I don't feel the game...

[Cort Haus]

Izzie doesn't grab Buddhism by chance, Handel. She's Crusader-Girl, starts with Mysticism, and heads for the cheapest Religious tech. I'd say most likely chance of beating her comes from the Incas, who also start with Mysticism, but have Financial which, with the right commerce tile available at the start could get to Buddhism first.

[Handel]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Izzie doesn't grab Buddhism by chance, Handel.

I do know this. I tell by "chance" she is always in my games. And is always next to my Qin. By very random chance, of course. And by the same very very random chance is together with Caesar. And by the same very very very random chance is always with Tupac. So there is no randomization at all - who will start depends on the starting conditions, not by chance.

Can someoen explain what this means"
{iAIWorkRateModifier}20{/iAIWorkRateModifier}

And what exactly is "unit supply"? I guess the last may be in the manual, but I couldn't find it.

[Common Sensei]

I was actually pondering one day how benefits of certain religions could be in an optional mod. I was mostly thinking of civics.

Things I came up with:
Pacifism: only with Buddhism
Caste System: only with Hinduism
Theocracy: only with Christianity or Islam

I couldn't come up with a civic to try to "historically" tie in with every religion so I abandoned the train of thought.

[Tiberius]

Unless I'm mistaken, unit supply is the amount of gold you pay when your units are on foreign land. Haven't you noticed that your empire is suddenly running into red as soon as you send a big stack in enemy territory ?

[John-SJ]

Sensei (love your name btw),
That's a great idea! If civics could be come up with for the other religions that would make a really interesting mod, especially if leaders could have "preferred religions" as well. That would be a huge step forward from the bland and faceless system in place now!

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


I know, but we've had that argument over-and-over before on previous threads.

So what should we have?

Islam : a special terrorist unit
Christianity : an Inquisitor UU that tortures non-believers as witches.
Judaism : 'Zionist Conspiracy' National Wonder

etc ...

Yeah, that should get a few hackles up!

Europa Universalis 2 managed to have various bonuses to different religions without upsetting too many people...Catholics had more missionaries, Protestants could build more settlers, I forgot what bonus the Muslims got, but they had one too.

I'd like to see something modded in to the religion system. They also need to re-order the religions because it's ridiculous that Buddhism is usually the first religion to be researched when in reality it's a much younger religion than Hinduism and Judaism. I think Judaism and Buddhism need to switch places.

[Common Sensei]

Originally posted by John-SJ
Sensei (love your name btw),
That's a great idea! If civics could be come up with for the other religions that would make a really interesting mod, especially if leaders could have "preferred religions" as well. That would be a huge step forward from the bland and faceless system in place now!

Thanks for the compliment on the user name.

Revisiting the idea, perhaps instead of exclusivity, we could have either upkeep reduction or a bonus to the effects given.

Along these lines we could have:

Pacifism: 150% Great Person rate bonus with Buddhism or Taoism

Caste System: No upkeep with Hinduism

Theocracy: +2 XP and Low upkeep with Christianity, +3 XP and Medium upkeep with Islam

Organized Religion: Medium upkeep with Judaism

Bureaucracy: No upkeep with Confucianism

Taoism is difficult to place for me, though.

[HavenDuuk]

I would have preferred that if they were going to make religions bland and vanilla (a choice I fully agree with!) to make the religions have generic names.

"Introspection", "Pantheonism", "Monotheism", "Redemptionism", "Submissionism", etc

Or... better still. Have each civ have it's own "unique" religion (Catholic, flavors of protestant, judaism, sunni, shiite, etc) and have certain techs flagged as "founds civ religion".

Perhaps then have the bonuses for the religion tied to which tech caused their discovery?

IE: Meditation gives a certain bonus, so if Isabella founds Catholicism with meditation, it receives that bonus, but if she somehow doesn't manage to found it until divine right it has THAT bonus, etc.

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru


Europa Universalis 2 managed to have various bonuses to different religions without upsetting too many people...Catholics had more missionaries, Protestants could build more settlers, I forgot what bonus the Muslims got, but they had one too.

I'd like to see something modded in to the religion system. They also need to re-order the religions because it's ridiculous that Buddhism is usually the first religion to be researched when in reality it's a much younger religion than Hinduism and Judaism. I think Judaism and Buddhism need to switch places.

I think that EU2 was able to get away with having semi-realistic religious bonuses in gamelplay partially because it was a much lower profile game that appealed to a narrower audience of history nuts (like myself). The Civilization franchise is one of the most popular in the PC gaming world, and more casual gamers and the general public have at least heard of it, as is shown by its sales and the level of hype about the game. Therefore, the developers of Civ4 unfortunately have to cater to the Politically Correct morons more than Paradox did.

Also, IIRC, I think that EU2 was released before 9/11 and the people were not so hyper-sensitive about religion and offending certain easily-offendable people back then.

I wonder if it is possible to "Mod" the religion engine to make the different religions have separate bonuses, UU's, buildings that have different bonuses etc. The fact that the cathedrals of the various religions use different materials (stone, copper, marble, etc) might hint that at least they could be modded further.

[Cort Haus]

Common Sensei, that system looks harmless enough, but would it go far enough for those that seek religious 'realism'? I read of people asking that certain civs should never be other than their historical religion. This is like saying that only Egyptians can build the Pyramids in the game.

Fair enough if other games have implemented different religious effects without getting assasinated by zealots.

[Common Sensei]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Common Sensei, that system looks harmless enough, but would it go far enough for those that seek religious 'realism'? I read of people asking that certain civs should never be other than their historical religion. This is like saying that only Egyptians can build the Pyramids in the game.

Fair enough if other games have implemented different religious effects without getting assasinated by zealots.

I'm not at all a fan of Civilization being overly chained to history. I find the possibilities of Taoist Spain, Confucian America, and Christian Inca entertaining. I find it amusing when India completes (B)Hollywood and England completes Rock 'n Roll in Liverpool.

Binding the Civilization series to historical events are what scenarios are for, in my opinion. To overly bind the main game to history is to put it on rails.

[John-SJ]

Cort Haus,

Make no mistake, I do not think that complete religios realism would be a good idea for any number of reasons, though some degree of 'realism' I feel is a good thing.

I think it is kind of a shame that Firaxis went to the trouble of adding religion to the game, game each religion an easily recognisable and identifiable name, and then left it totally faceless and without character.

What Common Sensei propoese is a good compromise, IMO. Full realism may be offensive to some, and likely not all that fun. But having some kind of differentiation, some reason to want Christianity over Taoism (or the other way around under a different circumstance) is a good thing that could add its own level of depth to the game. As it is now though (as far as I can tell) the only reason to want one religion over another is that it is unlocked by an earlier (or later) tech.

The way religion is handled now, they could just remove it altogether and enhance the cultural system so that your culture has the same benefits as religion currently does and can be spread in similar ways, perhaps.

[Handel]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Common Sensei, that system looks harmless enough, but would it go far enough for those that seek religious 'realism'? I read of people asking that certain civs should never be other than their historical religion. This is like saying that only Egyptians can build the Pyramids in the game.

Actually it seems quite logical the Egyptians to have serious bonus when building the Pyramids etc.

[John-SJ]

Hmmm, now there is an interesting twist to wonders, what do you think of this?

Anyone can build the Pyramids, but the Egyptions get a unique bonus for doing so. Anyone can build Hollywood, but the Americans get a special bonus for doing so.

Of course, for this to work, each civ would need a bonus wonder assigned, but it might be interesting.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Handel


Actually it seems quite logical the Egyptians to have serious bonus when building the Pyramids etc.

But if a civ or religion has a benefit on a wonder, other civs must have a balancing benefit, and not all civs may have a Unique Wonder or their own religion. It's why gameplay has to trump realism.