Replacing Religions

[nbarclay]

As a Christian, I don't feel entirely comfortable with a game where it is likely to be strategically important to create and spread religions that, in the real world, I believe are wrong. Because of that, I'm seriously considering modding my game to replace the historical real-world religions with fictional ones. Since all the religions would be equally fake and would have essentially nothing to do with real-world beliefs, there would be less clash with my beliefs in the real world.

I have no idea whether anyone else around here might have similar feelings or whether there might be interest in such a project, but I thought I'd share the idea in case anyone else might be interested (even if they wouldn't actually want to use the mod). I've only just started tossing the idea around in my head, but the first fake religion that comes to mind is Jedi-ism. :-) Any other thoughts on what might be worth including?

[Solver]

Replacing the religions in the game with seven other ones is going to be pretty easy.

Remember, though, that Firaxis doesn't want to offend anyone and doesn't want to suggest that any religions are "right" or "wrong". Civ4 doesn't make me uncomfortable with my beliefs, but I respect your view on this.

What you'd need to do in the game is to edit a bunch of text files to change the religion names, create new icons to replace the old ones and that would be it.

[Stuie]

As an atheist, I'm uncomfortable with religions providing special bonuses to civs. If anything, they should be a drag on scientific development and drain valuable time and resources away from society while falsely placating the population.

Seriously though, you should somehow work Apolyton in as one of your fake religions. Also look for Imran's beer-religion thread in off-topic. (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=137876)

[lard]

I don't often post but this is a doozy.

Firaxis are SO brave to include religion because of issues like this. Whilst I respect the original poster's right to have religious belief's as much as I respect the atheist posters right to not have religious beliefs, it occurs to me that THIS IS A GAME. Not real life.

One of the things that stood out to me when I looked at Solver's preview was the screenshot on religion. The founding city for Islam was Madrid and the founding city for Buddhism was Canterbury (or something similar). This to me is VERY cool and offers a new take on history, but, again, IT'S JUST A GAME. A bit of fun.

Lard.

[nbarclay]

I'm not trying to be critical of how Firaxis chose to approach the issue. Some of the issues that come up with regard to separation of church and state also come up with separation of church and game, and I can see why Firaxis chose the course they did. I'm just saying that I personally feel more comfortable with a slightly different approach and will likely come up with a mod to implement an approach I feel more comfortable with for my personal games - especially since the mod won't affect the game mechanics at all.

So now I'm up to two pseudo-religions for my mod: Jediism and Apolytonism. That still leaves five slots open. (No, I'm not interested in spreading missionaries around the world to preach the virtues of beer.)

[GeoModder]

You want a third one? Use Gameism (or playism) then. Should prove a very popular religion for your game-people.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Stuie you forget that religion allows you to control the masses making them do your biding. And you can not deny that religion has it's positive efects on society (charity, giving hope ,providing an excuse for war- very usefull for a Civ player that dosen't want to be labeled as untroustworthy or resource grabing simply because he wants to destroy a few civ's).
And nbarclay as a cristian you should love your fellow man, if your sim-people want to be budhist let them, the game never ask's you what your religion is ( there are numerus examples in history of leaders not sharing the belifes of their people) and from it's prespective all religions are ecual (Im not a native speaker, I'm not shure if I spelled thath right and offtopic I would be gratefull to anyone who would point out ANY spellig mistakes in my posts, I've got an english exam this afternoon ). Any way I have no problem with your mod (I'll probably download it and if you have jedi you MUST have Sith ). AND don't forget it's just a game ( lard ,you are correct sir!)!!
AND nobody is preventing you from spreding your faith amongst your sim-people. Respect to all, that respect other people's opinions.

[_BuRjaCi_]

And for your five religions:

1.)Treki-ism (I mean yust look at them, they deserve their own religion or they are probably just weird)-no disrespect to any treekies ( it probably deserves a 10% science bonus )
2.)Sith (look above)

[MarkG]

Sidism
Briggism (Jeff Briggs)
Sorenism
Reynoldism (or "The Faith of Brian", for Brian Reynolds)

[Maniac]

Turywenzism with founder Turywenzo
Yah00ism with holy city Yahoozalem

[nbarclay]

I've got a third pseudo-religion: Firaxianism. (I've actually used references to the "High Firaxians" as if they were deities in at least a couple stories in the stories area, since the folks from Firaxis have god-like powers over the universe of Civ. :-) ) [Edit: some other people came up with suggestions while I was writing this.]

_BuRjaCi_, it's not just a matter of sitting back and letting simulated citizens choose their religion. Important strategic elements of the game include researching the enabling tech to found religions, deciding whether or not to have a state religion and which one to have, and sending missionaries to spread a religion. I feel more comfortable doing that in a context where the religions I'm working with don't share the names of real-world religions that I believe are wrong. Yes, I know it's just a game, but I still don't especially like the idea of game strategy pushing me to convert Christian cities to another religion. (And I suspect that there may be people of other religions who have similar feelings where their religions are concerned.)

[Senethro]

It would be an American to post a thread like this...

I mean... fair enough, you take yourself so seriously that you have to change some text IN A GAME for other text. But why tell us?

(The atheists on 'poly and other boards saying they'll mod out religion are just as bad)

[Nikolai]

Mingism
Markism
Danis(h)m
Rahism

[ml_4da3]

Originally posted by Stuie
As an atheist, I'm uncomfortable with religions providing special bonuses to civs. If anything, they should be a drag on scientific development and drain valuable time and resources away from society while falsely placating the population.

LOL! I agree! Maybe religion could give bonuses to military and such since the followers more easily can accept and listen to a dictator without thinking for themselves

I read somewhere that having no state religion will be more beneficial later in the game? If that is true, it reflects reality quite good.

[Nikolai]

You can be a believer and still think for yourself. Honestly, I'm a bit tired of that critizism...*sigh*