Religion

[Rho]

The christian westworld was leading the technological development on many levels for a long period in history, in part due to the christian worldview. To assume an atheist "religion" would be superior in science is ridiculous, just like assuming a christian-ish religion by default would give a science bonus. There's a lot of other stuff involved too.

I repeat, components with different effects such as science boosts and diplomatic penalties would make it more interesting, as well as (depending on the exact nature of those effects), less anti-belief or anti-nonbelief, as players would customize their religion anyway.

I like my idea.

Also, that means that ppl who idealistically refuse to play with any "religion" other than the closest thing to his own, they would probably still have different in-game "religion"/culture components. Ppl who pick and choose the best components.

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Including government into the belief component system would be interesting. That way, the odds of any two players' governments being alike would be low. If the interactions would vary enough depending on those components, it could give diplomacy a real innovative touch.

I mean, a democratic civ with the idea that every player must be democratic... that'd be interesting, especially when faced with a more hive-minded civ of a strange democratic socialist view (aka ideal socialism). Or with a machine civ where there entire population is made up of a single multi-planet computer, with the belief that everyone in a civ must agree with each other...

What the players themselves will do I dunno, but there's poten tial for this, methinks.

[artos_boxcar]

I have to agree with Rho on the idea of religion. Saying that a civilization with a state religion would for some reason have to be less scientific than an athiestic one is rather narrow minded. Many, if not most, of the leaders in science, art and exploration (at least in the western world) in the middle ages were Islamic, and many Islamic countries were quite open and tolerant to other religions. By contrast, entirely athiestic worldviews have been, at times, the most intolerant and vicious ones (Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, anyone?).

Saying just religious idealogy is responsible for a cultures development, or lack of, is grossly unfair. it would be like saying that England became industrialized before France because they were Protestant and the French were Catholic, when really it was a variety of cultural (English were more accepting of entrepeneures), geographical (wealth of natural resources, isolation from direct physical attack, access to trade routes) and political (large number of colonies to sell finished goods to and import raw materials from, businessmen had more access to government positions) reasons.

I think it would be better to tie religion directly into a race's 'ethos', their basic behavior. they may be isolationist atheist luddites, or tolerant techloving pantheist, or genocidal agnostic enviromentalist. They should not, however, have to be scientific just because their atheist, or luddites just because they are religious. Perhaps their ethos can even be randomized, so that they may behave entirely differently from game to game. A cyborg race in one game may try to destroy everyone else who isn't a cyborg, and the next game try to convince (peacefully) everyone to accept the benefits of a biological-mechanical symbiosis, and the next game just not give a damn about the rest of the universe. Imagine another universe where Martin Luther King Jr. led Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and Adolf Hitler led the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Playing a game like Free Orion is the same way. Your playing basically infinite variation on the same universe. Why can't the races you play against (or even with) have the same variation?

Sorry for the long post on a rather old thread. But I still think that playing a game where you don't know for sure wether the meklar empire next to you is going to attack you or ally with you would be pretty interesting.

[Krikkitone]

One point on the Religion/Ethos/Culture

I think it is VERY important that this be something that is NOT tied to a particular Race.

A Race will have certain starting Religions/Ethoi/Cultures. However, in the course of the game they can be replaced with other ones and Entirely New ones may spring up.

Now both the "Starting Cultures" and How the Race responds to new "Cultures" may be determined by Race picks.

[Rho]

Many, if not most, of the leaders in science, art and exploration (at least in the western world) in the middle ages were Islamic

News to me. I recall a geometric math... thing, invented/discovered by Moslims "back in the days", but the westworld seem to have been more influenced by its state religion christianity when it comes to art and scientific development. As for exploration, I can't say.

But now, to the point.

Imagine another universe where Martin Luther King Jr. led Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and Adolf Hitler led the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Playing a game like Free Orion is the same way. Your playing basically infinite variation on the same universe. Why can't the races you play against (or even with) have the same variation?

This is where my suggestion of culture components works just nicely. The player or AI either get to make their picks before the game, or start with a random set of components, and have to mold their culture into what they prefer.

What this means is a random culture for each race, your get those infinite variations of it. Even more so if the results of changing from one component to another has a specific effect on the civ. For example, moving from a theistic to an atheistic view could result in scientific boosts but just as well lead to scientific stagnation; health bonus from the lack of stress associated with sacrifice and/or good deeds, or health penalty for the lack of afterlife to hope and strive for.

If the results of cultural change also has a random factor involved, you can't just rely on memory to figure out what component you can change into another, there's an element of luck involved as well, and the strategy comes in at when you can change without suffering penalties in the middle of war.

[Tortanick]

The idea of selecting religious components in a theological pick'n'mix to give various bonuses and penalties is unnecessary. Its allready been decided that we will have an Alpha Centauri style government (pick'n'mix different policies) witch will do the exact same thing. While you could have a government and religion pick'n'mix, or even Government/culture/religion but gameplay wise they are identical. Just a few name changes to turn from one to another. If we're going to have culture and religion we may as well do something unique with them.

I'd actually argue that if we don't do anything interesting and unique, but just lump religion and culture into government its actually worse than not having them at all. With customisable religion and culture then all races have the same ingredients to choose from, if you don't have a customisable culture/religion then people are free to design wildly creative backstories without conflicting with the gameplay*. We already have some very nice proposals that would be very hard to fit into a generic culture model that applies to all races such as George (Unimind) and the Egassem (individuals are an entire nation state)



* I may be bias to the importance of that, since I write those backstories and enjoy doing so.

[Krikkitone]

As for How Government, Race, & Culture would interact, I would see them as having these 3 characteristics


1. Race... practically permanent, consists of unchanging tendencies (aside from possible genetic engineering), these characteristics influence how well the race 'interacts' with certain governments and cultures

2. Government/Social Structure... this is a set of traits that is Somewhat easily changable by the player, and can be improved with technology, because your government is directly tied to your Empire, it also will go better or worse when imposed on Particular races and cultures.

3. Culture... this is a set of traits that changes Mostly independent of the player, new cultures continually arise, spread, and die out (the Government and Races determine how they Arise, Spread, and Die out... cultures can be aproved of or disapproved of by the government, some races will spontaneously create cultures more, some races will change cultures less, some cultures may decrease loyalty to different government types). They have varying strengths on varying worlds.

The players Empire has 1 Government over 1 or more worlds
On each world is 1 Race with 1 or more Cultures

Now when you Start, I'd Imagine you can spend race points to select your Race, Government, and Culture*
Your 'Starting' Government and Culture selections will probably count as Cultures/Governments your Race 'Gets along with' better (Actually that could be a Race Pick...How Stable is your Starting government... is your starting Government a Dictatorship over a race that yearns for Freedom, or is the dominant culture of society something unnatural to your race.)

Race Picks would also include things like
Diversity v. Unity (how strong is the Dominant Culture)
Change v. Stability
Level of Racial Identity v. Individualism
etc. That determine how ANY culture does on that race
as well as things like
Xenophobia v. Xenophilia (something that would be both a Race Trait, Cultural Trait, and Government Policy... when all three are aligned you have something like the Eaxaws)

In any case, with enough variation in the 'meaningful' aspects of culture that can give enough possibilities for backstory

*Starting Culture would probably have some Random elements to it (unless you spent enough points to get the starting culture exactly as you wanted)


Using your two examples... the "unimind" George would probably have a STRONG Racial Identity pick (so that a culture that was in one planet of Georges would Very easily spread to other ones.. so that the strength's of relative cultures would be the same... call them 'Moods') The "One Being Nation-States" of the Egassem would probably have a high level of Tradition/Stability, but a low degree of Unity.

[Tortanick]

You know, that's actually not such a bad idea. I'll have to think more about it.

[Rho]

I'm just saying that there's may not be such a big distinction between culture, religion, and government.

For example, a theocratic government means they follow their holy book(s), holy person(s), priest(s), and so on. There, religion/culture rules everything. In another example, we might have a military government, or a commersial government, or a mafia government, or an environmentalist government.

I'm just saying that government, religion, and culture all overlap. To really be innovative and not to further complicate the gameplay, we can use a single culture/govt/religon component picker. No micro-managing religion, culture, and government separately.

[Krikkitone]

I'm just saying that government, religion, and culture all overlap. To really be innovative and not to further complicate the gameplay, we can use a single culture/govt/religon component picker. No micro-managing religion, culture, and government separately.

Well the key difference between Government/Social Structure and Religion/Culture is that the
Player would control Government/Social Structure... and that a certain Government/Social Structure is always the same as a certain Empire (1 Empire=1 Government.. 1 Government=1 Empire)

Religion/culture would Not be Player Controlled (except to begin with) and 1 Empire could have multiple Religion/Cultures, and 1 Religion/Culture could be in Multiple Empires

[Tortanick]

I'm just saying that there's may not be such a big distinction between culture, religion, and government.

I'm just saying that government, religion, and culture all overlap. To really be innovative and not to further complicate the gameplay, we can use a single culture/govt/religon component picker. No micro-managing religion, culture, and government separately.

What really matters is the gameplay distinction, not the realistic distinction. If there isn't a distinct gameplay for the three, and they're all wrapped up into one combined package then in gameplay terms there is no diffrence between having 3, 2 or 1. So we may as well only have government. Leaving the other two open for addition later with a unique gameplay angle and minimising the contradictions between gameplay and backstory.