EUIV - Development Diary - 11th of February 2020

[jacopus95]

Jesus Christ, where in hell do you get your history education?

Actually, from a christian school. Here in italy it's not rare.

Technology persecution is a debate, and for this i kindly ask you to not question others' education in such an impolite way you are doing.

You should try to read some history about Copernicus and the scientific revolution, mainly a way to oppose the antique way of thinking of the church.
You don't think the inquisition and the Index Librorum Prohibitorum were good things, right?

 

[mechanical_Critter]

There is a power creep attached to Muslim and Christian denominations which I don't like, not because I think they are too strong, but because when religion gets periodically nerfed it touches all denominations, not just Muslim & Christians.

The -2% religious conversions on territories is one such example, this nerf was entirely because muslim & christians but it affects them the least. And there's the power creep for dotf mechanics which are, again, only available to muslim & christians.

So *one* of the 2 I'd like to happen:
1. lift the dotf restriction
2. affect one of the religious nerfs (I'm thinking the 2% missionary cost on territories, but there are other candidates) on muslims & christians specificially.

 

[DCool]

I like that DotF is getting improvements, though I'm also in the camp that feels like number of countries doesn't feel like the perfect option by itself.

Personally I feel like that maybe a dual system would be better - like have one set of bonuses tied to number of countries and another set tied to number of provinces / development of the religion. So to get maximum benefits a DotF would need to keep same faith countries around, but also spread the religion. And a player playing wide wouldn't get all the bonuses from being DotF, but could still get some from representing a religion with a strong position in the world. Also this way if a big nation lost land that then was converted the DotF bonuses of that religion would suffer - unlike where the only thing affecting it is if countries with the religion get annexed.

 

[jacopus95]

Not this BLEEP again.
Galileo was not in trouble because of his books. As a matter of fact, the Church defended him for a long time.
The problem with Galileo was that he was an a**hole who insulted everyone who disagreed with him. For instance, if you believed that the Moon affected the tides (which we now know is true), Galileo showered you with insults and belittlement, calling you a fool that believed in fairy tales.
What ultimately got him locked up was that he insulted a Pope who went crazy from paranoia (to go into mroe details, the Pope commissioned him to write some book and Galileo insulted him in it - honestly, if you did that to a company that commissioned you today, they'd rob you blind). Insulting the most powerful man in Europe and making enemies of everyone who did not suck up to him was what got him into trouble.
And when his theories ultimately got proven true, some in the Church wanted to build him a golden statue.

Not to mention that almost every scholar in this period was deeply religious and that the biggest sponsor of science was the Church (and had been since Middle Ages, when they were the sole sponsor of it in Europe). Even the Counter-Reformation, which was a continent-wide fight against Protestantism, was famous for how much it helped Science and Education. The scientific branch that actually suffered was Medicine because the Church was not hot on human experimentation or even dissecting dead human bodies (though even there concessions were known to be made).
Where the Church was troublesome was the censorship of free speech and opposition to new ideas (but this was the problem everywhere, even in secular countries of the period). But that would be better represented by costlier National Ideas. Free speech did not affect scientific progress much, unless we discuss political sciences that is.

The "Science Vs. Religion" meme itself derives from certain Protestant sects opposing scientists because most Protestants follow the Literal Interpretation of the Bible (aka, everything said in it is literal truth) thus they got pretty insulted when their beliefs got challenged. But most other religions take their Holy Texts non-literally,and Scholarship was a popular hobby among the clergy across the world. And even this meme mostly became a thing after the EU4 period.

Thank you for you answer!
Well the church was a huge sponsor in multiple sectors (look at the arts and literature of the time. Look at the renaissance, literally founded in big part by the church), but they still condemned anything that opposed the religion or the holy books. Galileo's situation was a weird one, it's true, but i still think the church censorship and the old way of thinking were one of the reasons that led to the scientific revolution. If you take the index of forbidden books you can find multiple famous works and discoveries, and that surely hasn't helped with scientific progress.

 

[Mortix]

Is counting the number of countries the right way to measure success for defender of the faith? This seems to punish defenders if large numbers of small countries start eating each other and consolidate into larger powers. But this phenomenon doesn't seem to have much to do with religion, really.

Maybe a better way to measure would be total development or number of provinces in that faith.



Addendum

Here is an idea: how about measuring defenders of the faith by actual job performance? That is, making defenders earn credit by actually defending fellow nations from infidels.

Every new defender starts at level 1, and earns points each time it answers a defender call to arms and successfully defends. It loses some credit if the war is lost, and it loses a lot if it either declines the call or renders "unsatisfactory condottieri performance". When the defender reaches a certain number of points, it gets promoted (or demoted).

How much each war is worth depends on how big the infidel opponents are. If you keep fighting off Ottomans on behalf of others, you deserve a prize for it.

Yes it is, the point is not getting benefits based on how much dev you have but based on how many other nations you are pledging to defend. I do agree that maybe you should prove you will defend them by either doing it in a war or have no different faith nation attack a nation of your faith while being defender for a certain amount of years, but it would just be a layer on top.

 

[macho105]

How about making percentage of additional rebels depend on a hidden dice roll? Let's say you'd be getting:
75% of rebels + (dice roll * 10%), where dice roll could be something between 0-10?

 

[FleetingRain]

As others have said, amount of dev/provinces of your faith not directly owned by you would be a better measure than number of countries.

But what I'm curious about is overseas nations. Considering DoTF is called only for same-continent brethren, will Catholic Japan count for a DoTF Spain's bonuses?

 

[Ixalmaris]

While I can see why provoke rebels was added it is still incredibly gamey and makes no sense at all.

 

[eu-]

You could use this new dof mechanic to give some flavour to sunni nations. To flash out actuall historical importance of caliphate.

 

[Makkay]

While I can see why provoke rebels was added it is still incredibly gamey and makes no sense at all.

Or make it usable at 80-90%.

 

[Dayvit78]

The provoke function can still be abused by granting military access to other countries and springing the rebels on them as they walk by.

Addendum

One adjustment that would help prevent this would be to not spring the rebels right away, but rather make them jump at some randomly decided point in the next month (or three months).

You could do this by making the button randomly choose a number from 1 to 30 (or 90) and then count down that many days before making rebels pop.

Can you only provoke rebels in your own country? If so, is the only reason to do it so they fight armies that are invading you? I don't understand why you want rebels?

 

[Anastase]

Can you only provoke rebels in your own country? If so, is the only reason to do it so they fight armies that are invading you? I don't understand why you want rebels?

You wanna wage war on the other side of your empire, but know that there are rebels at 80% which will spawn due to war exhaustion if you go to war. As it stands they will pop in about a a year if you are not suppressing them. With this, if you have a good general you can solve the problem and head to the other side of your country, not worrying about those rebels.

 

[Make Victoria 3]

So with that in mind for all religions that can use Defenders of the Faith mechanic

Why is the Defender of the Faith mechanic limited to christians and islam. It would make sense for a hindu nation with religious ideas to defend some other hindu nation from an attacking sunni nation (and if a native american nation managed to reform and become strong (which pretty much always means its played by a human) then they would also have a reason to defend nations of their own faith against the european invaders (assuming one did not yet conquer any other nation with the same faith anyway). So maybe unlock the defender of the faith mechanic for any nation that has religious ideas (if they dont already have it).

 

[Nikoleis]

On the Defender of the faith part and how to calculate it, count your own country's dev as half, and others at full. This should allow to reward keeping same religion around, while not having the country pretty much prefering going humanist and getting lots of heretics / heathen lands. You're still rewarded by converting more provinces yourself, but not by conquering your neighbors.

As for rebel provokation, maybe scale the additional rebel size with how much is left. +50% at 50% but only +10% at 90% progress, because there's less need for provokation the closer you are (numbers may vary)

 

[Make Victoria 3]

As for rebel provokation, maybe scale the additional rebel size with how much is left. +50% at 50% but only +10% at 90% progress, because there's less need for provokation the closer you are (numbers may vary)

You still could end up waiting for a year or more if you are unlucky and they just wont spawn. And if they are very weak anyway the 50% wont matter anyway. And large ones with 20% spawn chance wont take too long to spawn.

 

[Mr. Overextension]

I have an idea about fixing up the DOTF a little

It adds up per province of that religion within a tag who follows the same religion

It also adds up with less tags (since unifying the religion was a big deal back then)

And I believe certain events/decisions/missions some tags have could straight up bump it up a single level, instantly (if they are the DOTF themselves). Like Kingdom of God for the Pope, Pentarchy for Byzantium, Winning the 30 years war as the Emperor/ Leader of the Reformation Etc. Etc

 

[pigsticker]

I think the problem is that it doesn't really involve any "defending." The bonus is simply for them existing, and as an earlygame catholic 50+ tags existing isn't really something you or any other defender has anything to do with, and late game would need a great misallocation of resources to uphold (especially when someone else can steal it at any time). I think these ranks should be tied to something active on the player's part, you know, actually defending your faith from it's enemies, instead of...what exactly? Not blobbing into same religion land, or preventing the natural course of the game that is every other tag doing so? You've already got that DotF CB but I don't think I've ever seen myself or anyone else use it once because it's almost never available.

There is a certain abstract logic to it. As the DoTF, if you defend your brethren, the more brethren you have which then leads to your higher DoTF status. By not defending them or not being able to defend them, you may find less brethren and hence, your lower DoTF status which in abstract sense, shows how effective you have been in defending them.

Of course, there are also situations where your brethren wages war on your brethren which you then have no control over. As most people have pointed out, there are pros and cons to each method of calculating the DoTF status. It's never a perfect science but I guess using countries meets the developer's goal of ensuring greater diversity in countries.

 

[qwertzlbry]

How about making percentage of additional rebels depend on a hidden dice roll? Let's say you'd be getting:
75% of rebels + (dice roll * 10%), where dice roll could be something between 0-10?

I like this idea a lot, you can fight the rebels immediately but with the downside of not really knowing what's coming at you. This way in the early game you would only use the mechanic in specific situation as you cannot calculate the costs, but in mid and certainly in the late game you can use it all the time, because costs don't matter anymore, which then makes your playthrough less annoying.

 

[Ari Von Valkyria]

Love the provoke revolt option. A good way to take care of 90% rebel factions who sometimes take years to get the last 10% if you are (un)lucky enough.

 

[iClipse]

While I generally like the DoF change, it's also a big nerf to smaller religions. Coptic, Orthodox, Anglican, Shia and Ibadi will only get the smallest bonus every time. Aren't you already punished if you have another religion through the opinion modifier?
It's harder to get allies, you get more aggressive expansion and now the bonuses from DoF are nonexistant.