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Let me begin with a little story from my last game of civ IV which I won last night.
Gandhi was a very democratic leader in my last game and despite me having overrun him and taken all his big cities leaving him with no more than two small islands far away from any beneficial location, I had more positive points with him than negative ones since he gave me +6 for having the same civics. Of course he was forced to drop free religion in order to gain some bonuses out of his state religion and hence voted NO in UN when that resolution passed. However with 11 votes in total he was completely ignored and free religion became compulsary. After that the -3 for having a different religion disappeard and the +6 for same civics rose to +7 and he kept a friendly attitude to me even though I had defeated his capital cities just 10 rounds before. He was reluctant to talk at first despite a good attitude towards me, but not for long. Interesting that he kept a good attitude even though I oppressed his cities. I suppose I was a pleasant oppressor
In a similar way, Isabella and Alexander hated me throughout the entire first few thousand years. In fact I rarely traded with them and never had open borders. The fact that I had -4 with both of them throughout the entire game for being majorily jewish as well as having the holy city for that religion and them being predominantly buddhist kept them and all other civs on distance to each other for the entire game since everyone else had mixed religions with judiasm as its state religion, only exception being India. Additional conflicts with borders and wars increased that hatred from the buddhists (funnily enough) and after conquering two buddhist cities, Isabella and Alexander were keen to get me to convert which I didn't which in return made them hate me more up to a point that they refused to talk with me and only avoided war because I had a more powerful military (just). After passing free religion in the UN the religious conflicts ended and all minus points with Isabella and Alexander disappeared and for the first time in 6,000 years I had an open borders agreement with one of the two. Immediately as free religion was all over the world, all religions randomly spread to each other. Orthodox jewish cities assumed some buddhist minorities, vice versa and for some peculiar reason even confucianism got adopted here and there even though that religion was barely represented in the world. Anyhow almost everyone benefited from that free religion trend since everyone received additional culture for the the relious diversity.
I have to say that the new civics and religions elements in civ IV add a lot of depth to the game even though its not always clear what benefits they give or take. Perhaps it is not supposed to be clear or make complete sense, a bit like in real life?
I suppose the devs want to avoid working with stereotypes, but I would have been interested in seeing each religion providing a unique attritubute or unit to the game. I guess it would be to arrogant or too much of a cliche to allow jewish states or cities to hold financial or artistic benefits, or allow christian cities to conduct inquisition in order to surpess foreign religions or in order to surpress revolts or giving them uniques crusaders instead of knights. Similarly it might not be keenly seen if islamic cities have a greater tendency to nationalism and revolting for a longer period of time when overthrown by a different civ or perhaps having martyrs as unique units that could be invisible units like spies and hence cause trouble in foreign cities either by sabotaging production (more effectively than spies and with minimal cost) or by creating discontent in those cities by means of fundamentalist terror ?
Maybe in order to neutrally and politically correctly allow such implementations, there should be additional unique civics for each religion that allow variation of how you want to run a religion.... (much like not every muslim is a fundamentalist and you see islamic states that have completely different attitudes towards how to run their country. For example Spain is a very orthodox christian country in real life, but nonetheless passes some of the most liberal reforms that Europe has seen, whilst Poland is also a very orthodox christian country and has a tendency towards conservatism.
e.g.
In order to implement this feature, you would go into the civics menu in order to adjust how to run your empire with a additional category and depending on what religion you have that category has unique civics for your current state religion which allows you to use different forms of religious ideas. This function for instance allows you to be a relious state that is very (in)tolerant towards other religions and will have appropriate effect on your population and diplomatic popularity.
After all, there is some element of stereotyping already by giving nations unique units and preferred government types as well as giving leaders specifc personal attributes and personalities.
On the other hand that argument can be countered by saying that many of those have shown themselves in history and that's why they have been implemented. I guess then religions can be givin some element of individuality too since buddhism for example has historically shown itself as a very peaceful and mainly spiritual faith.
Interested in what everyone else thinks, but just a few thoughts I pondered across whilst playing the game. I know this is a hot theme and I have no intention in offending anyone.
Gandhi was a very democratic leader in my last game and despite me having overrun him and taken all his big cities leaving him with no more than two small islands far away from any beneficial location, I had more positive points with him than negative ones since he gave me +6 for having the same civics. Of course he was forced to drop free religion in order to gain some bonuses out of his state religion and hence voted NO in UN when that resolution passed. However with 11 votes in total he was completely ignored and free religion became compulsary. After that the -3 for having a different religion disappeard and the +6 for same civics rose to +7 and he kept a friendly attitude to me even though I had defeated his capital cities just 10 rounds before. He was reluctant to talk at first despite a good attitude towards me, but not for long. Interesting that he kept a good attitude even though I oppressed his cities. I suppose I was a pleasant oppressor
In a similar way, Isabella and Alexander hated me throughout the entire first few thousand years. In fact I rarely traded with them and never had open borders. The fact that I had -4 with both of them throughout the entire game for being majorily jewish as well as having the holy city for that religion and them being predominantly buddhist kept them and all other civs on distance to each other for the entire game since everyone else had mixed religions with judiasm as its state religion, only exception being India. Additional conflicts with borders and wars increased that hatred from the buddhists (funnily enough) and after conquering two buddhist cities, Isabella and Alexander were keen to get me to convert which I didn't which in return made them hate me more up to a point that they refused to talk with me and only avoided war because I had a more powerful military (just). After passing free religion in the UN the religious conflicts ended and all minus points with Isabella and Alexander disappeared and for the first time in 6,000 years I had an open borders agreement with one of the two. Immediately as free religion was all over the world, all religions randomly spread to each other. Orthodox jewish cities assumed some buddhist minorities, vice versa and for some peculiar reason even confucianism got adopted here and there even though that religion was barely represented in the world. Anyhow almost everyone benefited from that free religion trend since everyone received additional culture for the the relious diversity.
I have to say that the new civics and religions elements in civ IV add a lot of depth to the game even though its not always clear what benefits they give or take. Perhaps it is not supposed to be clear or make complete sense, a bit like in real life?
I suppose the devs want to avoid working with stereotypes, but I would have been interested in seeing each religion providing a unique attritubute or unit to the game. I guess it would be to arrogant or too much of a cliche to allow jewish states or cities to hold financial or artistic benefits, or allow christian cities to conduct inquisition in order to surpess foreign religions or in order to surpress revolts or giving them uniques crusaders instead of knights. Similarly it might not be keenly seen if islamic cities have a greater tendency to nationalism and revolting for a longer period of time when overthrown by a different civ or perhaps having martyrs as unique units that could be invisible units like spies and hence cause trouble in foreign cities either by sabotaging production (more effectively than spies and with minimal cost) or by creating discontent in those cities by means of fundamentalist terror ?
Maybe in order to neutrally and politically correctly allow such implementations, there should be additional unique civics for each religion that allow variation of how you want to run a religion.... (much like not every muslim is a fundamentalist and you see islamic states that have completely different attitudes towards how to run their country. For example Spain is a very orthodox christian country in real life, but nonetheless passes some of the most liberal reforms that Europe has seen, whilst Poland is also a very orthodox christian country and has a tendency towards conservatism.
e.g.
In order to implement this feature, you would go into the civics menu in order to adjust how to run your empire with a additional category and depending on what religion you have that category has unique civics for your current state religion which allows you to use different forms of religious ideas. This function for instance allows you to be a relious state that is very (in)tolerant towards other religions and will have appropriate effect on your population and diplomatic popularity.
After all, there is some element of stereotyping already by giving nations unique units and preferred government types as well as giving leaders specifc personal attributes and personalities.
On the other hand that argument can be countered by saying that many of those have shown themselves in history and that's why they have been implemented. I guess then religions can be givin some element of individuality too since buddhism for example has historically shown itself as a very peaceful and mainly spiritual faith.
Interested in what everyone else thinks, but just a few thoughts I pondered across whilst playing the game. I know this is a hot theme and I have no intention in offending anyone.
, 1996-Perot 
, 2004-Bush :|, 2008-Obama :|, 2012-Obama 
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