dharper:
Thank you profusely for your detailed replies. And a chance for a peek into the insides of the DG mod. A lot of stuff got clarified now. On a few I'll comment, pbly once again raising some questions.
No, that's intentional - it's how the Papal States got Avignon when you start in 1453. I could do something about it, but I had a hard time finding any information about Avignon - I'm not sure how France felt about it, or what steps they took to get it back, or how things might have been different had France not been going through the Hundred Years War at the time. Would they have asked for it back? Demanded it? Bought it back? Declared war to get it back? Would they have risked excommunication? Was it simply a lease that they could stop renewing at any time? I can't find out. I guess I could make it up...I do have some info:
Wiki implies France tired a few times to regain it but the problem was the Pope had the right (legal claim/core) and France did not. Still for gameplay reasons I think as long as it's Avignon, it should remain Papal after the schism gets healed; any other province should be returned to the anti-pope sponsor (or at least negotiated somehow).
I'm really enjoying this AAR. I love the pictures! I don't think I've seen an AAR which had such helpful in-game images highlighted and superimposed the way you do, and then combining them with period art - I'm blown away. I was thinking of writing another AAR myself, but I don't know if I can live up to that kind of example!
Thanks for the praise. Well, you're in for some disappointment: I grew lazy and less and less of period art in later updates. Please do write and aar! It would be great to read one written by someone with the inside knowledge and awarness how the mod elements in the game are working. Besides, another Honor of Lancaster, yes please!
That's a good point; I didn't foresee the possibility that a country allied to the Papal States naturally could become Papal Sponsor. I should be able to fix that, although it's unfortunately not as simple a fix as I'd like, but I ought to be able to do it in an hour or two.
Would be great if you could fix this.
As for councils, I figuered out how they work and where they take place as I played along.
As regards the Crusade, it really changed the fate of the war; but for the Emperor's engagement all I could've counted on would pbly be longwaiting Cyprus.
Still, how exactly the crusade works is cryptic; after all Austria white peaced with the OE. Odd. Didn't they (or did they?) obtain their goal? If it was Moravian Serbia why did Austria let OE go with white peace when it was clearly winning?
Why do you think the decision is imbalanced? I'm curious.
The revolter's forces depend on the population revolting. In Egypt's case, there must not have been many Orthodox Christians, but when the same event fires for France's Reformed Christians, it simulates a War of Religion pretty well. Actually, I'm curious to know whether it was an Oriental Orthodox uprising or an Eastern Orthodox uprising - if the former, it should have been bigger. Oh, well.
I don't remember, sorry. The thing is a number of 1k, 2k rebel groups can hardly wreak havoc. At times I saw 1k army besieging 2k garrison. How about supplementing these with instant takeover of a province (similar to ubik's noble opposition)? The way it is it seems to me not even rare but simply impossible for religious revolters to win (or even hurt badly, be sth more than a distractor; see Bohemia later on). Anyway, what was the intention behind these, just some provide with some extra trouble or to really threten with conversion / or forcing some concessions?
I just finished reading your account of the Reformation, and well, I just have to comment on some of the things that came up. Sorry if this takes away from the flow of the AAR in any way - I am absolutely stunned at its breadth and scope.
It did feel massive, but it imo ended up pretty much like in real life. Pbly both of these largely thanks to my involvement. France becoming Protestant was the biggest shock; but Catholic Denmark and Scotland may balance it out somehow.
* Countries near heathens are far more likely to remain Catholic. Ironically, by keeping the Ottoman Empire weak and far from Europe's heartland, you may have encouraged countries like Hungary or Austria to convert!
Felt it, my doing...
* One thing I did notice was a number of major excommunications in your game - both England and France, and more I can't recall. While simply excommunicating a ruler does not guarantee that country will convert, it can have an impact if it happens at a critical time. It's possible that this happened in your game.
Sweden was excommunicated too, for quite a long period of time at that. So yes again I might have affected the scope of the Reformation.
...But honestly, seeing the scope of the Reformation in your game, I think you ought to keep your expectations lower. Like, a lot lower. The big thing I notice (as of 1527) is that the Holy Roman Empire is in very real danger of becoming dominated by Protestantism. Although it's almost certainly too late for this advice to do you any good, I would focus on keeping the Electors Catholic - many are smaller states where being Force-converted (plus, perhaps, a lucky Jesuit event) could keep them Catholic, and having a majority of the electors Catholic will guarantee you a Catholic Emperor. Helius has put together some events that allow for a historical War of Religion in the empire, but even so - you'll want the emperor on your side if you have any hopes of containing Protestant France, or fighting northern Italy's Reformed states (ouch, by the way - pure bad luck).[/i]
Interestingly, in the end only two electors are Protestant: the Palatinate and Saxony. There was Helius's war of religion and the Protestants clearly won (I edited/cheated the peace terms though; plausibility: they did win on the battlefield but the way the game works Austria could've peaced out one after another and emerged triumphant), and forced the Emperor to convert and accept toleration. So both firts Protestant and later Catholic Austria are my doing; although I admit Austria was leaning towards Protestantism.
The thing with Jesuits is, would be great if with the policy of toleration in the HRE the Emperor did NOT send them to his demesne provinces.
You have to forgive me Mustafa I's conversion story.
:wacko: But with Chrisitian soldierd holding a tight grip on Anatolia for a so many years, he might have considered it God's doing.
Large states are unlikely to convert their state religion right away - they recognize the costs involved with having many heretic provinces and choose to wait more often. The spread of Reformation always starts slow - the system is set up like a virus, where is spreads outwards from the source. It can take a while before you start to see countries joining in, but then - as you've seen - it begins to snowball. Very historical in that respect.
My worry is, like for a player, AI sees that it's safer to remain Catholic. You avoid internal turmoil, you don't lose your allies. This aared game is actually one of few whith such strong Reformation. E.g. I hardly ever see England turn Protestant - maybe due to the fact they tend to be Papal Sponsor. Also if/when the Netherlands gets released it remains Catholic, even if a few of their provs are Protestant. And if these (or Denmark) remain Catholic, there's never any other bigger power to balance it out.
Curiouslu, you'll see that in this Papal States game, the whole of Portugal was Protestant and yet the AI did not convert; pbly partly thanks to the fact that the colonies (and Portugal has quite a few of those) were Catholic.
Your save game editing is perfectly understandable. The game doesn't always make sensible decisions, and it's entirely possible to end up losing your taste for a game when this happens too often. And, I have to admit, I'm guilty of it myself sometimes - I like the story more than I like the game.
Thanks for saying this. It's not that I edit to make my playthrough easier. After all, I did enforce Protestant princes terms in the HRE and minimalised the fragmentation of France.
Had the Jesuits been founded when England became Catholic? I'm curious, for the sake of balancing events, to know.
No idea. Oh I wish you'd asked me
back then.
Yes, a vanilla one. I like it, but it's unmoddable. It makes sense - you wouldn't want the Ottoman Empire to control the papacy, for example, yet there are games in which they occupy dozens of Catholic provinces. And, in cases like that, those bishops would be less inclined to play political games and more interested in the church. In theory, at least.
It does make sense indeed. Also, the Catholic Church had so many titulary patriarchs/archbishops of places long lost to either heathens or heretics.
It unlocks a number of events and decisions which can help the Catholics fight back against Protestantism. Among other things - I _really_ need to advertise this - you now have access to province decisions to send missionaries to neighbouring countries.
I've noticed these; but their effects seem negligible. A bit of revolt risk and proselitism modifier in the given province, right?
Not exactly intentional, but I don't mind this happening. It can only happen in cases of extremely pious nations with a variety of national ideas and decisions or advisors, and it's hardly unrealistic to assume that you have donations made by faithful worshippers interested in converting heretics and heathens.
Understood and accepted. I had tons of stuff to boost conversion (NIs, advisors, sliders, inquisition, etc).
Not a lot I can do about that, I don't think - but it might be possible to code something into it. I missed where the bastions were - London for one, and where for the other?
Again, I don't remember. But as long as the bastion of true faith is in an inaccessible prov, there's no way the heretics can win. And anyway their chances are slim against the regular troops.
First of all...you didn't reform the church in the slightest until the 1620s?!?
Ahem. Moving on...
Is that so bad...? :huh:
Oh, you know I had either headstrong or lazy popes... and it costs stability...
All the "Bonfire of the Vanities" events you're having? You're getting way more than normal because of two things: you have a very high religious fervor (from being the papacy and from your national ideas) and you had a state-sponsored inquisition. Those two combined make the event much more frequent - although they were never intended to convert a province by themselves. I'll have to fix that!
Tone them down a bit only. I think picking the NIs and inquisition sort of entitle me to them.
And I like them. And you know, they prevent me from... earning money from conversion.
It's when a monarch comes to the throne who belongs to the previous state religion. It's based on many examples, but notably "Bloody" Mary I, who was raised as a Catholic, then became ruler of Protestant England. In effect, the ruler tries to re-establish the former state religion in the country and faces stiff resistance. If I remember properly, this can only happen to the first ruler who inherits after a country has converted - you're seeing it so much because countries are being force-converted in war.
I get it now. What exactly the effect is. Shouldn't the Pope have at least something to say here?
This is one of the frequent criticisms of the mod. I've made some small changes that might help in this respect, but the further you get from the Reformation, the harder it's going to be to see any real changes.
I go back on my words. I had second thoughts really. Now I believe it should be damn hard to force-convert a country for good, actually I can't even think of a historical example. Later in the period it was more like protecting our creed ruled by a different-religion country; but even if the war was fought the scope was local (provinces or ruler) rather than affecting the whole country.
There are a variety of ways for the Order to secularize...the easiest one converting to Protestantism or Reformed. That's supposed to happen fairly often, but for some reason, it doesn't. Short of making it mandatory, it's hard to model.
I have one more gripe here. When Poland annexes the whole coast. There's an event like 'Pope and TO or sth' that fires. Poland either says we are the TO and keeps the land or... relents and frees the TO but gives it the whole coast, together with Danzig and Warmia, even though it has cores on these two provs. Dunno if it's part of Dei Gratia, but imo TO should only be given Ducal Prussia.
gabor,
I've taken a number of the criticisms you made about the mod and fixed several things. It's too late for most of them to affect your game - the Reformation seems to be over, you've already had a schism, etc. - but you might still want to have the changes.
Wow! I'm glad I could be of use. Thanks for the fixes. I was thinking of continuing this on CJL78's submod (if it's compatibile) and I believe he's intending to include your fixes. Well, even if not with this game I'm sure to play some others with your fixes. And I do like the changes!
Btw, there was also a discussion going on the MM forum about lowering the missionary chances so that OE, Venice and Lith don't convert their territiories in the first 50-70 years of the game. CJL78 came up with a prov modifier reducing the chances. How about severely reducing missionary chance/number for countries with HT, Ecumenism (let Bohemia keep its Hussites instead of expelling them) and maybe BoR and - to compensate - giving some other small bonus to these ideas? How about trade NIs having a small decrease in the missionary chance/number?
Once again BIG THANKS for your attention!