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CK2 Dev Diary #89 - Mass Conversion, or how I learned to stop my Pagan ways and love God

Greetings!

Note that this is the last DevDiary before vacations start. Until they are over we will not post any diaries, or post them very sporadically. We will resume the normal schedule on the 10th of August.

Today we’d like to talk about Mass Conversion, the flip side of what we talked about in the last DD (Dynamic Pagan Reformation). While Reforming a Pagan faith is a very epic feat, it’s also a fairly hard one to pull off in many cases. Historically, pagan rulers often turned to their neighbours religions in order to solidify their rule - and now so can you!

It used to be quite a suicidal affair to convert to a non-Pagan religion as a Pagan ruler, your provinces would stay pagan and your vassals would often be upset with you and immediately start a faction to install a pagan claimant. With Holy Fury it’s much more reliable, and carries great benefits to both you and your people. Depending on your strength as a leader, and the respect you have from your subjects, you can now convince your realm to join you in a Mass Conversion. A Mass Conversion will see you, your subjects and your lands adopt a new religion - except for particularly rebellious subjects, of course. Note that only Tribal Pagans will have access to this mechanic.

To Mass Convert your realm you first need to find a so called ‘Sponsor’. You can either look for a sponsor manually, by looking at the interactions menu with landed independent characters, or you can access a list of anyone who would be willing to go through the trouble by clicking a new button in the religious interface:
MassConversionDD_InterfaceValues.png


As said before, this list contains a list of everyone who will accept to convert your realm, and in the bottom right corner you can see that the AI reasoning is now exposed! The acceptance will not just be a bunch of pluses and minuses, instead you’ll be able to see exactly how they reason. If you, for example, want Byzantium to be your sponsor, you can enter the character sheet of the Basileus and check the interaction tooltip to see his reasoning if he says no, which will give you actual hints on what you could do to improve the chances of him accepting.
MassConversionDD_Accepted.png


After you’ve found a sponsor that accepted your offer, the Mass Conversion events will begin!
MassConversionDD_mainEvent.png

Note that the event image is a placeholder.

If you’re a tribe with low organization, you will actually gain a level of organization upon performing a Mass Conversion, in addition to you and your land switching to the new religion. The downside to doing one when you have low organization is, as mentioned earlier, that fewer subjects are likely to go along with it.

It doesn’t end here though, you and your sponsor will continue to keep in touch - and your sponsor will keep on helping your realm by providing you with money, building churches in your realm and many other things. Examples:
MassConversionDD_SponsorEvent.png
MassConversionDD_SponsorEvent2.png


In addition, the priest that your sponsor will send you will also help you out. He will attempt to modernize your realm and ensure that you act in accordance to your new faith. For example:
MassConversionDD_PriestEvent.png


So, as you can clearly see, this system stands in stark contrast to the Dynamic Reformation we talked about in a previous Dev Diary - by reforming you gain absolute control of your future, but it’s a difficult path to walk that also require you to conquer vast territories. A Mass Conversion, on the other hand, is a fairly easy thing to accomplish that also comes with temporal benefits - but you’ll have to submit to a faith that might not represent you or the people you rule...
 
Do you have a plan to improve orthodox religion in holy fury? It will be cool to select icon of saint like eu4. Pagan in ck2 already have similar system.
 
1. Can I as Charlemagne or someone request to sponsor a pagan nations mass conversion?
2. Can the conversion process go awry, for example if the pagan ruler or the sponsor die? How would the process change?
3. Is the succession law change event something that pops up every time or is it random?
4. If my pagan liege requests the conversion, upon converting do I also gain access to the succession law change event?
5. Is it possible to seal the conversion by marriage?
6. Do you get canonised for sponsoring a mass conversion? Do you get canonised for requesting and successfully converting a country?
7. Can any rank ruler request it? Is there a realm size requirement?
8. Does the pagan faith need to be below a certain MA for you to request it?
9. Thanks

Rulers of organized religions can proselytize the same as they always did; as said before, the event chain can now lead into a Mass Conversion if the proper conditions are met.
The death of a sponsor or of a Chieftain can indeed stop a Mass Conversion from coming to fruition. Events following a Mass Conversion will mainly involve the sponsor and the formely Pagan ruler, there are several of them, which might happen at any given time after the conversion itself.
MA is influenced by a Mass Conversion, and can influence the AI behavior when considering a Mass Conversion, but it is not a hard requirement.

Is there a bad side like a religious unrest modifier for the incredibly convenient immediate conversion of your demesne?
There is something... Especially if a ruler rushes through before reaching max Tribal Authority.
 
Any mention (via events or otherwise) of the adaptation of pagan gods to Christian saints?
For example, Jarilo (and the great spring festival) became Saint George. Perun and Svetovid became Elijah and Saint Vittus respectively.
All extremelly popular among Christian Slavs, even today.
Many pagan traditions were christianized as well.
These adaptations are what helped in the mass conversions.

An event or few would be quite awesome.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I'd say this is why Slavs venerate saints a bit more than other Christians. Mighty pagan gods remained present through culture and ttaditions.
It would be amazingly awesome if Christian Slavs can choose a patron saint, just like pagans can choose deities.
 
Seconded. It would be weird to see a king of sweden, the pious christian who converted his people, named after Thor. Its not even ahistorical. Pope John II was born Mercury but believing it was inappropriate for a Pope to be named after a pagan god, rechristened himself to John II

It is not ahistorical at all, in fact it is the opposite. The name of Stephen I of Hungary before the conversion of his father was Vajk, and his father (Géza) also took the name Stephen after his Christianization.
 
- With the AI reasoning being exposed, is there any chance that we might get some capability to modify it, e.g. the ability to script an opinion modifier with a "ARRANGE_MARRIAGE_ACCEPTANCE_BONUS = 10" component?

So much this. Influencing the marriage logic is one of the main things I would like to see for modding purposes.
 
Praise Jesus!

Could a mass conversion be linked to a Crusade in the region? For example, a tribal high chief who's the target of a Crusade converting with his people to avert the rightful fury of Catholic Europe?
 
Nothing to see in this DD, fellow pagan comrades, nothing to consider here. Lets move along to the convertee burning stake.

Hmm? Here I see an excellent opportunity for Pagans to deal with our fellow Pagans through means besides bloody conquest. Once we've tidied the faith up a bit, obviously.
 
I'm not an expert on the subject, but I'd say this is why Slavs venerate saints a bit more than other Christians.
So why the most important centers of worship of saints isn't in east Europe but in west Europe? Bari, Assisi, Canterbury, Chartres, Gorgano, Le Puy-en-Velay etc.

In medieval cult of saints was universal. But later, when reformation (and more later secularism or new sectiarism) was very popular had place "negation of cult". It was said and written that this is idolatry, hidden polytheism, etc. More traditional Slavic Europe (and the whole Orthodox world) retained its old forms.
 
It is not ahistorical at all, in fact it is the opposite. The name of Stephen I of Hungary before the conversion of his father was Vajk, and his father (Géza) also took the name Stephen after his Christianization.
Yeah it being historical was my point. "Its not even ahistorical". I could've phrased that better, sorry for the confusion.
 
I hope that the will be special texts for historical conversions (Scandinavia to Catholic or the Rus to orthodox)
 
It would be a nice detail and very good for immersion if the name and title of the bishop leading the Mass Conversion would be mentioned in the event announcement ('Conversion of [countryname]'). I mean instead of just "The Bishop leading [rulername]'s embassy...". This is something which medieval chroniclers would have included with absolute regularity - after all, ecclesiastically speaking and also in terms of salvation history it was one of the most important details.
 
I notice that Mass Conversion doesn't seem to specify that the conversion has to be to Catholicism.

So can Pagans mass convert to all 'standardized' faiths like Islam, Hinduism, and other Reformed Pagan faiths?

Well, Pagans historically converted to Catholicism, Orthodox, Judaism, Islam - both Sunni and Shia, Hindu in South East Asia and Budhism in Tibet.
 
Great!
Sorry if I post again:
could you give us the possibility to change the ruler's name once he/she converted?

This! It would be particularly bad for immersion if a ruler with a pagan theophoric name would keep it after their conversion to a monotheistic faith.
 
So why the most important centers of worship of saints isn't in east Europe but in west Europe? Bari, Assisi, Canterbury, Chartres, Gorgano, Le Puy-en-Velay etc.
Commonfolk are the ones who considered these saints a bit more than "blessed martyrs". Your average peasant in Serbia held great respect for Elijah, who is even today called the Thunderer (Gromovnik). I very much doubt clergy would allow a center of worship based around Elijah Thunderer, or Ognyena Maria.
A saint in Western Europe is a blessed figure, to whom you pray for aid and salvation.
In Serbia (at least), you respect certain saints so they don't burn your house and your crops.
Quite a different concept.
 
It is not ahistorical at all, in fact it is the opposite. The name of Stephen I of Hungary before the conversion of his father was Vajk, and his father (Géza) also took the name Stephen after his Christianization.

Indeed. And in order to make the baptismal name changing even more historical, it would be really terrific if there would be a possibility to emphasise the likelihood that the converting ruler adopts the (appropriately localized) form of his sponsor's name. There are many examples of this, and it befits the importance of god-parenthood in many medieval societies: very often, the converted ruler was interpreted as a god-child of the sponsoring Christian ruler or indeed the presiding bishop of the conversion.

Here's to hoping that a ruler who has conducted a Mass Conversion of his realm will have a better chance of gaining a sainthood. That, if anything, would be historical to the degree of normativity.
 
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