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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.

CKII_ToG_DD_04_Holy_Sites.jpg

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.

CKII_ToG_DD_04_Great_Holy_War.jpg

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.

CKII_ToG_DD_04_Fylkirate.jpg

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
 
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How often will any events fire to potentially convert pagan rulers? Could I intentionally go and take a bunch of muslim concubines to increase my chances?

If you have a Muslim concubine or wife, you can choose to convert at any time by decision.
 
hopefully at the start date the Zoroastrion religion is already reformed. They had a well documented clerical order, liturgized rites and proper religious structures to boot.
 
I'm pretty sure it was mentioned the catholic/orthodox sites were already mentioned to not be equal in weight.
and I'm just guessing, but wouldn't coding a scroll bar be more trouble than worth especially since the GUI elements seem to be .dds pictures rather than dynamic vectors or something :laugh:
 
hopefully at the start date the Zoroastrion religion is already reformed. They had a well documented clerical order, liturgized rites and proper religious structures to boot.

Zoroastrians are not pagans. It's a separate religion group.
 
I'm pretty sure it was mentioned the catholic/orthodox sites were already mentioned to not be equal in weight.
and I'm just guessing, but wouldn't coding a scroll bar be more trouble than worth especially since the GUI elements seem to be .dds pictures rather than dynamic vectors or something :laugh:
Aren't there already some windows where it'll automatically switch to a scrollbar if there's not enough space? The law list for example, and the decisions list.
 
hopefully at the start date the Zoroastrion religion is already reformed. They had a well documented clerical order, liturgized rites and proper religious structures to boot.
I think they're differentiating between pagans and Zoroastrians and all the talk of reformation has been tied to paganism, so yes Zoroastrianism should be a properly 'established' religion.

EDIT: Ninja'd :D
 
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That sounds great! And here I was, trying to have my interest in CKII wane because it is eating my life... damn you Paradox! ;)

So how much of priority taking holy sites is for the AI? Can we expect Shia/Sunni conflicts over Jerusalem/Mecca/Medina, and the Catholics to go in berzerk mode if Rome is conquered by Muslims or Orthodox?
 
Thessaloniki wants to be a holy site instead of that village of Athens. :)

I don't believe the question about events changing holy sites has been answered.
 
A modding related question: if we were to enable the use of raiding for a religion would that make the religion unplayable without the DLC? Or would it keep it playable but just without the use of raiding?
 
Samogitia (Žemaitija) still has some deer as CoA not a bear as it always was.
Lithuania still has Jagielon double cross witch literally means accepting the christian faith and not the Vytis/Pagonia or at least Colums of Gediminas.
Should I create new thread will the links for proof to finally get some attention for this matter or it will be still ignored as my previous posts on DD?
 
I love the thing that you putted two holy places of norse to Germany and Dutch. It has this old times ancient germania pagan feeling. I wonder, did you choose all of these places on some historical base? I know that Upssala was a holy place for example, but i don´t know anything about the others. (i guess i could google it)
How about other pagan holy places, for example slavic, did you choose them randomly or by some historical accuracy code? :)
Thank you
 
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.

So does this mean the reigning woman now concubine is in the pagan ruler's court? And a regent appointed at home?

Also, I'm going to take the plunge and guess that the Miaphysite holy sites are Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Aksum and whichever province happens to contain Vagarshapat/Etchmiadzin (Dwin?)
 
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I think the one thing that makes me nervous is the possibility of even more holy warring going on. I love the idea of the pagan reformation, I'm just worried that having even more people using the still pretty powerful Holy War CB could be pretty wonky.



Speaking of which... will, say, Reformed Norse be able to call holy wars against the other pagan faiths, like Tengri and Romuva? Or, as they're in the same religious group as the other pagans, only against their heretics and people outside the Pagan label?
 
So... Does that mean they're no longer navigable once Norse splits to Norwegian, Swedish and Danish? Of course that split could only happen once they are no longer navigable due to fortifications...
Obviously I have no way of knowing for sure, but, I'd say it's logical to assume that once they are no longer Norse culture, then they lose that ability. Unless the Scandinavian are being rebranded as all Norse culture.