[Mod] Inquisitor Mod

[Bill3000]

Unfortuanatly, right now there isn't a reason. (Other than the fact that if you go to war with a country with another religion as a state religion, people of that religion in your country will become unhappy)

There's a possibility to make a Religious Victory (Make the world a certain percent of your state religion), and I would guess that someone would eventually make downsides to multiple religions as well.

Either way, it's something people wanted regardless, and I'm suprised and happy that it was made so soon.

[1shmae1]

Originally posted by ghen
In what sort of situation would you use this unit? I don't understand how multiple religions in a city are a bad thing.

Exactly. Civ 4 seems to think "Diversity is Strength" wheras, historically, homoginaity has often proven essential. The rise of the nation state was made possible by the notion of a common people bound by strong bonds of religion and ethnicity.

The Spanish Inquisition was fueled in part by the desire to build a unitary state on the rubble of a region ripped apart by endless clashes between Christian, Jew and Muslim. Both the persecution and eventual adoption of Christianity by Rome was compelled by much the same desire.

Multiple religions in a single empire, historically speaking, have proven fatal. I am not yet convinced that times have changed, though the prevailing dogma has. While I might accept that democratic, secular states benefit from ethnic and religious diversity, the culture of ancient civilizations and empires can only deteriorate when they host competing and alien belief-systems.

One thing though -- while purging an alien religion might well strengthen your culture, it should result in an exodus of citizens. An Inqusition always requires "ethnic cleansing" of one kind or another, whether voluntary or involuntary. If you choose to strengthen your culture by expelling Jews from Spain (for example), you're still going to lose some of your most productive citizens as a consequence.

I'd like to see a mod that incorporates this trade-off and turns it into a real delema: sit back and watch your culture fade? or intervene and lose much of your economic and productive power? Your choice.

[Ollywood]

it goes both ways.... if a rival has the holy city of a faith that happens to be in one of your cities. The fog around that city disappears. That way he can see what units and how many you have there. It is a indirect way of spying that you cannot do much against. The inquisitor would be a tool you can use to get rid of such circumstances. However I agree that it should cause unpopularity to an extent with other civs of that faith, ie. it should decrease your city's population.

On an upside, any religion that doesn't threaten you, can be used to a cutlural advantage to allow you to build more temples and monastries, etc...

for example:

you are jewish. One of your cities has christians in it and Buddhists and also taoists. Now they you have the taoist holy city. So you can use this to your advantage in order to build more religous buildings, expanding your culture. The christian holy city belongs to a rival that doesn't appear to be a threat, so it doesn't really matter that he can see you. Now the buddhists are very keen to build an attack against you. So "their people" become undesired....

[Dr. Broom]

I'd like to see a mod that incorporates this trade-off and turns it into a real delema: sit back and watch your culture fade? or intervene and lose much of your economic and productive power? Your choice.

I agree, there should be more of a delema maybe in the next version?

[1shmae1]

[SIZE=1]
you are jewish. One of your cities has christians in it and Buddhists and also taoists. Now they you have the taoist holy city. So you can use this to your advantage in order to build more religous buildings, expanding your culture. The christian holy city belongs to a rival that doesn't appear to be a threat, so it doesn't really matter that he can see you. Now the buddhists are very keen to build an attack against you. So "their people" become undesired....

My argument is that, historically, religious and ethnic diversity is a cultural negative. In fact, I am not convinced that diversity is ever a cultural strength. It is possible that diversity is an economic strength -- perhaps even likely that it is so. But I doubt if it is ever a cultural strength.

For example, the Moors are said to have invaded Spain from North Africa with the assistance of Jews residing in the cities of Southern Spain. Even today we see the riots in France perpetrated by North African immigrants who have no loyalty to the french nation.

Why were the Jews expelled from Spain? Was it to prevent spying by some non-existant Jewish Nation? Of course not. They were expelled because they threatened the ethnic and religious homogenaity of post-Moorish Spain. The Inquisition was an attempt to build a consistant and singular Spanish, Catholic Culture which was thought essential to hold the state together.

I believe that Civs ought to gain cultural power exclusively from one religion and that the presense of alien religions should actually undermine that culture. However, other bonuses could come from multiple faiths. A small boost to population or a slight boost to production or commerce (perhaps one additional trade route per religion?). If you can absorbe the cultural negatives (which ought to be powerful) -- by building lots of culture-boosting buildings perhaps -- then you can tolerate the alien religion and enjoy the bonuses.

On the other hand, if your borders are shrinking because your culture is too weak, you may be forced to expell all alien religions. This would then result in a boost to culture but a loss of the associated bonus (perhaps a decrease in population as well).

[Stone-D]

Just a thought, regarding the indirect spying, not related to the inquisitor.

Wouldn't it be nice if what you see wasn't necessarily *true*?

Chinese whispers etc.

Obviously as the ages pass the effect would diminish, but back then it took people on foot to report goings-on in a given city. Add to that the fact that the info wasn't very reliable in most cases...

If such a feature could be added, either modded or by firaxis, it might add an element of spice to the game that could prove interesting, especially in MP.

"Err... how come egypt has got 12 swordsmen stacked up next to that mountain? Hmmm... they're very close to my border..."

Etc.

[Optimizer]

Civ 4 seems too politically correct (or tolerant, or whatever you may call it) to give negative connotations to any religion, religious diversity or religion as a whole.

The only context where I could imagine the phrase "religion is bad" is something like "religion is bad if you are an evil, aggressive warmonger". Purging religions could be useful if many of your cities have, let's say, Buddhism, and you are at war against a Buddhist country.

[GeoModder]

Add also in the (game)fact that in those older ages the "turns" take multiple years... plenty of time thus to check rumours.

[Mylon]

One of the goals of my other mod is to make religion spread culture for the founding civilization of that religion, and that can include religious buildings, too! Thus, if you are competing with a civilization over territory/cities, it is not wise to build temples to that civilization's religion.

Unfortunately I've run into some coding problems in both my mods.

With the inquisition mod, this code doesn't seem to do what it says it should do:

                        for i in range(gc.getNumBuildInfos()):
                            if gc.getBuildingInfo(i).getPrereqReligion() == iTarget:
                                pCity.setHasRealBuilding(i, False)

For my other mod, plot culture is what determines everything, and PyCity.changeCulture does not update the plot culture. This means it has no effect on nationality, and thus makes it very difficult to manage the cultural model as I would like it.

[Ollywood]

Originally posted by 1shmae1


My argument is that, historically, religious and ethnic diversity is a cultural negative. In fact, I am not convinced that diversity is ever a cultural strength. It is possible that diversity is an economic strength -- perhaps even likely that it is so. But I doubt if it is ever a cultural strength.

That is the kind of thinking that, historically, led to purges and genocide. I think diversity differs depending on the way you look at it. The more positive perspective towards religion/culture is a modern idea. It states that a city with people form different origins produces a cultural diversity, which in effect has a cultural advantage. Ever been to a rural region where everyone was traditional and nationlistic ? Those places lack culture and open mindedness greatly and I never feel culturally inspired in such areas. You may call it idealistic and liberal, but its what I believe for real. It may not be "realistic" for the ancient-medieval period where people often felt connected by a shared faith and state of mind to have several faiths, but in areas with ethnic diversity it didn't necessarily "undermine" the culture.

Even today we see the riots in France perpetrated by North African immigrants who have no loyalty to the french nation.

This has little to do with lack of loyality but with racist social politics that have segregated the less wealthy and underpriveliged. As a result, the riots are a form of demonstration that make the government more aware of its problems within the country. If you were to suggest that expelling all immigrants were a solution to the problems in france, I would have to disagree. Furthermore, looking deeper at the facts, most of the rioteers are second or third generation french people who have been descendants to immigrants. These people want to be french, but aren't treated equally and aren't offered the same chances. This recognition has led to the riots, instead of falling into a silent, depressing resignation simply "accepting" their destiny, if I may put it boldly. Similarily we could go further back in french history and look at the revolution, which had similar causes in social politics.

Why were the Jews expelled from Spain? Was it to prevent spying by some non-existant Jewish Nation? Of course not. They were expelled because they threatened the ethnic and religious homogenaity of post-Moorish Spain. The Inquisition was an attempt to build a consistant and singular Spanish, Catholic Culture which was thought essential to hold the state together.

The religous spying is simply an element in the game. Not everything can or should be real. Now I may want to add that the inquisition was spread throughout all of catholic Europe. Just the spanish inquisition being the most famed because it completely went out of hand. This had nothing to do with the Spanish Monarchy making these decisions, but the orthodox catholism that completely went out of hand in a specific area during a specific period during which anti-semitism was very strong. Jews were not the only ones that burned. Pretty much everyone who disagreed with the social politics of that era did. Even priests who didn't preach radical and fearful thoughts fell into the hands of the present inquisition.

It didn't at all strengthen the spanish culture in any way, but it was a good historical example of pure hatred and fear falling out of control.

I believe that Civs ought to gain cultural power exclusively from one religion and that the presense of alien religions should actually undermine that culture. However, other bonuses could come from multiple faiths. A small boost to population or a slight boost to production or commerce (perhaps one additional trade route per religion?). If you can absorbe the cultural negatives (which ought to be powerful) -- by building lots of culture-boosting buildings perhaps -- then you can tolerate the alien religion and enjoy the bonuses.

Now this is more talking about the game which it should be. Now I partially agree here. To some extent though, I think these ideas are already within the game. For instance if you choose a certain faith, you only get the spiritual and cutlural bonuses from that faith: the +1 happiness, +# culture.

If you have different faiths present in a city. The advantage is that you can build their cultural buildings, which has the advantage of being able to produce cultue from those buildings. That is to say that a town with a single church is less impressive than a town which many temples and cathedrals, etc... In the game mechanics, religous diversity allows this, rather than building the same building several times.

You don't get culture bonuses from other faiths (aside from buildings) as long as you have a certain state religion. However as soon as you adopt the civic free religion, you get the cultural bonuses from every religion present in every city. This in a metaphoric sense seems fair and realistic to me.

[Tufturk]

Ah, excellent idea Mylon. A couple of wild ideas about how to give those men of the cloth some work, though I have no idea if they can be implemented:

* Every appearance of a religion in a city size 4 or larger causes one unhappy face due to lack of a place to worship.

* All temples now produce 2 happy faces instead of one, for a net +1 with the effect mentioned above.

* When a religion has a spread (within your civ) to a number of cities +1 greater than the "cathedral limit" (3,6,9 etc), it causes one unhappy face in each city until the requisite cathedral(s) have been built.

* With a state religion, every appearance of a non-state religion in a city size 4 or larger causes X% unhappy faces (determined by the world wide influence of this religion) among the population, calculating from size 4. Example: Size 14 city, non-state religion with 10% influence, 10% of 10 = 1 unhappy camper.

A little more far-fetched, but fun:

* Great Prophets now have the ability to function as super missionaries, spreading religion in up to 7 cities before they disappear (when they have used this ability once, they can no longer settle in a city, build a shrine etc), they can cross closed borders and spread non-state religion under Theocracy.

[1shmae1]

Originally posted by Ollywood


That is the kind of thinking that, historically, led to purges and genocide.

That would be my point.

Purges and genocides may not be good things, but that is not the same as saying they are irrational things. In our day in age, where being reasonable is just good manners, what is deemed bad is ipso facto presumed irrational. But this is not so. People ussually do bad things for quite rational reasons.

Ever been to a rural region where everyone was traditional and nationlistic ?

And it is accurate that you have equatd traditionalism, homogenaity and nationalism. It is no mystery why "Red State America" provides the solders that northern urbanites rely upon to defend their cities. Army Recruiters don't waste their time trying to earn enlistments from mid-town Manhatten.

Culture, in Civ terms, does not mean "sophistication" and "worldiness." In fact, it means quite the opposite. It means a sense of brotherhood and belonging -- a connectedness and tribalism that keeps a people united and willing to fight and die together to preserve what they value and hold unique to themselves in oppositon to the world.

Canada is a nation comprised primarily of two quite "distinct" ethnic and religious cultural groups: heavily protestant Anglo-Saxons and deeply Catholic French. The only thing that ever held these people together was fear of the United States and that disapated before even the first generation of Canadians were in their graves. The two "nations" have agreed on nothing since. French Canadians have volunteered for none of Canada's wars, not even World War Two (I speak generally -- many French Canadians did volunteer of course -- but as a people they did not). This, because they feel no loyalty to the majority anglo state (and certainly not to Great Britain).

I could go on. The Austro-Hungarian Empire split for very similar reasons, for example. But examples are endless.

Those places lack culture and open mindedness greatly and I never feel culturally inspired in such areas.

How quaint.

But utterly irrelivant. It is precisely their lack of open-mindedness which demonstrates the strength of their culture. They are certain their way of doing things is best and they feel connected and bonded with all who do things as they do. That's a strong culture. One that won't easily alter alegances or break up through internal conflict.

in areas with ethnic diversity it didn't necessarily "undermine" the culture.

My position is that ethnic and religious diversity tends to undermine the connectedness and tribal bonds of a people -- weakening their culture. This does not necessarily result in cultural extinction however, as there are ways to combat these forces. The United States has largely succeeded in bonding a nation around an idea -- the very notion of freedom has become a kind of State Supra-Religion. Love for the Constitution bonds people of many faiths and ethnicities. There are other ways to unite a people as well, and combat the disolusionary force of diversity. But it takes a lot of effort and resources. Japan, for example, does not face these problems.

Still, there are likely great benefits to diversity as well. Ingenuity and creativity probably benefit greatly. Diversity must be carefully managed however. It's a powerful and volatile force.

This has little to do with lack of loyality but with racist social politics that have segregated the less wealthy and underpriveliged.

Yawn.

I'm not interested in politics. I'm interested in historical forces -- pure empericism.

If you were to suggest that expelling all immigrants were a solution to the problems in france, I would have to disagree.

It is a solution. Not the solution. There are many possible ways to deal with problems like these and all have positives and negatives. I'd like to see those kinds of historical choices available in Civ such that I, as Queen Isabella, might opt to expel the Jews from Spain because is some circumstances, it may br the least destructive of all possible choices.

These people want to be french

I suggest they no more wish to be French then Frenchmen wish to be English!

Be careful not to view Europe, the world, or history itself through an American prism. Racial and Religious nationalism is hard for America to understand because the U.S. (despite what Europeans tend to believe) has actually delt extremely effectively with these forces. America is a country of immigrants united around an ideal. The old world is a universe of segregated ethnic and religious nation-states, united by common history and tradition. The Amrican model does not easily work there.

The religous spying is simply an element in the game. Not everything can or should be real.

But it's actually quite real. It does work that way. Why do you think Mohomod insisted that Muslims visit Mecca? It also represents something of the divided loyalties of religious communities. I just don't think it goes anywhere near far enough. Alien religions should, in some cases, be intolerable. Nero should at least occassionally throw the Christians to the lions.

This had nothing to do with the Spanish Monarchy making these decisions, but the orthodox catholism that completely went out of hand in a specific area during a specific period during which anti-semitism was very strong.

Why was anti-semetism strong? Why particularly in Spain at this time? Why did the Monarchy choose to expel the Jews? Powerful nation-building forces were at work. Xenophobia has a purpose! Human beings do the things we do for legitimate reasons, even when those choices are repugnant.

Jews were not the only ones that burned. Pretty much everyone who disagreed with the social politics of that era did. Even priests who didn't preach radical and fearful thoughts fell into the hands of the present inquisition.

Exactly. Difference is dangerous. Especially when a land has been torn appart by centuries of warfare fought between peoples of different religion. It takes a confident and secure people to guarantee freedom of thought.

It didn't at all strengthen the spanish culture in any way,

Compared with? How exactly would you support this claim with evidence? What might Spain have looked like otherwise?

I do notice there are no Moors there now.

If you have different faiths present in a city. The advantage is that you can build their cultural buildings, which has the advantage of being able to produce cultue from those buildings. That is to say that a town with a single church is less impressive than a town which many temples and cathedrals, etc... In the game mechanics, religous diversity allows this, rather than building the same building several times.

I would prefer a system more like this:

State religion gives you culture and happiness bonus for associated buildings. Every alien religion gives you negative culture and negative hapiness (ethnic and religious strife ensues). If you build religious buildings for the minority population (non-state religion) you eliminate the unhapiness penalty but do not eliminate the cultural penalty. For that, you must compensate with more state-religion buildings, great works and wonders.

Alternatively, you can expel the minority population. Send in an Inquisitor, drop the population by a percentage and the happiness and cultural penalties disappear. You also make enemies with AI Civs of that religion.

Hey...wouldn't it be cool if when an AI Civ expelled your religion from his cities, it made your people unhappy? They would remain unhappy for a set number of turns unless and untill you declared war! :-) That would give YOU a motive to go to war to defend your ethnic/religious brothers and sisters.

...as soon as you adopt the civic free religion, you get the cultural bonuses from every religion present in every city. This in a metaphoric sense seems fair and realistic to me.

I won't completely dismiss this final bonus as unrealistic. I do think though that Japan is no less culturally secure than America, dispite Japan being ethnically and religiously homogenous. Perhaps, in fact, it is more secure. Which nation, for example, has more riots? Which would be more likely than the other to experience civil war?

[Dr. Broom]

I don't want to sound pushy but when can we expect version 0.91 that removes the buildings of the removed religion?

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by 1shmae1

I suggest they no more wish to be French then Frenchmen wish to be English!

Be careful not to view Europe, the world, or history itself through an American prism. Racial and Religious nationalism is hard for America to understand because the U.S. (despite what Europeans tend to believe) has actually delt extremely effectively with these forces. America is a country of immigrants united around an ideal. The old world is a universe of segregated ethnic and religious nation-states, united by common history and tradition. The Amrican model does not easily work there.

The American Model works perfectly well in Europe. As you've noted however, it simply isn't being used by anyone. Europe went with the philosophy of letting every new group have their own seperate communities and making no effort to integrate new peoples into the pre-existing culture. This is easily seen to be a destructive and counterproductive way of dealing with things.

If you pay attention to what the rioters say, then you hear them talking about how they WANT to be considered French. Most of them were born in France and lived there all of their lives, yet they are discriminated against because they aren't "really" french. So the European problem with different ethnic cultures continue.

If anything this shows that the American system of dealing with diversity--allowing a great deal of diversity but uniting people under common themes of justice, freedom, etc--works. Acting like people coming into the country are part of their own little culture and have not become part of yours doesn't work.

Why was anti-semetism strong? Why particularly in Spain at this time? Why did the Monarchy choose to expel the Jews? Powerful nation-building forces were at work. Xenophobia has a purpose! Human beings do the things we do for legitimate reasons, even when those choices are repugnant.

You have a curious definition of "legitimate." I'll grant that there are reasons for xenophobia, even evolutionary incentives. That's different than being legitimate. It's different from being logical as well.

I would prefer a system more like this:

State religion gives you culture and happiness bonus for associated buildings. Every alien religion gives you negative culture and negative hapiness (ethnic and religious strife ensues). If you build religious buildings for the minority population (non-state religion) you eliminate the unhapiness penalty but do not eliminate the cultural penalty. For that, you must compensate with more state-religion buildings, great works and wonders.

More religions should generate more culture since the "mixing pot" of ideas and concepts is much more powerful in such a city. Now, I can see the theocracy civic being adjusted so that there are penalties for multiple religions in the city, but in this case Theocracy would have to give more bonuses.

Alternatively, you can expel the minority population. Send in an Inquisitor, drop the population by a percentage and the happiness and cultural penalties disappear. You also make enemies with AI Civs of that religion.

Hey...wouldn't it be cool if when an AI Civ expelled your religion from his cities, it made your people unhappy? They would remain unhappy for a set number of turns unless and untill you declared war! :-) That would give YOU a motive to go to war to defend your ethnic/religious brothers and sisters.

Now that's a good idea.

I can see adjusting the game so there are some motivations for doing such a thing. This should be civic-based however, and if you pick different civics then more religions is a positive thing and not a negative. Perhaps suddenly throwing in religious intolerance (or showing intolerance after Free Religion has been discovered) should risk generating unhappiness in the target city.

I won't completely dismiss this final bonus as unrealistic. I do think though that Japan is no less culturally secure than America, dispite Japan being ethnically and religiously homogenous. Perhaps, in fact, it is more secure. Which nation, for example, has more riots? Which would be more likely than the other to experience civil war?

Japan is more likely to fade away into nothingness as mental dystopia sets in. Depression and feeling disconnected is a real problem there.

Anyhow, Japanese culture is very different from the U.S.'s for many reasons. They tend to adopt many practices other nations/cultures have leading to an odd mixture of religious and other systems. Shinto birth rites, a Christian wedding, and a Buddhist funeral is not an uncommon combination for a person to have in Japan.

There's a difference between culture and nationalism.

-Drachasor

[ghen]

So how would you compare the pre-spanish inquisition time to the current french riots?