Why is there going to be no religion?

[Heraclitus]

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

[Kuciwalker]

Apparently they're getting rid of countries and possessions too.

[wodan11]

I'm sorry, we don't answer "why" questions.

[Norselord]

Because the game now introduces both Marx and Nietsche as Great People:

Religion is the opiate of the masses
God is Dead.

[Heraclitus]

Oh come now can't you guys speculate? I tought most people liked Civ4 religions. Anyway the designers are dreamers.

[Theben]

Religion sort of comes back with the "Secularism" tech, which gives you everything all the old rel civics did and a big glass of Kool-Aid.

[axi]

no god, no master

Religions in civ were colorless, but they were some fun.

For me they were collectibles (I had to spread all religions to all my cities for the happiness and culture bonus) and also a good stimulus to race for techs i would have otherwise overlooked.

Perhaps religions should be abstracted and colored (aggressive/pacifist & progressive/traditional), put a little outside the player's control and be made more decisive on your tech tree an diplomatic options.

A polytheist/monotheist variation would be interesting as well (so there could be 8 different religions in total).

There you go, a religion model in a nutshell

[wodan11]

Well, they've said they're removing it, so putting in our own pet ways of improving/fixing it seems like a waste of time.

[PatrikJonasson]

I really liked the concept of religion, albeit it had perhaps too much influence on politics and it was a bit boring to micromanage missionaries. But removing it altogether will make Civ V less fun than it could have been, not that I don't think it won't still be a great game.

[Kuciwalker]

Possibilities:

1) The religion mechanic was interesting, but possibly didn't have enough gameplay value to justify the complexity. (I don't really believe this, but maybe...)
2) Trip went on a big "destroy all parts of the game that aren't essential so that we can refine the parts that are" spree. Done properly, this can have amazing results (see: Mass Effect 2). Done improperly you get CivRev.
3) (Compatible with 2) they want to add it in an expansion.
4) The info we have is wrong or incomplete and religion isn't actually gone, it just uses a completely new system.

[Guynemer]

Apparently they're getting rid of countries and possessions too.

In all seriousness, I hope this isn't true. I rather liked the "religion" game element, it opened up different diplomatic strategies. Obviously, it wasn't perfect, but they may be throwing out the baby with the bathwater here.

[OzzyKP]

Apparently they're getting rid of countries and possessions too.

Kind of hard to imagine..

[Kuciwalker]

Apparently the answer is "they're paring back the number of reasons for the AI to hate the player".

[giblets]

I think it makes sense. If you remove the effect of religion on diplomacy, then you might as well get rid of religions and just have generic religious buildings. They provide the same domestic benefits as a religion would, giving you an incentive to research certain techs.

Removing religion makes me wonder what changes they're making to great people. Great prophets aren't very useful without religion, so will they replace great prophets with something else?

[Ming]

Will there even be great people

It's hard to get a real feel for where they are going with the limited information currently available.
I'm sure we will have more to complain about soon enough...