Religions, gods, impact... How it could deepen the game.

[StorymasterQ]

Mods would probably not powerful enough to implement what one could consider gods, as in reality-changing entities.

I'm not opposed to having colonists or factions that religiously pray to said entities, instead I'm opposed to actually having those entities in the game.

I'm not opposed to colonists and factions having a Faith score (such as Final Fantasy Tactics) and having events that affect colonists according to said score. But I do oppose said colonists actively trying to coax their respective entities to affect their circumstances (and having the entities actually respond to it).

[Ermantis]

The entities wouldn't appear in the game of course. As I said in the 1st post, if there were to be events, they would be triggered in a hidden way.
In fact, Ty already put those entities in place, in a way : storytellers. Although they are only IA, it's the IA level that "decides" of what events happen, and it's up to the player to act  to survive dispite those events.
Religion would just bring some kind of interaction (prayer-> possible-event (not answers of any kind)), and some good way to deepen relationships with factions and colons.

And yeah, the reason I'm proposing this as a suggestion is that it's very deeplevel, so totally unmodable atm. Plus I really see something that would bring a new way of playing in the game.
And what, if someone doesn't want to use religions in his colony, he'll just have to ban them and get to fight with other religious faction : there, you have your atheist colony ! x)

[Pirx Danford]

...Although they are only IA...

Just for those who don't know. In french artificial intelligence is called "Intelligence artificielle", so french people often use IA instead of AI.

And yes I know it is not moddable atm, but I would rather prefer that Tynan improves the moddability to allow for deep changes like this, because I am sure with the possibilities it would open up it would allow a ton of other interesting mods besides a religious one.

[WorldOfIllusion]

honestly, this could probably be done with the current modding support. Sure, it wouldn't be particularly easy, but most of the functionality could be implemented using DLL customisation.

[kdfsjljklgjfg]

A simpler approach would be to build a shrine for a specific god. You can order a sacrifice (corpse, raw food, cooked food, metal) or a ritual of some sort (with a variable amount of people participating in it). Whoever is in charge of "Worshiping" follows these orders.

Certain factors influence your relationship with that god that you are worshiping. If you sacrifice something valuable, such as a minigun or 200 metal, or follow the god's commands, your reputation with that god increases. However, if you are violent, sacrifice only worthless things, such as squirrel corpses, then that god will be unhappy with your colony. Also, if you make the room in which the shrine is in spacious and clean, then the god will be somewhat more pleased.

When you pray to the gods, your reputation with them decreases a bit, and they will respond with either a blessing or "the wrath of the gods" based on your reputation with them. They also affect your colony's karma, which changes incident frequencies.

I disagree. Having actual, interactive gods in the game isn't what the game needs. I think that being blessed by the goddess of farming or having a curse placed on your populace takes away from the feel the game currently has and is cultivating. "Oh no, we're being overrun by bandits" being magically fixed by the god of war smiting them in a thunderstorm, to me, really is not in the best interests of this game, which is focused on people doing their best to get by on just what they find in the wild, trying to start up a little town.

[longbyte1]

A simpler approach would be to build a shrine for a specific god. You can order a sacrifice (corpse, raw food, cooked food, metal) or a ritual of some sort (with a variable amount of people participating in it). Whoever is in charge of "Worshiping" follows these orders.

Certain factors influence your relationship with that god that you are worshiping. If you sacrifice something valuable, such as a minigun or 200 metal, or follow the god's commands, your reputation with that god increases. However, if you are violent, sacrifice only worthless things, such as squirrel corpses, then that god will be unhappy with your colony. Also, if you make the room in which the shrine is in spacious and clean, then the god will be somewhat more pleased.

When you pray to the gods, your reputation with them decreases a bit, and they will respond with either a blessing or "the wrath of the gods" based on your reputation with them. They also affect your colony's karma, which changes incident frequencies.

I disagree. Having actual, interactive gods in the game isn't what the game needs. I think that being blessed by the goddess of farming or having a curse placed on your populace takes away from the feel the game currently has and is cultivating. "Oh no, we're being overrun by bandits" being magically fixed by the god of war smiting them in a thunderstorm, to me, really is not in the best interests of this game, which is focused on people doing their best to get by on just what they find in the wild, trying to start up a little town.

Well the gods should only be triggered if you communicate with them. They shouldn't passively affect gameplay, especially if you haven't made a shrine yet. So technically, you could play without ever touching a shrine or any sort of religion.

[Justin C]

I like the idea of adding religion as an attribute, but I think the idea in the OP needs to be changed.

It really wouldn't make much sense to have a set number of pre-made gods to choose from. It would be cool if religions and gods were generated randomly, like characters. So instead of a list of gods, you have a list of random traits that the game would use to generate gods and religions for each game.

So for example, religions could have a list of gods, tenets and traditions.

Tenets
Tenets would be things that affect any characters who follow that religion, like:
Pacifist
Vegetarian
Prays at a certain time each day

You could even make these traits only apply on a holidays, which could happen weekly, monthly or yearly.

Traditions
Traditions could be a wide range of things. They could be things that happen once in a followers' lifetime, or they could be done on holidays or at a certain interval. And they could range from simply not working for a day, to fasting, to leaving the colony for a period of time, to sacrificing animals or even fellow colonists to their god or gods.

Gods
Religions would be able to have any number of gods, including none, or an infinite number. Gods would be generated randomly, like characters. Gods would have certain requirements of their followers and would give them certain traits, and in polytheistic religions you could have followers favoring one god over another. So two people could have the exact same faith but favor different gods, and each would have different traits based on those gods.

Faithfulness
Another attribute you could have is Faithfulness. This would affect how likely a follower is to partake in the more controversial traditions of their faith. For example, it doesn't take much faith for a follower or a religion to take a holy day off or fast one day out of the year, but it takes a hell of a lot of faith for them to stone their fellow colonists or sacrifice them to their god. The Faithfulness could go up or down depending on their temperament and how strictly they follow their tenets. If they are extremely faithful, not being able to follow their traditions or tenets would be extremely stressful for them. If their faithfulness is lower, they wouldn't be too bothered by occasionally eating meat even though their god says they should be vegetarian, and they might decide that the tradition from their holy book of sacrificing a Muffalo every third Tuesday of the month isn't all that important. And of course low Faithfulness could result in a colonist abandoning their faith or converting to a new one.


I think religion in the game would add a lot of depth to the way the characters in the game behave and interact. I am not sure I like the idea of gods physically affecting the game, though.

[Col_Jessep]

I would like my RimWorld without religion.

[Celthric Aysen]

Religion? No thanks.

[Garen]

i think maybe at best, a religious shrine/altar, could be made as furniture that boosts people's happyness in general. or have it that mercs with the religious trait's happiness get boosted a lot. remember there would be many, many gods and beliefs in the universe so having any concept of religion must be generic at best.

as downside, tribal factions hate you more for having one? and other colonies that visit like you more?

or should that be the other way around? (not a modder, just guy giving ideas)

ethier way i think that could be one of the VERY FEW ways religion could be implemented and be good

[TimMartland]

Let the Science vs Religion debate begin anew in YET ANOTHER forum!
I don't think religion should be put in the game because
1. Its another complex system for players to have to contend with.
2. It adds very little gameplay-wise for what is an 'expensive' project for the dev to complete.
3. As we have seen by this thread, it would cause a lot of arguing. A lot.
4. If the religion system had buffs for being good to the gods it would sink the games 'hard sci-fi' feel.

Ok
Maybe maybe MAYBE religion could be snuck in on the coattails of character traits. You could have a 'Deeply religious' trait which prevents them from fighting and maybe eating certain types of food. They could also (In rare cases) argue and dislike people do not follow their religion, especially sciency characters (I'm not saying scientists can't be religious because they can and that's fine, but simply for ease of programming it could be simplified to this. Keep in mind this is only in the 1% case that you have a real religious nut rather than just someone who sticks to their faith)

[StorymasterQ]

...
2. It adds very little gameplay-wise for what is an 'expensive' project for the dev to complete.
...

Agreed, especially considering that 'the dev' is actually singular

[tbrass]

Maybe maybe MAYBE religion could be snuck in on the coattails of character traits. You could have a 'Deeply religious' trait which prevents them from fighting and maybe eating certain types of food. They could also (In rare cases) argue and dislike people do not follow their religion, especially sciency characters (I'm not saying scientists can't be religious because they can and that's fine, but simply for ease of programming it could be simplified to this. Keep in mind this is only in the 1% case that you have a real religious nut rather than just someone who sticks to their faith)

I think that this is a great idea. I am not keen on deus-ex-machina in rimworld, and any sacrificing/prayer should not have an observable effect on the world. In the minds of the individual settlers, however, sure. Suze is deeply religious and has a strong desire, possibly a need, to sacrifice muffalo regularly. After one such sacrifice, a bunch of material falls from the sky. Coincidence, or the power of prayer. No one knows!

If religious traits are added (please, please, please... among other character traits), I think that they should procedurally generate certain forbidden/mandated characteristics. For instance, Jakob is an adherent of the Great Foul Wind and will not eat muffalo, must spend time outside, and loses relations with anyone who works with stone.

Stan DeLeon is a Pragmatic Machinist and loses relations with Suze every time he sees her praying.

I think that this a) inter-colony relationship system, and b) procedural ethical/religious/value trait system would add significant depth to the gameplay without incorporating some ~actually present~ deity.