The State Atheism Civic

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Theben
You can use state property + free religion to effectively mimic this idea. I know it's not "free religion" but the result is about the same.

If you mean effect wise. Not my effects.


If you mean realism wise... Isn't theocracy more or less Police state+ Organised religion? Isn't free speech+ emancipation more or less a democracy? Ect.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Fleme
Atheism (religious civic)
Available at Fascism

-Religions have no effect (meaning exemption from AP votes and everything religious buildings give). No state religion. Religions can spread to your cities and opponents Shrines gain revenue from your cities with their religion in it. You cannot construct religious buildings.
+10% from Library, University (Representing the populace spending time with the logical instead of the divine)
+10% from Market, Bank (Representing the allocated revenue that citizens have when they are exempt from paying taxes to their churches etc.)
+10% from Forge, Factory (No more religious holidays means more days spent at the manufacturing line)
+1 , +10% from Colosseum, Theatre, Broadcast Tower (People spend time with other forms of passtime and entertainment and these are developed further)

I think this would be a good reflection of an Atheist state. I would consider these bonuses to be accurate since when you compare a thoroughly religious nation and compare it with one that has no religion practiced or recognized it's logical to see that the citizens would be more inclined to spend their time in libraries, allocate their spending, have lesser religious holidays and find their happiness elsewhere and also spend more time in Theatres and Arenas as a consequence. The masses of the people will always need something to keep themselves preoccupied whether it be religion or other means of entertainment and/or culture.

Now some of these effects are logical others less so. In any case they more or less do what other civics do already. State Atheism must do something different or people won't use it.

[Fleme]

Meh, I know it's a bit artificial but some of them are to make up for the loss of religion entirely and other bonuses are there to make the Civic atleast somewhat desirable to use.

There would still be a number of situations where you'd be better off with another civic, for example running Pacifism and having 2-3 religions beyond the one you are running as State Religion present and having a Shrine and possibly gain the bonus production that you get from the AP.

I mean, when I play a religious game it's not at all rare for my Temples alone to be producing 1 , 7 , 2 , 2+1 , +2 along with the fact that I'll still have access to Monasteries and Cathedrals whose bonuses will outdo even those of the Temple. Also, +100% GPP. Basically this way you can have good cities just by having 2 religious structures in them and I think if there was to be an Atheism Civic it would need to come somewhere close to this, through different means.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Fleme
Meh, I know it's a bit artificial but some of them are to make up for the loss of religion entirely and other bonuses are there to make the Civic atleast somewhat desirable to use.

There would still be a number of situations where you'd be better off with another civic, for example running Pacifism and having 2-3 religions beyond the one you are running as State Religion present and having a Shrine and possibly gain the bonus production that you get from the AP.

I mean, when I play a religious game it's not at all rare for my Temples alone to be producing 1 , 7 , 2 , 2+1 , +2 along with the fact that I'll still have access to Monasteries and Cathedrals whose bonuses will outdo even those of the Temple. Also, +100% GPP. Basically this way you can have good cities just by having 2 religious structures in them and I think if there was to be an Atheism Civic it would need to come somewhere close to this, through different means.

I see what you mean. But don't foreget State Atheism is a late game civic, it will be neable by either Communism or Faschism. By then the Spiral Minaret, the AP and the University of Sankore are either obsolete or are soon going to be. Also don't forget you need wonders to get taht effect, State Ateism needs not match what religious wonders give. Also under my model you still get cluture from temples.



Now, I'd first like to point out that my proposition matches the gold you get from having a state religion. In fact you get money from any religion, one per religion per city, all concentrated in the "modern shrine" of Wall Street where you get a 50% bonus on top of it. Not only that other civs get nada from your cities.





Also Free religon is more than a match for any religious civc
and you only get a 10% bonus and happines. I imagine State Atheism working in sinc with natioonhood for a spymaster combo. At the same time it could be an excellent war civic, like Theology. I mean we have two different "war civics" in the Legal slot, why not have two religius ones. It would be uberpowerfull if you were to find a need to invade the founder of your religion or if you wanted to weaken him. It would also give you a bit of gold.


And if you still think its underpeowered, how about the suggestion of free GP! That is almost equivalent to running pacifism in the GP farm city...

[Heraclitus]

But come to think of it It may be wiser to keep the innate culure of chatedrals as well, merley stripping them of their 50% bonus.

[snoopy369]

Hera's is useless as nobody would use it late-game (Free Religion is clearly superior); Fleme's is far overpowered (it is free religion but with significant increases without an equivalent decrease). Dropping off a few happy faces, maybe, versus a 20% increase in your overall economy compared to a 10% increase in tech only?? I'd choose the former every time, and in many instances the happy faces would be moot or even in the advantage of Atheism.

[Fleme]

Well sure, you could alternatively go for strictly the research bonus and add a +10% EP output for Courthouses but when you think of Atheism as a philosophy, there's nothing relating to espionage in it. If anything, I'd think that the church would be more involved in espionage than those who don't believe in a deity (atleast the church used to have their eyes on everything, probably not so much nowadays)

Anyways, I'd like to think that the main benefit from being Atheist would be that citizens become more philosophically inclined since they rather understand things than believe in them. Furthermore, I would also like to think that if there had been no Christianity in Europe in the Middle Ages, we'd probably be living on the moon already because everything new was frowned upon whereas those who believe in logic would not have that weakness. True enough, the Middle-East and China were ahead of development during those times and eventhough both areas were just as religious as Europe, it was not an oppressive religion and the chinese "religion" was more of a philosophy back then already. I'm digressing here, but the point I'm trying to make is that the core beneift should be to gain a research boost making Atheism stand out and outdo a couple of Monasteries or Free Religion and along with it some secondary bonuses which fit the whole theme of logic and reason rather than beliefs.

Now, giving a boost to espionage is all good and if you were to implement it, I'd suggest you do it like this:

Atheism (Religious Civic)
Requires Fascism

Religion has no effect
+15% from Library, University
+3 espionage points per specialist
1 Free Spy in 5 largest cities (number of cities varies on map size)
+1 Happiness from Theatre, Colosseum, Broadcast Tower

Rationale here being that I really am rooting for logic and reason over beliefs and would like to think that if there was no religion enforced by state, the citizens would look into improving their own knowledge of the world and as a result produce innovations. The bonus should not be innate but rather come from the improvements. Secondly, with the state now being free from religion it would have the resources to set investigators in major cities and also keep an eye on specialists or alternatively have said specialists working for the state security. I can see a Scientist producing a little espionage on the side. The happiness bonus is, in my opinion, a must because when you lose the happiness from having a religion, a temple and a cathedral or alternatively having more than one religion in a city which can really cover a lot of unrest, there has to be something to make that up.

[Heraclitus]

The positive effects of a large atheist population do not come by having the state force atheism upon everyone.

If I may clear something up, Free Religion is the same thing as freedom from religion. While state atheism can be rigid as all atheist states thus far have had a strong unqestionable ideology behind them.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Hera's is useless as nobody would use it late-game (Free Religion is clearly superior)

I've changed it so that you now get free at the city which has Oxford University for every S and E. I also took one of Flemes suggestion but added a scientist to the mix.

Now before answering me think for a second just how powerfull esiponage would be, how much income and free reachearch would bring before claiming its inferior to Free Religion.

Rember:
Spys can steal tech too

Think of the crazy sinergy of running SA together with B, while having Wall Street and Oxford university in your capital.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
The positive effects of a large atheist population do not come by having the state force atheism upon everyone.

If I may clear something up, Free Religion is the same thing as freedom from religion. While state atheism can be rigid as all atheist states thus far have had a strong unqestionable ideology behind them.

I have to agree.

[snoopy369]

If you want to play Civ as an RPG, then this is perhaps useful. As a strategy game, however, even with those additions it's not very useful. Compare its effects to other civics...

The cathedral bonus is not useful because it's just replacing one very powerful bonus with a perhaps as powerful one. Cathedral exists pretty much for two purposes: Happiness, and Culture victory. Not too many civs have that many cathedrals except for those going for culture victory, and S.A. comes too late to encourage you to really build that many more in non-CV games. Plus now they give UNHAPPINESS which is the opposite of the reason they were built in the first place.

Free Religion gives you +10% TOTAL science. In a SE, that's .6 beakers per specialist already, PLUS the research percentage; that will outweigh those bonuses you give most of the time. Plus, the happiness bonus, which is +1H per religion per city. +1H is almost certainly worth more than +1GPT, as in any city near its happy cap (and many should be at this point), +1H means +1 worker which means +2 food, +1 hammer, +2 commerce on average perhaps - way more than +1GP (or even +3GP if you get to multiply them).

The bonus specialists are basically worthless at this point as a percentage since they're not for EVERY city but just for five.

[snoopy369]

Fleme - you still are overpowered, and it's not really that interesting of a civic as opposed to Free Religion.

Any new civic needs to be:
1. Unique - There must be a reasonably common strategy where this civic is more useful than all others.
2. Balanced - It must give approximately the same level of bonus as all other civics. (Not precisely, but same ballpark.)
3. Limited - It must only affect a relatively small segment of the game, to limit the side effects (effects on other elements of game balance).

Yours fails all three pretty much... it's far too similar to Free Religion (dump religious bonus, but a bit more thoroughly [if you're still ignoring temple happy bonus, that's not clear]; give more bonus to research; give some happiness; only major difference is the +3 esp points, as the free specialists are a very minor effect); it's far too powerful (gives similar happy bonus to F.R., gives significantly higher bonus to research, AND gives the specialist espionage bonus); and it is too far-reaching (affects science AND specialists AND happiness), though it's not that bad in this regard (some game civics are as bad, although not many).

You're too steeped in 'realism' here. Civics ARE NOT REALISTIC and the model for them only needs to be realistic enough to sell it to others. Saying "What affect would state atheism have on the populace?" is not the way to get a civic, except in an RPG version of civ. Instead, you need to say, "What interesting effects are there that would make a well-balanced, unique, limited civic" and then figure out which of those possibilities could theoretically map to State Atheism.

[/game design lecture ]

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Free Religion gives you +10% TOTAL science. In a SE, that's .6 beakers per specialist already, PLUS the research percentage; that will outweigh those bonuses you give most of the time. Plus, the happiness bonus, which is +1H per religion per city. +1H is almost certainly worth more than +1GPT, as in any city near its happy cap (and many should be at this point), +1H means +1 worker which means +2 food, +1 hammer, +2 commerce on average perhaps - way more than +1GP (or even +3GP if you get to multiply them).

Well you are a bit foolsih aren't you, this civic provides an extra for every specialist anywhere! Not only that it concentarates the specialists in the UO! This means +50% which means +100% if you have one academy! That means 2 per specialist almost as powerfull as R but minus the happy bonus! Not only that buit it provides you with vast ammounts of revenue! As much as Free Market can without intercontintal trade! And to top it off you get 100% espionage bouns in several of your cities! And no other nation profits from religions in your cities! Your people don't care with who you go to war with!



BTW This civc was never meant to encourage building Chatedrals. It only provides some compensation for a logical loss Ok now that that is out of the picture. Now I'm just going to go overboard and add free specialists for buildings. What do you think of the free spy per police station and barracks, and the free scientist? Is it different enough yet?





I would realy like to try out a balnced reasonable Atheist State civic. Could you make some different suggestions for it?

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


Well you are a bit foolsih aren't you...

Why the ad honinem attack?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Supr49er


Why the ad honinem attack?

Oh, akwardly phrased, I see how that might have been misunderstood. I meant a bit foolish in regard to this. Not a bit foolsih in general.