Title: Declare Realms Good/Evil
Summary: Allow religions to declare realms good or evil, with some limited in-game effects tied to priests and followers.
Details:
Religions would have a menu where they could label religions as "Faithful" "Ignore" or "Evil." Only realms with at least one elder of the religion can be declared faithful.
This feature has two different, unrelated sections, described separately below:
Priestly Effects:
In "Faithful" realms, priests' preaching would be more effective– and especially priest' ability to laud that realm would be stronger, while ability to badmouth that realm would be weaker. The opposite would be true for Evil realms. Essentially, declaring a realm Faithful or Evil under this system does NOTHING... except what priests can make happen. But when priests work in coordination with local religious authorities, the continental religious system, etc, they are more effective. Thus a religion can't just blasé name a realm evil and expect to be able to hurt it: but a religion can name a realm evil and then, if that realm has lots of followers, its priests become deadlier weapons. This would incentivize realms to try and spread their religion to other realms, to try and get elders in a religion... but would also incentivize realms to be faithful. Realms want good courtiers– priests with a "Faithful Realm" bonus would also be useful. So even realms without warlike aims have an incentive to try and get religious support, and to try and avoid losing it.
Direct Effects:
These effects could be left out, or, as I prefer, in addition to the above effects. When a religion declares a realm evil, its conversion rates in that realm should fall– but its followers in that realm will be less loyal to that realm. In other words, a religion has a balancing act: by naming a realm evil, they can hurt it... but they will also lose their own followers. If a religion worked with several priests and, say, an invading realm of the same religion, this could be worthwhile because of stacking bonuses. But if a religion miscalculated its strength, it could be facing significantly declining numbers of followers in the target realm.
In Faithful realms, there would be an opposite effect. Conversion rates would rise in realms named faithful, and religious followers would be more loyal. Realms and religions benefit from a friendly relationship. Hence realms and religions have an incentive to try and capture each other's positions of influence.
Benefits:
Priest Effects:
Allows religions to conduct formalized diplomacy with game-mechanics effects, but without having some kind of automatic kill button. Religion can be used to support or weaken the actions of players, but can never substitute for them. Religions would gain power as they gain priests, especially vis-a-vis realms, as the more priests means the more people who can run around maintaining regions in faithful realms, or punishing unfaithful realms. This encourages player-level decision making and empowers the priest class without empowering the individual priest. A priest can't just up and do these things on their own: a religion does these things which affect the effectiveness of priests.
Direct Effects:
This would be similar to the peasant-effects of diplomacy now. Religion was a much bigger part of peasant lives than realm was in the Middle Ages. This fills a massive gap of "passive religio-political sentiment." Such a thing did exist, and should exist, in however small a form.
Possible Exploits:
Priestly Effects:
I am unable to think of any. It would not be exploiting the feature to make an extremely friendly state religion. But simultaneously, state religions would not enjoy the feature to its fullness. This system incentivizes converting your neighbors to your own religion, so that you can send your priests to hurt them if need be.
Direct Effects:
Again, it doesn't seem readily exploitable. It can't suddenly award someone a position. My only concern would be the fairness of stacked effects. If a realm has positive priestly effects, high conversion rates, and positive direct effects, and state-funded religion, it could simply make that realm fiendishly efficient. We might be okay with that, but it's something to consider.
Both:
After discussion, it was determined that declaring a realm "faithful" could actually be a useful offensive tactic to gain converts for other uses later on– declare an actually hostile realm faithful in order to gain converts, when they clearly aren't faithful. In order to limit this possibility, I have added a section in the details suggesting that a realm can only be declared faithful if they have an elder in the religion.
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Note: I have this as one feature request. Realistically, I see it as two feature requests in one proposal, because they are discussing the same topic, even if they're two different methods.
I fear that in many places, you will see two different realms each with their own state religion declares their respective realm good when they are allied to have their priests help each other, even though they do not share a faith. Priests would be like glorified courtiers that can work inter-realm.... I prefer the current system where the actions are only determined by number of followers, not realm allegiance.
Unfortunately that's true. Though there are those of us who'd use it properly.
Quote from: vonGenf on January 20, 2013, 06:44:06 PM
I fear that in many places, you will see two different realms each with their own state religion declares their respective realm good when they are allied to have their priests help each other, even though they do not share a faith. Priests would be like glorified courtiers that can work inter-realm.... I prefer the current system where the actions are only determined by number of followers, not realm allegiance.
I think you are missing the broader implication here. This (and many of the other new proposals) would make larger religions more powerful. Powerful enough that
if you were inclined to do things strictly by the numbers as you see above, then you would decide you needed just one religion between the realms. And if you didn't, you would be at a significant disadvantage.
For religions, larger = better. Much more fun, many more options, much more intrigue. Puny little religions are powerless and boring.
Quote from: Bedwyr on January 21, 2013, 03:08:36 AM
I think you are missing the broader implication here. This (and many of the other new proposals) would make larger religions more powerful. Powerful enough that if you were inclined to do things strictly by the numbers as you see above, then you would decide you needed just one religion between the realms. And if you didn't, you would be at a significant disadvantage.
I get your point but as Indirik says
Quote from: Indirik on January 21, 2013, 04:06:23 AM
For religions, larger = better. Much more fun, many more options, much more intrigue. Puny little religions are powerless and boring.
and big religions is not an issue with BM right now.
Quote from: Penchant on January 21, 2013, 04:32:27 AM
I get your point but as Indirik saysand big religions is not an issue with BM right now.
That's
exactly my point. This would encourage big religions. This is a good thing.
Quote from: Bedwyr on January 21, 2013, 05:11:34 AM
That's exactly my point. This would encourage big religions. This is a good thing.
Ah, I thought you were saying it is a bad thing for some reason.
Quote from: Bedwyr on January 21, 2013, 03:08:36 AM
I think you are missing the broader implication here. This (and many of the other new proposals) would make larger religions more powerful. Powerful enough that if you were inclined to do things strictly by the numbers as you see above, then you would decide you needed just one religion between the realms. And if you didn't, you would be at a significant disadvantage.
I don't think that's true.
The key point here is that a realm can be declared "faithful" without having anyone in it of the right religion. I think that's wrong, and I think it decreases the incentive to have big religions. A big baddy with a state religion wouldn't need to convert its neighbors; it just needs to declare them faithful and bam! your priests can act more effectively.
To give an in-game example, SA shouldn't able to declare Barca faithful and then send its priest laud Barca in Aurvandilian regions, even though that may serve its interest. That's a job for ambassadors; if you want priests to do it, you should actually convert Barca first.
The "declare evil" part is less likely to be meta-gamed like that.
I think to declare a realm faithful, you need to have some sort of proof that the realm actually is faithful, and there's no easy metric for that.
Why shouldn't you be able to declare a realm lacking followers as faithful?
Imagine just the ruler converts– I can see a religion declaring a realm faithful based on a single high-profile conversion. See "Clovis" for details.
And that would hardly be an exploit. The puppet state would gain from the priests, sure, but the main state would be gaining enormous power and sway over the other state– which would incentivize the smaller state to get some priests and elders so it can have a little control of its own destiny.
Quote from: Vellos on January 21, 2013, 04:15:42 PM
Why shouldn't you be able to declare a realm lacking followers as faithful?
Imagine just the ruler converts– I can see a religion declaring a realm faithful based on a single high-profile conversion. See "Clovis" for details.
Sure, the ruler being faithful is a possible test. I said there were no easy metric, not that there were no metric at all.
The example of the conversion of Clovis is a very good example where your mechanics does work, but your mechanic as no restriction at all to limit it to those cases.
In your example, the Italian Pope could declare that heathen vikings are faithful and send priests to incite northern french catholic peasants to abandon the French King, hoping to weaken him and take the territories of Southern France. That would be a clever and legitimate power play on the part of the Italians, but it just doesn't make any sense from a religious point of view.
Quote from: Vellos on January 21, 2013, 04:15:42 PM
And that would hardly be an exploit. The puppet state would gain from the priests, sure, but the main state would be gaining enormous power and sway over the other state– which would incentivize the smaller state to get some priests and elders so it can have a little control of its own destiny.
Ok, maybe so, but it's indirect and contrived. If you want to convert your puppet state, why don't you preach in it?
Quote from: vonGenf on January 21, 2013, 04:30:41 PM
Sure, the ruler being faithful is a possible test. I said there were no easy metric, not that there were no metric at all.
The example of the conversion of Clovis is a very good example where your mechanics does work, but your mechanic as no restriction at all to limit it to those cases.
In your example, the Italian Pope could declare that heathen vikings are faithful and send priests to incite northern french catholic peasants to abandon the French King, hoping to weaken him and take the territories of Southern France. That would be a clever and legitimate power play on the part of the Italians, but it just doesn't make any sense from a religious point of view.
Ok, maybe so, but it's indirect and contrived. If you want to convert your puppet state, why don't you preach in it?
Ah, I see what you're saying: there's an incentive to name an actually hostile realm as faithful because naming it faithful improves conversion, allowing you to stockpile converts for a future declaration of them as evil.
I'll modify the post to require that faithful realms must have an elder in the religion.
I assume if a religion declares a realm faithful, then all the elders of that realm die/delete/pause, it could still be named faithful just, if it were un-named faithful, it couldn't be renamed until new elders arrived.
In that case the Elder should be a member of the realm for an X number of days. Otherwise you'll get someone being clever, moving a elder into a realm, declare them faithful and then move back to another realm again.
Perhaps a smarter way to solve this is to have the ruler agree (or disagree) with the faithful status (not the evil status of course) of the realm?
Quote from: Quintus Ennius on January 21, 2013, 08:29:10 PM
In that case the Elder should be a member of the realm for an X number of days. Otherwise you'll get someone being clever, moving a elder into a realm, declare them faithful and then move back to another realm again.
Perhaps a smarter way to solve this is to have the ruler agree (or disagree) with the faithful status (not the evil status of course) of the realm?
I see what your going for on the rulers deciding but I think it will be turned down a lot more than is true because rulers might see that as submitting to the religion or if its a ruler who doesn't like the religion despite the rest of the realm likings.
In that case the rest of the realm may wish to decide to get a new king?
That would be too complex and create direct real/religion diplomacy, which isn't the point.
A minimum time in realm and as an elder would be useful to declare as faithful.
Quote from: Quintus Ennius on January 21, 2013, 09:17:21 PM
In that case the rest of the realm may wish to decide to get a new king?
The rest of the realm is most likely not going to be know about this and that could still look like you basically made the realm a theocracy by submitting to them. By the Royal We, if a ruler submitted to this he just made the realm a theocracy, or at least, it can look like that.
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.
A neutral position is obviously needed.
Quote from: Penchant on October 15, 2013, 02:51:01 AM
A neutral position is obviously needed.
Oh right, obviously. I guess I didn't state that but, yeah, I would assume religions can be neutral toward a realm.
QuoteDetails:
Religions would have a menu where they could label religions as "Faithful" "Ignore" or "Evil." Only realms with at least one elder of the religion can be declared faithful.
I assume the highlighted word is supposed to be "realms", not "religions".
In order to avoid some of the possibly gamish uses of this, perhaps it could be somehow worked together with the current religious viewpoints. Declaring a realm as "faithful" if the majority of the people in that realm are members of an evil religion should cause some problems for the declaring religion.
i.e. assume Keplerstan and Evilstan both have state religions of Keplerism and Evilism. Both religions consider the other as evil, and both religions have, essentially 100% followings in their regions. If Keplerism tries to declare Evilstan a "faithful" realm (in order to, say, exploit the enhanced conversion effects), there should be some serious problems inside Keplerism. The confusion of declaring a realm full of evil believers of Evilism should cause loss of faith of significant numbers of followers of Keplerism.
This may help remove some of the possible exploitative uses of the feature, and be pretty straight-forward.
Quote from: Indirik on October 15, 2013, 06:35:04 PM
In order to avoid some of the possibly gamish uses of this, perhaps it could be somehow worked together with the current religious viewpoints. Declaring a realm as "faithful" if the majority of the people in that realm are members of an evil religion should cause some problems for the declaring religion.
i.e. assume Keplerstan and Evilstan both have state religions of Keplerism and Evilism. Both religions consider the other as evil, and both religions have, essentially 100% followings in their regions. If Keplerism tries to declare Evilstan a "faithful" realm (in order to, say, exploit the enhanced conversion effects), there should be some serious problems inside Keplerism. The confusion of declaring a realm full of evil believers of Evilism should cause loss of faith of significant numbers of followers of Keplerism.
This may help remove some of the possible exploitative uses of the feature, and be pretty straight-forward.
Hm.
But what about if a lot of nobles convert? You can't proclaim the realm faithful until the commoners switch?
Honestly, I'm not sure this feature request is as sound as the others, like anathemetizing, reporting heresy, religion H/P, and whatever the hell the other one I made that I'm not remembering is. Plus this would be hard to code I think. Probably best to leave this one on the backburner for now.
Quote from: Vellos on October 16, 2013, 02:02:43 AM
Hm.
But what about if a lot of nobles convert? You can't proclaim the realm faithful until the commoners switch?
Honestly, I'm not sure this feature request is as sound as the others, like anathemetizing, reporting heresy, religion H/P, and whatever the hell the other one I made that I'm not remembering is. Plus this would be hard to code I think. Probably best to leave this one on the backburner for now.
I agree. What I would suggest is perhaps initially implementing it without the effects other than display, so you can still declare realms good or evil, it just doesn't do anything until whatever should happen is thought of more.
Quote from: Penchant on October 16, 2013, 02:20:19 AM
I agree. What I would suggest is perhaps initially implementing it without the effects other than display, so you can still declare realms good or evil, it just doesn't do anything until whatever should happen is thought of more.
Now that's an interesting thought. Kind of like treaties.
Quote from: Vellos on October 16, 2013, 02:28:04 AM
Now that's an interesting thought. Kind of like treaties.
Pretty much, because while it might only have a display impact game mechanic wise, it will have an effect within the game.