Welcome to another development diary about Europa Universalis IV. Today we’ll go into details about mechanics for some religions, that will become available with the next expansion.


Protestanstism
Each protestant church will have their own name in the interface, like Church of England and so on. You can then customise the benefits of your church, and also change it over time whenever you need. To change the aspect of your church, you have to spend Church Power.

Church Power is accumulated each month, depending on your current religious unity, and your monarchs abilities.

Adding an aspect to your church costs 100 church power, but you can remove an aspect at any time, but that will lower your stability by 1.

A Church can have up to 3 different aspects, and there are 12 different ones to pick from. Some of these include.

• Holy Sacraments: +2.5% Discipline
• Individual Creeds: -5% Idea Costs
• Adult Baptism: +1% Missionary Strength.

Buddhism
The Buddhist Faith gained the concept of Karma. Karma needs to be balanced, because if it goes too positive or negative, you end up with penalties. If you go too positive you end up with penalties to your diplomatic abilities, and if you go too negative, you end up with penalties to your military abilities.

However, If you keep a balanced karma, you gain bonuses to both diplomatic and military abilities.

Some examples on how you gain Karma include: Starting wars decrease Karma, while honoring defensive alliances increase Karma.

While adding the Karma mechanic and its related events it also became clear that the game setup could benefit from splitting the existing religion into Vajrayana, Mahayana and Theravada. These three religions will all use the same Karma mechanic but don't all share the same events related to it and can in some cases have different event options in the events they do share. Events related to Lamas are for instance reserved for the Vajrayana faith while only Theravada countries can turn to Ceylon for spiritual inspiration. The three religions also differ in what bonuses they provide.

Next week we will talk about about subjects and how to interact with them...

 

[maledwarfwarior]

Here's my interpretation of the Karma system (I agree the name could use some work, but never-mind that):
Low Karma: Your warmongering is hated, and goes against what is right. Your soldiers are demoralized and disloyal due to your ruthlessness and harsh wrath. However, when your "diplomats" tell princes to jump, out of fear they only ask how high. Though out of fear of your wrath.
Going from Low to Neutral Karma: While many still remember your warmongering, you are seen as walking a slow path to redemption. Your soldiers may hesitate to follow more ruthless orders, but they believe you have seen the error of your ways and walk the long path to redemption. The various princes remember your fury, but some seek to test your more tender grasp.
High Karma: You are seen among various rulers as weak, foolish, and easily misled. Your policies lack teeth to back them up, being just words without an apparent threat of force to back them up. You lack the pragmatism needed to lead a nation, and others will try to use you. However, the people will fight to their last breath in war as they believe their war righteous and you would not lead them astray.
High to Neutral Karma: You are tired of being used, of being a tool, and have developed a sense of pragmatism that shows you are not to be !@#$ed with. While many Princes may think it a ruse, they are more hesitant to turn down your "offers" due to your new-found teeth. However, the people begin to doubt you follow the true path and while they still follow your orders, they do not have the enthusiasm they once had.
Neutral Karma: You have shown a level of pragmatism that is respected in a leader, while maintaining some of the support of the masses. Princes know that you will get what you want, and for their own interest they should seek a diplomatic solution. However, when war does come, you have the support of the people thanks to your fair, if sometimes harsh, rule.

Remember, you don't control the faith itself as a Buddhist nation. You (can) support them, in a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" relationship. Build grand temples and the priests will talk about your piety, rule fairly and they will support you. It is also easier to rule if everyone follows your faith. But they aren't bound to you, and they will talk smack about you if given reason to. Many Buddhist monasteries were heavily fortified, and at least some stock large amounts of supplies even when all was calm. They aren't afraid of you. They will comment on how they fell you govern, not on what you want them to say.

 

[maledwarfwarior]

There is still no reason for SMALL countries to be catholic, which is odd considering the HRE has many catholic theocracies.

LARGE countries can get 4+ cardinals, improve relations with the pope, and get large amounts of papal influence to stack stability, mercantilism, or in a pinch money and manpower.

Additionally I'd like to see the Curia stop being RNG. The RNG of the Curia is frustrating beyond belief.

Why should a player have absolute control of the Curia? The Curia wasn't solely made of Cardinals from the strongest states. Everyone should have a chance to get in. I don't see why it should be frustrating. Domination the Curia is not a given, it is a rare and potent event. The old system was silly and this is a big improvement (especially for smaller nations). The only change I would make is a modifier on the Papal State's chance for a Cardinal rather than a flat 50%. A strong Papal State should have a greater, but not absolute, control of the Curia. Likewise, a weak and mocked Papal State should lack the means to turn away foreign influence in the Curia.
Edit:
P.S. The old system was far more biased (If I recall correctly, could be wrong), to strong nations since they got far more points to bribe Cardinals. A small nation might never get a cardinal, which is ahistorical as that did sometimes happen.
P.S.S. Yes, Catholicism is biased towards large nations, but this is historical. Large nations could gain the pope's favor far more easily than some random duchy in Scandinavia. Part of Protestantism's allure was that small nations, like the many german city-states, would have far greater control over the church. Small nations are encouraged to go Protestant, larger nations have a more challenging decision.

 

[maledwarfwarior]

Catholics will really need some sort of boost. They're becoming more and more useless.

I disagree. Catholicism in-game is the religion for empires. Catholicism doesn't have the largest military or economic bonuses, but it has a LOT of potential bonuses. The Treaty of Tordesillas is a large colonial boon, and the negatives can be avoided by, say, annexing the motherland that has what you want. This is easier when you excommunicate your rival, granting a casus beli against them to every other catholic nation. Even if they can't lose in one war, everyone will take a bite out of them if you cripple them. This can even be done indirectly by taking advantage of their lowered tolerance of the true faith and supporting a !@#$tone of rebels. Do the heathens have a juicy province but you don't have the time to fabricate a claim in their moment of weakness? Call a crusade and reap the rewards of your devotion to Catholicism. These do require being controller of the curia, but as I said this is the nation of empires. The pope has no time for every city-state's "crisis", he has larger fish to fry. If you are small and expect to stay that way, then Protestant is the way to go as it was historically. But if you have imperial ambitions, unfounded or not, the Pope will be your greatest ally if you can show him you are worth his time.

 

[Subbak]

I disagree. Catholicism in-game is the religion for empires. Catholicism doesn't have the largest military or economic bonuses, but it has a LOT of potential bonuses. The Treaty of Tordesillas is a large colonial boon, and the negatives can be avoided by, say, annexing the motherland that has what you want. This is easier when you excommunicate your rival, granting a casus beli against them to every other catholic nation. Even if they can't lose in one war, everyone will take a bite out of them if you cripple them. This can even be done indirectly by taking advantage of their lowered tolerance of the true faith and supporting a !@#$tone of rebels. Do the heathens have a juicy province but you don't have the time to fabricate a claim in their moment of weakness? Call a crusade and reap the rewards of your devotion to Catholicism. These do require being controller of the curia, but as I said this is the nation of empires. The pope has no time for every city-state's "crisis", he has larger fish to fry. If you are small and expect to stay that way, then Protestant is the way to go as it was historically. But if you have imperial ambitions, unfounded or not, the Pope will be your greatest ally if you can show him you are worth his time.

The problem is that the diminishing returns on curia bids make it unreasonable to have more than 15% chance of being next Papal controller. On top of that, you have no idea when the next pope will die so you can't plan around the brief time where you'll be Papal controller.

What I think would be a better system: when the Pope dies, each country gets the option to spend all their PI to be Papal Controller in the order starting from country with highest PI. Ties are broken by the opinion the Papal States have of the country.

This could be messed with to allow for a possibility of Papal States being Curia controller, but basically what I would want to see is the player being able to put effort into guaranteeing Curia control (although it would cost a lot, in many cases more than 100 PI as you would have to stay at 100 not spending any of it and therefore not earning any either for some time), instead of (as is currently the case) being encouraged to take a 5 PI (or 15 PI sometimes) potshot every time. This system also means that popping PI for stab/merc makes you very unlikely to be Papal controller if the Pope dies in the next few years, so there's a real choice to be made.
This also prevents the weird scenario where someone the Papal States hate with all their guts and that have Statute of Restraint of Appeals can get Curia Control randomly just by converting cities with 5 BT and being lucky.

 

[TheDungen]

I disagree. Catholicism in-game is the religion for empires. Catholicism doesn't have the largest military or economic bonuses, but it has a LOT of potential bonuses. The Treaty of Tordesillas is a large colonial boon, and the negatives can be avoided by, say, annexing the motherland that has what you want. This is easier when you excommunicate your rival, granting a casus beli against them to every other catholic nation. Even if they can't lose in one war, everyone will take a bite out of them if you cripple them. This can even be done indirectly by taking advantage of their lowered tolerance of the true faith and supporting a !@#$tone of rebels. Do the heathens have a juicy province but you don't have the time to fabricate a claim in their moment of weakness? Call a crusade and reap the rewards of your devotion to Catholicism. These do require being controller of the curia, but as I said this is the nation of empires. The pope has no time for every city-state's "crisis", he has larger fish to fry. If you are small and expect to stay that way, then Protestant is the way to go as it was historically. But if you have imperial ambitions, unfounded or not, the Pope will be your greatest ally if you can show him you are worth his time.

You are of course assuming we're playing with world conquest as our goal. But if we're trying to play as close to history as possible as some of us do, then anexxing someone's european motherland isn't really an option.

 

[cloudwasher]

Has there been any announcement about when this new expansion will be coming out/what it will be called? Or are these still TBD?

 

[chrnno]

Has there been any announcement about when this new expansion will be coming out/what it will be called? Or are these still TBD?

No. Yes. Opinion is that it will be in June/July though.

 

[Guthuk Gaming]

I really hope it gets released in May, or at the very least they give it a release date soon. My multiplayer game is coming to a close and I'd hate to just not play for 1-2 months.

 

[Demetrios]

Maryland wasn't allways that nice after the Protestants take the power.

I just read aboput Carroll:

"Like his father, Carroll was a Roman Catholic, and as a consequence was barred by Maryland statute from entering politics, practicing law and voting."
"Carroll was not initially interested in politics and in any event Catholics had been barred from holding office in Maryland since the 1704 Act seeking "to prevent the growth of Popery in this Province"."
"he became a prominent spokesman against the governor's proclamation increasing legal fees to state officers and Protestant clergy."

Note that that was before the Revolution. Afterwards, Carroll served in both the Maryland and the US legislatures.

 

[Dr. Quaz]

No, they are not Calvinists. Reformed refers to a specific branch of Protestantism that follow Calvinist theology, one of the main doctrines being that of Predestination. There is no such thing as "mainstream Protestant" as Protestantism is just a label used to describe churches born from the Reformation movement, in opposition to Catholicism. Lutheranism is not "mainstream Protestant", it's just the largest branch, and that which is not Lutheran isn't automatically Reformed (Calvinist). To say that Protestant Christianity was split between Lutheran state churches and Reformed (Calvinist) churches is a massive oversimplification- Lutheranism and Calvinism were just the two most popular and influential branches of Protestantism, of which there are dozens if not hundreds.

Mainstream Protestant IS a term and it is almost always used to refer to both Anglicanism and Lutheranism, which are the two largest moderate Protestant sects. The term thus excludes all other 'independent' or 'denominational' groups of Protestantism. I don't use the word "Reformed" to refer to every sect of Protestantism that isn't Luther's or England's, Paradox does.

 

[mwyeoh]

My worry is that this is going to make protestanism STRONGER than reformed, which will make reformed redundant

 

[Guthuk Gaming]

My worry is that this is going to make protestanism STRONGER than reformed, which will make reformed redundant

Reformed will still be CLEARLY superior for combat with 15% moral.

In my opinion it will be:

Reformed: Warfare.
Catholic: Colonization/large countries.
Protestant: Small countries/development.

 

[SignedName]

Mainstream Protestant IS a term and it is almost always used to refer to both Anglicanism and Lutheranism, which are the two largest moderate Protestant sects. The term thus excludes all other 'independent' or 'denominational' groups of Protestantism. I don't use the word "Reformed" to refer to every sect of Protestantism that isn't Luther's or England's, Paradox does.

The Reformed Church is literally the same thing as Calvinism. Really, is this such a hard thing to digest? Quote taken from Theopedia (which seems to be an encyclopedia based on the Calvinist/Reformed tradition): "Reformed theology is generally considered synonymous with Calvinism and most often, in the U.S. and the UK, is specifically associated with the theology of the historic church confessions such as the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Three Forms of Unity." Unless you can provide an actual quote by a dev that says that Reformed is actually not the same as it means in real life, then I will assume it means Calvinists. Since Protestant is the general term and Reformed refers to a specific denomination/group of denominations, I don't see why you want to argue that Protestant should specifically be taken to mean state churches like the CoE.

 

[TheDungen]

The Reformed Church is literally the same thing as Calvinism. Really, is this such a hard thing to digest? Quote taken from Theopedia (which seems to be an encyclopedia based on the Calvinist/Reformed tradition): "Reformed theology is generally considered synonymous with Calvinism and most often, in the U.S. and the UK, is specifically associated with the theology of the historic church confessions such as the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Three Forms of Unity." Unless you can provide an actual quote by a dev that says that Reformed is actually not the same as it means in real life, then I will assume it means Calvinists. Since Protestant is the general term and Reformed refers to a specific denomination/group of denominations, I don't see why you want to argue that Protestant should specifically be taken to mean state churches like the CoE.

He's not speaking about the reformed church in reality he's speaking what the term reformed represents IN THE GAME.

Also the word Lutheran is fram from a universal concept, in for an example swedish Potestant means Lutheran. While Reformed (basically) doesnt exist as a concept and calvisists are called calvisists. You're "other pranches of protestantism" are simply refered as frikyrkor (free chrurches) andMy guess is that in most places where Lutheran is dominant protestant and lutheran is considered the same thing.

Reformed will still be CLEARLY superior for combat with 15% moral.

In my opinion it will be:

Reformed: Warfare.
Catholic: Colonization/large countries.
Protestant: Small countries/development.

It's a good thing if there are splits like that. Though granted perhaps they shouldn't be quite like that. catholicism was the religion that generally belived in holding land and taking it by war. Reformed and protestants generally went more for trade and development.

Though there are of course outliers Sweden and Prussia went the military conquest routes, portugal went for trade.

Colonism is kind if hard to say because while there are three colonial powers that are catholic (Spain portugal and France) the other two major ones (austria and poland) weren't at all involved in colonisation. And refored and protestant both had one maor colonisation power each (the neatherland and England/GB).

 

[Thure]

It's a good thing if there are splits like that. Though granted perhaps they shouldn't be quite like that. catholicism was the religion that generally belived in holding land and taking it by war. Reformed and protestants generally went more for trade and development.

Though there are of course outliers Sweden and Prussia went the military conquest routes, portugal went for trade.

I wouldn't say this. Why did you think so? Protestants were as warlikely as Catholics. And Catholics were about trade and development too. Even if today someway a very pro-Protestant history seems to be dominant...

 

[Cyridius]

Good to see Protestantism get some love.

 

[Heinrikr]

Reformed will still be CLEARLY superior for combat with 15% moral.

In my opinion it will be:

Reformed: Warfare.
Catholic: Colonization/large countries.
Protestant: Small countries/development.

Isn't it kind of odd that Reformed would excel at warfare though? In my view, it seems more fitting that reformed should be the weakest in terms of warfare. I think it would make more sense to have protestantism be better at war, and have reformed be more about trade and development. That, atleast, fits better with how protestant and reformed countries did historically, as far as I know.

 

[IsadorBG]

Isn't it kind of odd that Reformed would excel at warfare though? In my view, it seems more fitting that reformed should be the weakest in terms of warfare. I think it would make more sense to have protestantism be better at war, and have reformed be more about trade and development. That, atleast, fits better with how protestant and reformed countries did historically, as far as I know.

Reformed military bonus is probably due to Prussia and Switzerland and Netherland for the Naval bonus.

Tough Reformed having development bonuses is not shocking either.

 

[ThreeMinutesEarly]

Reformed military bonus is probably due to Prussia and Switzerland and Netherland for the Naval bonus.

Tough Reformed having development bonuses is not shocking either.

Why would Prussia count towards the military bonus? I thought they were Protestant?

Am I miss remembering things again?

 

[Metz]

Prussia would be Lutheran Protestantism because they were one of the firsts to do the switch when they still were the Teutonic Order.