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Pah, who wants to resolve differences anyway? To war!!

Well, this would result in another war. . . .

I didn't hear any of this... who is the hero that tried to assassinate Morgan?  :D

It is actually mostly schtick that Velax and I are plotting to try and get some excitement into the FEI.  Our RLs seem to be slowing things down a bit, but luckily Cathay is having a tournament in the meantime anyways.

I know, Morgan and Velax can resolve their differences with a crusade to kill all talking wolves!

Reports are circulating that a letter promising rewards for the killing of Regent Morgan of Zonasa was found bearing the seal of Emperor Velax of Arcaea.

Perhaps troops led by nobles of the same religion as the priest might not interfere?  If you want to stress that this is not a takeover method for a realm, but for a religion, you could even have troops from the realm the region currently belongs to not interfere if they are led by a noble of the priest's religion. . . .

[THE GOD OF WAR]

I'm going to put this simply, in an effort to have you understand: The god of war. THE god of war. The GOD of war. The god of WAR. THE GOD OF WAR.

Aeneas (and Selene behind him) was trying to argue that pacifism was the better road to follow, as to assure our survival. Caspius argued that we should have war and provocation, so we could make our god, who coincidentally is the god of war, happy.

Not every decision has to be practical or pragmatic. Things can get really slow, lame, and boring when that's about the only agenda you follow.

Because getting your religion destroyed is a great way to make your god happy. . . .

I understand where Caspius is coming from, though.  He's a True Believer.  Which, given the political situation, means that he is a danger to his religion's survival if he's in a leadership position.

[do]

They ascribed all kinds of things. People still do. Doesn't mean they were actually able to do those things.

So, again: The only powers priests in BM are going to have are powers of influence. Not "divine intervention" or anything that's likely to look like it.

Fair enough, your initial wording made me think you were saying that it was based upon what people in the middle ages expected them to be capable of -- but if this is not so, then I can understand why any sort of magic like abilities are not desired.

Well, personally, I kind of like the idea. However, I believe that it was, in fact, suggested in the past (possibly only within the dev team, my memory on this point is hazy), and Tom vetoed it on the grounds that he didn't want religions having official policies on realms, or something like that. They should only have official policies on religions.

Maybe the fact that historically religions did have official policies on realms might change his mind?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdict#Notable_local_canonical_interdicts
More examples could probably be found if looked for.

To be a pope, doesn't one need to have actually conducted a miracle? (Probably to be archbishop or something, actually).

Sounds pretty magic to me.

That would be to be canonized as a Saint (capital 'S' important here) in the RC church (specifically, they must have two posthumous miracles).

He was the pacifist advocate that constantly argued with Caspius over the latter's eagerness for war and provocation.

Because war and provocation seems to be working out so well for you guys?

The game-mechanic powers of priests are exactly commensurate with those they might have been expected to have in the RL middle ages.

In other words, influence and power over people, not mystical magical powers.

That's not entirely true.  People in the middle ages ascribed all sorts of mystical magical abilities to saints and their relics.  Having priests be able to do something with relics and pray to saints or gods for divine intervention seems entirely in keeping with what might have been expected in the RL middle ages (obviously, flashy things are mostly out, most things should probably be plausibly deniable as actual divine intervention, no matter what the priests claim).

That sounds reasonable to me, but I think Tom would dislike it, as it mixes the religious side and the political side too directly.

In the middle ages, the religious side and the political side were pretty directly mixed.  The fact that they aren't so much in BM (due partially I think to our modern ideas of separation of church and state, partially due to the lack of incentives) is I think a large part of why most religions in BM are fairly meaningless and uninteresting.

Throughout RL history, I think it can be safely said that religion is the #1 source of violent death, war and conflict.

That is a rather simplistic and almost certainly incorrect statement.

But I think the reason why it sometimes looks that way does explain in large part why we lack much of the same conflict in BM -- historically, religion was much more closely tied to (secular) politics and money than it is in much of the world today and than it is in BM.  To some extent it is in SA, though not as much, I think, as it historically was in BM's time period.

This is partially due to our modern conceptions of religion -- we think religion should be about well, religion, when historically it often was not, and partially, I think, because most religions in BM are fairly small and don't have the sort of dynamic that Christianity and Islam did with secular rulers in the middle ages.  When SA does something, people care, so it's worth it for secular rulers to try to influence it and be seen as supporters of it.  Most other religions in BM just don't have that kind of island-wide influence, and so there isn't much reason for a ruler of a realm to give them much support.

Without secular politics getting involved in religion, there just isn't that much to drive conflicts -- a few purely religious conflicts started by the odd true believer here and there, but those were historically rare.  And those that do happen will probably be small, and quite possibly limited because no secular authority supports it, and so actual war is possible.

Which of course means that it is somewhat a chicken and egg problem, but there you have it.

Though yes, if there was more mechanics-wise to be gained from religion, rulers might see more benefit in getting involved, and then want to spread the religion so they gained more benefits, or to gain favor with the religious head, who might then cut them in for a larger share of the benefits. . . .

Sorraine has engaged in a decidedly ingenious retrograde maneuver to recoup forces damaged fighting the infidel Ohnarians, powered by dark forces outside of human comprehension. Sorraine's diplomatic skills came into play when they were able to survive a large number of their higher nobility turning heretic and abandoning them in their darkest hour.

Victory will soon come to Sartan's chosen and the world will see what lays in store for those who deal in witchcraft.

I don't even get what this is referencing.

Really? I thought is rather disappointing... I watched a few other clips from the same tournament and I was just plain surprised. Looks like a little too much like football (the American variety). I was also under the impression that knights wore such heavy armor that they could not get up unassisted once downed. I figured such armor would make sprinting  less likely. Those guys are crazy tough though. I would be screaming in pain 30 seconds into it!

In what way does it look like American football?  It looks like people fighting and trying to kill each other to me, which is what battles tend to look like. . . .

As for mobility in armor . . . there are a lot of misconceptions about how hard it was to move in armor.  Most all of them are completely and totally untrue.  Sure, it's heavy, and if you're not in good shape and have never worn it before, it's going to hinder you a fair bit, and you'll certainly get tired quicker in it, but armor that makes it hard to do the things you need to do in combat (like running) isn't much use for anything besides looking pretty (and there was armor designed only to look pretty and not be used in combat).  Knights wearing full armor were surprising mobile.


Videos from my summer vacation, for those wanting to see more actual mass combat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmqMbXcCB1M&list=PL34462A6A7C96B941&index=1  (I don't take part in the fighting, for those wondering).

There's the inability to duel, and back then ineligibility for government positions (or is this still true?).

This is still true.

Only 14 of FEI?  Interesting. . . .

Also the Church itself isn't as looked down upon as you make out; it has a significant presence in nearly every northern realm and no ruler has yet attempted to ban or destroy its temples (though if the Church dosn't get its diplomatic ability back on track then that could change).

That's actually not entirely true, during the last war, Zonasa authorized the burning of Sartanian temples after they burned temples in Zonasa (it was not particularly encouraged, just allowed -- normally such an act might get one banned), and after another event, Morgan strongly considered banning CoS -- he had the support of all the lords to do so, in fact, he just decided not to in the end.

I don't think they're looked down on. To the extent that Sorraine might be, it's more because of poor leadership than because of the Church, which has had some blunders but as Meneldur pointed out, these came about because the Church actually does something.

It is one of the difficulties of 21st century values in a medieval game. The CoS is really the closest thing to how medieval nobles (if not Kings) would think about religion. Most every religion in the Middle Ages was openly hostile to most every other religion, and the exceptions to that rule were more on the local level in the handful of cities where you had multiple faiths mostly getting along -- like Jerusalem, until the Turks came in.

As a player I wish there was some sort of middle ground to pursue, because religion should be one of the prime movers of conflict in the game. But no King who enjoys a firm level of control is going to willingly hand over control to any religion, so Galiard can't do much about it, and the other faiths are too fragmented (at least at the moment).

Most of the realms on the FEI have been secular dictatorships of one form or another and they'd be pretty foolish to give that up.

I think to some extent that this may also be because in general, most realms have multiple religions in them, and there is certainly no huge religion that has pretty much sole claim to several realms the way Christianity and Islam did in our middle ages, or how SA does on Dwilight.  And so avoiding internal strife caused by followers of the other religions probably keeps some rulers from trying to advance their religion too much.  That has always been Morgan's reasoning behind Zonasa's official policy of religious tolerance (I'm not sure that's how it started, but it's why Morgan thinks it's a good idea and hasn't tried to stamp it out) -- and why we've actually executed someone for stirring up religious unrest.

And this is precisely why a smart King should be very, very religious.  If you are in charge of a Church, then you can have influence wherever it does...Which might be well beyond the boundaries of your realm.

This can be a double edged sword, though, in that then the religion may more easily influence your realm . . . so it depends how much risk you want to take and how confident you are that you will exert more influence on others than is exerted on your realm . . . if you're confident in that, though, it is generally the way to go.

What individual characters might think is going to be very different but as players we shouldn't try and pretend the facts are other than what they actually are.

However, since we were talking about what individual characters think, the facts have no relevance to the discussion.