amounts.
3. In a “state religion”, -2 tax automatically sends that amount of the government’s gold into that religion’s coffers.
4. When a religion has built ministries in all available cities it continues to collect tithes and build its coffers.
a. A religion can loan gold to the civ who possesses its holy city (see Diplomacy, holy cities, below).

posted August 19, 1999 10:01            

Some things I don't understand...

"the dominant religion’s effect on a tile lessens with distance, modifying the evangelist factor by a factor of 2 + distance divided by 10."

Then it would be (City's Evangelism Strength) x (2 + distance) / 10.
That would increase the Evangelism factor over distance!
Are you sure it doesn't have to be [x10 / (2 + distance)] ?

"2. Religions will ask for donations periodically, and in increasing amounts."

You should be able to give extra money, but you shouldn't be forced, since it would be contradictious to give money to other religions if you have a state religion.

Diplomatic option : give money to a religion and with that money, he may start ministries in FOREIGN cities
(so not in your cities since that would interfere with your possible state religion). Then it could be useful to give money to religions by annoying another civs/religions trying to gain a majority in a city.

"a ministry in a city increases the conviction factor for citizens of that religion by 50 percent, and has the effects on happiness detailed in section III. "

posted August 19, 1999 11:44            

As always, an impressive effort. Just a few suggestions:

Passive conversion. I think you may have gotten the formula from me, and I apologize -- M@ni@c is right. How about if the distance factor is expressed as (10-distance)/8. That way, a city eight squares away has a factor of 25 percent.

Martyrdom. Your effect extents only non-aligned citizens. However, once all citizens are religious (which I suspect would occur around 0 AD), martyrdom would have no effect. I suggest that martyrdom would result in five passive conversions with a +10 bonus to evangelism. That way, even after their is a majority religion, martyrdom would still be dangerous.

Missions. We have it set up so that a mission results in a city being treated as eight squares away for each passive conversion. But that would be a penalty if you sent a mission to a nearby city. I suggest instead that a mission have the effect of treating the target city as 4 squares away for the purposes of passive conversion.

Ministries. My intent in proposing ministries was that it would give civs a way to defend against conversion by enemies, which they don't have. I like your proposal, which gives the religion the power to generate its own missions. However, I think that calling this activity a "ministry" is too confusing. I would suggest instead that this be treated as a subset of missions (discussed in the next paragraph) and that we return to a modified version of the garrisoned cleric (discussed two paragraphs down) for defense against conversion.

Church-sponsored Missions. Each time a religion accumulates a quantity of gold equal to 10 + (# of believers), a neutral cleric (which works like a barbarian general in Civ2) is generated in the city with the highest evangelism factor that has an open mission slot. That cleric will attempt to establish a mission in the nearest city that has at least one believer and an open mission spot. (I'm assuming here that cities can only send three missions and receive three missions.)

Defensive use of clerics. I'd like to see some mechanism for a civ to use a cleric to defend a city that is beleagured by an opposing civ's religion or a new religion. We used to have a garrisoned cleric idea, and maybe we should resurrect it. However, I thought it was a bit too weak, so I would suggest that a garrisoned cleric would increase believers' conviction rates by 25 percent, and that the effect would continue indefinitely unless (1) the city is taken over, in which case the cleric dies or (2) the cleric is assassinated by a diplomat/spy. In addition, we could also allow the establishment of missions in friendly cities, which would also tend to decrease the effects of opposing clerics. What do you think?

posted August 19, 1999 16:20            

Tithing
Say again what you're suggesting for tithes? Are you saying in order to assuage the concerns expressed in M@ni@c's post on the subject of tithes, you would take the extra gold pieces currently being spent on religious improvements in Civ2 and get rid of them, and instead gold now would be going out from the city to each religion? Still, there is an awful big difference in the amounts, isn't there?

Defensive use of clerics.
I'd like to see some mechanism for a civ to use a cleric to defend a city that is beleagured by an opposing civ's religion or a new religion...
Two questions. First, do we already have a mechanism to defend a city against certain religions by declaring state religion and/or selectively persecuting?

Second, if we went back to garrisoning clerics, then it's not as simple as if clerics always behave liking caravans, which for some reason I prefer.

We could take your suggestion to do away with "ministries" and allow players to set up missions at home or abroad, same as trade. We could combine the effects currently listed in ministries with those in missions. If not 50% conviction bonus, then 25%, whichever is best. But in all cases the cleric enters, a citizen is automatically converted, a mission is established, and 5 consecutive conversion turns occur, afterwhich the conviction bonus is what remains by the mission. This is important, because in fact there are many ways to beef up the evangelism factors, I think, though that is still unknown. What about that?

Church-sponsored Missions. Each time a religion accumulates a quantity of gold equal to 10 + (# of believers), a neutral cleric (which works like a barbarian general in Civ2) is generated in the city with the highest evangelism factor that has an open mission slot. That cleric will attempt to establish a mission in the nearest city that has at least one believer and an open mission spot. (I'm assuming here that cities can only send three missions and receive three missions.)

a) 3 slots works for me too.
b) Can we have this automatically occur, and avoid wandering Clerics that can be killed? Or is that your point? I don't personally need to actually see them moving from one city to another.
c) Is it better to establish religious AI missions in the closest city w/ at least one believer? The suggestion that it be established in the _weakest_ city with at least one believer was to focus religious benefits where they were most needed to help religions get off the ground. Which is really better?

M@ni@c

posted August 19, 1999 18:59            

Addressing your points. Will answered the distance from city problem you had. I'll adjust that in my previous post.

"2. Religions will ask for donations periodically, and in increasing amounts."

You should be able to give extra money, but you shouldn't be forced, since it would be contradictious to give money to other religions if you have a state religion.

Agreed. I should clarify that. You are not forced to give any money.

Diplomatic option : give money to a religion and with that money, he may start ministries in FOREIGN cities ... not in your cities since that would interfere with your possible state religion). Then it could be useful to give money to religions by annoying another civs/religions trying to gain a majority in a city.

If we change the rule so that there are no "ministries," but just missions that are either civ founded or AI religion founded, the current tithing rule does cover this. BUT you're idea could provide for a diplomatic option allowing you to say WHICH city you wanted the religion to found a mission in, and the religion would reply, "Okay, glad to, if you can support us with a payment of X gold...?" Same as getting another civ to declare war on your enemy in Civ2. Does that sound right?

"a ministry in a city increases the conviction factor for citizens of that religion by 50 percent, and has the effects on happiness detailed in section III. "

Which effects? Ig eg a ministry would make one unhappy citizen content and if every religion can install one ministry, it would again be very unbalancing.

I'll defer to Will, on this. I was going off his previous post. Not to cop out, but in general, I've stayed out of the Effects specifics when doing Section II. Will?

So... Beginning to come together here? With the word that Firaxis has been programming since June 1, seems time is of the essence. I'd like to know how we're going to finally submit the religion ideas. M@ni@c, you expressed concern that the summary be inclusive of everyone's ideas. Are we leaving any out?

posted August 19, 1999 21:51            

On helping fledgling religions survive -- yes, I'd say you've solved that problem; in fact you may have done too much. But there's lots of ways to tweak the system if needed, and it looks sound to me.

On clerics, missions, and ministries -- given that now the sole purpose of a cleric is founding a mission, which in turn lets one city affect the religion of another; what's the point of associating clerics with religions? The effects you assigned to missions would be appropriate as side-effects of trade routes; as an independent tool they make no sense at all.

Your "ministry" is dead on for a proper mission, though. Mixing ideas together, I suggest the following for section II.B.5.b:

1) A civilization with a "state religion" (see section III for definition) may build a Cleric unit of the state religion. A cleric resembles a caravan unit; it cannot attack and ignores ZOC. When it enters a city it founds a mission from the state religion and disappears (just as a caravan creates a trade route and disappears.) Each city may only contain 3 missions.
2) When a religion has accumulated X+1 gold (where X is the total number of believers throughout the world) it sends a "neutral" cleric of its own, from a city where it is the majority religion to one where it is not. If the cleric arrives it founds a mission from its creator and vanishes, just as civ-controlled clerics do.
3) A mission converts one citizen when first founded automatically, and increases the Conviction rating for citizens of its religion by 50% of the base value as long as it remains in existence.
4) If the last remaining member of a religion in a city is converted away, any mission from that religion in the city is immediately disbanded and removed. This, and the destruction of the city, are the only things that can destroy a mission once founded.

Finally, I'd like to suggest a more radical reworking of II.B.4, "passive conversions".

The game calculates the Evangelism (Conviction) of a religion within a city by adding together: the Evan(Conv) of each member in the city; (1 - dist/10) * Evan(Conv) of each member in a city less than 10 squares away; and 1/2 * Evan(Conv) of each member in a city with a trade route to this city. If a religion has no members in a city, it is not attacked by other stacks.

posted August 20, 1999 02:10            

I'm sold on your suggestion. Very functional. Pretty much simplifies it right down... I'd like to get one thing clarified:

If the cleric arrives it founds a mission... -- Do you mean the religion's cleric can be killed along the way? If so, what should the penalty be, if any?

Perhaps this is where Will's suggestion for cleric to cleric assassination can come in. I.e., "Clerics can only be killed by other clerics. If the offended religion has a holy city, they may call for a holy war against the offending state religion.

posted August 20, 1999 11:00            

That diplomatic option sounds ok to me.
To make the option more useful if you have a state religion, I digged up some old ideas and tweaked them a little to the present ideas.

1)If another civ attacks you, the citizens in his empire that have your state religion become unhappier. Suggestion : 1 on 4 a lower happiness level or ALL a lower unhappiness level just as if they were persecuted?

This effect is canceled if the other empire has the same state religion UNLESS...

New diplomatic option if the state religion's holy city is in your territory :
Ask for excommunication of the other civ's leader. Same effect : all state religion believers get a lower happiness level.

2) If an enemy's city is conquered and your state religion has a majority in that city, the city is already considered assimilated.
To fresh up your memory, the assimilation process involves normally 50 turns of increased unhappiness in the conquered city.
After that 50 turns the city population is considered assimilated to your culture.

"So... Beginning to come together here?"

About the religion effects, I proposed a consensus that involves both some of our ideas, but Will didn't answer at all.

quote:

---

New State Religion

->One on 4 believers made happy (you know why)
->+20% Evangelism in your own empire.
->-2 Tax
->You can only build a Cathedral if you have a state religion. Under Religious Freedom or if you haven’t got a state religion they don’t need upkeep. Instead, they generate the an amount of gold equal to their normal upkeep cost (as in Civ2 Fundamentalism) to simulate tourism.

New Religious Freedom

->+ 1 or 2 SE Happiness
->+1 Res
->-20% Conviction
->Per religion existing in your city, one citizen is made content with a maximum of ¼ of the city population.

---

If you think that the Happiness factor didn't exist in some way in Civ2 or SMAC, I can quote some formulae.

I think what I quoted above is pretty much Civ2 terms understandable.

posted August 20, 1999 14:05            

I like your new religious freedom and state religion modifiers. Hopefully Will will pick up and chime in. They should go in section III, if nobody has any complaints.

Actually, I like all these suggestions. One point --

->One on 4 believers made happy

Sorry, can you clarify what "one on 4" means?

posted August 23, 1999 09:56            

I didn't respond to M@ni@c's proposal because I agreed with it completely. However, I disagree with his clarification of the happiness effects. I would say that we should round up the number of happy people, that is, that
1,2,3,4 Turywenzists = 1 Turywenzists gets a happiness boost
5,6,7,8 Turywenzists = 2 T'ists get a happiness boost, etc.
I think that M@ni@c's more restrictive approach doesn't make the state religion a sufficiently attractive alternative to religious freedom.

On tithing, I agree that under religious freedom, my proposal is somewhat more costly than the Civ2 system of paying upkeep on religious improvements. However, I believe the effects of religion are in general more favorable than the religious improvements were by themselves, so that a higher cost is justified.

I'll defer to Will, on this. I was going off his previous post. Not to cop out, but in general, I've stayed out of the Effects specifics when doing Section II. Will?

I think M@ni@c's most recent proposal, and the allowance of missions to one's own cities eliminates the problem.

I agree with MBrazier that a civ should be allowed to kill computer-controlled clerics en route, just like it can kill computer civ diplomats in Civ2.

posted August 23, 1999 11:27            

And on tithing, again only playtesting can make sure. BTW, in the Economy/Trade, Civilizations, Combat and Radical Ideas threads I posted a large post that includes that large cities would produce much more trade (so solving the ICS problem), so it is possible that a more expensive tithing system as Will proposed could be used without a too big burden to the economy.

About your SE worries. As you might have noticed, I have deleted the Evangelism factor. But I still keep the Nationalism factor which increases Conviction. I hope this isn't a problem cause you (or Raingoon)said yourself that there are too less Conviction increasing options.

To all:

posted August 23, 1999 14:24            

M@ni@c, I've compiled all the diplomatic suggestions we've made on this thread so far. I'm preparing to make a post of diplomacy sometime this evening. Between now and then, if you and Will and Mbrazier and all others have any ideas re diplomatic relations, please post 'em!

P.S., Am going on vacations for the rest of the week, so what I post tonight will be all the revisions from our discussions up to now, plus the new diplomacy section.

Will, when I get the latest version up, can you copy our two posts together for the "final post"? I'll have to leave any final noodling with it to you all, but I'm confident by now you guys can easily speak for me on this model. So add your diplomatic suggestions that come to mind, I'm typing that section and posting it tonight.

posted August 24, 1999 17:05            

Raingoon's inability to deliver a diplomacy proposal came as something of a surprise. I'll whip something up tommorrow if someone else doesn't do it first.

III. Effects of religion

The player will have several options with regard to each religion. He or she may choose to establish a church or allow religious freedom. Regardless of whethere there is religious freedom or an established church, the player may choose to persecute one or more religions.

A. Under religious freedom

1. Effect on happiness, using current system.
a. For each religion in a city, one unhappy citizen becomes content or, if there are no unhappy citizens, a content citizen becomes happy. This effect continues indefinitely, so that each religion present in a city adds step to the base happiness level of the city.
b. To keep religion from having too great a benefit, the happiness effects described in a will apply to no more than one out of every four citizens in a city. That is, if there are seven citizens and three religions, only two citizens may be made happy.

2. Effect on happiness under alternate systems. Several people have proposed systems under which happiness becomes a percentage factor for each city that affects the productivity, and is not an attribute of the citizens. Under such systems, the conversion of one citizen to a new religion would increase the overall happiness/productivity percentage. When one religion attained majority status in a city, one of that religion's citizens would gain a step in happiness.

3. Effect of religious freedom on conviction. Under religious freedom, the conviction rate for all citizens is 20 percent lower than it would otherwise be.

4. Effect of full toleration. In addition to the effects listed above, if the player is not persecuting any religion, the research output of the religion increases by 10 percent (under the Civ2 system) or the Research SE factor improves by +1.

B. Establishment of a state church.

1. General. Under this system, the state picks one church as its official religion. Establishing a state church does not imply or require persecution of any of the other religions within the civ's territory.

2. Effect on happiness
a. The effects on happiness described above in section 1 cease.
b. Under the Civ2 system, in each city that has at least one citizen who belongs to the state religion, one content citizen becomes happy. Thereafter, an additional citizen becomes happy for every four believers in each city. If a different happiness/productivity system is adopted, proclamation of a state religion increases a city (or civilization) happiness/productivity level by a factor of 25 percent times the proportion of citizens who belong to the state religion.
c. An additional unhappy citizen becomes content if more than 50 percent of the citizens of a city are members of the established church.
d. The established church's evangelism factor increases by 20 percent for all conversion activities within the borders of that civ.
e. Deestablishing the church. A civ may deestablish a church at any time. However, deestablishment shall result in a period of anarchy for one turn.

3. Tithes. A civ that has an established church must pay 20 percent of its total trade as tithes to the church. Under an alternate system, there could be an adjustment to the tax SE factor.

4. Cathedral. Only a civ that has a state religion may build a Cathedral, which has the same effect as in Civ2. If the civ then converts to religious freedom, any cathedrals will generate an amount of gold equal to the number of citizens it would have made happy.

5. Multiple civs with the same state church.
a. A civ may establish a religion as its state church even if another civ has already made that religion its state church. In such cases, the religion will not take any action against either of the civs, and will remain neutral in any conflict between them.
b. If the religion has a holy city, one of the civs may request the excommunication of the other. The religion will demand a contribution related to the number of believers in the excommunicated civ and the religion's attitude toward the possessor of the hold city and the civ that it wishes to excommunicate.
c. A civ that is expelled from a religion may adopt any other extant religion as its state religion without penalty. 75 percent of the citizens of the old church will convert to the new church, while 25 percent will remain faithful to the old church. In any civ voting for expulsion, 25 percent of the members of the old religion will convert to the new religion. The remainder will stay faithful.
d. One of the civs may declare a schism the church. The effects are the same as if the religion had been excommunicated.

D. Persecution.
Under this system, belonging to a persecuted religion is illegal. A government may persecute one or all religions.
1. A persecuted religion's conversion factor is reduced by 25 percent for all conversion activities within the borders of the persecuting civ.
2. In each city that contains members of the persecuted religion, 1.5 content citizens become unhappy for each member of the persecuted religion, reflecting the unhappiness of the persecutees and their friends. (Under a revised happiness/productivity system, persecution results in a decrease in a city or civitlization happiness/productivity level by 25 percent times the proportion of citizens who are subject to persecution.) The city's the research output decreases by 25 percent to reflect the effect of intolerance.
3. Persecution has no positive effect other than those that result from the increase in the number of believers in other religions. If there is a state religion, the state religion is likely to be the chief beneficiary of persecution.
4. If a civ persecutes a religion, its reputation with any civ that has chosen that religion as its state religion will worsen.

D. Religious improvements.

The types of religious improvements remain the same as in Civ1/2 and may be built by any civ that has obtained the necessary technologies. A temple is necessary to obtain the advantages of religion under a state of religious freedom. If a state religion is declared, the temple will make one unhappy citizen content.
A cathedral will have the same effect as in Civ2.

posted August 24, 1999 19:22            

"Each time a citizen of a city converts to a religion that was not previously present"

Does that mean that if before you declared religious freedom you already had Turywenzism and Yahoo, that 2 religions don't give a happiness boost? So does that mean that you only get a bonus for new religions eg if Slinkies appear AFTER you declared Religious Freedom? I hope not so. Would mean a serious drawback for choosing freedom.
And BTW, I thought that under Religious Freedom the unhappy became content and not the content happy. I meant that bonus of 'per religion one unhappy becomes content' as a replacement that you can't build cathedrals under freedom.

"When one religion obtains a majority in a city, the least happy adherent of that religion gets a step upward in happiness."

I thought that bonus of majority = 1 less content counted for rel. freedom AND state religion. BTW, only giving that bonus to freedom would be counterproductive since under freedom the player should try to have as much different religions as possible in his cities and not trying to get a majority.

And didn't you forget the +2 Happiness bonus that makes ruling more cities without extra unhappiness possible? You said yourself that the intention of State Religion is to be chosen by civs with large cities and by perfectionist civs.
Religious Freedom should be chosen by civs with many cities. As in reality ruling a large empire with rel freedom is easier than with a state religion.

"However, deestablishment shall result in a period of civil disorder for two turns."

What exactly do you mean with (two turns of) civil disorder? Do you mean the civ is in anarchy for two turns?

"If the civ then converts to religious freedom, any cathedrals will generate an amount of gold equal to the number of citizens it would have made happy."

You said yourself that the effects of cathedrals are the same as in Civ2, meaning a fix number of citizens (=3) made content (with an additional one in the Age of Faith that ends when you research the Rationalism tech). So why don't just say "equal to the normal upkeep/maintainance cost"?

Oh, I thought it was 1 unhappy instead of 1.5, but I won't argue further about that. It's a detail.

About diplomacy.
It's not the civ itself that can excommunicate (has never happened in history, one not-religious ruler excommunicate another one). What it can do is ASK the religious leader if he would want to excommunicate someone. Normally that should cost money.

And Schism shouldn't be possible only if you are excommunicated. You should be able to do it at any moment you like (except if you are the Defender of the Faith).

So don't forget these 3 diplomatic options you can do to religious leaders :

->excommunication
->schism [isn't really a proposal to the religious leader (you're the one that decides to schism), but I think you should tell the leader in the diplomacy screen that you are schism-ing]
->ask to be defender of the faith (BTW which positives and negatives has that?)

posted August 25, 1999 16:18            

IV. Religious diplomacy.

A. Major and minor religions
The diplomatic options available for interacting with a religion depend on the size of the religion.

1. Minor religions. All religions start as minor religions.

2. Major religion. A religion becomes a major religion when it has a number of adherents greater than the total number of citizens in the world divided by the starting number of civs. It remains a major religion even if an increase in world population or decrease in the number of adherents results in the religion's share of global population falling below 1/(starting number of civs).

3. Proclamation of the holy city. When a religion becomes a major religion, the city where that religion started is proclaimed the holy city of that religion. If that city has been destroyed, the extant city nearest to the founding city's location becomes the holy city.

4. Building a Great Shrine. Any city that has proclaimed a state religion may build a Great Shrine, which shall cost a number of resources equal to a wonder for that age. When the Great Shrine is complete, the holy city for the state religion is transferred to the city with the Great Shrine, which remains the holy city for that religion unless the city is destroyed. If that occurs, a new holy city can be proclaimed by building a Great Shrine in another city.

B. Diplomatic options for both major and minor religions.

1. Request a donation. Any religion may request a donation from any civ. If the religion has a large number of believers in that civ, or if the religion is the state religion of that civ, refusal to give the donation will have a negative effect on the religion's attitude toward that civ.

2. Voluntary donation. Any civ may give a donation to any religion. The donation will be treated as tithes and used to generate a ministry to a city chosen by the civ.

3. Request a ministry. Any civ may request a religion to send a ministry to one of its cities. The ministry will charge an amount of gold equal to the cost of a ministry, and adjusted upward or downward depending on the religion's attitude toward the requesting civ and whether the religion is the state religion of that civ.

C. Additional diplomatic options for major religions.

1. A major religion may:

a. Request a civ to conduct a jihad against a civ that is persecuting the religion. The religion may offer to fund the jihad from its tithes.

b. Request a civ to defend another civ from a jihad.

c. Request a civ to conduct a crusade to take control of the holy city from another civ. A religion will request a jihad if the civ that possesses the holy city (1) is persecuting that religion, (2) has a bad reputation with that religion, or (3) has no members of that religion outside of the holy city.

d. Demand that a civ sign a treaty with another civ.

e. Failure to accede to these requests will hurt a civ's reputation with the religion. The effect will be greater if that religion is the state religion of the civ.

2. A civ may request a major religion to:

a. intervene in a war by demanding that its opponent sign a treaty.

b. pronounce a blessing, which would increase happiness in that civ for a fixed number of turns.

c. send a ministry to a city owned by another civ.

d. excommunicate another civ.

e. proclaim the civ defender of the faith. A civ may only request to be made the defender of the faith for its state religion. If it subsequently deestablishes the state religion, it ceases to be the defender of the faith. The defender of the faith can perform options c and d free of charge, and has the option of choosing the destination city for any ministry generated by tithes paid to the religion. If the defender of the faith fails to comply with a request from the religion, it loses its status as defender of the faith and its reputation with the religion suffers greatly.

f. loan money to the civ.

posted August 25, 1999 16:48            

Thanks for your comments. I have, for the most part, adopted your suggestions and amended my proposal accordingly. However, I like the idea of having the gold output of cathedrals under toleration being equal to the number of believers they affect because that number changes over time.

posted August 25, 1999 21:28            

1) Am I correct in assuming that a civ may build the Great Shrine for its state religion even if the state religion is still minor? If so, I'd suggest a slight change as follows. It should cost less money to build a religion's great shrine if there isn't one yet, than if one already exists; half as much, perhaps. If (and only if) a state religion has reached major status but has no shrine, it should build the shrine itself out of the tithes, not get it for free. And the expanded diplomatic options ought to be tied not simply to major status, but to having an intact shrine -- which means destroying a shrine temporarily silences a religion in diplomatic circles. (It should also, of course, be considered an atrocity and turn the religion against you for good. But we have to give the act _some_ good effect, otherwise nobody would ever do it.)

2) Surely the first thing any major religion would ask a civ for is to be made the state religion of that civ?

3) Religions excommunicate people, not nations. Nations are put under interdict. The effect of an interdict is, clearly, the inverse of a blessing (decreasing happiness) except that it lasts as long as the religion wants it to.

posted August 26, 1999 11:03            

III. Effects of religion

The player will have several options with regard to each religion. He or she may choose to establish a state religion or allow religious freedom. Regardless of whether there is religious freedom or an state religion, the player may choose to persecute one or more religions.

A. Under religious freedom

1. Effect on happiness, using current system.

a. For each religion in a city, one unhappy citizen becomes content or, if there are no unhappy citizens, a content citizen becomes happy. This effect continues indefinitely, so that each religion present in a city adds step to the base happiness level of the city.
b. To keep religion from having too great a benefit, the happiness effects described in a will apply to no more than one out of every four citizens in a city. That is, if there are seven citizens and three religions, only two citizens may be made happy.
c. Civilizations with religious freedom get a +2 Happiness bonus (see the SE thread for more about the Happiness SE factor).
d. Cathedrals can not be be built under religious freedom nor do they have any effect on population happiness. Already existing Cathedrals generate an amount of money equal to their normal upkeep cost to simulate tourism.

2. Effect on happiness under alternate systems.

A few people have proposed systems under which happiness becomes a percentage factor for each city that affects the productivity, and is not an attribute of the citizens. Under such systems, the conversion of one citizen to a new religion would increase the overall happiness/productivity percentage.

3. Effect of religious freedom on conviction.

Under religious freedom, the conviction rate for all citizens is 20 percent lower than it would otherwise be.

4. Effect of full toleration.

In addition to the effects listed above, if the player is not persecuting any religion, the research output of the religion increases by 10 percent (under the Civ2 system) or the Research SE factor improves by +1.

B. Establishment of a state religion.

1.General.

Under this system, the state picks one religion as its official state religion. Establishing a state religion does not imply or require persecution of any of the other religions within the civ's territory.

2. Effect on happiness

a. The effects on happiness described above under religious freedom cease.
b. Under the Civ2 system, in each city that has at least one citizen who belongs to the state religion, one content citizen becomes happy. Thereafter, an additional citizen becomes happy for every four believers in each city. If a different happiness/productivity system is adopted, proclamation of a state religion increases a city (or civilization) happiness/productivity level by a factor of 25 percent times the proportion of citizens who belong to the state religion.
c. An additional unhappy citizen becomes content if more than 50 percent of the citizens of a city are members of the state religion.
d. The state religion's evangelism factor increases by 20 percent for all conversion activities within the borders of that civ.
e. Deestablishing the state religion. A civ may deestablish a state religion at any time. However, deestablishment shall result in a period of Anarchy (see SE thread) for one turn.

3. Tithes.

A civ that has an established church must pay 20 percent of its total taxes as tithes to the church. When using the SE factors, the civ gets –2 Tax.

4. Cathedral.

Only a civ that has a state religion may build Cathedrals, which has the same effect as in Civ2. That means 4 unhappy citizens are made content. When you discover the tech advance Rationalism, the Age of Faith ends and Cathedrals only make 3 citizens content.

5. Multiple civs with the same state church.

a. A civ may establish a religion as its state church even if another civ has already made that religion its state church. In such cases, the religion will not take any action against either of the civs, and will remain neutral in any conflict between them.
b. If the religion has a holy city, one of the civs may request the excommunication of the other civ’s leader. The religion will demand a contribution related to the number of believers in the excommunicated civ and the religion's attitude toward the civ that asks the excommunication and the civ that it wishes to excommunicate.
c. A civ whose leader is excommunicated from a religion may adopt any other extant religion as its state religion without penalty. 75 percent of the citizens of the old church will convert to the new church, while 25 percent will remain faithful to the old church.
d. Civs may declare a schism the church. The effects are the same as if the civ had been excommunicated.

C. Persecution.

Under this system, belonging to a persecuted religion is illegal. A government may persecute any number of religions.

1. A persecuted religion's conversion factor is reduced by 25 percent for all conversion activities within the borders of the persecuting civ.
2. In each city that contains members of the persecuted religion, the persecuted citizens get one lower happiness level (means happy citizens become content, content unhappy and unhappy very unhappy). (Under a revised happiness/productivity system, persecution results in a decrease in a city or civilization happiness/productivity level by 25 percent times the proportion of citizens who are subject to persecution.)
The city's the research output decreases by 25 percent to reflect the effect of intolerance.
3. Persecution has no positive effect other than those that result from the increase in the number of believers in other religions. If there is a state religion, the state religion is likely to be the chief beneficiary of persecution.
4. If a civ persecutes a religion, its reputation with any civ that has chosen that religion as it’s state religion will worsen. Also the religious leader of the persecuted religion may ask a civ that has chosen that religion as it’s state religion to begin a holy war/Jihad.

D. Religious improvements.

The types of religious improvements remain the same as in Civ1/2 and may be built by any civ that has obtained the necessary technologies. Under Religious Freedom a temple is also necessary to obtain the advantages of religion.

IV. Religious diplomacy.

A. Major and minor religions

The diplomatic options available for interacting with a religion depend on the size of the religion.

1. Minor religions.

All religions start as minor religions.

2. Major religion.

A religion becomes a major religion when it has a number of adherents greater than the total number of citizens in the world divided by the starting number of civs. It remains a major religion even if an increase in world population or decrease in the number of adherents results in the religion's share of global population falling below 1/(starting number of civs).

3. Proclamation of the holy city.

When a religion becomes a major religion, the city where that religion started is proclaimed the holy city of that religion. That means that that city gets an automatic Great Schrine. If that city has been destroyed, or if another civ has conquered the holy city which automatically destroys the Schrine, you must build a Great Schrine to have a new holy city.
If the holy city is recaptured, the Schrine automatically reappears.

4. Building a Great Shrine.

If the original Great Schrine is destroyed, any civ that has proclaimed the religion state religion may build a Great Shrine, which shall cost a number of resources equal to a wonder for that age. When the Great Shrine is complete, the holy city for the state religion is has becoem the city with the Great Shrine, which remains the holy city for that religion unless the city is destroyed or captured. If that occurs, a new holy city can be proclaimed by building a Great Shrine in another city.
Proposed effects for the Great Schrine : all unhappy citizens become content (as Shakespeare’s Theatre) or tax output doubled.

B. Diplomatic options for both major and minor religions.

1. Request a donation.

Any religion may request a donation from any civ. If the religion is the state religion of that civ, refusal to give the donation will have a negative effect on the religion's attitude toward that civ.

2. Voluntary donation.

Any civ may give a donation to any religion. The donation will be treated as tithes and used to generate a ministry to a city chosen by the civ. That city may also be a foreign city. So it’s possible to annoy another player by sending ministries of religions he wants to eliminate.

3. Request a ministry.

Any civ may request a religion to send a ministry to one of its cities. The ministry will charge an amount of gold equal to the cost of a ministry, and adjusted upward or downward depending on the religion's attitude toward the requesting civ and whether the religion is the state religion of that civ.

C. Additional diplomatic options for major religions.

1. A major religion may:

a. Request a civ to conduct a jihad/holy war against another civ. The religion may offer to fund the jihad from it’s tithes. A religion will ask a Jihad when (1) that civ is persecuting the religion, or (2) if that civ has captured the holy city, or (3) if that civ has repeatedly done things that harmed the religion’s attitude towards that civ.

b. Request a civ to defend another civ from a jihad.

c. Request a civ to conduct a crusade to take control of the holy city from another religion.

d. Demand that a civ sign a treaty with another civ.

e. Ask to become the civ’s state religion.

f. Failure to accede to these requests will hurt a civ's reputation with the religion. The effect will be greater if that religion is the state religion of the civ.

2. A civ may request a major religion to:

a. intervene in a war by demanding that its opponent sign a treaty.

b. pronounce a blessing, which would increase happiness in that civ for a fixed number of turns.

c. send a ministry to a city owned by another civ.

d. excommunicate another civ.’s leader if he has the religion as his state religion. Excommunication makes all the followers of the religion that has excommunicated have one lower level in happiness.

e. Repeal the excommunication that the religious leader has done to him.

f. proclaim the civ defender of the faith. A civ may only request to be made the defender of the faith for it’s state religion. If it subsequently deestablishes the state religion, it ceases to be the defender of the faith. If the defender of the faith ask something to the religion that costs money, he only has to pay half of the normal amount. If the defender of the faith fails to comply with a request from the religion, it loses its status as defender of the faith and its reputation with the religion suffers greatly.

g. loan money to the civ.

h. the religion will charge the civ money for options a, b, c, d, e and f and interest for option.

g The amount will depend on the civ's reputation with the religion, whether the religion is that civ's state religion, whether that civ possesses the religion's holy city, and whether the civ is the defender of the faith.