Warning: Word count of 1631 at time of final draft.
Hello everyone,
I have been staying up-to-date with the Tinto Talks and I believe that one aspect of the game that has so far proven a little underwhelming are the religious mechanics. I remember hearing near the start of the project of how Calvinists had no dice rerolls due to predestination and thought that religion in EUV was going to be an absurdly fun system. Most of what we have seen relates to Christianity, with a little peek at Hinduism and Jainism, but at first iteration, a lot of religions seem like a “bonus modifier soup” where you interact with a button, you get a modifier. The devs have put a lot of care and research in visually representing all the different permutations of religion that they have covered so far, but it feels a little weird to see: “Embrace the avatar Narasimha: Hostile attrition +0.50.” Religion is one of the few things that people believed (or disbelieved) in, and I want to outline the shortcomings I have perceived in the new system and suggest a potential model to improve upon it.
Shortcomings:
Doctrines & POPs:
In EUV, every POP already belongs to a religion, but I would like to add a subcategory for their “key doctrine,” some part of their religion that this POP thinks most defines their faith. These doctrines are from a set list unique to each religion. To help with lag, when dealing with peasantry, each religion should have a “filler doctrine” for illiterate peasants, such as the Shahada for Muslims. However, literate peasants, clergy, nobles, and burghers should all have unique doctrinal priorities. A skeleton outline for Sunni Islam may look like the following, using the 5 pillars:
Doctrines & Estates:
After some quick averaging, your estates should come out with a preferred doctrine. Except for the clergy, which we will get to later, the main effect of these preferences will be to let estates mess with each others’ satisfaction. For example, since the burghers prefer to focus on the Zakat, the Commoners are a fair bit happier, but their disagreement with the Clergy and Nobility lowers their satisfaction a bit. This part of the system does not have to be particularly deep in most cases, but I want the political setup of your nation to be vulnerable to drift and internal disagreement that you are not in total control of.
Doctrines & the Crown:
Here is where the player interaction comes in! By default, you can choose the Crown’s religious policy at the start of every reign, as well as adjusting mid-reign at a price of stability. I really want doctrine effects to be unique, striving for more of the Calvinist predestination style of effect instead of + modifier, and will brainstorm some below:
Crown doctrine & internal politics:
The crown’s doctrine WILL aggravate some of your POPs of different doctrines. In the case of Sunni Islam, a crown doctrine of Shahada will be pretty tame, but if Wahhabism gets represented as a separate doctrine in the late game, we could see Wahhabi POPs almost always be very angry with a non-Wahhabist crown. Furthermore, while I do not fully understand the theology behind Islamic schools, I imagine these could be BBCs in your nation which can provide some benefit but either affect your POPs preferred policies or add new ones, so you can’t just let in every school lest your become less able to make everyone happy. Oh yeah, and you will never be able to share the doctrine of heathen or many heretic POPs, so be ready for them to also be upset.
Crown doctrine & the clergy:
While most estates will interact straightforwardly with the Crown’s doctrine, only having a minor satisfaction shift, I want the clergy to interact more strongly. For example, a country with a highly influential clergy should start with a privilege where the clergy chooses the doctrine of the Crown, which removes some choice but also could let an adept player shift their doctrine without the stability cost if they master the underlying mechanics. Alternatively, the clergy may demand a doctrinal shift in Parliament. I really want the clergy to present an active and sometimes oppositional estate to players as they can often fall outside the otherwise materialistic priorities of the nobles & burghers.
Crown doctrine & external politics:
In the religion tab, each country’s doctrine will combine under a weighted system to form a “dominant doctrine.” For example, in the Sunni case, the Mamluks, having many POPs and control of Jerusalem, may be able to set the course, especially if they conquer Mecca. If you follow this dominant doctrine, you will get religion-adjusted diplomatic bonuses. For Sunnis, this may not be a huge deal, with only some mild opinion boost, but this may become more involved over in Europe with its Popes and Reformations. I do not want to offer too much but at least want to suggest a potential direction this mechanic could go.
Conclusion:
Even if I have not communicated it the most clearly, I believe that adding a layer of religious doctrines underneath the current religion system is a necessary component to successfully modeling the religious world of EUV. I have seen feedback time and time again, such as how do we represent radical Protestants? How do we represent the Three Schools in China? Why do the playtests of the game feel like 20-50 years of stable internal setup and then you don’t touch internal politics again? I hope that doctrines can add a tried and true framework to truly build out religious features. I am dissatisfied with my own mockup, especially due to the whole gaminess of the Crown doctrine section, but even if you think the particulars of my setup are lackluster, or I have totally misunderstood Islam (likely), I hope you have the creativity to see how it is important that POPs truly believe things outside of your direct control. Thank you for making it so far.
Hello everyone,
I have been staying up-to-date with the Tinto Talks and I believe that one aspect of the game that has so far proven a little underwhelming are the religious mechanics. I remember hearing near the start of the project of how Calvinists had no dice rerolls due to predestination and thought that religion in EUV was going to be an absurdly fun system. Most of what we have seen relates to Christianity, with a little peek at Hinduism and Jainism, but at first iteration, a lot of religions seem like a “bonus modifier soup” where you interact with a button, you get a modifier. The devs have put a lot of care and research in visually representing all the different permutations of religion that they have covered so far, but it feels a little weird to see: “Embrace the avatar Narasimha: Hostile attrition +0.50.” Religion is one of the few things that people believed (or disbelieved) in, and I want to outline the shortcomings I have perceived in the new system and suggest a potential model to improve upon it.
Shortcomings:
- Most religious systems seem almost entirely under player control or only with a few “requirements” to jump through at your leisure.
- Most religious doctrines are just positive modifiers.
- Besides the old true faith / heretic / heathen partition, it does not seems like POPs or estates interact much with religion.
- Make religion something that is not under your control in most cases, so that the struggle for control or how to deal with that lack is a new game mechanic.
- Make doctrines something important to POPs, estates, and other countries.
- (Very long-term goal) Make your choices of doctrine affect actual gameplay actions.
In Victoria 2, much like EUV, there is a system of POPs. I include a screenshot of POPs in Cairo as an example below. Most of these values should be familiar to an EUV follower.
You can see that POPs approach different issues and that adds up to a total for each province & eventually the nation. An important things is that YOU CANNOT SET THESE ISSUES! There are mechanics that let you influence issues, but the ideology & issue of your POPs is not under your control. If you have elections, these issues and ideologies determine the winner, but even without elections, POPs get more angry the further their government differs from their preferred policy. This is important when engaging with so many systems, and learning how to manipulate politics in Victoria 2 is one of my favorite systems. I am to rip out a lot of these basic systems and apply them to religions in unique manners.
You can see that POPs approach different issues and that adds up to a total for each province & eventually the nation. An important things is that YOU CANNOT SET THESE ISSUES! There are mechanics that let you influence issues, but the ideology & issue of your POPs is not under your control. If you have elections, these issues and ideologies determine the winner, but even without elections, POPs get more angry the further their government differs from their preferred policy. This is important when engaging with so many systems, and learning how to manipulate politics in Victoria 2 is one of my favorite systems. I am to rip out a lot of these basic systems and apply them to religions in unique manners.
Doctrines & POPs:
In EUV, every POP already belongs to a religion, but I would like to add a subcategory for their “key doctrine,” some part of their religion that this POP thinks most defines their faith. These doctrines are from a set list unique to each religion. To help with lag, when dealing with peasantry, each religion should have a “filler doctrine” for illiterate peasants, such as the Shahada for Muslims. However, literate peasants, clergy, nobles, and burghers should all have unique doctrinal priorities. A skeleton outline for Sunni Islam may look like the following, using the 5 pillars:
- Shahada
- Salah
- Zakat
- Sawm
- Hajj
Doctrines & Estates:
After some quick averaging, your estates should come out with a preferred doctrine. Except for the clergy, which we will get to later, the main effect of these preferences will be to let estates mess with each others’ satisfaction. For example, since the burghers prefer to focus on the Zakat, the Commoners are a fair bit happier, but their disagreement with the Clergy and Nobility lowers their satisfaction a bit. This part of the system does not have to be particularly deep in most cases, but I want the political setup of your nation to be vulnerable to drift and internal disagreement that you are not in total control of.
Doctrines & the Crown:
Here is where the player interaction comes in! By default, you can choose the Crown’s religious policy at the start of every reign, as well as adjusting mid-reign at a price of stability. I really want doctrine effects to be unique, striving for more of the Calvinist predestination style of effect instead of + modifier, and will brainstorm some below:
- Shahada: This option as the “default” or “safe” option protects you from some religious Estate or POP dissatisfaction, and gives +2.50% conversion speed.
- Salah: Armies lose -5% movement speed, take 5% fewer casualties from attrition. The ruler gains 3 years on their life expectancy.
- Zakat: You gain an option to “Give Alms” where you give a portion of your yearly income to gain prestige. It caps at 200% yearly income for +100 prestige. Hopefully this is calculated from gross income, not net income.
- Sawm: Every Ramadan, your may choose if your leader embarks on a month of fasting. If they do, their skills lower by 20 in each category and they are unable to lead armies. They emerge from the experience stronger, adding 5 to a random skill. If they do not, there is a hit to clergy satisfaction.
- Hajj: You are given a 10-year timer to raise funds for a Hajj. Whenever you have the funds necessary, you may choose to go on 3 different tiers of Hajj, whether modest, respectable, or extravagant. You spend more money but get a large boost to diplomatic reputation for the rest of your rulers’ reign. If you fail to go on a Hajj for 10 years, you get an event lamenting your ruler as a failed Hajji, slightly hurting Clergy satisfaction and diplomatic reputation while switching your value to Shahada.
Crown doctrine & internal politics:
The crown’s doctrine WILL aggravate some of your POPs of different doctrines. In the case of Sunni Islam, a crown doctrine of Shahada will be pretty tame, but if Wahhabism gets represented as a separate doctrine in the late game, we could see Wahhabi POPs almost always be very angry with a non-Wahhabist crown. Furthermore, while I do not fully understand the theology behind Islamic schools, I imagine these could be BBCs in your nation which can provide some benefit but either affect your POPs preferred policies or add new ones, so you can’t just let in every school lest your become less able to make everyone happy. Oh yeah, and you will never be able to share the doctrine of heathen or many heretic POPs, so be ready for them to also be upset.
Crown doctrine & the clergy:
While most estates will interact straightforwardly with the Crown’s doctrine, only having a minor satisfaction shift, I want the clergy to interact more strongly. For example, a country with a highly influential clergy should start with a privilege where the clergy chooses the doctrine of the Crown, which removes some choice but also could let an adept player shift their doctrine without the stability cost if they master the underlying mechanics. Alternatively, the clergy may demand a doctrinal shift in Parliament. I really want the clergy to present an active and sometimes oppositional estate to players as they can often fall outside the otherwise materialistic priorities of the nobles & burghers.
Crown doctrine & external politics:
In the religion tab, each country’s doctrine will combine under a weighted system to form a “dominant doctrine.” For example, in the Sunni case, the Mamluks, having many POPs and control of Jerusalem, may be able to set the course, especially if they conquer Mecca. If you follow this dominant doctrine, you will get religion-adjusted diplomatic bonuses. For Sunnis, this may not be a huge deal, with only some mild opinion boost, but this may become more involved over in Europe with its Popes and Reformations. I do not want to offer too much but at least want to suggest a potential direction this mechanic could go.
Conclusion:
Even if I have not communicated it the most clearly, I believe that adding a layer of religious doctrines underneath the current religion system is a necessary component to successfully modeling the religious world of EUV. I have seen feedback time and time again, such as how do we represent radical Protestants? How do we represent the Three Schools in China? Why do the playtests of the game feel like 20-50 years of stable internal setup and then you don’t touch internal politics again? I hope that doctrines can add a tried and true framework to truly build out religious features. I am dissatisfied with my own mockup, especially due to the whole gaminess of the Crown doctrine section, but even if you think the particulars of my setup are lackluster, or I have totally misunderstood Islam (likely), I hope you have the creativity to see how it is important that POPs truly believe things outside of your direct control. Thank you for making it so far.
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