Religion Feature Request: Declare Characters Anathema

[Vellos]

Title: Declare Character Anathema

Summary: Allow religions to declare a character anathema, causing a semi-random chance of that character being mobbed by faithful peasantry when they are in areas with high follower amounts of the declaring religion.

Details:
Provide religions an option to declare a noble anathema. Cap the number of nobles who can be anathematized at any given time at the number of priests in the religion. Any elder can declare a noble anathema. Nobles who have been declared anathema shall have a chance of being mobbed by peasants loyal to the religion in question. That chance is determined by 1) The size of the character's unit (bigger unit, lower chance) and 2) the number of followers of the anathematizing religion(s) in the region relative to the number of followers of religions who have not declared the noble anathema

The relative calculation is important. If a noble is declared anathema by 3 religions, no religion's chance of mobbing the poor sod should be harmed by the fact that there are other religions who have also declared him anathema. In most instances this won't matter, but it could in some, especially if/when schisms are introduced. A mere "% of population following anathematizing religion" is not enough. It needs to be "% of population (less other anathematizing religions) following anathematizing religion." Though if that's hard to code, it's probably a marginal issue.

Whatever the case, it would follow the same mechanics as other peasant mobbing mechanics present in BM– random highwaymen, auto da fes and riots, etc, etc. I don't know which exact model would be best, but chance of wounding, gold loss, and soldiers being killed seems right.

If an anathematized person has a lordship, followers of the anathematizing religion should also have a decline in loyalty.

Benefits:
First, this fills a realism hole in the game. This is a very medieval feature. Second, this would create conflict between religions and realms with which they may be otherwise buddy-buddy. A politically useful but religiously inconvenient person would create church-state conflict even in religiously aligned states (see: Morek/Bowie Ironsides/Astroism). This would create a tool for pursuing that which is unlike other tools. Infiltrators are clumsy tools for such a task, and are one-hit wonders. This creates a passive force by which religions could punish individual evildoers. But, again, while it strengthens the religion game, it doesn't give it any superpowers. Anathematized persons could flee to heathen lands, where only wars and assassins can reach them. Or they can travel with soldiers in tow, and have satisfying opportunities to slaughter peasant mobs that rise against them. This is a feature which grants some clout, and individual, pointed clout, to religions, but, again, which is fully dependent on their own ability to pursue these actions (getting high conversion rates), and which does not replace, but rather augments, RP.

Possible Exploits:
My concern is not so much exploitation as fairness. We say you do not have a right to play wherever you want. But this feature could really test that proposition. In the case of Astroism, a player would have to change class away from any non-unit-accompanied class and always have a good-sized unit, and/or a player would have to go to Fissoa, Falkirk, or Aurvandil. Everywhere else has substantive Astroist populations. I'm okay with that, but the repercussions for such forced exile and negative pushing to soldier classes could cause some bad feeling. Especially if multiple religions started anathematizing the same person, they could find the continent very unwelcoming very quickly.

[Psyche]

Actually, this would give strong chance to the idea of a passive religious realm.  Deploy militia, and declare any trespassers anathema.  Might not fight off huge invasions, but could be feasible for more even matched realms.
For example, Shadowism on the Colonies has a lot of priests, and ties to the Assassins and Minas Thalion.   Lukon is trying to setup s city-state empire in the Colonies.  Should a small state, say Wetham, try to invade Shadowism lands they'd get their asses handed to them..... kind of silly.

[Vellos]

You could only declare as many nobles anathema as you have priests.

And if you have soldiers, you'd be less likely to get mobbed in the first place.

But frankly, if a realm with an army of, say, 5 nobles and little money to buy reasonably sized units decides to attack an empire with the political support of a religion with 5 priests (which is, like, a half-dozen of the biggest religions in the game, AFAIK), then they're going to be ROTFL-stomped one way or another.

But to prevent that abuse, we could also make a cooldown: a religion can only add another declaration of anathema every 2 weeks or something. So it would take the religion at least 10 weeks to declare against that whole realm.

But frankly, I don't see this as a big problem. This would require a religion to have no conflicts prior to the war, a relatively vast number of priests, very weak units among invaders....

The only time I would see it having strategic import would be if the invaders struck deep into enemy territory, then were defeated in battle, and had to retreat through territory with high anathematizing religion follower counts. With weaker units, they would have a chance of getting mobbed.

Hmmm... defeated heathens retreating through the lands of the faithful have a chance of facing popular religious violence. Oh, that sounds exactly like what would happen in the Middle Ages.

[Psyche]

Sounds good.  Maybe one day...

[Vellos]

Notably: this feature would actually make wars WITHIN religions very potent. If two realms shared the same religion, but one of them managed to capture the elderships, this kind of mechanic could incentivize feuds within the faith.

[Vellos]

In light of recent discussions of ways to improve religion, I'm gonna cast a spell of necromancy on what I still think is a good idea.

And my other religion proposals too.

Because these never really got a clear response from the Devs.

[Indirik]

I kinda like it.

[De-Legro]

Instead of an automatic check for peasants to mob the noble in question, I suggest it becomes a priest action. If the priest is in the region and has sufficient followers, he can whip them into a frenzy to attack the noble in question.

[Vellos]

Instead of an automatic check for peasants to mob the noble in question, I suggest it becomes a priest action. If the priest is in the region and has sufficient followers, he can whip them into a frenzy to attack the noble in question.

That could be a good substitute. I prefer having a passive effect, because it seems obvious to me that religion should have such effects but, if Tom doesn't go for it, I'd be fine having it as a priest action. It'd give priests a way to harass infiltrators.

Err... actually, abuse alert: priests would become key anti-infil defenses. Find an infil, fast travel to his location, mob him with peasants. Now admittedly that seems somewhat plausible from a medieval perspective (foreign assassin gets caught up in backlash by peasant zealots when a priest points out who he is), but from a game balance perspective, infils have been pretty nerfed it seems to me, not sure if we want to do so even more.

[Penchant]

That could be a good substitute. I prefer having a passive effect, because it seems obvious to me that religion should have such effects but, if Tom doesn't go for it, I'd be fine having it as a priest action. It'd give priests a way to harass infiltrators.

Err... actually, abuse alert: priests would become key anti-infil defenses. Find an infil, fast travel to his location, mob him with peasants. Now admittedly that seems somewhat plausible from a medieval perspective (foreign assassin gets caught up in backlash by peasant zealots when a priest points out who he is), but from a game balance perspective, infils have been pretty nerfed it seems to me, not sure if we want to do so even more.

So I am not getting it, how does target infils specifically? Unless I am missing something it applies to any noble.

[De-Legro]

That could be a good substitute. I prefer having a passive effect, because it seems obvious to me that religion should have such effects but, if Tom doesn't go for it, I'd be fine having it as a priest action. It'd give priests a way to harass infiltrators.

Err... actually, abuse alert: priests would become key anti-infil defenses. Find an infil, fast travel to his location, mob him with peasants. Now admittedly that seems somewhat plausible from a medieval perspective (foreign assassin gets caught up in backlash by peasant zealots when a priest points out who he is), but from a game balance perspective, infils have been pretty nerfed it seems to me, not sure if we want to do so even more.

More work then having a system where you can have a state religion, massive coverage in all your regions and just declare all known infiltrators working against you to be Anathema.

There are solutions, like requiring the noble to be a member of a religion that you consider evil, but things are just getting more complicated, and then you also have a incentive NOT to join a religion. You could also just give infils a bonus to avoiding such actions, since they are all stealthy and clever like.

The reason I suggested having a priest need to stir them up is that it seems implausible to me for peasants to regularly mob nobility without some sort of serious catalyst, an agitator to really stir up the existing ill feelings. You could just as easily have it as an action for any Elder member of the religion I guess, I picked Priest since they are typically good at rabble rousing so it seemed like a good RP fit and they already have a section for religion specific actions.

Without the agitator aspect to me it would seem that it should occur so rarely under a passive system that it is not really worth having.

[De-Legro]

So I am not getting it, how does target infils specifically? Unless I am missing something it applies to any noble.

It doesn't. However it does potentially provide an effective way to counter infiltrators. In my head, though I didn't mention it I also assumed that the skill would rely on the oratory skill of the priest, and that there would be a chance of a backlash where the mob attack the priest instead.

[Vellos]

More work then having a system where you can have a state religion, massive coverage in all your regions and just declare all known infiltrators working against you to be Anathema.

Hm. Ya know. I hadn't thought of that.

Fair enough, you've convinced me. It should be a priest action.

I'll let the proposal sit as it currently is for a while longer and hear more feedback one way or another, then I'll modify it accordingly if I'm not convinced back to my original thought.