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Greetings!

Today I want to bring up some minor, but still very flavorful, changes and fixes we’ve done to a few religions. Most of what I’m about to present is the courtesy of our talented and passionate betas, who suggest a lot of good improvements!

Manichean
The Manichean religion, which in-game is part of the Zoroastrian Group and mainly present on the Steppes, has been changed to be more historical and just generally more fleshed-out. For example, rulers of the Manichean faith can no longer take concubines, can now have female temple holders and get access to Reincarnation events. The religion also receives a bunch of new goodies:
  • A ‘Bema’ religious festival decision
  • A formable Holy Order (The Army of Light)
  • A religious head with an accompanying title (The Manichean Church)
manichean goodies.png


Khurmazta
The Khurmazta religion is a new heresy in the Zoroastrian group, and is mainly present in Khiva and the new Pamir areas among the Sogdian people who live there. Rulers that adhere to the Khurmazta faith can choose to embrace a Patron Deity, who all give various bonuses much like the Hindu patron deities do.
khurmazta.png


Nestorian
The Nestorian religion, which is present in parts of Arabia, India and Africa, has also been fleshed out with new details. There is now a decision to form their Holy Order (The Order of Saint Addai) and, while not strictly relating to Nestorianism, we’ve added a new culture that is primarily Nestorian - the Assyrian culture. The Assyrian culture is present in the area around Baghdad/Syria.
assyrian.png


General
One of the main things that caused India to be very stagnant and overly resistant to invasions was the fact that they started out with very powerful Holy Orders right out the gate. We’ve reconstructed these so that you can form them under certain circumstances, and they will automatically form when India is under threat, i.e. by letting some of the major cities fall to invaders.
updated_ashoka_text.jpg


Also, a lot of religions have had their Holy Sites moved around. The Indian religions, Nestorianism and Manichean in particular. They’ve primarily moved into the Purang county in Tibet, to the holy mount Kailash.
khailash.png
 
Have there been any changes to the Catholic holy orders?
 
Looks like more detailed religions would make alot of people happy, even if everyone wants different religions to be more fleshed out. :D

I'd prefer more details for suomeneski, romuva, african and zoroastrian. I think they'd need it the most and would profit alot from such changes.
 
Theese are some amazing changes ^^ But I personally think that the game is mostly about Catholics... I mean, they have everything... They have Pope with special election system, excomunication, a LOT of Holy orders compared to other faiths. And so on... I don not want to say that Catholicism is overpowered, but they have certain advantages...

For example, I mostly play as Mojmírid (where I miss Moravian culture :( ) Slavic Pagan, and compared to Catholicism, Slavic paganism is a little dull, of course, some changes have been done, but still... Catholics have two EXCLUSIVELY Catholic Societies + Hermetic Society, and pagans have only "Dark-side" society, which is pretty useless for me (events are immersive though)
 
They are still a heresy
That's a shame :( it causes all kind of weirdeness as Manicheaism always replaces Zoroastrianism as the main religion (thanks to the fact that steppe provinces always share religion with their horde owner). It's also weird that they both have Holy Orders since Holy Orders change sides when heresy becomes dominant. This means that the best strategy to form Persia is now to swich dominant religion at least once in order to get both Holy Orders as pets.
 
Some awesome changes! All very welcome :). Any chance we'll see any changes for the Zoroastrians, Zunists or Shia? Those religions all feel a bit underdeveloped atm.

What are you talking about, Zunists just got the biggest buff that PDX could have possibly given them - elimination of the Indian holy orders at the start of the game! Now they will be able to expand into India and reach that precious, precious 50% MA to reform the religion. :)
 
Can Germanic and Nordic be split so that it is easier to reform their churches? Germanic and Scandinavian realms have to go far away just so that they can reform. One holy site is in the Netherlandlands, 2 are in Germany, and 2 in Scandinavia.
 
They are still a heresy

Why not make Zurvanism the Zoroastrian heresy and Manichaeism its own thing? They even have separate HOs now, just do it

I've been saying this too for quite a while as well. Although Zoroastrianism does often return as the dominant faith after a few decades during which the Uyghurs have been killed off by Khazars/converted to Buddhism/Hinduism by random court physicians (or something; this does seem to happen frequently but I can only guess at why), it is especially problematic when playing a Zoro restoration campaign, since now the option to secretly convert to a holy site's religion only allows Manichea(n)ism (the Orthodoxy).

The only potential roadblock to making this happen is to provide an alternate heresy for Manicheaism - any ideas would be welcome, since currently making them a separate branch of the Mazdan religious group would leave them without heresies.
 
Great to see the Manichean religion finally getting some love! :)
 
Theese are some amazing changes ^^ But I personally think that the game is mostly about Catholics... I mean, they have everything... They have Pope with special election system, excomunication, a LOT of Holy orders compared to other faiths. And so on... I don not want to say that Catholicism is overpowered, but they have certain advantages...

For example, I mostly play as Mojmírid (where I miss Moravian culture :( ) Slavic Pagan, and compared to Catholicism, Slavic paganism is a little dull, of course, some changes have been done, but still... Catholics have two EXCLUSIVELY Catholic Societies + Hermetic Society, and pagans have only "Dark-side" society, which is pretty useless for me (events are immersive though)

Catholics and Muslims are supposed to be above all others as far as features are concerned. This is their period after all.

Can Germanic and Nordic be split so that it is easier to reform their churches? Germanic and Scandinavian realms have to go far away just so that they can reform. One holy site is in the Netherlandlands, 2 are in Germany, and 2 in Scandinavia.

Germanic is supposed to be a warmongering fate, and it's probably the best religion for conquests (and gets even more OP after reforming, thus the price should be high). The distance should really not be an issue.
 
My guess of new portraits that 80% will coming: tibetan, khitan, new mongolian (remake). I hope my guess is right.
 
What are you talking about, Zunists just got the biggest buff that PDX could have possibly given them - elimination of the Indian holy orders at the start of the game! Now they will be able to expand into India and reach that precious, precious 50% MA to reform the religion. :)

I'm talking about flavour not easiness. A few little events talking about the importance of the Sun (or something along those lines) would certainly help with immersion.