Soli Deo Gloria

REQUIRES: Rise & Fall, Gathering Storm, Tomatekh’s Historical Religions (click here for a previous version that doesn’t need Gathering Storm)

UPDATE (2019-05-17): All civs start with a (mortal) Great Prophet; Added more prophets; overhauled beliefs so that they are now all shareable instead of selfish (e.g. "founder")

Soli Deo Gloria makes religion competitive, fun, and historical. Normally, religion is largely ignore-able. Holy Sites you build are a waste of a valuable district spot that could be a Campus or Commercial Hub. Sure, in some single-player games, with the right leader, a religious strategy can win… but in multiplayer it’s a complete waste of time.

The point of this mod is to (a) make religion a legitimate multiplayer strategy, (b) make all players pause before choosing a Campus/Commercial Hub/Industrial Zone over a Holy Site, and (c) make religion fun. I don’t want religious strategies to super-dominate… just want them to have a place at the table.

– There is no limit to the number of religions; every civilization (except Kongo) can found its own religion.

– Every civilization starts with a (mortal) Great Prophet

– There is no limit to the number of beliefs you can have in your religion, and the beliefs are not grouped into "classes". This makes religion interesting to all victory types. Even if don’t want to spam Missionaries, you might want to found a religion to get bonuses for combat strength, housing, amenities, science, culture, etc.

– The religious beliefs were all replaced. The new beliefs are all shareable (like "Work Ethic") instead of "selfish" (like "Tithe"). By selfish, I mean a belief that only gives a benefit to the founder.

This introduces a strategic element to spreading your religion, because as you do that you also spread its benefits. If your opponent has been neglecting religion altogether while your religion banks a ton of gold each turn with beliefs like "Acres of Diamond" and "Treasures In Heaven", converting his cities will make him rich at no effort on his part.

– Great Prophets are just like the other Great People. Instead of getting only one to found your religion, with SDG, you can earn subsequent Great Prophets who each add a belief to your religion. (Hence, Great Prophet points have a function beyond founding your religion.)

– Great Prophets act like religious Great Generals… they give your nearby religious units +1 movement and +5 combat strength.

– Upon founding a religion, you choose a "flavor quote" and one belief. The reason for the flavor quote is to work-around a built-in limitation.

– Apostles no longer evangelize beliefs.

– "Exodus of the Evangelicals" golden age commemoration gives 2 Great Prophet points per turn instead of 4.

– Saladin’s "The Last Prophet" was renamed to "The Prophet". It no longer gives you the last Great Prophet (because all civs can make a religion and that might take forever), but instead gives you a free Great Prophet at the dawn of the Classical era.

– New Great Prophets were added

– Regarding India… all of the beliefs in SDG give a benefit to "cities that follow this religion" and are described as such in the belief’s description. I haven’t exhaustively tested all 120 beliefs, but they all seem to benefit India’s Dharma trait. (Dharma: Receives Follower Belief bonuses in a city from each Religion that has at least 1 follower.) That, plus the fact that the world has more religions and more of these Follower-type beliefs means India should be better than normal.

– Lots of color was added to religion. Boring and generic terms were turned into more flavorful ones. There are references to polygamy, cargo cults, and "turtles all the way down". Read the civilopedia entries on the religious beliefs. I spent a lot of time on them.

Other religion mods that work with Soli Deo Gloria to customize the ruleset to your liking. My favorites start at the top:

+ OLYMPIC PANTHEONS – My most popular mod. It replaces the default Pantheons with buffed geography-based Pantheons. Choose your civ’s holy ground: Zeus for mountains, Poseidon for ocean, Apollo for pastures, Atlas for Quarries, etc.

+ REMOVE CONDEMN HERETIC – Condemn Heretic is a hard-counter to religious victories in multiplayer games. Use this mod to make religious victory viable.

+ INQUISITORS: ONLY ONE CLEANSE – I think normal Inquisitors make it too easy to defend against religious attacks. Not the hard-counter presented by Condemn Heretic, but still too much bang for the buck on religious defense. This turns Inquisitors into more of a defensive fighting unit with a one-shot cleansing sacrifice.

+ INQUISITORS: DON’T NEED AN INQUISITION – An arbitrary, unnecessary step. With SDG in place (and no condemn heretic) you sometimes need to raise a religious defense quickly.

+ INQUISITORS: PURCHASED FROM SHRINES – Again, allow players to get an Inquisitors defense going faster.

+ APOSTLE SPECIALISTS – Takes more faith to get a proselytizer, translator, or debater.

+ RELIGIOUS UNITS ONLY 2 MOVEMENT – With the default 4 movement, missionaries/apostles are faster than scouts and can cross closed borders. Fighting them is a game of "now you see them, now you don’t". This brings them to normal down the movement of normal units.

+ ALL LEVEL 3 HOLY SITE BUILDINGS AVAILABLE – Because I think the "building" beliefs (aka Worship beliefs) are lame.

+ CATHEDRALS CAN HOLD RELICS – Because they do in real life

+ KOTOKU-IN MOVED TO THEOLOGY – So that you can get the Warrior Monks when they are actually useful.

– NO PRESSURE FROM THEOLOGICAL COMBAT

– BUY A HOLY SITE BUILDING WITH GOLD OR FAITH – I don’t currently play with this… a civ’s religious infrastructure can snowball too quickly.

– DOUBLE THE BELIEFS – I don’t currently play with this… a mod I threw together quickly because it was requested in the comments below.

– MARTYRS LOSE 100 COMBAT STRENGTH – I don’t currently play with this…

– REMOVE HEATHEN CONVERSION – I don’t currently play with this…