Greetings!

Today I want to bring up some minor, but still very flavorful, changes and fixes we’ve done to a few religions. Most of what I’m about to present is the courtesy of our talented and passionate betas, who suggest a lot of good improvements!

Manichean
The Manichean religion, which in-game is part of the Zoroastrian Group and mainly present on the Steppes, has been changed to be more historical and just generally more fleshed-out. For example, rulers of the Manichean faith can no longer take concubines, can now have female temple holders and get access to Reincarnation events. The religion also receives a bunch of new goodies:

• A ‘Bema’ religious festival decision
• A formable Holy Order (The Army of Light)
• A religious head with an accompanying title (The Manichean Church)

Khurmazta
The Khurmazta religion is a new heresy in the Zoroastrian group, and is mainly present in Khiva and the new Pamir areas among the Sogdian people who live there. Rulers that adhere to the Khurmazta faith can choose to embrace a Patron Deity, who all give various bonuses much like the Hindu patron deities do.

Nestorian
The Nestorian religion, which is present in parts of Arabia, India and Africa, has also been fleshed out with new details. There is now a decision to form their Holy Order (The Order of Saint Addai) and, while not strictly relating to Nestorianism, we’ve added a new culture that is primarily Nestorian - the Assyrian culture. The Assyrian culture is present in the area around Baghdad/Syria.

General
One of the main things that caused India to be very stagnant and overly resistant to invasions was the fact that they started out with very powerful Holy Orders right out the gate. We’ve reconstructed these so that you can form them under certain circumstances, and they will automatically form when India is under threat, i.e. by letting some of the major cities fall to invaders.

Also, a lot of religions have had their Holy Sites moved around. The Indian religions, Nestorianism and Manichean in particular. They’ve primarily moved into the Purang county in Tibet, to the holy mount Kailash.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Do you have sources for this? I've never heard of this before.

Christianity had penetrated as far as China by about 600AD at the latest - Islam was hot on its heals via traders.

 

[spendabuck]

Christianity had penetrated as far as China by about 600AD at the latest - Islam was hot on its heals via traders.

I'm aware of the presence of Christianity and Islam (as well as Manichaeism) in China, but I didn't know that there were any Christian or Muslim settlements in Tibet.

 

[CatilinamSum]

Do you have sources for this? I've never heard of this before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet#Religion

"The first Christians documented to have reached Tibet were the Nestorians, of whom various remains and inscriptions have been found in Tibet. They were also present at the imperial camp of Möngke Khan at Shira Ordo, where they debated in 1256 with Karma Pakshi (1204/6-83), head of the Karma Kagyu order.[97][98] Desideri, who reached Lhasa in 1716, encountered Armenian and Russian merchants."

"Muslims have been living in Tibet since as early as the 8th or 9th century. In Tibetan cities, there are small communities of Muslims, known as Kachee (Kache), who trace their origin to immigrants from three main regions: Kashmir (Kachee Yul in ancient Tibetan), Ladakh and the Central Asian Turkic countries. Islamic influence in Tibet also came from Persia. After 1959 a group of Tibetan Muslims made a case for Indian nationality based on their historic roots to Kashmir and the Indian government declared all Tibetan Muslims Indian citizens later on that year.[115] Other Muslim ethnic groups who have long inhabited Tibet include Hui, Salar, Dongxiang and Bonan. There is also a well established Chinese Muslim community (gya kachee), which traces its ancestry back to the Hui ethnic group of China."

 

[Yves Santos]

what is the Culture Group of the Assyrian Culture? btw
and will have the Pre-Islamic Culture of Syria like Aramean or smh like?

 

[Karlingid]

what is the Culture Group of the Assyrian Culture? btw
and will have the Pre-Islamic Culture of Syria like Aramean or smh like?

It's listed as Byzantine, though I think it should be in the same group as the Israelite cultures (whether that means moving them to the Byzantine cultures or making a new group or not idc, but they should be in the same group as the Assyrians). They use Andalusi portraits despite this placement (Israelites should too, or Assyrians should use Greek portraits, or a new clothing pack could be made for the whole group).

Aramean culture is currently unconfirmed, though it would be accurate to use to represent large chunks of Syria and Israel/Palestine throughout much of the timeframe (Christian parts especially).

 

[Karlingid]

@rageair I'm not kidding about helping with the culture- I've been waiting for a Middle East/North Africa overhaul for a long time, and I have done more than plenty of research on especially the Middle Eastern parts of that from both before and after I got CKII.

I once tried to make a mod to include the various things I had hoped to see, though realized making events happen and the like were well beyond my means. As for culture and religion files, though- I have already made (theoretically) functional files.

 

[Yves Santos]

It's listed as Byzantine, though I think it should be in the same group as the Israelite cultures (whether that means moving them to the Byzantine cultures or making a new group or not idc, but they should be in the same group as the Assyrians). They use Andalusi portraits despite this placement (Israelites should too, or Assyrians should use Greek portraits, or a new clothing pack could be made for the whole group).

Aramean culture is currently unconfirmed, though it would be accurate to use to represent large chunks of Syria and Israel/Palestine throughout much of the timeframe (Christian parts especially).

have an Israelite culture Group aswell,now only need a Israelite Culture centred in the Region of Jerusalem indeed

 

[Karlingid]

have an Israelite culture Group aswell,now only need a Israelite Culture centred in the Region of Jerusalem indeed

It would make more sense for Israelite and Assyrian to be grouped into a "Mashriqi" or "Levantine" culture group, sharing graphics and demonstrating cultural similarities. As for a Mizrahi culture addition, that is yet another thing I've written up a (theoretically) functional file (as well as updated for Ashkenazi and Sephardi) while also drawing a map of where the lines between the 3 sects should appear.

 

[Kilkakon]

Yay religion tweaks! Hopefully we can see some more of them fleshed out a bit, especially the heresies, and the religions that are really heresies but shouldn't be, like Manichean. Keep up the good work team!

 

[RykaS]

Some sort of dynamic holy site system would be great if Paradox could implement it. Barring such a system, 1066 is the game's default start date and it is to that year that the game's systems should be most balanced.

Honestly, it would be even better if we could build our own holy site. Like if we found a temple-county or duchy and poor enormous amounts of resources, prestige, alms, charity events, donate heirs to serve, etc over a couple hundred years it should be able to serve as a proxy site. There are some starts where the likelihood of your snagging enough holy sites to reform is effectively nill.

 

[giant_sloth]

Separate Manicheans please! For the love of Augustine!

 

[hyrathon]

so ck2+- ???

 

[Karlingid]

Upon further thought, the Byzantine culture group increasingly feels like an "ancient cultures" group- while Castilian, French, Italian, and German are all decisively Medieval, and Norse wasn't a thing proper until near the end of the Roman Empire, we have the Byzantines: Greeks who have been known since before Rome was founded, Armenians who long inhabited the region and fought against the Diadochi, the Alans who once ruled the vast steppes before the Turks came, the Georgians who are old enough to be legendary to the Greeks, and now the Assyrians who are the lords of Babylon and Nineveh and all those places. The only comparably old groups in the game are the Indo-Iranians. With this mindset, I can see why the Israelite culture group is like an off-brand Byzantine (to the point that they even share dynamic names for provinces).

 

[Keizer Harm]

There should be an achievement for having an empire title as an Assyrian referencing Sargon.

 

[melkor88]

Some nice additions.

 

[witekgreg]

Just short question, what happened with Slovaks in Slavakia on Crusader Kings? They are represented as Bochemian culture in 769 and 867 but then they magically disappear. Why they are not available in 1066?

 

[Slaughter]

I too favour separating Manicheism from Zoroastrism.

Should't Zoros' heresy be Zurvanism? Then again I think Zurvanism was the mainstream before and shortly after the muslim invasion, but as a reaction from islamism and other monotheists, Zurvanism was discarded.
It would actually be ironic if actual Zoroastrism was not the main religion.

I think it would make more sense to have a new Gnostic religion group. Then Manicheism, Bogomilism, Catharism, etc etc, can have their own religious group.

 

[Karlingid]

Upon further thought, the Byzantine culture group increasingly feels like an "ancient cultures" group- while Castilian, French, Italian, and German are all decisively Medieval, and Norse wasn't a thing proper until near the end of the Roman Empire, we have the Byzantines: Greeks who have been known since before Rome was founded, Armenians who long inhabited the region and fought against the Diadochi, the Alans who once ruled the vast steppes before the Turks came, the Georgians who are old enough to be legendary to the Greeks, and now the Assyrians who are the lords of Babylon and Nineveh and all those places. The only comparably old groups in the game are the Indo-Iranians. With this mindset, I can see why the Israelite culture group is like an off-brand Byzantine (to the point that they even share dynamic names for provinces).

As a side note, the Arabic group is mostly as old as well- Bedouin, Egyptian, and Berber all can be traced back to before the Greeks. The problem is that these cultures, as represented in the game, are sort of broad generalizations and seem almost as if meant to be Islamic, rather than continuations of preislamic, cultures. Bedouin, Berber, and Levantine all focus on primarily Islamic names, while Egyptian, though it uses Coptic (good job on that btw, it's proper for the period) uses Arabized Coptic rather than pure Coptic.

 

[Mjur3k]

Could you add a titulary tittle e_Assyria or k_Assyria.

Beside that a great devdiary!

 

[Thure]

Upon further thought, the Byzantine culture group increasingly feels like an "ancient cultures" group- while Castilian, French, Italian, and German are all decisively Medieval, and Norse wasn't a thing proper until near the end of the Roman Empire, we have the Byzantines: Greeks who have been known since before Rome was founded, Armenians who long inhabited the region and fought against the Diadochi, the Alans who once ruled the vast steppes before the Turks came, the Georgians who are old enough to be legendary to the Greeks, and now the Assyrians who are the lords of Babylon and Nineveh and all those places. The only comparably old groups in the game are the Indo-Iranians. With this mindset, I can see why the Israelite culture group is like an off-brand Byzantine (to the point that they even share dynamic names for provinces).

All the cultures in the Byzantine group are part of the Medieval political culture of the Byzantine Empire. Greeks, Armenians, Alans... they are part of the broad Byzantinosphere