Religion - how would you do it?

[Cheexsta]

Greetings those few of you who still read these forums!

For me, religion in antiquity was a massive part of everyday life. There were gods for just about everything - Rome even had a god of doorways, and even today we still have a month named after him (Janus -> January). Auspices were taken and sacrifices made whenever there was a major event (such as before battles, after men took up public office and so on) and festivals took up a huge portion of the year.

In the game there is really only one thing we can actively do: invoke an omen from one specific god.

So, to the community: what would you like to see in regards to religion in this game?

 

[wolffrnd]

Human sacrifice?

There is almost always an extra populist lying around somewhere.... :rofl:

In all seriousness, I'm not too sure what you could add. Perhaps, something like a free CB to go to war to enlighten the heathens if your countries religious conviction is high enough (or if you are being led by a religious faction or theocracy)?

Have the ability to spend money, and send someone to try to actively convert parts of your empire to the home religion. Instead of relying on just the passive attempts currently in the game (though this should remain too).

How about being able to spend money to increase the chance or power of the invoked power for the year? (We really need that bonus to army morale for the war we are in / we really need that bonus to morale to be even bigger for the war we are in / SO, we are going to sacrifice even more than normal to get the god's attention) Hmmm, now where did I say that Populist was???.....

 

[Cheexsta]

I was actually thinking the exact opposite in regards to religious conversion. Namely, I think there should be minimal opportunity to convert a province's religion (their culture should also be a lot harder to convert, too!), unless the province is monotheistic and your country is polytheistic (or vice versa). I really can't think of a situation in antiquity where a (polytheistic) country actively tried to force its religion upon (polytheistic) subjects.

Instead what tended to happen was that a polytheistic community would 'absorb' the gods of other religions into their own, or at least find some correlation between the various religions. We see this a lot in Rome, with many of the Greek gods being more or less mirrored in the Roman gods. The Ptolemies did this a lot as well, by drawing parallels between the Greek gods and the native Egyptian gods.

I think I made this suggestion in one of the many expansion suggestion threads, but what I'd like to see is a system of religious acceptance, rather than religious conversion. A province could have a default religion, but if it's conquered by a country with a different (polytheistic) religion, they'd slowly gain acceptance of that religion over time but also keep their own religion. Likewise, bordering a province with a different religion would have the same effect. The exact effects this would have on the game, I'm not entirely sure.

Thanks for the thoughts, though

 

[wolffrnd]

I never really looked at the current religious conversion setup as them truly converting. I always just thought of it as the Romans or Greeks incorporating the provinces religious ideas into their religion, and getting those people to accept it to a small degree. Like the Greeks did with Egypt.

 

[jordanjay29]

Feast of Saturnalia, anybody?

Random events that occur on certain days would be useful. Perhaps they could give certain modifiers to a province, based on the province's Governor stats, popularity, and its religion/culture and the religious acceptance feature.

Instead of just national omens, consider regional omens. A decisive battle is won in a region, which could generate an event that grants the governor more popularity, and gives the provinces a modifier to supply or manpower or taxpower. Or, in the case of a loss, the provinces gain a negative modifier and the governor loses popularity.

Introduce religious acceptance and/or religious absorbtion (different from converstion), whereby the province gains acceptance of the state religion, and potentially portions of the provinces' own religion would be incorporated into the state religion. The latter should affect any province of that religion, the former would be province-specific.

The appointment of new governors, the addition of new provinces to the region, or someone with holdings in a certain province could generate an event in which a feast is held for the governor or appointee and can earn them more popularity, or prominence. Potentially even wealth, or new friends. A new appointee might meet the governor of the region at said feast, and form a friendship. Or vice versa, the new governor might meet landholders at that feast, and form friendship(s).

Sacrifices could be worked in as well. Consider construction of a new temple, just prior to completion, an event could trigger to offer the ability to sacrifice (for gold) and gain a positive modifer for the province, or refuse and risk a negative modifier for the province. Or worse, depending on the region. A core on the province might make the penalty more severe, and the province being the capital might trigger a stability gain or hit.

That's all I have for ideas, for now anyway.

 

[vanin]

I think that the political impact of religion has been overdone in Rome. Why would the Romans hate the Greeks because their gods had different names? Makes no sense...

Religion needs a rehaul of sorts, as said above there should be random events that affect your country or a province, but imo not much more than that.

 

[wolffrnd]

i think that the political impact of religion has been overdone in rome. Why would the romans hate the greeks because their gods had different names? Makes no sense...

Religion needs a rehaul of sorts, as said above there should be random events that affect your country or a province, but imo not much more than that.

+1