First I am not American. 
(Rats a Quebec subverter )Second I do not understand your response. Why do we have to define anything if this is game? Why cannot Egypt be defined by something else and why call Egypt, Egypt? Could not the game in the Neolithic period have a moment were they find something to worship? Lastly all though I like this idea thinking on it I realize that from a programming perceptive this would be very difficult. My idea was something I put out there.
Ok, I understand now!
You were speaking of randomization, without writing the word.
In that case I’d agree this would be interesting for people liking that sort of things – and I think that’d be quite easy to do, at least in a latter stage. When the devs will have various religions in game (e.g. Egypt, Mesopotamia, Roman era & Neolithic) it may be fun to have checkboxes to define if you want a randomized religion, a randomized map, a randomized era, etc.
As I understood it from your first message, I thought you were speaking about the base game having fantasy religions (“invented” in this case being total fantasy), which would lead the game to be as much accurate as possible for everything save religion.
But I agree when reading you: I understand now I always considered as acknowledged that the game will be set in Western Europe for the first stage, then with the following DLCs it will have a general context being changed to match other areas and periods.
I always thought this would lead to have a different world map – meaning: if you begin a game set e.g. in the Roman era, the world map cannot be like there’s no Roman Empire, and the direct consequence is that there’s necessarily two Consuls or an Emperor above your own starting village. Any other case would drive the game to break the immersion.
But randomization probably would be easy to make for that also.
Conclusion: sorry for having mistakenly considered you an American – not totally false, but not totally wrong neither 
Thank you, my fault really. I am a poor writer. Thank you again.
I think the question whether or not to have historic religions in the game is quite connected to the question whether we want to re-play actual history in this game (with Egyptian pyramids and Christian crusades later on), or if we wanna simulate a believable, yet alternative and unique timeline.
Personally, I’m more for the later, since there already are plenty of city-building strategy games around actual historical cultures (actually most titles in the genre). I’d rather see this game to be kind of a sandbox to simulate an environment for my own tribe’s timeline /based/ on what we know from history. That includes religion.
2 Likes
Yup, I concur. The devs still have to launch the debate about realism/plausability/historicity/realism, which should be very interesting.
In my point of view, there’s lot of reasons to prefer plausability over realism, because even if the game is strongly relying on historical & archaeological research and realism, there’s also to take into account that the development intends to take years and multiple DLCs if all goes well, but this just won’t work if the players feel they’re always playing the same game, being only longer with each later era covered with the last DLC. And some the gamer base may only be broader if there’s more possibilities offered.
That’s partly why I proposed here or there something quite basically called decisions, that could become traditions with time.
This or another similar system would allow either to stick to a “common”, or “usual” society for your first games, as this would allow you easier relations with neighboring tribes – which may be quite essential for the surviving aspect of the game.
But later, when you manage to do what you want, either when playing another game or because you feel bored after a few tries, you could try to define a wholly distinct society, with other gods, another economic organizations (why not a “communist” society like the one described by Marxist historians for the Sumerian era in Mesopotamia) – and the benefit is that it could allow a high sense of achievement.
Sh*t, @badbear I forgot to reply to your post before posting mine 
No need to apologyse. Whenever there’s misunderstanding there’s necessarily two guilty parties 
3 Likes
As I’ve stated before, one must also consider that just because something is the norm for a culture does not make it exclusive to a culture. Allowing for a little bit of polymorphism will go a long way in game longevity.
3 Likes
As far as I understand it correctly, the Neolithic era is a rather slow development over an immensely long period of time. Only in the Bronze Age did the whole thing go up. In this context, the question arises, how thousands of years without significant progress (relatively) in an exciting game is …?
AoE, 0 B.C. and other games skip that by “developing” the next era - costing food, wood, and gold … stupid, but holding the tension.
It would be worth considering whether it is possible to create a new variety through the combination of “religion” in connection with the sewer system of “knowledge”.
Could imagine that otherwise it slides into a kind of tamagoji …
great post!
Since we don’t know much about Neolithic believes/culture I like the idea that the player is open in customizing/naming his beliefs in the game.
And I totally agree with not wanting a Civ style religion system!
I think understanding belief/religion of the stone age is more shamanistic than our idea of organized religions of later periods. In the stone age humans were living in nature, depending on it, and were trying to explain what they observe around them that seemed very mysterious. So these “religions” should have a lot to do with animals, the elements, weather, landmarks, etc.
There is a basic problem with this approach:
How to handle that situation when future expansions of the game reach ages were religion, or politics, laws, etc… are known. If you customize Rome religions or social uses, is it still Rome?
Or do we remove the customization feature for ages were it is known enough to model them properly?
This is a key issue in the whole game design.
Customization fits very well in Neolithic because we barely know how it was. But beyond Neolithic it breaks the history aspect of the game and can make it a complete “what if” were expansions would be only cosmetic.
This is an interesting topic and we would like to know how what point of view you all have about this problem.
Our proposal is to allow only a small degree of customization that can not break the basic rules of a defined religion, social use etc… For Neolithic this means that we should define that rules based on plausible speculations, so the customization mechanic works as expected for future expansions too.
4 Likes
I really love the idea of What If.
What if is just so much fun with so many possibilities!!! \o/
1 Like
Full what if leads to expansions like hypothetical “AC Rome” to be nonsensical, because in your game, starting in Neolithic age, Rome could never even exist, unless if we force it to appear at some point, so it is not anymore a what if situation.
1 Like
Yeah, it’s a tough situation.
=/
Yes. I totally see your point and these are not easy decision you need to make.
I see the possibility that with such a (hypothetical) extension “AC Rome” the start of the game could be at a later stage where the culture is already “Roman” like and the religion (or the basics of it that later develop into the full religion) could be part of choosing this culture.
Of course this does not solve the problem when you want to play a from the Neolithic age into later ages and your civilization will become Rome… Historically it would also be hard to say at what point a culture starting in the Neolithic age actually becomes Rome?
I can also see a religion system where the religion develops in stages along with the ages or technologies. Religions could move from a pantheistic/shamanistic type into polytheistic or monotheistic.
Religions could have aspects such as hunting, fighting/war, creation, the elements (water, fire, …), crops, animals, etc. which could be customizable to some extend by the player in the early Neolithic age and with moving through the ages closer to “Roman” time, the aspects take more the shape of the actual Roman religion (which are defined by the game extension). So people in the Neolithic age would worship the fighting/war aspect in some way and later on when moving towards Polytheistic religion this aspect would be covered by Mars the god of war (which is easy for this one!). Some aspects might be given up, others might appear with new culture/technologies.
Sorry these are just some quick thoughts about it and would need further detailing and discussion.
Those two last posts are rather intriguing, to say the least, and I beg your pardon but I think you told either too much or not enough there.
Currently, we have zero information on what has been thought out regarding religion, so it’s not clear what parts of customization you’re speaking about. We don’t even know if the religion gameplay is fixed now and if you have a clear vision on how you want it to work, or if it is still a sketch or even totally blank.
Would it be possible to present your current plan on that (at least the basic ideas), so that we may have a sound basis to discuss about and avoid fantasizing too much?
On your end, I’m sure it would be better for you, as probably some ideas could be picked there and help filling some voids still left, in case there are still some
2 Likes
This is not only about religion, but about any feature that can be configured by the player, and, again, related to the game-play vs realism topic that we should open asap !
5 Likes
I wouldn’t say that it’s accurate that we have zero information about Neolithic religion. We know that fetishes were used and we know about complex burial practices. Below are a list of some general assumptions that could be made based upon what we’ve found:
- Afterlife ( burials, grave Goods, body prep)
- Polytheism (different fetishes at same site)*
- Ability to affect World via religion (see 1)
- Stars connected to gods ( archeoastronomy sites)
- A spirit or soul ( depicted avian excarnation)
- Fertility, crops as primary topics ( fetishes depict this)
I could probably list a few more, but these are what come to mind. They are hardly descriptive of some Neolithic religion, but they can give you a good feel for what such a religion would probably be like.
- it is quite true that instead of theism, they may have been completely animists, but the belief in animism is extremely similar to theism in so much as you pray to a power in order to effect change. There are many other complexities that separate these two concepts, but in a primitive fashion they do function similarly. Though I would point out that it’s odd that fetishes created from an animist perspective don’t seem to contain markers denoting there animist origin, such as wave shapes to indicate the fetishes a personification of a lake. Also, one might argue that a anthropomorphic personification of a animist belief of the spirit of some thing, such as the Spirit of a lake represented in the form of a goddess, is effectively the same as theism.
1 Like
Errr. I was speaking about the information on religion in-game 
For your punishment (
) would you have a nice summary on Neolithic religion(s), something like an up-to-date article?
I have Demoule speaking about it (hopefully you’ll should get that in March), showing that it’s possible to link religion “advancements” with the level of agriculture mastery and sedentism, but probably it would be interesting to have other sources also.
1 Like
lol Whoops!
I must have missed that part. I may toss something together.
Religion is VERY important in Neolithic times, for sure. I wrote a lot about it in my recent archeoastronomy article for my Astronomy club paper.
I’m not sure what I intend with this post, maybe the best would be to consider the whole as a personal post-it to keep track of what I fantasize – meaning there may be severe technical impediment, personal objections by the devs as some parts or even everything may not fit what they envision, etc.
Also, like @Uncasual wrote just above, this is not about religion per se, but more about the historicity/plausibility debate, so I just wanted to keep track of that even if I can’t say what’s be told in this debate depending on any information we’ll have by then. But I think religion gameplay is real akin to societal gameplay in this debate, so I probably could have written the same using e.g. political structures instead of faiths.
Also: this is a utterly personal point of view, so don’t hesitate to criticize what and whenever you want to
Historicity/Plausibility & Religion (& Society as a Whole)
I really think a number of cases may and should happen, in a few year time, when various DLCs will be piling up. I use a lot hereunder the words “Roman era/Empire”, this meaning “when a Roman DLC will be released”.
-
If you launch a new game directly in the Roman era: you should have a Roman era religion (as well as social structures, credible political context, etc.). Meaning: everything about Neolithic religion or society should be totally non existent, as you have to begin the game in the Roman times.
-
In case you launch a game in the Neolithic era, play until the Roman era and are an exceptional good player: you should have the means to impose your own ways to the world.
This means, if you manage to create an Empire stretching over most of the known world in the fake Roman era, it should be your own gods that are worshiped in the Empire instead of Mars and Jupiter. If your city is in the Alps, it should be the capital of this fake Roman empire. If you decided to be very tolerant towards foreign gods (like Romans were), or if you want to impose your Lone True Faith, so be it.
But, clearly: this should be hard to attain, because this means you’ll need to impose your rule to most cities surrounding you, so that your city will need to be the political capital for a vast number or them, making progressively your former Neolithic settlement a true urban achievement in later eras. Doing that while the wider world just want to follow the real history means you’ll have to deal with lower relations with other cities, so harder trade, harsher possibilities for alliances, etc. Basically, your in the state of mind: “me against the world”, and have to pay the price. Should be very rewarding to players loving challenges. -
In case you launch a game in the Neolithic era, play until the Roman era and are a casual/middle-range player: you should be able to follow your own path, but the probability is far higher that you have to obey to the wide world wishes.
In clear: you may try to stick to your own gods, but if 90% of your citizens are of foreign origins and still believe in their gods, this mean one moment or another you’ll have to deal with the fact they still revere their own “foreign” gods, and it would be far, far easier to raise one or more temples for them, so that they may be happy and productive and want to stay or to don’t want to overthrow you to impose their view in an uprising or a civil war.
Eventually, the chance is very high that those gods become the major gods in your own city, due to the immigrants flocking to your thriving town. That’s not a fail in any way, but Realpolitik: an adjustment to the world surrounding you, so that you may go on your own story.
For the devs, that’s a major way to have historically accurate eras even a few millennia after the game was launched. That, in my sense, would be the direct continuation of the “survival” word in A.C. banner: survival as such will be easier to implement in the earliest phases of the game, when that’s a question of life or death when facing the nature. But this must be pursued in other forms later, just for the sake of avoiding 500,000 citizens city in 1 A.D.
“Competing” Religions
- I think it would be a very bad idea to have one lone religion represented in the city. I’m not speaking here about polytheism (various gods), but of multiple religions.
The Roman era can’t be depicted without Christian persecutions, without Jews synagogues, without Mithra cult sites, e.g. near the legion camps if your city is on the margins of the Empire. But all of those cases are not the same:
- Greek, Carthagian, Egyptian or Gallic gods, like Mithra, are easy to assimilate: that’s just a question of adding new god names in your own religion. Not a big deal to have one more god in your pantheon.
- Jews or Christians are a different case. If you play a Jew or a Christian city in a Pagan Roman Empire, you should have to deal with Rome frowning over your debatable choices – and the same if you play a Pagan city in a Christian Roman Empire.
I’m speaking here essentially about the Roman Empire, but such case were common. Just think about the Levant cosmopolitanism, or the Jews in Babylon, with their own synagogues and courts, like most other communities there in that time. And dealing with Cyrus the Great in the East should allow you to stick to your own religion, while it should be far harder when dealing with Christians in later eras.
- Various religions may appear by different means, depending on the historical context.
-
Event-triggered religions: if you play a city in Gaul, you may see Jews appear either randomly, or more forcibly after Jerusalem Temple destruction. Basically, this is only a higher chance to see Jews settling in your town. The case is the same with Christianism.
Basically, this needs to rely on one event allowing the appearance of immigrants with those faiths, like other events will be needed to give life to the historical times depicted. If you play in Egypt, you’ll have to deal with Intermediate Periods, the Pharaohs power, the Hysksos invasion, etc. If in Mesopotamia, you’ll see infighting between the various city-states, the appearance and crumbling of various Empires. If in Italy, you’ll have to deal with the threat of Rome, deal with the Greek city states, face “barbarian” invasions, etc. Those are the moments you choose to renounce “freedom” to go on, or to fight for your liberty.
Religion events should be part of that, showing your city in a wider world. During Christian persecutions in the Roman Empire, if you’re a city in the Empire you should have to deal with the changing views of the various Emperors in Rome. It should be your choice to decide if you implement the persecution policy, and whatever may b your choice you’ll have to pay the price (loose Christian citizens of face Rome anger). If you’re the Emperor yourself, then deal with the cities reactions. - “Smooth” appearance: for most of the time, other religions should appear very smoothly, depending on your position on the map. If you’re playing near Greece, Egypt or Gaul, you may have citizens believing in the gods from those regions, and you may decide to have a temple built for them if you want to give them importance, or just ignore them and hope they won’t be the majority and take arms to overthrow you to build their temple if you’re too stubborn.
- As a conclusion, back to Neolithic: whatever the religion you may define for your own society during the Neoltihic era, you’ll have to deal with immigrants coming from the larger world surrounding your city. This should be considered nearly as a magnet, driving you towards real history. Basically, the choices offered to you could be presented this way:
- stick to your own faiths and society, refuse any foreign influence, chase away immigrants, don’t answer their desire. Your society will stay “pure”, but the higher risk is you’ll end up like a secondary power on your regional map, submitted to the will of more opportunistic and realist cities able to welcome foreign people, grow, thrice and impose you their will;
- be opened to the world, play opportunistically, make strategic choices, make concessions to the surrounding world your city lives in, then you may have chances to create on the long term your own world by expanding your range of influence on the neighboring cities and regions.
5 Likes
I think the beginnings should be forms of the cult of the dead. It would be a personal, individual form of belief. Meaningful for the individual. Religion is not yet this form of belief. Religion is always in a form institution, serving one or more purposes. Does not come “out of” man but “from” and “over” several people. A common superstition can also be called religion. In any case, all forms have in common that they - for lack of evidence - are not verifiable. Pure thought constructs - yet effective by faith sometimes.
2 Likes