Hi

Im doing a total war style empire builder set in a near dystopic post-nuclear war world. Factions fight for control of the ruins of the old cities on the world map. Its orwellian style with mass survielliance, public exhecutions etc.

You must push your ideology/religion (called dogma from now on) on the cities you conquer or suffer unrest (each city has a percentage of followers to each dogma). Some buildings push the population towards "your dogma" at the expense of other dogmas present in the city.

What could be a feasable/interesting setup? I dont want to just put all the old religions and add socialism and capitalism (both sort of economy-based), seems boring and too much 20th century. But the biggest religions should probably fit into the mix somehow. The leaders for a faction could have non-religous dogma while the faction next to it persuits a dogma with the traditional religion of the region (to make clashes more likely). For example, several empires could start in the US, but they would have different dogmas.

Lets go nuts! Im aiming for a rather harsh scenario:)

A draft could be:

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Litteral Christianity (towards born-again, fundamentalism)

Ritual Christianity (eatern, catholisism)

Sunni Islam

Shia Islam

Hinduism

Buddism

Uniformal theism (some new religion?

Absolutism (give all power to the supreme ruler)

Informationalism (technology/knowledge is god)

Supremacism (our group is above all other)

Conservatism (do not change, what is is good)

But for fun, the religions should maybe have morph a little bit? After all, the world has nearly ended.

IF your game is at least somewhat sci-fi / fantasy, it would be a VERY good idea to think twice before adding real world religions.

Religion is a VERY touchy subject for many, and you are practically setting yourself up for controversy and trouble if you use symbols and/or names of actually existing religions.

If that controversy is exactly what you are after, then of course go forward with it. After all, political correctness (or in this case religious correctness) always walks a fine line between keeping the social peace and censorship.

If you are not after such artsy goals of provoking discussion with your game, I would instead go with newly invented religions. You could even base them on real world religions, as long as you keep a "could be, or could be not, who knows" distance to the realworld counterparts.

That will allow you to even target some of the more controvers aspects of religions, that many religious people would rather not see brought up again. And you have a much lower chance to hurt any religious feelings.

You already brought up how to do it in your last sentence... I think you shouldn't do it just for fun, but also out of necissity.

One last point to keep in mind is that EVERY army in history, up to modern times has some kind of warrior cult, some weird mixture of necessary rules and religious superstition that unites its soldiers. These might sometimes be rooted in a religion, or they might have started as a secular thing, but without exception at some point it becomes a crude mixture of superstition, nationalism, and self-awarness.

Examples are the weird cult around the flag of the nation and unit in question, the sometimes silly traditions around medals and other signs of rank and achievments, the cult around the death which extends to modern military.

So you really don't need to base your faction in an existing religion, or ANY religion to give it a religious touch. Every army or band of armed men will start to form their own warrior cult. And even if these men are very religious, this cult will still be there and often deviate far from the normal practices of the religion (see why many knightly orders at some point got into trouble with the catholic church... of course the real reason was because they became too powerful and too less reliant on the church. But their sometimes weird rituals where often making it easy for the church to call them heretics).

Religion is not some static thing "set in stone", no matter what some religious leaders would like you to believe. Its an evolving thing, often changing form, and sometimes also changing name.

Given enough time, religions will look VERY different, and even within the same religion, there are a lot of differences between different sects.

A very useful answer. However, in 30-60 years i dont think religions that has been around for millenia will be entierly gone:) Even with massive nuclear destruction.

I am looking for feedback on the non-religous dogmas I presented (and to add more), as well as ideas on how to possibly morph existing religions to a post-nuclear holocaust setting. Much details aren't needed, I simply use a name (and some logic to what cities could start of with some of this dogma, to give the earth in my game some character).

Such as:

Northwest africa started a neo-caliphate-fascism --> new dogma called "Calislam"

Tibetan monks hooked up to the ultranet, found enlightenment --> "Laserbuddism"

From the ashes of Berlin rose the dogma of "Universal Revengism"

Just.... better than that!

"A Canticle for Leibowitz" is an excellent read on the topic of post-nuclear holocaust religion. Modern artifacts and writings are preserved by hand copying in catholic monasteries. Nobody understands the content, but it's sort of a religious text they feel duty bound to preserve. You could have some sort of religious reverence for past golden age without really understanding it. Maybe there's a holy smartphone that somebody must be speaking into at all times, it's long broken but the act is now symbolic.

"Dune" had the Butlerian Jihad, a popular uprising against artificial intelligence. A rejection of modernity seems like a reasonable post-nuclear war reaction.

Nuclear mutation could be a hot button religious issue. Are they inferior and unclean? Still human souls and thus deserving of protection? Or are they the next stage in humanity?

Especially in isolated regions, technological witch cults could pop up, sort of blends of technology and magic. If someone has a bad infection the witches could brew up a potion of frog eyes and bat wings and the hair of the sick and some antibiotics pilfered from an old pharmacy. Believers think it's magic, practitioners might as well (or they could be slick con men)

I imagine the "Book of Revelations" would be a popular source of religious understanding, that this is the dark days when Satan rules the Earth.

I bet "cleansing" imagery would also be popular, either prophets who claim to have the power, or some sort of religious covenant promising that God will cleanse the world soon. A transformation of the deadly fallout zones where no man may tread into a safe and verdant field would be an alluring miracle.

My game is not all the way to "fallout" setting with wasteland shamanism. There is still industry, factories, a growing infrastructure. Cities in the rubble of the old cities. Big modern armies

Think more of a world like

"1984" (George Orwell book)

"Hunger games"

"bladerunner"

"fifth element"

"halflife" (the games)

"warhammer 40k".

Megafactions waging endless war and supressed masses and total propaganda. What kind of oppossing dogmas could one devise in that setting?