England converting to reform?

[unmerged(1618)]

I've played a few GCs, with Turkey and Austria, so I'm pretty experienced at this point with the general game mechanics. However, I've never had to change religion before (I was more of a specialist in crushing heretical sects than converting to them).

Now I've started an English GC (hard/agressive)... It's quite a different experience now that I'm sitting on my butt fighting only when war is declared on me. France is collapsing, so I own the coast from Calais to Normandie, I inherited Scotland in the 1520's, and every province is fully upgraded with an army only a short jump away. It's the 1550-60's, and I feel the pressing need for colonists, as I'm getting tired of burning Poland's trading posts* (how are they getting colonists???) and colonial dynamism hasn't kicked in yet (when does that happen?).

So the crux of my question is actually this: Calvin hit the world stage about 10-15 years ago (the probability of Trent is already 20% or so), and I have reformed provinces in my country (Scotland, and the province south of Anglia), and I have tolerance for reform in 2nd place (with catholic 1st and protestant 3rd). However, my only conversion options are Catholic and Protestant. Is there something I'm missing? Will Reform eventually be available? I was under the impression you don't have to go through Protestant to get to Reform...

Thanks for any help...

[*] not that I mind crushing Poland, of course, since my Austria GC taught me one thing -- the only good Pole is a Pole dying of attrition outside one of my level 3 fortresses... in the game of course, no offense in real life. OK, 2 things -- annexing Venice is a real pain.

 

[Drakken]

Calvinism is an other Reform movement inside the Reform. Before Calvin there was Luther, not the contrary. As such you must convert to Protestantism before going through the Reformed faith, as it is a movement of decentralization of politic and faith towards the State. You cannot go to the Reformed faith if you are not Protestant first, just like you can't go to Counter-Reform if you are not a Catholic before.

Drakken

 

[unmerged(1618)]

Ahh. That does make some historical sense -- though not perfect sense; I could easily imagine a country resisting Protestantism only to have the monarch swayed by a charismatic Reformist preacher. On the flip side, a Protestant country could have a new ruler come to the throne who was Counter-Reform Catholic, sort of along the lines of Mary I.

Anyway, in game terms, I was motivated by posts I had read here where people had advised waiting to convert until Reform came so you don't have to go through double revolts. Were they just advocating switching immediately to Reform after Protestant?

Thanks again.

 

[Drakken]

Yes, maybe this is what they meant.

Drakken

 

[Dark Knight]

Switching from Catholicism to Protestantism reduces stability to -3 and swtiching from Protestantism to Reformed does the same thing. Thus, if you wait for Calvin and then switch twice immediately, you only have to recover from -3 stability once.

 

[Fossa]

Since colonial dynamism for England starts about 1570-80? and Reformed gets less money than Protestants I usually don't convert to Reformed as England.
Besides if you wait and go through the double conversion you'll miss 1 colonist/year = about 30-40 colonists that you would get from converting to protestantism in the 1520:ies

 

[unmerged(1618)]

Excellent... thanks for the clarifications/advice.

Fossa, I will take that into account. Part of my motivation is in trying to figure out whether the CofE as it eventually became in the 17th and 18th is more Reformed or Protestant... but I guess since I'm watching the Netherlands and Spain (and Lorraine) gradually carve up France, historical accuracy can be damned.