Missionaries in EUIV

[Ashantai]

One thing which is far too easy in EU3 is converting religions. Through numerous religious decisions and a level 6 theologian I can get 20-30% conversion rates on a heathen, uncored, wrong culture province in Africa.

My thoughts are that you should not be able to convert provinces of different culture groups (except for pagans) unless you have a core there. I can't think of a time it happened; in Granada we can assume Spain had cores there, and the same with Russia in the Steppes. However, even in those places conversion was not easy.
On the other hand Ottoman Europe never converted to Islam, while British India never magically became Protestant, nor the Dutch East Indies Reformed. So even when you can do it it should take a LONG time unless they are your culture.

Conversion within your religious group shouldn't be punished in this way of course, but it should still be more difficult than it is in EU3.

 

[Jaol]

Just make province religion a percentage, and 90% of the problem goes away. That way it can be relatively easy to convert a province from 40% catholic/60% reformed to 50/50, but very difficult to get it to 100% catholic.

 

[Korsan82]

One thing which is far too easy in EU3 is converting religions. Through numerous religious decisions and a level 6 theologian I can get 20-30% conversion rates on a heathen, uncored, wrong culture province in Africa.

My thoughts are that you should not be able to convert provinces of different culture groups (except for pagans) unless you have a core there. I can't think of a time it happened; in Granada we can assume Spain had cores there, and the same with Russia in the Steppes. However, even in those places conversion was not easy.
On the other hand Ottoman Europe never converted to Islam, while British India never magically became Protestant, nor the Dutch East Indies Reformed. So even when you can do it it should take a LONG time unless they are your culture.

Conversion within your religious group shouldn't be punished in this way of course, but it should still be more difficult than it is in EU3.

Spanish conversion was mainly done due to the total annihilation of the Andalusian Muslim culture and mass exodus from the muslims into Northern Africa.
Russian conversion was mainly done due to extensive missionairy investments. There are some books out there in Circassian and Turkish about the "conversion" of the Crimea Turks/Tatars. That had nothing to do with clean missionary work (kill the parents and educate the children to your desire).
Ottomans converted large chunks of Europe. Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia were converted to Islam. Ironically the regions where they put the biggest presure on by taking their children as slaves (Janissary devshirme system) resisted most. On Christian reconquest of European Ottoman lands the local Muslim population was either expelled into Anatolia or massacred by the local people.
Just a little historical information here...

Unless we lack such mechanisms we cannot simulate proper missionary work. One thing I can surely agree with is that uncored provinces should be harder to convert and that provinces from a very different culture groups with a different faith should be even harder to convert.

 

[Ashantai]

My preferred choice would be for culture and religion to be percentages...but I fear that's not going to happen, so this is my next alternative.

Perhaps a province decision similar to settlement policy could be used to simulate intense but difficult conversion attempts, making it happen quicker, but with substantial penalties.

 

[SAS]

I would like each province to have a majority and minority in the province, both for culture and religion. Would make an interesting reformation.

 

[Fawr]

I'd prefer to see a CK2 style mechanic where you don't have to send out missionaries, spending thousands of gold to convert a few pagans. It should be something which just happens automatically.

One impact of the OP's suggestion is that large empires would always cross religious boundaries, and be in for a world of pain as a result (unless they do away with the religion sliders being a 0 sum game - for example by letting a tolerent society have more points on the religion sliders).

 

[unmerged(353072)]

I am kind of ok with it being harder to convert but personally I just think they need a new system for it. I would suggest something like Fawr is saying but make it kind of like the culture is in the game where each religion is a percent and building a church will give you a bonus to how fast your state religion will spread in the province.