RELIGION (ver1.0): Hosted by Stefu

[CormacMacArt]

I am also a gun-toating, anti-american Bible-believing, conservative, born-again, Christian. Sorry about the first part, I can be very sarcastic, but I am the latter 4. I was going to suggest:

Use actual religions.
Give them BASIC qualities (evangelistic/not, militant/pacifist, tolerant/not; -1,0,1 as in Civ2)
Let them develop on their own, but a civ can create its own religion (maybe restrict it to emperer-[sp?] worship?)
Give each religion its own AI, and ways to interact with the different civs.

I think if value judgements are left out of the programming, everyone will be happy.

So, rocks or roses?

[Trachmyr]

Nix...

If you go with historical religions, do NOT script it to historical progression and spreading of religons. I do not want my Celtic Civilization becoming christian (from Druidism) unless I am conqueroed by the Romans. But then would you (no one in particular, you as in the reader) be willing to accept your civ if a random religion can develop within it? Especially if you are pre-disposed to a particular religion, or baisised against the one that appears?

Let us design religions, through use of Clergy generating DOGMA for that religion. We can name it, and give it attributes that we feel it deserves.

The argument that leaders have no control over which religions develop or how they evolve is ENTIRELY wrong. Leaders did just that, either by acceptance/persuction, propaganda, slight changes in interpertaions, and out-right manipulation (Do you really think that the Egyptian Pharohes had nothing to do with that whole "We are gods thing"?).

You can impose riots, religious revolutions, ect. for those who play god to frequently or with out subtlty.

One final note, Leaders weren't the ones (usually) who named cities, or game or decided (especially in the late game) what structures to build... we are given that control because we are above "leader" level, we are sculpters, we (like the active hands of destiny) shape our civs at levels no leader ever did or ever could. Religion is yet another componet of destiny for civs, and we should be able to sculpt that as well.

[CormacMacArt]

I agree that kings (and even modern politicians) use(d) religion on some level to furthur their own agenda. The Holocaust is a great example of that. Hitler used "christianity" to attempt to destroy the Jewish people, but planned to destroy Christianity afterwards. So, I would agree with giving each leader the ability to use a religion to its own end, but give them (except state-run religion, and I guess this means you would be able to take a world religion and make it state-run within your empire), that is, the world religions, their own AI and agendas. That way if you want to eliminate Christian missionaries to the Celts, you persecute them, but how successful will you be?

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Well, just as my two cents, I don't think religion itself should be modeled, just it's effects. As in, we don't care what your religion is, but how strongly do you believe in it? How fiercely will you defend it? How tolerant is your government of it? I think the last of those should be what you choose in social engineering, and the others are determined by your populace in response to your social engineering settings.

[Eggman]

Bell, you might be onto something.

Even religions with very minor differences (see Romand Catholic vs. Protestant) have been party to serious conflicts, many of them insanely stupid. Maybe it isn't as important what the civ's religion is, just that it is different enough and the people are willing to fight for it (or not). That probably could be pulled off without having to use real names or dogma. Of course, this loses some of the value of religion and probably could just be merged into an ethnicity trait (which BETTER be in this game).

This has proven a very interesting topic.

[Aharon Ben Rav]

Here's an idea for religion. It is a simple one, as I have found that most of the ideas on these suggestions boards are unrealistically complex and unlikely to actually be used in Civ III.

Let us assume for the moment that "social engineering" will exist in Civ III similar to SMAC - in other words, you will change not only government types but also economic models, religions, etc. What religion your society follows will effect science rates, happiness, support of units, economics, etc.

With these assumptions, there is no need to name actual religions. Instead, you offer a number of different religious categories which represent actual religion as it has developed over time. Notice I say developed, not progressed. Many of us belive in religions which are near the middle of this list. I may have too many here, but I'm thinking the following:

ANAMISM -- The initial setting, representing tribal American and African religions.
POLYTHEISM -- Hinduism, for example.
PHILOSOPHICAL -- Confusicsim, Taoism - religion based on philosophy rather than worhsip. Would come with Philosophy.
MONOTHEISM -- Catholicism, Judaism, Islam
REFORMED -- A more scientific version of monotheism which makes less people happy but leads to more science. Protestantism, Reform Judaism, etc. New tech advance "The Reformation."
FUNDAMENTALISM -- a more stringent version of monotheism. Leads to less science but more police powers and unit support. Represents religions like Iranian Shi'ism, American Evangelicalism, and Jewish Hasidism.
DEISM -- the one I'm not sure we need, it represents the halfway point between REFORMED and our next choice... and represents the ideals of Jefferson and Franklin, for example.
ATHEISM -- The most scientific, but may create happiness problems as people become hedonists.

Notice that with this system, the Fundamentalist government choice is no longer existant. It would be replaced with a government choice "Theocracy," which would be similar to Fundamentalism in Civ II but cannot be chosen if your religion is ANAMISM, PHILOSOPHICAL, REFORMED, DEISM, or ATHEISM. They also might want to create a bonus for choosing both the Theocracy government choice and the Fundamentalism religious choice.

I think it is also a good idea, like SMAC, to make governments which have differing religious views more likely to have wars, and governments with more "advanced" religions like MONOTHEISM and FUNDAMENTALISM are more likely to send "spy" units (or a unit like CTP's Cleric) to try to stir civil wars in cities of Civilizations with earlier religions. This would represent missionary work, a very important historical movement throughout time.

Aharon Ben Rav

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Aharon Ben Rav writes:
What religion your society follows will effect science rates, happiness, support of units, economics, etc.

I think this is exactly the kind of thing that could get Firaxis in serious hot water . . . that and, who's to say what effects each religion would have?

[This message has been edited by Bell (edited May 25, 1999).]

[Aharon Ben Rav]

Bell writes:

"I think this is exactly the kind of thing that could get Firaxis in serious hot water . . . that and, who's to say what effects each religion would have?"

I think you missed my point, Bell. The religions represent classes of religious beliefs which have been existant at different times. Actual names of actual religions would not be used. Therefore nobody should be offended.

As far as "who's to say what effects each religion would have?" the answer is the Firaxis developers. But I think it can be easily accepted that, for example:

1) Atheistic societies show a quicker development of science, but less happiness because "the great questions of the universe" go unanswered and life lacks structure.
2) Fundamentalist religions have very little scientific development but have an enormous morale boost.
3) Temples have a greater effect in polytheistic or monotheistic religions than they do in anamist religions because of a greater organizational effect of having specific gods (or one god) to worship.

As I said, these are just examples. But I would not want to see the names of actual religions used in the game under any circumstances.

Aharon Ben Rav

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I don't think it matters if you use real names or not, everybody knows that Christians are monotheistic, and Ancient Greeks were Polytheistic, etc. People will still realize that you're talking about their or their friends religion. I even got a little momentary twinge when you talked about Atheists being less happy, and I'm not particularly religious or easy to offend. Not that I particularly care, but I noticed it.

[This message has been edited by Bell (edited May 25, 1999).]

[MBrazier]

On Aharon Ben Rav's list of religion types:

I think that the four types ANIMISM, POLYTHEISM, PHILOSOPHY, and MONOTHEISM pretty much cover the ground; REFORMED and FUNDAMENTALIST are just variations of monotheism, and DEISM/ATHEISM is a variant of philosophy. If you start with those four basic types and add two scales -- one for "degree of faith", and one for "toleration of infidels" -- then you've said as much about religion as needs to be said, for game purposes.

Though if you want to be _really_ complete, there is one missing basic type. Call it DIABOLISM -- representing the really vicious cults and mythologies, ones that involved mass human sacrifice for instance. The Aztec state religion is the classic real-world example. Game effects of such religions would of course be mostly bad; you'd want to root them out as fast as possible.

Adding my input:

I. How religion works

Religions spontaneously appear in cities. For example, I cold be hapilly worshipping Judaism one turn when I get a message that Christianity has been founded in Jerusalem. Firaxis will give a "growth statistic" to every religion. If Christianity has a growth rate of, say, 5, and Judaism one of 4, then Christianity will slowly displace Judaism in my empire, starting from where it was founded and slowly reaching new cities. I can elect to stop its growth by persecuting it like Stefu said, which will maybe make it a bit less appealing to people. Also, there might be some innate resistance based on the amount of time people have been worshipping Judaism in my empire. If it's a very new thing, then it will be easy for faster-growing Christianity to replace it. If it's been practiced faithfully for thousands of years, it may be so ingrained in the minds of my citizens that Christianity will have to spread somewhere else, like in Greece. As it grows, the religion Christianity will become almost like a minor civilization. It will have a capital in its oldest city (which can be moved), and might conduct negotiations with you (say, capture this city for the Church and they'll give you some gold.) You can shut down the official centers of religion, but it isn't going to make your people all that happy. It also might strain relations between you and the other Christian powers.

II. The effects of religion

Each religion would have various benefits. Firstly, the effectiveness of temples and cathedrals (or whatever their equivalent is in Civ3) might depend on your religion. A Buddhist, who believes in moderation and a humble setting, would get signifacantly less happy from a grand cathedral than, say, a pagan who feels he must honor the gods. Some religions could have small effects on science or even trade (become a Scientologist state and watch your gold shoot straight up ) Additionally, if you can keep good relations with the Church (or organized Islam, or the Greek Gods), your people might get a benefit in fighting "heathen"

III. Various suggestions

Animism: Your whole civilization has this at the start. It doesn't do anything special. Growth-1

Paganism: Might generate itself after you discover something about equivalent to Mysticism. Slightly better than Animism, and spreads a bit faster. Pagans get large benefits from their temples. Growth-3

Judaism: May generate after monotheism. Gets a small science bonus. Growth-3

Christianity: Might generate in a Jewish city after (?). Bonuses include a very strong central orgaization and high growth rate.
Growth-6

Islam: Generates in a Jewish or Christian city after (?) Maybe a very small science bonus as well as some military plus.
Growth-4.5

Buddhism- Generates in an advanced city that hasn't discovered monotheism. Gives some bonus to luxuries or happiness, but a minus to military. Growth-3.75

Atheism-Comes after development of Age of Reason or something. Increases science by quite a bit and makes you not have to worry about keeping organized religion happy, but religious states don't really like you. Growth-3.5

Of course, you can persecute, encourage, or just destroy any religion you want, if you're prepared to accept any penalties.

------------------
Invertebrates of the world, UNITE! Don't just be a bunch of spineless....ah....never mind
<=O=&gt=E

[Stefu]

Some additions to list of Squidboy:

Maniceanism - random religion that unifies the good sides of existing religions. However likely to be persecuted as heresy. Growth 2.

Mithraism - Followers get militarity bonus. However efficiency suffers: This is more of secret society than religion. This will spread quickly among Talents. Growth 2.5

Confucianism - This gives small bonuses to efficiency, military and science. However, it spreads efficiently only in the nation where it first came to life. This is religion of perfectionist, not expansionist. Growth:4.

I'd give Christianity 4, too. It's not that fast spreading.

Also, don't remember monetary gifts to increase growth rate. How about 30 golds per turn means +1 growth?

[NotLikeTea]

I am very opposed to any idea of giving particular religions, or types of religions, innate bonuses of any kind. Boo! Hiss! ;-)

Giving cristianity a bonus over judaism is essentially the same as saying that it is better, and that animism (still important in modern native culture) is the most primitive, and therefore the worst. Ug.. we don't want to be implying this.

No religions should have any innate bonuses. Period.

However, application of religion should. Religion in itself does not impede research. It is the application of the religion that might do so. Same with growth rate, millitancy, etc. Any religion has the potential to be millitant, or grow, or dislike research.

There is no reason why you cannot have a millitant animistic religion, or a fundamentalist athiest state, having "holy" wars with other groups.

I also hate with a vengance the idea of "diabolism" as a choice. Sure, allow sacrafices if you want (important in most religions, at one point or another, human, animal or otherwise (Buddhism leaves little bowls of rice, or a mirror for the drahlas)), but don't call it "diabolic". That's the name for religions we don't like.

Looking at real history for stats is a bad idea. The whole point of Civ is to let you replay history as you like. Having real religions is a bad idea, not only for the vicious arguments, but because it only serves to limit the player, not encourage creativity.

[Stefu]

Having real nations is a bad idea. Who is to say that Zulus were aggressive people? I object against using real nations. Better we stick with Blue, Green and Yellow.

[NotLikeTea]

I don't know if you're serious or making fun of me, but I agree, in part.

No civilization is agressive by nature saying so verges on racism.

However, a civilization can be agressive by culture. What determines culture? Past actions, and leaders. A civilization that fights a lot, and chooses agressive action becomes agressive. Who makes the civilization fight, and makes these decisions? The leaders.

If a civilization is going to be agressive, it should be because their leader (Shakka of the Zulu's) is an agressive leader. This would be a good factor to randomize. That way, you could have te agressive Zulu's under an agressive Shakka, or peaceful Zulu's under a different leader personlaity.

I discuss this in the civilizations list.

[CormacMacArt]

I hate to pull a complete 180, but maybe having religion in civ is a bad idea. I have read what has been posted recently and it disturbs me. I for one, would not like Christianity and Judaism to be grouped with Islam. Hashem and Allah are nothing alike. And what about Hinduism? Is that monotheistic? It depends on who you ask, and still their god is nothing like mine. You say that I'm taking this too personal? No. I am looking at the judgements that you are making on each of the religions.
I think that there should be AI player religions that (according to their own agendas) help or hinder a civilization depending on that civ's attitude towards itself. That or the Civ II method. I have not heard of any other idea that would not get someone really ticked off.

[NotLikeTea]

I agree in that grouping religions only leads to hassles, and accomplishes little.

I do like the idea of religion existing, though. Look at history.. it was important. In Civ games, the only identifying factor for a citizen is their nationality at the moment. Greeks are greeks, russians are russians.

Religion could be a trancending factor. Religion A may encompass the Greeks and helf of your Russian civilization. The half with the same religion as the greeks would have a better attitude towards them. A war against the greeks would be frowned upon more by this segment of the population. Afterall, borders change all the time, but the people stay more or less the same.

If I conquer a civilization with anotgher religion, they would be under my control, but would retain this former identity, and a resentment towards me, which could be trouble...

All religion would do is allow me to adjust the amount of control I have over these feelings. A fundamnetalist government could increase feelings of anger towards alien religons, while a more accepting one would decrease internal strife.

[Aharon Ben Rav]

To respond to a few people, I chose to demonstrate religious categories rather than specific religions because it goes with the "rewrite history" connotation of Civ.

That's why the government type is called "Democratic," not "Congressional" or "Parliamentary." This is why the economic system in SMAC is "Planned" and "Free Market," not "Russian" or "American."

When you make suggestions, remember not to make them so confusing that they are undoable in the actual game. As I said before, it seems to be that 85% of the suggestions being made on these lists are simply way to complex to include in a game designed to be sold to the general public. Even adding two "sliding bars" for amount of faith, as suggested by MBrazier, is a bit too complex. Let's not even talk about these suggestions to have half your Civ be one religion, half of it be another, etc.

The idea is not for specific religious categories to be better than others any more than specific government types are better. Each has an advantage and a disadvantage. You choose what fits your empire-building strategy best.

As an added point, I would think upheaval costs for changing religion types should be much higher than to change government types.

Finally, I don't think this thread should become an argument about religious history, but to quickly respond to CormacMacArt, who states: "I for one, would not like Christianity and Judaism to be grouped with Islam. Hashem and Allah are nothing alike."

This is not a suprising statement coming from a self-described conservative Christian. The concept of "Judeo-Christian values" is put forward by political conservatives in this country who are looking to get Jews and Christians to agree on a set of principles and see Islam as a political enemy (which, at present, they are). However, these the three Western religions have much more in common with each other than they do with Hinduism or Bhuddism.

In fact, if you wanted to choose one to be "different" it would not be Islam, it would be Christianity. If you look both historically and in current teachings, Judaism and Islam have much more in common with each other than either has in common with Christianity. Neither Judaism or Islam is concerned with the concept of salvation as much as Christianity is, and the trinity concept can be troublesome for both. Both are primarily legal religions, with the Talmud and the Shar'ia, as opposed to the more faith-oriented Christianity which has no comparable legal code.

If anyone wants to discuss this elsewhere, feel free to contact me.

Aharon Ben Rav

[Ecce Homo]

My radical idea: RELIGION AS AN AI PLAYER

Imagine an AI player that is not a civ. It 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?

[CormacMacArt]

That was what I was trying to say. Thank you for saying it so concisly!

[Ecce Homo]

Yes Cormac, you wrote it - but I didn't read it! I just got this idea today and posted it, without knowing about your statement!

[delcuze2]

*** FIRST POST ON THIS TOPIC ****

This may seem an over simplification on the surface, but I think it may be a solution to avoid some of the ethical/moral problems we are struggling with here...


*** A PROPOSAL ***


If Civ III uses the "Social Engineering" model of SMAC, then the Real V.S. abstracted religious model could be side stepped.

Social Engineering should have a "Philosophy" section. In this SE section would be categories that yield the effects of religion with out having specific religions.

The SE sections would become available due to technological (read understanding of the universe) advances.

Your civlizations Philosophy setting would effect:

Diplomatic relations/options
Government types available
Speed of Research
Happiness Level of Citizens
Productivity of Citizens

*** WHY PHILOSOPHY INSTEAD OF RELIGION? ***

The purpose of a religion is an attempts to answer basic questions about the universe the people live in. Questions like:

- Why are we here?
- How did we get here?
- What happens when we die?
- How should we live together?

Some of these questions are answered or directed via political philosophy. For example:

- Tolerant societies are more apt to be
- republics than intolerant ones.

- Monarchys are more apt to support
- uniformity of world view.

Sometimes these questions are answered by technology that profoundly effect the way people in a civilization act:

- "My gosh the earth really does
- revolve around the Sun...
- Are we still god's chosen?"


Sometimes, exposure to other peoples philosophies changes our own:

- The Jewish religion did not develop
- Heaven and Hell until exposed to the
- Zorasterian in Babylon.

The philosopy of a civilization has a strong impact on how it deals with other civilizations. In other words, your world view effects how you see other people.

All of these things about world view and not necessarily about specific religions.

Therefore let us use meta-physics ...philosphy... as the controlling factor here and not religion.


*** SUMMARY *** (not all from my message)

1) There will be a backlash if religion is directly expressed in the game.

2) Religion has powerful effects on the course of civilizations

3) Perhaps Civ III should use components of philosophy (i.e. world view) to simulate religious effects and sidestep #1 while getting #2.


Other thoughts?


[This message has been edited by delcuze2 (edited May 26, 1999).]

[MBrazier]

A note to Giant Squid, and anyone else proposing to model real-world religions:

DON'T.

The Civilization games aren't meant to model the history of ideas, or the complexity of religious/philosophical controversy. They have always been restricted to economics and politics -- the developing of natural resources, the movements of goods, the manueverings of armies and diplomats. Putting real religions into Civ3 directly, and modeling the development of their doctrines, would create a highly complex system of the game, whose effect on the rest of the game would be unobvious (and therefore not much fun), and (very probably) offend a large number of potential customers. It's just not worth it.

I suggest that, if religion is modeled at all, that it not be controllable by the player. Every so often, as a random event, a new religion would appear in the game, starting at one tile and sweeping outward. Each civilization would then react to the religion as it reached them, deciding to (say) persecute it, tolerate it, or establish it as the state religion. These "official" religious attitudes would color diplomacy; if, for instance, the Chinese persecute the Roman state religion, the Romans will dislike the Chinese.

The sliding scales I mentioned before would be hidden from the players. The "faith" rating would control how quickly a religion spreads -- come to think of it, you'd need two separate ratings for that. Call them Evangelism and Conviction: the first rates readiness to convert others, the second rates resistance to being converted. Then you'd have a third rating for Tolerance, which controls the religion's attitude to state power; a low-Tolerance religion isn't happy unless it's a state cult (and creates unhappy citizens if it isn't?) while a high-Tolerance religion actively avoids state endorsements. Of course, all religions would object to being persecuted, and to any _other_ religion being made a state cult.

Why would a player want to establish a state religion, though? One idea: having an established religion allows you to build Missionary units. These units would have no ability to attack other units; all they would do is attempt to convert the tiles through which they pass. You would make these units to take advantage of religion's "side effects" -- to improve your reputation with another civilization, or to seed it with civil disorder arising from religious disputes.

The basic idea is simple: the rulers of nations and empires never have cared much about points of doctrine, therefore a player of Civilization shouldn't pay much attention to them either. Religious disputes have caused rioting and started wars, so it makes sense to model that in the game; and rulers have very often exploited that for political gain, so the player should have the option of doing the same.

Sorry. just checked up on this for the first time.

I still say real world religions are the way to go. Having Zulus and Americans and other real civilizations just made the game better. If you wanted to do a WWII scenario, you could just change the Zulus to, say, Italians, and you'd be all set. I didn't see any Indians complaining that India was a prettybad civ (it was, I never saw it get anywhere in any of my games unless it was the human player) So, if you have a problem, you can go to rules.txt and change it. Think of how much better it is to switch from Democracy to Fundementalism than from Governemnt 6 to Government 4. I specifically made religions relatively well balanced (like the original government. Some don't spread as quickly because, well, Buddhists just like to do their own thing while Jehovah's Witnesses go convert everyone they can find. I don't think I misrepresented any relgions. I'm Jewish, and I don't have a problem with Judaism having a very low growth rate. It does in real life (Jews usually don't try to actively convert people) The only problem I could see is someone being mad if their religion was left off the list.

------------------
Invertebrates of the world, UNITE! Don't just be a bunch of spineless....ah....never mind
<=O=&gt=E

[NotLikeTea]

I stand by my desire for multiple "religions" in one civ, but drastically simplified.

This could be condensed. A captured city relates more closely to the original owner than to the new owner. This would decrease over time.

Results: Harder to win by total conquest. Liberating former territory would be easier. Possibility of internal strife.

I also think that this may be the simplest way of modelling the historic effect of religion/identity, with realistic results.

I don't think thast this is excessive... maybe mentioning it under "religion" was a bad idea, but this is just a place to throw ideas to the wind, and let Firaxis pick up what they like.

[HolyWarrior]

A reminder to all--the Religion forum has been updated--please send all new posts to Religion 1.1.

Thank you.

[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...

[yin26]

-=*MOVING THE THREAD UP*=-

[Stefu]

YYY-IIN! THERE IS A NEW THREE-EEAD! CLOSE THE OLD OO-OONE! THAA-AANK YOU!

Just shoot me an e-mail next time. It will be closed very quickly that way. **Yin**

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited June 14, 1999).]</font>