I think I understand what you’re saying, that we need to simply reuse the same animations and resources for different things by abstracting them in removing the specificity. If that’s what you mean, I was agreeing with you from earlier. The only point I was making is that the frequency of ritual would be tremendously higher in the Neolithic than subsequent periods.
The reuse of costly items, such as meshes and animations, while using less costly assets, such as textures and sound files, certainly is a good idea, especially for increasing the richness and diversity of religion for a low-cost.
I simply base that on the trend that we seem to see in the evidence of history. The more organized religion Becomes, typically the more right-leaning it becomes.
For those who aren’t aware of what I mean by right and left in a particular context, hears with those terms mean and political science political science:
Right - Hierarchical structures with distinct leadership and strata.
Left - Equality, egalitarianism. Less rigid structure, fewer levels of leadership.
Authoritarian - Strong control of government, centralization (draconian management)
Libertarian - Weaker control and greater personal freedom, decentralized (laissez-faire management)
The only point I was making is that the frequency of ritual would be tremendously higher in the Neolithic than subsequent periods.
We need to make some sacrifices for playability and this is likely one of them. A player would not want religion time to crop up too frequently, rituals are better off paced for gameplay. As time scale is entirely abstract there is no additional loss to accuracy in doing this.
It may be disruptive to have religion paced irregularly. What we know so far is that religion has a morale boost for different circumstances depending on the faith. This is likely on a timer of some sorts, the people will tell the player when they need to worship based on the game pacing designed by the devs.
That being said if there is less going on in earlier time periods more religion could be added to fill the time. Neolithic tribes will not be so engrossed in construction or agriculture, so there might be not only more time to worship, but also more time for the player to devote to worship. however this is all dependent on the number of player interactions per minute not the technology. If Neolithic ends up being very hands on for the player it might have the same or even less time for religious content. It will still be there, but buffs might last longer and cues to perform ritual decreased rather than increased. Ultimately the interface will dictate this.
I think I understand what you’re saying, that we need to simply reuse the same animations and resources for different things by abstracting them in removing the specificity. If that’s what you mean,
This is so, but I imply a high degree of subtlety. On a sinple level you could hve say a menhir and a priest, a menhir, the menhir has handprints on it and the priest has a robe. The handprints and robes have different colour swatches. So a red robe and red handprints mean say thunder god, while blue handprints and yellow robes mean sun god etc.
That is possible way of cataloguing each faith separately. and works in games. However for a game trying to be reasonably accurate its an abomination.
However if we do something very similar but make the variables make sense we can still have personalisation with only a few core elements. So a sun priest might have a yellow robe (but only if we can hypothesise a yellow dye), but a sun menhir will face east towards the dawn. A thunder gods menhir will need to be on a windy open hill top and the priest carries something that blows in the wind. Different cults might require sacrifice of different animals. We can make logical inferences in some cases, in others the game can set its own path. Some variables can be set by the player. A player can decided that say - pigs are favoured by the sun god as sacrifices, but cats are favoured by the moon god. With historicity intruding only in later periods and with cities favouring NPC religions from real ancient civilisations.
At some point it may be necessary to make stuffup to fit so long as it is true to the general technology of the time. We know so littl about ancient ritual that there is a lot of room for creativity here. where we are guessing it may behoove the developers to make note in the games wiki as to what content is provinenced and accurate and what content is speculative for purpose of gameplay. What we cannot do is have a game with no ritual because we don’t know the ritual, the priests will have to do something flashy and religious…
I’m not referring to Major rituals where everybody stops and does that. It’s more likely you would constantly see little tiny, probably individual events occurring. When a group heads over to a field to harvest, they might stop for a few moments do a little quick chant before stepping into the field. You would probably see a lot of that kind of stuff. It’s pretty non- disruptive
We could say aside of those minor rituals, “major” rituals could also occur for some peculiar occasions:
either fixed, regular periods (like harvests, adulthood entrance, etc.);
rituals linked a peculiar occasion (e.g. the building of a new enclosure or burial).
In the first case, it may only be balanced after testing in game, so no need to worry about that for now.
In the 2nd case, it should be the moment the benefits appear after having invested an awful lot of resources, time and people on the work, so the player won’t cry if the ceremony occur.
Any observation of contemporary tribal Society that still practices animism, such as a few remaining African tribes as well as some of the Amazon River tribes, I’ll show you that very minor ritual is performed constantly throughout the day. Often in the form of simple chant or song as a function of a task. You should see these constantly performed during the Neolithic, though they will disappear as religion shifts towards him or right-leaning philosophy as hierarchical power structures form and government begins to establish itself at the end of the Neolithic.
Good point!
From the feeling, I would rather agree with the opinion
In the early game phase, the phenomenon may play a role in changing the faith of individuals into a group belief. The group is doing something in common because it has found a common ground of (some) belief. It makes her feel good and makes her more productive. And they understand themselves more as a tribe / people.
It is known that there were ceremonies for which special places played a role. Stonehenge, for example, also in Scotland, there was such a place, certainly other places. Whole tribes traveled some 1000 km to be at a certain time in this place. (One assumes solstice) It is proven that they carried pigs, as foot and as offerings. This time in the game would be the begii of priests / shamans etc.
I would not speak of religion yet, rather of cult. With everything that goes with it - rituals, sacrifices, cult objects. These could be “compulsory events”, with the nice side effect of getting to know your neighbors. It was certainly good for trade and progress too. And who was not seen there, was not one of them, was, well, associal? hostile? certainly questionable. Real religion, then, I would associate with the beginning of any power / rule. It should probably be more in the (game) stage “people” settled.
I can tell you that I, for one, hope to see some cats in the game. Cats were not officially domesticated in the time of the Neolithic, but it’s perfectly possible to see them sneak into Villages and steal food at night. There were several large cats available at the time.
Yes please, no sacrifices of cats. I can guarantee you that will make a lot of people not want to play. I don’t really like dogs very much, but I think the same would be true for them. If there are animal sacrifices, they would need to be animals that are not typically pets. Sorry if that hurts realism in any way, but it is what it is
Ah, I am absolutely against cat sacrifices, but that would make me a hypocrite, since I kind of advocated to have human sacrifices in the game.
So what about a control panel for the types of animals you’d be okay with sacrificing? I am a huge cat lover, so naturally I’d prohibit cat sacrifices, but for the rest, I would kinda be okay with them.
Also that way we don’t anger any animal rights people who would scream discrimination against “non-pet” animals.
Sorry but this isn’t pick and mix… you want some things but not others. Cat sacrifices if believed to be historically accurate SHOULD be in the game, dogs too, humans why not? Goats, cattle, sheep pigs the works. IMHO we only get to choose between sacrifice and no sacrifice, not between what species we can and can’t sacrifice.
Choose absolute realism or choose not to include some aspects of neolithic life if you are that sensitive. Anyway, at the end of the day it is the developers choice. It will simply not be possible to please everyone all of the time .
To people not liking the concept of cat sacrifices (seriously, what’s wrong with you guys?? ), let me reassure you because I can’t recall any mention to such a practice in all my classes and learnings on Antiquity, and a quick Internet search in Spanish, French and English doesn’t give any evidence for that, so yay for cat lives I guess
On the other hand, dog eating was fairly common (even if not systematic) but it seems it doesn’t carry any ritual meaning to it, so it’s off topic in this topic :’)
Anyways, what we get is that pets weren’t commonly sacrificed, so unless if contrary evidence is encountered, we could simply rule pet sacrifices out, for the sake of science and plausability, and not political/social correctness.
I do not know about Neolithic times, but unfortunately, in the Middle Ages, yes, cats were built into the foundations of farmhouses. Should probably protect against evil spirits and vermin.
Everyone should of course be allowed to sacrifice what he wants. He will already see …
Well, the most common sacred animal was the bull in ancient times, albeit different animals held/hold different levels of significance in different cultural regions.
It is true that there is more record of human sacrifice than there is of cat sacrifice, but if people are being squeamish about sacrifices, perhaps removing the 21st Century rose-tinted glasses might help, because sacrifice was widespread until relatively recent times, and is still practised in some places even today.
Maybe there could be a game mechanic where you right-click on an animal and select from three options…
Holy
Neutral
Unclean
That way, people can protect their favourite animal and create a cult around it.
But in general terms, people should not try to impose 21st Century morals on a life simulator of more savage times.
What I meant was more that you choose what your tribe sacrifices. Wouldn’t it be realistic that some religions decide to, say, sacrifice the cats but not the bulls? I don’t think that would hurt realism, would it?
That sounds nice and Solomonish.
Presumably, it becomes more critical when human sacrifices come into the game.
Remains the fundamental question of whether the victim has real influence on the game-strand or rather represents an individual preference. I mean, if the actual sacrificial ritual per se causes anything, or if it has to be a certain sacrifice.
), let me reassure you because I can’t recall any mention to such a practice in all my classes and learnings on Antiquity, and a quick Internet search in Spanish, French and English doesn’t give any evidence for that, so yay for cat lives I guess 
