Religion

[Chenier]

More mechanics for religions would at least have the merit of having them taken more seriously.

It's otherwise just too easy and conveniant to utterly ignore them. Because all they do is act as glorified guilds, in othe words, money sinks. And people are getting less and less interested in contributing to such purely RPed money sinks. Why bother, when you can RP yourself as being just as religious without bothering with temples, and use that gold for more fun stuff like conflict?

Heck, even SA feels like it's on a path of decay. And no other faith ever had the size, scope, and might of SA, and none ever will again.

And this is, imo, a direct result of the obstination for "purely RPed" religions. Rulers, judges, marshals, dukes, and all these other guys get buttons to click that make them meaningful. Religions are no less worthy than realm governments to have buttons that make them have meaning.

[Stue (DC)]

more power to religion would increase roleplaying potential of religion.

weak and dependent priests are seen by all only as irrelevant helpers of powerful mundane politicians and therefore even good roleplay is not convincing as everyone knows that all what priests do is nothing but low-paid hard work. that does not give strength to roleplaying i would say.

if religions have chance to be independent, they can only turn to either the same political powers as others, or be a roleplaying factor, the players would have possibility to choose how to play it.

that is i believe the main problem of roleplaying game-wide, being detached from mechanics completely it is not interesting, simply.

was not battlemaster advertised as a game that merges strategy and roleplaying? currently these two components seem detached...

[Eldargard]

There are a few features I would love to see brought to religion. In the end, however, I have to agree that features alone will not fix religion. Only players can. If players continue to have their characters treat religion as offhanded, neutral and optional (as people today treat religion), I doubt that anything will change regarding religion.

Of course, some mechanics might help shift player priorities. The issue with money, I think, is that religions need something from noble members but have little to offer in return (unless your religion happens to be Astroism). I am not saying that priests need high incomes though. The last time I played a priest he did have an estate, and generally did his own thing with no thought of nationality. Though he made little money he managed just fine.

I have always thought it would be cool if religions gathered money from peasants (tithes). Not much, mostly enough to pay taxes infrastructure costs. One could even earmark such income for use on taxes and infrastructure only. It then makes sense for a priest to enter a region, gain followers (and thus money) then use that money to construct facilities in that region. Then religions could use the money provided by nobles for other cool stuff. Like being rich enough to impact politics. Providing funds to the faithful in a war. Giving money to political candidates to use for campaigning. I am sure there is a world of things wrong with such a system though...

In the end I still believe that religion could be awesome as is if players only wanted it to be.

[Indirik]

I have always thought it would be cool if religions gathered money from peasants (tithes). Not much, mostly enough to pay taxes infrastructure costs. One could even earmark such income for use on taxes and infrastructure only. It then makes sense for a priest to enter a region, gain followers (and thus money) then use that money to construct facilities in that region.

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!

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.

[De-Legro]

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!

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.

Also lets face it, few religions in RL got rich off the backs of the peasant tithes. Noble grants and patronage built some of the worlds greatest places of worship and filled their coffers. What the game does lack is the ability for a religion to hold on to profitable land such as the Christian churches did.

[Vellos]

Giving more gold to religions isn't a solution. BM is awash in a vast sea of gold. Look at the gold stats, seriously, there's no gold shortage.

What religion lacks is a reason to spend the money.

[De-Legro]

Giving more gold to religions isn't a solution. BM is awash in a vast sea of gold. Look at the gold stats, seriously, there's no gold shortage.

What religion lacks is a reason to spend the money.

This is apparently true for all aspects of the game currently, religion certainly has more gold sinks then most other avenues.

[Penchant]

This is apparently true for all aspects of the game currently, religion certainly has more gold sinks then most other avenues.

Thats not true. The rest of the game has a reason to spend the gold, religion does not.

[De-Legro]

Thats not true. The rest of the game has a reason to spend the gold, religion does not.

We can't have it both ways. People playing the religion game argue that it costs a fortune to build and maintain temples, yet we turn around and say there is no "reason" to spend the gold. On the other hand other players are complaining they have too much gold that they can't possibly spend on their unit / give to others for military purposes.

[Indirik]

Of course you have a reason to spend gold for religion. Larger temples support larger numbers of followers, thus allowing priests to be more effective. (You will have more followers, thus requiring less preaching, and allowing greater effectiveness of priest influences.)

Also, larger temples in your region gives you more bragging rights to having a bigger temple than some other region. That means you're obviously more devout, and thus deserving of higher rank/influence, and better support from the faith.

And you can also donate gold to better fund the maintenance of your faith, thus allowing it to dominate the other faiths, which are, of course, false, if not outright evil.

[Dishman]

I wish there was some interconnection between religions and unique items. Something as heavy as large temples being able to generate unique items or something as weak as priests being able to 'bless' items for a minor boost to its stats.

Religion is just as much relics and idols as it is metaphysics and ritual.

[De-Legro]

I wish there was some interconnection between religions and unique items. Something as heavy as large temples being able to generate unique items or something as weak as priests being able to 'bless' items for a minor boost to its stats.

Religion is just as much relics and idols as it is metaphysics and ritual.

I've seen religions use unique items as part of their lore. Problem is unique items are designed to eventually break, which might not go over so well with the faithful. A small start up religion on FEI died off when the unique item that was supposed to be the symbol of office for the leader was lost.

[Indirik]

SA on Dwilight was able to get some unique items from the Zuma. We were never really able to do anything all that useful work them, though.

There was a feature request to allow duchies and religion names to be used to generate unique item names. I thought it had been approved.

[Dishman]

I've seen religions use unique items as part of their lore. Problem is unique items are designed to eventually break, which might not go over so well with the faithful. A small start up religion on FEI died off when the unique item that was supposed to be the symbol of office for the leader was lost.

It's little things like this that make me love Battlemaster. Dynamic story telling that casually goes on all over the various maps.

[Penchant]

SA on Dwilight was able to get some unique items from the Zuma. We were never really able to do anything all that useful work them, though.

There was a feature request to allow duchies and religion names to be used to generate unique item names. I thought it had been approved.

I don't think religion names was ever requested/done, but duchies have and for awhile. (There were duchies named maddening and austere and stuff which is why the SA unique items were possible.)