CK2 Dev Diary #88 - A Faith In My Own Image

[LeSingeAffame]

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Didn't know that sentence

 

[Orphalesion]

Bottomline; While not impossible, there is no reason to think that there will be anything Hellenic in HF, and in fact at least some reason to very much doubt it, because the amount of work needed to fix a broken and underdeveloped religion that would, at most, be represented by three childless old dudes in the court of Count Anastasios of Monemvasia in 769 who'd all likely be dead by 780.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Bottomline; While not impossible, there is no reason to think that there will be anything Hellenic in HF, and in fact at least some reason to very much doubt it, because the amount of work needed to fix a broken and underdeveloped religion that would, at most, be represented by three childless old dudes in the court of Count Anastasios of Monemvasia in 769 who'd all likely be dead by 780.

And that's overly generous to their representation.

 

[Orphalesion]

And that's overly generous to their representation.

Agreed and how likely would it even be that a Greek Orthodox count would even tolerate heathens from an unimportant minority group at his court by 769?
Answer: not very likely.

 

[Prometheus_1]

Reasons
1) There are no representative nobles or courtiers for this religion.
2) As your own links show, the Mani peninsula which you claim as the basis for it being on map is a fraction of the county it lies in, and so the province religion should be that of the dominant population - Orthodox, whether iconphile or iconoclast.
3) Even on the Mani peninsula, the religion that you insist as being Hellenic wasn't in sole control of the area, being present in isolated areas of the province.
4) Although likely to be based on it, the religion of the Maniots would not be that of Rome, or that of the larger Greek states.
5) Since the Greek church and state at the time used "Hellene" as we would use "pagan", or "heathen", it may not even have been related to the classical Hellenic faith.

Due to 1, 2, and 3, the religion is insufficiently present to be represented in game.
Due to 4 and 5, it is broadly unlikely that it is the same as the "Hellenic" faith in the history files.

6) There is nothing of use in the game files for it as a playable faith.
7) This means it would need rewriting entirely.
8) All of this will take time for writing, testing, checking, and integrating. Since Hellenic was previously associated with assorted game breaking bugs and crashes, these could resurface.


It isn't a case of opposing any addition to the game.

I'm very much in favour of meaningful additions to the game. However, previous responses from devs have indicated they don't think this *is* meaningful, and that they don't consider a couple of goatherds to be a large enough - or significant enough - population to represent.

My response to what we've seen so far for this coming DLC would have been along the lines of "that's interesting, but I don't know how you'd do it".

If I knew how to do it, I might have made a mod for it... **Just like there are already good mods for a wide variety of non-existent or statistically unrepresentative faiths to be included**.

And those affirmations aren't true , you can't say there are no representative nobles for this religion since they had castle and army , you can't say the maniote were a fraction of the population , as identify the whole local population , you can't say that Maniot religion wouln't be the same as Greek or Roman one , because Rome had several religions as well and despite it might have an evolution it still is an hellenic religion, then you are mostly making your own assumptions nt based on evidence or facts ... for reference historical facts you can read this :


''... The inhabitants of the castle in Maini not descended from above Slavs (of the area of the mountain of Taygetos =named as Pentadactylos ), but having descent from the oldest Romans, and who to up to date by the locals, Hellenes call them, because from the ancient times those believe to idolatry and pilgrims of idols like the old (=ancient) Hellenes (Greeks) are, and who during the reign of the famous King (=emperor) Basilios (Basil I) have been baptised (so) Christians become ; the place that are dwell, is arid and poor but it has olive trees, which yield economic income. Exist this place to the Maleas peninsula, ie beyond the Ezero to the beach coast side. Because they are obedience, accept archon (lord) dispatched from strategos (general of the theme) and discipline in command of the general, so paying taxes from ancient times 400 coins ...''

page 54,55 of the pdf , De administrando imperio , Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus .

 

[Memoryofthelost]

And those affirmations aren't true , you can't say there are no representative nobles for this religion since they had castle and army , you can't say the maniote were a fraction of the population , as identify the whole local population , you can't say that Maniot religion wouln't be the same as Greek or Roman one , because Rome had several religions as well and despite it might have an evolution it still is an hellenic religion, then you are mostly making your own assumptions nt based on evidence or facts ... for reference historical facts you can read this :


''... The inhabitants of the castle in Maini not descended from above Slavs (of the area of the mountain of Taygetos =named as Pentadactylos ), but having descent from the oldest Romans, and who to up to date by the locals, Hellenes call them, because from the ancient times those believe to idolatry and pilgrims of idols like the old (=ancient) Hellenes (Greeks) are, and who during the reign of the famous King (=emperor) Basilios (Basil I) have been baptised (so) Christians become ; the place that are dwell, is arid and poor but it has olive trees, which yield economic income. Exist this place to the Maleas peninsula, ie beyond the Ezero to the beach coast side. Because they are obedience, accept archon (lord) dispatched from strategos (general of the theme) and discipline in command of the general, so paying taxes from ancient times 400 coins ...''

page 54,55 of the pdf , De administrando imperio , Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus .

just for the love of the old gods it is a long dead faith that has such a small amount of followers that Zunism in all of It's obscurity and insignificance is more important at the time. it is dead devs said they are not going to put any resources towards it multiple times in the past so please go to the current Hellenic thread so we can get back on topic

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

And those affirmations aren't true , you can't say there are no representative nobles for this religion since they had castle and army , you can't say the maniote were a fraction of the population , as identify the whole local population , you can't say that Maniot religion wouln't be the same as Greek or Roman one , because Rome had several religions as well and despite it might have an evolution it still is an hellenic religion, then you are mostly making your own assumptions nt based on evidence or facts ... for reference historical facts you can read this :


''... The inhabitants of the castle in Maini not descended from above Slavs (of the area of the mountain of Taygetos =named as Pentadactylos ), but having descent from the oldest Romans, and who to up to date by the locals, Hellenes call them, because from the ancient times those believe to idolatry and pilgrims of idols like the old (=ancient) Hellenes (Greeks) are, and who during the reign of the famous King (=emperor) Basilios (Basil I) have been baptised (so) Christians become ; the place that are dwell, is arid and poor but it has olive trees, which yield economic income. Exist this place to the Maleas peninsula, ie beyond the Ezero to the beach coast side. Because they are obedience, accept archon (lord) dispatched from strategos (general of the theme) and discipline in command of the general, so paying taxes from ancient times 400 coins ...''

page 54,55 of the pdf , De administrando imperio , Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus .

Finally!

After 20 pages we get a source from you!

Now, I don't read Greek, in any form, so I can't verify the translation you give. I'll have to defer that to others on the forum.
However, that translation is almost impossible to understand.


I can't find anything relating to the castle from the period, since all the links refer to the 13th century one. So that search dead ends there, amongst several "this might be built on a previous castle, but it could equally have been elsewhere" type pages.

 

[Rockphed]

Finally!

After 20 pages we get a source from you!

Now, I don't read Greek, in any form, so I can't verify the translation you give. I'll have to defer that to others on the forum.
However, that translation is almost impossible to understand.


I can't find anything relating to the castle from the period, since all the links refer to the 13th century one. So that search dead ends there, amongst several "this might be built on a previous castle, but it could equally have been elsewhere" type pages.

It says that the holders of the castle in Maini used to practice Roman/Greek idolatry, but were baptised during the reign of Basil the first. After that they paid taxes to the Strategos of 400 coins annually. When is Basil I available to play in CKII?

Edit: Basil I reigned from 867, so at the Charlemagne start a castle might have been held by Pagans. However, the province currently has only 3 holdings at that point, so it doesn't have a castle free to give to a hellenic pagan.

 

[classicist]

And those affirmations aren't true , you can't say there are no representative nobles for this religion since they had castle and army , you can't say the maniote were a fraction of the population , as identify the whole local population , you can't say that Maniot religion wouln't be the same as Greek or Roman one , because Rome had several religions as well and despite it might have an evolution it still is an hellenic religion, then you are mostly making your own assumptions nt based on evidence or facts ... for reference historical facts you can read this :


''... The inhabitants of the castle in Maini not descended from above Slavs (of the area of the mountain of Taygetos =named as Pentadactylos ), but having descent from the oldest Romans, and who to up to date by the locals, Hellenes call them, because from the ancient times those believe to idolatry and pilgrims of idols like the old (=ancient) Hellenes (Greeks) are, and who during the reign of the famous King (=emperor) Basilios (Basil I) have been baptised (so) Christians become ; the place that are dwell, is arid and poor but it has olive trees, which yield economic income. Exist this place to the Maleas peninsula, ie beyond the Ezero to the beach coast side. Because they are obedience, accept archon (lord) dispatched from strategos (general of the theme) and discipline in command of the general, so paying taxes from ancient times 400 coins ...''

page 54,55 of the pdf , De administrando imperio , Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus .

It's a bit brutal translation work you've done there, and in particular the "from the ancient times those believe to idolatry and pilgrims of idols like the old Hellenes" should definitely be "in the very ancient times they were idolaters and worshippers of images after the fashion of the ancient Hellenes" as R. J. H. Jenkins translates it in the very serviceable Dumbarton Oaks Press edition of 1967 (p. 237). The tense is quite clear from the Greek διὰ τὸ εν τοῖς προπαλαιοῖς χρόνοις. The meaning is clear as well: the inhabitants of Mani are still called by their neighbours 'Hellenes' partly due to them descending from the Greeks of the Roman empire, not the surrounding Slavs, and partly due to their reputation of having been idolaters like the ancient Hellenes. So there is no statement as to them having continued non-Christian 'Hellenic' religion - only that they had been idolaters in the same way as the Hellenes were known to have been. Their 'Hellenicity' was a combination of them not being Slavs like the surrounding groups, and an analogy for their reputed pre-Christian practices. For the Greeks of Constantine's time, it was an obvious choice to call the Maniots of old 'Hellenes' on this basis. But once again, it does not demonstrate any secure connection to Greek polis-religion - which would not have been practiced in a remote mountainous area in any case even in the second century CE.

It seems that the reason why the Maniots' final conversion is attributed to Basil's time is that a few hagiographies of roughly Basil's era mention their conversion as an aim for a few holy figures. This, too, is mostly a hagiographical topos, and as genuinely 'pagan' groups were getting very few and far between in the Byzantine realm, 'ongoing conversion' of peasants in the provinces became a fine way for proselytizing ecclesiastics to still be able to tick a box.

Now, I don't read Greek, in any form, so I can't verify the translation you give. I'll have to defer that to others on the forum.However, that translation is almost impossible to understand.

Indeed. For the sake of simplicity I just type to here the established translation by Jenkins, which is a bit dated but needs no real alterations. I quoted the page already above.

"The inhabitants of the city of Maïna are not of the race of the aforesaid Slavs, but of the ancient Romans, and even to this day they are called 'Hellenes' by the local inhabitants, because in the very ancient times they were idolaters and worshippers of images after the fashion of the ancient Hellenes; and they were baptized and became Christians in the reign of the glorious Basil. The place where they live is waterless and inaccessible, but bears the olive, whence their comfort is. This place is situated on the tip of Malea, that is, beyond Ezeron towards the coast. Seeing that they are perfectly submissive and accept a head man from the military governor, and heed and obey the commands of the military governor, they have paid from very ancient times a tribute of 400 nomismata."​

Which by the way also supports the idea of the Mani area as too poor to be really worth representing. The tribute paid by the Maniots was less than those of either Milingoi or Ezeritai, two Slavic groups which both paid 600 n. each.

 

[Rockphed]

@classicist : Thank you for finding a less obtuse translation.

 

[classicist]

@classicist : Thank you for finding a less obtuse translation.

No worries. I had the Moravcsik-Jenkins edition of De administrando imperio literally an arm-reach away on a bookshelf, so relaying a more polished (and, I think, accurate) translation seemed like the helpful thing to do. It is one still often quoted, and as I said above, I've never felt the need to tweak many things in it - aside perhaps of Jenkins' use of the word 'race' on the first quoted line.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

@classicist
Thank you.

There are some very different meanings between the two translations (city of Maina versus castle of Maina), and you've given me a context for the "coins".

I'll have to do some more poking around before I can comment much more.

 

[Prometheus_1]

It's a bit brutal translation work you've done there, and in particular the "from the ancient times those believe to idolatry and pilgrims of idols like the old Hellenes" should definitely be "in the very ancient times they were idolaters and worshippers of images after the fashion of the ancient Hellenes" as R. J. H. Jenkins translates it in the very serviceable Dumbarton Oaks Press edition of 1967 (p. 237). The tense is quite clear from the Greek διὰ τὸ εν τοῖς προπαλαιοῖς χρόνοις. The meaning is clear as well: the inhabitants of Mani are still called by their neighbours 'Hellenes' partly due to them descending from the Greeks of the Roman empire, not the surrounding Slavs, and partly due to their reputation of having been idolaters like the ancient Hellenes. So there is no statement as to them having continued non-Christian 'Hellenic' religion - only that they had been idolaters in the same way as the Hellenes were known to have been. Their 'Hellenicity' was a combination of them not being Slavs like the surrounding groups, and an analogy for their reputed pre-Christian practices. For the Greeks of Constantine's time, it was an obvious choice to call the Maniots of old 'Hellenes' on this basis. But once again, it does not demonstrate any secure connection to Greek polis-religion - which would not have been practiced in a remote mountainous area in any case even in the second century CE.

It seems that the reason why the Maniots' final conversion is attributed to Basil's time is that a few hagiographies of roughly Basil's era mention their conversion as an aim for a few holy figures. This, too, is mostly a hagiographical topos, and as genuinely 'pagan' groups were getting very few and far between in the Byzantine realm, 'ongoing conversion' of peasants in the provinces became a fine way for proselytizing ecclesiastics to still be able to tick a box.



Indeed. For the sake of simplicity I just type to here the established translation by Jenkins, which is a bit dated but needs no real alterations. I quoted the page already above.

"The inhabitants of the city of Maïna are not of the race of the aforesaid Slavs, but of the ancient Romans, and even to this day they are called 'Hellenes' by the local inhabitants, because in the very ancient times they were idolaters and worshippers of images after the fashion of the ancient Hellenes; and they were baptized and became Christians in the reign of the glorious Basil. The place where they live is waterless and inaccessible, but bears the olive, whence their comfort is. This place is situated on the tip of Malea, that is, beyond Ezeron towards the coast. Seeing that they are perfectly submissive and accept a head man from the military governor, and heed and obey the commands of the military governor, they have paid from very ancient times a tribute of 400 nomismata."​

Which by the way also supports the idea of the Mani area as too poor to be really worth representing. The tribute paid by the Maniots was less than those of either Milingoi or Ezeritai, two Slavic groups which both paid 600 n. each.

Its not my translation and is not an "obtuse" translation as stated by @Rockphed yet the thing doesn't change one bit, it still shows its historically correct to include hellenism as a reviveable paganism and worth put ingame for both gameplay reasons and historicity . At this point opposing this is purely a question of opposing just for the sake of it rathern than any real reasons. We already have fantasy elements from magic to Aztecs, yet some people are opposing an historical fact, for futile reasons like "they were few". Well there were no Aztecs invading europe, there was no magic , there were no immortals .. yet those things are ingame for gameplay sake.

 

[YaumeLepire]

It's not massive, but it is still code time we don't really have.
Got a number of bugs we need to fix before we could consider increasing the scope.

Yeah! Like how many of the CK2 heresies don't yet work with EUIV, the Cathar and Bogomilist faiths, for example.

 

[blackninja9939]

Yeah! Like how many of the CK2 heresies don't yet work with EUIV, the Cathar and Bogomilist faiths, for example.

The heresies do but you need Sons of Abraham

 

[classicist]

Its not my translation and is not an "obtuse" translation as stated by @Rockphed yet the thing doesn't change one bit, it still shows its historically correct to include hellenism as a reviveable paganism and worth put ingame for both gameplay reasons and historicity.

The translation you quoted is very unlikely to be a published, scholarly translation - just look at it. And if you collate both of them with the original Greek of DAI, you see that the meaning does, in fact, change noticeably. Moreover, your claim that the text shows 'Hellenism' should be included as "reviveable paganism" is absolutely incorrect. In order to buttress your argument, you would need to show that A) Maniot 'Hellenism' is not just a literary artefact dependent on Byzantine elite's gaze at a province perceived as old-fashioned, B) Maniot 'Hellenism' was the same thing as Greek polis-religion (which CK2's Hellenism tried to represent), and C) that it was somehow 'reviveable' with any sort of plausibility.

For A) the only method I know of would be to find archaeological reports demonstrating any kind of non-literary evidence for continued 'Hellenic' religiosity; folk-religion or vaguely non-canonical Christian customs would not be enough for this purpose.

 

[Prometheus_1]

The translation you quoted is very unlikely to be a published, scholarly translation - just look at it. And if you collate both of them with the original Greek of DAI, you see that the meaning does, in fact, change noticeably. Moreover, your claim that the text shows 'Hellenism' should be included as "reviveable paganism" is absolutely incorrect. In order to buttress your argument, you would need to show that A) Maniot 'Hellenism' is not just a literary artefact dependent on Byzantine elite's gaze at a province perceived as old-fashioned, B) Maniot 'Hellenism' was the same thing as Greek polis-religion (which CK2's Hellenism tried to represent), and C) that it was somehow 'reviveable' with any sort of plausibility.

For A) the only method I know of would be to find archaeological reports demonstrating any kind of non-literary evidence for continued 'Hellenic' religiosity; folk-religion or vaguely non-canonical Christian customs would not be enough for this purpose.

You again miss the point of the argument...
The argument is not to prove how many and how relevant the hellenic faith was back then , but that since it was historically noted as present , whatever the forms it assumed, or whatever the number of its worshippers, its still an historical fact that has more right to be included in the game than the other fantasy elements already present in it .
So :

1 Its irrelevant how many people followed hellenic religion at the period as long as its historically present .
2 Its a game sandbox we are talking and refeerring to so its two times irrelevant the numbers .
3 The game already featured fantastical elements and fantasy events , which are in comparison with this historical fact placed ingame.
4 the game alrerady features that religion paganism despite not active and due to the upcoming dlc focused on improving the paganreligion it makes perfect sense to add the possibility to revive and reform also hellenism.

All other forms of opposition are simply void of reason and based on purely opposing for the sake of it.

So far it wasn't proven that the last hellenic religion followers

 

[MateuszS]

What about more heresies for reformed faiths? Not just Old Slavic/Germanic/Romuva?

 

[Fridoso]

Yay! There is only one thing to do and i'll be very happy. Please ad events that allows convert christians to their native culture paganism and add celtic and hellenic pagans! I'm wondering about megacampaign where i'll convert to paganism all nations and play them in EU4 as well.

 

[Rockphed]

You again miss the point of the argument...
The argument is not to prove how many and how relevant the hellenic faith was back then , but that since it was historically noted as present , whatever the forms it assumed, or whatever the number of its worshippers, its still an historical fact that has more right to be included in the game than the other fantasy elements already present in it .
So :

1 Its irrelevant how many people followed hellenic religion at the period as long as its historically present .
2 Its a game sandbox we are talking and refeerring to so its two times irrelevant the numbers .
3 The game already featured fantastical elements and fantasy events , which are in comparison with this historical fact placed ingame.
4 the game alrerady features that religion paganism despite not active and due to the upcoming dlc focused on improving the paganreligion it makes perfect sense to add the possibility to revive and reform also hellenism.

All other forms of opposition are simply void of reason and based on purely opposing for the sake of it.

So far it wasn't proven that the last hellenic religion followers

You keep claiming that this is a "historical fact". You have shown that one town or castle in a remote area of one province was converted away from hellenic during the reign of Basil I. What you have not shown is that the town/castle is significant enough to be shown as a holding. How much was 400 numenestra (the annual tax listed in your source)?

Furthermore, what makes you so certain that Hellenism would be an unreformed pagan religion? I don't know much about Germanic or Slavic paganism, but Greece and Rome had fairly extensive religious rules. I would put Hellenism on the same level as Zoroastrianism.