RELIGION (ver1.1) hosted by Stefu

[Stefu]

Yin, close the old thread.

OK, here's my attempt of summary. Holler if something important is left out. I've left out posts simply agreeing/disagreeing: This results to that that not all contributors get full credit.

Stefu: Religions pop out at random and grow at themself. Goverments may hamper/encourage the growth by setting their attitude towards religion.

Willko: Likes the idea. Propoposes that panthenoic religions gain small bonuses in production, growth, and luxuries, but have greater maintenance costs and inefficiency. Gives monotheistic religions bonuses depending on which type the god is.

Mo: Church should propose a crusade when city where religion started is conquered by pagans.

MBD: Also wants ethnicity/culture.

Crusher: wonders about which religions are going to be in, and proposes that cults start popping around around millenium.

Vadertwo: Proposes that holy shrine is created to where religion starts.

evil conquerer: wants that goverment you use determines what tolerance level you can set to different religions. For instance, democracies cannot persecute religions while communists cannot fundamentally worship them. Also proposes 7 to be size of city where religion can appear.

Ecce Homo: proposes that all civs start with Animism, and can build Megaliths to increase chance of advanced religions to develop.

Trachmyr: wants customizable religions, like social engineering in SMAC. You should be able to select the primary structure, important aspects like status of priests, and tenets. To inact changes, you would need DOGMA, created by priests or religious wonders. Outside influence can convert people as well, or it can change DOGMA. Proposes 50 religions/game. Wants religion master screen to show percents of religions in your nation, and you can set STATE APPENTANCE there as well. Also wants FERVOR, which affects to how big bonuses does the religion get.

Eggman: warns that religion is testy subject, and isn't sure should it be included. Proposes fictional religions with random properties instead of real ones. Wants each religion to have tolerance percentive to show how religion deals with other religions. Wants there to be some 'bad' religions just to hurt the player.

Doc Dee: likes the idea of random religions popping up, and suggests that supporting a religion should give you happines bonuses and ability to build clerics. Thinks that Persecution is important tool to stop enemy gaining religious influence. Thinks that having religious support should make it easier to cause revolution in city. Thinks that religious population should be annoyed if their civ goes to war with their religious masters.

Diodorus Sicilus: Agrees that real reigions shouldn't be used, but that religions should be defined by how they are: is it tolerant or not, is it pacifist or militant, does it support the goverment or not. Also thinks that religion should be defined by general terms:Monotheistic,Polytheistic,etc. Thinks that changes in religious structure should be defined by game events. Thinks that nation where religion is started should build some kind of wonder in capital to stop rival centers from appearing. Thinks that crusades could be started by religion or goverment.

Eggman: Thinks that persecuting religion should be big atrocity, but that persecuting should give short-term and long-term advantages to the persecutor. Wants spontaneous persecutions to happen when to religions really hate each other. Wishes that religions have rate of devotion, which decides how resistant they are to conversion, and that rate of devotion increases in time. Thinks that civs shouldn't be able to create religions. Wants bonus for religious freedom. Wants schisms as random events. Thinks that unhappy people should be more willing to convert than happy.

NotLikeTea: Thinks that goverment form shouldn't restrict the religions, but rather to effect their growth.

Michael Jeszenka: wants there to be option to disable the religions in scenarios.

NotLikeTea: Doesn't want the religions to have outright bonuses, but to have influence on people to possibly effect them ant to give bonuses that way.

CormacMacArt: Wants actual religions with basic values. Thinks that goverment should be allowed to create goverment on Emperor or higher.

Trachmyr: Wants us to be able to design religions. Thinks that it is wrong to think that leaders have no control over how religion develops. Wants there to be riots and such for people who play god too frequently.

Bell: Thinks that religion itself shouldn't be modeled, just its effects, and that game sohuldn't care about what is your religion, but how do you handle it.

Aharon Ben Rav: Thinks that religion should be controlled from Social Engineering, and proposes major categories which give bonuses. Thinks it would be good idea for civs to start wars more frequently with those with differing religion models, and proposes that more advanced rleigions should sen more spies to revolt you cities.

MBrazier: Agrees somewhat with Aharon, but thinks that only four types should be enough. Also proposes new type for really evil religions.

Giant Squid: Proposes growth rates to set up which religions will succeed.Thinks that followers of religion should be less likely to convert if the religion has been going for long time. Proposes that religion has impact on how temples and cathedrals work. Wants real religions.

NotLikeTea: Disagrees with giving bonuses or growth rates to particular religions. Thinks that application of religion could however cause some bonuses. Doesn't want evil nor real religions.

CormacMacArt: Thinks that maybe religions aren't such a good idea.

delcuze2: Wants philosphy, set by Social Engineering, instead of religion.

NotLikeTea: Thinks that maybe simplest way of modelling religion is that captured cities tend to be towards their former owner.

[This message has been edited by Stefu (edited May 27, 1999).]

[NotLikeTea]

Summary? Good luck! There are more ideas in that thread than all the others combined

[CormacMacArt]

I thought of this driving home last night. Assuming that all of us liked the ability to edit the game of things that we didn't like and add those things that were "obviously" needed, I propose the following:
[Using the conditions of Civ II as a template]
We had 27 different possibilities of AI players. You could choose to edit several from civs to religions (eliminating the religious advances) giving them qualities of TOLERANCE (-1,0,1)
MILITANCE (PACIFIST to MILITANT), EVANGELISTIC (ranging from Islam and Christianity[-1] to Judaism [0] to the Shakers [1]).
You could name these religions whatever you wanted and they would appear at random through time. So as not to offend, this would be an option that the player would have to initiate and would name whatever he/she wanted.
How's this sound, Ecce Homo?

[MBrazier]

A suggested system to represent religion's effect on politics:

1) A religion is rated in three traits: strength of belief in its devotees (Conviction), ability to convert infidels (Evangelism), and opinion of other religions (Tolerance). The first two traits are simple integers going up from 0. Tolerance is a triple-state flag: -1 for "never tolerate", 1 for "always tolerate", 0 for neutral.

2) Each populated tile on the map has a dominant religion. At the end of a game turn, each tile tries to convert its populated neighbors. Attempted conversions are resolved by the standard Civ combat method, using Evangelism for the "attack" rating and Conviction for "defense".

All of this is handled in the background by the game engine -- the players can see the result of it, within their territories and in sight of their units, but have no direct control over it.

3) A player may choose (after gaining some very early advance, Ceremonial Burial or an equivalent) an existing religion as the State Religion. Players are limited to religions that have believers inside their current borders, naturally. In addition, any religion with a +1 Tolerance cannot be chosen as a state religion.

4) Once a civilization has a state religion, it can build the Missionary unit. This unit cannot attack any other unit, and has a weak defense rating; but it automatically tries to convert every tile through which it moves to its owner's state religion. If a civilization changes its state religion, all of its current Missionaries instantly disband.

5) For every N tiles adhering to the state religion, one citizen is upgraded from "unhappy" to "content". (N is a game parameter set in the config files.) Building temples, cathedrals, etc. lowers N locally -- within the city limits, or the regional boundary, or however "locally" is determined.

6) On the other hand, for every N tiles _not_ adhering to the state religion, one citizen becomes "unhappy". Yes, it's the same game parameter as in 5); so, building a temple for the official cult in a region where that cult is scarce is an incitement to riot.

7) If a civilization doesn't have a state religion, religions with a -1 Tolerance create unhappiness as under 6), and all other religions have no effect on happiness. In addition, the religious buildings cease to affect N. They do still require maintenance, however -- an incentive to dismantle them.

8) A civilization can choose to outlaw a religion (other than the state religion, of course.) Outlawed religions create twice the unhappiness that they would if not outlawed, but their Evangelism rating is halved inside the civilization's borders.

9) Finally, your state religion affects your diplomatic reputation. Two civilizations with the same state religion rise one step towards friendly relations. On the other hand, if one civilization has outlawed the state religion of a second civilization, the second civilization becomes one step more hostile towards the first. A civilization will also be irritated for a little while if one of its Missionaries is killed.

As you all can see, I've stolen ideas from many of the posters in this thread, and I thank them all for the inspiration.

[NotLikeTea]

I like some things, and dislike others...

I like the idea of religions growing, and spreading, and coming into conflict with eachother. Even the stats seem resonable, though I would like them to be more something that the player can influence than inherent abilities.

However, having this done on a square by square basis may be a bit of an overkill. Unless the game does go for a region rather than city based format, simply analyzing these issues on a city by city basis would probably be enough.

Also, while other religions should have an influence on the happiness, I don't like the idea of building temples for various religions individually. Would be too much work, and might need frequent tweaking for very little improvement in gameplay.

I would also like to see the idea of "religion" expanded into more global views, somehow. Instead of Religion A disliking Religion B, some cities in your empire might be more friendly to the idea of Communism,of Fundamentalism than others, and would be easier to bribe by a similar empire.

Perhaps this could knock out religion all together....

[Eggman]

*** THIS IS NOT MY POST. IT WAS FROM THE RELIGION 1.0 FORUM AND WAS POSTED AFTER THE SUBJECT WAS MOVED OVER TO VER 1.1

I DIDN'T WANT ANYONE TO MISS IT. I ALSO WANT TO COMMENT ON IT, SO I SENT IT POSTED IT OVER HERE. ***

From paraclet:

There should be an option in Civ to allow a civilisation to grow without religion.An atheist but non communist choice where people can enjoy philosophy without the peoples opium of religion. In these civ theaters should replace temples, then sex shops, then birth control which really separate pleasure from reproduction.

And even in civ using religion, it should become obsolete after the discovery of birth control for the same reason.Churches are more and more empty at the door of the third millenium and more we explore space and make more scinetific discoveries more religion is becoming obsolete...

[Cartagia the Great]

Where to being. Ok, I agree with the idea of religions, and I also like the idea of them starting, independantly, in a city and spreading from there. this could create multi-religiouse societies, and the like. I do see the problem that many people might take offence at certian forms if we use current day titles, like Christianity, but I don't feel that people will have much of a problem if the religiosn are given less descriptive names. For instance: There migth be a Pagan religion, but there wudl nto be the Wiccan Religion. Also there would be the Monotheist, not the Chrstian/Jewish/Islamic. Also religions would need to be shown as equal, they would jave bennifits, and disadvantages that would help in differant types of games, but no one would be shown as being mroe advanced, or superior, than the others. After all, who are we to say that Monothiestic is more advanced than Pagan, or Athiestic is mroe advanced than all? Like wise, there shoudl be an option ot scrable religion bennifits, so that ,if the palyer wanted, all diffreant bennifits would be scrabbled among the differant types, much liek the old personality scramble thing for Civ1.

Also, perhapse, to throw in another factor, there could be differant forms of the same type of religion. For instance, Paganism which would start in, say, an Arab city would be seperate from that of Russian Paganism, these would be considered differant, and such, despite the same bennifits. However, Russian Paganism could spread to the Babylonian Empire through trade routs and the like, and ,if they accept it, it would gain a stronger holding in there as well, with them drawing closer to Russia. If Arab Paganism spread to the Americans, and they picked it up, they would draw clsoer to the Arabs, and may look upon Babylon as the enemies. This actually makes a good deal of sence, and would show the diffreances between, say, Orthodox and Catholis, or Sunni and Shiite. If one of these Empires would thne switch to another religion, prehapse their one time allies would declare a crusade to rid their friends of the heathen. Also if a city would be the foudning place of this religion, it would get increased trade with other civilizatiosn who follow the same faith.

As for the person who says that religion si becoming obsolite...I don't think so, much the opposite in some places. just because science proves mroe and more things in the universe, many people will always want to bleive in a higher power, and may find reasons to do so. Religion, as we near the 3rd millenium AD, is not ending, it is merely changing. Is this good or bad? I'm not sure, we'll just have to see, ai?

[Eggman]

I want to make some comments here:

1) You should NOT be able to change your civ's religion like it is some sort of social choice. Governmental control of religion has been very iffy historically, resulting in mostly ugly failures with most of the successes involving citizens with weak faith (who could care less about which religion they worship), long-term persecution and/or massive violence. To the point, changing religion isn't easy (without popular support, almost always impossible) and usually a total or partial failure. It is A LOT more difficult than changing government.

If you want religion, let it have a life of its own. Government can interact with it, not control it completely.

2) Missionaries. You don't need state religion for missionaries. Even small minority religions have missionaries. Just thought I would point that out.

3) Atheists. First off, you shouldn't be able to *choose* an atheistic government. See point 1.

Second, if someone could give me an example of an atheistic civ, I would appreciate it. I can't think of one. Without a historical basis, I don't think that the option really belongs in Civ. Atheist minorities perhaps, but no full-fledged atheist civs...

Finally, I think you will have to stick with the religious names of the buildings. It is too complicated to have different names for each building depending on a variety of factors (government, civ name, religion, etc.). If you want to change them, I am sure that the text files will allow you to alter them to your heart's delight.

[Eggman]

I was brainstorming and I came up with a topic related to this subject.

Ethnicity is really a no-brainer for Civ3. Each civilization, when it founds a city, should have its own citizens there. If the city is captured, the ethnic group should remain but with the conquering population being added to the mix. Immigration and ethnic stife (both political and internal) are possible.

Perhaps in addition to ethnicity, there should be a second trait that acts like ethnicity except that it is not linked to the civilization. It is possible and even common for a single civ to have several different secondary characteristics or for a secondary characteristic to cross several borders. And perhaps even spread. This results in all those political and internal factors that we are looking for without the problem of religion.

Just a thought.

[MBrazier]

NotLikeTea says "Also, while other religions should have an influence on the happiness, I don't like the idea of building temples for various religions individually."

I didn't say you'd have to. You'd build only one temple in each city, dedicated to your current state religion. Switching state religions means only that, where your temples used to be dedicated to Marduk, now they're dedicated to Zeus -- the buildings themselves stay put.

A real-world example of this is England's switch under Henry VIII from Catholicism to Protestantism as the state religion. Catholic churches in England were not destroyed; instead the hierarchy of priests and bishops was replaced, so that a different set of people were using the buildings.

On Eggman's comments:

1) Under my system the player does _not_ control the religious beliefs of his civilization. What _is_ controllable is the civilization's policy towards the religions. Actual beliefs require generations to alter, but official policy can change in an instant -- again, Henry VIII is a good example.

2) Certainly all religions will have missionaries, even the smallest. But the Missionary unit I propose is a missionary _with state backing_. Missionaries without state backing are part of the automatic tile conversions, outside player control.

3) The Soviet Union certainly qualifies as an "atheistic civilization", in the sense that its official policy denied the existence of God. OTOH it _did_ have a "state religion" in the sense I give the term; Communism had state support, missionaries were sent to other countries, and so forth.

[NotLikeTea]

I agree with all but the last comment.

I'm not sure if this is your intention, but it looks like you are describing the official state religion of the USSR as Communism. By this logic, other nations have religions of Democracy, Capitalism, Monarchism, etc... No longer religion at all.

Which may be a good thing.. perhaps instead of the specific Missionary religious unit, why not a generic "Propagandist" unit, for any set of beliefs, with religion as one option....

BTW, I use propagandist not as an insulting term.. by this I mean any attempt to spread your beliefs.. Pro-deomcracy advocates would be propagandists as well as the less popular folks...

[NotLikeTea]

I agree with all but the last comment.

I'm not sure if this is your intention, but it looks like you are describing the official state religion of the USSR as Communism. By this logic, other nations have religions of Democracy, Capitalism, Monarchism, etc... No longer religion at all.

Which may be a good thing.. perhaps instead of the specific Missionary religious unit, why not a generic "Propagandist" unit, for any set of beliefs, with religion as one option....

BTW, I use propagandist not as an insulting term.. by this I mean any attempt to spread your beliefs.. Pro-deomcracy advocates would be propagandists as well as the less popular folks...

[Chowlett]

I like MBrazier's idea of religions "fighting" for control of the populace and affecting happiness etc. I really think this could work, including the idea of non-state religions causing UNhappiness where state temples exist. This sounds like a good plan - just one point. Maybe religious "combat" should be given a far lower chance of success for the attacker than normal - no matter if the conviction is low, it would still take a lot of effort to convert followers. Maybe as an alternative, a percentage chance that a square would try to convert it's neighbours in any particular turn.

I'd also like to clarify - presumably, if the old system of combat stays (if attacker fails, defende destroys attacker) - which honestly I think it shouldn't, but that's for another thread - this would NOT apply to this form of combat. I can't believe that just because we failed to convert them, they manage to convert us.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Chowlett (edited June 01, 1999).]</font>

[paraclet]

ATHEIST CIVILISATIONS That,s what should be possible.Buit even here "Notliketea "is censoring my thread about atheism I wanted to create (2 times) and asking me to place my suggestions here on the religion thread...
And I tried and it was censored...
So that's censorship...
Is this forum a religiously correct forum ? What I ask is that in civ3 we can have an option for atheist civilisation and that even for religious civilisation that religion become obsolete afetr the discovery of birth control like right now in real life churches are more and more empty and will desappear except in undevelopped countries...
And that non communist countries should have the possibility to be atheist, replacing temples by theaters, then by sex shops and with a wonder like birth control having the same power as JS Bach Cathedral for a civilisation believing in science instead if a supernatural god.
Civ 3 should be fun to play also for godless athgeist players...

[the Octopus]

I want to post something here so I can be sure that it gets in the summary without any equivocation...

Religions in Civ III are a really bad idea. There is no way to do it which will not insult someone, and it does not add anything to the gameplay. Let's look at some examples:

Specific Real-World Religions: What advantages and disadvantages does Christianity have over Islam? How about Protestantism over Catholicism? How can you set those plusses and minuses without offending (at least a lot of, if not all) Christians, Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics?

Generic Religions (e.g. Monothesim, Polytheism, etc.): The problems still don't go away. What advantages and disadvantages does any flavor of religion have over Atheism? If you say Atheism gets a science bonus, there will be plenty of religious people who will be upset (there are plenty who feel slighted by "the Lord's Believers" from SMAC). If they don't many atheists will be upset since some feel that religion has held back the minds of humanity for a long time...

Totally Generic Religions: You have Religion A, Religion B, and Religion C, not any specific ideologies. How is Atheism treated under this system? I'd wager that paraclet and a number of others would be rather upset at the notion that atheism is just another religion, lumping it in with superstitious belief, shamanism, or what have you. Paraclet seems to believe (as do many others) that societies would be better off without religion, and that implying that atheism was just a denomination would probably be insulting to them. By implementing this A-B-C system you have removed that option and forced them to play a game that enforces an idea that they vehemently disagree with. You also imply that religions are totally superficial, not grounded in reality. What does this system say about whether or not Jesus Christ was divine? Some people may be offended by not being able to pick their favored religion.

Now, as to gameplay: It seems like a lot of the suggestions here talk about religions happening "behind the scenes" and "beyond the player's control". That, to me, is a recipe for a really frustrating and annoying game. Realism is no substitute for fun. Why is what is being proposed fun?

I haven't seen any suggestions here that would make Civ III a more fun game. I've seen many that would increase micromanagement, I've seen plenty that would have major impacts on a civilization based on totally random and uncontrollable events. I currently can't imagine a system which would not offend a lot of people. I think including religion in Civ III is a bad idea.

I don't intend to offend anyone with this post, so I hope nobody takes it personally.