RELIGION (ver1.1) hosted by Stefu - Page 3

Stefu · June 9, 1999, 06:47

Cartagia: Your system for naming religions is pretty much of conclusion of my brainstorming around this topic. However, is there any chance that there could be "special" names for known religions, lke in Civ2 there were special titles in goverments? Like, Arab Monotheism would be Islam, while Chinese Philosophical would be Confucianism.

NotLikeTea · June 9, 1999, 07:40

I still oppose discrete religions in the game, but I need to correct a point mentioned above.

Athiesm was described as a lack of religion. Athiesm is a religion/belief that does not include a god. A good nuymber of "religions" fall into this category (Buddihism, I believe, is one of them. Reincarnation, heavens and hells, but no real gods as such). There is no reason to treat it any differently.

Still, I don't want to see it treated at all. Did I mention I'm opposed to this? Well, I am.

[This message has been edited by NotLikeTea (edited June 09, 1999).]

paraclet · June 9, 1999, 16:05

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paraclet · June 9, 1999, 16:09

What's happen with this site ??? Is somebody trying to censor my posting because I defend atheist ideas ? I spent all the morning trying to post this and I was refused with a reply saying that my name is not registered...
Now it's working after a complaint to mark G...Thanks markG...Here we go:

Cartagia The Great I love your idea...Having the religions, like in real life having a life by themselves , managed by AI , great idea also from Enoch F, and surviving even the destruction of their originating country...
But there there are reasons to have atheist choice have a science bonus, why should it have an happyness penalty ? It's the opposite . From when science is creating unhappyness ? Science brings much more happyness to peoples than religion...Ask young generations if they prefer to go to church or to play computer games, watch TV,go to movie, do mountain bike, surfing or have safe sex using birth control or modern condoms,watch play boy TV etc...
Ask women if they would prefer to go wasing clothes to the river or use the washing machine .
All these things are science...In religious orthodox countries all these things are forbiden...
I think it is the opposite...It is the religious choice which should after modern science arrive have an happyness penalty.
Ask to Afghan or Iranian women if religion is bringing them more happyness...
And Carthagia the Great what do you mean by cults ? Because don't forget that all religions were called cults at their beginning...
A religion is only a successfull dominant cult.Christians were called at the beginning the "nazarean cult" and it was the same for all other religions.
So if this option is in the game it should be named New religions instead of cult which is an irrespetcfull way of naming new religions from dominant religions affraid of the competition.

Flavor Dave · June 9, 1999, 16:17

"I'm not sure how, exactly, but cities would identify more closely with longtime owners than with foreign civs."

Those of us who have played Civ;-) know that this is already the case. How cheap it is to bribe a city you've just lost. It's a neat trick to get a great army. Sometimes I let the AI take a city, if he has a ton of units nearby. You can count on the AI moving them all in. Then you buy the city for 400 gold, and you've got 4 tanks, 3 AEGIS cruisers, 2 fighters, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Francis · June 9, 1999, 16:53

Black Dragon had the best suggestion on this fourm so far, in terms of game play--the not-real religions with specific attributes. A missionary (or "evangelical" unit to please the non-believer posters in this forum) is a great idea but should cost a lot to build, as spies probably should. Other civs attacking your miss/evans would suffer penalties depending on the other civs religions--if the Greeks share your religion, they may even spontaneously go to war on your behalf.

I know the "fake" religions take the game away from reality, but Civ isn't and can't be a perfect model of history--though it's very good to try to use human history as a guide for how to make the GAME "more like life." I mean, face it--we play on random maps, with no more than six opponents, and we can go to Alpha Centauri! There's NO SUCH thing as JS Bach's Cathedral! But we accept these things in gameplay terms, even though they don't PRECISELY model real life. What we're all interested in is a way to MODEL the effect that religion can have on empires, in such a way that it ENHANCES gameplay WITHOUT offending people.

I mean, give me a break. If I were Muslim I'd already be offended by the Fundamentalist government. Somehow I don't think it's modeled on Cromwell. Replace fundy with Totalitarianism, which could be used by any religion.

Eggman · June 9, 1999, 17:13

paraclet, though I can't speak for the others here, I have no interest in censoring your ideas, no matter how silly and factually incorrect they become.

However, I think we can see from paraclet's last post how bad of an idea it is to assign values to real religions. It will just get ugly. Lots of people with passionate beliefs (and usually too little knowledge - myself included) arguing and complaining about how this is incorrect and whatnot.

And before I go, paraclet, ATHEISM and SCIENCE are not the same thing. While religion sometimes can be a hinderance to certain scientific avenues of discovery (and there are a number of examples of this throughout history), science has continued and thrived even under theocracies. It is also quite debateable that many of those scientific discoveries have really made people "happy" - considering the amount of drug use and clinical depression worldwide these days, increased pleasure has not necessarily equated into "real" happiness.

June 9, 1999, 19:01

Why I suggested giving atheism a happiness peanlty: Because, there is no promise of an afterlife to pacify the downtrodden. During the Middle Ages, peasents were basically slaves of the rich who led truly despicable lives, but the promise of going to heaven helped prevent them from rebelling. Perhaps this could be explained in the manual.

In addition, even using Monotheism has potential for getting people angry, even if no penalties are used, especially with the inevitability of things like "Roman Monotheism".

People would still take offence, for instince, If Arabic Monotheism has a morale bonus, and Chinese Philosophical had a science bonus, well you see the potential for people getting angry right their.

In addition, with all those various types of religons that would be under Cartagia's ideas, would take alot of memory if they would be represented by AIs, such as 7 types of Paganism, Monotheism, Philosophical, Cult, etc.

The important thing however, is that there should be some religon editor so we could edit the stats and names of religons.

CormacMacArt · June 10, 1999, 09:36

Why do people insist on giving different forms of religions different bonuses? Give them different agendas and let them compete and interact with eachother and the civs. I know that different religions have had varying effects on science and philosophy, but is it really worth it to tick someone off? As a people (reguardless of their individual beliefs) the Hebrews have given the greatest contributions to science and technology, but I wouldn't suggest giving race or civ bonuses because of it.

As for Buddihism, from what I have read, it is not atheistic at all. It appears that the gods are, to a greater or lesser extent, inconsequential to the student wishing to attain enlightenment. - fyi

paraclet · June 10, 1999, 10:39

Eggman depression and drug using is not at all something new and related to modern age of science supremacy.What's new is the medias talking about it to make money...
Depression was allways there and affected a much higher pêrcentage of huimanity before our era because many types of depression occurs because of malnutrition...And malnutrition was everywhere before.Don'T forget that average human longevity was 35 years until the science era.
About drugs, it was a part of all old civilisations, is still part of many religious traditions like the american indians and many others.What is neaw is only that it is criminalised...
And CormacMacart yes Buddhism is an atheist religion focused only on self developpment and the Dalai Lama himself told on CNN Larry King a few months ago that in Buddhism "there is no such thing as a god creator"...

CormacMacArt · June 10, 1999, 11:56

The Dalai Lama represents only one sect of Buddihism. There is at least one other sect of Buddihism that includes some worship of gods, including the Buddah. Try research paraclet, its fun.

Francis · June 10, 1999, 13:41

Let me plead for a return to discussing religion in terms of the game.

I think we can all agree that religions have been pretty important to the empires/civilizations of the world. Missionary activity was a powerful justification for the development of the Spanish and other empires. Russia's official atheism (and it's a fairly respectable academic position to argue that Communism did amount to a religion) did go hand in hand with a focus on scientific research (not always successfully, but never mind that for the moment). Confucianism aided the development of the bureaucracy needed to run China's empire.

Given this, I think it would be desirable to try to enhance the game of Civilization by thinking about some of the effects religion has had on various societies, and introducing that element into the game. I think that we can also all agree that some religions are more tolerant of other beliefs than others, some seem to encourage a respect for knowledge and learning, some seem driven to expand the number of believers, and so on. How can we apply this to the game?

Again, I still think Black Dragon has done the best job so far of modeling how religion might play a role in Civ3. I favor having one religion for each empire--this way we avoid the complications of official religions versus tolerated religions versus sects to be sppressed. Not exactly like life, but considerably simpler to program and game with. I'm not sure how religion should be developed or chosen--I'd hate to have it assigned randomly, and it doesn't make sense to have it come out of science either. I have no answer on this one.

As for the effect of other minority religions on an empire, well, in a way this is already included under the riot factor.

This ties into another idea I should probably also post somewhere else, perhaps some of you could point me to the right place. It seems to me that successful/powerul empires could also benefit from immigration--cities would swell with people looking for a better life. However, since the immigrants wouldn't fit in right away and might be (natch) of different religions, and the locals might not welcome the newbies with open arms, each new pop point would be unhappy. Perhaps some type of Social Welfare improvement could ameliorate this type of unhappiness.

Enough for now. Black D, I'm going to look at your post again and respond in more detail, but maybe after I actually do some work

Kris Huysmans · June 10, 1999, 13:54

I found that it must be possible for one city to have differend religions. So in a city of 10 for example could be 6 person monotheïsm, 3 atheïst and 1 islam. This city will get 60% of the penaties and benevits of monotheïsm, 30% of the penaties and benevits of ateïsm and 10% of the penaties and benevits of islam.

Francis · June 10, 1999, 14:18

Kris, how do you mean "must"? Until I see a convincing way of doing multiple religions in one city/empire, I still think multiple religions is needlessly complicated and would lead to a real micro-management nightmare.

June 10, 1999, 14:29

Kris: Simple.

Say a city is 60% Glorckism, 30% Atheist, 10% Gewism

Said city could get:
+6% growth
+3% science and 15% of city becomes unhappy, which an a city of 10 would mean 2 more unhappy people.
+1% Industry

Or perhaps, to make religon have more of an effect:

+12% growth
+6% science
+2% industry

June 10, 1999, 14:29

Kris: Simple.

Say a city is 60% Glorckism, 30% Atheist, 10% Gewism

Said city could get:
+6% growth
+3% science and 15% of city becomes unhappy, which an a city of 10 would mean 2 more unhappy people.
+1% Industry

Or perhaps, to make religon have more of an effect:

+12% growth
+6% science
+2% industry

Ecce Homo · June 10, 1999, 14:35

Multiple religions can exist without micromanagement if they are AI-controlled. (I mentioned this idea about 50 posts ago.)

Each religion missions, builds places of worships and collect tithes in cities belonging to different civs. They strive to get as many believers as possible.

The civs' rulers can promote religions to state religions, tax them or persecute them.

Francis · June 10, 1999, 15:29

I got the AI-controlled part. But I still think mocro-management would come into play in trying to maximize the science/trade/production of cities by trying to affect the religious mix in the way you desire. Whether by promoting one to state religion, using "missionary" units, building temples or other improvements to aid the desired religion (or "cathedrals of learning" if you like, they have such a building at Carnegie Mellon or U of Pittsburgh I think)--I dunno, seems like taking it that far adds too much complexity. But I guess this might be a question of how people like to play the game.

I've recently been thinking (again, I should probably post this elsewhere) that the game should have optional levels of complexity. With religion, perhaps the simple level is the one state/cultural religion per civ. With the complexity button clicked, you can engage in micro-religious management.

CormacMacArt · June 10, 1999, 15:34

That is another reason not to have "benenfits" attached to the different religions. With each AI religion attempting to effect change by prostyltizing or manipulation of a friendly civ, there will be enough interaction for us to deal with.

I second Ecce Homo. All in favor?

Kris Huysmans · June 10, 1999, 16:27

Francis English is my third language. So I don't know when you must use must or could. Excuse me when I looked like a tyran but I have not much feeling with English.

CormacMacArt · June 10, 1999, 16:48

You MUST eat.
You COULD eat fish.

Kris Huysmans · June 10, 1999, 17:01

My idea is that because communism don't treath religion well all the benefits will become penaties(exemple a +2 grown benevit will become a -2 grown penatie)
Expect atheïsm wich will gets a extra benefit(Quite all the communistic gouvernements were atheïstic)

[This message has been edited by Kris Huysmans (edited June 11, 1999).]

paraclet · June 10, 1999, 17:42

Yes I support Ecce Homo...Having AI managing religions is great...Like that a part of history can be respected and there cannot be christians before 33 ac or moslems before 500ac...
If you are Moslem and play te game, in order not to have suddenly christianity appearing in your territory, we should have an option at the beginning of the game saying : your civ will be in a : Christian influenced zone, moslem influenced zone, buddhist influenced zone, etc...(problem with jewish influenced zone because Jesus was born jew...but it can be solved by , when choosing "jewish oriented zone" having the possibility to have like in real story the first christians appearing inside your country...
And Black Dragon, it's precisely because peasants were abused by religion and political powers associated that they didn't revolt you are right But that's not happyness !!! It's "endure sadness and misery you will be happy after death"...
What a lie and an hypocrisy!...Happyness is right now...That's why philosophers said reliigion is people opium"...
And Cormac Mac Art I am a specialist in religions (that's why I am atheist...) and yes you have some sects making Buddha a god...but that's a betrayal of the real teaching of Buddha...Read it ! It's allways good to go at the origin of any religion...
Usually it's very different of what peoples misguided by priests believe...
Like the Bible which was an atheist book because in Hebrew's original Bible they use the name Elohim which was wrongly translated by god...And it means extra-terrestrials and not god and is plural...(see www.rael.org)
By the way this religion shpould also be included: the Raelians : they believe that life on earth was created genetically by an advance extra terrestrial civilisation...A third way after god's creation and atheist evolution...No more stupid than the two others as we start cloning mammals...

June 10, 1999, 18:17

paraclet: "Happiness" in civ isn't really a measure of how happy they are, or how good their life is. That's why when their are more unhappy than happy they throw the city in disorder, not simply be more whiny. Happy represents support your gov., content is indifferent, and Unhappy means against. So atheism should have a "happiness" penalty.

I think I like paraclet's ideas of "zones", such as if a city is majority Turywenzist, it simply gets +1 economy, or majority Moochianity, it gets the police bonus.

NotLikeTea · June 10, 1999, 20:50

I've about had it up to HERE with all your Turywenzism bashing, Black Dragon!

(Sorry.. trying to lighten up the conversation here)

Kris Huysmans · June 11, 1999, 00:05

It is a true that the buddism religion don't believe in a person that determinide ower live and that has created the universum. But they well believe in something that is higher then the self because they think that the self is an illusion. And they also believe that when you give happy to others they will give happy to you and when you give unhappy to others they will give unhappy to you. And when I hear atheïsm then I don't think about persons that believe in a fair universum what has as highest goal enlightenment for everyone.

Kris Huysmans · June 11, 1999, 04:42

Let we go back to the game. A game is made to be fun and not learn you of there is a god or not. So please Stop saying "My believe is better then you believe". Because this had no connection with the game.

[This message has been edited by Kris Huysmans (edited June 11, 1999).]

Kris Huysmans · June 11, 1999, 04:43

I sugest that misionaries(not only your misionaries but olso they that are controlled by the religion AI) maybe should have a moral factor witch its based on:
<ul>[*]Temple or not a temple[*]Is it a state religion or a forbidden religion[*]Your governement type [*]Has this religion used atrocities in the past(bombs, ...)?[*]How much of the people in the home city are from this religion ?[/list]

[This message has been edited by Kris Huysmans (edited June 11, 1999).]

CormacMacArt · June 11, 1999, 09:29

Paraclet - listen, I would love to debate religion with you. Tell you what, I will put in a topic under your name in the off topic section, OK? There you can explain to me the existance of gods in the story of Buddah's enlightenment.

Bigcivfan · June 13, 1999, 18:18

I think that religion should be expanded in Civ III because a majority of human interactions throughout World History were based on religion. I like the idea at the top of the thread which applied attributes when you invented a religion. Perhaps a system where you started with a balanced religion and giving it strengths in one area gave it deficiencies in another. Also a list of particulars should be included for the player to choose from, such as Caste System or Human Sacrifice (gasp!!!), that give bonuses and penalties. The ideas on holy shrines, religious interaction, and missionaries and Conviction/Devotion rates are excellent ideas that add another interesting demension to the game. I think that actual religions of the world should not be used as this could be offensive to people, being that religion is a very sacred topic. How about when more and more science is discovered, (Biology, Anthropolgy) more and more percent of the world become athiest. This reduces the bonuses that a religion gives you, put also offsets penalties, such as relations. However, a civ can attempt to suppress athieism as they can attempt to suppress a religion....