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

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Matthew
Historically religious nenants have had a strong influence on behavoir. Granted, this has at times been in ways expressly contrary to those religious beliefs. Of all religions in the Roman empire before christianity, to my knowledge judaism was alone in its unwillingness to share the religious devotions of its adherents. The Romans, for example, didn't care what people worshiped, as long as they gave due homage to Roman gods. This was only a problem for the Jews, and later Christians.

And my postulate is that this isn't a consequence of their theology but of their society, culture, and mores. I would say that any correlation between their theology and their actions is due to the fact that they are influenced by the same source - their society's values.

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by vee4473 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?

Because if your city's got multiple faiths chilin' in it, you get multiple temples/cathedrals. Mo' culture, mo' happiness.

Historically, multi-creed settlements weren't all that uncommon. (Firaxis seems to have gone out of its way to emphasize religious tolerance in the historical characters it's chosen for leaders.) And I think it's reasonable to assume that thousands of years ago, just as today, the largest, wealthiest, most influential cities in the world HAD to be inclusive.

Bigots rarely make good businessmen.

[spy14]

Even Rome had multiple different creeds of people in it (albeit not all of the equal), and the empire did just fine.

Personally i'd have the multiple religeons in a city setup as a more neutral thing, as while you see plenty of good examples of it, you also see the bad examples. My City over the past week for example (in reality, not Civ!) has seen a lot of racial rioting.

[dwm10]

It appears that not adding in religion-specific bonuses and penalties will not prevent an uproar afterall. Whoever brought this one up is creating an issue out of nothing - seriously you're offended that there is more than religion in the game and, for gameplay, they are all treated equally?

Religion is great, because in the killing that goes on its name, more and more people are delivered unto their God.

[Kc7mxo]

Even Rome had multiple different creeds of people in it (albeit not all of the equal), and the empire did just fine.

they had to practically tear israel apart stone by stone to keep the jews from constantly revolting. . . things didn't quite go so smoothly.

Egypt had a civil war when one of their pharaohs tried to change the state religion!

I think they should have gone into a little more depth and had some religions be antagonistic or something. Maybe if its a foreign religion the locals would be unhappy, just some reason for me not to intentionally spread every creed to every city so i can build more temples.

[Datajack Franit]

Even Rome had multiple different creeds of people in it (albeit not all of the equal), and the empire did just fine.

Er, until Christians started to abolish slavery and burn down pagan temples all over

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


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.

The actual situation is a whole lot more complex than either/or. On one end of the spectrum, there are people who are willing to twist a religion's teachings completely out of shape in order to rationalize believing whatever they want to, either deliberately or just because they are so caught up in focusing on teachings that can be interpreted as supporting their positions that they completely ignore contradictory teachings. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who would prefer to think one way if left purely to their own devices, but who feel compelled by their religion's teachings to believe another way. And in between, there are borderline situations where the social balance can be tipped by whoever can make a better religious case for their point of view. Sometimes a religion's original teachings are stronger than what a society's culture would prefer if religion were not involved; sometimes societal beliefs that have little to do with a religion's teachings are stronger; and sometimes societies are divided between people who focus on original religious teachings and people who have come up with excuses to believe something different.

The situation is further complicated in nations with strong state religions because both religious and secular leaders have a vested interest in perverting religion in order to enhance each other's power. In medieval Europe, the divine right of kings to do pretty much whatever they wanted to and the persecution of religious heretics supported each other. In India, from what I understand, Hinduism called on people born into lower castes to accept their fate as a consequence of their actions in a previous life and told them that it would be wrong for them to go against their fate by demanding the privileges and opportunities available to people born into higher castes.

I think Civ IV's religion model does a pretty good job of handling the situation because the nature of a religion depends so enormously on what a society chooses to do with the religion. In some cases, Civ IV's mechanisms let players make choices like whether they want to play the Christians of the Crusades or the Christians who decided that government interference in religious matters ultimately harms religion. In others, they let people contemplate alternative interpretations of a religion, such as a Hinduism where people are not merely punished for actions in previous lives by being born into unfortunate circumstances in this life but also rewarded with opportunities to make their lives better than what they were born into. In a game centered around alternate realities, that is much more flexible than defining each religion in the game based on what it was like in particular times and places in the real world - especially since what is nominally the same religion can produce completely different effects on society in one era from what it does in another. In fact, the religion civics can even model changes in how a religion is interpreted and applied over time.

[Fidel]

well, it apprears that choosing one religion as state religion might screw your relations vis-a-vis states which have different state religions. however, there is no internal penalty, only incentive, to have multiple religions. there should be at least be some civic (say theocracy or organized religion) which is a double-edged sword. yes, you get extra XP or whatever, but you take a hit in every city with more than one religion. dunno if beta testing toyed with this idea, it would be great if any beta tester could let us know if they tried any variables except for LOS dilemma.

[Doktrjerms]

I think a great way to add spice to the religions without making the game mechanic too different is to allow cities with either a temple or maybe a monastery to build a religion-specific unit. This idea goes back to the fundamentalism gov type and the fanatics.
An example of what I am thinking is that christians could build crusaders instead of knights.

Just my 2 cents, I like the religions having equal play in the game mechanic. I think a special unit would make it more fun without breaking anything.

-DoktrJerms

[Novaya Havoc]

Or depending on your state religion, you can build specific wonders. Notre Dame, St. Basil's, Poltala Palace, Hagia Sofia, Mosque of ibn Talun, and so on.

-B

[Datajack Franit]

The only think I'd like to see in a mod is some sort of drawback for multiple religions in the same city and a way to oust a religion from a city.

Ousting a religion from a city seems to be impossible. The only way would be destroying the city that founds the religion before it spreads all over