|
Post by lowry on Dec 15, 2015 22:17:38 GMT
Hi, I've been watching these forums for quite a considerable amount of time and now have decided to finally give up my lurking and join you guys. So here's my attempt at discussing something; Religion is a powerful force amongst any civilisation, it is the very thing by which we rationalise our existence and justify our actions. Now, most Atheists by now will have gone 'but I believe in chemistry and the all powerful forces of physics, therefore I do not have a religion!' But, to this I say, why did you use the word 'believe'? The answer is that the theories you have confided in are your religion, something you believe. But, I digress. Shaping the religion of a community affects the entire mentality of the community. Hunting tribes will be empowered by the thought that a God is pleased with what they are doing. A fisher-(man,, creature, species thing) will feel thankful to the higher power that granted him good luck. So, these higher beings may not exist, but it shapes the way mortals live their lives. With religion comes war, art, science and production, neglecting such a pivotal cog in the clockwork machine known as society would probably alter whether or not we could really call thrive realistic.
Here is my idea: So, you do not 'design' a religion like a tool in the tool editor. You'd have to shape it. Mould it. One of your people asks a question and that question is 'Where did this tree come from?' Now, this is where you begin your shaping. Your person believes someone put that tree there and that's why it's there. He/(you inserting it with an input box) gives this 'someone' a name, from then on your people believe that too and start to ask more questions about the world around them and will answer it in different ways, either creating new gods or making stories about previously existing ones. Now you can begin to customise your religion, you choose one of the deities your people have made up and turn it into a bad guy, now all the things your people represent to that deity will become taboo and they'll act by either shunning or taking aggressive measures against them. Or, you could select a deity to be portrayed as good and kind making your people worship the things that deity represents. From then on, your people will blame bad gods / angered good gods for bad things and good gods for good things, hence, starting a religion. From then on it continues, you select what beliefs are held more seriously and that determines how your people act and develop because of this. Here's an example; My people live in a tribe on a coast, they believe the waves are controlled by a goddess of battle. They also believe the only way to soothe the waves for their fishing boats is to gain her favour in battle.
Notes: I will probably add to this but please give me your thoughts <3
-Lowry
|
|
The_Wayward_Admiral
Spacefaring
The_Real_Slim_Shady
Atrox drew this awesome image of the Keldori!
Posts: 1,011
|
Post by The_Wayward_Admiral on Dec 15, 2015 22:46:01 GMT
Religion is planned to be procedural. Culture, environment, government, and history will hopefully be ble to be synthesized into a program that can produce situation specific religions. It will then be up to the player to make actions that affect the broad scale of it (i.e. distribution, power within the state, etc.). Building it oneself in the manner you described seems to me like micromanagement, certainly an engaging mechanic, but one which I would imagine would ultimately be the realm of modding. Welcome to the forums officially!
Edit: For further information on the subject check out the following threads under "The Idea" -Clothes and Religion
|
|
|
Post by tjwhale on Dec 20, 2015 0:16:29 GMT
That's an interesting idea. I like what Joseph Campbell said, which is that mythology has four functions;
"1) The Mystical Function: This opens the individual to the wonder of life and the universe. It is characterized by awe.
2) The Cosmological Function: This helps the individual determine his or her place in the universe. The opening chapters of Genesis, for example, are not meant to be a scientific explanation of the beginning, but rather show the place of humankind in "the grand scheme."
3) The Social Function: This helps to organize the lives of those living in a community. The "Divine Right of Kings" might be an example.
4) The Pedagogical Function: This teaches the individual how to live a human life. Rites of passage at puberty, for example, are based in a mythic understanding."
It would be interesting to offer the player several different choices in each of these categories and from that let them build up a custom religion. So maybe you want to have a creator god who loves people in the cosmological section, this makes people feel happy and safe but also restricts their ability to question the world around them. Or maybe you want to go to the other end of the spectrum and have full magic. Magic here meaning the belief that the universe follows certain rules and if you learn those rules you can control how things happen. What we call science is a relabelling of magic. This makes you question everything and discover the laws of physics but makes you feel like the universe is cold and uncaring.
I think it's hard to do this without falling into deeply personal questions. We don't want the game to have a message when it comes to religion. So that is an issue we need to be aware of. (Or at least I don't, there may be others who do). I want the game to be about exploring what is possible, not judging which of the possible things are the best.
However designing your religion is extremely cool. Like you could even design gods in the creature editor, like Thor is a super human so maybe your god is a super version of your creatures.
|
|
|
Post by tammio on Mar 14, 2016 19:39:07 GMT
Sooo. Hi. So new too. (ok I just thought this thread so ****** interesting I just had to post something although this is an old thread) tjwhale, you said you didn't whant the game to carry some message about religion, and desighned as lowry sugested it will not. Important would be to keep the Religion-edditor dialogue entirely free of Moral or Ethik judgements. So modern day Christianity for example condems sacrifice of animals, people or goods, whereas meso-american belief systems not only required but demanded excesive Human sacrifice. In order to be a pious and God-loved Aztec, you were expected to rip out the living heart of your vanquished foes. We condemn this behaivior, but for aztecs and many other pre-columbian Civilisations it was how things should, nay MUST be. This is just one example of many how our morals and subsequently our definition of good and bad are formed by the religions we engage with. So IF you implement a religion-editior thingy you should leave the player and/or event system free to choose the moral fraing for the religion. So lets take the above example where a Fishing People believe in a Godess of Sea and War. In order to apease HER, they might want to attack other ships and drown their crew in a ritual of sacrifce. This might for example result in a religious "trait" wich awards an increased feriocity in naval combat to those who believe in HER, but also reduces the economic "woth" of HER believers, since piracy and not trade is incouraged. Or this system of Economic penalty might be made dependant on the political situation. So in War times HER believers have a higher Economic output, since they add to your GDP with their pluder, but in times of Peace reduce your GDP, because they hinder trade. The alternative to sacrificing captured enemies might be a sacrifice of goods (other penalties and benefits) or staging ritualised non-lethal battle ceremonies, wich benefit the arts but weakens your believers war prowess or standing with other hyper-aggressive religions. So every time you get to "choose" the pillars of faith, you get an array of options devoid of moral implications but with carefully balcanced prs and cons.
Another example might be a religion devoted to the God of Stealth. You could be given the option to choose a definition of Good and Bad: 1: You gain your Gods favour by using Stealth. Option2: STEALING IS BAD!!! THE ALMIGHTY FOX WILL SMITE YOU WHITH HIS TAIL OF RIGHTOUS FIRE!!!! Use stealth only for hunting etc. Option3: Honesty is relative and dependent on the situation. Do not steal from... but do from... Then your furter actions will result in traits as described so on...
|
|
|
Post by StealthStyleL on Mar 14, 2016 20:08:57 GMT
I like these ideas and there very nice but I can't help but feel it's a bit too in-depth. Religion is only a small part of the game and we could go and add an editor for about a billion things.
However, I do agree that religion affects the moral viewpoint of a civilisation but I think it would be too much for the player to design this. But perhaps, we could simplify it and say that when a religion emerges it can have traits based on the nature of the people. For example, an aggressive tribe might have a religion that encourages war.
|
|
|
Post by tjwhale on Mar 14, 2016 20:25:28 GMT
Yeah it is a pretty cool system! I don't think it would be so difficult. Civ 5 lets you build a custom religion. You just get to pick 4-5 beliefs from a list. What they did to get rid of judgements was to make everything positive, so you need to choose between fertility and war bonus, for example. Putting negative consequences on things is more challenging as it will come off as more judgemental. If our system was like theirs it would be very easy to build. I think we would want to have some more depth but it's still not that complex. Moreover religion is really important as it often outlasts politics. The Roman Empire is long gone but Christianity is Thriving. civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Religion_(Civ5)
|
|
|
Post by tammio on Mar 14, 2016 22:00:40 GMT
Ah, obviously this would be the domain of Modders-to-come. I totaly agree a system as I proposed is way to complex for such a "minor" aspect of the game. But I TOTALY disliked the Civ5 concept. It was way to choice- driven. Instead of the religion evolving due to my actions, the religion evolved due to my strategy. Furthermore the Civ5 concept doesn't consider negative impacts for your decisions (exepting the opportunity costs of my choises, naturaly). AND the religon you chose was set in stone. A once chosen belief can't be changed or altered. Such a rigid advancement of religion would not do justice to the concept of Thrive, where everything is subject to eternal change. You could use the Civ5 concept as a founadtion. Once in a while you choose a faith representing the way Politics influence religion, like when a pope ushers a decree, but once in a while a simple game mechanic analyses your behavior much in the way creature traits are determined in Spore. But maybee the traits granted by this mechanic aren't fixed like in spore, but are allways influendes by your actions. So you have an aggressive trait, aquired very early? But then you play mercantile? First the positive and negative effects granted by the aggressive trait will be diminished, and maybee the trait becomes "dormant" like a gene no longer needed, because the folowers of your faith ignore it. (Much the same way Christians aren't alloud to eat meat Fridays, but just about everyone does). Then later when you get involved in a larger conflict your people might "rediscover" or "reactivate" this dormant part of your religion. This would make your religious end-game so much more interesting, because you now can't simply STOP waging war agian, since your actions have caused an inertia of mass effect and you are now ENCOURAGED to continue fighting, but on the otherhand your don't NEED to continue on fighting indeffinetely (contrary to Spore, where you could't just stop beeing a carnivore). So the People-Sacrificing people of lowry have civilised and stopped drowning slaves, but instead begun gaining favor with HER by traveling long distances and exploring new lands. And then they are attacked by the infidel followers of the Sneaky Fox and (imagine what a suprise!) rediscover that their aincient religious texts not only allow, but demand the brutal and relentless murder of their captives. Consequentely after plundering and razing the Holy Borrow these formaly peacefull traders now begin raiding the far coasts and exotic lands of "OH!EEE". What will the future hold for them? Another supprising and interesting faith change? spore.wikia.com/wiki/Trait
|
|
|
Post by tammio on Mar 14, 2016 22:12:38 GMT
PS: Also this system coudl be integrated in a system of social evolution wich could replace the genetic evelution, wich will (according to the anicent and holy scriptures of THE THRIVE WIKI) come to a stop with the awakening stage. Personaly I always get bored when attaining the Civilization (or worse:space) stage in Spore, because even bombing planets into oblivion begins to get boring, and traveling to and from planets to collect and sell spice is just tedious.
|
|