RELIGION 2.1 (Hosted by Stefu)

[raingoon]

Stefu

Let us know if you understand what's being requested, here . A lot of work has been done for you, and don't get me wrong -- I think I speak for all of us when I say that's not a pistol in our pocket, we're actually happy to see you. But we all agree that one final post, with discrepancy notes, is essential to making this worth the trouble we've gone to.

Maybe it would be best if you posted your summary here first, so those who want to be sure their differing viewpoints are being articulated fairly. We may find that in the context of the final post/summary, some differences aren't worth mentioning after all...

[will I]

Everyone:

I'm glad we're going to be working off the same sheet. I think that will make it easier for Stefu, YinShining, and (I hope) Firaxis. As for the general format of the presentation, I too would like to see a single text where we agree and a list of the different proposals for the issues where we do not. I think it would also be appropriate to list the strength of the support for the various suggestions.

As we're preparing the summary, I also think it would probably be helpful to Stefu to have a point-by-point list from each of us indicating which approach we support. That will certainly lessen the chance that he will misunderstand our views.

Raingoon:

Good to hear from you again. I'm quite jealous of your hiking in the California wilderness, as my family and professional obligations don't give me the chance for a getaway.

As for my religious reading, I've done a lot of trawling the web. There are several good sites on Luther, the best of which is run by the University of Wittenberg, his alma mater. I lost the URL, but if I remember correctly, it's accessible throught the web site of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. I'm also reading a book by Lewis Spitz entitled The Protestant Reformation: 1517-1559. It's a really good overview of the religious history of the development of Protestantism and okay on the Counter-Reformation. It also has chapters on other trends in history and society, but those are pretty worthless.

MBrazier:

M@ni@c is correct about Rome, which tolerated all religions other Christianity for most of its history. Many of the Chinese dynasties (especially the T'ang) were tolerant of foreign religions, although the Confucian ethical system proved to be quite resistant to evangelism. Most of the Muslim empires tolerated Christianity and Judaism.

Although giving the religions different base evangelism and conviction ratings would be interesting, I don't think we could base our figures on history. First, many religions have changed their focus over time. Early Christians began by sending proselytizing exclusively among the Jews, and only later expanded to gentiles. Islam began with a strong proselytization effort that is nowhere near as intense today as it was in the early centuries. Ditto on Buddhism. Even Judaism -- MBrazier's model of low evangelism -- went through an expansive phase. Second, there is no consensus on how expansive different religions are. Some people would surely disagree with my assessment of evangelism by Buddhism and Islam. Therefore, I think that unless the differences were randomly generated, we might run into difficulty.

For the record, I also agree that the conviction level at the time of a schism should affect the number of converts/holdouts.

On the distinction between excommunication/interdict and schism, I think the most important difference is that excommunication/interdict is involuntary to the affected civ, while schism is voluntary.

[Maniac]

Raingoon :

Then assume Grand deleted.

Harel includes his religion category in SE, so I don't think it's necessary here.
I only hope Firaxis will see itself that our religion model AND a SE religion category with names like Polytheism, Loose Monontheism, Fundamentalism etc etc is impossible.

"Maybe it would be best if you posted your summary here first, so those who want to be sure their differing viewpoints are being articulated fairly. We may find that in the context of the final post/summary, some differences aren't worth mentioning after all..."

I Agree. But tomorrow is supposed to be the deathline for summaries. Stefu, could you ask some extra time to Yin?

Will :

"M@ni@c is correct about Rome, which tolerated all religions other Christianity for most of its history. Many of the Chinese dynasties (especially the T'ang) were tolerant of foreign religions, although the Confucian ethical system proved to be quite resistant to evangelism. Most of the Muslim empires tolerated Christianity and Judaism."

So you agree that religious freedom should get the +2 Happiness thus making it more attractive for large empires?

And about what you say about changing eva and conv ratings for religions along histiry, I fully agree.
That was BTW the main reason I disliked giving effects to specific religions.

Uh yes off course you're right about excommunication/interdict and schism.
Excommunication forced to the civ's leader by the religious leader.
Schism done voluntarily by the civ's leader.

[raingoon]

Some further thoughts on finishing this today.

Mbrazier's version, perhaps because it is most recent, seems the most inclusive. Is it possible for each of us to make no more than two suggestions to Mbrazier, and see if he'll re-edit? We might then come up with a single unified model after all, with no discrepancies. Surely we can all make a sacrifice in the name of a united front to Firaxis.

The Religion chapter of the Version 2 Wishlist is essentially shaping up to be our model, which is something I think we all have a right to be proud of. The minute disagreements will be play tested over anyway -- if we're lucky -- so please consider this simple solution. Another reason to try for a unified post of our own, without discrepancies, is that Cormac and others on the Firaxis thread have asked that we post the final religion model there as well. But more than that I would just love for the Wishlist to be able to say, "On the religion thread there was complete consensus behind the following proposal..."

So, on the chance this works, I'll start:

1. If the Great Shrine paragraph were edited per my note above, I'd be happy.

That's it for me. I'll let my second request be represented by the sum of what M@ni@c and Will would like changed. I'm very happy with the whole thing. This truly looks like part of an advanced Civilization game. I think you guys are damn smart and it's been a pleasure hammering this thing out with you, so give this last idea a shot.


<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by raingoon (edited August 31, 1999).]</font>

[Maniac]

Sigh... my version is the most recent (you know, editing) and it's the most inclusive. I even began to include MBrazier's and Will's ideas in it.

Sorry, I haven't got the time today to post and discuss a lot.
Quick this. Don't expect any more response today.

Do with I what you like. We all agree on it anyway.

With II the same. But note I changed that Turywenzists in London example.

About III. I'm kind of strict on changes to that, as you might have noticed...
I have no problem that +1 Res should take some time eg 3 turns to take effect.
And I don't really care how many citizens become unhappy. MBrazier wants 50% of the persecuted citizens, I want all the persecuted citizens and Will wants double the persecuted citizens. And you Raingoon? You decide who gets the majority of votes...

IV. Great Schrines. I have mostly the same as MBrazier. Good enough for me. The only difference I think is that I would give doubled taxes to a tolerated holy city. Not very important.

[will I]

A few notes:

M@ni@c:

I agree with your +2 happiness for religious freedom. I included it in the state religion section in the mistaken belief that you wanted it there, an error that occurred because I tried to string my proposal together over a very short period. As you'll see from my post of 30 August, I agree with your proposal for religious freedom, although I would like to see it spelled out without reference to the SE thread. I also think that some of the advantages -- notably improvements in bribery and the luxury output of entertainers -- are excessive.

Raingoon:
I don't think that having a few areas of disagreement will reduce our credibility. In fact, I can imagine that suggesting alternative approaches -- all of which are well though out at this point -- increases the likelihood that our target audience will see the model as something flexible that can be easily grafted onto Civ2.

That said, if the rest of us opt for a consensus approach based on the MBrazier draft with one amendment, I would change tithes, II.C.3, to read as follows:

3. Under religious freedom: Each turn, every city tithes one gold per religion represented, to the respective religions coffers. This comes from the trade stream. To avoid making the burden too great, tithes are subtracted before the corruption calculation. (Since even a cad would hesitate to steal from the church.) In addition, the civs would no longer pay upkeep for religious improvements. Instead, the upkeep fees for all religious improvements are subtracted from the treasuries of the religion, with each religion paying a proportion of the total upkeep proportionate to its share of world population.

As I've said before, I think the current model creates too much free money for the religions and too much free happiness for the civs. By taking tithes from the trade stream and having upkeep for religious improvements come from the religions, we give the religions something besides missions to pay for, and make the civs pay something meaningful for the happiness benefits they get from religion.

Although I suspect this will not be my last post, I would like to echo Raingoon's sentiment. You have had great ideas and thoughtful, constructive comments on the various proposals. It has been a pleasure working on this project with you. (I'll also add that I've been glad to see that Religion will end up being the second or third most active topic, which I think has surprised everyone, and has come up with an outstanding final product.)

[MBrazier]

Raingoon: no doubt it would be nice to send in a proposal with a note saying "the Religion thread attained consensus on the following model", but unless everyone suddenly agrees with my ideas for temples and cathedrals it isn't going to happen. I do insist on that being included somehow -- but at the same time, I don't want to suppress the others' ideas on that point. That means alternate proposals.

Will: excellent suggestion on II.C.3, and I adopted it into my draft with one change. It seems more reasonable to split the cost of temple/cathedral upkeep according to each religion's share of the civ's population, not the whole world's -- for one thing, it makes no sense to charge a religion for buildings in cities where it has no members at all. (I'd originally thought to split by shares of each _city's_ population, but that would force the calculations to use fractions or accept large rounding errors...)

A point to consider, though: now we have civs with state religions paying upkeep on temples _and_ tithing 20% of their tax revenue. That adds up to a pretty big income for the state religion, nearly all devoted to missionary work. Would it be better to reduce the tithe to 10%, or even 5%?

[raingoon]

Actually, Will has a good point. There is already concensus, and any differences in the details here and there shows a healthy flexibility in the model.

Mbrazier, re your last question re tithes -- I'd say phrase it so that it's clear we think there _might_ be a problem with it being too much, but playtesting would reveal whether 5, 10 or the full 20% would be most effective."

M@ni@c, I was really talking off the cuff, incorrectly assuming the last in order was the latest. Sorry. Look, I'll just retract my proposal and echo you all. Stefu should take the three of your proposals and copy what is the same and note where it's different.

It'd be nice to know if Stefu's following this, but a post from Stefu seems to cost about three thousand dollars a word. Well, what's rare is precious . Stefu, if you're reading this, it would still be nice to get a chance to go over your summary before the turn-in.

Lastly, M@ni@c, regarding the three-way tie on how to implement persecution happiness penalties, for what it's worth I have to split my vote between yours and Mbrazier's. Will, my guess is what you're going for is realistic, but for gameplay and simplicty I'd vote for a simpler cause-effect equation. Thus, I even lean towards M@ni@c's, but I honestly don't think you can know the answer to these minute questions outside of actual playtesting. Put me down for M@ni@c's version if you must. But this is a great place to include differing ideas.

Likewise, whether or not res suffers -1 under persecution. It seems historically founded. Include it as a question to be answered in actual playtesting.

Waiting to hear confirmation from Stefu that his questions on what to do were answered.

[Yes, ia am Stefu.]

Hello.

I've decided my own way of doing it, which is I do it all and you get no credit. No, really, if you think it is worth mentioning, I can say to Firaxis you worked your own summaries and deserve the pat on the head for that. However, I summarize my own. You gotta grant me that, there's few things to drop the ego more than seeing your thread members get to your holy area of work.

Here's few things I recommend to avoid for next list:

1. Religious discussions of flammatory sort.

2. Posting posts from another List thread (Maniac gets kick athwarth the earhole for that!) These are hard to deal with.

3. Combining your own summaries. My ego is hurt, and I get awky feeling. I'm not gonna look to them, I swear I wont. I wont. I wont. Wont.

[raingoon]

Stefu, I don't want to make assumptions, but I'd LIKE to assume you were joking...

Couple things. Don't tell Firaxis I did anything here. That misses the point of what I'm sure all of us agree is the main concern -- namely, WHAT was done. Not who did it. That said, don't you think your tone is a little patronizing in light of the hard work that is evidenced herein? The phrase "pat on the head" reads imperious and diminutive, yes, but more importantly -- it implies you misunderstand what's really important here.

Please note the final outlines we've asked you to look at actually ARE our ideas. I am genuinely concerned if you truly mean to avoid the outlines and look simply at our posts discussing them. A little more straight talk would be greatly appreciated.

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by raingoon (edited September 02, 1999).]</font>

[will I]

Stefu:

I think you misunderstand. We have all avoided characterizing the model as a "summary." It is not. It is a system for implementing religion within the framework of Civ2 and, in the alternative, for combining religion with some of the more popular suggestions for altering Civ2. All of us have made suggestions, revised our suggestions, and abandoned ideas that did not fit with the model to make it an integrated whole. As such, the separate parts of the model do not make much sense outside of the context of the model. (That was why I called it a "Grand Model," in the sense of a grand total of all of the ideas.)

I think you would be doing a disservice to our ideas by chopping the model up into a list of several items and including them with random thoughts that we have abandoned along the way and unrelated suggestions from other commenters.

[raingoon]

Yeah, uh, second that -- what Will said. Stefu, summarize your brains out if you see fit to do it. It's your thread. But grant the guys who spent all their time here a little credit. That's not a summary outline you're seeing repeated throughout here. That's the model itself.

[Maniac]

Raingoon and Will. Jeeze, (although I am atheist, I use the expression Jeeze quite frequently) I can't believe my own eyes what you wrote. You're joking, right? That isn't Stefu! It's "Yes, ia am Stefu."
Probably some childish imposter who thinks he's funny. Ignore him!

Yes, ia am Stefu. :

Now what you are doing is something I don't like. If you're trying to be funny, go somewhere else. We're doing here serious work and we don't need someone like you.

BTW, if you choose a Username, try NOT to write spelling errors. I hope you know you're sticked with that ridiculous name for as long as you have your present e-mail adress. Cause you can't change your Username, you can only have one name per adress + you can't register with hotmail stuff etc (BTW Raingoon/Will another reason why this isn't Stefu).

Back to Raingoon and Will :

Now that's cleared, the real Stefu still hasn't appeared and I don't think he will. So looks after all we'll have to make the model post ourself and send it to YinShining.

M@ni@c
Will make another post replying to the serious posts soon.

[raingoon]

Well, M@ni@c, that is a very astute point.

Since we were pretty much ready to go with the final model, and just noting discrepancies where necessary, I would suggest we do that, and preface the entire model with any and all other suggestions, and send it in to Yinshining. For that matter, we can compare it to the version 1.0 wishlist religion chapter -- I believe you'll find most of those ideas represented within our model. And those that are not, again, could be part of a "preface" to the model, giving them their due.

[Giant Squid]

OK, I've been thinking some more (groans) Here goes.

PART I: CAUSES OF RELIGION

It seems to be generally accepted that when you start the game, your religion will be animism. Though there are many different kinds of animism, they mainly respect each other and are similar.

As you reach a general technological level, new religions will begin to form. I suggest that each Social technology contribute 1 point to a General Social Advancement Level, and each religion based technology (ie Theology, Mysticism) contribute 3 points. When it reaches a certain level (such as ten points for polytheism), new religions will spring up. I suggest that this be done in the same way that the Golden Age of Philosophy is in Civ2-whatever city gives the final research point that pushes the appropriate tech over the edge is the "center". In my humble opinion, a "center" should not require having members of that religion live there. For example, Jerusalem has always been a major Jewish holy city, even when there were next to no Jews there. So it will be declared the center, and that's it. If you get the tech from a goody hut, then an unoccupied tile will be the holy place. This would be something like Gautama meditating under a once-normal tree which then became a Buddhist center, or the sacred mountains of Hinduism. This would be marked with a little temple icon.

Each religion would have a Conversion Rating. This would be a very small percentage, such as 3%. This would be subtracted from the CR that the original religion of a citizen has to make the possibility that it converts this turn. For example, if I discover Religion A with a 5% conversion rating, and my citizens currently follow Religion B with a 4% rating, there is a 1% chance per turn that a citizen will convert. Each citizen already of that religion in the city adds 1.5% (people want to go with the crowd) If for some reason you wish to encourage a particlar religion, you can build improvements, for example a Baptistry, which will double the percentage chance that each citizen convert to Christianity. You can also build an improvement similar to Capitalization called (Persecution), in which each shield is converted to a percentage chance that citizens will go to whatever religion you want them in.

If a holy center is captured (or, if on an empty square, the square is pillaged) the religion will lose a percentage point or two (the faithful wonder how their god could let such a thing happen)

You can make a unit somewhat like CTP's Cleric, which will go into an enemy (or friendly, if you're on a crusade for religious homogenization) city and actually stay there until expelled, doubling the chance for each enemy citizen to convert.

If you enter negotiations with a rival, your religions immediately become an option for your rival's citizens, and his/her religions become an option for yours. Thus, if you have not yet discovered Islam, but talk to a Civ that does, your citizens might start converting. Obviously, the holy center would be in your rival's possesion, so this would be bad.

PART II: BENEFITS OF RELIGION

Two main ideas have been proposed so far: each religion having a special bonus (like atheism: + 1 science) or there just being a penalty for not having homogenous religion. In order to not insult people with religions that wouldn't have as big bonuses (what do you tell an Islamic person about to buy Civ if it says that the Christians are absolutely better?) I suggest mainly the latter. Here's a list of benefits.

1. For each citizen belonging to a religion, anywhere, the home city gets a trade bonus of that number of arrows (pilgrimage). This might seem overdone, but I don't think so. I mean, look at the Vatican. It's got 800 people and maybe a few tens of millions of tourists who come each year.

2. If a diplomat asks a city to revolt, the price is modified based on religion of the city and of your empire. If your empire is greater, percentage-wise in the city's main religion than the empire you're trying to steal it from, the cost goes down significantly.

3. Some wonders may affect certain religions. For example, Michelangelo's Chapel might say "Makes every Christian in the empire content". This would provide a very strong incentive to get more Christians.

4. You may declare an official state religion. If you do this, the conversion rate of it increases by 1%, and each citizen of that religion generates one luxury (two, of course, are needed to make a discontented citizen happy). Anyone not under that religion will be unhappy (discounting other modifiers.) You can also declare No Official Religion.

OTHER STUFF

Atheism works rather like any other religion. However, it has no holy place. If two religions convert one citizen on the same turn, that citizen soon has no idea whatsoever what religion is right and turns to agnosticism, which is similar to animism for game purposes.

Building educational facilities (school, University) makes exposure to other religions greater. Each religion gets an extra percentage point when on "the offense" (trying to convert someone).

A NEW WAY TO WIN

Godhood. You must switch to the religion "Divine Leader", which has a very low starting conversion rate. You must then make more than half the world accept this religion and proclaim you God. If you manage this, you win.

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Giant Squid (edited September 04, 1999).]</font>