religion characteristics

[AshenPlanet]

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AshenPlanet, what are you refering to when you talk about this 9/10 religion adjustments?

That europa listing from one of the earlier posters.

I understand what you're saying.
I believe there would be better ways to add that depth than assigning different attributes to religions.
Saying that all followers of a religion have certain attributes is just not too bright.

For example:

They could make 4 (like the # of civics) or 7 different modifiers tied to a world wonder building or national wonder building.
You could have sermon on the mount, televangelism, orthodoxy, fanaticism, or even free love just as a few examples to choose from.
These things can be evident in every religion or not depending on what preacher you are listening to.
All religions are used by their preachers to further whatever cause they might be into which isn't relevant to the religion itself.

Prophets could make either one of those buildings or a shrine.
So, when you generated a prophet, you could choose to make your daoists othodox, or make your jews hippies, or anything else you might be shooting for.

There is even an added depth depending on whether these buildings were national wonders or world wonders.
If national wonders, once you make one of these buildings, the others are disabled and you're locked in (ie. if you made your confucianists televangelists, then you are televangelists even if you switch to islamic televangelists later).
If world wonders, then the first person to select free love is the only one with free love.

This could add another "race" to the game where the first one who can generate a prophet gets to be the only fanatics.
There are strategies that can be used to generate that first prophet before others to be able to cherry pick which flavor of sermons on the mount you wanted.

Another bit of added depth could be to tie the buildings to certain techs - have them be "unlocked" by a specific tech.
In this case, if you used the national wonder version, you would have a tough choice when you generated that first prophet.
Do you take that early attribute of fanaticism or sermon on the mount, or do you hold out for the more powerful televangelists down the road?

There you go - added depth of play without the insensitive insulting insufferable cornholing of attributes onto religions that can not be done with any accuracy.

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[Badtz Maru]

I like the idea of allowing founders of the religion to customize the religion, giving benefits (and disadvantages) to all cities that have that religion. You could make your religion one with lots of dietary restrictions and penalties, with one strong bonus that you build your strategy around, and make a religion that most other civilizations don't want and get unique benefits, or you could make a religion with great bonuses and few drawbacks, but the drawback to doing that would be other civilizations would adopt that religion for it's benefits, and you would have to share your bonuses.

This would allow very diverse religions without offending anyone, and it would reflect how religions are influenced by the cultures of those that adopt them without offending anyone because the religious differences are different every game - one game a player or AI might make Buddhism into a religion with big military bonuses but low stability, and the next game it could be a pacifistic religion with large science or culture bonuses. A player could try and make a religion mirror their idea of what that religion is supposed to be.

All those choices might be a bit complicated for a civ game, so an alternative would be to make the religions bonuses based on the strengths and weaknesses of the civilizations that follow it. As an example, if you founded Hinduism and your nation's greatest strength is your GNP, cities with Hinduism would get a bonus to their commerce. If your neighbor has the largest army and founds Judaism, then cities with Judaism would produce more experienced units. These could shift slowly over time...perhaps every time the founder of a religion advances an age, it recalculates what that religion's strengths are. This might also be effected by other civilizations that did not found the religion but did have it as their state religion, so someone who founded a religion might "lose control" over it's bonuses - you might found a religion but if it becomes the state religion of a much larger civilization, that civilization's traits will effect it's bonuses next time the founder advances to the next age. For a real world example, see how the nature of Christianity changed after it was adoped by western European culture, or how Buddhism changed from being an Indian religion to a far-eastern one.

[padillah]

In defference to Badtz Maru 's suggestion: have a list of pros and cons and when you discover your religion you get to pick the pros and cons you want.

Maybe a list of one pro and one con; or a pre-paired list of pros and cons; or a point system where a "pro" costs 10 points so you must pick 10 points worth of "cons", that could be one 10 point "con" or two 5 point "cons". Same for "pros" so long as the points match.

Question would choosing a "pro" (or "pro/con" pair) remove it from the list?

I'd like to say "yes". This would ensure uniqueness for each religion and give a little more incentive to discover an early religion. Now you are not just putting off the inevitable you are declining a bonus too.

Decidedly adds an order of magnatude to the complexity but it does solve a few problems.

Tom P.

[drsparnum]

I like your idea Ashen Planet and I think something like that would enhance the game. It certainly has a basis in reality. It would even give a purpose to some of those late game prophets I'm just not sure what to do with. If something like that were done, I think it should be hardcoded into the religon. What I mean is, if you found budhism and make it fanatical then any other civ that chooses to adopt buddhism as a state religion must accept that they will also be fanatical. I think the modifiers granted should be a net bonus, but there should be an upside and a downside (for example, fanatical might give an additional -1 relations to all civs not sharing that religion but give +3XP to all melee units or allow an improved promotion options, like +15% STR instead of +10% STR).

The only problem I can see with making the religous traits automatically connected to some component of the civ that founds them is that it will reduce variability and strategy. It will reduce variability because *usually* a religion is founded by a civ with high GNP and not by civs with the biggest army. So you create a bias in the system, since only high GNP civs can get the tech first. Also by making the trait a by product of some characteristic of the civ that founds it you reduce player control. If you let the player choose you increase the strategic options. For example, the civ that founds christianity may be number 1 in tech. However, they might want to do a strategy where they choose fanatical and then switch to a huge troop upgrade and army building. The new Sistine Chapel slingshot? I can think of a few things that religion could modify that Padillah suggested, and I'm sure other people can think of better ones, but for starters (some of these are already in the game in one way or another):

Reduced war weariness (as long as the opposing civ doesn't have the same religion).
Increased happiness.
Decreased anarchy.
Decreased unhappiness from slavery pop rush.
Increased population growth.
Increased health.
Increased specialist production.
Increased unit experience.
Increased unit production.
Bypassing a rescource requirement.
Decreased unit supply costs.

Just two more points. I think if you add alot of backdoor religion bonuses like this you might want to increase the science bonus granted by free religion. Second, I just gotta say one more time - if it weren't for the risk of offending people, I think that the relgions would already have game modifying traits by one system or another.