Dev Diary #20 - Religion and Faith

[Baron von Shoes]

Come one, come all! Zealots and cynics, fundamentalists and heretics! It is time for us to finally talk about religion in Crusader Kings III, and all that it entails.

While parts of the religion system in CK3 may seem familiar to fans of the previous games, the system itself has been completely rebuilt from the ground up. As a result, there is little point in talking about changes from CK2; instead, I will start diving into how religion works in CK3 and what that means to you as a player.

The Religious Hierarchy
The most logical place to start talking about religion in CK3 is with… Religions! As a game concept, a Religion is defined by four main things:

• What Traits are considered Sins and Virtues (3 each by default)
• What Religion Family it belongs to (Abrahamic, Oriental, or Pagan)
• What the standard religious Doctrines are for its Faiths
• What Tenets are available to its Faiths

Individual characters and counties will never believe in a whole Religion — they believe in a Faith instead, with each Religion having several Faiths under it. For example, Catholicism and Orthodoxy are Faiths under Christianity, while Theravada and Mahayana are Faiths under Buddhism.

[Screenshot showing a selection of either Christian Faiths, including distinct Coptic and Apostolic Faiths]

Similar to the way that Faiths belong to a Religion, Religions belong to a Religion Family. Religion Families are little more than groups of Religions, but this does serve an important purpose, as it plays a significant part in how Faith Hostility is calculated (more on that in a later Dev Diary).

Anatomy of a Faith
So if a character believes in a Faith, what does that mean for them? Well, each Faith is based on its parent Religion and inherits those attributes, but will be differentiated from other Faiths by its Tenets, Doctrines, and Holy Sites.

Tenets
Tenets are mechanical representations of the most important rites, rituals, and traditions of a Faith. Every Faith has exactly 3, picked from a total of around 50 different Tenets in the whole game. Tenets are the things which make a Faith special and unique, the things that set it apart from the other Faiths even within the same Religion (and especially outside of it).

[Screenshot of the Catholic Faith’s 3 Tenets - Armed Pilgrimages, Communion, and Monasticism]

Taking Catholicism as an example, we see one of their Tenets is that of Communion. This Tenet is what allows the Catholic Pope to excommunicate rulers, as well as allowing rulers to buy Indulgences from the Pope.

[Screenshot of the Communion Tenet, promoting values of honesty and community among adherents]

You may notice here that Communion also modifies what traits are considered Sins and Virtues by the Faith. While every Faith inherits 3 Sins and Virtues from its parent Religion, Tenets can add, modify, or remove these.

While some Tenets are unique to a single Faith, others are shared among multiple Faiths. For example, both Catholicism and Orthodoxy have the Communion Tenet. However, it is important to note that no two Faiths have the exact same combination of Tenets — as a result, every Faith will play at least a little differently, and some drastically so!

[Screenshot of the Sacred Lies Tenet, promoting scheming and treachery among adherents]

Doctrines
While less impactful than Tenets, Doctrines are still a crucial part of each Faith. A Faith’s Doctrines determine both its clerical structure as well as what its adherents can and cannot legally do.

[Screenshot of the Catholic Doctrines]

Every Faith has at least 18 Doctrines, with a few extras depending on the circumstances. While every Religion has a default stance for each Doctrine, these should be considered guidelines more than actual rules; individual Faiths can and do break away from standard dogma when appropriate. The different Doctrines are broken up into 4 categories:

• Main Doctrines
• Marriage Doctrines
• Crime Doctrines
• Clergy Doctrines

Main Doctrines cover how a Faith is organized on a fundamental level. These include things such as the traditional gender roles of a Faith, if the Faith has a Religious Head or not, how accepting (or unaccepting!) the Faith is of other Faiths and Religions, and if its priests must be part of a dedicated theocracy or if lay clergy are permitted.

Marriage Doctrines cover who is allowed to get married and how: if rulers can have multiple spouses, if concubines are permitted, if and when divorce is permitted, if extramarital relations can result in legitimate heirs, and who can even get married in the first place.

The Crime Doctrines cover what acts, if any, are considered immoral or even outright criminal. Characters who are publicly known to have violated these principles are Shunned, suffering an opinion penalty with all characters of that Faith, and may even be considered an outright Criminal who can be lawfully imprisoned and punished for their violations against divine law.

Finally the Clergy Doctrines determine how priests must behave and what their primary role in society is. The Clergy Doctrines also determine what power, if any, secular rulers have over the clergy within their realm.

Holy Sites
Finally, every Faith has some number of Holy Sites that this Faith considers to be more sacred than the rest. Controlling these Holy Sites will give a bonus to all characters of that Faith; this can create a significant source of conflict in the game, as many different Faiths can share specific Holy Sites, and every one of them wants to be the one in control!

[Screenshot showing the five Orthodox Holy Sites and their corresponding bonuses]

Moddability
I’m going to go on a quick tangent here and talk about modding Faiths and Religions in Crusader Kings III. Primarily, I want to mention that everything I have talked about so far is completely modular! This means Religion Groups, Religions, Faiths, Doctrines, Tenets, and Holy Sites can all be swapped in and out, modified, changed, or new ones added with even just a basic knowledge of scripting.

[Screenshot of a script snippet showcasing the Coptic Faith’s parameters]

This is one of the primary reasons we settled on the Faith, Tenet, and Doctrine system for CK3. Even though religion has a massive impact and touches dozens of game systems, it is easy for even new modders to dip their toes into the pool and start adding or changing things as they see fit. For experienced modders, this setup improves productivity and reduces the risk of introducing bugs. This has also had the side-effect of improving our productivity here at the office, which brings me to...

This is my Faith. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
At current count, we have 99 different Faiths in Crusader Kings III, all of which are fully playable. That more than doubles the number of playable religions we had in CK2 after Jade Dragon released.

[Screenshot of Egypt and Nubia, showing the diverse number of Faiths in the region]

Remember what I said earlier about how no two Faiths have the same combination of Tenets, and how every Faith would play at least slightly differently?

Yeah.

Your options are quite extensive:

• You can play as the good ol’ Catholics, or one of their heresies like the Cathars.
• You can play a different branch of Christianity, such as the Coptic Church or the Armenian Apostolic Church.
• You can play as a more unusual branch of Christianity like the Adamites.
• You can play not just as Sunni or Shia, but as individual religious movements or schools within them such as the Ash’ari or Maturidi, and the Isma’ili or Qarmatian.
• You can play as various Jewish movements, such as the Karaites or Rabbanists.
• You can play as a Dualist sect, such as Sabianism or Manicheanism.
• You can play as individual branches of Hinduism, such as Vaishnavism and Shaktism, or make the choice between Therevada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhism.
• You can play as one of three different schools of Confucianism, shaped by differing philosophies and focuses.
  
• You can play as a distinct African pagan Faith such as Bori Animism or the Senegambian Roog Sene.
• You can play as either Tengri or Magyar steppe pagans each with their own special traditions.
• You can play as one of the Indian or Tibetan pagans as well, extending beyond Bon and into other regional and cultural Faiths.
• Finally, don't forget the old favorite pagan Faiths like Norse (now called Asatru)!

While many of these faiths will have some similarities and common elements (especially within the same Religion), none of them are identical to each other. They all differentiate themselves mechanically in at least one way, and often in many ways. But… let’s say you’ve looked at every single one of these Faiths, and none of them are quite right. What, then, is a soul-searching medieval ruler to do?

Well, join us next week for the Dev Diary on Custom Faith Creation and Pagan Reformation!

 

[Baron von Shoes]

Please, for the love of the gods do NOT call Norse "Asatru". That term completely ignores the Vanir and is not really representative of what the people of the time believed (among a few other issues including the literal translation of the term). Might I suggest "Forn Siðr" (Forn Sidr or Forn Sithr if you must anglicize it) or The Troth if you want to call it something other than Nordic or Germanic Paganism? Those two terms are far more universal.

I will raise that with the team for discussion, but I can't promise anything.

This is really fantastic stuff. Is there some kind of mechanic for the inherent hostility between faiths. In Europe, the Catholics massacred the Cathars. Whereas, in India a a lot of Buddhist monastaries were patronized by Hindu kings.

There is an entire future DD on the subject of hostility, heresies, and holy wars

Will there be a way for people to deviate from a faith without creating a custom religion or becoming a heretic.

Like for instance with concubinage in Christian countries?

Not at launch, unfortunately. It is something on our radar for a future patch (especially for things like investiture).

How will this affect events? Will there be events which require 'catholism' or will there be events that require a faith that does have all of catholism's tenets?

We have both kinds of events. Doctrinal or tenet events are more about specific practices, while catholic-specific ones would go beyond the tenets and doctrines into more nuanced stuff. Due the the massive scope of the religion system, there are only a handful of the later.

 

[Baron von Shoes]

I guess (and hope) that the doctrines can change by themselves without player's intervention (probably though the head of faith) during the game ? For example, clergy's marriage being allowed for Catholics in 867 then forbidden thanks to gregorian reform?

Our codebase supports this, but sadly we do not currently have any content in-game which takes advantage of this (we did not have time to implement my dream of rulers sponsoring new ecumenical councils). Hopefully something we will add in a future patch, and absolutely something that can be added by mods.

I really like this one, the new system looks great. A shame that there is no antipapacy though. The interface says something about "clerical appointment: spiritual, for life". So there is some kind of investiture system? How are they appointed?
Can you tell us which religion uses the "sacred lies" tenent? Or is it for custom religions only?

Investiture mechanics are fixed for each faith. Dynamic investiture, along with the addition of antipapacies, is something we really want to add in a future patch.

Sacred lies is only for custom religions — I just wanted to give you all a sneak preview of just how wild and fun various Tenets can get.

Assuming this relates to the "consanguinity" tab of the doctrines? And if so, might I ask how that works? If the faith prohibits, say, first cousin marriage, is it a hard lock, or is there merely consequences (monthly piety loss, perhaps?) for breaking the doctrine?

Hard lock, but could be modded in script to support the later.

Does it mean that old Eastern (as well as Autonomus pagan) branches (traits in CK2) became faiths?

Eastern branches have been, yes. Autonomous leadership works differently in CK3, and is not represented by different Faiths.

 

[Baron von Shoes]

What is fervor? [...] Also, I don't quite get the religious hierarchy.

The religious hierarchy only consists of those 3 'levels'. There are no sub-Faiths; Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Cathar, and Paulicianism are all co-equal Faiths under Christianity.

What each Faith considers to be heretical is based on the religious hostility system, which will be discussed in a future Dev Diary (along with fervor). Just because all 4 are Christian Faiths doesn't mean Catholics will view Cathars the same way they view an Orthodox!

 

[Baron von Shoes]

That said, just to be 100% certain - I am right in interpreting the consanguinity tab of the doctrine to relate to what degree of relations marriage is forbidden within?

The cosanguinity doctrine determines both who can get married (or who you can take as a concubine) as well as if an illicit lover relationship is considered incestuous (for opinion penalties if revealed).

Can the number of Tenets for a Faith be modded?
For example, I want my Faith to have 10 Tenets...

Ech.... technically yes. However the game's GUI only supports 3. With 4 it looks really janky and with 5 important information starts going off the screen.

If you also mod the GUI to work with multiple tenets then yes, absolutely. Modifiying the GUI is a completely different beast from modifying religions however, and is considerably more advanced/complicated (if you get really good at it, come work for us!)

Let's say we're interested in a different religion. From the Learning Lifestyles Diary we learned about a tenet in the Scholar tree (Apostate) that made faith conversion cost -75%. Is any person able to convert to any faith as long as they have the piety for it? Or do you need a spouse/concubine/consort/ to convert like in CK2? Or can you just have someone in your court that really likes you, say, a friend, lover, or soulmate, of that religion?

You can convert to any Faith at any time, but the cost to change your faith is dynamic which makes your situation have a large impact on how easy (or even how possible!) it is to convert.

• Switching to another Faith within the same Religion is cheapest/easiest. Switching to another Religion is harder, and switching to another Religion Family is the hardest.
• Being married to (or having a concubine of) your target Faith provides a significant discount to the above cost.
• The Apostate perk, as mentioned, also provides a significant discount.
• Converting from an organized/reformed Faith to an unreformed pagan Faith carries a hefty penalty.
• Non-tribal rulers trying to convert to an unreformed pagan Faith also suffer an additional penalty.
• Converting to a 'dead' Religion (no living followers) carries an absolutely massive penalty, making it impossible for all but the most learned and determined rulers.

Will be Hellenism playable like in CKII Holy Fury?

Technically. It exists, but was primarily added to fill out our history database for characters who actually were Hellenic — nobody alive in either start date is a follower of it.

Can you convert to it? Well, it is a 'dead' Religion as mentioned above, so it's not really a realistic goal for most characters. All of its tenets and doctrines do exist however, and they will function as with any other faith.

That said, we haven't added any custom Hellenic events or decisions to CK3, since we decided to prioritize content for the many non-dead Religions.

 

[Baron von Shoes]

Also, sounds like the next DD will be more about the pagans, but can we get a confirm/deny on the two major ARR pagan religions, celtic and egyptian? If you've got 99, surely there's been space for the pre-abrahamic religions of the entire map to be represented, even if christianization has all but completely displaced them by gametime.

Couple other ideas related to this NOT from ARR:
- Pre-abrahamic semitic/arabic/middle eastern paganism, which is known to have been fairly widespread at least until the rashidun caliphate
- gnostic christianity (maybe with a special relationship with the eastern gnostic religions like manicheanism?)
- In polytheistic religions, a representation of how different areas could have different patron gods or even completely different minor pantheons; this could be simplified with multiple faiths (and arguably would also have some utility in christianity for things like marianism).

Celtic paganism is not in. Egyptian paganism is... kind of in? Kushitism (shown in the DD's screenshot) draws many elements and influences from it, including the inclusion of various Egyptian gods as part of its pantheon. However, it is not immediately recognizable as the Egyptian paganism that was popularized after Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign, since it focuses more on Upper Egypt/Nubia than Lower Egypt.

Gnostic Christianity is in. Several varieties, in fact. They all have special relationships with each other (and manicheanism).

Pantheons are also represented for all polytheistic Faiths, as well. Not all of them have the 'pick a god' mechanics that existed in CK2, but when a character goes to war they'll pray to their Faith's war deity, when they pray for a bountiful harvest they'll pray to their harvest/wealth deity, when lamenting a misfortune your character might curse their Faith's fate deity, etc.

 

[Baron von Shoes]

@Baron von Shoes A question. why doesn't Zorastrianism and the various faiths there have its own family? I don't see it being part of Oriental or Pagan or Abrhameric.

In game terms, Zoroastrianism is part of the Oriental family. It's quite different from the other Oriental religions though, so we gave it some unique mechanics to separate it from them.