CK2 Dev Diary #89 - Mass Conversion, or how I learned to stop my Pagan ways and love God

[Kenlin]

It is not ahistorical at all, in fact it is the opposite. The name of Stephen I of Hungary before the conversion of his father was Vajk, and his father (Géza) also took the name Stephen after his Christianization.

Huh? Isn't this Caeserion's point?

 

[manager2525]

Lookes great!

Since canonizing and Saints will be a feature as well maybe the bishop send to prosylitise if very succesfully would gain a lot of piety and possibly also have an increase change of being declaired a Saint after his death. Cyril and Methodious within the timeframe, Saint Partick and many many more before or early in the game's timeframe are examples.
Also there could be an event some years after the missionary-bishop's death were one of the churches build during the christinization period would take the name of the bishop that helped spread the faith.
Just for some added flavor.

 

[XYN]

Do I read it incorrectly, or Mass Conversion would convert *all* provinces in the realm?

It doesn't sound very good.

I'd rather see more potential complications with it. E.g. baptism of Rus was not as smooth - some people were converted under threat or by force. Large Pagan centres such as Novgorod and Finno-Ugric natives also resisted, with Pagan priests leading the unrest.

Would be nice to have "chance to convert":
- the capital and your domain convert always;
- provinces of disloyal vassals have very small chance to convert;
- provinces more distant from capital have lesser chance to convert;
- unconverted provinces get an increased uprisings chance.

Or something like this, maybe with a couple event chains that would go either to aggressive baptism by force or some sort of reconciliation.

 

[MAju]

Do I read it incorrectly, or Mass Conversion would convert *all* provinces in the realm?

I think it would convert just your demense. If mass conversion would convert all province, you're right, it's OP.

 

[XYN]

Right. It seems I did misread it.

 

[Sunspawn]

I notice that Mass Conversion doesn't seem to specify that the conversion has to be to Catholicism.

So can Pagans mass convert to all 'standardized' faiths like Islam, Hinduism, and other Reformed Pagan faiths?

Judging by the "catholic is a proselytizing religion" modifier, yes.

I think it would convert just your demense. If mass conversion would convert all province, you're right, it's OP.

NK mode?

 

[Silfae]

Do I read it incorrectly, or Mass Conversion would convert *all* provinces in the realm?

It doesn't sound very good.

I'd rather see more potential complications with it. E.g. baptism of Rus was not as smooth - some people were converted under threat or by force. Large Pagan centres such as Novgorod and Finno-Ugric natives also resisted, with Pagan priests leading the unrest.

Would be nice to have "chance to convert":
- the capital and your domain convert always;
- provinces of disloyal vassals have very small chance to convert;
- provinces more distant from capital have lesser chance to convert;
- unconverted provinces get an increased uprisings chance.

Or something like this, maybe with a couple event chains that would go either to aggressive baptism by force or some sort of reconciliation.

Vassals can indeed decide not to join their liege in a Mass Conversion, in which case their provinces will not convert either.

If the Pagan ruler prepares his realm properly before asking for the Mass Conversion and everything goes well, he will be able to achieve a total conversion. The mechanic is meant to offer a viable alternative for Pagans aside from Reformation. Currently the game is not very forgiving in that regard: accepting a missionary's visit as a tribal pagan has many more downsides than it does upsides.

 

[XYN]

Vassals can indeed decide not to join their liege in a Mass Conversion, in which case their provinces will not convert either.

If the Pagan ruler prepares his realm properly before asking for the Mass Conversion and everything goes well, he will be able to achieve a total conversion. The mechanic is meant to offer a viable alternative for Pagans aside from Reformation. Currently the game is not very forgiving in that regard: accepting a missionary's visit as a tribal pagan has many more downsides than it does upsides.

Do Pagan holy sites at least get any special flavour like special uprisings?

Otherwise it doesn't sound very flavoury. In fact it sounds like it would be more fun to just use the old, solitary conversion mechanic.

In history Pagan uprisings weren't uncommon, as a direct or indirect reaction to the conversion. Sometimes they would occur even after decades after the initial conversion. I would expect at least something of it in a Christians vs Pagans DLC for the immersion. Converting all or most of your vassals and provinces in one go and never getting back again sounds very contrary to it.

 

[moscal]

Commonfolk are the ones who considered these saints a bit more than "blessed martyrs". Your average peasant in Serbia held great respect for Elijah, who is even today called the Thunderer (Gromovnik). I very much doubt clergy would allow a center of worship based around Elijah Thunderer, or Ognyena Maria.
A saint in Western Europe is a blessed figure, to whom you pray for aid and salvation.
In Serbia (at least), you respect certain saints so they don't burn your house and your crops.
Quite a different concept.

In west Europe also was similar elements. In Catholic Church in IX century (so before big catholization of west Slavs) started holiday "Presentation of Jesus at the Temple" with "Candlemas". One of elements was blessing beeswax candles. Lighted candle was supposed to protect the house during a storm. Today this It exists practically only in several Slavic countries (eg. in Poland "Gromnica"). In medieval you had many elements of "cult of saints", which was interpretated by non-traditional christians and non-christians as magic or idolatry. Later many this was "killed" by reformation, humanism, sectiarism, secularism, modern movements, sozialism etc.

 

[Sourenics]

Something I would like to ask... Can we reform the Hellenic Pagan faith in the new Expansion?

 

[Rubidium]

Any mention (via events or otherwise) of the adaptation of pagan gods to Christian saints?
For example, Jarilo (and the great spring festival) became Saint George. Perun and Svetovid became Elijah and Saint Vittus respectively.
All extremelly popular among Christian Slavs, even today.
Many pagan traditions were christianized as well.
These adaptations are what helped in the mass conversions.

An event or few would be quite awesome.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I'd say this is why Slavs venerate saints a bit more than other Christians. Mighty pagan gods remained present through culture and ttaditions.
It would be amazingly awesome if Christian Slavs can choose a patron saint, just like pagans can choose deities.

It's a bit more complicated than that. First of all, a saint absorbing aspects of a pagan deity was hardly unique to Eastern Europe; there are plenty of earlier examples from Western Europe as well (for instance, it's probably not a coincidence that St. Brigid of Kildare, an extremely prominent and widely venerated early Irish saint, shares her name with a pre-Christian Irish goddess). For that matter, it continued after the CK2 period as well; there was a bizarre but long-lasting effort in colonial Mexico to interpret the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl as a distorted memory of a long-ago missionary journey by the Apostle Thomas (one reason that a lot of our knowledge about Quetzalcoatl is so questionable is that so many of our sources were clearly shaping their narrative to match this belief).

It's also important not to overemphasize the similarities to assume one copied from another rather than parallel evolution; for example, much is made of Christmas and Sol Invictus' birthday being on the same day, but that may have more to do with it being the date of the winter solstice (an extremely important day in its own right) than a borrowing directly from one to the other. It's hardly surprising that both gods and saints might e.g. be portrayed as brave. There was a conscious effort from the 19th century on to identify various current cultural practices as "continuations" of pre-Christian beliefs (associated with Nationalism and Romanticism, as people tried to connect to the "pure, ancestral heritage" of their various nationalities) that led to all sorts of dubious connections being formed.

That said, even when it happened it was rarely an intentional and conscious effort by the rulers or clergy; rather, peasants might pay particular attention to certain aspects of a saint that were familiar with what they were already familiar with. Certainly not to the extent of having an event explicitly saying "from now on we'll replace God X with Saint Y."

You might have occasional events where e.g. a bishop notes being uncomfortable with the similarities between rituals being performed by peasants in county X and former pagan rituals, but that's about as far as I'd go. And I hope there would be events post-conversion anyway (for both converts and for religious reformation for that matter; there should be Germanic peasants who are somewhat resistant to you declaring yourself Fylkir and replacing a lot of their old ways).

 

[El-Daddy]

This is really cool.

My slight worry would be that the AI could potentially overuse the mechanic, and the larger pagan realms that form in 769 and 867 starts die off more quickly.

I wonder what the modifiers are that would make an AI choose this. Maybe comparative strength of organised religion neighbours, or the date the past 1000 (later for some), realm size, or maybe even Fort level of neighbours or something. Oh, and no Zealous trait.

 

[Matihood1]

Will the AI also request mass conversion from the player under right circumstances? And if so, will we also be able to help a newly converted nation? And if so, how? Via random events, decisions or character interactions?

 

[classicist]

Something I would like to ask... Can we reform the Hellenic Pagan faith in the new Expansion?

I hope you are not purposefully trying to derail this DD... There is a thread devoted to the topic, and besides that the preceding DD already had a long exchange of views about this. It might be more constructive to move the discussion there.

 

[BrokenSky]

Yes, all reformed faiths can be the sponsor of a non-reformed tribal realm. Naturally, some faiths are more successful and likely to attempt a conversion than others.

Does this include reformed pagan? So we could have pagans of one unreformed religion getting sponsored to mass-convert into another (reformed) pagan religion? Because one of the big problems with reforming your religion right now is that it feels like you quickly come to own basically all the lands which follow it.

 

[Rubidium]

My slight worry would be that the AI could potentially overuse the mechanic, and the larger pagan realms that form in 769 and 867 starts die off more quickly.

I'd actually appreciate this; as it stands in those start dates, the giant pagan realms tend to last forever unless conquered, sending raiders to harass people all over. Realistically, a Norse ruler of Britannia would have converted within a generation (indeed, basically all the Viking rulers in the Danelaw were Christian within a couple of decades of 867, with Denmark proper following a century later, and Norway and Sweden following not long after, instead of staying pagan forever like they do in-game). I'd really prefer, as a continental power, not having to decide between "conquer all of Great Britain one holy war at a time" and "sit and watch Viking raiders from every landed noble in the British Isles harass my coast."

 

[BrokenSky]

Also, can we force mass conversion in some way via holy war, in a manner similar to the conversion of Danes by Alfred the great?

 

[Krankengedanken]

I'll have to dissent on this one. It's a nice feature I suppose, more complexity is always good, but it doesn't add much to gameplay, in fact it makes it even more easier. I converted my realms to heresies, to a reformed paganism, to an established religion. It was never particularly hard and it was quite entertaining: dealing with powerful vassals, with different rebellions, revoking titles. Kinda of a civil war.

This feature just makes it easier, and the fact that all your demesne is instaconverted looks ahistorical and illogical. So as Vladimir of Rus I convert to Chistianity in my capital in Kiev and suddenly my county of Bryansk follows suit without any compunction? I mean it's a bunch of tribal settlements surrounded by thick forests hundreds of kilometers from Kiev. What Christian sorcery is this?

And what about your temple vassals? Would they go along with casting away the ways of the ancestors? From the DD it figures that yes, they would (if you have Absolute Tribal Authority). Hopefully not, although the fact that the entirety of your demesne is converted means they wouldn't have any base to raise rebellions against you, and after their death they will be supplanted with nice Christian priests.

The biggest problem is that the feature makes the game easier than it is now, and the game already have plenty of ease: usually once a certain size is achieved you steamroll over everything be it your vassals or enemies. "Well, do a Mass Conversion with zero Tribal Authority then, Mr-The-Game-Is-Too-Easy" you might say. It's true I guess, but why would I do that as a ruler? It breaks immersion to purposefully make suboptimal (or even horrible) decisions just to have some challenge.

The better way to implement such a system, I think, is to have a similar mechanic of Mass Conversion, but for it to come with strings attached even when at maximum Tribal Authority (or to have more bonuses to it, if you do it with less TA). Your brother rejecting new ways and fleeing to a court of your powerful and unruly vassals to become a pretender, your neighbours supporting his claim (sorta like a defensive Holy War), your zealous daughter trying to kill you in your sleep, your shamans cursing you for destroying idols of the old gods, giving you health maluses and such (supernatural events enabled), your peasants burning the priests you send to convert them (this is already in the game, but doesn't really impact gameplay much). The idea is that when you convert your realm to Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, you will have much fun for the next 30 years.

Edit:

Currently the game is not very forgiving in that regard: accepting a missionary's visit as a tribal pagan has many more downsides than it does upsides.

Accepting a Muslim missionary gives you such a great succession system (disregarding that Muslims are OP in general) that it's always a no-brainer unless you want to roleplay.

 

[XYN]

I'll have to dissent on this one. It's a nice feature I suppose, more complexity is always good, but it doesn't add much to gameplay, in fact it makes it even more easier. I converted my realms to heresies, to a reformed paganism, to an established religion. It was never particularly hard and it was quite entertaining: dealing with powerful vassals, with different rebellions, revoking titles. Kinda of a civil war.

This feature just makes it easier, and the fact that all your demesne is instaconverted looks ahistorical and illogical. So as Vladimir of Rus I convert to Chistianity in my capital in Kiev and suddenly my county of Bryansk follows suit without any compunction? I mean it's a bunch of tribal settlements surrounded by thick forests hundreds of kilometers from Kiev. What Christian sorcery is this?

And what about your temple vassals? Would they go along with casting away the ways of the ancestors? From the DD it figures that yes, they would (if you have Absolute Tribal Authority). Hopefully not, although the fact that the entirety of your demesne is converted means they wouldn't have any base to raise rebellions against you, and after their death they will be supplanted with nice Christian priests.

The biggest problem is that the feature makes the game easier than it is now, and the game already have plenty of ease: usually once a certain size is achieved you steamroll over everything be it your vassals or enemies. "Well, do a Mass Conversion with zero Tribal Authority then, Mr-The-Game-Is-Too-Easy" you might say. It's true I guess, but why would I do that as a ruler? It breaks immersion to purposefully make suboptimal (or even horrible) decisions just to have some challenge.

The better way to implement such a system, I think, is to have a similar mechanic of Mass Conversion, but for it to come with strings attached even when at maximum Tribal Authority (or to have more bonuses to it, if you do it with less TA). Your brother rejecting new ways and fleeing to a court of your powerful and unruly vassals to become a pretender, your neighbours supporting his claim (sorta like a defensive Holy War), your zealous daughter trying to kill you in your sleep, your shamans cursing you for destroying idols of the old gods, giving you health maluses and such (supernatural events enable, your peasants burning the priests you send to convert them (this is already in the game, but doesn't really impact gameplay much). The idea is that when you convert your realm to Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, you will have much fun for the next 30 years.

Agree (although not entirely on the demense part, at least directly connected to the capital - in a big realm it could be converted for gameplay reasons so you don't end like a hobo).

The more I think about it, the more it looks that behind that nice coat this feature somehow makes the game less interesting by reducing the whole experience to essentially buttering some vassals and one click and a row of nice events where they give you money and churches.

I wonder how moddable is it? If the mass conversion outcomes could be modded, then it still could be pretty good. Because the idea behind having a sponsor is nice per se, especially given that he retains the connection to you.

 

[Silfae]

This is really cool.

My slight worry would be that the AI could potentially overuse the mechanic, and the larger pagan realms that form in 769 and 867 starts die off more quickly.

I wonder what the modifiers are that would make an AI choose this. Maybe comparative strength of organised religion neighbours, or the date the past 1000 (later for some), realm size, or maybe even Fort level of neighbours or something. Oh, and no Zealous trait.

AI behavior takes in consideration those as well as several other factors. Different religions and different rulers of different realms will convert at different rates, depending on existing sponsors, current date, character, realm size, etc.

Does this include reformed pagan? So we could have pagans of one unreformed religion getting sponsored to mass-convert into another (reformed) pagan religion? Because one of the big problems with reforming your religion right now is that it feels like you quickly come to own basically all the lands which follow it.

Yes, Reformed Pagans can indeed be sponsors of Mass Conversions.