@Groogy pardon my Swedish, but the meaning of "tiers" is that:
- there's a progression to them
- there's a reward to the progression itself
- there's no way to go around progressing through them
Directly clicking a button due to circumstances out of your control on 11 December 1444 is not a "tier" process, it's instant gratification.
Another argument/measure is that the denomination which needs the most DoF mechanics in the beginning is the Orthodox one, Catholics are not really under attack from anything at the start of the game. Or, dare I say, they're actually the attackers ^^. Also Muslim/Hindu balance in India could potentially be f'd by this. Bahmanis/Malwa/Bengal potentially eternally protected by Ottomans will always rule, while Vijay/Orissa will be, well, alone.
Some questions:
- how will DoF interact with coalitions?
- how will direct relations affect DoF actions?
etc
First of all, it absolutely must be available to eastern religions too. Ming DoF would be a good balance to Ottoman DoF.
Then, there must be a choice wether the concept is about Defending a Faith or getting some random bonuses kind of out of context.
I would propose these changes:
- it can be proclaimed by any tag and only by those tags who take the full Religious tree (with conditions), and it should replace as such the Culture conversion bonus, which makes no sense
- Religious and Humanist should be mutually exclusive, like Plutocracy and Aristocracy (and hardcoded, so you can't get around with shifting gov forms, like you can do now with Pluto and Aristo)
- Humanist traditions should give a malus to, say, Divine Authority (concept proposal, DA in the following for ease of presentation)
- Religious conversion shouldn't give prestige anymore, but DA
Tier progression should work like Imperial/Celestial Reforms, with Tiers having a timely progression, with positive and negative factors. When a sum is reached, you can progress to next tier.
Possible
one-time ticks:
- province converted to your religion (by any tag), positive; event-converted provinces such as Constantinopole to Sunni should be excluded
- province converted from your religion,
including event-converted one, negative
- province converted by you should give 0,5X DA, whereas province converted by other tags should give 0,05X DA (to be balanced, not much if by others)
- holy cities (to be defined) gained by your denomination; positive; if by your tag, as per above, bigger relevant DA, if by others, lower, only very minor
- holy cities lost by your denomination; negative; same as above wether by you or by other
- answering a call to arms, small positive
- denying a call to arms, relevant negative
- succesfully performing in the defending war, relevant positive
- winning a religious war; winning a holy war, minor positive, winning a religious liberation (see beyond), relevant positive
- losing a religious war, relevant negative
- winning battles in a religious war, very small positive, losing battles in a religious war, very small negative (to be balanced)
Possible positive monthly ticks:
- holding holy cities of your denomination
- guaranteeing a tag of your denomination bordering a tag of other religion/denomination; regular guaranteeing rules apply, so Münster shouldn't be able to guarantee Lithuania; if the guaranteed state is a theocracy, small boost
- sponsoring religious resistance
- sponsoring religious zeal
- number of tags existent (very minor, but relevant per 100 years)
- religious & espionage policy, keeping missionary strength but replacing foreign espionage defensive
Possible negative monthly ticks:
- having denied a call to arms, for a set duration, consistent
Concepts:
- religious war:
either a "holy war" as is now; holy war should give the peace option to convert the target tag to your denomination
either a "religious liberation" war; "religious liberation" cb should be available against any tag of other denomination which holds lands of your denomination
"religious liberation" cb should NOT be triggered by a tag of your denomination being subject; only by land directly owned
"religious liberation" cb should be available only to those tags which proclaimed DoF
"religious liberation" cb should
disable taking land for yourself or vassalization of target or breaking subject away, only liberate tags of your denomination; if no preexistent tag has a core on respective land (maybe it expired), then the tag released will be a randomised theocracy; released tags start of course with the positive relation bonus as usual to yourself; hence coring range is irrelevant for this cb; it should have higher prestige reward
"religious liberation" cb
should give AE with the target denomination group
- proclaiming DoF
proclaiming DoF should be an option after filling in Religious group, not a direct consequence
to qualify, a tag should have conditions regarding FL, prestige and income
proclaiming DoF should give a minor (+10-15) boost to relation with all tags of your denomination
- (main) holy cities
Catholics: only Rome (with current malus, so basically only the Papacy has a solid straight tick)
Orthodoxes: the Pentarchy
Coptic: the current holy cities
Muslims: Mecca and Medina, so Mamluks get a solid tick against Otto
Hindu/Buddhists, sorry I am not cultured, but some 3 for each, with a relevant distribution
Protestants/Reformed: the respective centers of reformation
Anglicans: no clue how it works, if it spawns such center of reformation. If not, the capital of the country at the time of enacting, minor
Fetishists/Animists: the capital at the start of the game, minor
Shinto: Kyoto
Confucian: no clue
Jewish, Zoroastrian, to be defined
DoF should be available to all denominations ingame, even if some will obviously not be able to do much at start. However, it could give a whole campaign meaning, if the player would get bent on propagating something like Zoroastrianism or Jewish religion.
There could be some minor holy cities added, like 5 for each denomination, like sites of pilgrimage, which could give a minor tick; so France and Spain could eventually get interested in the option;
- religious resistance: a special type of subsidy which can be given to the *system*, not to a specific tag. It should have three tiers: province/area/region. It should reflect the religious cost mechanics in a negative manner, with a set cost based on the development of the target land, with a 120-130% increase (to be balanced). The result should ignore AIs religious/missionary bonuses, even event-based. So, say, France should be able to prevent Andalusian reconversion, even with full religious and event bonuses. But at a hefty price. So in turn even preventing a weak AI missionary would cost the same. The net result should be the equivalent of religious zeal, per time of resistance. DA tick should be tied to the cost, so you can't farm it by sponsoring in, dunno, Sarig Yogir. Uncolonised land shouldn't be selectable, just in case.
- religious zeal: maybe to be renamed, to not confuse with current one. It should be offensive missionary work in bordering lands. It should be opened at, say, diplo & admin 4 and it should be an espionage-triggered option. Say, at 40-60 spy network in the target tag, you can start offensive missionary work. It could have the same mechanics as resistance, province/area/region, with tier of costs. The highest price and tier of offensive missionary work, region wide, should give a (very small) chance to start mass religious rebellions of your denomination aside from converting x provinces; balanced such as a fledgling Jewish OPM could only afford province-wide offensive missionary, and region-wide would be a challenge which needs focus even by a full-blown Otto tag.
Tier progression
At each 50 DA (to be balanced)
Tier bonusses
Being a harder touch with a campaign-wide timeline, bonusses should be meaningful to the timeline. So initial bonusses should relate to land and naval morale and solid missionary work, wether last, bigger bonusses should be about discipline, land and naval fire bonus and area/region conversion
All in all, tier 5 should be an epic result of, say, 200-250 years of effort and it should be a boost toward One Faith achievement. Tier 1-3 DoF should be rather passive, from the initial significant missionary work and defending, whereas tier 3-5 DoF should incline already to mass faith propagation and solidifying a conquest.
With, of course, a range of achievements added.
Sorry if is maybe incoherent what I wrote, I've put it on the fly.
Thanks a bunch for the provoke rebellion button, it's great.
