Should there be a downside to multiple religions in 1 city?

[kimmygibler]

I was surprised by the way religion works. It is beneficial right from the start to have all possible religions in every city. This is pretty strange in my opinion. Multiple religions should cause some degree of strife and unhappiness within the city, especially under theocracy. At least until you switch to the free religion civic.

This would make sense from a realism perspective in my opinion and from a gameplay perspective. You would actually be motivated to go to war to wipe out another religion that keeps spreading to your cities. You would also have to give missionaries the option to remove a religion from a city. I'm sure all this could be modded, but then the ai wouldn't know how to deal with these new factors.

Is it possible that ai restrains kept the religion aspect of the game from being more complex?

[spy14]

Its just not considered PC. You can't say that religeons clash, whether the AI could cope or not (and I suspect it easily could). Unfortunately freedom of speech can get very limited on this issue, if the developers make the game too "controversial" they commit economic suicide.

At least thats the way it is in the UK, dont know how far this goes in the States etc

[kimmygibler]

Do you mean that the ai can currently handle a more complex religious system if it were modded in?

[spy14]

Hard to say until its done, but if the AI can handle the positive side of mixing religeons well, then it looks promising. I think the harder task is to avoid upsetting the game balance through modding.

[ZanThrax]

Probably not. No reason for the ai code to be set up to handle things that aren't in the game. Once it's possible to recompile new AI behaviour, custom AIs can be written for any mods like this.

While I'm not interested in the game becoming about religious intolerance & wars of religion, I do think that the idea of multiple religions in a city causing some unhappiness is a good idea. Maybe 1 unhappiness for each non-state religion in the city?

[spy14]

Possibly, but again it comes down to whats "acceptable" from a corporate point of view. My city (in the real world) has had race riots all week, but yet you also see people getting on, I personally would leave it neutral for the most part, with the occasional spell of unrest.

[kimmygibler]

The religions would still all have the same effect. Just that at some point in history it would not be good to have multiple religions at once in the same city.

The current optimal strategy when it comes to religion is to found as many religions as possible, and spread as many religions as possible to as many cities as possible. This doesn't make any sense from a historical point of view. No civilization has ever wanted to have as many different religions as possible at one time, until mabye the advent of religious freedom.

[DrrD]

I agree entirely. I think they may have problems if they made multiple religions fight, but if they simply reduced happiness I don't see a controversy. Multiple religions seem very unrealistic, especially in earlier time periods.

This is how I would do it:

religion spreads by trade routes ONLY into cities without any religion.

once a religion is established in a city, the only way to put a second or subsequent religion is to use a missionary, and it should be harder and harder as more religions are present.

a missionary can "convert" a city with the missionaries religion if it has another, different religion, this eliminates one of those religions.
ex: New York has Moslem, Hindu, and Jewish. state religion is Moslem. I can send a Moslem missionary in, if succesful he will cause either Hindu or Jewish to become Moslem, resulting in 1 state and only 1 non-state religion. Another missionary could result in only Moslem being present.


state religions give you +2 happy, all non-state religions present give you -2 happy

So if you found a religion, it would spread pretty quickly to your heathen cities, and to any foreign cities that don't have religion. But once it's established, other religions will not come in very much, and only by active missionary efforts.

I don't see how this would be considered non-PC. It makes sense if your state religion is Hindu then say Bhuddists in any city will be slightly less happy. Otherwise what is the point of the freedom of religion civic? logically if you DON'T have freedom of religion, that has implications.

[sophist]

I think making +2 happy for state religion and -2 happy for non-state religion makes the state religion decision too important and powerful. How about instead you only get +1 happy if your state religion has either a majority or a plurality?

[Venger]

Perhaps a good solution (if it isn't already in the game) is a -2 happy hit in any city that has a relgious presence when you go to war with a nation that has that presence as it's national religion.

For instance, if you have Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam in a city, and you go to war against a nation with Islam as it's state religion, then that city takes a -2 happy hit.

Venger

[notyoueither]

Religions in a city have a very large downside when and if you are at war with the civ that controls the holy city (multiple unhappy people scaling with percentage of people of that religion).

Another downside is that the owner of the holy city who has that religion as state (and isn't in Free Religion) can always see your city and surrounding nine tiles (definite impact in MP, questionable in SP).

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I think that a simple solution should be-as Free Religion grants you +1 happiness per non-state religion, then Theocracy at the very least should give you a -1 happiness per non-state religion. This forces you into a difficult decision regarding short-term/long-term benefits. Do you switch to Theocracy for the short term benefits of bonus XP and no spread of foreign religions? If so, do you then use your missionaries to convert cities which are not of your state religion, thus reducing the benefits to your nation should you pursue the Free Religion path later on.
As for organised religion, I feel the +25% production bonus should not apply to religious improvements of non-state religions. Note, though, that these are just my feelings at the moment. At the very least, there should be some penalty, IMO, to having a large number of different religions in your nation in the early game.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by DrrD
This is how I would do it:

religion spreads by trade routes ONLY into cities without any religion.

once a religion is established in a city, the only way to put a second or subsequent religion is to use a missionary, and it should be harder and harder as more religions are present.

That's how it works as is.

a missionary can "convert" a city with the missionaries religion if it has another, different religion, this eliminates one of those religions.
ex: New York has Moslem, Hindu, and Jewish. state religion is Moslem. I can send a Moslem missionary in, if succesful he will cause either Hindu or Jewish to become Moslem, resulting in 1 state and only 1 non-state religion. Another missionary could result in only Moslem being present.

state religions give you +2 happy, all non-state religions present give you -2 happy

That makes religion and missionaries weapons. It cascades from there into the trade and income model. Closed borders and Mercantilism become the one right way to go.

So if you found a religion, it would spread pretty quickly to your heathen cities, and to any foreign cities that don't have religion. But once it's established, other religions will not come in very much, and only by active missionary efforts.

I don't see how this would be considered non-PC.

I don't know if it is a matter of PC, or game balance. Religion is important. How much more important and complicated do you want to make it?

It makes sense if your state religion is Hindu then say Bhuddists in any city will be slightly less happy. Otherwise what is the point of the freedom of religion civic? logically if you DON'T have freedom of religion, that has implications.

It does. You will not get the extra happiness from large, pluralistic societies that are possible in the late game. That will keep your city sizes lower than possible for the player who invested in religions earlier (and takes the risks of war unhappiness) and uses FoR to the fullest.

[dearmad]

Originally posted by Venger
Perhaps a good solution (if it isn't already in the game) is a -2 happy hit in any city that has a relgious presence when you go to war with a nation that has that presence as it's national religion.

For instance, if you have Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam in a city, and you go to war against a nation with Islam as it's state religion, then that city takes a -2 happy hit.

Venger

It's -1 right now. But I think -2 would be better. But this probably applies to the defender civ too, which is not nice.

[DrrD]

Originally posted by notyoueither


That's how it works as is.



That makes religion and missionaries weapons. It cascades from there into the trade and income model. Closed borders and Mercantilism become the one right way to go.



I don't know if it is a matter of PC, or game balance. Religion is important. How much more important and complicated do you want to make it?



It does. You will not get the extra happiness from large, pluralistic societies that are possible in the late game. That will keep your city sizes lower than possible for the player who invested in religions earlier (and takes the risks of war unhappiness) and uses FoR to the fullest.

Not true. Religion can spread through trade routes even into cities with other religions. I've often seen one of my city gains a second, third, or fourth religion without a missionary.

I'm all for large, pluralistic societies in the LATE game, but it seems silly during the middle ages in what is a Christian country to have 2 or 3 or more religions in about every city. That should be reserved for the freedom of religion civic in the late game.

I don't think it's more compicated, most of us are trying to get our heads around the fact that having religions other than your state religion is OK. It seems more natural that it isn't.

I know this game isn't realistic, but I think it could do a little better in the religion department.

And so as not to leave the wrong impression, this is really for me an intellectual point, I love the game and think it's great that they included religion, and it's clever the way they handled it.