RELIGION v3.0 (no host)

[raingoon]

Religion will play a part in Civ3. The only question is how big a part? I'll start things off with the very latest suggestions copied from the v2.0 wishlist sent to Firaxis. New ideas? This is the place to post 'em. Will they be heeded? Answer that correctly and win a trip to Mars.

RELIGION 2.0

The version 2.0 religion thread was one of the most active threads on the Civ3 suggestion board. Posters worked together to combine suggestions from the previous wish list with the current religion thread and create a unified model that attempts to balance religion against other concepts in the game. Thus, in the spirit of creating a “living document,” all ideas from the v1.0 summary will either be found represented within the model outlined in sections 1-4, or featured as alternatives in section 5 following it.

Contents
1. Religion in Civ3
1.1 Why have it in the game?
1.2 Defined
2. Religion Concepts
2.1 Origins
2.2 Conversion
2.3 Tithing
3. Effects of Religion
3.1 Under Religious Freedom
3.2 Establishment of a State Religion
3.3 Persecution
3.4 Religious Improvements
4. Religious Diplomacy
4.1 Major and Minor Religions
4.2 Diplomatic Options for Major and Minor Religions
4.3 Additional Diplomatic Options for Major Religions
5. More Ideas, Opinions, and Comments

1. Religion in Civ3
1.1) Why have it in the game?
As the discussion has evolved, the vast majority feel religion has been under-represented in Civ 1 and 2. Discussions were founded on the belief that religion is a fundamental force driving civilizations, and that the effects of religion permeate the history of nations, their borders, their wars and their treaties. Your ability to direct religion's impact should be likewise varied. You should be able to identify your citizens individually by their beliefs, track the rise and fall of major religions, and generally get your hands into the religious mechanisms that have historically led nations to war and caused civilization’s to grow and crumble. With that in mind…
1.2) Religion in Civ3 Defined.
Religion should be a game element comparable to trade. Where trade deals with resources, religion would deal with population.
1.2.1) Religions would be synonymous with citizens, each citizen having the ability to belong to one religion.
1.2.2) Each city would be represented on the game map by the religion practiced by the majority of its citizens.
1.2.3) Each religion would have its own symbol.
1.2.4) No religion would have greater or lesser numerical values than any other. This has evolved to ensure that real-world religions could be used without causing offense. However, some still want each religion to have different Evangelism and Conviction ratings (defined below) and don’t believe it would be contentious.
1.2.5) Religion names could be edited by the player, thus Firaxis can choose to set the AI to default to historical religions, defunct religions, or fictional religions, or whatever they deem most appropriate. Under this proposal, all suggested beliefs are honored because the player would have the start-up option of choosing which religion "brands" he/she wanted in the game.
1.2.6) At any time there could be up to three more religions than there are civs. If there were ever four more than X civs, the smallest religion would be eliminated and its members given to the second smallest religion.
1.2.7) Religions would be visible in the game in four ways:
1.2.7.1) In the city screen by each population figure holding a flag with its religion’s symbol on it. When the population became too large for this to work, there would be a separate graphic showing the number of citizens adhering to each religion.
1.2.7.2) On the main map you would see the current religious borders of the world by filtering for it (e.g., hitting F1 key). This feature would introduce the concept of “religious regions,” which would rarely conform to political borders, leading to new strategic considerations. For instance, players would now have to take into account the religious geography of their theater of war.
1.2.7.3) Cleric units would represent both a specific civ (by color) and a specific religion (by symbol).
1.2.7.4) On the main map, the symbol of a city’s majority religion would appear on that city’s flag, next to its size.
2. Religion Concepts
2.1) Origins
Once civs have had time to establish a foothold, prophets would begin to appear. Religions would begin to spread immediately thereafter. This has evolved from ideas such as the previous suggestion that wars or “three nasty events in a row” cause religions to appear. In this model, new religions would appear realistically, throughout the centuries. Some might never grow more than a city or two, while others would become recognized world religions. Some that were eradicated would never be heard of again; others might enjoy a revival two thousand years later.
2.1.1) Prophets
2.1.1.1) All civs would begin non-aligned and would experience the emergence of at least one prophet beginning with the second millenium of the game, but not before the discovery of religion.
2.1.1.2) A prophet is not a unit, but rather a newly born citizen in a given city's population window, identified by his/her new religious symbol, with higher conversion values (20 evangelism, 25 conviction) than regular citizens (see conversion, below, for explanation of conversion values).
2.1.1.3) After their appearance prophets would last for X turns, where X is randomly chosen from between 15 and 30, then convert back into regular citizens; their religious symbol would remain.
2.1.1.4) After the prophet disappeared from a city, the remaining citizens would continue to benefit from the prophet's greater conversion values for 20 more turns. This is to ensure fledgling religions will have a chance to develop.
2.1.1.5) Prophets can appear at any time during the game.
2.1.1.6) Turywenzism begins with an announcement such as: "Turywenzo has begun preaching in Turygrad."
2.1.1.7) Prophets can appear in any city.
2.1.1.8) Upon appearing, prophets would instantly convert one citizen (other than themselves, of course); after that, conversion would proceed under the normal rules for citizen to citizen conversions (see, below).
2.1.1.9) If a government persecutes the new religion while the prophet is preaching, the prophet would be considered martyred and disappear, leaving behind his/her bonus as described above. All non-aligned citizens within 8 squares would immediately convert to the new religion.
2.1.1.10) A religion can re-appear with a new prophet only after its religion has previously been eradicated.
2.1.1.11) Some suggest that in the modern era the prophet be called a “propagandist,” his “religion” to be considered more generally a belief – as in Marx and Communism.
2.2) Conversion
Each religion would be incompatible with all others. Whenever two religions overlapped "zones of influence”, each would seek to dominate the other. The AI would handle the calculations and keep track of the results. New conversions would be noted in the population window of the appropriate city.
2.2.1) Evangelism
2.2.1.1) All citizen units in the population window have evangelism values.
2.2.1.2) Evangelism is the "attack" value of a religion.
2.2.1.3) All religions begin with the same base evangelism value, 10.
2.2.2) Conviction
2.2.2.1) All citizen units in the population window have conviction values.
2.2.2.2) Conviction is the "defense" value of a religion.
2.2.2.3) All religions begin with the same base conviction value, 15.
The higher conviction rating is so that, all things being equal, citizens should successfully defend against conversion attempts about 60% of the time.
2.2.3) Adjusting Conversion Ratings
You would be able to increase (or in some cases decrease) your citizens' conversion ratings by:
2.2.3.1) Donating money to a specific religion.
2.2.3.2) Declaring a state religion.
2.2.3.3) Hosting a holy city.
2.2.3.4) Building a city improvement.
2.2.3.5) Building a Wonder.
2.2.3.6) Discovering a technological advance.
2.2.3.7) Setting your civ's attitudes towards religion in the religion screen.
2.2.3.8) Four like believers in one city increases each believer's values by .25; thus, a 4 stack of 4 Yahoos, at 10 evangelism each, is worth 50.
2.2.3.9) Declaring religious freedom.
2.2.3.10) Having a positive or negative SE Nationalism rate (see Social Engineering summary).
2.2.3.11) Establishing a mission.
2.2.4) Passive Conversions
2.2.4.1) Calculations are made by "stacking" citizens together by religion and combining their values.
2.2.4.2) Passive conversions reflect the influence of the citizens in a city on their fellow citizens and the proportionately weaker influence of citizens in nearby cities.
2.2.4.3) Passive conversions would be calculated, on average, every five turns. The computer would randomize the interval between passive conversions so that players couldn’t boost evangelism/conviction factors the year before a scheduled passive conversion.
2.2.4.4) Possible formula for calculating passive conversion:
quote:

The Evangelism (Conviction) of a religion within a city is the sum of: the Evan(Conv) of each member in the city; plus (1 - dist/10) * Evan(Conv) of each member of that religion in a city less than 10 squares away; plus 1/2 * Evan(Conv) of each member of that religion in a city that has a mission to the city. If a religion has no members in a city, it is not attacked by other stacks.


2.2.4.5)Once the evangelism and conviction factors are calculated, the results are calculated like a battle between units of equal strength. If the evangelizing side wins, one citizen of the opposing religion is converted.
A sample conversion turn within a city:
quote:

4 Turywenzists in London start with an evangelist factor of 10. England has Turywenzism as the state religion (+0.2 modifier) which increases each Turywenzists citizen's base evangelism value to 12. The city of London has a cathedral (+.10 modifier = 13). This gives each Turywenzist in London an evangelist factor of 13. And 4 of its citizens are Turywenzists (+.25 modifier each)., for a combined stack evangelism value of 65. This factor is calculated against the conviction ratings of the 2 Londoners who are Yahoos who receive none of the modifiers, but whose higher conviction ratings nevertheless combine to equal 30, increasing the odds they won't capitulate in one turn. When the calculation is reversed, there is an even smaller chance the Yahoos combined evangelism rating of 20 will have any effect at all on the Turywenzist stack's combined conviction rating after all the modifiers have been figured in.

For more discussion of modifiers and the religion screen, see section 3 below, "Effects of Religion."
2.2.4.6) For every successful conversion, one unit in the defending religion stack would convert.
2.2.5) Active Conversions - "Missions Established by Player"
2.2.5.1) A civilization with a "state religion" (see section 3 for definition) would be able to build a Cleric unit of the state religion. A cleric resembles a caravan unit; it cannot attack and ignores ZOC. When it enters a city it founds a mission from the state religion and disappears (just as a caravan creates a trade route and disappears.) Each city may only contain 3 missions.
2.2.5.2) The player may only establish missions outside his/her civ. The religion-AI would be able to establish them everywhere (see below).
2.2.5.3) A mission brings the foreign city into the home city's zone of influence; the foreign city is now treated as if it resided 4 tiles away from the home city and follows the rules for city to city conversions until the mission is de-established.
2.2.5.4) A mission converts one citizen when first founded automatically, and increases the conviction rating for citizens of its religion by 50% of the base value as long as it remains in existence.
2.2.5.5) Clerics disappear after they have established one mission.
2.2.5.6) Like trade routes, missions are always successfully established.
2.2.5.7.) Like diplomats, clerics may be destroyed or expelled en route.
2.2.5.8) If the last remaining member of a religion in a city is converted away, any mission from that religion in the city is immediately disbanded and removed. This, and the destruction of the city, are the only things that can destroy a mission once founded.
2.2.6) Active Conversions – “Missions Established by AI Religion”
2.2.6.1) The religion may send clerics from any city to any city, ignoring civ borders entirely. It prefers to start clerics from the city where its members' total evangelism is highest, and send them to the city where its members' total conviction is lowest. It also prefers to minimize the distance the cleric must travel. (The relative importance of these three preferences is not obvious.)
2.2.6.2) In all other respects religion-owned clerics act like civ-owned ones.
2.2.6.3) The AI clerics are generated by a religion when the religion has accumulated X+D gold (where X is the total number of believers of that religion throughout the world, and D is a configurable parameter).
2.2.7) Population growth expands religions
In the case of new citizens being born, the percentage chance they would be born believing in religion X, Y, or Z would be equal to the percentage that religion X, Y, and Z were represented within that city.
2.3) Tithing
Gold pieces are what religions use to fund missions, their most powerful tool for expansion.
2.3.1) Religious coffers are tracked by the AI.
2.3.2) The amount of gold a religion has can be seen in the religion screen, but only if that religion has a holy city (see Diplomacy, below).
2.3.3) 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 religions, with each religion paying a proportion of the total upkeep proportionate to its share of the civ's population.
2.3.4) Under a state religion: The tithe paid by the government is automatically sent into that religion's coffers; the city tithe from religious freedom is disabled. Some suggest in addition that, under a state religion, the religion continues to receive the city tithe from religious freedom.
2.3.5) When a religion has built missions in all available cities it continues to collect tithes and build its coffers.
2.3.6) Donations : Religions will ask for donations periodically. However, the player totally free to neglect their wish.
2.3.7) A religion can loan gold to a civ (see Diplomacy, holy cities, below).
3. Effects of Religion
The player will have several options with regard to each religion. He or she may choose to establish a state religion or allow religious freedom. Regardless of whether there is religious freedom or an state religion, the player may choose to persecute one or more religions.
3.1) Under Religious Freedom
3.1.1) Effect on happiness, using current system.
3.1.1.1) For each religion in a city, one unhappy citizen becomes content or, if there are no unhappy citizens, a content citizen becomes happy. This effect continues indefinitely, so that each religion present in a city adds a step to the base happiness level of the city. Some suggest instead that one unhappy becomes content, or one content becomes happy. Alternatively, others suggest that if just 2/3 of the people are of the same religion (any religion), 1 citizen becomes content.
3.1.1.2) To keep religion from having too great a benefit, the happiness effects described in 3.1.1.1) will apply to no more than one out of every four citizens in a city. That is, if there are seven citizens and three religions, only two citizens may be made happy. So the effects are rounded up.
3.1.1.3) Civilizations with religious freedom get a +2 Happiness bonus (see the SE summary for more about the Happiness SE factor).
3.1.1.4) A civ in a state of religious freedom cannot build cathedrals or clerics. Already existing Cathedrals generate an amount of money equal to their normal upkeep cost to simulate tourism. Some would add that a civ under religious freedom cannot build temples.
3.1.2) Effect on happiness using alternate systems.
A few people have proposed systems under which happiness becomes a percentage factor for each city that affects the productivity, and is not an attribute of the citizens. Under such systems, the conversion of one citizen to a new religion would increase the overall happiness/productivity percentage.
3.1.3) Effect of religious freedom on conviction.
Under religious freedom, the conviction rate for all citizens is 20 percent lower than it would otherwise be.
3.1.4) Effect of full toleration.
In addition to the effects listed above, if the player is not persecuting any religion, the research output of the religion increases by 10 percent (under the Civ2 system) or the Research SE factor improves by +1. Some would add that this effect should begin only after a civ has had religious freedom for three turns in a row.
3.2) Establishment of a State Religion.
Under this system, the state picks one religion as its official state religion. Establishing a state religion does not imply or require persecution of any of the other religions within the civ's territory.
3.2.1) Effect on happiness
3.2.1.1) The effects on happiness described above under religious freedom cease.
3.2.1.2) If there are four believers of the state religion in the same city, one of them becomes happy (as the bonus of the Peacekeepers in SMAC). If a different happiness/productivity system is adopted, proclamation of a state religion increases a city (or civilization) happiness/productivity level by a factor of 25 percent times the proportion of citizens who belong to the state religion. However there is disagreement if the bonus should be rounded up (1, 2 or 3 believers already make one happy) or down (the bonus applies only if there are 4 believers). Some suggest that if a city has a temple, the happiness of 25% of the state religion's members residing in the city is upgraded.
3.2.1.3) An additional unhappy citizen becomes content if more than 50 percent of the citizens (= a majority) of a city are members of the state religion.
3.2.1.4) The state religion's evangelism factor increases by 20 percent for all conversion activities within the borders of that civ.
3.2.1.5) If your state religion has a majority in a city you just conquered, the city is immediately assumed assimilated. The normal assimilation process is just as in SMAC 50 turns of increased unhappiness.
3.2.1.6) If another civ declares war on you, all the citizens in his empire that follow your state religion get one lower happiness level.
3.2.1.7) Deestablishing the state religion. A civ may deestablish a state religion at any time. However, deestablishment shall result in a period of Anarchy (see SE thread) for one turn.
3.2.2) Tithes.
A civ that has an established church must pay 20 percent of its total taxes as tithes to the church. When using the SE factors, the civ gets –2 Tax.
3.2.3) Cathedral.
Only a civ that has a state religion may build Cathedrals, which has the same effect as in Civ2. That means 4 unhappy citizens are made content. When you discover the tech advance Rationalism, the Age of Faith ends and Cathedrals only make 3 citizens content. Some suggest instead that a cathedral work like an upgraded temple; with exactly twice the effect on happiness that they suggest giving to a temple, that is, that 50 percent of the members of the state religion get their happiness level upgraded and that in any city containing a cathedral and a temple, the temple has no effect (like the several power plant improvements, only the best one works.) A Cathedral also increases the state religion’s Evangelism strength by 10%.
3.2.4) Multiple civs with the same state church.
3.2.4.1) A civ may establish a religion as its state church even if another civ has already made that religion its state church. In such cases, the religion will not take any action against either of the civs, and will remain neutral in any conflict between them.
3.2.4.2) If the religion has a holy city, one of the civs in the above example may request the excommunication of the other civ’s leader (see Diplomacy). The religion will demand a contribution related to the number of believers in the excommunicated civ, and the religion's attitude toward both the civ asking for the excommunication, and the civ being excommunicated. Some would treat this concept as part of diplomacy.
3.2.5) Schism
Civs may declare a schism in their state religion, even if they are the only civ having that religion as their state religion. This creates a new religion, to which most of the citizens belonging to the old religion will convert. A percentage of the members equal to an individual member's conviction rating (after all bonuses and penalties) remain faithful to the old religion. The remainder join the schism. Handy if you’re excommunicated or just tired of the religious leader’s demands.
3.3) Persecution.
Under this system, belonging to a persecuted religion is illegal. A government may persecute any number of religions.
3.3.1) A persecuted religion's conversion factor is reduced by 25 percent for all conversion activities within the borders of the persecuting civ.
3.3.2) Happiness under persecution
Some say that all the persecuted citizens should simply get a lower happiness level (means happy citizens become content, content unhappy and unhappy very unhappy).
Others say that 50% of the persecuted citizens should get a lower happiness level.
Still others say that for every persecuted citizen, two citizens should get a lower happiness level.
3.3.3) Research under persecution
Some think that the research output of any city containing persecuted citizens should decrease by 25 percent to reflect the effect of intolerance. Others think that for every persecuted religion, the civ should get a –1 to the Research factor.
3.3.4) Persecution has no positive effect other than those that result from the increase in the number of believers in other religions. If there is a state religion, the state religion is likely to be the chief beneficiary of persecution.
3.3.5) If a civ persecutes a religion, its reputation with any civ that has chosen that religion as it’s state religion will worsen. And its reputation with the religion itself will worsen even more.
Also the religious leader of the persecuted religion may ask a civ that has chosen that religion as it’s state religion to begin a holy war/Jihad.
3.4) Religious Improvements.
Previously it had been pointed out that names of structures need not be western based only (consider mosques, synagogues, etc.) That said, the types of religious improvements, for the most part, should remain the same as in Civ1/2; they may be built by any civ that has obtained the necessary technologies with the exceptions noted above. However, instead of a Temple making a fixed number of people content, the new use should be that a Temple is necessary to reap the happiness benefits described under 3.1.1.1 and 3.2.1.2. Previously some had suggested you should only be able to build religious structures if you have at least one supported religion, and that only followers of that religion would get some good out of that.
3.4.1) Other improvements: Some suggested that building educational facilities (school, University) makes exposure to other religions greater. Under this suggestion, each religion would get an extra percentage point when on "the offense" (trying to convert someone).
4. Religious Diplomacy
4.1) Major and Minor Religions
The diplomatic options available for interacting with a religion depend on the size of the religion.
4.1.1) Minor religions.
All religions start as minor religions.
4.1.2) Major religion.
A religion becomes a major religion when it has a number of adherents greater than the total number of citizens in the world divided by the starting number of civs. It remains a major religion even if an increase in world population or decrease in the number of adherents results in the religion's share of global population falling below 1/(starting number of civs).
4.1.3) Holy Cities and Great Shrines
4.1.3.1) When a religion becomes a major religion, the city where that religion started is proclaimed the holy city of that religion. That means that that city gets an automatic Great Shrine. Some would not make the appearance of the Great Shrine automatic. Instead, if a major religion had no Great Shrine, a civ that had that religion as its state religion could build a Great Shrine, at a cost comparable to that of a wonder. Some would allow for the automatic pronouncement of a holy city once a religion became a major religion, but allow another civ to move the holy city by building a Great Shrine. Once the Great Shrine is built, the holy city could be moved again only if the first Great Shrine is destroyed.
4.1.3.2) The Great Shrine upgrades the happiness of all believers of that religion in the city by one level. Some suggest that if a civ controls a religion's Great Shrine, and that religion is the civ’s state religion, all the citizens of that city are never unhappy (as Shakespeare’s Theatre) and their evangelism gets a +20% bonus.
4.1.3.3) If you control a religion's Great Shrine and tolerate that religion, the Great Shrine would increase the happiness level of 25% of the religion’s believers in that city. Some suggest that the tax output of that city is doubled to represent pilgrimage.
4.1.3.4) If you control a religion's Great Shrine and persecute that religion, the happiness level of all of the religion’s believers in the city with the Great Shrine would decrease. Some suggest there be no special effect besides the normal persecution penalties. If the last member of the religion in the city is converted, the Great Shrine is destroyed.
4.1.3.5) If a religion is eradicated from the world, the Great Shrine automatically disappears.
4.1.3.6) If the Great Shrine of a religion is destroyed (by destruction of the holy city or as mentioned in point 4.1.3.4.), any civ that has that religion as its state religion may rebuild the Shrine in one of its own cities.
4.1.3.7) If the holy city is recaptured, the Shrine automatically reappears. This is the only time there can be two holy cities for one religion. Some would delete this point.
4.2) Diplomatic Options for Major and Minor Religions
4.2.1) Request a donation.
Any religion may request a donation from any civ. If the religion is the state religion of that civ, refusal to give the donation will have a negative effect on the religion's attitude toward that civ.
4.2.2) Voluntary donation.
Any civ may give a donation to any religion. The donation will be treated as tithes and used to generate a ministry to a city chosen by the civ. That city may also be a foreign city. So a player could use this system to prop up religions that another player is attempting to eliminate, or to subvert another player's state religion.
4.2.3) Request a mission.
Any civ may request a religion to send a mission to one of its cities. The religion will charge an amount of gold equal to the cost of a religion-generated cleric, and adjusted upward or downward depending on the religion's attitude toward the requesting civ and whether the religion is the state religion of that civ.
4.3) Additional Diplomatic Options for Major Religions.
4.3.1) A major religion may:
4.3.1.1) Request a civ to conduct a jihad/holy war against another civ. The religion may offer to fund the jihad from it’s tithes. A religion will ask a Jihad when (1) that civ is persecuting the religion, or (2) a civ that does not have a substantial number of adherents to the religion has captured the holy city, or, (3) if that civ has repeatedly done things that harmed the religion’s attitude towards that civ.
4.3.1.2) Request a civ to defend another civ from a jihad.
4.3.1.3) Request a civ to conduct a crusade to take control of the holy city from another religion.
4.3.1.4) Demand that a civ sign a treaty with another civ.
4.3.1.5) Ask to become the civ’s state religion.
4.3.1.6) Failure to accede to these requests will hurt a civ's reputation with the religion. The effect will be greater if that religion is the state religion of the civ.
4.3.2) A civ may request a major religion to:
4.3.2.1) intervene in a war by demanding that its opponent sign a treaty.
4.3.2.2) pronounce a blessing, which would increase happiness in that civ for a fixed number of turns.
4.3.2.3) send a ministry to a city owned by another civ.
4.3.2.4) excommunicate another civ’s leader if that civ has the religion as his state religion. Excommunication makes all the followers of the religion have decreased happiness (opposite effect of blessing). Some would characterize this action as placing the citizens of the civ under interdict.
4.3.2.5) repeal an excommunication that the religion has imposed on the civ’s leader.
4.3.2.6) proclaim the civ defender of the faith. A civ may only request to be made the defender of the faith for its state religion. If it subsequently deestablishes the state religion, it ceases to be the defender of the faith. The defender of the faith pays half of the normal monetary cost for any of the actions it asks the religion to take. If the defender of the faith fails to comply with a request from the religion, it loses its status as defender of the faith and its reputation with the religion suffers greatly.
4.3.2.7) loan money to the civ.
4.3.2.8) the religion will charge the civ money for options 4.3.2.1-6 and interest for option 4.3.2.7. The amount will depend on the civ's reputation with the religion, whether the religion is that civ's state religion, whether that civ possesses the religion's holy city, and whether the civ is the defender of the faith.
5. More Ideas, Opinions and Comments
Other ideas from v1.0 bear considering again as equally viable alternatives, and as commentary on the v2.0 model they inspired…
5.1) Some say Communism should have a more difficult time spreading religion, Democracy should have hard a harder time persecuting and so on.
5.2) Animism/Megaliths: In this model, all civilizations start out with Animism and can build Megaliths to increase the chance that more advanced religions will develop. When a religion pops up, a ruler can either accept or reject it, with risk of schism.
5.3) Victory Condition: Unite the entire world to the faith you are using.
5.3.1) “Godhood.” In a model with individualized conversion rates, switching to a religion called "Divine Leader," with a very low starting conversion rate, then making more than half the world accept this religion and proclaim you God, gives you a victory.
5.4) Propagandists: In this model instead of Clerics there would be Propagandists, spreading their agendas (religion being one) to cities. This model also includes some cities being more open to, for instance, Fascism than other cities and being more easily bribed by Fascist nations.
5.5) If a religion has been around a long time, it should have a higher rate of devotion.
5.6) There should be bonuses for Religious Freedom in the form of immigration and science. However, diversity would also create friction and possibly happiness penalties.
5.7) Unhappy people should be more willing to convert to new religions.
5.8) RELIGIONS LIKE SOCIAL ENGINEERING, MODEL 1: In this model, religions can be customized like Social Engineering in SMAC. You could decide primary factors like Monotheism, Polytheism or Mysticism, important aspects such as afterlife and status of priests and TENETS such as Ascetic, Maltheism or Monastic. In order to enact changes, you need DOGMA, which you could get from priests (city profession) or religious wonders. Dogma then slowly changes your religion. The religion master screen would show the percentages of religions in game; you could also edit religions or set their STATE ACCEPTANCE. Religions also have FERVOR status which shows how highly the religion is held: high FERVOR multiplies the effects. DOGMA can be spent to increase FERVOR.
5.9) RELIGIONS LIKE SOCIAL ENGINEERING, MODEL 2: This isn't as complex - Religious models would be chosen from Social Engineering. Suggested models are Animism, Polytheism, Philosophical, Monotheism, Reformed, Fundamentalism, Deism and Atheism. There would be a Theocracy Government choice instead of Fundamentalist. There would be bonuses if the civilization is both Fundamentalist and Theocracy. And finally, like in SMAC, civilizations with differing religious choices would be likely to be hostile towards each other.
5.10) PHILOSOPHY SOCIAL ENGINEERING: This idea sticks to the same social engineering idea but replaces Religion with Philosophy. Philosophical choices would affect diplomatic relations, government types available, speed of research, happiness level of citizens, and productivity of citizens.
5.11) TYPE OF GOD SETS BONUSES/MINUSES: In this idea, the religions pop up at random. They have different bonuses and minuses, depending on what kind of god they worship. If the religion is pantheistic, it gains small bonuses in several areas, but has increased inefficiency and upkeep costs. If it is monotheistic, it gains bonuses depending on what kind of god, for instance is he clockmaker, judge or executioner?
5.12) INDIRECT BONUSES: In this model it may be possible to direct people by way of religion so they, in time, would gain bonuses.
5.13) Tolerance decides how actively the religion will try to convince a civ to make it their state religion: Low-tolerance pursues it while high-tolerance ones don't.
5.14) BIRTH CONTROL MAKES RELIGIONS OBSOLETE: This would also mean that emptied churches would be sold like old barracks in Civ1/2.
5.15) TEMPLES DIFFERING FROM STADIUMS: In this idea, Temples and other religious improvements make members of some religion happy (depending on popularity of religion) while stadiums and other non-religious improvements would make fixed numbers of citizens happy.
5.16) NONVIOLENT ACTION: Gandhi was a kind of missionary. Maybe a supermissionary unit can start long national strikes?
5.17) RANDOM ONE TRUE RELIGION: In this suggestion, the One True Religion would be randomly chosen at the start of a game and it would be up for players to discover which one it is.
5.18) CENTRALIZATION: Centralization would be another factor determining the religion, i.e. it could be High (like Catholic church) with one central body controlling the faith, moderate (like in Middle east) or low (like in Lutheran church), which would preach priesthood for all believers. Centralization would say how much religion will "act," for instance how much it would start crusades without your support. (Maybe it would decide also how likely schisms would be?)
5.19) DISLOYALTY: I.e. Religion system without religion. For instance, the city of Carthage could like Greeks and Romans, be indifferent to Indians and hate the Chinese.
5.20) CHANGING RELIGIONS: If religions have preset attributes, then they could change. For instance, Protestantism used to view science more positively than it does now. Also, Christianity was more pacifist than it typically is today, etc.
5.21) Alternate Naming: Religions would be named after the civilization they sprung from and also from their class, if that were adopted. For instance: Chinese Monotheism would be different from Babylonian Monotheism. Although similar, they could still declare wars against each other.
5.21.1) Certain systems would have titles like government titles in Civilization II. For instance, Arabic Monotheism would be Islam, while Chinese Philosophical would be Confucianism.
5.22)Simple/Complex: A simple setting has one religion/civilization, while complex settings would build toward micromanagement nightmares.
5.23) ZONES: In beginning of the game, you'd have the option to start from a zone influenced by a certain religion, for instance you could choose Muslim influenced zone, Christian influenced zone or Buddhism influenced zone. This would probably mean that Christian religion would spread better in a Christian zone than in a Muslim Zone…
5.24) Some suggested classes have been: Polytheism, Monotheism, Animism, Philosophical, Reformed, Fundamentalist, Deist and Atheist.
5.25) Ethnic groups. In this model there are is an ethnic factor, of which religion is one.
5.26) Some previously said it would be frustrating if religion worked behind the scenes to the extent you could not see its effects instantly.
5.27) Another variation on an “ethnic factor” is that each civilization has culture, and Religions are part of that culture. Civs with superior culture gain influence over other, less cultured civs (not always superior of power, mind you.)
5.28) Religion should remain a function of SMAC-like Social Engineering.
5.29) Centralization would indicate how structural a religion is – E.g., is it like the Catholic Church, with huge hierarchies, or the Lutheran Church, which believes in the priesthood of all followers? Centralization factor could affect a religion’s diplomatic relationship with government – with re to crusades, etc. Maybe it also affects how often there will be Schisms?
5.30) Real religions should appear on real years – Christianity starting 33 AD, Islam 500 AD, etc.
5.31) Religious riots? What if members of one religion are unhappy because they don’t have a temple? Religious riots. Nastier than normal riots, as rioters destroy buildings of other people’s worship, thus escalating the situation. They could even destroy wonders.
5.32) Should a State Religion be chosen, then all improvements of other religions are torn down (while some claim they could be transformed to the new churches of State Religion, or sold like Barracks.)
5.33) First ones to convert in any city are the unhappiest ones, then content and finally happy people.
5.34) If someone has Holy City and State Religion, they could have new government option called Theocracy. Under Theocracy the Holy City acts like a second capital, lessening corruption nearby.
5.35) It is said that in modern world Science is replacing Religion, so Scientific Teachers would be atheist missionaries (the idea is that people would abandon their God-centered world of view and adopt scientific theories of birth of world and life instead.) Author of this idea says that they should also be better than normal missionaries.
5.36) Religion can be just the thing to give new life to a scenario – or just the thing to destroy it. You should be able to remove them altogether or determine that there will be no new conversions. You should also be able to place whatever mix of religions you want in each city.
5.37) Religions should not appear on the tech tree at all.
5.38) There should be an option to “switch off” religion at the start-up.
5.39) If atheism is used as a label in the v2.0 model, some suggested that logically there could be no holy city in the event it became a major religion. There are some name-customizing problems implied by this.
5.40) In the v2.0 model, if two religions convert one citizen on the same turn, some suggested that the citizen be “confused” and turn to agnosticism, which means a reversion back to non-aligned, for game purposes.
5.41) ALTERNATIVE RELIGION ORIGINS. One poster suggested that as you reach a certain technological level, determined by an accumulation of points from both the tech side and the religion side, a new religion would be announced in the same way that the Golden Age of Philosophy in Civ2 was announced. Whatever city gave the final research point that pushed the appropriate tech over the edge would be the "religious center".
5.41.1) A "center" would not require having members of that religion live there. If the tech that pushed you over came 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, marked in the game with a little temple icon.
5.42) ANOTHER CONVERSION METHOD. Religions would have different percentages associated with them. When two came into contact the lower would be subtracted from the higher, and the difference would be equal to the percentage that citizen would covert. Each new citizen already of a certain religion in a city adds 1.5% to that religions conversion percentage in that city. Improvements would increase it further. You could also build improvements similar to Capitalization, called Persecution, in which each shield is converted to a percentage chance that citizens will subscribe to whatever religion you tell them to.
5.42.1) 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.
5.43) Diplomatic negotiations would expose rival civs to new religions, and each would immediately begin to experience conversions to the other’s belief.
5.44) One poster suggested that a Holy City get a trade bonus of arrows (for pilgrimage). This models the Vatican with its population of 800 and 10 million tourists visit every year.
5.45) When a diplomat incites a city to revolt, the price would be modified based on the conversion power of your state religion. If greater than your enemy, the cost drops significantly.
5.46) Some wonders would affect only certain religions. For example, Michelangelo's Chapel might make only Christians in the empire content. This would be incentive to recruit more Christians.
5.47) Other effects of State Religion: The conversion rate would increase by 1%, and each citizen of that religion would generate one luxury.
5.48) Religions evolve with the civ you are playing. In this model, religions start with different modifiers, and, depending on your playing style, i.e., if you are warlike or peaceful, your civ’s religion changes accordingly, on its own. At some point you could force a religion on your people via theocracy and suffer happiness penalties.
5.49) One poster suggested that you could choose what religion you wanted in each city. Each religion would have a bonus (Polytheism would get +100% extra from temples, Monotheism +100% from churches, Atheism a double science bonus from universities and Religious Freedom gets +25% extra from all holy buildings and wonders). Then, it would spread like the v.2.0 model listed above.
5.50) Attitudes religions might have, by category:
Outlook on war (Militant, Neutral, Pacifistic)
Evangelism (Evangelistic, Normal, Non-Evangelistic)
Tolerance (Open, Tolerant, Intolerant)
5.50.1) A militant religion would produce fanatics with the capability of terrorism.
5.51) Theocracies should be possible -- as in a monarchy where a state religion would mean the king was god.


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

[Stefu]

Oh, splendid! Spelndid! My time's taken up by something more important (Diplomacy tournament, damn the backstabbing Russian!) So you'll be the TM from hereon, I think.

[Maniac]

We have created a religion model, so I can't really think of anything to discuss here before we finally get some feedback from Firaxis.

[Old Bear]

Yes religions drive civilizations: Jihad, crusades, N. Ireland, Bosnia etc. Let's remember the game is being played for fun, not to let all of us would be gods create and engineer real worlds. I think that Civ II had the right approach with temples etc. modifying happiness etc. Let's not complicate an issue that is touchy. Gonna include all 26 various brands of chirstianity, buddhist, taoist, islamic etc. Who you gonna up set.

[raingoon]

M@ni@c, while you or I may not have anything more to say on the subject, it doesn't mean the religion thread should stop for everyone else. I count up to a few dozen new members registering a day, so a continuing thread seems necessary. I will not be the TM, however, as I doubt any further summaries will be necessary. Firaxis will certainly be reading these boards now that they've shut down their forum.

Also -- Let's remember the game is being played for fun, not to let all of us would be gods create and engineer real worlds.

The fallacy in this statement is its assumption that engineering real worlds would not be fun. In fact, this is exactly what Civ 3 should strive to do. Also, a reading of the model will reveal why the concern of offending real-world religions has long since ceased to be an issue.


<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by raingoon (edited November 19, 1999).]</font>

[Stefu]

Well, we can now start discussion, can't we?

I'd like to bring that old "convert the tiles" model up, where each individual tile has a religion, and each turn each tile tries to convert each tile that resides next to it. Cities would in model be like "multiple tiles", ie city that is of size of 8 would be like 8 tiles stacked on top of each other, each would not only affect all other tiles but tiles near it and vice versa. This can get incredibly complicated so I hope someone has got better model for this.

Anyway, this would offer logical way of how religion spreads geographically - on the other hand, if there is a big city which has many people it would be really hard to convert. Perhaps, if religion has a strong foothold in one city, it stagnates there, as it has became part of everyday life and there isn't much work needed to keep people up believing? Likewise, if there are many religions competing about one city, all religions would be more zealous. This could also be apprehended to the model that is the driving force of Religion thread nowadays.

Also, about religious wonders - let's say each religion has one wonder of it's own (but they all work much same way, ie increase happiness and attract pilgrims. St. Peter's Cathedral for Christians, Kamakura Buddha for Buddhists, Juggernaut for Hindus... this of course means that real life religions are used.

[Theben]

I disagree that a large city would necessarily be difficult to convert...the emperor Constantine converted an entire empire in a relatively short time (okay, the people had started converting long before, but he certainly sped up the process). And Mansa Musa of the Mali helped convert an animist nation into Islam, although that took a little longer. But the upper class converted almost immediately. Then there's the Japanese and Buddhism...

[raingoon]

The tiles-have-religion thing is not in the model because it doesn't make any sense. Citizens have belief systems, not squares of ground.

[raingoon]

Also, city size has little bearing on whether or not the citizens within are difficult to convert. Emphasis is on conviction values vs. evangelism values, and the several different ways to modify each.

The model currently has one citizen converting per approximately every 5 years, so time plays a part in a large city's wholesale conversion. Perhaps there should be a discovery called "Evangelism" that allows the player to double his conversions to 2 per turn.

[will I]

Wow! I go away for a month or so, and the model grows tremendously. I've got to say it's a great job. I don't have much to add, except to back up Raingoon's objection to ascribing a religion to a piece of territory. It doesn't make sense, and the calculations would be fearsomely massive.

That said, it might be interesting to have some of the goodie huts turn up "pilgrimage sites" that would work something like the monuments in SMAC, giving a nearby city a boost in its evangelism or conviction ratings. Or, these could appear as random events, like the landing of the meteorite that became the Ka'aba, the salvation of the Virgin of Montserrat, or the prophecies at Lourdes. What do you think?

[raingoon]

Will, you mean those monolith things in SMAC? That's a great idea. Check out the following post taken from SidGames. Hope the poster doesn't mind my re-posting it here. I think his idea should be in the game definitely -- and you'll see how it actually would improve the religion model as well. Originally posted 11/13/99 @ SidGames.com:

Helmling writes: I was reading this book called Guns, Germs and Steel and it got me thinking about Civ. I can think of games I've played where I shared a border with someone and even though I had reached Industrialization, this backward doofus was still researching the wheel.

In the real world, information travels as people from different cultures come in contact with each other. It seems to be a subsystem could be added to the game to take this into consideration. Here's how I think it could be done:

Each city automatically puts out invisible "feelers" with which it might contact other civilizations. These feelers would represent small groups of people moving around. The range of these feelers would vary based on technology and on the terrain around the city.

Let's say that the initial range is short, say 3 movement points. So if there are two cities from different civs within six squares of each other, then the "feelers" would connect and create a line of cultural contact. This would automatically generate some trade between the two cities. (perhaps roads would no longer generate automatic trade; only roads that facilitate lines of cultural contact) The line would be invisible of course, or else it could really muddle up the screen; maybe it could be toggled on/off just for reference or there could be a cultural contacts summary screen.

But what's important is that this line of cultural contact would also allow basic information to move back and forth along the line of contact.

The range of the "feelers" would then grow as new technology is acquired. Horseback riding would extend it to five movement points. Automobile would extend it to ten. There could be different ranges for land and sea. If the Civ only has map making, then the feelers only extend out two movement points across the water. Then four for navigation, six for magnetism, etc.

For each of these lines of cultural contact, there would be a small chance that a civ could acquire an advance from its neighbor that possesses it. The chance of acquiring an advance for each line of cultural contact would be very low. Perhaps 1% to start, with modifiers for the size of the city's involved (Say if the combined city size of the two city's involved is over ten, then it would go up to 2%, etc.) or modified by the number of techs one has but the other doesn't (this would enhance its "catch up" function). These percentages would not be cumulative. They would be run for each line of contact, so that obtaining technologies from your neighbors was not common place. (I'm not a programmer, but I wouldn't think this would be mathematically taxing)

There would need to be a distinction between technical and non-technical advances. Certainly Joe Schmo on the street in El Paso, TX could not pass on the secrets to stealth technology to Mexico. Each tech could have a flag as either an "insight" or "technical." The odds of passing on technical advances could then be 0 or some small fraction of the odds for insight advances.

You might be thinking that this sounds like an awful lot of trouble just to help slower Civ's catch up, and that the one-tech per conquered city method might still be better, but I think this kind of system could add a whole new depth to the game and make it much more realistic.

For example, information about other civilizations and wars could be transmitted through lines of cultural contact. Pop up boxes could read something like, "Through our neighbors the Greeks we have learned of the existence of a civilization called the Romans led by Julius Cesaer." Then later, "Rumors from the Greeks tell of a war between the Romans and the Indians." This could tie nicely into the newspaper suggestion that was made in the idea list.

It would be great if some limited map information could be transmitted this way too. If borders in Civ III were implemented like they were in SMAC, then maybe you could learn about distant civilizations through cultural contact, and when you look at the map you see only the border of that civ superimposed on the black surface. Your knowledge of that border would then be static, unless you received updated info through contacts. Or at least there should be some way of knowing more or less where these civs were located. Pop up's could read, "We have learned of a civilization called the Egyptians far to the South of our empire," or something like that. This would require implementing some sort of direction system, but it would be more realistic than the current system. Exchange of this kind of information could work by percentages also. With each line of cultural contact producing a 5% chance of acquiring information about one of the civ's that your neighbor civ was in contact with.

When an embassy is established with a foreign civ, then that would create a line of cultural contact directly between the two capitals.

This would do away with the need to micromanage trade, as the bulk of a civ's foreign trade would occur automatically as a result of cultural contacts. Caravans could still be used to establish special, highly-lucrative trade routes to distant cities. Of course, these trade routes should also be factored in as cultural contacts.

Reputations of leaders could also be transmitted this way. So that if you back-stab the Japanese, their neighbors the Chinese are going to hear about it, but when you meet the Aztecs, they think you're just peachy.

If diseases are implemented in Civ III, then they could spread along lines of cultural contact.

Also, going back to that book I mentioned, the author stressed the importance in history of "idea diffusion." Whenever one culture has proven some technology possible or practical, it has then been easier for other cultures in contact with that culture to develop similar technology for themselves. This would also help players catch up. It could be implemented easily. If a civ with writing has a significant number of contacts with a civ that doesn't, then the civ lacking writing could research it at 75% of the normal cost.

Also, later advances could produce cultural contacts in different ways. If Civ III has an Internet wonder and something similar to the Computer Center improvement in CTP, then once the Internet is built, it will create lines of cultural contact between any cities with computers. Thus accelerating cultural contact dramatically. Also, every city with an airport might extend its feelers an extra ten movement points.

This system would also allow for easy implementation of immigration in the game. If cities linked by cultural contact have different levels of prosperity, then the poorer of the two should lose some of its population gain over time to the richer (this should also produce unhappiness in the receiving city, as indigenous populations usually respond negatively to immigrants).

Finally, there should be ways to curtail cultural contact, as has been done throughout history. There should be an option through one of the advisors to "seal off borders" which would use resources or gold every turn to block cultural contact. This could be done to try (it should not be guaranteed) to prevent lesser civs from acquring your advances. Or if slavery or atrocities are implemented in the game, then a player could seal his borders to keep other civ's from knowing what nasty things he's up to.

[will I]

It's an interesting thought, and I see how it could mesh somewhat with our ideas on religion. His "feeler" system for reflecting cross-cultural contacts is quite similar to our passive conversion system. However, our system is more radical (which I think makes it more interesting) in positing a subsystem of citizens influencing each other. Helmling is more traditional in that "feelers" are generated by cities but aggregated for each civ to determine whether tech advances flow from one to another. We could not follow this approach because an individual Turywenzist has three levels of influence -- on the fellow inhabitants of his city, on the inhabitants of other cities in his civ, and on citizens outside of his civ. Because of this, we need the more complex calculations laid out in para. 2.2.4.4.

But I think his idea that the zone of influence change with technology is accurate, interesting, and consistent with our system. Therefore, I'd propose changing the example in para. 2.2.4.4 to read:

The Evangelism (Conviction) of a religion within a city is the sum of:
the Evan(Conv) of each member in the city; plus (1 - dist/N) * Evan(Conv) of each member of that religion in a city less than N squares away; plus 1/2 * Evan(Conv) of each member of that religion in a city that has a mission to the city. N is a constant that would be based on the speed of the most rapid available type of transportation, for example, 4 before horseback riding, 6 after horseback riding, 8 after train, and 10 after airplane. If a religion has no members in a city, it is not attacked by other stacks.

What do you think?

[raingoon]

With a nod (once again) to the impossibility of predicting peformance without playtesting, I say good idea. Pretty clever, actually.

You're right, his cultural feelers don't supercede our own model. What appealed to me actually was just his concept of passive technology exchange. Married to the formula you just amended, it seems like a true Civ idea.

So now I would support adding these changes:

1. Sacred Stones (goodie hut monoliths to boost E/C values)
2. The Amended Conversion Formula
3. Certain technology gives conversion bonuses (Mysticism might allow the creation of clerics; Writing = +5 to conviction; Philosophy = +5 to evangelism, etc.), therefore prophets reflect the level of tech that exists in the world when they appear (giving later religions a greater chance of catching on).
4. Religious Persecution can have several degrees of severity (genocide, expulsion, and the current definition). The harshest should be available first, the rest as results of tech advances.
5.The personality of the computer civ leaders could contain a factor indicating whether they favour advances that enhance religions.

3,4, and 5 above are the contribution of posters at SigGames.



<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by raingoon (edited November 17, 1999).]</font>

[will I]

They all sound good to me. Any other interesting controversies?

[Theben]

I've been reading "Guns, Germs, and Steel" myself (though I have yet to finish) and it's a great book. Anyone talking about implementing something for civ3 should read that book; everyone should read it anyway.

It's too bad Helmling didn't go into more detail, because he left out some pretty important stuff. One is that many inventions were only invented once or a couple of times: FE, the Alphabet (an important tech in civ2) was invented once, and everyone else who used it acquired the tech from the original source by either copying, with modifications, the alphabet, or in a few cases by inventing a new alphabet based on the knowledge that there was one out there, and it was useful. But most important was the fact that technology, culture, religion, etc., were helped or hampered by the terrain and general continental axis of the Old and New worlds. FE, the east-west axis of Eurasia meant that the climate from France to China is about the same. This means that anything that can grow in France has a good chance of not only making it to China but will grow well when it gets there; the people, animals, and plants will have similar tolerances to diseases, and that the planting seasons will be almost identical. In the New World, the continental axis is north-south, constricted at the Ithumus (sp?) of Panama, with widely varying temperatures and climates (forest-desert) between latitudes, and different lengths of day (a problem for harvesting plants), and of course different diseases. This greatly slowed tech & cultural diffusion in the New World and in sub-Saharan Africa.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited November 18, 1999).]</font>

[raingoon]

Wow -- what a great sounding book. Just ordered a copy from Amazon. Can't wait to read it.

[Theben]

Another thing about the book- and I don't know if it's intentional or not- is that it clearly demonstrates why Eurasians wound up as world conquerors, and not anyone from Africa, Australia, or the New World. And it does this in a highly scientific, non- racist manner. In fact, it has enough information in it that any racist willing to listen should change his/her mind and accept that the races are intellectually identical.
3 things to get you started:
-33 out of 56 of the world's best crops started in Europe and West Asia, as opposed to 11 in all of the Americas
-The continental axis as described above
-13 out 14 of the animal domesticates were in Eurasia, while only one of 14 was available in the Americas (and due to the north-South axis, the llama stayed in the Andes).
In a nutshell, the Eurasians got lucky.

As you can see, any one of these has great potential to cause widely varying tech/cultural gaps between societies. With all 3, the populations of the Americas/Africa/Australia didn't stand a chance (and these 3 weren't the only things against them!).

This whole thing has got me thinking (and I know I've strayed from Religion, but I'm good at that in real life too ). Right now the difference in the civ game levels involves giving the AI "cheats". Why not use the above to limit players? FE,

Chieftain level: You start out in a location very similar to the Fertile Cresent (ideal location for tech diffusion, many crop plants, many domesticable animals, including horses, east-west axis)...

to Diety level: A climate and/or continent very similar to Australia. Few crop plants, NO domesticable animals, complete isolation from other nations, so little chance for tech diffusion. Try winning that!

[Ruinexplorer]

That really is a good idea. I've always been interested in the development of civilization from an Archaeological perspective, rather than the more economic and strategic concerns of many others.

Diffusion of ideas is a constant in real history, and location and resources are extremely important to the degree and direction of societal development, and initial location could be a great way to
affect difficulty if done correctly.

Of course, all the Civ games assume the rather unlikely fact of a immortal and largely irremovable leader or at least guiding spirit, which would make even places like Australia less of a "hassle". Australia's great geological age (far older than most of the continents) means that it's resources should be appropriately scattered and/or reduced. Perhaps Civilization III should go back even further into the depths of time, with the players choosing the basis of their society, whether they have domesticated animals, learnt to work copper and so on.

I'm going even further off topic, so I'll get
back on (I'd like to discuss these ideas of location, diffusion and so on more later).
So on to religion. Using only real-world religions seems both foolish AND boring (quite an achievement!) and inevitably, some religions are better than others at motivating the populace and so should "realistically" have better scores. Christianity, for example, has been historically shown to be very good at getting converts, as it was, in its earlier years, at least, a "win-win" religion. 90% of it's competitors required effort and "special-ness" to get into "Heaven" (be Valhalla, Elysium, or whatever), whereas Christianity required only baptism and a quick repentance before death to gain entry. Futhermore, alot of "the old gods" could be worshipped as Saints (there was, for example, a St. Hercules), and a Mother Godess replacement was found in the Virgin Mary (some of whose shrines directly replaced those of older Mother Godesses, such as Demeter). Certainly it proved more immediately motivational to your average "dark ages" peasant than the rather random and changeable bunch of gods that had come before.

I do not believe that a computer game could accurately simulate the function of religion in society on any kind of level subtle enough to seperate out individual religions and I also do not believe that real world religions would be treated fairly if all were taken as individual and different religions.

General religion types would quite doable, starting with Shamanistic beliefs and going through Pantheism, Dualism, Monotheism, and so on to more unusual beliefs like Post-industrial Mysticism, Science-based Atheism/ Skepticism or even scary old Nazi-style Nationalistic/Racial pride religions and so on. Religion should add flavour, not merely be another technological commodity. It is also the case that two religious sects based on the same book could be completely and utterly different. Compare, for example, Sufi and Sh'iite (sp?) Islam, or the Quaker and dark-ages Catholic visions of Christianity, or Aztec Patheism with ancient Greek/Roman Pantheism.

It would be essential that it be possible for the player to build his own religions, or variants on existing ones. Not all religions should involve the Supernatural or much Irrational Belief either. As science progresses these could be toned down, leading to less superstition, techno-fear and so on, but the could also be toned up for other purposes. Fundamentalism and Ascetism would be great for Civs living on narrow margins but would screw trade and so on. If you can control societies' political choices you can certainly control their religious ones. It seems also possible that you could choose NOT to have a societal religion, or not to enforce said religion on those unwilling to have it. Many successful ancient empires ignored the religion of their subjects or were even favorable towards it. Even with modern Empires, missionaries have only had variable success.

In short, religion is an immensely complex subject, and one that tends to get people hot under the collar (especially if it's a "dog-collar"!), and I feel Civ III should stay the hell away from using SPECIFIC NAMED REAL-WORLD religions for a variety of reasons, not the least of them realism (many real religions are so utterly variable that they cannot be quantified), and instead go for "Generalised" religion TYPES, and allow these to be modified on various axes. You could always _decide_ that your religious model represented "Islam Circa 1300 CE" or whatever, maybe even naming it in-game, as it were.

Politics might follow a more "Alpha Centuari"-style model, with different choices combining to form an overall picture, and religion could do this too, or even be a number of factors on the same table.

------------------
"You're standing on my neck."

[raingoon]

Bumpity bump.

[raingoon]

Bumpity bumpity bump.

[civbuilder]

Some great ideas here. I personally really like the elevation of religions to such a high status in terms of gameplay. I really the the idea that individual religions work almost like empires, interatcing and attacking each other, and the civilisations. This would add a simple layer of depth, i personally like the way in which they would, to an extent, dictate the actions of civilisations. This might result in more wars and the way in which wars would have wide reaching effects on your standing, not just with your enemy but with various religions, is inspired, it would comprehensivly add to the game. Under the system with has been proposed, in which you can open diplomacy windows with the religion, might i add that it would be nice to be able to trade technologies through the religion (possibly for blessing instead of money) or ask the religion if it would be willing to divulge technologies which they have aquired from elsewhere (i assume religions would span several civilisations and so would perhaps become an informal way of communication, like the Cristian church in Medievil Europe).

Finally I think it would be good if you could actually choose to play as one of the religions (you have units, diplomacy, differnt - though still existant - forms of generating revenue and ways of declaring war). Obviously this could not be a default option, but it would be nice if the option existed somewhere within the game (an appropriate reward for claiming a particular victory perhaps?).

[raingoon]

Wow -- religion redux. Glad to see people still responding to this idea. Looks like CTP II will not be modeling religion (correct me if I'm wrong, here). So let's hope Firaxis is reading these boards.

Some good suggestions civbuilder. I was just reading about the Shroud of Turin and thinking another good idea might be "Religious Relics." Sort of like the treasure chests in "Age of Kingdoms" -- one for each religion that could be worth the support of that church, as well as perhaps money. Just somehow make it worth having, and therefore worth fighting over.

The more actual reasons you have to go to war -- as opposed to just vaguely wanting to dominate -- I say the better.

[civbuilder]

If religion is modelled then why do we still need the timeline runing BC to AD? This disection of time was simply due to one religion, others have thier own years. Perhaps the in game callendar should revolve aound a specific religious event in game time, or perhaps this would become too confusing?

Secondly although this is not strictly a religious matter it is a gripe of mine that most forum posters seem to think the game should run between the dates on the Christian callendar - c.3000 BC and c.2000 AD, i personally think this runs against the spirit of the game, if events had happened differently, say the Roman empire hadn't had fallen we might have reached the modern era by 1500 AD. Or in contrast what if someone had stopped the industrial revolution - we might have fallen into another dark age and not have reached 'modern civilisation' for another thousand years. It would be nice to see a more open ended time line (in a fictional civ 3000 might mean invention of muskateers not neccesarily 'inter-stella travel').

I should also point out that events such as tungusta happened in the ancient world - an ancient erruption of Kracatoa was believed to have helped bring down the Romans - Perhaps events like these could happen in civ3 possibly affecting religious convictions etc. (representing the explanation's as paranormal by the religions).

[Theben]

Avoiding the Religion conversation- since I never really got into it- to answer your question about the b.c.-a.d. thing: it is a familiar time break for most players, who can then judge how well they're doing by comparing their current standing vs. the timeline (FE, I have tanks in 1500 a.d.= I'm doing great while I have musketeers in 1920= I suck ). Personally I don't think it's that important to get too involved in.

[civbuilder]

You're probably right, its not that important and i suspect it would be confusing (no fixed time references) but all that i don't want is the game to automatically stop at 2000 or 2100 because 'thats futuristic', it needn't be, but this probably isn't the thread to discuse that in detail on and i was only trying to bring up the point that (lest some people forget) that we measure time from a religious event - not because someone decided in two thousand years we should have completed the space race.

I mentioned in my previous thread how events in the past could have been seen as miricals. I'd now like to expand on this concept to point out that bad freak events were seen as plagues and often made people lose faith in thier gods, i'd like to see in the next civ (if religion is modelled) some random events which can change the conviction (defencisve) and the other one (attacking) properties of the religions. This needn't be a plaugue makes everyone doubt thier gods, perhaps a plauge might make an ethnic religions followers think thier god has come to spite thier enemies (like the Jews in Egypt) i think this would be interesting.

My very first post. I can't believe I didn't find this site until now! All the things I missed... Nooooooooooooo! Anyway, I am simply impressed with the level of discussion and thoughts on the religion model. Great job! But, I have comments regarding two topics that weren’t carefully addressed in the list. I don't think it will matter now, but the discussion is interesting… perhaps it will help later CIVs or even wannabe Civ games! Oh well…

1. The model does not account for the fact that religion affects – often positively, as well as negatively – the direction, and depth of research in a civ and vice versa.
2. A religion consists of many attributes, some even contradictory; a religion cannot be simply “typed” as Monotheistic, Polytheistic, etc. It is more a question of dominant element versus lesser element.

Since each of them take a fair size, I will put them separately next page for clarity’s sake.

Religion and Science

My first point is this: religion affects modes of thought, and vice versa. In Civ terms, religions would help certain technology, but not the other.

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font> 5.49) One poster suggested that you could choose what religion you wanted in each city. Each religion would have a bonus (Polytheism would get +100% extra from temples, Monotheism +100% from churches, Atheism a double science bonus from universities and Religious Freedom gets +25% extra from all holy buildings and wonders). Then, it would spread like the v.2.0 model listed above.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

It is simply not true that Atheism is the only “religion” that should give bonuses to research. Religions have had – and may even have now – an enormous influence in thinking and research.

Confucianism did not affect only industry and society; the research and philosophies of the Chinese civilization followed the Confucian (and Taoist and Buddhist) thinking. In the West, the rise of modern science owes a lot to Christianity. The works of great scientists like Kepler, Descartes, Pascal and Newton were greatly influenced by their faith, and their view of God (Newton, for example, seeing God, the Creator as a Divine watchmaker).
If say, a civilization with an Eastern religion developed modern technology before the West did, it would have developed differently; different technology discovered before, the other, more focus to one area of science than others, etc.

If one wishes to portray this, different religion should give bonuses to the rate of different technology, or if the multiple fields of research idea is used, it could affect different fields.
(I think the effects should be positive, since this would a) largely avoid heated arguments, b) the established religions around the world are very adaptive: they can incorporate views from new sciences without comprising their central tenets eg. "God creates new life through the process of Evolution" is an officially accepted doctrine in Catholicism).

I just had a thought. Is it okay for me to post multiple posts in a row like this? Argh.

Anyway. My second spiel, for those who will read it.

A religion consists of many attributes, some even contradictory; a religion cannot be simply “typed” as Monotheistic, Polytheistic, etc. It is more a question of dominant element versus lesser elements, and how they make up the whole.

For example, Hinduism is NOT polytheistic; it has also Monistic (Pantheistic) and Monotheistic elements in them. Buddhism has Atheistic, and Monistic – and in some cases, Monotheistic and Polytheistic elements. Religion can have other elements to a differing degree – some religions excelled in philosophy, ethics, others in mystical experiences, devotion to deities, etc.

So, to have religions (esp real ones) in the game, one probably should have each religion having multiple “elements” and display the importance of each numerically or something. Also…
a) Dominant trait will limit the numerical value of a competing trait.
b) Depending on the value of each element, religion can help modify SE effects AND research bonuses differently.
c) Initially, each religion will have either the same values – or at least have strengths in different areas that will add up to equal bonuses. (either that or be customizable) to avoid excessive debate.
d) If Social Engineering model for religion used, Dogma can be used to change these values. Otherwise, environment will change them.

For an illustration of my points, I will divide the elements in religion in to three areas; it’s too late to add to religion model now, but what the heck!

Religion type (here, dominance in one area will limit the other, but not completely)
1. Polytheistic 2. Atheistic 3. Pantheistic 4. Monotheistic.

Religion achievements (a better word?) (here, dominance in one do not limit the other. Eg. Why would philosophy limit the development of the rel’s devotional aspect?
1. Philosophical (how developed is its philosophical system?)
2. Mystical (The focus and depth of mediation, etc.)
3. Materialistic (as in how much importance, in research and in social life is given to the physical world : this may shock some, but Judaism/ Christianity would be classified as more materialistic of religions)
4. Devotional ( importance in personal relationship/worship of deity)

Religion’s structure
1.Priesthood – discussed in your list
2.Charity - how active is the religion in brining social justice, giving alms, etc.
3.Unity(?)
4.Tolerance

Religion type, I believe was addressed in the list, but I am arguing that a religion should not be one or the other, but have dominant, vs. lesser elements. Each, depending on numerical value give diff. Bonuses.

Religion Achievements : again, would give different SE bonuses – but also, affect rate of research for certain tech fields (philosophy for philosophy/social), Mystical for Psychology, Mathematics(?) Materialistic for Physics, Biology.

Religion Structure probably would affect the reputation of a religion – less tolerance, less rep, more ethical, better rep. Perhaps, also SE and research differences.

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by SOC (edited November 01, 2000).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by SOC (edited November 01, 2000).]</font>

[S. Kroeze]

Dear SOC,

Thank you for your intelligent contributions! I am also glad you choose this Forum to post your contributions. In general, intelligent discussion went on here.

For the moment I have nothing to add, only some questions:
Could you please explain more in detail how your ideas could influence the game?
What do you think of the idea of the Joker to give religions their own political agenda and their own AI, independent of the civilizations?
Do you have an opinion about the Eternal China Syndrome? You can find it here

Sincere regards,

S. Kroeze

[Ubersandwich]

Has anyone looked at the religion model for MOO III? It looks very interesting. Of course it is generic, only listing the attributes of the religion (naturalistic, tecnocratic, mystic e&) something like that seems workable for those of us who'd like more depth to the game without offending anyone of a specific faith. (i do not have the link to the MOO III site, but is on the Microprose site, I believe)