Sid Meier’s Civilizations 4: Religion

The latest installment of the popular Civilizations series hit stores on the 25th of October. Civilizations 4 has many new features. In addition to updating graphics and other features of previous versions, Civilizations 4 has incorporated the topic of religion.

In the rulebook, there is a section that talks about the religions in the game. They mention a desire to not offend anyone, but did not want to leave out something that has been so crucial to the development of humanity and all civilizations. They’ve attempted to handle religion in as fair and equal a manner as they can. All religions have the same benefits to a civilization within the game.

The art of selecting the religions and how many to include was perhaps even more complicated. There are many religions within the real world, and limiting the game to a specific number might be misconstrued. During their game tests, the Firaxis team came up with the optimal number of 7 religions for the game. This is a good number as there is a maximum of 10 civilizations playing at once in a normal game. It provides a new level of diplomacy between these nations as they attempt to convert one another to only these few religions.

When choosing their 7 religions, Firaxis chose those that would be most familiar to the majority of their audience. They chose the religions of Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism.

There is a religion associated with certain technologies. A technology is defined in the game as an important advance in mankind’s ability to manipulate his environment. To gain a religion, your civilization must be the first to research the technology that is associated with that religion (the Divine Right technology gives the first researcher the Islam religion).

You can create missionaries that spread your religion to other nations. Another way is through trade routes, such as waterways and roads. Religion will travel along these and eventually come to your cities.

Once you have a religion within your nation, you must choose a state sponsored religion. This makes your people happy and gives you some benefits on some buildings, especially those that are religiously oriented. This means they can be built faster and cheaper.

Over time, as your nation matures, you will discover the religious civic of Free Religion. This does away with state sponsored religions and allows all citizens to follow whatever religion they wish without penalty. In fact, with Free Religion, you gain happiness benefits when you have multiple religions within a city.

In the early parts of the game, before Free Religion, there will be different civilizations with different religions. Throughout the game, they will attempt to threaten and bribe you to change your state religion to match their own. Civilizations without the same religion suffer some relationship penalties. This is why Free Religion is a must if you can get to it quickly. Not only does it make your people happier, but it makes other civilizations friendlier.