RELIGION (ver1.1) hosted by Stefu

[paraclet]

I don't agree.Using real religion names is much better...Like that you have the fun to identify yourself with your civilisation...
And you want not to offend any religion then make them ,one more time, totally equal...having equal wonders, and equal advantages on every field...Everything else is religious discrimination...even against atheists...
But I still think that the discovery of birth control should make religion obsolete...Because it does...And a real scientist is allways atheist...because he believes only what could be proven and repeated inside a laboratory...

[Black Dragon]

NLT: We already have a disloyalty factor for recently conqured civs in SMAC.

Parcalet: Your idea of religon is boring, as it would make them all the same. You may be able to indentify with say, Christianity or Islam, but I would not think too many Christians would enjoy leading an army of Atheists against a Christian nation, so it would be better leaving real names out. Also, birth control has been invented, and religon has not gone obsolete. Atheists are still a minority in the world's population, by far. And your part about all scientists beleiving only what is found in the lab is also false, as that would be an evidentialist, not a scientist.

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As far as bonuses/penalties, it would make the game unique, and give you reasons to persecute/encourage a religon. It would make it an important factor in the game, as well as making the civs different. It could build temples, send missionaries, and hence add another fun part to the game, as well as add some bit of realism to it, as for the more "advanced" religons, they were not controlled by rulers, like for a time in Europe, a king who lost the pope's support would be beheaded.

[NotLikeTea]

True, we have a "disloyality", but it would be interesting to expand on it a bit. Cities could have favour ratings for all other civs.

Carthago may like the Romans and Greeks, be indifferent to China, and dislike the Indians, for historic reasons. Another city in the same empire might have different opinions.

[CormacMacArt]

MBrazier - Sorry not to get back untill now - had a NASTY bug. The neighbors of a city are other cities. What I am saying is that all squares used by that city would have the same religion. I suggest this instead of ALL tiles for two reasons:

1. With the larger board sizes being suggested, that's alot of computation for each move

2. The relationship between that religion and the state can be more easily reflected in the happiness of the city. It essentially becomes a quality of the city.


paraclet - what world are you from? I am a Scientist and a Christian. I have worked with some of the top names in the fields of Pyrochemistry, Electrochemistry, Polymerchemistry, Solid-State Physics and Nuclear Physics. NOT ONCE has any of them even SUGGESTED that I was any less a scientist because of my religious beliefs. I have earned great respect as a scientist from Atheists that I have worked with. In short, you have NO IDEA what you are talking about. As I suggested in my letter to you, restrict yourself to constructive suggestions to this topic before you completely ruin this for us all.

[Ecce Homo]

An idea from me and CormacMacArt that didn't make it to the summary:

RELIGION AS AN AI PLAYER

AI players that are not civs, but religions. They can negotiate with civs, build temples and other structures in their cities, collect tithes, use propaganda against enemies and even raise small armies!

Each civ would be able to make different "treaties" with religion civs (Promote to state religion, allow, tolerate or persecute).

Maybe even a human could play as a religious leader?

[paraclet]

Black Dragon, why a christian should lead an army of athesit ? He can have the option to stay christian forever as you are not force to shift from Monarchy to Republic
And in the world the number of atheists has never been so high and is continuously growing up.In a near future they will be a majority...Science is everyday changing deists in atheists...And it's just the beginning...Like the % of marriage ending in divorces was less tha 5 % at the beginning of this century and is now more than 50 % in some countries...That's a great progress !Because mariage was inforce at the beginning by god's believers...

[NotLikeTea]

Keep in mind that this is a forum for the discussion of religion in Civ.

For a discussion of merits of religion (My god is better than your god ), try the Off Topic forum, at the bottom of the list.

[EnochF]

Actually, the fight brewing in this forum at the moment is "My no god is better than your god."

Which raises the question: If the game randomly chooses "Atheism" as the One True Religion at the beginning of the game... why bother playing it?

I'd be willing to see aspects of religion in Civ III, but only if we can adhere to two extremely difficult tenets:
I. Avoid Christian-bashing, no matter how tempting it might be, and
II. Promote a kind of religious relativism which adds flavor to the game without completely overhauling gameplay.

Chances are, this would probably work out best if religions were controlled by a fairly simple AI. Not by random chance, but based on a variety of factors, including the technological level, the military presence, the level of unhappiness, the proliferation of religious buildings, the religious affiliation of neighboring civilizations, etc. Once the people have chosen a religion, you as a leader may encourage them by building temples, "cathedrals" (mosques, shrines), and religious Wonders. Your people's war discontent will rise if you go to war with a nation of the same religious faith (so as to discourage such warfare, but not completely disallow it; that would not be historically accurate); consequently, discontent will not be as great if warring against the infidels.

True atheism would be a kind of late-game "religion" which your people may end up choosing, in which case temples and cathedrals will increase unhappiness, and libraries will provide a modest boost, but otherwise you as a leader will have to compensate with a booming economy and high luxuries to keep them happy.

Er. That still leaves the problem of whether to specifically name existing religions and give them benefits or not...

Ah, screw it! The whole subject is too goddamned touchy, let's just avoid the whole thing.

[Stefu]

Okay folks, I think I'm not going to make version 1.2. Two reasons:

1. There hasn't been so much of new ideas or like, mostly just religious argument.
2. Day we send our summaries is nearing, so it will be easier this way.

Also, Ecce Homo, could you explain how this differs from my idea?

[NotLikeTea]

I think there are some good ideas from this thread that can be ammended, though it has been less productive than the last version...

[Galen]

Okay, here are my suggestions based on what I've seen:
<list>
Let people name the religion, avoid the touchy part.
Make the religions random, give them evangelists that all seem the same.
Have religions sprout up random with silly names. You can change it later.
Make Athiesm a special case
</list>
By Athiesm as a special case I mean that it really is a lack of religion, and therefore gets no bonuses or minuses.
However, religions could have knowledge bonuses, not nessecarily negatives. An example is Islam during the middle ages: Islam was the most science oreinted religion at the time.
And Religions could change. The Reformation led to more science, but now we have protestants leading the charge against science. When Christianity started it was pacifist, look at it during the middle ages for a contrast.
Make religions about as important as economics, it is.

[Galen]

Okay, here are my suggestions based on what I've seen:
<list>
Let people name the religion, avoid the touchy part.
Make the religions random, give them evangelists that all seem the same.
Have religions sprout up random with silly names. You can change it later.
Make Athiesm a special case
</list>
By Athiesm as a special case I mean that it really is a lack of religion, and therefore gets no bonuses or minuses.
However, religions could have knowledge bonuses, not nessecarily negatives. An example is Islam during the middle ages: Islam was the most science oreinted religion at the time.
And Religions could change. The Reformation led to more science, but now we have protestants leading the charge against science. When Christianity started it was pacifist, look at it during the middle ages for a contrast.
Make religions about as important as economics, it is.

[Cartagia the Great]

Ok, I thought I would better clarify my ideas for religion, just to make sure everyone understands them

First of all, I agree that religions would start in one city of an Empire and spread, mroe or less agaisnt the control of the host civilization. A Civilization could choose to respond to this religion in many differant wayts ranging from opressing the religion, to makeing it the state church, and opressing all others. The religion would ahve differant affects on the civilization, and the cities it holds, depending on the governments treatment of it

Religion names should be historical, not any of this Foocomism, which I strongly disagree with. Although I see the point of this argument, little else in Civilziation is 'made up' and I feel it the wrong option to do the same with this.

Religions would be of diffreant catagories such as Spirit Worship, Paganism, Monotheism, Ancestor Worship, Philosophical, Atheism and Cult. Each of these would have differant factors which would affect the hsot civilization depending on it's attitude toward the religion. There would be no DOWN SIDE to a religion. For instance, Paganism would not have a -3 science. All bennifits would be posative, but DIFFERANT, as to not be desciminatory.

Each religion would be named after the civilization it sprung from. Monotheism which is created in Babylonia would be called Babylonian Monotheism. It's affects would be the SAME as Monotheism, but it would act as a Seperate religion than, say, Chinese Monotheism. These two religions could declare religiouse wars against one another, and it would show how religions, despite being of the same time, can be differant. After all Christians and Arabs are both Monothiests, but are still seperate, and don't always have the best relations.

A religion would spread in many ways. it could spread slowly through the use of raod systems, and trade routs. This would affect cities conencted to the first city by road systems, and move out from there. Eventually they would corss boarders, where other civilizations could choose to hsot them or not. Rember, religions could spread into your boardres as well. Later, as a government offically sponcers one religion, it would be possible to build missionaries who would go out and, udner government control, preach the religion to another city and civilziation. This might have the affect of having another civilization go to your religion, or it could have cities go to your religion, and rebell, share money with you, or many other options. of course, other civilizations might respond very badly to your preaching, watch out.

Let us say that there is a religion called Arabic Paganism, which exists in both Arabia and Russia. Arabia and Russia would have better relations, becuase they follow the same religion, and such. However. if there is a religion called Roman Paganism in Rome and England, Rome nad England would ahve the same diplomatic bennifits as Arabia and Russia, BUT would not ahve these bennifits _WTH_ Arabia and Russa, beucase they do not follow the same religion. All are pagan, all would have the pagan bennifits, but the religiosn would be seperate. Crusades, and other things, could be launched agaisnt one another.

A religion would also survive it's creators death. Lets go back to the Arabic paganism in Arabia and Russia. If Arabis were to fall to invaders, lets say Aztec Philosophical, the Arabic Paganism would not be destroed in Russia. In fact it could be possible for the head of the religion to MOVE to Russia, much as Russia, in RL, became the bastion of the Orthodox Churhc after the fall of Constantinople. Arabic Paganism might not die out in the Arabic cities either, it might actually go into the invading Chinese lands and convert them, so that the religion would outlast its founding civilization in the way the Christanity survived the fall of both Roman Empires, and Islam survived the colapse of the Arabic Empire.

It would be possible, expecially later in the game, to show no govenrment sponcership for any religion. There would be bennifits for doing this, but it would also lead to some problems. There could be riots, seperation movments, and attacks against religion groups who dislike one another, depending on the history of the people, and of the nation.

There are my basic ideas, I hope that it cleared up my thoughts. I beleive I was being misunderstood before, and this should clearify the situation. I do hope that religion, and real religions, are used in this new game. It would be a bit gutsy, but would increase my respect fopr Sid Mier, and the company ten fold for doing so. On a final note, I believe there should be an option which would scramble the affects of a religion, much like there was the civ1 option to scramble leadership attributes.

[Black Dragon]

Paraclet: Stats show religon is going the other way, up. And the divorce rate is merely a sign of bad choosing. Atheists will most likely never be a majority, at least while we are still alive.

ANYWAY, this is the last religous arguing I will do HERE, altough I would be glad to carry it on in Off Topic.

And as far as your idea of atheists becoming a majority in the end, well, that would offend theists, and we dont want to go offending people. The only safe way to avoid offending people is to use fake religons.

I agree with the whole AI idea, allow them to do pretty much what Ecce Homo said. Also, I think if a religon is a state religon, you should be able to build temples yourself as well as build missionaries, to use either on your own people or your neighboring religon.

Another thing I think they should be able to do is declare crusade against a certain nation it gets pissed off at. If this happens:

You are asked to declare war on a civilization. If you refuse, a certain percentage of your population would disappear and reappear under the control of the religon near the nation it is attacking. In addition, members of the nation the religon is attacking will have a chance of rising up against their nation should they be of that religon.

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Also, here is a compromise for what religons would be used:

Have it start off having religons like Turywenzism. However, include a "religon editor" in the game, in which you could alter religon names, as well as bonuses/penalties. That way, if you WANTED Christianity to be in the game, you could put it in, as well as give it whatever bonuses/penalties you want.

I like the idea of atheism having some kind of science bonus, but a large hapiness penalty.

Again, to restate the "levels" of religon suggsted:

Militant
Normal
Pacifistic

Evangelstic
Normal
Non-Evangelstic(like Judiasm)

Centralized(like Roman Catholic)
Normal
Un-Centralized(like Lutheranism)

[Ecce Homo]

Stefu asked how the AI Religion-idea differs from his idea.

Well, I made the usual mistake not to read the previous summary. I believe we can work out this idea together.