The Game Box

One of my very favorites of these is the game Credo. It's just a cheaply
produced card game (by the same folks that did Psychos & Slashers, IIRC).
But the victory goals of each player are based upon elements of core doctrinal
belief which were debated in the early Church Councils. Control of populations,
their Bishops, and even the Emperor allow you votes in the councils, and diplomatic
undertakings can obtain support for your own secret objectives.


For a long time I needed to own La Foi et le Glaive. The concept behind it
(competing empires AND competing religions struggling concurrently)
seemed so appealing. By the time I was ordering it though, I knew it
wouldn't be quite what I hoped - by then I was aware it used simple
diplomacy mechanisms. It's an interesting Dip design, but doesn't
capture the richness of the religious conflicts between Islam, Christianity,
Judaism, and other less lasting religions.

Indeed, I once wanted to design a game wherein the players
represented the various religions - starting from little hearth gods
and expanding through full blown Pagan mythos, eventually being given
choices which might lead to more modern religions. I think LFelG is what
sparked the idea, along with some study of how ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian
gods seem to have evolved.

We need someone like Phil Eklund to make a religious game, now that would be interesting rather than the "some other game with a religious retheme" which they often seem to be.

EPIC idea.

I throw these kinds of things out now, because I'm pretty sure I'll never bother.

One of the incarnations of the Civ computer games had religions. But it really didn't do much as I recall. All religions acted the same, except diplomacy was somewhat modified based on whether the other country had the same religion as you or a different one. The game used real religions, and I suppose it was too risky to do  any more than that for fear of offending anyone.

I think a civilization type of game that attempted to model the cultural effects of various religions and how that impacts the progress of a civilization as well as how separate civilizations interact could be interesting.

To an extent this is similar to what Calandale describes, but instead of focussing on the evolution of religion as the primary aspect, this would just be one component of the civilization model.

New thread: http://thegamebox.gamesontables.com/index.php?topic=39.0