European Diplomacy Discussion and Planning Thread...

[The Capo]

I might as well start this now because it is going to take a LONG time to make this mod because I am doing to completely from scratch and the other mod is almost finished. So I am going to start the discussion process now.

Basically, in the tradition of the "Tales from the European Front" Diplogame I am gonig to create (totally from scratch) a diplogaming mod that is for a European diplogame (played on a map of Europe). Now the FIRST thing we are going to discuss are the countries that will be involved in this game here are my ideas for countries that will be available to play is in the European Diplomacy game (I'll explain why I phrased it that way afterwards):

First the Regular BTS civs
-England
-Portugal
-Spain
-France
-Netherlands
-Germany
-Russia
-Greece
-Turkey

Now the ones I intend on adding to the game FOR the Diplogame
-Ireland
-Scotland
-Denmark
-Norway
-Sweden
-Finland
-Lithuania
-Poland
-Austria
-Ukraine
-Hungary
-Bulgaria
-Romania
-Italy

To make it fun for everyone I MAY wind up adding these to be available in general for the mod:
-Rome
-HRE
-Celts
-Vikings
-Brittany
-Dacia
-Etruscans
-Minoans
-Byzantines
-Goths
-Lombards
-Huns
-Wales

The first two lists are the countries I want to be available to select in the Diplogame, which means they may not all be used, the third list is just for fun to be added to the game, so that isn't important and if I can add others I might do that.

The next thing that is important is changes to the game itself. I think what we should try and do is emulate European Religions and their traits and effects. I think for our purposes what we should do is seperate them into categories. Keeping in mind this is just an idea. I am thinking these three categories (keeping seven religions:

Ancient (instead of gold you get CULTURE from the shrine):
-Hellenic Polytheism
-Celtic Paganism
-Aesir Mythology

Medieval (instead of gold you get SCIENCE beakers from the shrine):
-Catholicism
-Orthodoxy

Renaissance (you get GOLD from the shrines):
-Lutheranism
-Calvinism

(although I think the benefits of these religions could be switched, I think science for the older faiths is better because it will promote those with ancient religions to convert lest they fall behind)

I don't really know much about Protestant religions because I was raised Catholic and am now an atheist (save your boos), so if someone wants to correct me on these last two names I'll be fine with that. Now I know you are going to say this makes it unfair, but here is my idea. I figure once the ancient religions run their course (and all land is taken up) the culture benefits will be negligable, and if I disable inquisitors for these religions they will eventually become useless and eradicated naturally. Much like in history.

Now, I also understand that Judaism and Islam should play roles as well, so that is up for discussion. What I just mentioned was really something I kinda thought about so I am absolutely up to debate about this, in fact I am encouraging it.

The next thing we should think about are names of wonders/techs that may not seem as European as they could be. Perhaps meditation could be changed to Animism and we make it found Celtic Paganism?

The Great Wall could be changed to Hadrian's Wall, et cetera.

There is a litany of things we could debate and discuss here, and I assume this process (of figuring out how to make it more European) will take up a lot of time which is why I am starting it NOW.

So please, chime in, especially the Europeans out there so we can make this an awesome game!

[The Capo]

Oh yeah, and I think I should add negative happiness (or anger or whatever its called) to non-state religions and their buildings to emulate the wars and conflict over religion that occured in Europe.

[Robert]

I think that Islam should be incorporated indeed.
Change Calvinism and Lutheranism into Protestantism.

I'd change the benefits of:
catholicism: to money (realistic)
orthodoxy: to culture (realistic)
protstantism: to science (realistic)
islam: to science (realistic)

Maybe it would be cool to inlude 'secularism' somewhere in the renaissance area as well (Science bonus) to reflect the religious changes in europe since the renaissance!

The others can stay the way they are.

I remember my first (and only) "Tales from the european front" diplogame, I think it's 10 or 12 years ago....
Europe is a cool diplo-map, especially b/c of the cluthered bunch of nearby civs

Maybe keep England 'alone' on it's island. An island start is already hard enough.

Good luck! Sounds cool so far!

[Robert]

Originally posted by The Capo
Oh yeah, and I think I should add negative happiness (or anger or whatever its called) to non-state religions and their buildings to emulate the wars and conflict over religion that occured in Europe.

It would be cool if it would be possible to assign a religion to every pop-numer in a city.
ie. a size 9 city can havec 7 catholics and 1 protestant and 1 secular pop.

If catholicism is then the state religion then that 1 protestant and 1 secular citizen will cause angryness.

It should be possible to try to remove religious pops from a city (with the risk to double their presence! which is historically accurate! Oftenly persecuted religions double in size!)

There may be a wide variety in religious civics, from free religion to heavy state religion. Depending on these civics it is determined if populations are angry or happy etc. and if it's possible to have other religious buildings, and what bonusses they give.

A 'very strong theoracy' can cause in all other religious buildings to be removed, double angry faces for all other religious pops in you city, and triple bonus for every state-religion building / pop in your city.

Religious wars can then also be about spreading an alien faith into your enemies cities to increase their unhappyness.
Maybe including stealth-missionaries (kinda like spies) or misionaries that can also convert during war-time.

just thinking out loud

[Heraclitus]

I agree that giving Catholicism gold seems more appropriate, but giving Orthodoxy Culture dosen't seem a good fit.

Islam & Judaism should be in, Islam should give science (true in the early middle ages) while Judaism should give gold.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by CyberShy


It would be cool if it would be possible to assign a religion to every pop-numer in a city.
ie. a size 9 city can havec 7 catholics and 1 protestant and 1 secular pop.

If catholicism is then the state religion then that 1 protestant and 1 secular citizen will cause angryness.

It should be possible to try to remove religious pops from a city (with the risk to double their presence! which is historically accurate! Oftenly persecuted religions double in size!)

There may be a wide variety in religious civics, from free religion to heavy state religion. Depending on these civics it is determined if populations are angry or happy etc. and if it's possible to have other religious buildings, and what bonusses they give.

A 'very strong theoracy' can cause in all other religious buildings to be removed, double angry faces for all other religious pops in you city, and triple bonus for every state-religion building / pop in your city.

Religious wars can then also be about spreading an alien faith into your enemies cities to increase their unhappyness.
Maybe including stealth-missionaries (kinda like spies) or misionaries that can also convert during war-time.

just thinking out loud

That is how civ4 religion should have been.


Also I have an alternative proposal, what if civics affect what religions give? (beakers, gold or culture or even esp)

[Robert]

Also I have an alternative proposal, what if civics affect what religions give? (beakers, gold or culture or even esp)

Why not an additional proposal?
Under the free-religion civic all religions only produce culture... (and no money/science anymore)
maybe this can be expanded!

[OzzyKP]

I'm in. And I claim Hungary.

[Toni]

Of course I am in too

BULGARIA

[The Capo]

Well nobody is "in" yet because we have to figure out what the mod is going to be like, who knows where you guys will be when this is finished, so let's just wait on the sign up phase.

Now to the Religion Issue: I am trying to keep it at seven religions so I don't have to change the game that much, now as far as the benefits of the religions DON'T focus on history, focus on what people will do in the game civilization IV. If you have ancient religions such as the ones I have proscribed, these will make the first land grabs/their culture will spread (it spread rather far in the case of the vikings, and Celts, and Greeks/Romans) so I figured a cultural bonus would be to their benefit. I put science for the medieval (Catholic/Orthodox) NOT because I think they are more scientific than the other religions (in fact you can argue that Hellenic Pantheon would be the most scientific) but to prompt people who are running an ancient religion to switch, because by then the cultural benefit will have dissipated, and when everyone is competing for better science/weapons they will want to switch religions (I realize that what I might do is give the regular monetary bonus to the shrines and then add this bonus to each city with the state religion along with a happiness bonus, I'm not sure, and this is why we are debating it). Then I wanted to give the money to the two protestant religions because people always prefer money because they can spend it themselves, plus it emulates the "protestant ethic" and they'd be able to field armies in case they have to fight entrenched Catholic/Orthodox powerhouses. It wasn't done to emulate history, Islam and Judaism would be good to add but for the sake of making this VERY European I wanted to stick to religions that were founded in Europe. Which is why I didn't call anything CHRISTIANITY they are called Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Calvinism and Lutheranism. Get it? Islam and Judaism, while important religions in European history weren't founded there, and I'd rather stick with seven religions.

So to reiderate this; don't think of the history of Europe when we are talking about giving benefits to the religions, think about how the game will progress and creating conflict. That is why I think this set up is the best one we can have with seven religions.

[bantams]

if and when its ready i would like to be scotland and shout FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOM

[Pitboss Greece]

I like it!

[The Capo]

Now, remember this mod is probably going to take a while to make, probably five or six months. We are still in the planning stages anyway. As far as picking the civilizations goes; I think what we are probably gonig to do is make a three-tiered list. The reason for this is NOT to rank these countries in importance (although it kinda does do that), but to ensure we have a nice split of countries so nobody is too close to eachother, and I was talking to Ozzy about this and the list will probably be something like (and this is an EXAMPLE, it is not an inidication of where people will be on the list):

Tier 1:
-Spain
-England
-France
-Germany
-Sweden
-Russia
-Italy

Tier 2:
-Portugal
-Scotland
-Poland
-Ukraine
-Austria
-Turkey
-Netherlands

Tier 3:
-Norway
-Lithuania
-Bulgaria
-Hungary
-Finland
-Romania
-Greece

So something to that effect where players sign up for the game, so tier one countries have to be taken up before we move on to tier 2, and then the same between tier 2 and 3. Just so the map doesn't get cluttered in one small area (so for instance its like France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, and then Russia and Spain, it would be unfair to everyone but Russia and Spain). But again, since there is a lot of time to decide this we should be able to figure out a good compromise.

In the mod itself there will be a lot of countries to select from, including old empires/kingdoms that don't exist today, so there will be a possibility for multiple games with different combinations of countries.

Again, with this mod I am going to try and keep it similar to the original game. So if I change any wonders/cvics/technologies it will only be the name. So the characteristics of the wonder/civic/tech in question will be the same.

I will probably use the superspies and inquisitors from the Diplogame mod in this though. Although I was thinking of limiting the inquisitors to the newer religions (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Calvinism).

And some of you may have been asked if they thought Plagues would be a good idea. Nobody did, so there will be no plagues.

[Pitboss Persia]

I've got a nice idea for a UB, don't know for who exactly, but hey... i'll write it down anyway.

How about a cathedral building that gives +4 EXP to all units (including spies) if they are of the state religion ? Could reduce war weariness too. I would love it

[Robert]

I like that religion concept! +1 for The Capo!