Wrong game.
You are thinking of religion as a tool to power and more buttons to click. It was never intended to be that, and that's why you find it lacking. It's a roleplaying device. If you think of it as a gameplay mechanic, you will always be disappointed.
It disappoints me as a role-play device, as it miserably fails at that.
These are good questions. But they are also things that we cannot enforce in game mechanics. Some characters will believe very strongly, some weakly, others will not believe at all. Some will believe in whatever faith can promise them what they want.
Of course. I hope that when religions are more 'useful' it becomes more attractive to invest time in it, role-play wise and take religion in general more serious.
And, on top of that, you also need a set of leaders willing to actually use that power in a religious manner, and a group of people willing to play along with it. Look what happened when you assembled all that on Dwilight. You got a strong church with lots of secular power, willing to use that power to achieve its own goals, and a bunch of nobles that jumped when the prophet said jump.
From my experience that is difficult to achieve, because what I usually hear is that religion shouldn't involve itself in politics. In my opinion, it should, as much as possible.
Game mechanics alone will not make any particular religion in BattleMaster the equivalent of the Catholic church at the height of its power. It takes players to get together and allow the church to have that power. If you try to force it on people, then you will end up with a lot of what we had when religion first was implemented: Each realm having its own empty-shell state religion run by the realm, and all other religions outlawed.
The equivalent of the Catholic church is desirable in my opinion. I do not want to force people to all become religious zealots, but I do think the current balance is off.
Another good idea. Some kind of official Excommunication, which may also include forbidding them from rejoining, is a good idea. I like the idea of excommunicated lords/dukes generating problems in their regions if the region is high in followers of that faith. The "can't leave for 30 days', though, I don't really understand. You've been excommunicated. You're no longer part of the religion.
I was thinking in terms how to code this. I saw the excommunication much like the exile option. So the game knows that you belonged to religion X, so it knows what peasants will be upset. The 'do not leave for 30 days' was to avoid that you dodge the negative civil effects of the excommunication.
In general, the influence followers ability is pretty low-powered. The advent of diplomats/ambassadors (which I feel are WAAAAY overpowered to the point of being absurdly ridiculous) has made this option mostly pointless, and usually more damaging to the religion than the target. The only practical use for it is to help recover regions in core areas of the religion's power.
Yes, it is not very productive compared to a diplomat. I say make it more powerful and minimize the penalties.
One additional thing that I think could really help:
Peasants should object to realm relations based on the religious beliefs of the various realms. Not based on state religions, but based on the amount of followers in the various regions/realms. For example: On EC, Westmoor is /heavy/ in Church of Humanity followers. Ibladesh was pure Church of Ibladesh. Both religions considered the other as Evil. But the two realms were federated! wtf?! That's pure BS. In a situation like that, the peasants should have been rising up in open revolt daily, and twice on Sunday.
The peasants in a region should be influenced by a cross-reference of the dominant faith in the region, its views on other religions, the type of realm-based relations to other realms, and the dominant faith in that realm. It sounds complicated, but it's really not. It works like this, assuming the prior Westmoor/Ibladesh scenario:
1) Westmoor city is part of the realm of Westmoor.
2) Westmoor city has 90% CoH followers.
3) The realm of Westmoor is federated to Ibladesh.
4) The realm of Ibladesh consists of mainly CoI followers.
5) CoH considers CoI as evil.
6) The peasants in Westmoor city should have a declining sympathy toward Ibladesh.
7) As the sympathy toward Ibladesh drops, the people in Westmoor city should start grumbling and complaining about their federation. This mechanic already exists. It should be modified to include a religious component that takes the religious views into account.
The amount of the effect would be based on the type of relationship between the realms, the type of religious view, and the amount of followers in each region/realm. If there is no clear religious majority in either place, then you shouldn't have any strong reactions.
This could give religions some additional power in a political arena, and is based directly off of existing mechanisms. However, it doesn't give in to the idea of just giving priests another button to click to hold realms hostage with an overpowered option. It's an effectively passive option that is based on the presence of the religion alone.
Tim whipped together the basic stats for something like this once. IIRC, it didn't take too long to work out the raw data.
Nice idea. I'll add it in the proposal section.
