Religion

[Eldargard]

I do not believe I ever suggested that religions should get rich off of peasants. I do, however, believe that they are a valid source of income. Sure, the amount one peasant can contribute is not even worth counting but 10,000 peasants is another matter. I was merely suggesting that in real world religions infrastructure was often provided and maintained via donations and voluntary work (well, voluntary on the surface at least). I am talking about the basics here.

My reasoning is simple. I suspect that many players are unwilling to really get into religion because doing so is simply a drain on gold. Gold that could be be used elsewhere with more tangible results. Priests become analogous to those annoying telemarketers that keep calling at dinner. If they do happen to cough up some money it just vanishes. The player of the noble doing the spending has to really dig to see a real gain. Heck, might as well saved that 50 gold and purchased a few more men or sent it to the family for future use in investments. Donating money to religion is, on the surface at least, one of the worst investments in the game.

If religions actually had some serious financial resources they could make a real impact on the world. Imagine donating 50 gold then receiving a message from the church saying, "thanks to your generous donations we have been able to arm the devout members of our church suffering from prosecution in Evillandistan." That would be pretty cool. Or just having people wonder where all their donations are going. After all most infrastructure is taken care of by other means so which greedy priest is getting fat off of our generosity?

Now to be clear, I am not trying to insist that this is a good idea or should be implemented or anything like that. I am simply trying to make it clear that I am not looking to make religions 'rich' or supposing that substantial funds should come in from peasants (though they kind of do already - just not for religion). I do not care much if everyone likes the idea or even care too much for the idea itself. It was just a random though. Just care for clarity!

[Indirik]

(There were duchies named maddening and austere and stuff which is why the SA unique items were possible.)

This is not correct. Yes, there are duchies named that (Well, at least named Maddening), but that has nothing to do with the items.

[Stue (DC)]

Religions do get money from their followers. If you are careful with your temples and shrines, and keep up with preaching to your followers, your religion can not only break even, but make a slight profit. Despite having some ridiculously large temples, and a LOT of temples to begin with, SA made a profit of, I believe, 15 gold last week. :P Woohoo!

is it not real proof how hard things are now? if monster-large religion like sa earns 15 gold a week, with doing pile of micromanagement as you describe, i have to wonder once more - where is the fun.

if anyone has incentive to spend lot of time on micromanagement, he/she would at least expect to have some juicy rewards. but all that comes from micromanagement in this (and not only this) respect is zero-state. that is really discouraging.

jumping over the temples continent wide, taking care for balance sheet of each and every temple, preaching, running, counting and managing only to get - nothing, just to keep things going and avoid financial collapse. i see no fun here. i see no roleplaying potential too. that more looks as restoration of the most boring aspects of real life  :(

The problem with changing religion so that it can become a substantial source of funds is that it will be nationalized by those realms that don't want to give up control. It won't put any more gold into the hands of these religions, it will just help fuel the war machines of those realms that operate their own government supported religions, and create more incentive for more realms to do the same.

religion which is nested in more than one realm will naturally tend to resist to be nationalized by one realm as she will likely have their own leaders willing to play game of independence.
realm leader could play their own game by forming puppet religion - and that kind of game would be similar to the current one, the only difference being that right now there is one option available, and if certain independence would be allowed, there would be at least two ways to play religions, and those could compete and create all kind of conflicts, to the players' joy.

of course, i can understand when tom says that he does not want everything to turn around religions, but even that could be achieved in-game i believe - realms which would want to make religion game irrelevant could encourage large freedom of religions, which would incite large number of small religions, and ensure none of them can play significant role.

some mechanical addition like possibilities that ruler sets realm-wide tax on religions, separate for each created religion could create myriad of different options and game diversity. of course, that would make sense only if religions would be allowed to earn more funds, by largely reducing their current maintenance costs.

[vonGenf]

is it not real proof how hard things are now? if monster-large religion like sa earns 15 gold a week, with doing pile of micromanagement as you describe, i have to wonder once more - where is the fun.

SA is not doing piles of micromanagement. It issue calls to the global treasury once in a while, that's it - and now that there is a surplus even that isn't needed.

The point is not that SA is profitable - if it is profit you want, become a Margrave, that's where the gold is. The point is that religions can be self-sustaining when they are alive.

If maintenance costs where entirely removed, you'd see tons of old temples of old religions no one's giving attention to anymore. Maintenance costs ensure dying religions actually die out in game, instead of remaining as a low-level annoyance for those other religions that have actual players interested.

[De-Legro]

is it not real proof how hard things are now? if monster-large religion like sa earns 15 gold a week, with doing pile of micromanagement as you describe, i have to wonder once more - where is the fun.

if anyone has incentive to spend lot of time on micromanagement, he/she would at least expect to have some juicy rewards. but all that comes from micromanagement in this (and not only this) respect is zero-state. that is really discouraging.

jumping over the temples continent wide, taking care for balance sheet of each and every temple, preaching, running, counting and managing only to get - nothing, just to keep things going and avoid financial collapse. i see no fun here. i see no roleplaying potential too. that more looks as restoration of the most boring aspects of real life  :(
religion which is nested in more than one realm will naturally tend to resist to be nationalized by one realm as she will likely have their own leaders willing to play game of independence.
realm leader could play their own game by forming puppet religion - and that kind of game would be similar to the current one, the only difference being that right now there is one option available, and if certain independence would be allowed, there would be at least two ways to play religions, and those could compete and create all kind of conflicts, to the players' joy.

of course, i can understand when tom says that he does not want everything to turn around religions, but even that could be achieved in-game i believe - realms which would want to make religion game irrelevant could encourage large freedom of religions, which would incite large number of small religions, and ensure none of them can play significant role.

some mechanical addition like possibilities that ruler sets realm-wide tax on religions, separate for each created religion could create myriad of different options and game diversity. of course, that would make sense only if religions would be allowed to earn more funds, by largely reducing their current maintenance costs.

One of the main reasons religions suffered "nationalisation" in game was that priest abilities to sway regions were deemed "too powerful" by realm leaders, thus a defence was required in the form of controlled religions. This is why so few realms allow for freedom of religion right now, so they can AVOID as much as possible the conflict and !FUN! that religions can currently generate. If we were to make religions stronger or easier, one imagines this trend would only increase. This is why I believe a purely RP fix is required. Now IF the majority of players were respecting religions correctly within the game, the actual in game mechanics could be examined properly. While ever the current attitudes towards Religion remain then any feature request need to be viewed in that light.

[Indirik]

SA is not doing piles of micromanagement. It issue calls to the global treasury once in a while, that's it - and now that there is a surplus even that isn't needed.

Actually, it is. Temples that don't have gold pull from the global for maintenance. If there's nothing in the global, then all temples that don't have anything in the local treasury will get downsized.

Even though SA ran a slight surplus last week, we still lost gold overall. This is an accounting artifact in that the amount of gold that a temple is short is give, not what needs to come out of the global to make up the shortage. That amount is, I believe, 1.5x the shortage. For example, if a temple is short by 50 gold then it reports a 50 gold shortage, and that amount is used to calculate the balance sheet. However, *75* gold is taken out of the global. 10 Temples each running 50 gold short report a 500 gold loss, and take 750 out of the global.

Anyway, we don't do micromanagement in SA. Everyone does whatever they want, and things just work out in the end, somehow.

[Indirik]

**snip**  that more looks as restoration of the most boring aspects of real life  :(

You have grossly over-exaggerated my statement. The level of oversight and micromanagement you describe does not happen in SA. Nowhere close to it, in fact.

religion which is nested in more than one realm will naturally tend to resist to be nationalized by one realm as she will likely have their own leaders willing to play game of independence.

I tend to agree. But if you make religion highly profitable and powerful, then that's not what you'll end up with. You'll end up with a bunch of realm-controlled religions that, by some weird coincidence (not!), control pieces of land that exactly match the realm borders.

realm leader could play their own game by forming puppet religion - and that kind of game would be similar to the current one, the only difference being that right now there is one option available, and if certain independence would be allowed, there would be at least two ways to play religions, and those could compete and create all kind of conflicts, to the players' joy.

What do you mean by "if certain independence would be allowed"? Religions can have independence right now.

some mechanical addition like possibilities that ruler sets realm-wide tax on religions, separate for each created religion could create myriad of different options and game diversity. of course, that would make sense only if religions would be allowed to earn more funds, by largely reducing their current maintenance costs.

I wouldn't be against either of those changes. What I would like to see, though, is to make it easier for lords to contribute to the maintenance of the temples in their region. Something where a lord of Keplerism can have the expenses of the temple of Keplerism in his region automatically deducted from his tax balance. But only for his religion, not for other religions.

[Penchant]

I am against any realmwide tax on religions because religions already get taxed from the local treasuries to the region, they shouldn't get taxed again to the king.

[Indirik]

No, but the realm could decide whether our not religions cam be taxed, and how much. You don't have to change where the money ends up.

[Penchant]

No, but the realm could decide whether or not religions can be taxed, and how much. You don't have to change where the money ends up.

Its on the wrong level though as a lord should be able to decide how much, not someone in the realm council when its his region. Realm council doesn't get to decide the standard tax rate for regions now and shouldn't be able to do so for religion either.

The level of tax is currently I believe a fourth of the region's standard tax rate, which I don't completely care for especially with the lack of the ability for lords to waive the tax. The reason being they could be taxing the local treasury that they dumped gold into, to then have dispersed to himself and his knights, meaning he is losing gold through his own tax and will need to go back to the temple sooner to put more funds there, something completely bad for the lord.

[Indirik]

There's no reason the religion tax would have to be handled the same way as every other tax. It's possible to do it a different way. Not that it would have to be done that way, or should be done that way. But it could.

Also, it would be interesting for realms to be able to decide which religions could be taxed, and which not be taxed.

You are also assuming that the lord is a member of the religion he is taxing. This is not necessarily the case.

[Jaden]

Taxing religions at level of the realm would at least give some taxation power back to the banker.
What about taxing at the level of the duchy? if that is possible.
Or we can make it a realm government option, whether to tax it through the realm, the duchy or the region.

[Penchant]

There's no reason the religion tax would have to be handled the same way as every other tax. It's possible to do it a different way. Not that it would have to be done that way, or should be done that way. But it could.

I have no idea where you are getting that I said it couldn't unless you are replacing my should,s into can's.

Also, it would be interesting for realms to be able to decide which religions could be taxed, and which not be taxed.

Your interesting is my annoying as a lord.

You are also assuming that the lord is a member of the religion he is taxing. This is not necessarily the case.

I am assuming it because I said to assume it in the example, just not directly.

[Indirik]

Your interesting is my annoying as a lord.

Mmm.... conflict. Maybe you should start a rebellion, because I'm repressing your religion. :)

[Stue (DC)]

under more independence i actually meant about ability to earn some funds.

not that they become profit-makers... it's ok if abandoned religions fall in financial matters, but strong religions with lot of followers in many regions should at least have some profit that would be used in whatever way, be it building new facilities, or bribing mundane politicians to achieve some strategic goals.

as for religious takeovers, if i recall well, the largest number of complaints came from sirion when they mostly defeated fontan, but eager fontan priests were retaking some regions again and again.

don't attack me if i cannot remember who complained the most, i believe it was sirion judge.

for me, that was funny. sirion had multitude of ways how to finish off fontan, and those religious takeovers were completely irrelevant in strategic way, i could even say that they somewhat added to roleplaying feel. on contrary, once rto's were crippled, we only saw "go to region a, take her - than go to region b and take her as well" mood which is everything but funny.

some (small) amount of sensible power to religions simply breaks straightforward path loved by some "management - oriented" leaders.

the similar applies to rulers who did all kind of activities to prevent any chance of hostile rto. even at times when rto's were much stronger, large cities were almost impossible to be rto'ed, so the worst case scenario would be losing few provinces which could not destroy anyone strategically, but could be great fueling device to create large conflicts.
by removing that, incentive is given to control freaks who now have more ability to control everything... and prevent the fun.

in current days i see in more than one realm how leaders teach their vassals something like "do this-and this-and this and everything will be fine, we will not have any troubles". i believe mechanics should disallow anyone to have formula on how to control all things or believe that such formula is possible... religion has great potential to put a little more anarchy that would discourage belief that anyone in game can control everything. large power should come from combination of strategy, diplomacy, leadership and teamplay; mechanics, i believe should not give prevailing help to those who are powerful anyhow.

little more strengths to religions combined with ability that religions could be taxed separately would give fuel to both sides, and so much of potential... how could that be bad, really? current automatic taxing would only be replaced by human grievances...