Taxing Religions/Secret Societies

[fodder]

honestly... if it's a gold sink that can't be taken back out as gold, and if the stuff in the sink can be used to do religion related stuff (building, feasts, processions, relic expeditions, whatever), then people won't be using it as banks.

in short, probably every few levels should offer some exotic benefits.. (that is.. people pay a bit for the benefit, rather than just gratis)

people can pay gold to pray in a temple (really old temples from before religion) for morale boost or something, so why can't they do the same with player temples?

[JPierreD]

Instead of making temples less useful, why not giving them more power? The chance to promote donations from the local peasantry, which would help the temple finance but directly affect the Lord's tax income, creating some tension, for example. Instead of a money drain, the temple becomes an economic weapon, as long as you can maintain the politic state of tension manageable.

So, say your religion has 100% followers, you might be able to snatch away say 10% of the Lord's taxes. If you have just 10% followers, you can get something like 1% of the Lord's taxes. Some Lords won't mind (they would actually prefer it rather than having to deposit manually every time), but some Lords will, and then hilarity ensures! 

[Draco Tanos]

That's actually an interesting idea.  Certainly creates a dynamic between religious and secular authorities.

[Ramiel]

more carrot less stick basically...

[Solari]

Religions require the patronage of lords and ladies.  That's just how it is.  Taxing temples is a good thing, because it serves to reward regions which have a healthy and active temple with a cut of the temple's proceeds.  It makes lords and ladies co-owners in a little enterprise. 

This is equally beneficial for religions as well, as it makes housing a temple (or guild, for that matter) a slightly more attractive proposition than it otherwise would have been, while tempering some of the "tax shelter" anger.

[Chenier]

Religions require the patronage of lords and ladies.  That's just how it is.  Taxing temples is a good thing, because it serves to reward regions which have a healthy and active temple with a cut of the temple's proceeds.  It makes lords and ladies co-owners in a little enterprise. 

That brings the following question, would you rather have the select few financially healthy religions remain and become struggling faiths while all the other religions of the game are disbanded and/or forced into unofficial status, or would you rather play in a game that has more than one or two struggling religions per continent? Because this change will be a coup de grace for struggling faiths, and will make all other religions that aren't actively supported by many rich dukes join the club of the struggling faiths.

This is equally beneficial for religions as well, as it makes housing a temple (or guild, for that matter) a slightly more attractive proposition than it otherwise would have been, while tempering some of the "tax shelter" anger.

Uhhh... how? More temples = more financial burder for the religion. So it might encourage lords to build temples where there is not enough peasants to justify it and where priests are unable to go preach to rentabilize it. It was already as easy as it could be to have temples built, all you had to do is send a bit of gold to the lord and he was willing to build the temple in 99% of the cases as it was in his interests that his serfs not follow another religion.

[fodder]

solari meant making housing temple/guild more attractive for the lord.

the big problem with that a lord can't just let someone slap up a guild/temple in the region. he has to be the one who builds it, that means joining religion/guild. which basically means if he wants a whole bunch of them, he'll join the lot of them.

not a problem for guilds. but you can't just go around skipping religions.

[Sacha]

That brings the following question, would you rather have the select few financially healthy religions remain and become struggling faiths while all the other religions of the game are disbanded and/or forced into unofficial status, or would you rather play in a game that has more than one or two struggling religions per continent? Because this change will be a coup de grace for struggling faiths, and will make all other religions that aren't actively supported by many rich dukes join the club of the struggling faiths.

Hell mother!@#$ing yes. Separate the chaff from the wheat.

[Indirik]

That's just how it is.  Taxing temples is a good thing, because it serves to reward regions which have a healthy and active temple with a cut of the temple's proceeds.  It makes lords and ladies co-owners in a little enterprise. 

That's if you define "healthy and active" as "a place where lots of people try to store gold". From what I can tell, people store gold where it is convenient for them. That usually means the region in which they are lord, or the temple in the capital, or whatever city they frequent. Not some out of the way badlands who's lord is constantly asking you to store your excess gold in his region.

This is equally beneficial for religions as well, as it makes housing a temple (or guild, for that matter) a slightly more attractive proposition than it otherwise would have been, while tempering some of the "tax shelter" anger.

Given the cost of a temple, the fact that the lord will almost certainly be the one tasked with making sure it doesn't fall apart, and the long-term nature of any possible returns, I'm not necessarily so sure I agree with this. Unless you're the lord of the capital, or some other region that happens to hold some extreme significance to the religion (such as Caiyun for Sangus Astroism), or maybe even an elder who happens to be a lord, then I really don't see this as being any possible form of "money maker" for a lord.

[Indirik]

That brings the following question, would you rather have the select few financially healthy religions remain and become struggling faiths while all the other religions of the game are disbanded?

Personally, I've always felt that we've had too many religions in the game. (And no, this is not a snarky comment, I'm serious.) IMO, in order to get true multi-realm religions going, that have the power to actually influence politics on anything other than a local, single realm nature, we need fewer religions overall. Too many localized, fringe religions end up just taking up space that could be more effectively used by a bigger religion with more ambition.

[Galvez]

Unfortunately, there seems to be some kind of taboo for (many) religions to influence politics.

[Indirik]

Many players think that the key to spreading across multiple realms is to be apolitical. IMO that's the wrong position to take. You need to attract high ranking realm members that will use their political power to help spread your faith. This requires the kind of player that is willing to give the religion the importance in their character's life that it should have. Too many players fear that religion will challenge their power, when they should be using it to help gain more power.

[Phellan]

Many players think that the key to spreading across multiple realms is to be apolitical. IMO that's the wrong position to take. You need to attract high ranking realm members that will use their political power to help spread your faith. This requires the kind of player that is willing to give the religion the importance in their character's life that it should have. Too many players fear that religion will challenge their power, when they should be using it to help gain more power.

We played the political game with the Order - it ends up being like a unloved Realm.   Other Realms dont like it when you influence their politics, they get angry, and burn your temples to the ground, destroy your buildings, and generally attack your priests, while the Realm hosting you either can sit idly by and watch, OR try to defend you and get beat up by everyone because the rest of the Realms like to join in on the beat down to keep out TMP.

Priests and Temples don't have enough influence to play political games UNLESS they are already appointed to regions and your host Realm is incredibly strong.   Generally playing political games with a faith is the best way to ensure you DON'T have a faith.   It's a lot easier to piss off a Realm than convince even a few of their Lords that you might be useful.

It's far easier to play nice with a few Realms, be apolitical, and build up your inter-realm player base that way.    Then those realms fight and you end up with your own faith fighting each other for land.   

Outside of SA Ive yet to see a faith that actually holds much power for very long - generally because pushing political goals gets you owned as a Faith very very quickly.    Everytime a region changes hands theres a good chance you'll lose the temples there - and if you'll be playing with fire taking it back if your own Realm isn't 100% your faith.

[De-Legro]

We played the political game with the Order - it ends up being like a unloved Realm.   Other Realms dont like it when you influence their politics, they get angry, and burn your temples to the ground, destroy your buildings, and generally attack your priests, while the Realm hosting you either can sit idly by and watch, OR try to defend you and get beat up by everyone because the rest of the Realms like to join in on the beat down to keep out TMP.

Priests and Temples don't have enough influence to play political games UNLESS they are already appointed to regions and your host Realm is incredibly strong.   Generally playing political games with a faith is the best way to ensure you DON'T have a faith.   It's a lot easier to piss off a Realm than convince even a few of their Lords that you might be useful.

It's far easier to play nice with a few Realms, be apolitical, and build up your inter-realm player base that way.    Then those realms fight and you end up with your own faith fighting each other for land.   

Outside of SA Ive yet to see a faith that actually holds much power for very long - generally because pushing political goals gets you owned as a Faith very very quickly.    Everytime a region changes hands theres a good chance you'll lose the temples there - and if you'll be playing with fire taking it back if your own Realm isn't 100% your faith.

Probably means you didn't set things up right BEFORE pushing political goals. For a religion to work well in the political arena, you have to make sure you have strong noble support, so either have the support of a VERY dominant realm, or ensure you have support from powerful nobles within the realm you are trying to influence. If in response to your attempts to influence politics people are burning down your temples, you probably jumped the gun.

[Phellan]

Probably means you didn't set things up right BEFORE pushing political goals. For a religion to work well in the political arena, you have to make sure you have strong noble support, so either have the support of a VERY dominant realm, or ensure you have support from powerful nobles within the realm you are trying to influence. If in response to your attempts to influence politics people are burning down your temples, you probably jumped the gun.

Actually we've not played the political game in 3-4 years, and we STILL have people burn down our temples because they remember when we successfully did it with Nighthelm at our back.