Why is there going to be no religion?

[Guynemer]

It's my understanding, per the IGN preview, that espionage has been eliminated wholesale as well.

[SlowwHand]

However, I also could very easily foresee religion coming back in an expansion...

So already we're seeing a coming need for extra crap? Patches. "Expansions".

[giblets]

So already we're seeing a coming need for extra crap? Patches. "Expansions".

Neither of those are crap in my opinion. They can't anticipate every possible bug or game balance flaw. And I find that the second expansion is usually worth its price.

[SpencerH]

It's my understanding, per the IGN preview, that espionage has been eliminated wholesale as well.

There's no loss there for me; I turn it off.

[Ming]

ESP is "ok". I leave it on, but do not aggresively play an ESP type game. I never apply ANYTHING to the esp slider, and I "try" not to have spy city specialists. Eventually, thanks to the buildings, (early code of law and courthouses) I usually get the basic what they are researching information, which is good to know, and as Civ's get eliminated, I build up a surplus incase I do want to perform an occasional mission. In MP games, I usually change with the percentages to strongly follow the perceived leader.

Sure, destroyed improvements is annoying, and they occasionally steal a tech, poisen a city, or stop production, but it's not a big thing... and I don't mind them building spies instead of units. And sometimes when I get a great spy, I might actually use if to steal some of those early techs I don't go after until later, which the AI does.

[self biased]

my point is that the way espionage was implemented it doesn't really add much to the game, aside from annoying the player. i won't be sorry to see it go. religions were nice, but i do agree with the fellow who related the feeling to that of pokemon.

[Krill]

Espionage as it is coded is severely broken. You have undetectable spies, the ability to screw with civics and religions whenever you want on the cheap (so much so that it costs you less to revolt them than it does them to revolt back). You get city visibility and the ability to keep up in tech, which is cheaper than researching if you abuse the game well.

Y'all should be happy that the testers (well...some of them) pointed out how broken is was before it got toned down.

If anyone wants to worry about CiV, worry that the devs haven't learned from their mistakes.

And on religion, it's completely meh as the mechanics work. People want it for realism, but guess what, Civ isn't a simulation of RL, and it is pretty much junk if it is included in a realistic way.

[Elok]

I agree for the most part, but it wouldnt have been too much of a stretch to include a few differences. For example, a level of unrest in an Islamic state using the civic "emancipation".

Even that isn't exclusive to an Islamic state; Christendom reacted similarly to the abolition of slavery IIUC (isn't that what the emancipation civic is?). You could have things true to reality by getting very specific, e.g. having the Abrahamic religions object to evolution while the Buddhists and company shrug it off, but it's hard to see how that would help gameplay.

[Ben Kenobi]

Civ 4 has the Apostolic Palace? Maybe I should buy it...

[Elok]

IIUC, it's in an expansion, and it functions as a kind of ghetto religious UN. You get to jerk people around based on their faith somehow.

[SpencerH]

Even that isn't exclusive to an Islamic state; Christendom reacted similarly to the abolition of slavery IIUC (isn't that what the emancipation civic is?). You could have things true to reality by getting very specific, e.g. having the Abrahamic religions object to evolution while the Buddhists and company shrug it off, but it's hard to see how that would help gameplay.

I was considering the emancipation of women in particular but the idea that the different religions should provide different (but reasonably subtle) advantages and disadvantages would provide another layer of game variation atop the choice of civ. Instead of food, cows could provide culture for Hindu civ's for example.

[Boris Godunov]

While religion was a mildly interesting twist in Civ IV, it wasn't really all that great a gameplay feature and I can't say that losing it would be a big loss. It certainly won't effect the core game mechanics.

That being said, someday it might be nice to have an EU-style religion function. I find the Civ V designer's objection to religion because it tended to heard people into alliances based on their religions a bit silly. Yeah, and? That's pretty much how it has worked in the world...

[Dinner]

This I don't really approve of. I thought Religion was one of the best features of Civ4.

I imagine because they're lazy and don't want to do the hard work plus this allows them to withhold basic functionality just so they can later charge you a second fee to get the feature. Hell, I think I will either download it for free or wait for the gold edition as I hate how they always play this milk the fan game.

[Boris Godunov]

You really shouldn't announce your intention to steal a game.

[giblets]

I imagine because they're lazy and don't want to do the hard work plus this allows them to withhold basic functionality just so they can later charge you a second fee to get the feature. Hell, I think I will either download it for free or wait for the gold edition as I hate how they always play this milk the fan game.

I can't believe the developers want to make a profit.

Of course they should work hard on this game, but how dare they expect you to earn some money and give it to them in return.