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[Bohandas]

I have a few minor suggestions with regard to religion. In the interests of hopefully having some of my suggestions actually be used, I have tried to limit my suggestions things that seem like they would be relatively^* simple^** to implement:

1.) Syncretism: When two different cultures/civilizations (including different civilizations of the same race) are in contact with each other for a prolonged time during world gen, they should occasionally adopt gods from the other civilization into their own pantheon. In practice this would only need to have only minor effects in-game (at least to start with), in-game it might only result in a couple of minor notes in legends mode, and some sites occasionally containing temples to a foreign god or force or power (and additionally, the presence of such a temple during history-generation might result in a city being spared that would otherwise be destroyed, if (and only if) it happens to posess a temple to the specific deity worshipped by the opposing civilization's leader (and possibly only if that leader is reasonably devout)

1b.) Syncretism Continued: Alternately, one civilization could decide that a deity from a neighboring civilization is just a different name for a deity of their own pantheon who has a similar name

2.) Succession for Powers: In a civilization that worships a monster with the POWER token, if said leader gets killed, they should have a chance of adopting a new power as their leader (especially if a lot of civ members already worship additional powers anyway as a result of MEGABEAST attacks, and ESPECIALLY especially if their previous POWER leader worshipped another POWER) and/or of adopting a neighboring civilization's pantheon (or a semi-random assortment of gods and powers from several neighboring pantheons)

3.) Familial Background Info for Deities: In most real world mythologies many of the deities are parents or children or siblings or spouses or whatever of one or more other deities, so I think that it would be cool if when pantheons were generated in world-gen, if it generated familial relationships for some of them, just to add some flavor to the game's religions.

3b.) Divine Generations: On a related note to point three (above), it would be cool if an additional generation of gods were added to each race's pantheon every time the world entered a new age (with the possible exception of entering into the age of civilization)

4.) Multiple Concurrent Faith Types/"Great Cthulhu is their cousin but he spies them only dimly...": I think it would be cool if a civilization could worship more than one type of divine entity at the same time; For example, a civilization could have a POWER as its leader but also worship a pantheon of gods. (much like H.P.Lovecraft's lost continent of R'Lyeh, which was ruled by semi-divine Great-old-one Cthulhu, who in turn worshipped the outer-god Azathoth)

5.) Info on Temples, A Possibly Early Implementation For Speaking With Deities: Right now, when you try to talk to a deity, they don't give ever you a response. I think that it would be cool if, when asked about one of their own temples, they had a chance of responding with the same kind of response that anyone else would give when asked about the temple (possibly also with additional information about other nearby temples).

6.) Deification: Individuals who become particularly influential during world-gen should occasionally end up being worshipped as gods by members of their entity/civilization after their death

7.) Moddable Sphere Preclusions/Associations: Currently, assigning spheres to an entity will have all associated spheres open up to the entity, and bar opposing spheres to that entity's religions.  To help modders customize their cultures, additional token options that allow for absolute inclusion or exclusion of spheres in an entity's religion, regardless of associations, can be made available to modders.

7b.) Required Sphere Combination: Additionally, perhaps an entity could be set to require that each of its civilizations to have at least one deity with a specific set combination of spheres defined in their raws.

8.) Procedurally Generated ituals: a deity's description could imclude a very brief description of one or two of the major rituals associated with it. These rituals could be procedurally generated based on the deity's portfolio, its compatability with the rest of the pantheon, and its civilization's ETHICs

^*Compared to some of the things that Toady already has planned for the short-term

^**Although admittedly I'm not really qualified to tell for sure what would be simple to implement or not, as I only have high-school level programming training and I haven't seen Toady's existing source-code anyway...


_{Edit: Added underline to heading for fifth idea.
Edit: Added idea #1b and idea #6
Edit: Added Idea #7
Edit: Re-worded Idea #7 with nw_kohaku's revised/clarified wording/explanation
Edit: Added idea number eight}

[Bohandas]

Anyone?

[hostergaard]

I like the idea of divine generations, would make the game more interesting.

Ps; DF forums are quite slow.

[Kurouma]

Yeah, don't take it personally, we're dwarves and do think as fast as stone.

Re #1: Some measure of cultural dominance in and of itself (i.e, not necessarily related to territory or population) would make this more realistic, but then I guess you might as well go the whole hog and have a score representing cultural strength/miitary strength/territory size/population/wealth/resources/etc/etc for each civ. The effects of a whole range of relationships between civ entities could then be pretty easily defined; from the simple diplomatic relations of peace-neutral-tensions-war to the more complex ones like annexes, colonies and principalities, or even acting over a whole group like the ancient Greek city-state model. Real time revolutions and secessions!

One thing that has always bugged me is that the 'countries' don't even care if some random group of dwarves come along plonk their stuff within their borders. And, what's more, most of the time players don't even know where their parent civ is or what it's called. OK, sure, this aspect isn't finished yet and I guess people like being able to embark pretty much anywhere, but if embarking on a fortress instead became more obviously a purposeful mission for your parent nation, possibly even with goals and restricted to somewhere near your civ borders, then that would be a big ++ on the immersion, fun, and replayability side of things for me.

[harborpirate]

I like these suggestions. Anything that increases the complexity of the religious aspects of the game would be a positive in my opinion.

The one small caveat I have is that I'm not big on the deities actually communicating, but being able to get information from priests or the temple writing would be nice.

[Bohandas]

I like these suggestions. Anything that increases the complexity of the religious aspects of the game would be a positive in my opinion.

The one small caveat I have is that I'm not big on the deities actually communicating, but being able to get information from priests or the temple writing would be nice.

That actually gives me another idea. If the deities don't communicate with you, than the mundane things that you ask them about when you choose to talk to them are doubly ridiculous; THEREFORE, the menu of things to say when talking to deities should be changed to various types of prayers (ie. "Utter Prayer of Supplication" "Utter Prayer of Thanks" "Sing Short Hymn") using the right type of prayer at the right time could help increase one's association with a given faith by more than usual, and/or could have a chance to provide a subtle, difficult to verify, benefit (such as a temporary +1 to certain combat-related rolls) (provided, of course, that the right type of prayer were used at the right time, as I previously said)

[Bohandas]

I just thought of something additional with regard to my first suggestion.

Instead of (and/or in addition to) adopting foreign deities, civilizations could equate certain foreign deities as being different names for deities of their own civilization with similar portfolios.

[Bohandas]

Just had another idea. Particularly powerful entity members during world-gen should occasionally end up being worshipped as deities after their deaths.

[NW_Kohaku]

Nice.  I like some of this.

I had a thread on Physical Gods earlier, you might want to look at that, since it has some relation to this, although this has more to do with the religious succession itself.

I also have to ask about ideas like Monotheistic cultures.  Monotheism was essentially a great stand against Syncretism, and the melding of cultures that came through social contact.  Cultures particularly set on retaining their own cultural identity were very adamant about not allowing the worship of multiple gods, and hence, were Monotheistic religions.

Cultures like elves could have a much greater resistance to sharing in foreign cultures, or adopting their gods, and behave as a much more cohesive, if exclusive, culture.

[Noctriate]

The creation of alters to sacrifice animals or bring offerings to gods would be neat.

Urist McGod is a god which is associated with metal and stuff, so your dwarves bring an offering and possibly gain ore/metal/pertaining things from said god, but the probability of a gift/grace would depend on the god and what is offered. Possibly gracing your metalsmiths who are not legendary+5 to said level?

[sockless]

I'm sorta against having direct contact with the gods. I like it how it's ambiguous as to whether they actually exist or not. You could be able to get things that seem like they are from the gods, but might not be, like miraculous healings etc.

[NW_Kohaku]

I think Toady wants us to have more contact with the gods, though.  He's said before that "they don't really exist in the game right now, they're just names."  Since I just looked up the Dwarf Talk #7, he then went on after saying that to talk about how he saw things like artifacts being something caused by direct intervention of the gods, directing the dwarves, and powering the magical effects of artifacts, once they get those.

[Lex Talionias]

how about this, your golden temple with diamond encrusted platinum religious statues to the god of your civ will let you have a priest pray to a god for assistance. maybe they sent an army of creatures your associated with or a biblical flood or something to save you form a massive siege. the more you pray for help the less likely they will but offerings and plenty of worshipers help increase those odds.

or for less physical gods maybe they send 'messages' by warnings of incoming mega beasts or near by mega beasts. pointing out valuable veins, lost artifacts, caverns and so forth.

[Cespinarve]

(much like H.P.Lovecraft's lost continent of R'Lyeh, which was ruled by semi-divine Great-old-one Cthulhu, who in turn worshipped the outer-god Azathoth)

Semi-divine Cthulhu? Clearly you are unfamiliar with The Internet.

Also, I find the fact that a big post on religious implementation being written by a Discordian to be obscurely hilarious.

[Bohandas]

(much like H.P.Lovecraft's lost continent of R'Lyeh, which was ruled by semi-divine Great-old-one Cthulhu, who in turn worshipped the outer-god Azathoth)

Semi-divine Cthulhu? Clearly you are unfamiliar with The Internet.

He's semi-divine in the same sort of vague sense(s) that Seraphim, Djinnis, Xists, Yacatisma, Orishas, Rakshasas, and Hekatonkheires are not gods (...but to a lesser extent than the given examples)

EDIT: Also Dionysus
EDIT: Also the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara