I was playing as the Ghaznavids from the 1066 start and I'm finding myself constantly under attack from rebel uprisings. Not the interesting, fun uprisings of upset vassals, but random armies of religious minorities which I cannot interact with in any meaningful way. Now it makes perfect sense that Hindu rebels appear in my Indian provinces, as far as I'm aware this is historical. What doesn't make sense is that these revolts can occur in the same province every 4 years, a common issue with rebels in Paradox games which until recently was happily absent from CKII. Of course, none of the rebels are hard to crush, merely annoying - gather levies and retinue, chase rebel army as it (frustratingly) attempts to escape, eventually catch it and voila. This isn't engaging in the way dealing with rebellious vassals are but I can accept it to some degree.
What I can't accept are my Sunni provinces wantonly turning to heresies and doing the exact same thing, faster than I can convert them back, for reasons which are entirely out of my control.
The Caliph was eliminated by the Fatimids and Sunni moral authority was at 0%. My provinces then began adopting random heresies. This is a cool idea and there's actually good historical justification for it: after the Mongol conquests large regions of the Muslim world, especially Iran and Turkey, drifted away from orthodox Sunni belief and became a melting pot of heterodoxy. However it works out terribly in the game. My provinces just adopt seemingly random heresies: Zikri provinces mixed with Yazidis mixed with whatever else the random number generator cooked up. And these heresies act like any other non-tolerated religion and generate uprisings. This isn't fun for the above stated reasons: I have very few tools to combat it and just have to accept my time and patience being wasted by the RNG. Worse, though, it makes no logical or historical sense.
Reversion away from orthodoxy in the Muslim world is not a very well understood phenomenon, but there are some aspect of it which can be integrated into the game in interesting ways. First and foremost, it must be something the player has some control over. Historically, cities and highly developed regions became bastions of Sunni Islam, especially Egypt and Syria. They produced the educated ulema which kept the Sunni tradition alive. Provinces which have cities containing madrasas should be highly resistant to conversion away from orthodoxy. Likewise rulers and court Imams with high learning should slow down the process and speed up reconversion (this may already be the case, I haven't read the event files). Let large, highly upgraded madrasas actually produce men of learning from time to time (as distinct from the simple "invite holy man" button) and allow them to be exported to foreign courts in exchange for prestige and piety. Those foreign courts could take them in and use them to combat heresy. Let the player use severe force, like Tamerlane and Yavuz Selim, to fight heretics if need be.
However, I think the most important thing is to make the heresies actually interesting to engage with. They don't need to be pushovers, they just need to be interactive so that the player has choices. Rather than instantly converting the province from Sunni to heretic, there should be an intermediate point where the province becomes "Sunni Heterodox", giving no negative modifiers but acting as a warning that the province is in danger. The local ruler may choose to accept this state of affairs, and perhaps become tolerant toward it. It should not be hard to do this, and simply becoming heterodox Sunni oneself should be an entirely viable option, this was the case for many Muslim rulers in 13th and 14th Century Anatolia, including the early Ottomans. Doing so would only cause problems among characters with a reason to dislike it, such as being zealous.
This is where it could become an interesting game mechanic - instead of fighting boring randomly generated armies, the Sultan has to face a large number of his vassals becoming Heterodox Sunnis, or doing nothing about Heterodox Sunnism in his provinces. Does he choose to force them back onto the straight path using the tools mentioned above, thus becoming fully an enemy of the heretics? Or does he tolerate it and perhaps go that route himself?
When heterodox Sunnis reach a critical mass, there should be a possibility of the appearance of a Sufi religious leader, come to bring new religious direction to the masses (e.g. Hacı Bektaş, Baba Ishak, Safi ad-Din). It would be neat if such a person could found an independent religious holding in a random heterodox province, or do so while offering to become a vassal of a ruler. They could spread their order throughout neighboring provinces while requesting positions of authority from the ruler, such as by asking for land, or positions within his council. If refused, they could cause an actual uprising in an effort to achieve power. If accepted, they could become a powerful ally to the ruler, kind of like a religious order. Both routes, however, would lead eventually to abandoning Sunni Heterodoxy, and to the adoption of an actual heresy, though one which would be culturally appropriate. Said heresy would also not get as many negative modifiers from "Sunni Heterodoxy". Perhaps it may even lead to the establishment of a Shi'ite dynasty.
Sound interesting?
What I can't accept are my Sunni provinces wantonly turning to heresies and doing the exact same thing, faster than I can convert them back, for reasons which are entirely out of my control.
The Caliph was eliminated by the Fatimids and Sunni moral authority was at 0%. My provinces then began adopting random heresies. This is a cool idea and there's actually good historical justification for it: after the Mongol conquests large regions of the Muslim world, especially Iran and Turkey, drifted away from orthodox Sunni belief and became a melting pot of heterodoxy. However it works out terribly in the game. My provinces just adopt seemingly random heresies: Zikri provinces mixed with Yazidis mixed with whatever else the random number generator cooked up. And these heresies act like any other non-tolerated religion and generate uprisings. This isn't fun for the above stated reasons: I have very few tools to combat it and just have to accept my time and patience being wasted by the RNG. Worse, though, it makes no logical or historical sense.
Reversion away from orthodoxy in the Muslim world is not a very well understood phenomenon, but there are some aspect of it which can be integrated into the game in interesting ways. First and foremost, it must be something the player has some control over. Historically, cities and highly developed regions became bastions of Sunni Islam, especially Egypt and Syria. They produced the educated ulema which kept the Sunni tradition alive. Provinces which have cities containing madrasas should be highly resistant to conversion away from orthodoxy. Likewise rulers and court Imams with high learning should slow down the process and speed up reconversion (this may already be the case, I haven't read the event files). Let large, highly upgraded madrasas actually produce men of learning from time to time (as distinct from the simple "invite holy man" button) and allow them to be exported to foreign courts in exchange for prestige and piety. Those foreign courts could take them in and use them to combat heresy. Let the player use severe force, like Tamerlane and Yavuz Selim, to fight heretics if need be.
However, I think the most important thing is to make the heresies actually interesting to engage with. They don't need to be pushovers, they just need to be interactive so that the player has choices. Rather than instantly converting the province from Sunni to heretic, there should be an intermediate point where the province becomes "Sunni Heterodox", giving no negative modifiers but acting as a warning that the province is in danger. The local ruler may choose to accept this state of affairs, and perhaps become tolerant toward it. It should not be hard to do this, and simply becoming heterodox Sunni oneself should be an entirely viable option, this was the case for many Muslim rulers in 13th and 14th Century Anatolia, including the early Ottomans. Doing so would only cause problems among characters with a reason to dislike it, such as being zealous.
This is where it could become an interesting game mechanic - instead of fighting boring randomly generated armies, the Sultan has to face a large number of his vassals becoming Heterodox Sunnis, or doing nothing about Heterodox Sunnism in his provinces. Does he choose to force them back onto the straight path using the tools mentioned above, thus becoming fully an enemy of the heretics? Or does he tolerate it and perhaps go that route himself?
When heterodox Sunnis reach a critical mass, there should be a possibility of the appearance of a Sufi religious leader, come to bring new religious direction to the masses (e.g. Hacı Bektaş, Baba Ishak, Safi ad-Din). It would be neat if such a person could found an independent religious holding in a random heterodox province, or do so while offering to become a vassal of a ruler. They could spread their order throughout neighboring provinces while requesting positions of authority from the ruler, such as by asking for land, or positions within his council. If refused, they could cause an actual uprising in an effort to achieve power. If accepted, they could become a powerful ally to the ruler, kind of like a religious order. Both routes, however, would lead eventually to abandoning Sunni Heterodoxy, and to the adoption of an actual heresy, though one which would be culturally appropriate. Said heresy would also not get as many negative modifiers from "Sunni Heterodoxy". Perhaps it may even lead to the establishment of a Shi'ite dynasty.
Sound interesting?
