Wanting to go on a converting spree.

kongu3 · 07-06-2004, 11:19

After seeing a question about the differences between difficulty levels, I was wondering what if I tried an Very Easy game.

In the process, I am thinking of trying to convert as many provinces as possible to my state religion.

I want to make just one modification, that is to define the religion of the country I am going to pick. Since I am so used to OE, maybe OE with Pagan. (I will also edit those events that will change some province religions)

But I am wondering whether there are better deals

. Like Pagan spain(castile).
I am partial to Pagan right now because they have better converting chances. But then, catholic give 2 extra missionaries.

So, any ideas for the crazy game?
- difficulty: Very Easy.
- ai aggressiveness: what is the best for the job?
- easiest country ?
- best religion for the job?

*ForzaA* · 07-06-2004, 11:48

Pagan do not get better chances of converting OTHER religions to pagan (or not to my knowledge anyway) rather, converting a pagan province to your state culture is easier.

Any catholic country has the advantage of the huge number of already existing catholic provinces (IIRC catholic IS the largest group, even after protestantism and reformed come around)

kongu3 · 07-06-2004, 11:58

Actually I made some checks and it IS easier to convert others to pagan. In fact, I learnt it through an AAR by the famous ws2_32 on his WC as Benin. (It was an year ago, I think).

And for originally occupied provinces, except the two Norway tradeposts and the few Vijayanagar colonies that always get destroyed, religious breakdown:
Total 601
Sunni 116
Shia 21
Catholic 102
Protestant 54
Reformed 27
Orthodox 75
Hindu 42
Confusion 46
Buddhist 29
Pagan 89
(I made the count when I got this crazy idea.)

I just checked that only CRC gains 2 missionaries. Catholic is same with Sunni, with 1 missionary bonus. Probably CRC being availabe the second half of the game trumps over Sunni so it is between Catholic and Pagan.

EDIT: I made the count after setting the protestant and reformation events.

Wooster · 07-06-2004, 12:00

Pagans do get the same chance to convert to Pagan as non-Pagans get to convert away, according to ws2_32 in his Benin AAR. That was 1.04, though, so it might have been changed since then.

EDIT: Dagnab it, beaten. I provided a link though *sticks thumb to nose and blows a raspberry at kongu3*

kongu3 · 07-06-2004, 12:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wooster

EDIT: Dagnab it, beaten. I provided a link though *sticks thumb to nose and blows a raspberry at kongu3*

That link should be of much use to many players wanting to know all the tricks in the book. Sync. looting, etc. Much of it still relevant. I have the whole aar in my hard disk.

kongu3 · 07-06-2004, 17:25

Oh well, There are about 600 provinces,
with 80 staying pagan
100+ of Sunni & Catholics.
Any choice would see the need to convert around 500 provinces.

Culture-wise, OE has 68 friendly provinces (Turk, greek, slavic, greek)
while Lorrain (61) and granada (59) comes close.

But Spain has good Admin values.

If I take pagan, I will at best have 700+ missionaries. Catholic/CRC might give 1400 but lesser conversion chances. (and playing a catholic game seems ... too boring)

I wonder if Pagans can force-convert everyone. That will take off some of my job at converting provinces

passer by · 07-06-2004, 18:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by kongu3

Confusion 46

(sp)

doktarr · 07-06-2004, 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by kongu3

I wonder if Pagans can force-convert everyone. That will take off some of my job at converting provinces

No, no force converting for Pagans. This is another big advantage for Catholic - you can just force-convert northern Europe and annex it at the end after conversions are done.

It's a generally held belief that converting the entire world to one religion is impossible. However, it is probably possible for a Catholic power to wipe out all the other Christian religions. One trick would be to try to conquer, convert, and release a Russian minor early in the game, and then get them to become Russia. I've never managed that, but it seems possible.

XANG XONG III · 08-06-2004, 01:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wooster

Pagans do get the same chance to convert to Pagan as non-Pagans get to convert away, according to ws2_32 in his Benin AAR. That was 1.04, though, so it might have been changed since then.

EDIT: Dagnab it, beaten. I provided a link though *sticks thumb to nose and blows a raspberry at kongu3*

I don't think they get the same chances as non pagans converting pagans (at least in 1.08), but they do have a bonus. Playing as Inca Empire, I had 30% chances of converting an Iberian colony to Pagan religion, and some seconds later, after changing my State Religion, chances drop to 20%. Reloading the game as a Pagan nation, waiting nationalism to end and the culture to change chances went up to 60+% with same monarch adm value.

kongu3 · 08-06-2004, 07:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by doktarr

No, no force converting for Pagans. This is another big advantage for Catholic - you can just force-convert northern Europe and annex it at the end after conversions are done.

It's a generally held belief that converting the entire world to one religion is impossible. However, it is probably possible for a Catholic power to wipe out all the other Christian religions. One trick would be to try to conquer, convert, and release a Russian minor early in the game, and then get them to become Russia. I've never managed that, but it seems possible.

Too bad then.

Unless I change the missionary bonus of pagans to equal sunni/catholic; but it would be against the spirit of things.

Barkdreg · 08-06-2004, 09:42

another nice thing about being pagan
if you convert a province to pagan religion and later change to another religion you can change those provinces to your culture by converting them again

this creates an entirely new and impossible challange
convert all provinces to your culture

Incompetent · 08-06-2004, 13:31

I had a go at wiping out Islam as Spain on Hard difficulty. I got fairly close - there were about a dozen Muslim provinces left at the end, one of which (annoyingly) was one of Vijayangar's (sp?) colonies which they'd somehow managed to make into a city before turning Muslim by event. I cleared out all Pagans (except natives) as well, but that's not saying much.

Good luck with your efforts kongu3!

kongu3 · 08-06-2004, 13:42

Still thinking over it.
If I could get 4 missionaries there is a good chance of making it, especially at Very Easy mode. But that is only possible with CRC and as Incompetant put it, not an easy job since low chance of success.

The only option seems to be to grab a nation, convert its capital, and set it out to convert a few others on their own. But then, these countries should have low innovativeness as pagans don't have bonus missionaries.

DPS · 08-06-2004, 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wooster

Pagans do get the same chance to convert to Pagan as non-Pagans get to convert away, according to ws2_32 in his Benin AAR. That was 1.04, though, so it might have been changed since then.

It is definately true up thru 1.06, but I think it was changed in 1.07.

DPS · 08-06-2004, 21:36

I think it's theoretically possible to convert all provinces to one religion, but not possible in practice. It would be very, very, hard to come up with the money for all the conversion attempts you'd have to make, and then you'd have to be extremely lucky and succeed at a lot of 205 attempts.

kongu3 · 09-06-2004, 14:43

Seems Johan had released another improvement;

Topic:
I tried a pagan OE for 20 years. Thrace CoT had only itself and another province trading there, and only one outside merchant (moldovia) was there). Converting was not bad, 75% for state culture.

Anyway, either
1. Catholic/CRC spain.
good:4 missionaries after CRC. Can force-convert the west and hopefully they convert some protestants in the process.

bad: for first 100 years not much to convert. (I think grabbing the muslims or ortho would be painful; and without land connection too expensive to convert anyway. So it leaves you ~ 1100 missionaries to throw at 500 provinces.

2. Sunni OE.
good: can convert from beginning & cheap too due to land connection and state culture. Mughals, Bengal, Persia, Oman (after turned to Sunni), SEA countries, and even Nubia later might share the burdern; especially with some help. And the Sunni is the largest group anyway (and is more advatageous when you remember British/Scandinavian catholics tend to dissapear fast)

bad: ~250 missionaries less than CRC. West Europeans may be a pain to convert.

3. Pagan OE.
good: can convert 68 state cultured provinces to add to the 80+ pagans elsewhere. I checked that the chance is exactly 10% point more than for other religion. Might make a huge difference between a 12% and 22%.

bad: only 2 missionaries/year max. Worse, countries that can be releases as vassals won't produce much missionaries unless at innovative 3. Not many of them there. So they cannot help much.

Any ideas on what I should pick for a try?

Wreck · 09-06-2004, 15:03

What is the effect of a land connection on conversion costs? I've not seen that mentioned before.

kongu3 · 09-06-2004, 15:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wreck

What is the effect of a land connection on conversion costs? I've not seen that mentioned before.

It halves the cost.

I don't know if it is mentioned anywhere but as OE it was easy to note because the african possesions at one moment are not connected and then connected after annexing Mameluks.

It means, as Spain, if I took out orthodox areas early, I probably cannot afford the costs for converting at this period; especially as they double.

On a related note, converting afrikans take the same time (as OE) but converting americans take longer. (e.g 60 months vs. 90 months) though the % chance remains the same.

Wreck · 09-06-2004, 20:36

Seems to me Spain is the obvious choice. Making OE pagan rubs me wrong.

It would seem to me that a +10% chance to convert is, generally, worth less than getting twice the missionaries. Also, on the matter of converting capital provinces then releasing vassals, you want them to be able to convert, and as you say they won't be able to do much if they are pagan because they get few or no missionaries. With Spain you'd be making Catholic nations: they'd get missionaries up to inno 6 or so. The question then becomes just: will they use 'em?

As for difficulty, it seems to me that you'll want very hard so you get full BB war behaviour, since you'll more-or-less need to conquer the world as fast as possible. I've read that it's hard to WC without very hard to give you DoWs to work with. (I have not tried it myself.)

Here's one possible trick for the counterreform era, that I think should work once you own the world. Choose a vassal to release, whose capital has been converted. Garrison the area with siege armies. Now release the new Catholic vassal. Assuming you don't ally with it, it will DoW you ASAP because of BB. Now your sieges kick in, and quickly the vassal is reduced. Now you can force-convert them to Counterreformed --> they get more missionaries. During the peace, send them lots of cash to raise relations to +200, and to fund missions. Ally with them as necessary to stop them BB warring on you. Once they convert their turf, absorb them diplomatically. However, be alert for bordering provinces with the vassal's culture that you an induce to revolt which have no nation of their own. These should be induced to revolt as soon as possible to join the vassal.

Outside of the counterreform era, you'd just ally with them after freeing them, no war necessary. 'Course they don't get as many missionaries (and may get 0, if they are fairly innovative).

One more thought on Catholicism is that you'd have a little help with it via events. In particular there are random events for south/central America to convert pagans to Catholic, which induce conversions on four random provinces. Thus it might be possible to leave the Aztecs/Maya/Zapotecs and/or Incas around for a while, perhaps even whittling the Incas down to a core of their highest-population provinces. Concentrate on conversions elsewhere while hoping for the best; then conquer and convert the American pagans only if they don't get the event (and choose action b) by maybe 1760, enough to give you a few shots at conversion.

The North American natives and African pagans get similar random events to convert them to Protestant and Sunni, which you don't want.... So they'd have to be first on the list of places to conquer/convert, probably before you kick off the BB wars since they don't cost any BB.

As for Spain not being able to do lots of conversion in the first century or so: well, I think that would be true of any country, because it's hard to earn enough money that early to keep 3 missionaries a year going.

Wreck · 10-06-2004, 21:20

Some further thoughts on trying to convert the world... after looking at it, I'm not sure Spain is the best any more. They have some great events to help them form, but not until the late 1400s... which is wasted time. Also, it seems to me that Iberian culture is, in a sense, wasted: you're not going to need to convert any Iberian provinces to the true faith, since none of them leave it. Better to have a state culture which does get heretics.

France seems better IMO, since they get some protestants. But England is even better - they get anglosaxon and french culture. They don't have to wait to form. And they get some great events, including a -10 inflation event in 1555 and a -5 one in 1566. The big disadvantage of England is manpower - they don't get any outside of Europe. Whether or not this really matters is hard to say.

Another possibility might be to play Austria and head west. This has the advantage of getting you German culture, which is where the bulk of the protestants are.

Incidentally, trolling revolts.txt I learned of a useful fact. There's a kingdom of Jurasalem you can release (it can't revolt), that is defined as Catholic, regardless of its capital's religion. Its capital Judea has Arabic culture. So it will have Arabic state culture and Catholic religion. Create it, ally with it, and start it on its way to being a superpower in the middle east. If you help it assiduously I would imagine it can take a lot of Arabic culture provinces nearby, and presumably eventually convert them. Its innovativeness is 5, so, it should get one missionary per year. 2 if you force convert it to counterreformed.

07-06-2004, 11:19	#1
kongu3 Deserter Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: From Tamil State, in Kuala Lumpur Posts: 266	Wanting to go on a converting spree. After seeing a question about the differences between difficulty levels, I was wondering what if I tried an Very Easy game. In the process, I am thinking of trying to convert as many provinces as possible to my state religion. I want to make just one modification, that is to define the religion of the country I am going to pick. Since I am so used to OE, maybe OE with Pagan. (I will also edit those events that will change some province religions) But I am wondering whether there are better deals . Like Pagan spain(castile). I am partial to Pagan right now because they have better converting chances. But then, catholic give 2 extra missionaries. So, any ideas for the crazy game? - difficulty: Very Easy. - ai aggressiveness: what is the best for the job? - easiest country ? - best religion for the job?

07-06-2004, 11:48	#2
ForzaA Radioactive Moderator Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Stockholm Posts: 7,146 Blog Entries: 2	Pagan do not get better chances of converting OTHER religions to pagan (or not to my knowledge anyway) rather, converting a pagan province to your state culture is easier. Any catholic country has the advantage of the huge number of already existing catholic provinces (IIRC catholic IS the largest group, even after protestantism and reformed come around) __________________ Please read and follow the forum rules. --------- "But, but, but, Forza is Finnish! He lives in Stockholm and isn't afraid of anything [/OrangeYoshi]" - walrus ----------------------------------- "It started badly, it tailed off a little in the middle and the less said about the end the better, but apart from that it was excellent." (Rowan Atkinson as Captain Blackadder)

07-06-2004, 11:58	#3
kongu3 Deserter Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: From Tamil State, in Kuala Lumpur Posts: 266	Actually I made some checks and it IS easier to convert others to pagan. In fact, I learnt it through an AAR by the famous ws2_32 on his WC as Benin. (It was an year ago, I think). And for originally occupied provinces, except the two Norway tradeposts and the few Vijayanagar colonies that always get destroyed, religious breakdown: Total 601 Sunni 116 Shia 21 Catholic 102 Protestant 54 Reformed 27 Orthodox 75 Hindu 42 Confusion 46 Buddhist 29 Pagan 89 (I made the count when I got this crazy idea.) I just checked that only CRC gains 2 missionaries. Catholic is same with Sunni, with 1 missionary bonus. Probably CRC being availabe the second half of the game trumps over Sunni so it is between Catholic and Pagan. EDIT: I made the count after setting the protestant and reformation events. Last edited by kongu3; 07-06-2004 at 12:11.

07-06-2004, 12:00	#4
Wooster Colonel Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Just passing through Posts: 860	Pagans do get the same chance to convert to Pagan as non-Pagans get to convert away, according to ws2_32 in his Benin AAR. That was 1.04, though, so it might have been changed since then. EDIT: Dagnab it, beaten. I provided a link though sticks thumb to nose and blows a raspberry at kongu3 __________________ Presently running EU2 1.09 (30-06-2006). Past performance does not guarantee future success. By following any advice given, you agree to indemnify the Advisor against adverse consequences including, but not limited to, monetary loss, economic or nervous breakdown, internal strife, pestilence, civil war and complete system failure. Your country may be at risk if you default on your loan. Last edited by Wooster; 07-06-2004 at 12:06. Reason: Beaten! Argh!

08-06-2004, 09:42	#11
Barkdreg Kaplander Join Date: May 2001 Location: somewhere, behind a desk Posts: 2,624	another nice thing about being pagan if you convert a province to pagan religion and later change to another religion you can change those provinces to your culture by converting them again this creates an entirely new and impossible challange convert all provinces to your culture __________________ The Japanese AARe HIP! the latest bAARkdreg production, starring the mighty Japanese in the Historical Improvement Project. Ended due to savegame failure.

07-06-2004, 17:25	#6
kongu3 Deserter Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: From Tamil State, in Kuala Lumpur Posts: 266	Oh well, There are about 600 provinces, with 80 staying pagan 100+ of Sunni & Catholics. Any choice would see the need to convert around 500 provinces. Culture-wise, OE has 68 friendly provinces (Turk, greek, slavic, greek) while Lorrain (61) and granada (59) comes close. But Spain has good Admin values. If I take pagan, I will at best have 700+ missionaries. Catholic/CRC might give 1400 but lesser conversion chances. (and playing a catholic game seems ... too boring) I wonder if Pagans can force-convert everyone. That will take off some of my job at converting provinces

08-06-2004, 13:31	#12
Incompetent Proud Euroweenie Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Northwest European Archipelago Posts: 1,601	I had a go at wiping out Islam as Spain on Hard difficulty. I got fairly close - there were about a dozen Muslim provinces left at the end, one of which (annoyingly) was one of Vijayangar's (sp?) colonies which they'd somehow managed to make into a city before turning Muslim by event. I cleared out all Pagans (except natives) as well, but that's not saying much. Good luck with your efforts kongu3! __________________ Interregnum

08-06-2004, 13:42	#13
kongu3 Deserter Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: From Tamil State, in Kuala Lumpur Posts: 266	Still thinking over it. If I could get 4 missionaries there is a good chance of making it, especially at Very Easy mode. But that is only possible with CRC and as Incompetant put it, not an easy job since low chance of success. The only option seems to be to grab a nation, convert its capital, and set it out to convert a few others on their own. But then, these countries should have low innovativeness as pagans don't have bonus missionaries.

08-06-2004, 21:36	#15
DPS General Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Oak Hill, WV Posts: 2,043	I think it's theoretically possible to convert all provinces to one religion, but not possible in practice. It would be very, very, hard to come up with the money for all the conversion attempts you'd have to make, and then you'd have to be extremely lucky and succeed at a lot of 205 attempts. __________________ Currently playing: EUIII (IN) CK (DV) EU:Rome "The Assyrian program of exterminating various ethnic groups generally failed to promote cultural diversity." "...we must also hope...that history will have compassion in judging our mistakes, and for that reason we must try not to judge too harshly the mistakes of the generation before us." Bill James

09-06-2004, 14:43	#16
kongu3 Deserter Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: From Tamil State, in Kuala Lumpur Posts: 266	Seems Johan had released another improvement; Topic: I tried a pagan OE for 20 years. Thrace CoT had only itself and another province trading there, and only one outside merchant (moldovia) was there). Converting was not bad, 75% for state culture. Anyway, either 1. Catholic/CRC spain. good:4 missionaries after CRC. Can force-convert the west and hopefully they convert some protestants in the process. bad: for first 100 years not much to convert. (I think grabbing the muslims or ortho would be painful; and without land connection too expensive to convert anyway. So it leaves you ~ 1100 missionaries to throw at 500 provinces. 2. Sunni OE. good: can convert from beginning & cheap too due to land connection and state culture. Mughals, Bengal, Persia, Oman (after turned to Sunni), SEA countries, and even Nubia later might share the burdern; especially with some help. And the Sunni is the largest group anyway (and is more advatageous when you remember British/Scandinavian catholics tend to dissapear fast) bad: ~250 missionaries less than CRC. West Europeans may be a pain to convert. 3. Pagan OE. good: can convert 68 state cultured provinces to add to the 80+ pagans elsewhere. I checked that the chance is exactly 10% point more than for other religion. Might make a huge difference between a 12% and 22%. bad: only 2 missionaries/year max. Worse, countries that can be releases as vassals won't produce much missionaries unless at innovative 3. Not many of them there. So they cannot help much. Any ideas on what I should pick for a try? Last edited by kongu3; 09-06-2004 at 15:32.

09-06-2004, 15:03	#17
Wreck Colonel Join Date: Jun 2001 Posts: 831	What is the effect of a land connection on conversion costs? I've not seen that mentioned before.

09-06-2004, 20:36	#19
Wreck Colonel Join Date: Jun 2001 Posts: 831	Seems to me Spain is the obvious choice. Making OE pagan rubs me wrong. It would seem to me that a +10% chance to convert is, generally, worth less than getting twice the missionaries. Also, on the matter of converting capital provinces then releasing vassals, you want them to be able to convert, and as you say they won't be able to do much if they are pagan because they get few or no missionaries. With Spain you'd be making Catholic nations: they'd get missionaries up to inno 6 or so. The question then becomes just: will they use 'em? As for difficulty, it seems to me that you'll want very hard so you get full BB war behaviour, since you'll more-or-less need to conquer the world as fast as possible. I've read that it's hard to WC without very hard to give you DoWs to work with. (I have not tried it myself.) Here's one possible trick for the counterreform era, that I think should work once you own the world. Choose a vassal to release, whose capital has been converted. Garrison the area with siege armies. Now release the new Catholic vassal. Assuming you don't ally with it, it will DoW you ASAP because of BB. Now your sieges kick in, and quickly the vassal is reduced. Now you can force-convert them to Counterreformed --> they get more missionaries. During the peace, send them lots of cash to raise relations to +200, and to fund missions. Ally with them as necessary to stop them BB warring on you. Once they convert their turf, absorb them diplomatically. However, be alert for bordering provinces with the vassal's culture that you an induce to revolt which have no nation of their own. These should be induced to revolt as soon as possible to join the vassal. Outside of the counterreform era, you'd just ally with them after freeing them, no war necessary. 'Course they don't get as many missionaries (and may get 0, if they are fairly innovative). One more thought on Catholicism is that you'd have a little help with it via events. In particular there are random events for south/central America to convert pagans to Catholic, which induce conversions on four random provinces. Thus it might be possible to leave the Aztecs/Maya/Zapotecs and/or Incas around for a while, perhaps even whittling the Incas down to a core of their highest-population provinces. Concentrate on conversions elsewhere while hoping for the best; then conquer and convert the American pagans only if they don't get the event (and choose action b) by maybe 1760, enough to give you a few shots at conversion. The North American natives and African pagans get similar random events to convert them to Protestant and Sunni, which you don't want.... So they'd have to be first on the list of places to conquer/convert, probably before you kick off the BB wars since they don't cost any BB. As for Spain not being able to do lots of conversion in the first century or so: well, I think that would be true of any country, because it's hard to earn enough money that early to keep 3 missionaries a year going.

10-06-2004, 21:20	#20
Wreck Colonel Join Date: Jun 2001 Posts: 831	Some further thoughts on trying to convert the world... after looking at it, I'm not sure Spain is the best any more. They have some great events to help them form, but not until the late 1400s... which is wasted time. Also, it seems to me that Iberian culture is, in a sense, wasted: you're not going to need to convert any Iberian provinces to the true faith, since none of them leave it. Better to have a state culture which does get heretics. France seems better IMO, since they get some protestants. But England is even better - they get anglosaxon and french culture. They don't have to wait to form. And they get some great events, including a -10 inflation event in 1555 and a -5 one in 1566. The big disadvantage of England is manpower - they don't get any outside of Europe. Whether or not this really matters is hard to say. Another possibility might be to play Austria and head west. This has the advantage of getting you German culture, which is where the bulk of the protestants are. Incidentally, trolling revolts.txt I learned of a useful fact. There's a kingdom of Jurasalem you can release (it can't revolt), that is defined as Catholic, regardless of its capital's religion. Its capital Judea has Arabic culture. So it will have Arabic state culture and Catholic religion. Create it, ally with it, and start it on its way to being a superpower in the middle east. If you help it assiduously I would imagine it can take a lot of Arabic culture provinces nearby, and presumably eventually convert them. Its innovativeness is 5, so, it should get one missionary per year. 2 if you force convert it to counterreformed.