religion is not good for the game. Religion works in CIV5 because we are all human. On this world, the factions are not the same species. the bugs look at Wild Walkers and dragons as different buffets. if there were a large number of fraction (20) religion may work. Plus the cultist are converting everyone to their religion, so religion is in the game. I dont want this game to move toward CIV. They did a great job producing something different, enjoy it.

I feel like it's not necessary, since each faction already has their story which is tied into their belief system and how they view the world. You can't have Cultists following any other religion...they wouldn't be cultists anymore, would they?

I think we need to consider culture more than religion. Because we have factions that have a pretty well established cultures (sometimes including religion), it would be strange to add an open religion-system on top of that. Instead, the spread of each race's Culture could be largely an automatic mechanic, which you can affect passively. An interesting example of something similar is in the game Sins of a Solar Empire.



So each faction's Culture starts out with different strength. For example, Cultists have very strong Culture but Necrophages are weaker (they do not exactly try to convert people as much as simply eat them). It will slowly spread in and from your regions even if you do nothing, but if you research certain techs, complete quests and build culture-related buildings, it will become stronger. Trade will also increase Culture spreading, as well as any diplomatic interactions.



The specific effects of Culture could be discussed, and how different Culture values might affect each other. Strong culture might lower morale of your enemies "their Gods are stronger than ours, we must flee!" or reduce productivity. Endless Legends having unique factions, the values might also have different effects on different factions. For example, the Roving Clans might benefit from a mix of cultures in their cities since they thrive on trade (dust income increases), but Cultists will want to do everything to keep other faction's Culture from reaching their cities and sowing doubt in the citizens (reduced approval). In the same line of thought, different faction's Culture affects other factions differently.



I think there is great potential here to make some interesting and diverse gameplay mechanics for each faction.

I'd like to see a Cultural system (possibly driven by influence) more robust than the current empire plans. I don't particularly think "religion" is what the game needs per se. Rather, at least 2 more "empire focus" systems would help. They don't need to both be driven by influence (or either of them driven by influence even) so I'd say



"Government" - Influence Driven, buy bonuses outright at any time. Represents the social structure of your empire. (Essentially Civ religion system). Should be a tree system.

"Culture" - Driven by new resource, derived from happiness. Represents political structure of your empire, "build" bonuses over time (like culture system in Civ), possibly city specific. Includes exclusive choices. Should be a tree system as well.



With these systems you have systems which address empire focus in various ways.



Empire Plan - Represents a relatively short-term focus, generally powerful and flexible bonuses.

"Government" - Represents long-term growth plan of your empire. Bonuses should be focused on narrow applications, representing core identity of your playstyle.



ex. A government bonus could be Warriors "+% per Population Industry toward Military Units", or Researchers "Increase Science Production by 2% per Population on Empire"



"Culture" - Represents specific capacity of your population. If bonuses are universal they should be focused on units and population. If they are specific they should focus on specializing a city to a specific purpose. There's no reason this system couldn't be broken down into "Major Culture", representing empire bonuses and "Minor Culture" representing bonuses in a specific city. In this case Minor Culture would use Influence modified by city happiness to fuel a second construction queue which could be spent only on cultural bonuses.



ex.



"Major Culture" bonus could be Artistry "Increases Influence on Empire by X%, reduces Industry toward Military units by Y%", or Warhawks "Infantry Units gain X movement, reduce empire happiness by X when not at war"



"Minor Culture" bonus could be Adamantine Towers "Increases city vision range by X and city defense by Y. Cannot build Labyrinth", or Labyrinth "City suffers no penalties when under siege and increase maximum borough level for city by 1. Cannot build Adamantine towers." (Other bonuses could be city specific bonuses to specific FIDS, with no ability to build an opposing FIDS)



These systems pretty easily stand in for the Cultural and Religion systems for other 4x games. I don't see why people are hung up on "religions" when really what they want are additional methods of managing what your empire is good at other than the relatively shallow methods currently in game (research, empire plans).

I'd like to see a properly fleshed out religion system in EL, but I agree that most factions already have pretty strong ideologies, so this would need a very delicate touch to not interfere with that.



Furthermore, I want to say that I was never fond of the religion system in Civilization 5. The passive bonuses offer some nice customization for your faction, but buying units with faith never struck me as that interesting, and unless you are able to buy Great People, the ability to buy buildings/units with faith may eventually become obsolete.

On the other hand, I loved the religions in Fall From Heaven for Civilization 4. They may not have been customizable the way religions were in Civ V, but they had their own themes and many had unique benefits (spreading forests in your territory, allowing your units to stay in enemy territory when you declare war, enabling new civic choices, etc.). Adopting a different religion could make a huge difference to the way a faction played.



Also, I like the idea of religion developing and changing on its own, rather than being customized by the player, an added element that you can adapt to, try to exploit, or try to eradicate.

Anosognos wrote:
A good Civ style religion system would be welcome.

I disagree. If religion was added to EL, I'd want it to be a different style than Civ5. There's too many buildings to build in a city as it is.



Perhaps a religious quest system is in order. Separate from the Wonder victory quests for the faction but perhaps it can branch off from it in its second stage.

It does not seem right to me.

Factions already have strong lores/idelaologies.

It would be weird to to have Wild walkers and Necrophages share the same religion for example.

And religion is already present in some way, look at sacrificial rituals or cultist faction.

Religion could be similar to Minor Factions and add buildings or units.

Without reading through the whole thread - which is what i normally do but I've just started playing Endless Legend today - I can say that in Civ 5 it was an interesting mechanic and advantage that you could miss out on, an advantage you normally wanted because the benefits were pretty awesome. In Civ it added a layer I quite liked and always, almost always, enjoyed the aspect in each game I played - apart from the AI's missionary spam at times. Whether i was adopting a religion, starting crusades or a Jihad or pushing my influence; all these shaped my relationship with other Civ's in different ways. It was something i enjoyed about Civ since there was various layers that added interesting complexity as the game progressed through Religion, trade, ideologies, congress and so on.



Also, I have returned to the Amplitude forums. I simply got distracted by other games and life stuff for a while.

If religion is considered I think it should not be about customizing the empire - there's an empire plan and a tech tree for that already (which can be improved of course)



In terms of lore I think a global religion related to worshiping the Endless and different Endless artifacts can work pretty well. I think Cultists lore suggests that they destroy Endless artifacts but there's no in-game mechanic to reflect that. So maybe religion can be drilled down to one of:

• Worshiping the Endless and securing their artifacts
• Destroying Endless legacy
• Ignoring it altogether
  
  

each option granting unique benefits?



I would also be a cool option to have in-game gods in form of some remaining Endless AIs or even Endless themselves (I had a similar idea in another thread, you can check the winter faction brainstorming in my sig if you're curious). These can give some dramatic endgame bonuses and maybe influence the plot.

A religion system would conflict with the strong backgrounds of the factions and is probably already covered by the blanket of "Influence". How would "religion" be different than something like Cultist conversion?



More Diplomatic abilities are always welcome and they could be flavored as "religion" along with the faction that can perform them....

I wonder what it would really add, gameplaywise and narrativewise.



In Warlock it was a way to get some new spells and a way to win.

In King Arthur the Roleplaying Wargame, there were two axis : one for religion/paganisme and one for cruelty/kindness.

Those things added new units, new spells, bonuses to your overall kingdom. You really felt playing "cruel" when chosing that path. And the special units from christianity/paganism added a lot to the flavour of battles. But in the end it was just new units/spells exclusive to each other.



So I'm in a favor of somethign akin to the empire plan but with exclusive paths. If you chose the warrior path, then you'll have a hard time getting the peaceful path (because, in an ideal world, you would be able to change your mind and change the course of your actions).



But really... what would it add that somethign else in the game already gives ?



For instance I would prefer branching quests. Those quests could lead to very different kind of bonuses. And exclusive ones. If you chosed the "warrior" path in quest 1, then you are proposed the QuestWarrior1, etc.

So, now that the game is released and possible new content is being heavily discussed, what do players now think about a religion system?

What is the idea exactly?

I am highly interested in the interaction between beliefs and wider society but "religion" is a complex notion and the word itself can mean a lot of things to a lot of people.



My 2 standard-minimum-value-units on the topic is: it seems that Amplitude have already factored in ways of gaining Influence through the use of buildings and technologies associated with culture, history, and imperialism - I am not sure how religious buildings or technologies would augment this. Arguably, in fact, if you see your "Founders Stone" in a religious context then religion is already included in game via the Influence FIDSI.

marceror wrote:
And I believe that you may be getting overly tripped up on semantics. I'll consent that culture isn't the best word here. A better word is race.



There, now everything's fixed.

Hey now, no playing down semantics!

People should just vote for the Cultists of the End if they like religion. Just saying.

lynxlynx wrote:
One way to aproach it is to have a wind-star multiaxis with some general ideas, rather than pantheons or beliefs.

Like:

Chaos

Order

Fertile

Death

Possesion

Wisdom

Craft

War

Summer

Winter

(some others)



Good/Evul i would kick out of equotecion, since that depends on which end of stick your are.

While a pantheon system is definitely one that could be implemented, that sort of system is usually just used as a global choose your side and gain bonuses, rather than a unique experience for each faction that I believe any religious system should have. it is not likely, for a divided group of species to have much in common, especially when they have had little contact. I just think it would be a bit weird for necrophages to be able to worship the same kinds of deities as wild walkers. Each religion should conform to the values and beliefs of that specific faction. Wouldn't that make missionary work interesting>lol

A good Civ style religion system would be welcome. Cultural influence and assimilation could be accelerated by developing the religious (or secular, philosophical) institutions.

sheredyn worships the money god just like the rest of the UE.

DarkMeph wrote:
I do not think it would happen. I think it would be more like a galactic events that you get in ES. Might have to put a game tile to the torch.



DarkMeph

burn the heretics/witches?

I could see them having something like the other choice would be Sheredyn



DarkMeph