[Mod] [Early development] A new God

[TheMind]

Good evening everyone, I'm glad to announce I'm working on a mod which adds christianity into the game.
The main features of this mod will be:

• Jesus Christ interactable character
• 2 new decisions: one for adopting christianity as official religion, the other one to persecute those barbaric christians around your cities
• Event chain with multiple choices and, in particular, great support and focus on Judea
• Extended timeline until 100 AD, along with all the major historical events in this period
• Christian religion (of course, eheh)
• Simulation (as realistic as possible) of the spread of this faith around the world and in particular in Judea-neighbouring countries
• Omens (which will be eventually rewritten) are, at the moment, some cults of Archangels, Maria, Joseph and some cults of Church's Fathers (St. Augustine, St. Ambrose and St. Jerome); I know they're not historically plausible, but I don't know what to put in (there were no prophets, no martyrs, no saints at that time)

This mod is in a stage of very early development, and I cannot assure this mod will be released and/or released in a short time, because I haven't too much time to put in this work.
I'll evaluate and eventually implement every idea you'll propose to me under this thread, so use your imagination!

Thank you for your time, looking forward to your ideas!

 

[EnragedKiwi]

Sounds like a creative project, I'm happy to see Imperator mods being worked on!

 

[TheMind]

Sounds like a creative project, I'm happy to see Imperator mods being worked on!

Thank you for your support! If you've got any idea, suggest!

 

[YTnuBF]

Omens could be based on celebrating/remembering aspects of Christ's life, like the Sermon on the Mount, or when he arrived in Jerusalem or when he as a child had to escape Herod's wrath. Basically take inspiration from the Gospel stories maybe. (Even though they were written down much later, the oral tradition might have developed soon after Jesus' death.)

EDIT:

Making Jesus a "live" character in the game may mean you'll need to pour a ton of effort to react to anything that could happen to a character in game. What happens if he falls ill and dies, is imprisoned too early, executed or banished? Or he gets married and has children?

An Event (Picture) and Decision based Jesus might be easier in order to keep the mod on rails.
Maybe it's possible to build a wholly new UI element for interacting with Christ where he exists within that element.

 

[TheMind]

Omens could be based on celebrating/remembering aspects of Christ's life, like the Sermon on the Mount, or when he arrived in Jerusalem or when he as a child had to escape Herod's wrath. Basically take inspiration from the Gospel stories maybe. (Even though they were written down much later, the oral tradition might have developed soon after Jesus' death.)

This can be a great idea, I'll think about this, thank you!

Making Jesus a "live" character in the game may mean you'll need to pour a ton of effort to react to anything that could happen to a character in game. What happens if he falls ill and dies, is imprisoned too early, executed or banished? Or he gets married and has children?

Well... I've thought the same thing, and... you're right. I can't imagine any means through you can avoid bad things to the character. Moreover, I don't know how would have to implement it in the new character system coming out together with 1.3 Livy.

 

[YTnuBF]

Yes, it's pretty much unknown how much the next update will make it harder to keep around anyone not part of a major family.

And I realized there might not even be a Herod in Imperator's freely changing timeline, so maybe not all aspects of the Gospels can be considered "canon" in that timeline.

Also the Romans might not control Galilee, so there might not be a census and therefore Jesus' parents might not travel to Bethlehem to give birth to him in a manger. Though of course they might be there for other reasons, if his birthplace/childhood even needs a mention.

But his death and the manner of it could be affected if Romans are absent from Judea. Would Christ still die on a cross? Or would the Sanhedrin simply condemn him to death for blasphemy by stoning like I think they would have, had the Romans not been the ultimate authority of the land then.

And no Romans means no Paul/Saul who was instrumental in working to expand the early Church and further set in stone its beliefs. Though a similar type of character might still arise in game.

In an extreme case maybe Phrygia or Egypt controls Judea and Jesus is simply acquitted by the Governor because they don't recognize the validity of the charges against Jesus based just on the superstitions of the locals.

 

[TheMind]

Yes, it's pretty much unknown how much the next update will make it harder to keep around anyone not part of a major family.

And I realized there might not even be a Herod in Imperator's freely changing timeline, so maybe not all aspects of the Gospels can be considered "canon" in that timeline.

Also the Romans might not control Galilee, so there might not be a census and therefore Jesus' parents might not travel to Bethlehem to give birth to him in a manger. Though of course they might be there for other reasons, if his birthplace/childhood even needs a mention.

But his death and the manner of it could be affected if Romans are absent from Judea. Would Christ still die on a cross? Or would the Sanhedrin simply condemn him to death for blasphemy by stoning like I think they would have, had the Romans not been the ultimate authority of the land then.

And no Romans means no Paul/Saul who was instrumental in working to expand the early Church and further set in stone its beliefs. Though a similar type of character might still arise in game.

In an extreme case maybe Phrygia or Egypt controls Judea and Jesus is simply acquitted by the Governor because they don't recognize the validity of the charges against Jesus based just on the superstitions of the locals.

Yeah, about this I must be unhistorical, because it's quite certain that whoever controls Rome won't reach Judea before 2 BC. The event will trigger independently from whoever controls Judea, it will trigger in Jerusalem province.

 

[TheMind]

Update:

• Jesus Christ is born: first event chain released (waiting for some bugfixes)
• Christianity is a real danger for our pantheon: the christian religion has been defined
• Ouch! The time is getting slower!: extended timeline until 100 AD (needs to be tested)
• And more...

 

[Jayavarman]

Merry Christmas! Any update?

 

[bog]

The idea that making Jesus a character would lead to the very real chance of him never really leaving a legacy behind seems somewhat of a non-issue to me. I'm not a christian and this is going to be painfully obvious in just a moment, but suffice to say that unless supernatural elements are explicitly invoked this seems entirely realistic. He could just as well have a wide array of protections according to his status as going from a relatively obscure figure (nobody knew who he was or cared, i.e. no real reason to kill him off for the powers that be) to a mid-classical age superstar (suddenly so popular as to be very difficult to deal with) in a very short time and his clearly remarkable set of skills in negotiating with and assuaging others. But beyond that, the notion that christianity could just never happen for no other reason than Jesus got the sniffles at five and his health just went downhill from there makes for some very interesting alt-history fodder.

Edit: To add to that last point, I for one would absolutely love to see the appearance of religious movements, like christianity, that just didn't withstand the test of time. The Roman cult of Sol Invictus, Neoplatonism, and Mithraism come to mind. Just a moment's glance at the Lux Invicta mod for CK2 would yield countless ideas that, for Imperator's case, can be directly applied in context of the time period they actually existed and with seemingly more appropriate mechanics. ... But, well, this is a bit tangential to the apparent mod focus. Just throwing it out there, something that might be interesting to add to this mod or at least for someone else out there to pursue. (I doubt I have the time or means.)

 

[EnragedKiwi]

Edit: To add to that last point, I for one would absolutely love to see the appearance of religious movements, like christianity, that just didn't withstand the test of time. ...

Yeah, imagine having Plotinus as an advisor! Or maybe province modifiers for Neoplatonic schools in Alexandria, Athens, Roma...

 

[TheMind]

Merry Christmas! Any update?

Thank you!
This mod hasn’t been updated for a while both because of holidays and because of a total rethinking of the mod itself, as creating the entity “Jesus Christ” as a character could lead to unnecessary and unpredicted results (for example, Jesus who contracts diphteria and dies before the adult age, etc...).
I should put my hands on this mod again soon, if I find time.

 

[TheMind]

The idea that making Jesus a character would lead to the very real chance of him never really leaving a legacy behind seems somewhat of a non-issue to me. I'm not a christian and this is going to be painfully obvious in just a moment, but suffice to say that unless supernatural elements are explicitly invoked this seems entirely realistic. He could just as well have a wide array of protections according to his status as going from a relatively obscure figure (nobody knew who he was or cared, i.e. no real reason to kill him off for the powers that be) to a mid-classical age superstar (suddenly so popular as to be very difficult to deal with) in a very short time and his clearly remarkable set of skills in negotiating with and assuaging others. But beyond that, the notion that christianity could just never happen for no other reason than Jesus got the sniffles at five and his health just went downhill from there makes for some very interesting alt-history fodder.

Edit: To add to that last point, I for one would absolutely love to see the appearance of religious movements, like christianity, that just didn't withstand the test of time. The Roman cult of Sol Invictus, Neoplatonism, and Mithraism come to mind. Just a moment's glance at the Lux Invicta mod for CK2 would yield countless ideas that, for Imperator's case, can be directly applied in context of the time period they actually existed and with seemingly more appropriate mechanics. ... But, well, this is a bit tangential to the apparent mod focus. Just throwing it out there, something that might be interesting to add to this mod or at least for someone else out there to pursue. (I doubt I have the time or means.)

Hello! Thank you for your suggestions!
The direction I’m giving to this mod isn’t necessarily history-oriented, but different. At the moment, I’ve only scripted the birth, the spread of christianity in nearby territories and his death (not completed yet). I won’t probably put inside miracles as I want to treat this mod as something, at least a bit, historical.

As for the second part, that isn’t the scope of this current mod. But anyway, I can work on them in the future. Thank you again!