08-05-2005 01:39									#1
	Civ 4 religion - preview info and speculation Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

One of the new things for Civ 4:

7 real world religions

Christianity
Buddhism
Hinduism
Islam
?

Generic, in that no specific benefits associated with a particular religion

Each religion founded with the discovery of a certain tech:
Buddhism - Meditation
Hinduism - Polytheism
?

Religion founded in a certain city and spreads across the map independently
Speculation -religion is associated with cities, not citizens
Speculation -spread is via trade network ala Civ 3 Conquests plague
Speculation - spread of religions is not uniform otherwise oldest religions would dominate the map
Speculation - certain advances will reduce the effect/spread of religion eg effect of the enlightenment in Europe

Religion gives +1 happiness if city religion matches state religion. Changing state religion gives 1 turn of anarchy

State religion will affect relations with other civs Speculation - they are more friendly to those with the same religion

Can build shrines, monasteries, missionaries
Speculation - can only build them if you have a state religion
Speculation - buildings will increase spread of your religion/ increase happiness effect of religion/ prevent conversion to ther religions
Speculation - missionaries could be used to convert cities; implies special units not abstracted - is the spy back?

Can get Great Prophets
Speculation - can give information on foreign cities with same religion
Speculation - other abilities unknown, holy wars?

The above implies that all religious building are seperate from culture and that culture becomes a less important element

Unclear whether city flipping remains - if so then would seem to be more likely to be associated with religion than with culture

My feeling is that religion will give flavour but it will not be a key gameplay concept

	08-05-2005 02:32									#2
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My speculation for other religions is Judaism (with Monotheism) and Sikhism (Civil Services? I'm not familiar enough).

Religion will probably indeed not be a key concept because it does not have specific bonuses. Good for correctness, but weaker for gameplay, IMO. It appears now that there will be little reason to change your state religion. Seems to make sense to have a religion, build temples of that religion, see it spread and so.

	08-05-2005 03:30									#3
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If you conquer a vast empire whose religion is different from yours, it might be a good idea to switch to the conquered religion since there are more of them and their cities may be more unhappy than your core cities?

	08-05-2005 03:48									#4
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And then you will upset all the citizens in cities that were yours before the war. It will probably be better to wait for your religion to spread to the newly conquered territories.

	08-05-2005 04:12									#5
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Taoism as 7th religion then?

	08-05-2005 04:24									#6
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Zoroastrianism
Judaism
Confucianism

That's how I'd do it, adds up to 3 Western, 3 Eastern, and Zoroastrianism (kind of both, eh?). Judaism may not have become a national state religion in our world, but the Aztecs didn't build nuclear submarines, either.

	08-05-2005 05:04									#7
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quote: Originally posted by SCUrfer Zoroastrianism (kind of both, eh?)

Actually Zoroastrianism is about as 'western' as it can get AFAIK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

Personally I wouldn't like Judaism and Sikhism as one of the seven religions. They have a too limited geographical spread and followers to be one of the 'big seven'. Don't know what the unknown three could be then though. Taoism and Zoroastrism, but what for the seventh? One could say Confucianism, but that would make China quite full.

	08-05-2005 05:08									#8
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Yeahm I guess it is pretty western. So I guess that might not work as a systemization...

I think it's very plausible that Judaism is one of the 7. It's got too much "brand" recognition.

	08-05-2005 05:16									#9
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quote: Originally posted by SCUrfer I think it's very plausible that Judaism is one of the 7. It's got too much "brand" recognition.

That's my fear too.

I'd immediately change it to Zoroastrism though, which I assume won't be included due to lack of brand recognition.

	08-05-2005 05:27									#10
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True, they might not include it. Which would be unfortunate. At this point, we really have no idea of what they'll include, though. It's also interesting to think about which religion's would originate with what technology. Hinduism = Polytheism, and Buddasim = Meditation. What would the others be? Monotheism = Christianity and Theology = Islam, so that one comes before the other? Or will it be divided so that it's nearly impossible for one Civ to be the originator of more than one major religion, putting them all on different tech paths? Interesting to think about.

	08-05-2005 17:51									#11
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I just thought of something. If a religion is founded when a civ discovers a tech, that means that only the first civ to discover the tech founds the new religion, as a religion naturally can't be founded more than once. But that also means that a human controlled civ, which often will be ahead in tech much of the game, will become a multireligious civ, right? And that probably makes it harder to control happineses and such things, politics towards the various minorities will be important etc. In other words, an incentive to not rush ahead?

	08-05-2005 17:59									#12
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Christianity doesn't really make sense as the choice for monotheism. Judaism is the first monotheistic religion (and there are hints of it being in the game). One could even argue as to whether Christianity is monotheistic at all, but that's kind of OT.

	08-05-2005 18:05									#13
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Religious Techs should not be required for era changing. So, you won't research them unless you want your cities to riot (give these techs to another player that have another religion to make his cities revolt?).
Religions should have specific improvments and wonders, like this:
Politheism =>politheistic religions (hinduism, greek-roman, native american, etc.)=> Oracle, temples
Meditation=> Budhism=> monasteries (wonder?)
Monotheism=> Judhism=> Temple of Jerusalem(improvement?)
Monotheism=> Christianism=> churchs, Knights Templar
Theology=> Islamism=> Peregrination (improvment?)
Meditation=> Taohism=> Feng Shui (improvment?)
Mysticism=> Zoroastrism=> ??

	08-05-2005 18:33									#14
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There is no eras in Civ4 according to the little we know.

	08-05-2005 18:39									#15
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I reckon paganism will be the broad starting status for the civs.

Atheism will be in there as a sort of non-religion choice.

.

	08-05-2005 19:26									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Nikolai I just thought of something. If a religion is founded when a civ discovers a tech, that means that only the first civ to discover the tech founds the new religion, as a religion naturally can't be founded more than once.

Yes, this is how it works, that is quite clear from screenshots.

quote: Originally posted by Solver Judaism is the first monotheistic religion

Nope, Aton worship is. The Jews stole their religion from a failed Egyptian cult

quote: (and there are hints of it being in the game)

Such as?

	08-05-2005 19:42									#17
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quote: Nope, Aton worship is. The Jews stole their religion from a failed Egyptian cult

Or according to others, Ehnaton's cult of Aton was created after the Exodus, because of Jewish influence.

quote: Such as?

You know what I meant, we're not allowed to talk about that .

	08-05-2005 20:05									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Locutus Yes, this is how it works, that is quite clear from screenshots.

I know, but my main point(the thing I thought of so to speak) was the next sentences.

	08-05-2005 20:05									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Solver quote: Such as? You know what I meant, we're not allowed to talk about that .

	09-05-2005 00:29									#20
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Interesting. I wonder what advantages each religion will have. I hope they're reasonably compelling, rather than 'Islam = War'.

They could have atheism as a 'religion', but without a holy city, obviously, and spread purely by the state. It (or generic) should probably be the only choices for a communist civ.

Some Western polytheistic religions would be nice, as well.

	09-05-2005 00:35									#21
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quote: Interesting. I wonder what advantages each religion will have. I hope they're reasonably compelling, rather than 'Islam = War'.

It has been said that there are no religion-specific bonuses.

	09-05-2005 00:42									#22
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I believe that having only one turn of anarchy for changing religion is absurd. Something rational would be that when you change your state religion you should "convert" your citizens placing a number of Clerics (or something like that) for such task, just like when you conquer cities in CIV3 and you have to place a number of troops for assimilating new citizens. And of course, in some cities revolts will emerge.

Religion is just too complex for changing in a blink.

	09-05-2005 01:30									#23
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You as a player don't change religion, you change the state religion. As I understand it, spread of religion is done by the computer. If we are lucky, there will be missions and such tools for our use though.

	09-05-2005 01:43									#24
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So, i change the state religion and only when a full city is converted by the computer, that city gets the +1 in happiness. Otherwise there is no other penalty besides the turn of anarchy, just the lack of the bonus.

	09-05-2005 01:44									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Solver It has been said that there are no religion-specific bonuses.

Hmm. I thought that the 'generic' comment meant that you could choose to have no state religion... i.e. you don't get the bonus. My mistake.

	09-05-2005 01:48									#26
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Sandy, the only bonus i know is the +1 in happiness that a city gets when its population is alike with the state religion.

	09-05-2005 02:52									#27
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My bets are for.

Indigenous
Judiasm
Taoism

Judiasm is obvious, since it is one of the oldest, practiced religion. People know about the religion, and it has been a part of history.

Indigenous, would probably be a starting religion.

Like Babylonian Religion
or Chinese Religion and etc.

Taosim, is only because it is mixed with Chinese culture...that and Confuciusism

Either way, those are my guesses.

	09-05-2005 06:07									#28
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I don't like how there is 1 turn of anarchy and 1+ happiness. To me that just doesn't seem well thought out.


Religion should be something gradual and have serious weight on your diplomacy and keeping your people content.

1. First you invent the religion
2. A percentage of your people automatically start believing in it whether you enforce it or not.
3. If you don't enforce a different religion, the strength of the current religion gets stronger, the stronger it gets, the harder it is to break. So if your people have been Taoists for 2000 years, it will take 2000 years to fully change to another religion.

However, things can speed up the change of religion: education, advertising, how many other people in the world believe in the new religion, destroying taoist churches and build the new religion churches, killing taoist leaders, etc

	09-05-2005 08:59									#29
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Assuredly animism and paganism ought to be included as part of the seven religions. Using the evolutional concept of religion, Civs would start off either animistic or just plain indeginous. I found it highly unlikely Firaxis would apply such a concept, so it is therefore even more unlikely for Civs to start off as pagans. Animism is needed to represent Native American religion, and on the other hand, paganism is needed to represent early Egyptian, early Greek, early Roman, Viking or Nordic, Celtic, and any other applied culture. It would be a shame to see two incredibly historical and relevant religious types be discluded.


Btw, I'd imagine all Civs will start off being called indeginous religion or no religion at all (not to be confused with Atheism).

	09-05-2005 09:59									#30
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I'd think maybe they would be described as starting off as "tribal" or soemthing like that.

Animism is as good a guess as anything else at this point, but it strikes me as not being organized enough to qualify. Paganism might be covered under Hinduism, in terms of being polytheistic. But who knows at this point?