{The List-} Religion

[GePap]

My idea on the subject:

-religions should be random, but come in three flavors-polytheistic, monothestic, nondeist.

States have the ability to declare a state religion-this affects happyness and public order- making population who shares that religion more supportive, those who don't much harder to appease.

Religion type affects cost of religious buildings, their effectiveness.

Religion would slighty modify the effects of governments.

I agree with previous thoughts about setting a religious policy, but it need not be too comlex-either your policy is inclusive (lessens both unhappiness and hapiness cause by religion), exclusive (normal effects), discriminative (heightens the effects).

[Max Sinister]

I'm still wondering whether they'll include real world religions in the game. If the answer is yes, it will be difficult... (and I'm not talking about possible bad publicity if Civ4 players might find out that Islam is the best religion for a domination victory)... f.e. how much does the christian religion of Jesus himself, St. Francis, pope Alexander (the Borgia pope), Martin Luther and pope John Paul II have in common? Maybe they'll introduce sliders with given maximums and minimums for certain religions: If the slider for war/peace goes from 0 (radical pacifism) to 10 (war and nothing else), Islam may not go lower than 3, while Buddhism mustn't go higher than 7.

[Naokaukodem]

not sure about the dates but here the fundamentals about religions that would have been included in Civ:

1500 BC: Psychology (technology). Well, it would have to be called "occultism" or something, as it is always "occult" nowadays, but not false. With writing, knowledge about human itself grew from generation to generation, or in some areas of the earth. People can manipulate others and manipulate the human society to their own wishes or fantasmes.

BC: Chistianism and what were just before. A religion studied to scare people in their psychology and drain their attention to some capital points of the human psychology and way of work, in order to expand to all over the world and dominate according to religious rulers'wishes, fantasmes and conceptions of a society.

[0bsidi0n]

Lots of interesting ideas here, I'd throw my support behind a SMAC-esque slider system without real religions. However, I'd like to propose someone simplify these ideas and post a poll- we can focus more clearly on the options and debate the disagreements.

[Heffalump]

Religion

* Use real religions

* Religions offer differing benefits, buildings, wonders. They do not offer negatives.

* A religion is started by a Prophet unit

* A prophet may be used to build a great religious monument or center. (E.g. Jesus allows construction of the Vatican)

* A religious center acts as a strong influence on the citizens of that city and surrounding cities.

* A city with a majority of citizens of a given religion may build improvements, units specific to that religion.

* Building religious buildings has a domino affect. Once a city is converted to Islam, for example, it may begin construction of a mosque. This mosque then will have an influence on citizens of neighboring cities, gradually converting them until the majority of that city too is Islam.

*Religion is not entirely under your control. Citizens in your outlying cities may be affected by the religious influence of cities from neighboring civs.

*Having cities of different religion in your empire increases the risk of civil war, or schism.

*If a prophet does not appear in your lands, you may ask a foreign civ to establish a missionary in your capitol. This will begin the process of converting people in your cities.

*If you generate further prophets during the game you may use them to:
a) begin another religious movement (i.e. change religions),
b) convert citizens in your civ that are not yet members of your religion (in this case the prophet is converted into a great religious monument in one of your cities)
c) send the prophet abroad to help convert people in other civs.

*You may similarly attempt to spread your religion by establishing missionaries in other civs. A civ may allow you to do this for free (if they want your religion), for a price, or you may cough up the big bucks and try to do it subversively

*The "default" religion of any civ is paganism

*Civs with a "religious" characteristic may start the game with a religion other than paganism. Alternatively, they could just be more likely to generate prophet units.

*Secularism appears as a tech in the latter half of the game. It allows you to maintain cities of different religion in your empire with a reduced risk of schism.

*New Victory Condition: unite the world in one faith. (You will need to control the seat of the religion)

Additional Religious Considerations.

*By capturing the seat of an opposing religion you risk uniting other civs of that faith in war against you.

*The appeal of your religion on other civs is magnified by your overall cultural strength.

[Brent]

Use real religions: Could be fun.

No negatives: Agreed.

Jesus? The Vatican? I think not. He never even went to Rome!

Religious Improvements, Units: Agreed.

Domino Effect: Agreed.

Religion not entirely under your control: Agreed.

What benefits would a civ get from inviting another civ's religion in? Unity? I guess the religious improvements and units would be worth it. Would no temples or such religious improvements or any equivalent be allowed without a religion other than Paganism?

Functions of Further Prophets: Agreed.

Default Religion as Paganism: depends. Maybe the player can set the default religion in setup. I would want to be able to start with Judaism or some other sort of Monotheism like in the Bible, but then the game might have to start around 2000 BC with only the Semites, Hamites, and Japhethites available but possibly certain to split. But this would work better as a scenario, no more important than any other. Or you could allow for a universal flood, maybe with only Cainites and Sethites available to start, but that might have to be a scenario won by whoever builds the Ark. Anyway I can understand the default game working much more like it does now. And Pagans should be able to play however they want to as well.

Religious Trait allows to start game with other religion: Very good idea.

Secularism: Fair enough.

Victory Condition: Very good idea.

Religion should be very moddable. It should be easy to accurately create an unincluded religion or alter an included one to the player's liking.

[Max Sinister]

So you could convert other cities, if the influence of your religious buildings is strong enough?

[Heffalump]

So you could convert other cities, if the influence of your religious buildings is strong enough?

Yes, depending on how close they are, you're overall cultural influence, and religious influence.

Religious influence depends on
*whether or not your city is the seat of the religion
* number of great religious monuments & improvements
* size of the city (big cities exert more influence than smaller ones)

Your first city will be converted automatically when your prophet makes a great religious monument and establishes the seat of the religion there.

Or, if the religion you want has already been started by another civ's prophet, you will need to ask that civ to establish a missionary in your capitol. And your religions influence will expand gradually from your capitol.

[raingoon]

I worked on the Civ 3 Religion forum, and here is what that entire proposal boiled down to:

Every unit of population (represented in your city screen) should be able to subscribe to a religion.

That's it. That's what it all added up to. If Firaxis can build that in, work on it, prototype it, whatever they have to do, that's the key to implementing religion in a meaningful, playable, fun way.

Best of luck all, adios. Look forward to playing the next one!

Raingoon

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by GePap
My idea on the subject:

-religions should be random, but come in three flavors-polytheistic, monothestic, nondeist.

This would be very important, as to avoid controversy. Don't name religions.

States have the ability to declare a state religion-this affects happyness and public order- making population who shares that religion more supportive, those who don't much harder to appease.

Religion type affects cost of religious buildings, their effectiveness.

Religion would slighty modify the effects of governments.

I agree with previous thoughts about setting a religious policy, but it need not be too comlex-either your policy is inclusive (lessens both unhappiness and hapiness cause by religion), exclusive (normal effects), discriminative (heightens the effects).

Great idea. Also, instead of creating a super complex system of religious clashes, that would just mean that civs with exclusive religions conflict more than those with inclusive.