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.
my cat is just googling your address 
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…
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.
well all religious came out of the stars ,the sun was the first (recorded) “god”.
so i think that this part is culturally important, astrology has guided the people and the communities at those periods of time, and made them take action and decision about theirs daily habits and for other concerns. BUT every one takes religious or astrology and every other belief in a different manner and aspect, so i think that this feature, if will be included(and i think it should), should be as significant as how much is that important to the tribe, and so the side effect will be applied.
I could not find much information in the different topics regarding what is planned in terms of rituals surronding death, burials and monumental tombs. Did the devs ever game some more insights of what they have in mind?
Nothing has been revealed yet. It’s very likely gameplay ideas around religion exist only on paper and are still being debated. In the meantime, we can help by proposing stuff and researching scientific data from which the devs can work ^^
They have seemed very receptive to the idea of having all of these little rituals, likely because it appears, based on what limited evidence that we have, that they were very important part of Neolithic life. As @Gal2 indicated, there are no official details. We have seen figures praying too little monoliths in the videos.
From what we know there are four seminal faiths, we don’t know in which order they were venerated or to what importance.
Sun
Birth/Vagina
Death
Hunting
CAT SACRIFICES.
Not surprised people are triggered by this, not surprised either its the same people who get triggered without reading the thread properly.
Sacrificing cats to the moon god is an example of a mix and match religious system.
the idea here is that as a leader of a society it is important to let religion evolve as part of your game. It is not a case of ‘we have evidence that civilisation x sacrificed animal y’ we don’t really know why. What we know is the there was a huge diversity of faiths that ordained sacrifices of a wide variety of animals. We have strong Biblical references to this still remaining.
The God of Israel ordained sacrifices of various creatures at various times, sometime specific to gender and colour such as the red heifer sacrifice. Not all these sacrifices are actually understood. Taking Judaism as an example again the concept of the Passover lamb has a historicity to its symbology, however some sacrifices such as the red heifer are simply works of fiat. God required the blood of the red heifer once a year and the Jews didn’t know why.
Now I do think the best way to have religion in game is to allow it to evolve based upon need and an embellished culture. The player decided which religious aspects to focus on, the Moon could be one example given from a long list. The player decided from a list how the Moon is worshiped and why the Moon is especially holy. This develops the mythology and sets standards as to religious service times, frequency and the nature of the religious caste. For example it might make sense to link the cyclic nature of the moon with the cyclic nature of the menstrual cycle and decide that only women were holy enough to lead ceremony. Alternately the moon might be associated with the sea through the tides and be seen as a thalassic deity, and maybe a manly cult.
The player could decide what sacrifices are needed to appease the moon, the pplayer could deceide human sacrifice is necessary, or burn a portion of the city’s grain, or a favoured animal. That favoured animal could be any from a long list. The example I chose was the cat because of the cultural connection between cats and the moon (which is admittedly more modern).
So we come to zomg, sacrifiing teh cats, me triggered!!!
My reply to this is pipe down, we should save mix and match religion because we have the opportunity to show religion from its roots, not (only) imported established faiths, but indigenous faiths established from the first generation onwards. there is enormous opportunity for levity here by allowing as broad a range of worship objects, sacrifices priesthoods etc with the combinations forming a creed automatically. So if you choose Moon cat sacrifice and female priesthood you get a different creed written up about your cities faith than if you chose Sea god, male priesthood and the sacrifice of sharks.
CONSEQUENCES DEVELOPING FROM PLAYER CHOICES
Each player should have options to lead religion down different paths, some would have very heavy societal consequences. Does your city require a sacrifice of the first born to show its faith? Might it be pressured to do so if the culture of first born sacrifice is imported from other cities and ambassadors consider your elders weak because he will not sacrifice their own first born sons like the elders of other cities might do.
How much is that pressure increased or lessened if your city has no culture of blood sacrifice, or if it had regular human sacrifice as part of its established culture.
Do you develop a human sacrifice culture as a secondary means to keep salve populations in line, or to establish a cult of fear for better internal security. Or do you develop a faith where human life is sacred and such a thing is an abomination.
Which animals are sacred to your people and gods, how are your relations with other cities with conflicting faiths. We can return to cat sacrifice here, your neighbours sacrifice cats (or anything else), is that heresy to your people, or just a strange thing they do, or does it make them like minded folks.
Be mindful that animal x could be highlighted not necessarily as a sacrifical animal, but also as an unclean animal or an animal that is holy.
HISTORICITY
While from much later era we can drawn much from Herodotus, and other sources. Herodotus shows us the randomness of myth, how in Egypt some animals were sacred, and one was condemned to death for harming an Ibis for example. The reason for this is extremely convoluted and arbitrary and are in reality meant that the Ibis was chosen at random as holy for mythic reasons. If you want to know more it is because in days of yore (by ancient Egyptian viewpoint) the Ibis would defend Egypt from lethally venomous winged snakes.
This from the games perspective boils down to pick and animal to be holy, or unclean, and pick a reason from a list of myths from the mundane to the outlandish.
Cats are covered here, they were sacred they were also sacrificed by burning, though Herodotus would tell us the cats of Egypt would throw themselves on funerary pyres. Maybe Greeks didnt like to read that Egyptian religion involved throwing cats into fire.
I can understand if the visuals of sacrifice are left to the imagination. A temple need only show four walls and a roof and an evolving holy scripture showing what the player has added over time to the strictures of a city’s cult. As it is basically a text record it can get very diverse indeed and can develop an enormous depth with room for consequences.
Please don’t be narrow minded about this, and one of the advantages of an open ended system is that players can include their own sensibilities and preferences into the mix. This helps as if players invent a cult structure that fits their own mindset and a neighbouring city develops a hostile mindset, then the player gets invested in the struggle of their city against the dark heresies of its neighbours.
It might not be quite so quartered as that. There’s significant evidence for other essential beliefs from which other things derive. For example, the Moon is often referred to in neolithic artwork, as are snakes. Those are definitely archetypal centers of belief, but there are likely several others which you’re not particularly derivative. Some important centers of belief, such as bulls and bull horns, are of course likely derivatives of more bass beliefs, such as your for mentioned fertility, though this probably refers to the masculine component of fertility and not the feminine component.
It’s a good list, but it probably needs a few extra things added to it.
There would be a lot of things referenced, various animals, the moon etc. However they would clearly be secondary considerations. The phase of the moon matters and is mystic, but the sun matters more.
Snakes are relevant, particularly if they are venomous or taste good, but hunting is a primal need.
Masculine fertility doesn’t require much embellishment, it happens pretty much automatically. The phallus is important, but the oldest idols found are earth mother statues rather than male imagery.
The vagina is a curiosity due to birth and menstruation, there are a lot of observable secrets to femininity, wheras the penis isn’t a source of much mystery, its obvious in form and function.
The most ancient worship foci will have three characteristic in common, first they will be inescapable important, second they will be mysterious and third they will be subject to predictable change. The latter two factors are linked an important as to become important enough to generate worship there will need to be both unfathomable mysteries to ponder, plus a measure of understanding that can be passed down as wisdom.
Masculinity and femininity will have equal importance, but the penis is not mysterious and the male development is fairly static, also the male sexual role is comparatively minor. Therefore focus on the feminine is likely.
The sun and the moon are both mysterious and changing but the sun trumps the moon in importance. Thus the moon will become secondary
Death ticks all the boxes, as does hunting.
The passing on of the secrets of the mysteries is important throughout as it makes the priestly caste important. Were the sun random for any reason there would be little predictability and thus no wisdom of the priests, but because the sun rises as a precise point and time for each day of the year the priests can show their worth by holding sacred knowledge, as evidenced by the magnificent edifices raised for the purpose.
Can you determine at what point on the horizon the sun would rise tomorrow? I can’t and it isn’t important enough to me to work out where, but an ancient sun priest can and has left henges to prove it, and the knowledge was important to him and in all likelihood his own importance and social worth was based upon it.
Hunting cult worship is of pivotal importance in surviving primitive peoples and this also involves a lot of hidden knowledge, and mystery. Know when to move the camp to follow the herd of the prey beats etc
I certainly agree with the premise of your statement, but I’m not sure I agree with some of your assertions. I think this list could be broadened, though I do not dispute the benefit of a primitive belief structure isolating the prime beliefs and billing app on them.
I am not sure this can be asserted. They’re plenty of references to the Moon throughout prehistory.
Of course, but I can also point to the location of the Moon. The Moon plays an important role in hunting, and is also cyclical and periodic.
Representation of male fertility was very important, not for the purposes of mysticism or mystery, but because of its requirement for fertility, important to farming as well as other aspects of life. This is why you see it represented throughout Neolithic Society and not as a mere afterthought. There are plenty of figurines and art depicting males. Additionally, lots of iconography and imagery refers to Mills any indirect way, such as bull horns
As far as the sun and the moon are concerned, I could imagine that the moon played the bigger role in hunter communities. Only with agriculture did the sun and especially the sun track become interesting. A farmer needs a more detailed calendar than a hunter.
In a documentation, the origin of Stonehenge was traced back to the fact that there was a small river there. When removing stones from this water, they changed color as they dried. That was unusual and mysterious - mystical - religion. Of course there were many other things, think of thunderstorms and Thor’s Hammer etc.
Overall, I’m not so sure if the average player wants to delve into religion in such detail. It is probably more likely to matter what benefits religion brings than the details of how it works. After all, the goal of the game is to turn a small group of settlers into a (city) state. Religion is certainly present in many ways and helps, but I would delegate it.
Religion would definitely play a rule, do it’s hard to say to what degree. There may have even been multiple coexisting religions, perhaps fully polytheistic situations. Catalhoyuk is a fine example with worship surrounding a bull, as well as a female deity. You typically see both male and female aspects represented in the Neolithic sites.
I believe that ritual would be a major component of a Neolithic Society, based upon grave goods and what’s been found at sitea. I do agree that the detail of each religion may not need to be addressed in so much detail, though personally I would love absolute configurability LOL
Focus*: Sky, Moon, Sun, fertility, death, hunting,etc
Religiosity: casual, moderate, devout, fanatical
Priesthood: male, female,all
Sacrifices*: none, objects, animals, people
Ritual frequency*: as needed, daily, monthly, seasonally, yearly
*= check box for multiple options.
A simple tab with something like this would allow both easily programmability and the ability of the doves to Simply add some changes to the behavior as a result of these simple variables. For each Focus, you might also have a option of god, goddess, neutral gender God, or just spirit.
I love both of @Orlanth ‘s replies and solutions to ingame religion. I personally would love to have religion at least have an affect on the gameplay (and have consequence). I think separating our personal beliefs with in-game religion is key for us to accept any one solution. I think we all frown upon human sacrifice in real life but in game i think that if used as an ultimate sacrifice for faith-building in your town or like as the ultimate price to pay for an affect (eg. you haven’t had rain for a long time and crops are dying or no animals have come around so food is scarce, sacrifice a villager to whatever god you have chosen for a 75% chance of rain or return of animals etc.). Whether we believe in God or Gods or not, I think in game faith having an affect and having actual abilities would be SO cool. Ancient holy writings, oral traditions (for example in the islands, I’m fluent in Samoan and Tongan and there are some incredible stories about the old gods and miracles and things that happened), and depictions show Gods or God doing some MASSIVE miracles. Whether they were natural phenomena or divine intervention, these people believed and there were huge consequences! (Good and bad).
So I agree with @Orlanth and @lotus253 that a mix and match / check box religion system would be SO SICK. And whether it’s Civ 6 style “mix n match your beliefs and bonuses” or fixed bonuses and affects depending on what you worship, the intensity of faith and dedication, the sacrifice, etc having diverse effects…either would be SO interesting and fun.
Like I would love to see if you choose to worship some kind of fertility goddess, the more devout your people the higher growth rate your population has.
Worship the moon? Harvest moon sacrifices bring massive harvest bonuses. Worship the sun? A different bonus. Neglect the Gods or the god that you chose to worship (sun, moon, or whatever)? Negative affect. Wrath of that god until it is appeased.
Y’all feel what I’m saying??
If there was a problem with contemporarily unsavory practices, such as human sacrifice, perhaps that could be included in the realism DLC I think ancient cities has proposed making.
I very much believe religion should play a major component as all evidence we have suggest that religion played a major component in the lives of prehistoric people. One way to compromise between people who are not fans of bonuses for religion and people who are might be this: a subtle bonus that doesn’t always appear. The more you pray to the gods the more likely it is, but still not guaranteed. As you play you might notice things are getting better in a particular place because of your rituals, but you might not be sure. People would then experience an uncertainty with their belief which would require the player themselves to have a sort of hope, a faith that things are working. That might be a unique way of dealing with religion that is different from other games.
I just can’t wait to see priestesses dancing in a field during a planting or harvesting ritual. I think that would be quite beautiful, especially if it has some nice prehistoric music.
