Will we be able to mod in religion?

[FelixG]

"Our brothers on the next planet over are being cruelly persecuted by their tyrannical overlord we must begin a crusade to free them from their opression"

"Your brothers? Haven't heard of them, all I see over there is a rock that become highly radiated somehow. Crazy how nature do dat."

 

[Nyrael]

Personally I can hardly imagine a religion in Stellaris, I mean, agressive, pure religion in the age of hyper advanced tech and contact of dozens of extremely different life forms?

Don't get me wrong, religions have extreme adaptive abilities but I think the form of religion surviving till so advanced era would be some ethereal, watered down spiritual mixture of christianity and buddhism, or some ideological/cultural stuff.

I mean, despite all Creationist backslash, look how great implications Evolutionism and modern science and prosperity had for the religion - and in the developed parts of the world religion is systematically getting more liberal. Now put 10 times bigger scientific revolution and additional 200 years... I think Ethos issues covers religious part in Stellaris.

Any ideology capable of convincing - or being comprehensible for - extremely alien species is going to ne based on princies universalist enough to be the matter of 'ethos', not religious cults.

Science and religion are in no way mutually exclusive though. Heck, the only religions that are in opposition to science, evolution, etc. are some Protestant Branches. Every other religion not only doesn't oppose it but many of them support it to varying degrees.
In an SF game, it would not be out of line to have a nation which worships science and philosophical thinking and believes that the rest of Universe should follow those teachings, even by force if necessary. Even on lower levels than that, it is near to impossible to not imagine some proselytizing faiths not trying to spread to other species (as comedic as it may sound, the Catholic Church is already considering how to act if life outside Earth is found XD ).

And mind you that you already have Dictatorships and old-fashioned Monarchies in the game, and both might use religion to support themselves. And that's without mentioning that we have three Theocratic governments in the game. If I play with a Space Pope, I don't want to conquer the galaxy: I want to make other species worship me. That should be the whole point of Theocratic gov. types, otherwise they are just different numbers (and I think we would all prefer if each government type had something unique).

Now I don't think it should be in vanilla, but it would make a neat DLC material.

 

[I_AM_King_Midas]

Heck, the only religions that are in opposition to science, evolution, etc. are some Protestant Branches. Every other religion not only doesn't oppose it but many of them support it to varying degrees.

This statement is not true. I am not sure if we are allowed to discuss it fully here but this is very untrue.

Now I agree that all religion would not have to be anti scientific but it's not true as you claim that all religions aside from Protestant Christianity are good for science. Science is a method of testing and questioning everything. Religions which largely enforce faith as a virtue can at times clash with science.

 

[Finnway]

This statement is not true. I am not sure if we are allowed to discuss it fully here but this is very untrue.

Please don't.

@I_AM_King_Midas @Nyrael @Krajzen If you want to discuss the realism of religion in space please take it to another thread or to PM. I don't want this thread derailed by this topic.

 

[Finnway]

What do people think about representing religions via genetic traits?

The devs have said genetic traits can change over time. What if you simply programmed religions as genetic traits that change quickly and are mutually exclusive with all other traits in the "religion" category? After that, the only thing left to do would be programming an event chain for converting your subject POPs religion.

Thoughts?

 

[BrokenSky]

"Our brothers on the next planet over are being cruelly persecuted by their tyrannical overlord we must begin a crusade to free them from their opression"

"Those fools in the next empire over have foolishly declared war on us. Let us use our superior alliances to crush them and take their space!"

What do people think about representing religion in Stellaris via genetic traits?

They've said genetic traits can change over time. What if you simply programmed religions as a genetic trait that changed easily and were mutually exclusive with all other genetic traits from the "religion" category? After that, the only thing you'd need to do is program an event chain for converting your subject POPs religion.

Thoughts?

could be a good work around.

 

[CptWilly]

What do people think about representing religions via genetic traits?

This is one of the first things that came to mind on reading the OP. If POPs also end up with ideologies that change over time and in response to various conditions, that could be a pretty good way to handle religion that would allow religions to change dynamically for POPs in a way that could be effected by events, but not directly driven by event decisions.

 

[aitaituo]

I quite like the idea of Religion as a mid game "disaster", religion at the start of the game is mainly a vague spiritual or personal belief, but one new religion begins to spread across galactic borders, rather like the reformation does in EU4, as this happens these new religious people would dream of uniting and eventually rise up from their old masters. Along side this perhaps another Religion would begin spreading and also seek its own independence or it even splits off from the new religion if the first gets large enough.

This is a great idea. It would be very interesting to see Christianity or Buddhism spread to other species and what the effects might be in the long term. Another reason why I hope the game gets longer ticks than 2.4 hours.

This is one of the first things that came to mind on reading the OP. If POPs also end up with ideologies that change over time and in response to various conditions, that could be a pretty good way to handle religion that would allow religions to change dynamically for POPs in a way that could be effected by events, but not directly driven by event decisions.

As a game mechanic, wouldn't this serve as a kind of built in disaster to creating a Jem'Hadar species? You can always assume that they'll eventually mutate out of your control. Even a small group of genetic dissidents might eventually overthrow you to liberate their kinsmen, like the Tok'Ra.

 

[CptWilly]

As a game mechanic, wouldn't this serve as a kind of built in disaster to creating a Jem'Hadar species? You can always assume that they'll eventually mutate out of your control. Even a small group of genetic dissidents might eventually overthrow you to liberate their kinsmen, like the Tok'Ra.

I don't see why not. I think that kind of crisis is much more compelling and effective than having a pre-scripted "it's crisis time!" event trigger. Depending on the exact mechanics, it can be just as inevitable/unavoidable even if it is growing right under the player's nose in a manner they can ostensibly influence.

 

[VanguardZero]

Now I agree that all religion would not have to be anti scientific but it's not true as you claim that all religions aside from Protestant Christianity are good for science. Science is a method of testing and questioning everything. Religions which largely enforce faith as a virtue can at times clash with science.

"Faith" just means "trust". In Christianity, it can simply mean trusting scripture, the Church, etc. even if you don't immediately have an answer to a question. In more general terms, it can mean trusting what the experts and PhD's have to say rather than embarrassing yourself trying to puzzle out exactly how PI is 3.14159...

This is one of the first things that came to mind on reading the OP. If POPs also end up with ideologies that change over time and in response to various conditions, that could be a pretty good way to handle religion that would allow religions to change dynamically for POPs in a way that could be effected by events, but not directly driven by event decisions.

I'm a bit skeptical of Ethos being a substitute for religion and culture. For one, there's no "Dogmatism vs Syncretism" slider. For a real world example, take Christianity and Islam. They have a lot in common compared to some other faiths, and yet they still hate each other.
Also, the concept of a national identity exists even across political views. Most countries are not unified in their political views. Likewise, a group can desire independence even if they are just as spiritual, xenophile, individualist, and pacifistic as their overlords.

Some differences between groups just can't be expressed in terms of an abstract Ethos.

 

[Thure]

For a real world example, take Christianity and Islam. They have a lot in common compared to some other faiths, and yet they still hate each other.

Some groups hate each other not the whole groups each other... I'm sure the pope would disagree with you Actually the connection between Christians and Muslims is very peaceful. ISIL isn't representative for the opinion of the majority of the Muslims either.

 

[VanguardZero]

Some groups hate each other not the whole groups each other... I'm sure the pope would disagree with you Actually the connection between Christians and Muslims is very peaceful. ISIL isn't representative for the opinion of the majority of the Muslims either.

True to an extent, I was using hyperbole.

 

[BrokenSky]

"Faith" just means "trust". In Christianity, it can simply mean trusting scripture, the Church, etc. even if you don't immediately have an answer to a question. In more general terms, it can mean trusting what the experts and PhD's have to say rather than embarrassing yourself trying to puzzle out how exactly PI is approximately 3.14159...

This.

+ You have to take the scientific method on faith; i.e. it seems to work, so it's probably trustworthy.

 

[CptWilly]

I'm a bit skeptical of Ethos being a substitute for religion and culture. For one, there's no "Dogmatism vs Syncretism" slider. For a real world example, take Christianity and Islam. They have a lot in common compared to some other faiths, and yet they still hate each other.
Also, the concept of a national identity exists even across political views. Most countries are not unified in their political views. Likewise, a group can desire independence even if they are just as spiritual, xenophile, individualist, and pacifistic as their overlords.

Some differences between groups just can't be expressed in terms of an abstract Ethos.

No system will ever model the full complexity of human interactions perfectly, but I expect there to be other factors associated with POPs besides ethos... Militancy, for example, which might be much easier to control amongst POPs who are ideologically simpatico with the regime, could still lead to rebellion amongst an ideologically homogenous population.

POPs in Vicky also used Consiousness as a factor to pretty effectively model the willingness of some people to sometimes vote against their own interests and ideals... A very complex human behavior that I never expected to see modelled well by a game system. I have faith (see what I did there?) in Paradox to create really interesting systems in this regard, but obviously we have to see how Stellaris POPs work exactly to figure out whether it would be possible to use that system to model religious interactions.