Islam is not a medieval invention!

[Strategist83]

Seems they got all the religions right save for islam. In the real world, Muhammed has his revelations around 632 AD. Why does the game not reflect this? Instead, a massive research cost means this religion rarely shows up before 1000 AD. At least this has been my experience - even when beelining for it.

Christianity is oftentime a bit on the late side too, but islam is just plain wrong. Move it up to the classical age where it belongs, please!

PS: Don't give me the "this is no history simulator" song. This game IS a history simulator! And besides, all the other religions are about right. Why shouldn't islam be?

[conmcb25]

Is it really that important?

[Locutus]

me·di·e·val also me·di·ae·val
adj. also Medieval

1. Relating or belonging to the Middle Ages.
2. Informal. Old-fashioned; unenlightened: parents with a medieval attitude toward dating.

Middle Ages
pl.n.

The period in European history between antiquity and the Renaissance, often dated from A.D. 476 to 1453.


Sounds medieval to me...

all the other religions are about right

Yes, because Buddhism isn't really countless centuries younger than Hinduism, and Taoism and Confucianism are really contemporary with Christianity.

In terms of techs, Islam comes right after Christianity, I don't see how you could place it earlier. In terms of timeline, it really depends on so many factors: map properties, starting location, number and closeness of civs, playing style, game speed, etc. I've seen people win Spaceship in the 1600s, if you can do that, you can pick up Islam in 600 AD as well if you want to.

The reason why it usually doesn't happen is problably because Divine Right is not a very interesting tech. It's not required for anything and all it gives beside Islam (but at that point who needs another religion?) is a few mediocre wonders. Not exactly something to rush for...

[Willem]

Originally posted by Strategist83
PS: Don't give me the "this is no history simulator" song. This game IS a history simulator! And besides, all the other religions are about right. Why shouldn't islam be?

Not according to Soren Johnson:

Our use of history was largely as setting - the game is not intended to be an accurate historical simulation.

Incidently, Buddhism isn't right either. It's an offshoot of Hinduism so it should appear afterwards, not before.

[monolith94]

Yeah, the religion start dates are so off its obscene. But eh, doesn't matter.

One nifty trick is to beeline for divine right and snatch it with the oracle.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by monolith94
Yeah, the religion start dates are so off its obscene. But eh, doesn't matter.

One nifty trick is to beeline for divine right and snatch it with the oracle.

I'd be surprised if anyone could pull that off on a difficulty level higher than Chieftan.

[Son of David]

Well consider this. Homer is said to have lived sometime around the late 7th century BC. In Civ4 that means you need to research Music by the 600s BC to reflect 'reality'. In ancient Greece, India and elsewhere Philosophy had also been well and truly invented by 500BC. Elephants appeared in India for warfare purposes around this time. The Pyramids by the way were constructed in 3600BC.

Now try and reflect this in your civ game. Build the Pyramids in your first thousand years, and get Philosophy, Music, and Construction by 400BC at the latest. Do all this, and survive the barbarian attacks, attacks from other civs, expand your empire, etc.

Well, it worked in real life but it isn't ever going to happen in Civ4!

[Qwertqwert]

I'm in the middle of a game where Islam was founded in 375 A.D. So maybe it's just you who get's it too late.

[Urban Ranger]

Most of the time Islam won't be founded in the "right" city, either.

What's the big deal?

[Badtz Maru]

I think the religion system as it's in the game is fine, but there are a few changes that I'd like to see done to it.

The biggest problem is Meditation. If it is to be the earliest religion in the tech tree, it needs to be assigned a different religion than Buddhism, if it's to have a religion assigned at all. Buddhism started around 500 years before Christianity, yet it's almost always obtained well before Judaism and even Hinduism, and is a pre-requisite for a tech that leads to a religion from the same relative time-frame (Taoism). I also think that Monasteries should not be introduced with such an early tech, Priesthood should be a prerequisite for whatever technology leads to monasteries and missionaries.

How would I change this? Put Monotheism in Polytheism's place, and Polytheism in Meditation's place. Place Meditation further down, perhaps after Priesthood, and have it unlock Buddhism.

Not sure what would be put in the place that is held by Monotheism now, because that combination of pre-requisites has always seemed odd to me. Perhaps some form of polytheism that promotes the emperor (or pharoah, or whatever) to godhood...examples being Shinto, the Egyptian beliefs, particularly Akhenaten's, and the Roman polytheism.

This leads to another issue...some of the religious techs are so poorly represented by one particular religion that there should be some alternative way of handling it. I think if you get Polytheism first, your religion should be chosen from one of the many polytheistic religions that existed in ancient times, based on your civilization choice...pretty easy for Egypt, Arabia, China, Japan, and most other civilizations. It's harder with monotheism and some of the later religions, so maybe it's not worth it to do a half-assed change, but I think a lot more detail could be added to religion. And, as mentioned earlier, there are mods doing this already.

One thing I think would be interesting would be faith-based religious restrictions, as these would be one of the least offensive ways to give variety to the faiths while tying them to their real-world equivalents. I don't think any Jew or Moslem would be offended if the game didn't allow exclusively Jewish cities to gain a health benefit from Pigs, or Hindus not getting the full benefit of Cows? This would handicap some of the religions in unbalanced ways, but it might be a way to make the newer religions more appealing in gameplay - in most of my games, most of the world is one of the first three religions, with the occasional Confucian or Christian rebel. If I started looking longingly at a bunch of pigs, clams, and crabs in my borders with my Jewish nation, I might try and get another religion. Hmm...maybe not that great an idea after all, heh.

[Locutus]

I agree that it's a bit of a pity that the game is always dominated by the same religions. Different things were tried to remedy this during the development of the game but nothing really worked (without breaking something else), so they just settled on giving a free Great Prophet to Islam to give them a chance to catch up. Not really the greatest solution of course.

The best way to fix it is probably by moving the place of religions on the tech tree. Make sure everything is available earlier (even if that goes at the expense of historical accuracy) and I would also like to see the creation of different tracks, to make it harder to pick up all religions (as it is it's quite easy to pick up 5 or 6 religions in one game if you try -- only Buddhism+Hinduism is a real challenge).

I can see moving Meditation away from the early game, it doesn't really make sense there. I'd indeed move it after Priesthood and allow the research of Priesthood directly from Mysticism as well as adding Taoism to it. I'd also give Alphabet Meditation as requirement and add Confucianism there. That way you have a distinct track Mysticism > Priesthood > Meditation > Alphabet that has 3 religions. A second track already exists: Mysticism > Polytheism > Monotheism > Theology with also 3 religions. Would have to rebalance some things though as the first track is cheaper and gives all religious buildings to boot (move temple to Polytheism?) Finally I'd add a completely different alternative so players not specifically following a religious track can still pick up a religion, by adding Islam to maybe Currency or similar. Make it so that someone beelining for Islam could get there faster than someone beelining to Christianity or Confucianism, but not as fast as the four other religions. With these changes you could depending on the map and other circumstances easily see 4 or 5 different religions being important, on maps with lots of civs or limited contact even all 7.

[RevMunky]

The Pyramids by the way were constructed in 3600BC.

Uhm i assume this is a typo, because Egypt wasnt even unified before 3000BC. So building piramides is out of the question at 3600BC. If ya ment 2600 BC then your a bit closer to the right time though (depending if you mean the first Step Piramide or the Piramide everyone in the world sees as the worldwonder... those differ about 100 years)

Oh and btw it doesnt work to compare the Civ4 timeline with the real one because the game starts at 4000BC.. but alot of the civs didnt even exists back then or like the Near Eastern civs where already more advanced then what you start the game with (invent hunting/fishing/pottery at 4000BC ?!) So cant use Civ4 research techs and compare em to the timetable of real life discoveries

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by RevMunky
Uhm i assume this is a typo, because Egypt wasnt even unified before 3000BC. So building piramides is out of the question at 3600BC. If ya ment 2600 BC then your a bit closer to the right time though (depending if you mean the first Step Piramide or the Piramide everyone in the world sees as the worldwonder... those differ about 100 years)

Nah. You're talking about the Great Pyramids of Giza, but surely pyramids had been built long before that.

[RevMunky]

The first pyramid (previous version before the one you see in CIV4) is the Step Pyramid from Djoser... 3rd dynasty... The Gizeh pyramids are from the 4th dynasty. Before the 3rd dynasty the structures arent pyramids but mastabas (not the same) and like i said.. before about 3000BC Egypt wasnt unified into 1 big land with 1 king.. so pyramids werent build at 3600 BC

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Nah. You're talking about the Great Pyramids of Giza, but surely pyramids had been built long before that.

No, not really. As he said, only for about a century.