Religious Civilizations

It could be okay if the implementation was really, really good, but otherwise I think a bunch of fictional religions would feel kind of tacked on. It works well enough in Civ4, but then again you've got a historical timeline and context for it to work in.

And then you'd have the real-life religious types incensed that their religion wasn't representing Terra Might make an interesting mod but not content I'd want to see dev resources spent on.

Actually it has a minor advantage, fictitious religions can have stats, can be differentiated, real ones can't because of political correctness. And you are forgetting that we have customizable races. Just make the terran religion neutral by default with no stats, unlike the "alien" religions. There would be seven graphical representations for human religions (the same as in civ4) and their corresponding names, you would be able to customize the "human" religion. The AI would just pick one of the 7 pre-prepared symbols and the proper name. Alien religions would have default stats and symbols but could be customized as well.


The real question is what religions would add.

Divine power are too much and not appropriate for a SF setting, let’s just assume that all of the gods are make-believe. A scenario is another thing. It could add a twist to diplomacy… evil Dregin in Christianity may be on good terms with neutral human Christianity or be at odds with good human Christianity in another game. Making the appropriate (depending on you’re relationship) increases or drops in you’re approval and you’re relationship with the other races. Maybe the evil humans adopt the Dregin religion? Claiming that they and the Dregina are sister races, starting a crusade event. Or perhaps the Yor after centuries of atheism, find an interest in Buddhism or a Torian religion.

Some cool Mega.events could be added. Like: Powerful beings invade the galaxy, calming they are well, Gods. Funding a religion that gives them more and more power as they forcibly convert more sentient.

If a deeper government system (ala civ or even EU3) was ever implemented this could allow official state religions.

My $.02... I think it's better to use religion as a differentiating factor for a single alien race/culture in the game (i.e. the Krynn), instead of messing with religion for all races.

For one thing, it's not guaranteed that a technically advanced culture, that could move between star systems, would have any religion at all. It would feel a bit odd (to me anyway) if this was a property of every race in the game. By focusing only on the Krynn as a strongly religious race, it makes their religion more interesting as a motivating factor in their relations to other civilizations. And the other races can have their own primary motivations -- Humans want to make nice with Diplomacy, the Yor want all organics to die, the Drengin are enslavers, the Korx want to dominate through trade, and so on. For some of these races, it's hard to imagine a religion that would be appropriate anyway... although I guess the Korx do worship the accumulation of money.

Speaking of the Krynn, if you haven't seen it already, read Brad's description of how they're being handled in the TA expansion. Their fanatic religion is being played up in the form of influence, and reinforced with unique tech tree upgrades:

TA Krynn re-introduction

At least a minority of Humans will most certainly still be religius a century or two from now. The Torians were a pre-industrial society and were enslaved brutaly; that has to be a fertile ground for religion to develop.

The Krox may have a uniqe view on religion, a buisness that keept the lower classes in line, and is now used to exploit off-worlders (it could drain credits from any planet with their religion and give them to the Krox goverment or maybe it could be spread via trade routs).

The Arceans are a proud noble warrior race. Perhaps some kind of afterlife(like Klingons) withiut Gods? Or a tribal religius structure of animism.

The Altarians could be practicaly anything... from atheists, monotheists,...

The Yor in my mind are probably not religius. Perhaps an abstract scientificaly based belief in the omega point? (wiki that up)



Anyway I think it should be more a religions/philosophy systen maybe call them Ethoses? and make them belief-systems with only two or three "real" religions.
I never said they would all have religions, I think about 50% should have them though.





BTW Thank you for the link, very interesting. I had been wondering about the Krynn for some time.

Religions... yeah why not?

My 2 cents. That would be cool.


But not at all fitting with Galciv2. Guys, in 2007, one country has many, many different religions. In fact, religion is usually second to law.

So, why would a country in 2227 have only one?

Pardon me, not a country, not even a planet, but a GALACTIC CIVILIZATION!

Nice idea, but perhaps not for this game.

(Krynn=exception)

I think religion is already encompassed by influence; after all, it's just another part of one's culture, hence Cultural Victory could be interpreted as religious conversion. Maybe a broader element, Culture, could be introduced. I have no idea what benefits it would have, but it could be similar to political parties; you just pick a cultural ideology, such as Religious, Naturalist, Urbanist (don't know if that's even a word), etc. Your choice, besides having a few minor increases in abilities, would strongly affect the amount of influence you have over other cultures; perhaps a civ which prefers the urban lifestyle would have an easy time influencing the technophiles, but they would have a more difficult time converting the Space-Amish.

Overemphasizing religion in GC2 would increase the risk of real world attention to Stardock from offended fanatics. It's just not worth it.

Made up religions offend peopla?  :NOTSURE: 

Firaxis got away with it and they used real religions and even allowed theocratic goverments and jihads in civ4.

If we want to be uberpoliticaly correct, lets not have a religius system but a philosphical system, we already have a good vs. evil divide, different ethical systems would just add to that.

Or just make a "mega event" in which the Flying Spaghetti Monster reveals itself to the different races of the galaxy touching everyone with its noodly appendage

Ah yes, the FSM Mega Event, where all races (besides the Krynn, I guess) become instant Pastafarian converts. Well, the game already has pirates, so why not!

This was my thought as well