Some religions founded too late?

[WTBCzero]

As I'm sure you noticed, the early religions tend to dominate the game since they are founded far earlier than the later religions.
Usually, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism will be founded before 3000BC, while Confucianism tends to be founded in the BC period. So far, all good: these religions come early enough to be a significant force in the game, and they are not too far off the actual date they were founded in real life (Though I'm no expert).

The trouble comes with Taoism, Christianity and Islam. These typically get founded late in the game: Taoism and Christianity are often founded after 500AD, while Islam is often not founded until 1200 or 1300. Obviously, a human could beeline to them and grab them early, but if they don't, the AIs tend to found them very late. Not only are they founded far from their actual founding dates, but it also makes these religions less useful, since the early religions will have spread far and been widely adopted by then.

Now, the cause of this seems to be the placement of these late religion founding techs on the tech tree and the cost of these techs. Philosophy, for instance, costs a steep 1200 beakers, and you either have to approach through drama or Code of Laws. It's pretty difficult to easily grab this tech in the BC period unless you use the oracle or lightbulb it (which only human players tend to do), due to the huge tech cost.
The same idea also applies to Theology and Divine Right- Divine Right costs 1500 beakers, making it a rather expensive tech for what it does.

So, possible solutions:

(1) allow Philosophy to be researched once you have Aesthetics, so you don't need to research through drama.

(2) Reduce Philosophy's tech cost. I'm not sure what cost would be good for game balance, so I'll offer 700 beakers as a base debating point.

(3) Reduce theology's tech cost. Since this tech enables Theocracy, I'm not sure what tech cost would be suitable for game balance.

(4) Reduce Divine Right's tech cost (to say, 1000 beakers) and remove the requirement to have theology before this tech can be researched (so it would require only Monarchy).





So, thoughts? Are my ideas sensible from a game play point of view, or am I just making a big fuss over nothing?

[Dinner]

Islam usually is founded much later then the real life historical date. I normally play no tech trading games though.

The idea of removing the theology requirement might be a good one. It isn't like the pre-Islamic Arab world didn't have much theology beyond the basic multi-god pantheon which the ancient Greeks could have likely identified with.

[Will9]

In BTS there is an option that makes it so a religion isn't tied to a tech. Instead you pick the religion when you research one of the 7 techs that gives a religion.

[WTBCzero]

Yes, but the religions founded later still suffer the same problem, it's just that the religion in question is different.

[snoopy369]

I think philosophy is frequently researched early enough, there are many reasons to research it already (including Liberalism). Divine Right as far as I'm concerned is the "You didn't get a religion yet, but you really want one" tech - so it is appropriately placed later, and is somewhat expensive for what it is (because you're really paying for the religion itself, and if you're going for it you obviously really want a religion).

[joncnunn]

There is actually a world wonder attached to Divine Right as well. I think it's the one that acts like a second forbiden palace, so if you have a large enough empire might be worth it.

[Kloreep]

Yeah, Versailles requires Divine Right if you want to build it.

Thing is, as a world wonder, it stays if you conquer it...

[Gaius Octavius]

That never made sense to me. Why attach Divine Right to Versailles? Because of the "I am the state" remark? In that case, you'd expect Islam to be founded around 1200-1700, because that's closer to the historical development of divine right (in this sense) and the construction of Versailles. The pairing is just plain odd timewise.

What I'd prefer instead is to get rid of Islam being founded with divine right, or move the Versailles wonder back so as to allow the tech to come earlier (less importance = fewer beakers needed to research). Now, of course, a human can rush techs as quick as he wants, but the AI is less able to do this in a historical manner. I'm sure someone out there who hates us realism folk will provide examples to totally ruin my argument, but que sera sera.

[wodan11]

This issue seems to boil down (for me) to a question of second-guessing decisions of game design and balance vs. realism.

There's no question that the game could be made more "realistic" (in the sense of being more historically accurate) than it is now.

However, I personally would rather the game be changed to the exact opposite... to be be more abstract and less tied to how things really happened on Earth. On a new planet, with different cultures and different history, who knows what would happen in regard to development of religions and techs. Maybe a culture would develop with a cultural-blind-spot. You know, this really happened... in our history, there was a cultural blind spot against the scienific method. Thus, Earth developed pretty far along the humanities and literary "sciences" early, and didn't get much as far as physical sciences until much later. But, what if it was the other way around? Or what if a culture developed steam and pneumatic technologies, or biological technologies, or never developed computers?

As Civ is implemented right now, we can't answer these questions. We have to play along the same developmental lines as happened on Earth. I wish we could.

The second part of the issue is second-guessing game design. Frankly, when we do that we get into delicate matters of balance. Maybe during early development they had disassociated religions from techs, and made them all available early. Maybe there was some huge negative. Or, maybe there are other issues, that the designers discussed but never implemented. Who knows. The point is that this boils down to second-guessing. Sure, we can say "it might be nice" but we don't truly know the side effects or any other negatives yet, so we can't really make an informed decision that it is truly a good idea.

Wodan

[Saurus]

Originally posted by WTBCzero
Yes, but the religions founded later still suffer the same problem, it's just that the religion in question is different.

This is especially true on pangeas, were an early religion has the opportunity to spread like an wildfire everywhere early on.
Like in the game i played last night were every civ exept the Incas, had converted to hinduism by the time Confusianism was founded.

This in part also happened because Mehmed sent out several early missionairies (and then founded Judaism himself as to prevent anyone else to found it)
A smart move all in all.

In any case, there seem to be a slight problem in early religions spreading too quickly, and on one-land maps the problem becomes worse in that everyone is easily reachable.

[couerdelion]

Maybe it would make more sense for religions to be founded by Prophets instead.

Isn't that what they are supposed to do?

[Indalecio]

Originally posted by couerdelion
Maybe it would make more sense for religions to be founded by Prophets instead.

Isn't that what they are supposed to do?

I like this. Have the founding of religions tied to a great prophet. This way its not so cut and dry that either Buddhism or Hinduism get so widespread early on.

[wodan11]

If the Shrine is free (comes with founding), then that might work. OTOH if it takes two Great Prophets, then that's a bit much.

Wodan

[TimeTraveler]

One thing I've come to wonder is, what if some tech advances would be connected with multiple religions? But instead of the first discoverer getting both, it'd be where the first to discover founds one religion and the second to discover founds the other? For example, first to Monotheism founds Judaism and second to Monotheism founds... Zoroastrianism?

I guess the next issue is what would happen if there were a lot of religions in the game. I suppose we could include all sorts of classic or later examples like Sikhism, and the beliefs followed by the Ancient Egyptians, Persians, Meso-Americans, Greco-Romans, etc... Although I'm not sure if it'd make the religion section of the tech tree too overpowered or underpowered or what. And what could be done to balance that out (if not recalculate what a lot of this stuff can do).

I should probably mention that if founding a religion was to require getting a great prophet, it'd take a lot of work to found a religion at all. Unless monuments start increasing the great prophet rate a bit, or if there come available indigenous temples and whatnot, it'd take a wonder or Caste System for the first religion to be founded anywhere.

Or suppose each civ started with its own indigenous religion with which to build their own (slightly nerfed?) temples and monasteries? This may decrease the rate of the spread of global religions if only through decreased chances of missionary success...

Trying to balance all this out right may take a lot of work. o.O

[Kloreep]

It would be nice to see some more religions in the game. But under the current mechanics, I don't think it would be a good idea. Late founded religions are typically stunted as it is, more would probably just increase the number of religions that ended up largely irrelevant.