Temples

[dvk901]

I don't want to start a big 'to-do'....well, yeah, I do...about temples...and certainly I don't want to offend anyone......but I'm torn about this because someone just suggested in the forum that we add a 'barabrian school'. I think this is a great idea, but the thing is, I know Gotthard has buildings he wants to add, and I am probably going to remove the population buildings because they don't work right anyway, as well as all the 'Imperial Naval Bases' I added (one tree, which I'll just tack onto the 'port' tree....but even so, we are sorely strapped for building trees and close to the limit.

I admit, openly, that I think there too many temples...way too many, and on the flip side, not the right temples where there should be some....like Greek Scythian Temples, or Greek style Dacian temples, or Egyptian Greek temples, or Greek Egyptian temples, or Roman Egyptian temples...all of which are historical facts.

Is it necessary that nearly 1/3 of the buildings in the game be temples dedicated to this or that specific 'god', with bonuses and results that...although 'somewhat' different, really aren't all that different? I think it's a waste, personally, and find myself just building the one with the best bonuses everywhere because I don't take the time to really figure (or care) what god the temple is for.

Couldn't we maybe just have a few for the 'main' or most popular gods of each culture, and then a sceond dedicated to the 'lesser gods' of that culture? Then have a few 'cross-cultural' temples where it is historically reasonable?

Seriously, I think having to muck around with nine temples for greeks or Romans is ridiculous.

[Squid]

I have no problem with reducing the number of temples, but the big problem is different factions/cultures have different main gods/goddesses, so who gets cut, because you can't realistically have a war god from one faction/culture be upgraded to a fertility goddess from another faction/culture.

Two temples will for sure already be cut when I get time to redo the temples, and I'm also looking at removing a couple of other to help remove the clutter:

For sure removed:

• One-god temple will be merged into the governors temple, and I'll just give extra bonuses to dacia and parthia since they can't build other temples
• Viking temple, as that building tree is very under used

Possible removes:

• Temple of fun (Dionysus, Bacchus), like the viking temple it is underused, only being available to Rome & Greek Cultures
• Temple of law, similarly under used, only available to egypt and Armenia
• One of fertility and love could also be removed, and just leave whichever of the two deities was more popular for faction/cultures which have deities in both

So right now, at least two probably five buildings will be freed up, and this is already cut back from the number of buildings used in vanilla, as the original re-alignment freed up 2 building slots as well.

My big problem with the cross culture temples, is who are the temple for, I don't think building an "Egyptian Styled Roman Temple" is good, a temple should be dedicated to some deity.

[dvk901]

That's a good start...but, why would it make any difference what god you upgraded to? If my culture's favorite god was 'X' why wouldn't I replace 'Y' with it?

The cross-cultural temple idea is simply a 'historical reality' idea. The Ptolemies, though Greek, built temples to Egyptian gods. However, in RTW, because the culture of Egypt is egyptian, all they can build is egyptian temples...though they are Greek. That, for me, is the main one. The Romans also built temples to Egyptian gods....by in fairness, that wasn't until Hadrian or so. It wouldn't even have to be a 'real' RTW temple..per se, but an added building.

Still, removing the under-used temples would help the building crunch.

[Squid]

I maybe should have given a better example, to me it doesn't seem right to replace a temple to Mars with a temple to Zeus, it would be more appropriate to replace Mars with Ares.

[Mulattothrasher]

I'll start with soem of the more popular Celtic Gods, if temples are too many right now. The only probem with decreasing them, at least for the Celts is they did not really have a pantheon of universal worship like the Romans and Greeks. Triads are known (Teutatis, Esus, and Taranis), but depends on region. One theory mentions that the only way we've human looking depictions of Celtic gods is from the Greek and Romans, who "humanized" their gods into a recognizable form. Most of the Celtic gods with a human form are of the later era. Infact, I think it was Brennus, at Delphi, that mocked the Greeks for making their gods on the level as mortal men in wood and stone. Also, a little known fact, is that the Celts did believe in somekind of Valhalla. This would help explain why they had no fear of death, thought nothing of fighting naked, and like the gaesatae at Telamon, would be at the forefront of battle. Of course Valhalla is an aspect of popular Germanic/Viking mythology, but the Celts had their version as well. Anyway, if only the most popular/widespread god can make it, then these are some for consideration:


Sucellos ('Hammer Striker'). Also know as the hammer god. Among the oldest and most common of the Celtic gods. In Celtic myth he is the creator of the world. His hammer is not really one of war, but also for the vine (wine) and justice.

Lug (Irish: Lugh, Welsh: Lleu. 'Shining/Bright One'). Likely a sun god and was associated with the raven (lugos). Lugdunum was a town named after this god, who was known in Britain, Gaul, and Spain. Other cities of his are Lyon, Leon, Loudan, Laon, Leiden, Leignitz, and Carlisle, which was formerly Luguvalium. The month of August in the Celtic languages is Lunasa (Irish), Luanistyn (Manx), and Lunasad (Scottish)

Ogmios (Irish: Ogma, British: Ogmia). Was the Celtic god of literature, learning, and eloquence. Lucian identified him with Heracles/Hercules, and in their stories both have comparable parentage and adventures. In Britain he is depicted with long curly hair, and rays of sunlight coming from his head. In Ireland he is the creator of the Ogham script which bears his name.

Camulos was the Celtic god of war. Inscriptions and votive offerings have been found in Mainz, Dalmatia, Scotland, Reims, and places in between. Camulodunum (Colchester), town and capitol of the Trinovantes in Britain bears his name, as does the Camulossea in Scotland. In Ireland, possibly know as Cumal.

Cernunnos ('Horned One'). The 'Lord of beasts'. Often depicted with stag antlers. His zoomorphic form had been discovered in Britain with stag antlers and legs with snakes bearing ram's horns., and is sometimes accompanied by a ram horned snake. One depiction was found where he is feeding this snake. In other carvings hes with a female who also has the stag antlers.

Brigandu/Brigando (Irish: Brigit, 'Exalted One'). Fertility goddess. The British tribe of the Brigantines bears her name and she seems to only be an insular (found only in the British Isles) not continental goddess.

Danuv (English: Danu). The goddess who names is found in the river Danube.

Epomaros ('great horseman', or 'the great stallion') & Epona ('divine mare') who is the goddess of horses and fertility.

Ok, I'm tired of writing. Here some others, some are lesser known but add flavor than the popular Celtic gods and goddesses:

Devos or Deiwos (the 'good god'), Taranis (the 'thunderer'), Esus (the 'good lord'), Cimiacinus (god of roads), Dumias (earth, hills, and mounds), Grannos and Bormo (hot springs, healing, burning, light), Belenos (the 'shinning one', sun god), Maponos (youthfulness), Tutatis (god of tribes), Braciaca (malt, beer), Dispater (the dead, growth, fertility), Silvanos or Silvanus (forests, woods, vegeatation), Artio ('Bear', forest goddess), Nantosuelta (the flowing stream), Andarta (fertility goddess), Belesama (buring, shinning).

[Mulattothrasher]

Alright, I'm not partial to any of the Celtic gods, so y'all pick which ones get into the game. My proposal on the temple/worship/religious offering scheme for the Celts and Germans (not sure on Iberians and Dacians...yet) is an aboveground site, underground/pit site, and a river/water/lake offering site of sorts. The allows for at least 3 kinds of religious sites.


All this is from The World of the Celts by Simon James


Underground/Pit/Shaft:


This is a Celtic version of a shaft dug and filled in with offerings and soil of course. Its most common in Britain but found across Europe, so I'd assume all the barbarian factions can get these.


Aboveground/Forest/Grove


The Celtic word for shrine or sanctuary is nemeton. Again, this is Celtic version of a temple. Germanic like this above ground I am unsure on. However, a sacred grove or forest enclosure will work as another aboveground site, but obviously with a bit less of a happiness effect. The Galatians had the famous Drunemeton ('oak sanctuary') in Galatia, but its exact whereabouts are unknown. While the name nemeton would only be for the Celtic factions, an aboveground holy grove, forest, clearing, or something to that effect can be for all the barbarian factions. Some of these excavated in Celtic areas feature hundreds of human and animal bones.



River/Water/Lake
No real picture needed here as you'd either wade out in the water or walk along a pier or something and toss the offering in. Best example I can think of is the town of La Tene which is a seaside settlement that gave us the name for the latter half of Celtic artifacts. The famous Battersea shield was found in the Thames, and coins, helmets, swords, have been found in holy lakes, pools, and other watery sites. These would likely be best for goddess like



Southern Gaul/Iberia/Massilia


This was found in the region of the Saluvi Gauls in southeast Gaul. Believed to show influence from the Massilians and their own shrines, while the skulls in the lintel (upright stone frame) show he importance of the human head to Celtic and Iberian cultures. This can be a unique building just for the towns in Gaul nearest Massilia.
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[Mulattothrasher]

Almost forgot. Dacian temples and info

All from a book called Roman Dacia: The Making of A Provincial Society. Edited by W.S. Hanson and I.P. Haynes


Forts
Settlements of Dacia differ than the 'oppida' in the West. It appears that in some areas, the defensive site included dwellings, industrial and religious areas, eastern settlements were usually much smaller 'citadels' with any religious or industrial areas located outside the walls.

The most significant type of wall is know as murus dacicus while others are ditch and bank sites. Thought to be a technique originate by the Greeks, the creation of the walls are two faced of unmortared blocks laced with timber bams and having a core of earth and rubble. Used to construct free standing defensive walls, walls to support terraces, and towers, and seems to denote 'high-status' settlements. Other are simple ditch and bank fortifications, or ditch and bank fortifications with local boulders forming a wall with clay mortar.




Sancturaries
Mainly identified and circular and rectangular, although both types are relatively rare.

Circular sanctuaries range from a simple series of post holes around a clay platform, such as at Pecica, or ones of two cocentric circles of posts and a central platform of stone. The 'Great Circular Sanctuary' at Gradistea Muncelului has three concentric rings. The outer circle has two rows of andestite block:the outer with rectangular blocks (50 cm thick, 45 cm high) and the inner row with a pattern of 6 narrow tall pillars interspersed with a single low lying flat block. The andestite block was possibly brought from a distance of 35-40 km away, thu the site must have carried great significance.

Rectangular sanctuaries usually consist of lines of stone bases, usually circular or sub-circular, laid out in such a way as to form a rectangular foundation. One site at Piatra Craivii has the richest and deepest deposits on the the site, even a 'ritual pit' with animal bones and pottery fragments.



Burials
-A tumulus near Costesti contained a creamation burial accopanied with pottery, weapons, crt fittings, and 13 bronze coins of Histria. A 'ritual pit' found nearby contained, among others, a silver plaque.

- At Tilisca Sibui county, two cremations and a pyre were found, both in shallow pits. The first with an abundance of silver jewelry, including a necklace with 'teeth' pendants and several fibulae, deliberately cut into the pieces. The second burial was poorer, with some iron work fragments, and some silver and glass beads. The first dates the the st century B.C., and second to the 2nd or 1st century B.C.

- One dated to the 2nd century B.C. in Blandiana, Alba country, was founded in 1979 washed out along the bank of the Mures. Contained a curved Dacian iron dagger, a fragment of an iron sheath, a spearhead, iron buckle, and a highly ornate horse bit. Another one from Alba county was a chance find with two jigs, a bent spearhead, and a curved knife. It dates to the 2nd or 1st century B.C.

















I will expand upon these Dacian temples best I can later.
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[cherryfunk]

I agree that there are too many temples for some cultures. Personally I think 4-5 should be the maximum, more than that and the player can't wrap his head around them. Too many options is sometimes worse than too few.

For each culture, we should pick a military temple, health temple, law temple, agriculture/growth temple, maybe one or two more. Perhaps the Greeks could have a larger selection, but not as large as it is now; I can never be bothered to look through them all.

Alright, I'm not partial to any of the Celtic gods, so y'all pick which ones get into the game. My proposal on the temple/worship/religious offering scheme for the Celts and Germans (not sure on Iberians and Dacians...yet) is an aboveground site, underground/pit site, and a river/water/lake offering site of sorts. The allows for at least 3 kinds of religious sites.

This makes sense. There's no doubt that water sites were of great importance.

[rory o'kane]

I just build Temples to Jupiter everywhere - they give the greatest Law bonus, y'see.
From what I can tell, the Romans are able to build 5 different temples in the Beta, which seems like a reasonable amount, and I think it'd be best to leave it at that.
DVK, by "population buildings", does that mean you're getting rid of Suburbs and grain export/import buildings?

[dvk901]

Well, now that I think of it, the suburbs and population buildings I combined into one tree.....so maybe I won't remove it. It could still be useful for something. No to grain buildings, they will stay.

I have a suggestion concerning temples:

In order for their to be a 'temple' in a settlement on the battlemap, you need to build one of the standard of RTW temples that's in the 'settlement_plan'. That's one building tree, shared by all five cultures.

Could all the others be 'multi-purpose' or 'multi-choice' non-RTW temple trees where you could build a choice of different temple 'shrines'...or just a 'temple' to different gods? This would involve say, five trees...one per culture (or more if necessary) where you could have 8 choices of a temple to build. You build a 'base' building, and then 7-8 different temple choices to this god or that would be available. This way, you could still have all the gods in the game (as many as possible,anyway), but they would be one-time temples that don't get upgraded. The other 'RTW' temple would be upgradable, and dedicated to a 'main god' of the culture. Also, you would be able to have two temples in a settlement this way.

I know this gets rid of the temple of law, governor, love, etc.....but I don't see the historical validity of that anyway.

[Squid]

Well, now that I think of it, the suburbs and population buildings I combined into one tree.....so maybe I won't remove it. It could still be useful for something. No to grain buildings, they will stay.

I have a suggestion concerning temples:

In order for their to be a 'temple' in a settlement on the battlemap, you need to build one of the standard of RTW temples that's in the 'settlement_plan'. That's one building tree, shared by all five cultures.

Could all the others be 'multi-purpose' or 'multi-choice' non-RTW temple trees where you could build a choice of different temple 'shrines'...or just a 'temple' to different gods? This would involve say, five trees...one per culture (or more if necessary) where you could have 8 choices of a temple to build. You build a 'base' building, and then 7-8 different temple choices to this god or that would be available. This way, you could still have all the gods in the game (as many as possible,anyway), but they would be one-time temples that don't get upgraded. The other 'RTW' temple would be upgradable, and dedicated to a 'main god' of the culture. Also, you would be able to have two temples in a settlement this way.

I know this gets rid of the temple of law, governor, love, etc.....but I don't see the historical validity of that anyway.

Yes, but most factions and cultures didn't have one main god, Greek culture had arguably 5 or 6 main deities with numerous minor one, Rome as about the same, the German tribes had 3 main gods, as did the Celtic tribes, which one of the main gods are you going to make the main god. This also brings back my original point, if you choose say Mars as the main deity for the Romans and Zeus for the Greeks, this means you'd be upgrading a temple of Zeus to a temple of Mars which makes no sense historically.

As for the historical validity of various temple building trees, this is the only way in RTW to represent that not every place on the map build a temple to the same deity, since we can't do descriptions based on location. A modified form of the current structure makes more historical sense then forcing everyone to build the same temple in each and every city. Too little selection was why the original temple restructuring was done.

For the settlement plan stuff, currently only the temple_of_battle appears on the battle map, changing this to include all temples should actually be pretty easy, just add whichever temples you want to appear into the building lists where ever you see temple_of_battle. I can test this with 1.5 if desired.

[rory o'kane]

RTR has this - you build a Shrine to god X, and then "Minor Shrines" to 2-4 other gods become available, and you can build all of them, if you like. Your Shrine can be upgraded as normal (all the way up to Pantheon), but the Minor Shrines can only be upgraded once each, to a "Minor Temple of..." - I always liked that idea, that way your settlement has a patron deity but still pays homage to the other major Gods in that faction's pantheon.
this system was applied to the barbs too, with "Minor Sacred Groves" and the like, by the way.

[cherryfunk]

Could all the others be 'multi-purpose' or 'multi-choice' non-RTW temple trees where you could build a choice of different temple 'shrines'...or just a 'temple' to different gods? This would involve say, five trees...one per culture (or more if necessary) where you could have 8 choices of a temple to build. You build a 'base' building, and then 7-8 different temple choices to this god or that would be available. This way, you could still have all the gods in the game (as many as possible,anyway), but they would be one-time temples that don't get upgraded. The other 'RTW' temple would be upgradable, and dedicated to a 'main god' of the culture. Also, you would be able to have two temples in a settlement this way.

This would be okay as long as the overall number of possible temples/shrines was cut down to 4-5, otherwise they really clutter up the building menu.

[Squid]

While I agree that for the Greeks there are too many, though part of me does like having a lot of choice, bringing it back down to 4 or 5 brings us back to vanilla in terms of choice, which we wanted to get away from.

[rory o'kane]

Ah, but unlike Vanilla we can now have the option of having more than one temple per settlement...

[Squid]

Vanilla with (very) minor tweaking had that option as well, it's not like it took a lot of work to do. This is also wasn't cherry's point, his was clutter on the building browser, and as the Greeks (and to a lesser extent the Romans) there's clutter, the other cultures/factions aren't cluttered (or at least very minimally). It comes down to you can't have more options without more clutter, they come as a package deal.

I ask the question again, who gets cut? Some that can be cut are obvious, others not so much so. There's still the issue that no one has talked to, which is this plan requires one single deity to be used in every settlement. First that isn't options, that's you have to do it this way. I don't necessarily want the same god to be the patron god of each and every settlement. Second since most cultures/factions had more than one main god/goddess, which do you choose to force down all players throats? Historically, except for a few notable exceptions (gatae, parthia) none of the cultures really worshiped one of their deities to the exclusion or minimization of the others.

I'm not saying there doesn't need to be changes or improvement, but throwing everything out because the greeks have too many options isn't reasonable either. The number of greek/roman temples can be cut back to match everyone else (including those lost through removal of temple buildings). Also multiple temples was previously discussed in the dev2 forums, and Gotthard and I came up with what, at the time, people thought was a reasonable reworking of the system (subject to balance).

[cherryfunk]

At a certain point more becomes less. 10 or 12 is far too many. 4 or 5 is plenty. At six, my eyes start to glaze over. I would really hate to have six or more temple options on every city, that never go away because all of them can be built. That would just suck. Temples are a fairly minor building tree, we're giving them too much prominence if you ask me.

[Squid]

Temple were not minor back then, looks at the size and scope of those that still exist today, they were huge, and those are only the major one, for each of those there were hundreds (thousands?) of smaller shrines.

If we are portraying them as minor then we aren't doing of good job of portraying them.

[dvk901]

I don't see how having a multiple choice building tree limits variety or choices?
In ONE building tree, you could have Zeus, Athena, Posiden, Ares or whatever Greek god you preferred in any settlement you like. The very same tree can be 7-8 Egyptian gods, or Roman gods, or Eastern, Barbarian, etc.
So in this sense, no god has to get cut...they would just all have a temple in one or two trees.

This would give us the opportunity, I think, to have even 'faction-specific' favored gods......Roman-Jupiter, Sparta-Mars, Parthia-(their one god), Pergamon-Athena, Carthage-Baal (or another), Egypt-....well, you see what I mean. The Belgae, Arverni, Cimbri, Gallaecians, Scythians and Sarmatians must've also had a 'favored' god.

'Upgrading' a temple would've historically been a rare (if at all) event....they would've just built a new bigger one.

As far as whether I would replace a temple of Mars with Zeus...of course you wouldn't do that. Jupiter was the equivolent of Zeus. But if I were Roman, upgrading a captured Spartan city...why would it be so odd to upgrade the temple to Zeus? As a player, I'd want it to 'my' god, not someone else's.

[Squid]

I'm obviously not expressing my concerns with the problem well. I'll try and start again. First off I would like to be able to see multiple temples in a settlement.

Second, from what I understand, dvk's proposal is as follows:

1. One temple building tree as now with one main deity for each faction/culture
2. Multiple single level (with a base) multi temple building trees

My concerns with this are as follows:

Point 1

• The settlement_plan reasoning is not valid, and can be easily fixed (I was thinking of doing it for 1.5b as a test run)
• With few exceptions no faction/culture had a single main deity, they had collections of them, Greek (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades), Roman (Jupiter, Mars), etc
• This forces the major temple in each and every settlement of a faction to be to the same deity (i.e. no choice)
• Upgrading of deities when a settlement is captured, for faction A, say their main deity is a god of war, while for faction B is it a god of farming, with the one main temple idea, if faction B captures a settlement from faction A, then they'd be upgrading a war temple to a farming temple, and this doesn't make sense

Point 2

I like this idea for the variety of minor deities or minor temples to major deities, but this would still provide a lot of clutter, as you would see 7-8 temples once you built the base level.

Other Concerns

• Temple were upgraded and expanded over time, or completely replaced (which despite the poor implementation) is how it can be view that rtw handles building upgrades. Though it may take longer then we're allowing in build times.

Summary of original plan put together by Gotthard and I (over in dev2)

• Each faction get three groups of three temples
• One temple from each group of three can be built, this means three temples total per settlement, only one of the three temple can progress past the second level (i.e. become the patron deity)
• Any additional temple building trees can be the single level multi temple building tree with a base level

I'll re-iterate my last post again, if as Tone says we're portraying temples to be a minor building, then we are portraying them incorrectly.