Adding religions to the game

[Willem]

In my mod, I've created a couple of corruption reducing wonders based on religion, starting out with The Vatican and Canterbury. Well last night I got the great idea of having wonders for all the religions that only certain civs can build. What I've done is create Era None techs that can't be traded for Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Greek Orthodox and Totemism. The last is the best idea I could come up with for the North American native religions.

Then I gave these techs to the various civs as another starting tech, so that England has Protestantism, Rome has Catholicism etc. and assigned these techs to the wonders I've added. So The Vatican now needs Catholicism, Canterbury needs Protestantism, and I've added Mecca for Islam. Some religions kick in right away, others don't become active until the Middle Ages, like Protestantism.

My problem is that I have no idea what names I can give to wonders for the other religions. I don't know what the main centers for them are. For Totemism, the best I could come up with is Stonehenge, but that doesn't really make sense since its not a North American native structure. If anyone can help me out with names for the rest, I'd appreciate it.

[Azeem]

Religious wonders, hm? Here's a few you can consider.

Hinduism
Varanasi -a city on the Ganges River, the city of Varanasi is the holiest city in India filled with elaborate Hindu temples

Buddhism
Borobudur Temple -an unusual pyramidal zigguraut temple, Borobudur was a highly important temple for Theravada Buddhists in Java
Daibutsu -constructed in the Kamakura Period of Japanese history, a time when Buddhism was becoming major force in Japan, the great statue of Daibutsu represents the Buddha of Infinite Light, the "Amitabha Buddha"
Potala Palace -the elaborate and unique Potala Palace, which sits on a hill in the Tibetan city of Lhasa, was where several important Tibetan Buddhist rituals took place

Native American Shamanism
Cahokia -a major ancient Native American civilization that built massive pyramidal mounds (thus their nickname - the "Mound Builders")
City of the Anasazis -considered holy to the Pueblo Native Americans as they believe the Anasazis are their sacred ancestors (there are actually several Anasazi ruins in the Southwest region of the United States)

What other religions do you need wonders for?

[Plotinus]

This is a great idea. How do Era None techs work? It's a shame that civs are stuck with their religions and can't convert (eg England going from Catholic to Protestant), but I like it nonetheless.

[Jaguar]

Obviously there are the wonders included in the Mesoamerica conquest

[Rasputin]

very great idea..... post ya mod once finished please

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hate to be a nitpicker, Willem, but Canterbury actually predates protestantism by about 500-600 years !! Perhaps you could have the 'Church of England' as your Protestant tech!
I've looked into the possibility of Religious Techs and Wonders myself, and considered having a 'Holy Capital' Small Wonder, that requires a minimum City Size, and which increases happiness throughout your empire! Another possibility is to make this Small Wonder the euqivalent of a Forbidden Palace, to givbe it the Corruption reducing effect!
Whilst you're looking into religion, maybe you could consider moving Monotheism back to Ancient times (when Judaism and Christianity actually first appeared), and make all of the religious techs non-compulsory for the era! If you also give each religious advance a different flavour, and add a few religious governments to a few of them (like hagiocracy and Theocracy) then you also might see a greater amount of religious/political diversity in the game!
Anyway, just a few things I thought might help!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Willem]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
Hate to be a nitpicker, Willem, but Canterbury actually predates protestantism by about 500-600 years

Yes, but it eventually became the head of the Anglican church, the first organized Protestant church.

I've looked into the possibility of Religious Techs and Wonders myself, and considered having a 'Holy Capital' Small Wonder, that requires a minimum City Size, and which increases happiness throughout your empire!

Unfortunately there's no way of setting a minimum city size for building an improvement. I wish there were, I find it silly that I can build a University etc. in a city with only 3 citizens.

Another possibility is to make this Small Wonder the euqivalent of a Forbidden Palace, to givbe it the Corruption reducing effect!

That's what I've done, except that they're corruption reducing Wonders. You no longer need to make it a Small Wonder for that effect.

Whilst you're looking into religion, maybe you could consider moving Monotheism back to Ancient times (when Judaism and Christianity actually first appeared), and make all of the religious techs non-compulsory for the era!

I've already done that, quite awhile ago in fact. I always thought that Monotheism came in to late in the game.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Plotinus
This is a great idea. How do Era None techs work? It's a shame that civs are stuck with their religions and can't convert (eg England going from Catholic to Protestant), but I like it nonetheless.

Basically they're an invisible tech that can't be researched. And now with Conquests, you can set it so that they can't be traded as well. And yes, it would be nice to be able to have religions change over time, but there's only so much that can be done.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Azeem
Religious wonders, hm? Here's a few you can consider.

Hinduism
Varanasi -a city on the Ganges River, the city of Varanasi is the holiest city in India filled with elaborate Hindu temples

Buddhism
Borobudur Temple -an unusual pyramidal zigguraut temple, Borobudur was a highly important temple for Theravada Buddhists in Java
Daibutsu -constructed in the Kamakura Period of Japanese history, a time when Buddhism was becoming major force in Japan, the great statue of Daibutsu represents the Buddha of Infinite Light, the "Amitabha Buddha"
Potala Palace -the elaborate and unique Potala Palace, which sits on a hill in the Tibetan city of Lhasa, was where several important Tibetan Buddhist rituals took place

Native American Shamanism
Cahokia -a major ancient Native American civilization that built massive pyramidal mounds (thus their nickname - the "Mound Builders")
City of the Anasazis -considered holy to the Pueblo Native Americans as they believe the Anasazis are their sacred ancestors (there are actually several Anasazi ruins in the Southwest region of the United States)

What other religions do you need wonders for?

Cool, thanks for the info. Now all I need is something for Greek Orthodox. I've given that religion to the Greeks, Byzantines and the Russians. And I've decided that the Totemists aren't going to get one. The Wonders I've created represent the pinnacle of organized religions and the North American natives, and I've thrown the the Zulu in there as well, didn't really have any. Those religions were more of a nature worship and didn't evlove into the rigid heirarchy that the other religions did.

[Willem]

So for an update, my idea is working. In my current game, the Portugese have just finished building The Vatican. I should be able to build Canterbury soon, I now have the require number of Cathedrals. Hopefully I'll get to build it before the English do, the only other Protestant civ in the game.

Now I'm thinking of adding a few more things that require those wonders. My first though was the Inquistion, which requires The Vatican. I'm thinking that the Knights Templar might be appropriate as well.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
Obviously there are the wonders included in the Mesoamerica conquest

Doh!

Why didn't I think of that? I went through all of the scenarios and I'm busily transfering most of the new ones to my own game. Saves me the trouble of figuring them out for myself at least.

[Willem]

So continuing along in the same vein, I decided to add yet another non-era tech to each civ, based on their cultural grouping. So by the time I'm finished, only Mediterranean civs can build the Temple of Artemis and Statue of Zues etc. The Asians will get the Great Wall while the Mediteraneans will get Hadrian's Wall and the Europeans gets the Krak de Chevalier. I'm using certain buildings as a requirement so that these wonders can only be built at a certain time. Otherwise they'd be able to build them right from the beginning of the game.

The reason I'm doing all this is that in my mod, I found myself getting most of the wonders in the game. I want to set it up so that there's certain ones that I don't even get a chance at. And it adds a bit more historical reality to my game. It never made any sense to me how the Chinese could build J.S Bach's Cathedral. That's so obviously a European wonder.

[Plotinus]

For the Orthodox, perhaps the obvious wonder would be the cathedral of St Sophia. Another option might be the monasteries of Mount Athos. I'm not sure about making the Greeks Orthodox though, since they didn't become officially Christian until 380, by which time they weren't the Greeks any more, they were the Byzantines.

It seems a bit odd to have a Wonder named simply after a city. Why not change "Canterbury" to "Canterbury Cathedral", and "Mecca" to "the Kaba'a"?

You could add intellectual Wonders as well. Perhaps Aquinas' "Summa Theologiae" for the Catholics, Calvin's "Institutes" or perhaps Schleiermacher's "The Christian Faith" for Protestants, the "Pege Gnoseos" of John Damascene for the Orthodox, Avicenn'a "Book of Healing" for the Muslims, etc...

As for Monotheism, I think the idea is that it appears in the game at the point where it becomes a dominant idea. It did indeed exist in ancient thought but only among a fairly elite bunch of philosophers. It's only with the dawning of the Middle Ages that it became universal - in the West, at least. Notions like Monotheism don't make much sense in an Eastern context, which is one of the reasons why Civ is so western-biased. But consider, after all, Physics comes even later in the game, but it still existed in ancient times.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Plotinus
For the Orthodox, perhaps the obvious wonder would be the cathedral of St Sophia.

Going through the scenarios, I came across the Hagia Sophia, complete with text and commentary, so I think I'll go with that.

I'm not sure about making the Greeks Orthodox though, since they didn't become officially Christian until 380, by which time they weren't the Greeks any more, they were the Byzantines.

Well there's only so much I can do with the religion thing so I have to go with what each civ ended up as. Since that particular brand of Christianity is even named after them, it will have to do. It would be nice to have various civs change religions over time, but it can't be done. Maybe in the next version of Civ.

It seems a bit odd to have a Wonder named simply after a city. Why not change "Canterbury" to "Canterbury Cathedral", and "Mecca" to "the Kaba'a"?

Again, going through the scenios, I came across Luther's 95 Theses, so I think I'lluse that one instead.

You could add intellectual Wonders as well. Perhaps Aquinas' "Summa Theologiae" for the Catholics, Calvin's "Institutes" or perhaps Schleiermacher's "The Christian Faith" for Protestants, the "Pege Gnoseos" of John Damascene for the Orthodox, Avicenn'a "Book of Healing" for the Muslims, etc...

One thing that I've been thinking of is adding new techs that only Protestants, for example, can research. So those are certainly ideas to keep in mind. Now that I've added the cultural groups as a tech as well, I can even narrow it down more. Creating techs that only Middle-East Muslims can research for example, or European Catholics. Jihad comes to mind, and there's even some commentary about it in one of the scenarios. And the Knights Templar is a natural for European Catholics, if I create a Crusades tech as a requirement to build it.

The possibilities are a bit mind boggling frankly, I can see I'll be busy for awhile. But I see I'll have to do some research on Wonders that aren't so heavily European. There's alot of them, especially compared to the Asians and Americans.

[Willem]

Well this keeps getting better. Last night, with Monotheism which I've moved to the Ancient Times, and Catholicism, I created a New Testament tech that only those civs can research. It allows them to build Churches, than Cathedrals and St. Peter's Basillica. The Moslems can also research The Koran at that same point, and build Mosques and Mecca. With Polytheism and Hinduism, the Indians can research the Bhagavad-Gita and build Temples, then Ashrams and Varanasi . Buddhists with Philosophy can build Shrines then Monasteries and Potala Palace. And the Totemists can research Ritual Sacrifice with Ceremonial Burial and build Sacrificial Altars.

Now I think I have this one right but correct me if I'm wrong. After Theology with The Schism of Justinian, the Greek Orthodox can build Chapels and Hagia Sophia. With Printing the Protestants get Luther's 95 Theses, then start to build Tabernacles and the Protestan Reformation.

As well, I've created a Druidism tech for European Catholics, with Mysticism and Masonry, which allows the construction of Stone Henge, an early version of Copernicus's Observatory.

Mediterranean Greek Orthodox can research Hellenism after Polytheism which allows The Temple of Artemis and the Statue of Zeus. It also gives them a bonus tech.

Mediterranean Muslims can research the Egyptian Pantheon at the same point, allowing for The Pyramid and also allows irrigation without fresh water.

The Romans, being the only Mediterranean Catholics get Bacchanalia once they research Roman Pantheon. I've also given them a Roman Construction tech, which allows for bridge building, like in Engineering. I'm tempted to give them a bonus tech at that point as well.

European Protestants can get Norse Pantheon and build the Norse Saga. Middle Eastern Muslims get Zorastrianism which allows for The Hanging Gardens and The Mausoleum. I'm still thinking about the Asian Buddists an the Asia Hindus.