Religion: I want a pc game not a PC game.

[Arnelos]

Some of you people who think that different religions have exactly the same effects on their societies should go read up on your Max Weber or Emile Durkheim.

Even if we were to use more updated research than that of those classical sociologists, there are CLEAR differences in the impacts and social character of different religions.

The problem as I see it is untangling a religion from a civilization. If you're getting into the area of alternate histories, what exactly *IS* the form of Islam practiced by the Japanese or what exactly *IS* the Confucianism practiced by the English or what exactly *IS* Buddism as practiced by the French? What elements of these religions' social effects can be untangled from the civilization's OWN social character? Is that even possible?

When you think about how complicated that gets and how intimately tied real world civilizations are to their religious roots, it perhaps becomes understandable even from a non-PC perspective that it's a heck of a lot easier to just make the religions in the game the same and concentrate on making the civilizations different.

[Arnelos]

Now, the area where I think the developers decided to be overly PC with religion is having no negative social effect from having multiple religions in the same city or within the same empire. So far as I can tell in 3 games, there is NO negative impact from multiple religions. There's even an endgame Civic option for "Free Religion" (secular state) that makes having multiple religions a BONUS.

I'm sorry, but the sweep of religious conflict in human history would strongly suggest otherwise than what the Devs have here...

There being no negative impact on city happiness from multiple religions in the same city (especially during the early/mid game where religious conflicts would be at their highest pitch) is a bit of a stretch...

EDIT:

Likewise, probably also for PC reasons (though this I think is VERY understandable...), there seems to be no way to REMOVE a religion from a city once it's in there.

I can understand the devs' reasoning here, though. Even though human history is FILLED with examples of religious communities being not simply marginalized in a city, but wholesale eliminated or driven into exile, letting that happen in their game could raise a lot of thorny issues better left untouched.

Personally, I think the way to deal with the multiple religions issue is to make it a challenge the player has to cope with somehow - a challenge that might indeed become easier post-Enlightenment if they want. Making it nothing but a positive is just so ahistorical as to be rediculous.

[snoopy369]

On the other hand, unless you founded all of the religions yourself, it DOES have a negative impact. The other civ gets a free spy

Although I suppose i'd agree that under certain kinds of civics you should have a penalty, like Theocracy. Free Religion sounds fine by me - the point being the more religious discussion, the better.

[vee4473]

Re: Religion: I want a pc game not a PC game.

Originally posted by mgdpublic
I finally got around to the religious aspect of the game and was going over the various choices and realized sadly that it just didn't matter. We need a religious mod!

The title of this thread is right on. Very nice.

[vee4473]

It is weird, to have so many different religions with all the same bonuses.

It's almost like having 5 iterations of the same great wonder. All with the same bonuses.

And fanatics are not fanatics. Some persuade, some kill. Period.

They may as well have had one great wonder called "religion", that gives the same benefits.

A waste of thought in the game.

The only thing it does is give another "culture" type aspect to the game (convert and benefit regardless of religion)...yet without the meanings of the religions specified, it is a culture type redundancy.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Now, the area where I think the developers decided to be overly PC with religion is having no negative social effect from having multiple religions in the same city or within the same empire. So far as I can tell in 3 games, there is NO negative impact from multiple religions. There's even an endgame Civic option for "Free Religion" (secular state) that makes having multiple religions a BONUS.

I'm sorry, but the sweep of religious conflict in human history would strongly suggest otherwise than what the Devs have here...

There being no negative impact on city happiness from multiple religions in the same city (especially during the early/mid game where religious conflicts would be at their highest pitch) is a bit of a stretch...

EDIT:

Likewise, probably also for PC reasons (though this I think is VERY understandable...), there seems to be no way to REMOVE a religion from a city once it's in there.

I can understand the devs' reasoning here, though. Even though human history is FILLED with examples of religious communities being not simply marginalized in a city, but wholesale eliminated or driven into exile, letting that happen in their game could raise a lot of thorny issues better left untouched.

Personally, I think the way to deal with the multiple religions issue is to make it a challenge the player has to cope with somehow - a challenge that might indeed become easier post-Enlightenment if they want. Making it nothing but a positive is just so ahistorical as to be rediculous.

Razing cities is PC but conversion by the sword is not? Okay...

[vee4473]

Originally posted by vee4473
It is weird, to have so many different religions with all the same bonuses.

It's almost like having 5 iterations of the same great wonder. All with the same bonuses.

And fanatics are not fanatics. Some persuade, some kill. Period.

They may as well have had one great wonder called "religion", that gives the same benefits.

A waste of thought in the game.

The only thing it does is give another "culture" type aspect to the game (convert and benefit regardless of religion)...yet without the meanings of the religions specified, it is a culture type redundancy.

Edit: I mean, being a player and seeing "build Christian temple". "build Hindu temple" etc...with all the same effect, it makes the purpose of founding a specific religion a non-relevant point...so why include so many at that point?

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Odin
Razing cities is PC but conversion by the sword is not? Okay...

No-one ever said that the complaints likely to be raised would be logically consistent with one another.

Razing a city somehow gets under the radar in terms of PC. Don't ask me.

Letting a player execute the Hollocaust, on the other hand, is GOING to cause controversy.

Sure, razing the ENTIRE city might in mathematical terms seem more brutal an inhumane, but the emotional charge to anything even remotely related to the Hollocaust is its own special "DO NOT TOUCH" category for anyone worried about avoiding controversy.

[Mr. President]

It makes for an interesting imagination exercise trying to figure out how the heck America could become a Hindu theocracy in 800 AD (or how the heck America exists at all in 800 AD).

Plus it leaves the door open to make a mod where you replace the religion names with names of gods and religions from Dungeons and Dragons (Talos, Lathander, Tempus, etc).

[Akaoz]

Rome: Total War (and esp. Barbarian Invasion) has different religions give different boni. And mixing them causes strife... I haven't seen a big PC outcry against CA because of that...

[Odin]

Originally posted by Arnelos

No-one ever said that the complaints likely to be raised would be logically consistent with one another.

Razing a city somehow gets under the radar in terms of PC. Don't ask me.

Letting a player execute the Hollocaust, on the other hand, is GOING to cause controversy.

Sure, razing the ENTIRE city might in mathematical terms seem more brutal an inhumane, but the emotional charge to anything even remotely related to the Hollocaust is its own special "DO NOT TOUCH" category for anyone worried about avoiding controversy.

The Inquisition has nothing to do with the Holocaust.

[GTPoompt]

Europa Universalis series has different bonii for being a different religion, and there was no outrage over that.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by mgdpublic
Well, what Kuciwalker is saying is that the history of Islam doesn't necessarily reflect something inherent to the religion and that to seperate them is difficult if not impossible. To the extent that it is possible someone will be offended. I definitely understand his point, but the developers aren't afraid to stamp entire civilizations as "industrious" or "expansive" based on history.

Those are understood to be hyperbole, not representative of some national psyche, and are specifically based on history. A similar characterization of religion would not only be highly offensive to some people but silly.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Some of you people who think that different religions have exactly the same effects on their societies should go read up on your Max Weber or Emile Durkheim.

Even if we were to use more updated research than that of those classical sociologists, there are CLEAR differences in the impacts and social character of different religions.

I disagree. I strongly believe that the particular tenets of a religion are merely used as (unconscious) rationalizations of social values, rather than any social values being derived from the tenets of the religion. The issue is that most historical societies that were distinct in terms of values and customs were largely of the same religion. However, I do not think that the theology of the religion itself had any influence.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GTPoompt
Europa Universalis series has different bonii for being a different religion, and there was no outrage over that.

Europa Universalis has those religions and bonuses in their exact historical context; in cIV, you could have the Japanese founding Islam, as Arnelos suggested above. Attributing a bonus to Japanese Islam would be a characterization of Islamic theology itself, rather than of Islam in the Middle East in the 14th-18th centuries.