Civ 4 religion - preview info and speculation

[Locutus]

Originally posted by 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.

Yes, this is how it works, that is quite clear from screenshots.

Originally posted by Solver
Judaism is the first monotheistic religion

Nope, Aton worship is. The Jews stole their religion from a failed Egyptian cult

(and there are hints of it being in the game)

Such as?

[Solver]

Nope, Aton worship is. The Jews stole their religion from a failed Egyptian cult

Or according to others, Ehnaton's cult of Aton was created after the Exodus, because of Jewish influence.

Such as?

You know what I meant, we're not allowed to talk about that .

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Locutus
Yes, this is how it works, that is quite clear from screenshots.

I know, but my main point(the thing I thought of so to speak) was the next sentences.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Solver

Such as?

You know what I meant, we're not allowed to talk about that .

[Sandman]

Interesting. I wonder what advantages each religion will have. I hope they're reasonably compelling, rather than 'Islam = War'.

They could have atheism as a 'religion', but without a holy city, obviously, and spread purely by the state. It (or generic) should probably be the only choices for a communist civ.

Some Western polytheistic religions would be nice, as well.

[Solver]

Interesting. I wonder what advantages each religion will have. I hope they're reasonably compelling, rather than 'Islam = War'.

It has been said that there are no religion-specific bonuses.

[GAZ082]

I believe that having only one turn of anarchy for changing religion is absurd. Something rational would be that when you change your state religion you should "convert" your citizens placing a number of Clerics (or something like that) for such task, just like when you conquer cities in CIV3 and you have to place a number of troops for assimilating new citizens. And of course, in some cities revolts will emerge.

Religion is just too complex for changing in a blink.

[Nikolai]

You as a player don't change religion, you change the state religion. As I understand it, spread of religion is done by the computer. If we are lucky, there will be missions and such tools for our use though.

[GAZ082]

So, i change the state religion and only when a full city is converted by the computer, that city gets the +1 in happiness. Otherwise there is no other penalty besides the turn of anarchy, just the lack of the bonus.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Solver
It has been said that there are no religion-specific bonuses.

Hmm. I thought that the 'generic' comment meant that you could choose to have no state religion... i.e. you don't get the bonus. My mistake.

[GAZ082]

Sandy, the only bonus i know is the +1 in happiness that a city gets when its population is alike with the state religion.

[Xineoph]

My bets are for.

Indigenous
Judiasm
Taoism

Judiasm is obvious, since it is one of the oldest, practiced religion. People know about the religion, and it has been a part of history.

Indigenous, would probably be a starting religion.

Like Babylonian Religion
or Chinese Religion and etc.

Taosim, is only because it is mixed with Chinese culture...that and Confuciusism

Either way, those are my guesses.

[FrostyBoy]

I don't like how there is 1 turn of anarchy and 1+ happiness. To me that just doesn't seem well thought out.


Religion should be something gradual and have serious weight on your diplomacy and keeping your people content.

1. First you invent the religion
2. A percentage of your people automatically start believing in it whether you enforce it or not.
3. If you don't enforce a different religion, the strength of the current religion gets stronger, the stronger it gets, the harder it is to break. So if your people have been Taoists for 2000 years, it will take 2000 years to fully change to another religion.

However, things can speed up the change of religion: education, advertising, how many other people in the world believe in the new religion, destroying taoist churches and build the new religion churches, killing taoist leaders, etc

[TechWins]

Assuredly animism and paganism ought to be included as part of the seven religions. Using the evolutional concept of religion, Civs would start off either animistic or just plain indeginous. I found it highly unlikely Firaxis would apply such a concept, so it is therefore even more unlikely for Civs to start off as pagans. Animism is needed to represent Native American religion, and on the other hand, paganism is needed to represent early Egyptian, early Greek, early Roman, Viking or Nordic, Celtic, and any other applied culture. It would be a shame to see two incredibly historical and relevant religious types be discluded.


Btw, I'd imagine all Civs will start off being called indeginous religion or no religion at all (not to be confused with Atheism).

[SCUrfer]

I'd think maybe they would be described as starting off as "tribal" or soemthing like that.

Animism is as good a guess as anything else at this point, but it strikes me as not being organized enough to qualify. Paganism might be covered under Hinduism, in terms of being polytheistic. But who knows at this point?