Civ 4 religion - preview info and speculation

[Myrddin]

One of the new things for Civ 4:

7 real world religions

Christianity
Buddhism
Hinduism
Islam
?

Generic, in that no specific benefits associated with a particular religion

Each religion founded with the discovery of a certain tech:
Buddhism - Meditation
Hinduism - Polytheism
?

Religion founded in a certain city and spreads across the map independently
Speculation -religion is associated with cities, not citizens
Speculation -spread is via trade network ala Civ 3 Conquests plague
Speculation - spread of religions is not uniform otherwise oldest religions would dominate the map
Speculation - certain advances will reduce the effect/spread of religion eg effect of the enlightenment in Europe

Religion gives +1 happiness if city religion matches state religion. Changing state religion gives 1 turn of anarchy

State religion will affect relations with other civs Speculation - they are more friendly to those with the same religion

Can build shrines, monasteries, missionaries
Speculation - can only build them if you have a state religion
Speculation - buildings will increase spread of your religion/ increase happiness effect of religion/ prevent conversion to ther religions
Speculation - missionaries could be used to convert cities; implies special units not abstracted - is the spy back?

Can get Great Prophets
Speculation - can give information on foreign cities with same religion
Speculation - other abilities unknown, holy wars?

The above implies that all religious building are seperate from culture and that culture becomes a less important element

Unclear whether city flipping remains - if so then would seem to be more likely to be associated with religion than with culture

My feeling is that religion will give flavour but it will not be a key gameplay concept

[Solver]

My speculation for other religions is Judaism (with Monotheism) and Sikhism (Civil Services? I'm not familiar enough).

Religion will probably indeed not be a key concept because it does not have specific bonuses. Good for correctness, but weaker for gameplay, IMO. It appears now that there will be little reason to change your state religion. Seems to make sense to have a religion, build temples of that religion, see it spread and so.

[LDiCesare]

If you conquer a vast empire whose religion is different from yours, it might be a good idea to switch to the conquered religion since there are more of them and their cities may be more unhappy than your core cities?

[Solver]

And then you will upset all the citizens in cities that were yours before the war. It will probably be better to wait for your religion to spread to the newly conquered territories.

[GeoModder]

Taoism as 7th religion then?

[SCUrfer]

Zoroastrianism
Judaism
Confucianism

That's how I'd do it, adds up to 3 Western, 3 Eastern, and Zoroastrianism (kind of both, eh?). Judaism may not have become a national state religion in our world, but the Aztecs didn't build nuclear submarines, either.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by SCUrfer
Zoroastrianism (kind of both, eh?)

Actually Zoroastrianism is about as 'western' as it can get AFAIK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

Personally I wouldn't like Judaism and Sikhism as one of the seven religions. They have a too limited geographical spread and followers to be one of the 'big seven'. Don't know what the unknown three could be then though. Taoism and Zoroastrism, but what for the seventh? One could say Confucianism, but that would make China quite full.

[SCUrfer]

Yeahm I guess it is pretty western. So I guess that might not work as a systemization...

I think it's very plausible that Judaism is one of the 7. It's got too much "brand" recognition.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by SCUrfer
I think it's very plausible that Judaism is one of the 7. It's got too much "brand" recognition.

That's my fear too.

I'd immediately change it to Zoroastrism though, which I assume won't be included due to lack of brand recognition.

[SCUrfer]

True, they might not include it. Which would be unfortunate. At this point, we really have no idea of what they'll include, though. It's also interesting to think about which religion's would originate with what technology. Hinduism = Polytheism, and Buddasim = Meditation. What would the others be? Monotheism = Christianity and Theology = Islam, so that one comes before the other? Or will it be divided so that it's nearly impossible for one Civ to be the originator of more than one major religion, putting them all on different tech paths? Interesting to think about.

[Nikolai]

I just thought of something. If a religion is founded when a civ discovers a tech, that means that only the first civ to discover the tech founds the new religion, as a religion naturally can't be founded more than once. But that also means that a human controlled civ, which often will be ahead in tech much of the game, will become a multireligious civ, right? And that probably makes it harder to control happineses and such things, politics towards the various minorities will be important etc. In other words, an incentive to not rush ahead?

[Solver]

Christianity doesn't really make sense as the choice for monotheism. Judaism is the first monotheistic religion (and there are hints of it being in the game). One could even argue as to whether Christianity is monotheistic at all, but that's kind of OT.

[Elda king]

Religious Techs should not be required for era changing. So, you won't research them unless you want your cities to riot (give these techs to another player that have another religion to make his cities revolt?).
Religions should have specific improvments and wonders, like this:
Politheism =>politheistic religions (hinduism, greek-roman, native american, etc.)=> Oracle, temples
Meditation=> Budhism=> monasteries (wonder?)
Monotheism=> Judhism=> Temple of Jerusalem(improvement?)
Monotheism=> Christianism=> churchs, Knights Templar
Theology=> Islamism=> Peregrination (improvment?)
Meditation=> Taohism=> Feng Shui (improvment?)
Mysticism=> Zoroastrism=> ??

[Nikolai]

There is no eras in Civ4 according to the little we know.

[curtsibling]

I reckon paganism will be the broad starting status for the civs.

Atheism will be in there as a sort of non-religion choice.

.