Adding religion to EB

[Ferromancer]

I was thinking, now that the EB for BI installer has stabilized a bit, it would be nice for my installer to take advantage and add religions to EB.

As a list of religions of the time period I was thinking:

Celtic -- Casse, Lusotanni, Aedui, Arverni
Germanic -- Sweboz
Hellenistic -- Romani, Greek Factions, Getai? Pontos?
Semitic -- Carthage, Saba
Animist -- Saka Rauka, Saraumatae
Zoroastrian -- Seleucid? Baktria? Hai? Pahlava?
Egyptian -- Ptolomeic

I put the question marks next to ones I wasn't sure about. Somebody more familiar with the temples/gods for each faction could help me. Some factions may even have multiple religions based on which temple is installed in a region, correct (Seleucids for instance)?

To simplify things, I was wondering I could use the existing temple system. And do something like:

...temple_of_fun...
            ...
            capability
            {
                ...
                religious_belief celtic 1 { /* celtic factions */ }
                religious_belief hellenistic 1 { /* greco-roman factions */ }
            }
            ...

Though I have to admit I'm totally confused by the faction name enumerations--they don't map exactly to the modern EB factions.

Then all I would have to do, at the minimum is to add pips and this would work, right? If I don't define regions with a religion, they would just pick it up from the existing temple complex?

I think I can leave out traits and ancillaries since those are already very detailed.

[A Very Super Market]

Isn't there a religion limit of three? Would make this rather difficult, or at least really general

[Ferromancer]

I'm pretty sure the limit is 9. (10 actually, but the last pip doesn't show up)

[Βελισάριος]

I support this implement!
I was thinking about it the other day, because BI allows you to add religions and therefore conflict and therefore making it even more difficult to conquer new provinces... FUN!

Sarcasm aside, I do think it is something that would help with the realism that EB prides itself in.
As for the religions themselves, you have to keep in mind... there were a plethora of them to be had in 272 BC. I'm fairly certain that the Germanic tribes each had their variations on the "main" religion... which is why in later times you had Wotan and Odin depicting the same god but in technically different religions. I'm guessing the Celtic peoples (in their vast expansion) had the same issue.

I can help you with the Getai religion. Not that it should be extremely complicated... EB already does a good job with it (except for including Ares, Dyonisos and was it Demeter? in there. I know there are no recorded names for these gods... but still.)

[Marcus Ulpius]

Could be an interesting idea, but I'm not sure religion played such an important role in creating unrest during EB timeframe. I think since they are not monotheistic religions they were more tolerant to each other with less zeal and fanatism than we encounter in later periods where monotheistic religions dominate the world.

Second point is that Seleucids can't be considered Zoroastrian as the were Hellenistic kingdom (with non-Hellenistic population). I'm not sure Zoroastrism even existed at that period. I think it appeared much later. Ptolies are Hellenistic kingdom too with Egyptian population. This makes the religion issue even more complicated as religions were interweaving a lot those times.

[Marcus Gallicus]

Can't you make it resemble culture instead of religion?

[SwissBarbar]

I completely agree. For example, when the romans met a new culture, they just allocated the foreign gods to their own, due to what their function was. Not only would it be extremely difficult to implemet that in the game, its just not necessary, for as Marcus Ulpius said, religion is not that important at those times, as it was later in history.

As for Zotoastrism, yes it already existed in the EB-Timeframe. Actually even for a few centuries.

[Gabeed]

Could be an interesting idea, but I'm not sure religion played such an important role in creating unrest during EB timeframe. I think since they are not monotheistic religions they were more tolerant to each other with less zeal and fanatism than we encounter in later periods where monotheistic religions dominate the world.

Indeed. Since polytheistic religions of the time were more open to the idea of adding foreign deities to their pantheons (Cybele for the Romans, for example), or else equating foreign gods to their own, there was not nearly as much religious conflict as later. The Romans seemed to think that as long as the worship of a god didn't disrupt public order and wasn't morally abhorrent to them (the Bacchanalia, Carthage's infamous baby sacrifices to Saturn), it was fair game.

With that said, I would agree with the others who have suggested "religion" as "culture" for EB-BI, but isn't that already somewhat represented in public order?