ABSTRACT
This chapter discuses rule-based representation of religion in video games and investigates how we can formally analyze it. Vít Šisler uses Petri net, a mathematical modeling language, to represent actions players can take in video games and their possible outcomes. He details Petri net graphical notation and provides step-by-step guidelines on how to use it for a formal analysis of gameplay. Vít Šisler illustrates the use of Petri net in an analysis of rule-based representations of Catholic Christianity, Sunni Islam, and Iroquois religious beliefs in the strategy game, Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs. He argues that, on a rule-system level, all three religions are schematized and reduced to a system of effects and bonuses that makes players more economically and military powerful. Nevertheless, while the rule-based representations of Catholic Christianity and Sunni Islam are almost identical, the representation of Iroquois religious beliefs differs significantly from these two and manifests a post-colonial bias.
