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

[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!

[Odin]

PC is right, The problem is, someone will complain about any bonuses and sue over stereotyping ("OMFG, you gave Islam an attack bonus on non-muslim countries, you are stereotyping Islam as a warmongering religion!!!!!!!!!!").

[tomcat ha]

Well i have to say. As a muslim. That it was correct. It always gave motivation to conquer other territories. As long as it isnt turned into bonus is killing people with other religions.

[OutFlanked]

Originally posted by tomcat ha
Well i have to say. As a muslim. That it was correct. It always gave motivation to conquer other territories. As long as it isnt turned into bonus is killing people with other religions.

Oh I don't know.

Start a Golden Age by declaring a Holy War.

Of course every Civ that has the same State religion that you are attacking also declares war on you.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Odin
PC is right, The problem is, someone will complain about any bonuses and sue over stereotyping ("OMFG, you gave Islam an attack bonus on non-muslim countries, you are stereotyping Islam as a warmongering religion!!!!!!!!!!").

Er, the problem is that any religion-specific bonuses would be stupid.

[murielwasser]

More specifically, it would be stupid not only because of unneccessary offensiveness, but because the "traits" we associate with most religions are particular to their historical developments and not the religions ex origio themselves. If you looked at the Bible and compared the Old and New Testaments you'd expect Judaism to be a religion of barbaric warmongers and Christianity to be a religion of strict pacifists. But that would fail to describe how people actually following those religions behave. You'd expect Buddhist countries to lead the scientific revolution because Buddhism is founded upon rational analysis - but a part of the world dominated by revealed religions did.

Note also that currently the (post-)Christian world is more advanced than the Islamic world whereas a millenium ago the opposite was the case.

So the politically correct position here is - as it usually is - the factually correct one as well.

[Kuciwalker]

More specifically, it would be stupid not only because of unneccessary offensiveness, but because the "traits" we associate with most religions are particular to their historical developments and not the religions ex origio themselves.

Not even that. Societies are different. Religions are not. Fundamentalists are the same all over.

[mgdpublic]

Buddhism is founded on rational analysis of internal experience, not external, so you wouldn't necessarily expect a science bonus.

I agree that the history of religion is formed by a dialectic between basic teachings and culture, but so is every other "ism" in the game. Sorry, but you can't tell me that Taoism and an evangelical religion would tend to produce a similar course of history in an equivalent culture.

[Kuciwalker]

Buddhism is founded on rational analysis of internal experience, not external, so you wouldn't necessarily expect a science bonus.

It's ultimately irrelevant. The tenets of a religion have no large-scale effect on its practitioners beliefs, or if so they are eliminated in a few generations. The only correlation that exists is due to the attraction of people of particular dispositions to the religion.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Buddhism is founded on rational analysis of internal experience, not external, so you wouldn't necessarily expect a science bonus.

It's ultimately irrelevant. The tenets of a religion have no large-scale effect on its practitioners beliefs, or if so they are eliminated in a few generations. The only correlation that exists is due to the attraction of people of particular dispositions to the religion.

QFT

[tomcat ha]

Perhaps for each different religion there is a different bonus when looking at the wealth of the country. Say Islamic countries which are wealthy get a science bonus, when they are poor with that i mean ammount of luxuries and the ammount of $ per citzen, then you get a bonus for the millitairy. That does fit the history of islamic countries in general. Ofcourse there need to be more levels than that. I do think that it would be realistic when looking at how the believers of each relgion believed and what was correct.

[mgdpublic]

Originally posted by tomcat ha
Perhaps for each different religion there is a different bonus when looking at the wealth of the country. Say Islamic countries which are wealthy get a science bonus, when they are poor with that i mean ammount of luxuries and the ammount of $ per citzen, then you get a bonus for the millitairy. That does fit the history of islamic countries in general. Ofcourse there need to be more levels than that. I do think that it would be realistic when looking at how the believers of each relgion believed and what was correct.

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.

[Grumbold]

Yup, we had that discussion when Civ 3 was introducing unique units and civ traits. No nation has had only one archetypal troop type or national disposition throughout history, but they prefer a broad brush approach to an overcomplicated one. Where religion is concerned its sensible to treat them the same.

[upsidedown]

Someone will tackle the issue and likely come up with something fun.

For the objections based on historical trends, just remember that there could be multiple changes over the Eras in what benefits/negatives a particular religion gives. Christianity in the Ancient Era, for example, would be rebellious anti-authoriative and Christianity in the Modern Era would be moderately pacificist. Islam gets a major boost to science/industrial in earlier Eras while it gets a boost in warfare/spiritual in modern era.

There are no lawsuits that could be filed so that line of thinking is a bit silly. I would die from laughter if I saw on the headlines of Fox News that "New violent simulation game called Civilization 4 encourages jihaadists; anarchy in the schools!"

[xxFlukexx]

Errrr, yes it does matter. In my first game I have had a number of other civilizations demand me to change my religion to match theirs.

Also if you have a different religion from another civ, you diplomacy suffers a big penalty(usually about -4)

At least they put religion in the game as an actual mechanic, that's way more than most games.

People get upset very easily, in AoE3 the Russian troops are much weaker but you build much more of them, and so people argue that Russian troops were well equipped and armed for their time and so on.

If you want controversial games(and you may or may not be able to actually buy these) you are looking for Rockstar games: http://www.gamespot.com/pages/compan...?company=13111