[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Religions in freeciv?

[David KORONCZAY <fu@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ok, some re-thinking then. (the disclaimer still stands ;-))

First, there would be no church, just 'religion', or 'beliefs', whatever
you call them. (Animism, in the beginning)
In each city, you could see bars showing what percent of the population
belongs to each belief. Alternatively, (if someone feels percentages
don't fit nicely into freeciv), a belief or religion could be associated
with each worker.

Then, religions can >evolve< from other religions, under certain
circumstances, bla-bla. Like they can have some tech dependency.
Roman, greek, likely other ancient polytheist religions,
(probably hinduism as well? someone could help me out here)
arose this way, i think.
I don't know if one or an other polytheist religion could have an
advantage over the other (where i'm talking about advantages that
can be seen in freeciv, of course, like economical, or whatever).
Probably not.
As i know little about these religions, i don't see clearly  
their advantage over animism either. Though, i want to believe that
there is.
Oh, and Judaism, i don't know if there are scientific reasons
for presuming that it arose through an "evolution", or
by a founder (Moses?), like other monoteistic religions,
such as what Amenhotep IV (=Akhenaten) created in 1348 BC.
((Don't feel offended, freeciv already contains this, or what
else does it mean 'you've discovered(hah?) monotheism'.))

The other way of new religions emerging would be that,
there would always be a possibility of >prophets< arising in cities,
(which would be higher under certain circumstances, like
disorder, or maybe techs, other religions, etc).
They could either just predict that new religion is
coming, (making the abovementioned probability higher),
or themself founding religions (like Muhammad or Baha'u'llah).
Or their teaching could be considered after their death,
and the new religion could spread from a small group of
believers. (like christianity, or buddhism, though i'm not sure
about this one).

Oh, and entering a >hut<, you could also gain a religion.
Or a prophet, at least :-).

(and maybe 4th way - like what Akhenaten did: Do it yourself! ;-))

While these religions are forming and spreading between people,  
you could decide that you want a theocratic (-like) government,  
which way you would gain more control over your people.
Also, as this would mean you're sort of "head of the church",
you could even have some level of control over the population
on other players countries, if there are many of your religions.   
The true chance of creating the Vaticanian nation :-),
receiving huge taxes from Italy, France, Germany, etc...
You could govern >missionaries<, (or diplomats could do these as well),
and you could force conversion of people in your cities with other
religions, though this could be bad for your >reputation<.

War would be easier to wage against people with other religions.
THat is, maybe more discontent people should be generated when
being at war with a player with same religion.

I don't know whether monotheistic (or atheistic, like buddhism,
taoism can be called atheistic, if i'm right) beliefs have advanteges
over each other. But it would be certainly more interesting if they
would. (there were many mails about rulesets on that)  
And remember - we are not talking about that xxxx-ism has this
or that advantage, rather about a xxxx-ist government.  
(Still, i understand those arguments against making these differences
between religions)

Now, is this all more or less reasonable until the middle ages?
Then, after a certain level of knowledge (Tech: Enlightenment ?),
theocracy is certainly harder, i think. Maybe it's not necessary that
religion becomes less important, less practised, and non-religiousness
spreads, but at least power based on it should decrease,
and there should be a need for a secularized government.
If you are the church as well, you can do that just like
when changing government. If the church is independent,
they may or may not like the idea. You may need to force it.


Oh, and one more thing, what should happen, when an other
player claims to be the head of the religion your people
also believe in? Schism? Should it affect religion?
(that is, 1 religion - 2 church, or 2 religion - 2 church)?
In the former, there could be a chance to unite them again,
like when the enemy's cities are in the mood for revolt,
you just have to declare him a heretic, and unite the churches :-).
On the other hand, it still wouldn't be that bad, if he
"won" over you, and he would be the spiritual leader of your
people - just be careful, he may "suggest" things to them
you wouldn't want to. And also some of the tax just pours
into his pocket...



Well, just some general thoughts, i know it still hasn't become clearer,
and that i was a bit long sorry.
Also sorry for using real religions names, but i would like to
_be able_ , at least, to simulate those, and it's also easier to
talk about them this way. They can be called anything later, when
implementing it.


david