Yesterday should have been a dev diary day, but I forgot that May 1 is actually some sort of Red holiday, and turning up to work gets you lined up against a wall and shot. However, this is not the time to discuss the mysterious idols, totems and faiths of the previous century. Let us instead think back much further, to simpler - if no less bloody - times, before Socialist May Day, before Christian Walpurgis Night, when the bonfires blazed for the Old Gods...

To begin with, religious Moral Authority has been revamped. The base value is now determined by the number of Holy Sites under the control of the religion. On top of this, there are various timed modifiers (think character opinions) for things like winning or losing holy wars, or building temples. This new system applies to all religions, not just the pagans. The pagan religions do tend to start with fewer Holy Sites under their control, but on the other hand there are no pagan heresies to worry about.



Now, as mentioned in previous dev diaries, pagans enjoy a number of advantages, but they also suffer from some frustrating limitations. Foremost, perhaps, is that they are stuck with Gavelkind. Pagan vassals are also a lot more suspicious of new rulers on succession (harsher "short reign" opinions), they cannot demand conversion of vassals, and they are easily impressed by the cunning missionaries of the Abrahamic religions. To avoid these problems, pagans can of course simply give up the old ways and convert, but there is another option; pagan religions can be reformed in imitation of those clever monotheists. With a proper church hierarchy, a holy book, and standardized rituals, the pagan religions can become more competitive.



Reforming the faith is not easy; you need to control three of the holy sites and have a lot of Piety to boot. After reforming, your faith will be given a religious head. In the case of Norse Pagans, the character who conducted the reformation will become the Fylkir, serving as both secular ruler and religious leader in much the same way as an Islamic Caliph. You may now declare holy wars, both great pagan Crusades and regular religious wars against infidels. Other pagan religions get a vassal religious head, like the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.



There are tradeoffs to reforming the faith, however. You will lose the Subjugation casus belli and the defensive home attrition, and the unreformed version of your religion will become a heresy (which can cause problems for you.) As a pagan, you will normally want to grow quickly using your invasion and subjugation CBs, and then try to either reform your religion or convert in order to consolidate and stabilize your realm...

That's all for now. Next week's topic is special pagan events and decisions!

[video=youtube;yoF84KVR9F8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoF84KVR9F8[/video]
[video=youtube_share;vYxB1O-XGk0]http://youtu.be/vYxB1O-XGk0[/video]

Bonus! Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods expansion in-depth Q&A at PC Gamer
Everything you want to know, but haven´t dared to ask?
“It’s less than a month until the longships land to bring us The Old Gods, the pagan-focused expansion for Crusader Kings II. We’ve been keeping close tabs on new details at our Viking Analysis Desk, and today, we’ve got some extra meaty details for you. Below you’ll find our massive Q&A with project lead Henrik Fåhraeus, covering everything from concubines to pagan sacred kings.”
Read the full Q&A here: http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/05/01/crusader-kings-2-the-old-gods-in-depth-qa/


Web page: http://www.crusaderkings.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Crusaderkings
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Crusaderkings

 

[riadach]

No, that would mean that, for example, Catholicism would start at 10% Moral Authority.



For Sunni: Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Cordoba.
For Shi'a: Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus and Al Nadjaf.

Will this encourage more shia vs sunni conflict?

 

[Doomdark]

also, just a clarification, but is the Fylkir - and reformation-causing-a-ruler-to-be-one, hardcoded for the Norse, or is that also understood to be included in the "That kind of thing is fully moddable." scope?

It's moddable.

 

[Claudius8110]

Yesterday should have been a dev diary day, but I forgot that May 1 is actually some sort of Red holiday, and turning up to work gets you lined up against a wall and shot.

You guys are awesome lol

 

[King Anund]

Thank you Doomdark

 

[lokomoko]

Will this encourage more shia vs sunni conflict?

I imagine it would, it should heat things up around the area before the crusades, hopefully making them more likely to be successful.

 

[Doomdark]

About concubines; if you take a reigning women captive, you can take her as a concubine and any children could in theory inherit both parents' titles. You can take even married women as concubines; the marriage will break.

 

[Frostschaden]

No, that would mean that, for example, Catholicism would start at 10% Moral Authority.

So, the interface in the dev diary will be stretched to include the Pentarchs?

For Sunni: Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Cordoba.
For Shi'a: Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus and Al Nadjaf.

Catholic: Santiago, Jerusalem, Rome, Canterbury and Cologne
Orthodox: Ephesos, Constantinople, Athens, Jerusalem and Antioch

Subject to change though...

Ah, reasonable choices. What about heresies? I assume they will copy the parent religion's holy sites, either automatically or manually (as in just given the same tags).

Where are the holy sites configured? Religions or landed_titles?

Thanks for your quick and clear answers, by the way. I really appreciate it.

 

[Spartanlemur]

Well perhaps then if she's not married, I'm under the impression that a king's wife couldn't be taken because she's married.

You might be right about that. But ok, lets assume there is an unmarried female de facto ruler who gets taken concubine by the king of Norway: will the child of this union inherit Norway and the Christian kingdom ruled by his mother?

Edit: thanks for clearing that up Doomdark!

 

[riadach]

Are they weighed in any way? I imagine losing Rome would matter a lot more than losing Santiago.

Or Canterbury.

 

[riadach]

I imagine it would, it should heat things up around the area before the crusades, hopefully making them more likely to be successful.

And give poor old Abyssinia some breathing space.

 

[lokomoko]

You might be right about that. But ok, lets assume there is an unmarried female de facto ruler who gets taken concubine by the king of Norway: will the child of this union inherit Norway and the Christian kingdom ruled by his mother?

Edit: thanks for clearing that up Doomdark!

Annnd we just got our answer.

 

[lokomoko]

And give poor old Abyssinia some breathing space.

Yep, and in some cases stop the Fatimids from conquering the Byzantines at game start...

 

[Mattobro]

Very good.

 

[Doomdark]

So, the interface in the dev diary will be stretched to include the Pentarchs?

No, the five holy sites are only shown that way for Pagans and Zoroastrians. Others will still see info about them in the Moral Authority tooltip.

Ah, reasonable choices. What about heresies? I assume they will copy the parent religion's holy sites, either automatically or manually (as in just given the same tags). Where are the holy sites configured? Religions or landed_titles?

Heresies have separately scripted holy sites in landed_titles.txt.

 

[riadach]

Yep, and in some cases stop the Fatimids from conquering the Byzantines at game start...

That doesn't seem to happen in my games anymore, since the geographic restrictions were placed on the invasion and holy war cbs.

I still want to know if the Irish 867 set up is final, and if so, why have they chosen not to make any Irish petty kings?

 

[Tapscott]

So are all of the Pagans going to have the same religious icon? I was kinda hoping that Tengrists would have a different icon from the Norse, as an example. Also do the pagan faiths have heresies?

 

[LordNeidhart]

Can we expect any meaningful bonuses for rulers whose realm contain one of said holy sites? Like general piety/prestige bonuses and possible relation modifiers with the religion head, or maybe a slight tax boost from pilgrims?

 

[Frostschaden]

No, the five holy sites are only shown that way for Pagans and Zoroastrians. Others will still see info about them in the Moral Authority tooltip.

Oh right, the catholics use the space for anti-popes.

I notice that you differentiate pagans and zoroastrians. Reminds me of one question that wasn't answered last time. Can the pagan interface be triggered separately from the other special features? For example, it wouldn't work well with the Zoroastrians, IMHO, and another religion I'm modding. It would be great if the interface wasn't hardcoded like in SoI (I had hoped back than that one would be able to mod custom interfaces for other religions).

I'll stop bothering you after this.

Heresies have separately scripted holy sites in landed_titles.txt.

Great! I do hope find the time for extra flavour for minor religions (e.g. Monophysites) and major heresies.

 

[Talq]

So Sunni moral authority starts at 20%. (Even if its only the local liege, they get converted soon enough), and they are one fatamid invasion (Baghdad) and one lost holy war from zero. And they still get the holy war pile on (temporarily...) This,erm may not have solved many problems.

Yep, and in some cases stop the Fatimids from conquering the Byzantines at game start...

That got fixed a couple of patches ago (muslim invasions now need a border)

Also do the pagan faiths have heresies?

Already answered - no. (outside of unreformed being a heresy of reformed)

 

[superskierpat]

So are all of the Pagans going to have the same religious icon? I was kinda hoping that Tengrists would have a different icon from the Norse, as an example. Also do the pagan faiths have heresies?

When you reform your faith, the unreformed pagan remnants become the heresy, it is known