Suggestion: Downside to Religious Diversity

[Martinus]

While I love the religious model in Civ 4 I think the way spread of religion is handled, there isn't really that much downside for religious diversity in your empire (which goes against the otherwise universally visible Civ 4 idea of there being no "one best way" of doing something).

Even before the Free Religion civic, each religion in the city allows you to build one temple (and then monastery and cathedral) with no downside to it. This is both imbalanced, imo, and unhistorical - throughout most of history religious differences were the source of constant strife rather than happiness - people of Jerusalem were not more happy because their city could hold a mosque, a church and a synagogue - they were more restless because of that fact.

This thread is to discuss some ideas how to balance this, so that it could be added in a patch or if not, possibly moded.

One way of doing this, for example, would be to add unhappiness to a city for each religion, after a certain number (maybe 1 in early game, then 2 after development of theology and 3 after liberalism) the city has. This would be negated only in Freedom of Religion civic.

[Robert]

If you add downsides, you should be able to remove or fight other religions as well (of course in a non-violent way)

[Martinus]

Well, there is always Theocracy for you in mid-game and in the end game you have Freedom of Religion.

[Fried-Psitalon]

I'm going to be writing an semi-comprehensive article on this subject in the next day, maybe posted by this afternoon. There are some downsides to multiple religions, and I'll talk about that subject a bit at that time.

[jkp1187]

I don't think it would be a good patch, but definitely an interesting mod. Perhaps one extra unhappy face for every additional religion (regardless of whether it's state or not)? Leave the happiness benefits from temples, etc., otherwise it might be too unbalancing. Thoughts?

[dconner]

I'm not sure I agree with the notion of multiple religions causing internal strife (though maybe yes, if you have a state religion, but there'd need to be some sort of "religious purge" option too, I think.) "Treatment of minority religions" might be an interesting "subplot" to add in somehow. (E.g. if you're persecuting Christians, you tick off the Christian powers.)



But I have been thinking Free Religion is a little too good diplomatically. I think perhaps Free Religion would be even more anathema to a Theocracy than a rival state religion.

[Xmudder]

One unhappy per non state religion would work, then you'd need to build a temple for them to balance it. Free religion civic would result in a tremendous happiness boost.

Another idea would be one unhappy person in any city that doesn't have your state religion. A city that has the wrong religion and not the state one would get 2 unhappy people.
Building a minority temple would counter one, building a missionary the other.

[spy14]

Originally posted by dconner
I'm not sure I agree with the notion of multiple religions causing internal strife

Birmingham last week, Paris this week (although Paris is also supposed to be down to deprivation). But these things need to be kept in context, I would agree that Xmudder's previous post would be a good way to balance it.

[Ninot]

The ONLY effect of religion i've noticed other than LOS is that nations with similar religion are likelier to ally, and different religions are likely to fight.

If there are more distinctions, please, do share.

[asleepathewheel]

downside to religions:

owner of holy city can
1) see what's in cities with that religion and the near area
2) build the shrine and make 1 gold per city that has that religion.

and

3) adds tensions to diplomacy.


Ownership of a shrine or two can really change your strategies in the game. Sometimes if I have one, I'll devote one decent city to putting out missionaries to spread the good word to get more gpt. I don't want that to be the case for the ai. If I either don't found a relgion or found a late one, then each city will in effect be making money for another civ. Tithings. Bah!

And if you don't think that's significant gold, then you really havent' pushed your civ to the limits. Holy shrines have saved my butt more than once.

[Skanky Burns]

On the other hand, you get +1 culture and +1 happiness for each religion in your city if you build that temple, plus if you actually founded the religions in question you get all that extra tithing too. That downside is really related to founding the religion.

You have opportunity costs associated with religions. Building missionaries and temples cost money, and missionaries can fail if the target city already has another religion.

[astreeter]

owner of holy city can
1) see what's in cities with that religion and the near area

I've discovered a small bug in this: if my civilization founds two religions and so has two holy cities, this intelligence bonus seems to only apply to the first religion founded.

[Sgt_Serge]

Re: Suggestion: Downside to Religious Diversity

Originally posted by Martinus
This is both imbalanced, imo, and unhistorical - throughout most of history religious differences were the source of constant strife rather than happiness - people of Jerusalem were not more happy because their city could hold a mosque, a church and a synagogue - they were more restless because of that fact.

1. I agree that historically in areas where religions clashed... things were messy.
2. Still, I would argue, that religious diversity IS a driver for happiness, simply because one size doesn't fit all. Different people live different lives and find wisdom in different places, and would be unhappy if their beliefs mustn't be exercised. Just look at the old USSR where religion was forbidden - or how much this affected the Polish Revolution in the 80's.
3. Therefore until a given point - say development of free religion, cities with more than 2 or 3 religions - or better: cities with both monotheistic/one-god religions and polytheistic/many-gods religions, should have reduced happiness or the risk of religious clashes which might take the form of impromptu strikes/riots.

AND, what I'm really missing is the esoteric movement...

[Amarsir]

Originally posted by astreeter
I've discovered a small bug in this: if my civilization founds two religions and so has two holy cities, this intelligence bonus seems to only apply to the first religion founded.

Well I'm no expert but I believe you have to have founded it and have it as your state religion. I think if you switch over you'll instantly see the cities for the 2nd (but lose LoS for the first, obviously). Eventually if you go Free with no state religion, you'll see none of it.

Different people live different lives and find wisdom in different places, and would be unhappy if their beliefs mustn't be exercised. Just look at the old USSR where religion was forbidden - or how much this affected the Polish Revolution in the 80's.

Sgt_Serge, I would counter that what you're describing is a governing choice, where people want to practice a religion but the state discourages it. Thus the penalties should be inherent in the civic. Not having the religion simply means people there regard it as a nonsense cult, or even that they never heard of it. I don't think you can make the case that everyone freely believing the same religion is more unstable than half one and half another.

I just finished up a very enjoyable cultural victory on the back of having discovered 4 religions (and imported a 5th one). So clearly I enjoyed the status-quo. However, I have to admit that logically the addition of other religions to a city doesn't make sense on the happy face scale.

Suppose my city has one religion. I build a temple, and now everyone is happy because they have a place to pray. Skip ahead, a second religion caught on and I build a second temple. Why should this cause twice as much happiness? Is the theory that everyone in town believes both religions and prays at 2 different temples every week?

Clearly, the realistic case is that some believe one, some the other. So with 2 temples, everyone is happy they have some place to go, but no more than when they only wanted one. So yes, I think it makes perfect sense to add to the unhappy count for each 2nd religion.

However, that needs to be balanced out. There should be a way to purge it, rather than just building a temple to counter. Also, I wouldn't mind a change in the way religions spread. Seems they pop up randomly on the map at a pretty slow speed, slowing as the number of cities without dwindles. I figure spread should be tied both to proximity and count of others that believe it.

Think of an expanding perimeter with diminishing magnitude around each city based on population (perhaps divided by # of religions), much like culture but larger and not visible. Any town touched by a ring would add that to an invisible total, and over a certain magnitude - ding! - the religion catches on there. And the mag can be higher if they already have religion themselves, thus it will grow faster in early days but later might require several large cities nearby before it catches on. (And of course missionaries are unchanged.)

The other problem is, if the spread becomes easier, the value of the cash from the holy building becomes unbalanced. I'm not entirely sure that it isn't too strong already, and suspect that only the sheer number of religions keeps each one in check. Perhaps only give gold for the number of those temples that exist in the world. This would again give some civs reason to prefer purging a foreign religion as opposed to countering unhappiness with a temple.

Anyway, I think you're right on, there isn't enough drawback to multiples. Moreover, it seems the whole religion system needs a little tweaking. At least that's how it looks to me at the moment.

[Sgt_Serge]

Originally posted by Amarsir

Sgt_Serge, I would counter that what you're describing is a governing choice, where people want to practice a religion but the state discourages it. Thus the penalties should be inherent in the civic. Not having the religion simply means people there regard it as a nonsense cult, or even that they never heard of it. I don't think you can make the case that everyone freely believing the same religion is more unstable than half one and half another.

Just a few thoughts:
1. Maybe I wrote it with unnecessary complexity - being non-native that happens sometimes, my apologies, I actually didn't suggest that having a sole religion is unstable but that having people who cannot or must not exercise their beliefs would make them unhappy. If they just don't feel "at home" in the one religion available...
2. In CIV 4 we're talking about STATE Religion and I would guess most of us have never experienced that. STATE religion means all other belief systems are discouraged, sometimes stronger (e.g. torture), sometimes not so strong (e.g. tax breaks). But in effect that means that all children get religious education in the state religion, you have to marry according to a mix of religious and governmental rules and so on.
2.1 Regarding a different religion as a nonsense cult describes already a very open mindset, so in the "Free Religion" civic that would be the idea. In a Theocracy, where society is heavily defined by religious status, this idea doesn't come up. Torture and death sentences would rather fit there... in CIV 4 that would mean unhappy faces, I think.


2.2 Generally I think you are right... it is more inherent to a governmental civic than to a religious one. Just in these cases where we are talking Theocracy and similar systems we have to look into interdependencies. Maybe Theocracy - to stick to that example - shouldn't be combine-able with Democracy?


I'm sure the designers were aware how much discussion the introduction of religion would cause...