Religion and Government

[madjack]

I was checking the development process of sr2020, and about the integration of religion, I do want to point out a few facts and possibly some ideas.
First of all, I think there should be no direct effect of religion other than civilian diplomacy rating, if such a rating would exist. Because it would be too complex to figure out the releations between countries with different religions while peace or war. There are too many sectarians, if that is the right word. The percentages and religious information would be nice see, and those could change according to the paramaters that the devs deem suitable.
As for the effect of religion, I think it would be best to take them into serious consideration if they are state religions and the government is not secular. What I try to say is, religion should be treated as a sub-government, like the Iran "Islamic" Republic. I think those Islamic Republics may have better overall releations, alliance chances and such,
but thinking the other dominantly muslim countries' releations with those islamic republics, such bonuses would be nonsense. For instance my country, Turkey, would never ally one of such republics, even if it was not a member of Nato, or had no aim of being a member of EU or such other goals. The releations have never been very good. The political system is way too different.
The point here is "Laïcité" - secularity of the government is a lot more important than plain religion when thinking about Supreme Ruler. Somehow players would want to know why some countries diplomatic or civilian rating are not going up or down because of religious factors, and as for the Iranian example, releations between Iran and Turkey are not below fair because the Iranians are shiites and Turks are sunnis, it is so because of the differencies between politics - secularity. I mean using secularity rather than sectarians would make more sense. Releations were better when Reza Pahlavi was the Shah of Iran during a period which Iran was becoming secular. That is for gaming perspective, of course i don't intend to say that international releations are so simple in real life.
Summarily, I would hate to see Turkey in the same block with the Islamic Republics, also that would be wrong. Maybe it would be best to keep some concepts like Nato in game for the balance, but I don't have the best ideas about that. Maybe someone else has.
Selections like -Democratic, Dictatorship- and -Secular, Religious- could be used when determining the overall government. "Conservative" is not enough to define the difference.
Both Iran and Turkey are conservative, and Turkey is a democracy. Iran has elections, but I don't know if we can call it a democracy. Maybe just keeping it as a dictatorship would serve this purpose.
Anyway I shall post again if I can think of anything better.

[Balthagor]

There is already a thread discussion the intended impact of religion in game;

http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... t=religion

If you wish to discuss further, please continue that thread.

[Lightbringer]

You bring up some very good points Madjack. I would not discount the deeply rooted effects of Religion, but you are correct, unless it is an officially "Religious" government, their policies would not be overtly controlled by religion. You must bear in mind that all of those "sectarians" vote. To give you a good example, George W. Bush would not be President of the United States without having had the approval of the Christian religious right.

Legend was talking about some rainbow diplomatic scheme where regions which liked the same colors would get along more easily and differing color schemes would increase Belli more rapidly. (Each color would represent something such as an overall religious tendency or socialism or what have you) Perhaps the effect of religion could be such as this.... If the government of a region develops diplomatic relations with another region that has a conflicting "religious base" then DAR might drop.

( I am neither Catholic nor Muslim, so please excuse and forgive any incorrect assumptions based upon information the news media brainwashes me with. ) Example: A deeply conservative Catholic state starts working towards full blown alliance with a conservative Muslim region. Since both sets of population have been taught to hate each other as infidels, the general population might react as if their governments were betraying them or "making a deal with the Devil". While both regions might have fully functioning Democratic processes in place, and governments elected by the people, not appointed by the Religious leadership, neither government would want to enact policies that would anger large portions of their populations and get themselves "un-elected".

So you see, the Pope does not have to be sitting in the president's chair to effect the policies of Italy (or Spain or the U.S. etc. etc.). Religion doesn't always have overtly controlling effects, but it does play more of a part in decisions than most people give it credit for, even in "Secular" Regions.


Edit:(Crap! Sniped by Chris....I'll move this post later perhaps)