While West African exists in CKII and replaces Animist in West Africa upon using the CKII to EU4 converter, the religion has 0% chances of appearing in a vanilla game. This post is therefore a suggestion for implementation.
As a whole, West African peoples/nations had, how can I say, "local" religions. While there might be lots of similarities between them, all the religions were different enough to be considered singular to each of their people. So, you had a "Yoruba religion", an "Ashanti religion", and so on.
In fact, this is a generalization that can be applied to the whole Animist group (that's why it exists, after all), but the West Africans differ themselves due to not being unorganized natives, native americans nor random OPMs in SEA... nor Mutapa, but I feel they should be Shamanist anyway. This means that they already start incredibly close to the abrahamic religions (and under heavy influence from Islam) and with a not so backwards tribal organization. Their geographical proximity to each other also greatly helps making a "cohesive" religion for the purposes of the game, even if they would be seen as a "religion group" in the real world.
However, you can't implement it that easily, because there would be a truckload of local deities based on culture, and then you'd have to take other cultures converting (say, a Russian nation) into account. This would end up making the deities incredibly generic, and thus the religion would be too bland.
So here's a more straightforward idea:
All Animists in West Africa become West African (WA from now on), a polytheistic religion. While everybody has the same religion and thus uses ToTF, each deity would be locked to a region. Any ruler "born" in a region (that is, any ruler whose nation has its capital in a certain region) would have that deity as their personal one. Changing into another local deity would be possible, but only once per ruler and for a price (maybe prestige+legitimacy). However, it would only be possible if a) the region still has an Animist province, or maybe even if Animist is the dominant religion there; or b) the ruler moves its capital to the region.
An example: I'm playing as Benin, in the Lower Niger region. My deity is Yemoja (patron spirit of womanhood in Yoruba religion), which gives +1 Diplomatic Relation and +50% New Heir chance. I want to change to Tiurakh (god of wealth and property in Serer religion) for their 10% tax / 10% trade power modifiers. As Tiurakh's region, Senegambia, still has at least one WA province (alternatively, WA is the dominant religion there), I can change to it with no issues.
However, if I wanted to change to Timbuktu's deity, I would not be able to, as the region is 100% Sunni. I'd need to get one province (or most) to convert to WA, and only then I'd be able to choose their deity. But what would it be? No idea, they converted to Islam by 1300, we'd need some research on that. Either that, or we could use a deity from another close-by religion instead.
While Hindu's events focus on the meditation chains, WA would focus on diplomacy with other WA rulers (with the same deity or a different one) and with Sunni rulers with WA provinces in their realms. So there could be an event for temporary opinion boost, for diplomacy reputation, maybe one to help a Sunni friendly country with their WA locals, get in trouble with another WA ruler for different deities, get a Sunni ruler (even more) hostile to you for being a heathen, and so on. The deities themselves would influence the events and the options available, so that local diplomacy is more lively (livelier?) than the usual.
Something that *could* also be done, but I'm not too sure about, is having different deities giving unrest in parts of the realm. Say, if you control provinces in Lower Niger and Senegambia, choosing Yemoja would give a unrest modifier ("Different Deity"?) in your Senegambian provinces that would only disappear if you adopted Tiurakh instead, or either waited for Separatism in the region to disappear or had the provinces' cultures as Accepted (culture conversion being an option). And maybe, to make up for that, the local culture maluses could be lifted (so you'd trade +2 unrest, -33% tax and -33% manpower for, say, +4/+5 unrest instead).
But maybe this would add an unnecessary layer of complexity to the religion. I'm not sure.
"But what if I convert the whole Russian region to WA?" first off, Putin would expatriate you. Second, my idea is that the deities would be restricted to West Africa, that is, all regions in that part of the continent would have an exclusive deity, even the ones that start as Sunni in 1444 (that would make for a good 10 or so deities, that's more than enough). For other regions, there are four possibilities: 1) no deities whatsoever; 2) the game generates a random deity with random name and bonuses from a pre-made table; 3) the region randomly adopts a deity from West Africa; and 4) the region inherits your ruler's current religion. I particularly think 4 makes the most sense, but maybe 3 could be the most gameplay-friendly. It would really be up to the devs.
And finally, the bonuses.
-10% Culture Threshold
+5% discipline
+2% missionary strength (like most Pagans)
...Maybe that's a bit too strong. They could be cut in half too, fine by me.
This is meant to have West African as a decent religion even in Vanilla; I very much doubt my deity idea would come as a free feature should the devs ever approve it, considering what has been done to Protestant, Reformed, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist. However, changing the current setup in Africa to have a non-generic pagan religion with good bonuses can be done as early as 1.14 already.
tl;dr -
- West African religion in West Africa, replacing Animist;
- Polytheistic religion, like Hindu;
- Deities tied to each region, rulers start with the one from their capital's region and can change only for a price;
- Available deities depend on WA presence in West Africa;
- One deity for each region in West Africa, even ones that start as Sunni in 1444;
- Foreign regions could or could not have deities too;
- Events related to the deities and diplomacy with other WA/Sunni rulers, instead of meditation like the Hindu ones;
- Possibly an unrest modifier for provinces from regions with a different deity than your ruler's;
- Maybe West African could have a cooler name too?
And that's it. Paradox pls fix
As a whole, West African peoples/nations had, how can I say, "local" religions. While there might be lots of similarities between them, all the religions were different enough to be considered singular to each of their people. So, you had a "Yoruba religion", an "Ashanti religion", and so on.
In fact, this is a generalization that can be applied to the whole Animist group (that's why it exists, after all), but the West Africans differ themselves due to not being unorganized natives, native americans nor random OPMs in SEA... nor Mutapa, but I feel they should be Shamanist anyway. This means that they already start incredibly close to the abrahamic religions (and under heavy influence from Islam) and with a not so backwards tribal organization. Their geographical proximity to each other also greatly helps making a "cohesive" religion for the purposes of the game, even if they would be seen as a "religion group" in the real world.
However, you can't implement it that easily, because there would be a truckload of local deities based on culture, and then you'd have to take other cultures converting (say, a Russian nation) into account. This would end up making the deities incredibly generic, and thus the religion would be too bland.
So here's a more straightforward idea:
All Animists in West Africa become West African (WA from now on), a polytheistic religion. While everybody has the same religion and thus uses ToTF, each deity would be locked to a region. Any ruler "born" in a region (that is, any ruler whose nation has its capital in a certain region) would have that deity as their personal one. Changing into another local deity would be possible, but only once per ruler and for a price (maybe prestige+legitimacy). However, it would only be possible if a) the region still has an Animist province, or maybe even if Animist is the dominant religion there; or b) the ruler moves its capital to the region.
An example: I'm playing as Benin, in the Lower Niger region. My deity is Yemoja (patron spirit of womanhood in Yoruba religion), which gives +1 Diplomatic Relation and +50% New Heir chance. I want to change to Tiurakh (god of wealth and property in Serer religion) for their 10% tax / 10% trade power modifiers. As Tiurakh's region, Senegambia, still has at least one WA province (alternatively, WA is the dominant religion there), I can change to it with no issues.
However, if I wanted to change to Timbuktu's deity, I would not be able to, as the region is 100% Sunni. I'd need to get one province (or most) to convert to WA, and only then I'd be able to choose their deity. But what would it be? No idea, they converted to Islam by 1300, we'd need some research on that. Either that, or we could use a deity from another close-by religion instead.
While Hindu's events focus on the meditation chains, WA would focus on diplomacy with other WA rulers (with the same deity or a different one) and with Sunni rulers with WA provinces in their realms. So there could be an event for temporary opinion boost, for diplomacy reputation, maybe one to help a Sunni friendly country with their WA locals, get in trouble with another WA ruler for different deities, get a Sunni ruler (even more) hostile to you for being a heathen, and so on. The deities themselves would influence the events and the options available, so that local diplomacy is more lively (livelier?) than the usual.
Something that *could* also be done, but I'm not too sure about, is having different deities giving unrest in parts of the realm. Say, if you control provinces in Lower Niger and Senegambia, choosing Yemoja would give a unrest modifier ("Different Deity"?) in your Senegambian provinces that would only disappear if you adopted Tiurakh instead, or either waited for Separatism in the region to disappear or had the provinces' cultures as Accepted (culture conversion being an option). And maybe, to make up for that, the local culture maluses could be lifted (so you'd trade +2 unrest, -33% tax and -33% manpower for, say, +4/+5 unrest instead).
But maybe this would add an unnecessary layer of complexity to the religion. I'm not sure.
"But what if I convert the whole Russian region to WA?" first off, Putin would expatriate you. Second, my idea is that the deities would be restricted to West Africa, that is, all regions in that part of the continent would have an exclusive deity, even the ones that start as Sunni in 1444 (that would make for a good 10 or so deities, that's more than enough). For other regions, there are four possibilities: 1) no deities whatsoever; 2) the game generates a random deity with random name and bonuses from a pre-made table; 3) the region randomly adopts a deity from West Africa; and 4) the region inherits your ruler's current religion. I particularly think 4 makes the most sense, but maybe 3 could be the most gameplay-friendly. It would really be up to the devs.
And finally, the bonuses.
-10% Culture Threshold
+5% discipline
+2% missionary strength (like most Pagans)
...Maybe that's a bit too strong. They could be cut in half too, fine by me.
This is meant to have West African as a decent religion even in Vanilla; I very much doubt my deity idea would come as a free feature should the devs ever approve it, considering what has been done to Protestant, Reformed, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist. However, changing the current setup in Africa to have a non-generic pagan religion with good bonuses can be done as early as 1.14 already.
tl;dr -
- West African religion in West Africa, replacing Animist;
- Polytheistic religion, like Hindu;
- Deities tied to each region, rulers start with the one from their capital's region and can change only for a price;
- Available deities depend on WA presence in West Africa;
- One deity for each region in West Africa, even ones that start as Sunni in 1444;
- Foreign regions could or could not have deities too;
- Events related to the deities and diplomacy with other WA/Sunni rulers, instead of meditation like the Hindu ones;
- Possibly an unrest modifier for provinces from regions with a different deity than your ruler's;
- Maybe West African could have a cooler name too?
And that's it. Paradox pls fix
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. Still, having a 2% decision is a big improvement from nothing. Generic pagan got that along with religious sacrifices being available outside of specific countries in recent patches so these faiths are better than they once were. They're still weaker than most non-Buddhist options though.
