I think nobles in BM don't car about religion, because of the added authority over you an the lack of benefit but presence of penalty (religion does something bad, you can look bad because of it and the major one of gold. You need to give gold to expand and maintain but expanding your religion really gives no benefit to any but those on top because they look god for making a large religion. It's like a ruler and dukes trying to get more nobles but they don't tax any of their peasants so no one gets anything but they still need to pay for troops and pay to maintain their regions. Sure they have have an interesting role play in the start but since they don't have much nobles, the ruler and dukes aren't even that active either. That is how religion currently is done, IMO.
I agree. Also, religions being total money pits drive away more ambitious people like myself. I've just grown really tired of having weak priests and being forced to spend thousands and thousands of gold just to keep the faith dominant in the regions I operate. It's really reward-free in most cases.
If faith was at least gold-positive, then at least it would really incite people to spread the faith, especially beyond the realm's border, in order to cash in more gold.
I have been having my characters join the less tolerant religions, or those that look from the outside like they would be more confrontational. (Church of Sartan and Hemaism)
Hemaism? Confrontational? You mean, you joined the sole theocracy of BT, who worship a god of destruction and have for years and years and years, and yet have never done any religious persecution (aside from maybe when they were founded), and that had like two lines of wiki text prior to the third invasion, and just a few more since? Oh yea, Hemaism totally sounds like the most exciting religion ever...
And unfortunately, those of us who'd like to drive a religion they lead to hold a harder stance really can't without bleeding a lot of followers because of stances like that. So with the CoH, I have to try to keep us as defensive in mindset rather than as aggressive as I'd like at times.
Too many players in BM try to bring "religious freedom" or "religion shouldn't be in politics" arguments into the game. It's hard to dispute it because they act like you're the crazy one. *sigh*
Keeping religion out of politics is totally understandable... religion founders can't be rebelled against, can't be protested out, there are never any elections... To give a religion political power is to give one guy unprecedented and unrevokable power. Who wants yet another boss? One they don't ever get to chose? One who never has to really care for public opinion, because, after all, he's a prophet sent by the gods and they've told him the Truth and the True Path to follow?
I've tried uniting various faiths into various umbrella multi-diety pantheons. But it never worked. The main obstacle? It's not the change of one's religion name, or the loss of the followers, or even the loss of the thousands of gold's worth of temples. It's that all ambitious religious types want to be at the top. Nobody wants to be second rank to anyone else. Why? Because whoever's at the top can demote everyone else as they please. And nobody holds that kind of power over the people below them anywhere else than in guilds and religions. When sharing political power, it's easy for someone to agree to let the other be ruler in exchange for being duke or judge. Because the ruler can't just take it away. However, nobody wants to cede their religious authority to have rank #2, because in terms of security of keeping one's power, it's the same as having rank #89. And if you didn't want to become a priest, it's the same as having rank #99. As such, it's pretty much impossible to get ambitious people to work together in any established continent to create something to be reckoned with, because there can only be one person at rank #1.