New week, new dev diary! This time, I am going to talk of the new religions and their intricacies. As I mentioned last week, there is now a new Indian religion group with three religions; Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. What you get when you buy Rajas of India is the ability to play as a ruler of one of these religions, with all the associated mechanics.



The general idea with all three Indian religions is that they are pluralistic and tolerant, especially toward each other. Thus, none of them have any heresies to worry about. Instead, low religion authority will cause various negative events to fire, much in the same way that having negative money does. This tolerance is also reflected in province revolt risk and vassals' opinions of their lieges. Instead of heresies, characters may belong to an accepted branch of their religion. Thus, for example, a Hindu can be a Shaivist, Shaktist or one of several other denominations. This is a character trait. It is also possible to pick a specific patron god for various bonuses.

Characters of all three religions can take one wife only, but are allowed concubines, like pagans and Zoroastrians. Another great thing about the Indian religions is that they allow the designation of a favorite child as heir, regardless of the specific succession law (though abiding by the gender preference law, of course.) Lastly, and quite importantly, it's possible for players to switch between the three Indian religions (tentatively, once per lifetime at a steep Piety cost) in order to take advantage of their special mechanics when needed. Right, so those are most of the major commonalities. Of course, there are also some similarities in the kinds of events that characters of all three religions tend to get (but I'm saving that for a later dev diary!)



Hinduism is the most warlike of the three; Hindu rulers have access to the normal Holy War casus belli. In addition, they are allowed to raid neighboring provinces of non-Indian religions. Hindus, however, also need to deal with the caste system. All Hindus can be born into one of the three castes that we represent in the game; Brahmin, Kshatriya, or Vaishya. This is represented as a character trait. Priests are expected to be Brahmins, feudal rulers Kshatriyas and burghers Vaishyas. Marrying into the wrong caste - or worse - being the wrong caste, gives serious opinion penalties with other Hindus. Children born to mixed caste parents will get the lower of the two. Characters with no caste at all are the lowest of all - the untouchables. This system limits your marriage options and tends to cause strife in your realm. It is possible to get a higher caste trait through a special decision, but it is hard and costly.

Buddhists are represented as the most philosophically minded of the Indian religions. (While perhaps not entirely fair, they were historically known for their huge universities and libraries.) They don't have to worry about caste, but rulers who ever plan to switch to Hinduism might still want to take heed of it. Buddhists cannot raid and their Holy War CB is less powerful (currently, counties instead of duchies), but they do get a great bonus to Learning, meaning that they will have unmatched long-term technological progress - if they can survive...

Finally, we have Jainism, which is probably the most peaceful religion on the planet. For Jains, the concept of Ahimsa - non-violence - is the cornerstone of their faith. Thus, Jains do not have any kind of Holy War CB, and violent acts have more serious repercussions on Piety (called Karma for the Indian religions) and opinions. Too limiting? Perhaps, but there are some serious benefits as well; Jains can have much bigger demesnes, get a flat opinion bonus from their vassals, and basically don't have to worry about provincial revolts (though the effect is less on characters and provinces of non-Indian faiths.)

That's a brief summary of the new mechanics, but I should mention that although the information I've outlined above is true in the current build, it might change quite a lot for balance reasons. For example, it's rather tricky to make the three Indian religions equally beneficial, only suitable for different circumstances and play styles.



That's all for now. Until next week, folks!

(Regrettably, I have no relevant screenshots for you this time since a lot of the graphics is still missing. The ones I do have are of the de jure map modes in India, as promised.)

 

[Ezumiyr]

Buddhists are represented as the most philosophically minded of the Indian religions. (While perhaps not entirely fair, they were historically known for their huge universities and libraries.) They don't have to worry about caste, but rulers who ever plan to switch to Hinduism might still want to take heed of it. Buddhists cannot raid and their Holy War CB is less powerful (currently, counties instead of duchies), but they do get a great bonus to Learning, meaning that they will have unmatched long-term technological progress - if they can survive...

Actually, this is quite a cliché. Buddhism was the most aggressive Indian religion. Buddhist thinkers were nothing compared to the hindu ones, especially after the XIIth century. And they lose a lot of intellectual debates (that's also why buddhism was finally not so successfull among the Indians. And also, buddhist monasteries were not places of research like the christian ones could be. The so-called buddhist universities (I guess the kashmiri universities) were dedicated to faith (how to expand, glorify it and how to deepen the doctrine). So yeah, you can associate it with learning in the game. But let's also remember that the greatest warriors of Indian history were buddhist.

I will not complain once again about all the missing religions and cultures, but what about the particularities of the Indian Islams? Bhakti was quite important at the time (and so was the Sufism, which is not really exploited in CK2). And as an example of the missing cultures/religions, i will just mention the Bathouist Bodo (they are still more than 300 000 today by the way).

Otherwise, it's nice to see these religious schools traits.

 

[unmerged(794199)]

I am well aware of the christian and monotheistic Baggage, But I will strongly disagree that it is impossible to revive the Pre-christian beliefs. It is totally possible, yes it wouldn't be the same.

It's not clear how this is consistent - you can't revive a pre-Christian belief that isn't the same as pre-Christian belief. As already pointed out on this thread, the little we know about these religions is mostly derived from Greco-Roman sources equating these deities with their own, and modern reinventions of these religions tend more or less to be reconstructions of the Roman religion with different names for the deities. It's not at all clear that this is a true representation of what these peoples actually believed. In short, it's impossible to "revive" the pre-Christian beliefs because nobody knows what they were.

But religions change, the early Christians were quite different from the ones of today.

Some religions change, others are invented. Equating modern polytheism with the pre-Roman pantheons they namecheck is akin to calling Islam an evolved form of Christianity - they both use the same source material, however their interpretations of it are unique to each religion and Islam doesn't owe a great deal to the pre-existing traditions or beliefs within the older religion.

What I am hoping for is for a more nuanced play for the polytheistic faiths. Right now they do not feel much like they are the polytheistic faiths. They don't capture the polytheism nor the pluralistic nature. I like for this to be represented, I want gameplay for pagans to be different from the monotheists, gives more replayability

That's not really what religion in the game represents - it represents religious institutions, not specific religious beliefs. The word 'God' is rarely mentioned in Christian flavour events; it's immaterial to the system that Christianity is monotheist rather than polytheist, what distinguishes it is the existence and form of its organised church, beyond adding a few lines of thematic text. In that context the difference between Catholicism and paganism lies in the fact that pagan religions weren't institutionalised, not the fact that they were typically polytheist.

 

[Hennenz]

In contrast to what is normally observed on this board, you've explained to this gentlemen in the most respectful way possible why his view on his faith is distorted. You kinda deserve a gold star when you could have been much, much more derogatory, and said tone would be the internet norm. Kudos for being a descent human being.

 

[anomanderus]

The peaceful Buddhist is frankly a stereotype. Buddhists could be as violent and nasty as anyone. The Japanese monks during WWII, for instance, justified Japanese militarism with selective interpretations of Buddhism. Buddhist sects have been in conflict with each other, sometimes even leading to violence, and there have been rulers who forced people tp convert at the sword. Even today, look at the situation in Burma with Muslims being the target of Buddhist attacks.

And I say all this as a Buddhist myself. We ain't perfect and at one with ourselves all the time.



Anyhow, one little thing I noticed. If Indian religions have karma as a localization of piety (which isn't an entirely 100% usage of the term karma to my knowledge, but I don't really care) does that mean its possible to have unique localizations of wealth, piety, prestige, etc for other religions or cultures to? Would be really awesome.

Wirathu is a good example of a modern day Buddhist demagogue

 

[SweetHalcyHS]

Not sure, but I understand his words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS, so anything is possible.

God, Gandhi brings back nightmares. Piss him off just a little bit and then BAM, nukes flying all over. The things Democracy does to a person..

Anyway, I'm quite interested to see how the caste system would work in intrafaith relations. Hope that comes up in DD soon.

 

[vyshan]

It's not clear how this is consistent - you can't revive a pre-Christian belief that isn't the same as pre-Christian belief. As already pointed out on this thread, the little we know about these religions is mostly derived from Greco-Roman sources equating these deities with their own, and modern reinventions of these religions tend more or less to be reconstructions of the Roman religion with different names for the deities. It's not at all clear that this is a true representation of what these peoples actually believed. In short, it's impossible to "revive" the pre-Christian beliefs because nobody knows what they were.

What we use is called Reconstructionism. We use folklore, Archeology, historical records, academic research, comparative religious studies.
Yes, I will openly admit that we don't have all the information that would be useful. I would love to how more information, but we do work out with what we have. To say that we have no information though is just not true. Anyways, I think we are getting off track.

That's not really what religion in the game represents - it represents religious institutions, not specific religious beliefs. The word 'God' is rarely mentioned in Christian flavour events; it's immaterial to the system that Christianity is monotheist rather than polytheist, what distinguishes it is the existence and form of its organised church, beyond adding a few lines of thematic text. In that context the difference between Catholicism and paganism lies in the fact that pagan religions weren't institutionalised, not the fact that they were typically polytheist.

Well it doesn't repersent the pluralistic and tolerant of other faiths. The Mongol empire for example was famous for its religious tolerance. I mostly want playing the polytheistic faiths to be different from playing the christians. As of now, they are basically the same. the only difference is concubines and raiding to set them apart.

In contrast to what is normally observed on this board, you've explained to this gentlemen in the most respectful way possible why his view on his faith is distorted. You kinda deserve a gold star when you could have been much, much more derogatory, and said tone would be the internet norm. Kudos for being a descent human being.

I am not feeding the Troll who is being insulting.

 

[unmerged(607699)]

What we use is called Reconstructionism. We use folklore, Archeology, historical records, academic research, comparative religious studies.

Glory to Reconstructionism.

 

[Mathrafalovich]

I hope we get some events about the religious tug-of-war between the Muslims, Hindus (Hindi? Hindu?), and Buddhists.

 

[BritNavFan]

Actually, this is quite a cliché.

I think that summarizes the entire original post, unfortunately. I'm very disappointed. I've only the scantiest of knowledge of Medieval India, but I recognize everything in the original post as being a cartoonish version of one or another modern stereotype of one or another Indian religion. The religions of India seem to be being given absurd super powers in the service of making an entertaining game with no regard to literary plausibility let alone historical plausibility. I see no reason why being a Jain should make a noble able to rule a larger realm, for example. It's allowed for them to be a sub-optimal choice. If I wanted a game where every faction was different but equal, with lots of different but very flashy powers, I'd be buying Blizzard's products, not Paradox's.

The concept of "Hinduism" was an anachronism is this time period. It was how they were perceived by others, not how they perceived themselves. AFAIK they only started to take up the idea themselves towards the very end of the CK period? (I'm thinking of the founding of Vijayanagar here.) But in, say, 1100, a noble clan that worshipped Vishnu would react to the news that "Muslims" (whoever that might be, maybe some new version of Buddhist?) were attacking their tradional rival clan that worshipped Shiva not with "we Hindus need to stick together" but with "good news! we have new allies against our traditional rivals!"

I don't think "Hindus" should be doing "holy wars". I don't get the impression that they had that concept. The modern world has the concept of total war, passed down from the Greeks and Romans to both the Christians and the Muslims. My impression of the "Hindus" is that the upper castes saw warfare more as we see sports than as we see warfare. As one result, my understanding is that the "Hindus" didn't innovate in warfare much during this period. As another result, they were in for many rude shocks when the Muslims invaded.

Part of that "war is a form of sport" thing is that having elephants in your retinue should be an excellent source of prestige. Whether it helps you win battles or not is another issue. Conversely, someone with the title "king" but who has no elephants in his army, well, what sort of "king" is that?

As for the Buddhists, I don't know but I imagine that their "universities" were for civilian pursuits, not for researching military tech.

Also, Hindus raiding is just wrong. They didn't need to: war was a sport played by warriors against other warriors: the goal was to triumph over the opposing team, not vandalize civilian buildings. OTOH, and this I am sure of, Muslims should raid. (Actually pretty much everyone in the existing CKII world should raid, but that's another issue.) But Muslim raids, as much as Viking raids, produced some of the memorable campaigns in both Europe and India. E.g. the Muslim army defeated by Charles Martel was raiding. In India, the first sack of the temple at Somnath, a relatively well-recorded incident, occurred during a Muslim raid by Mahmud of Ghazni. An India where Hindus raid and Muslims don't won't make a story that has much in common with real history.

I'd be interested in views of people who have actually seriously studied this stuff.

Considering the game's timeframe is when the northern Indian sultanates were historically formed, it should be totally possible, shouldn't it?

The Mughal Empire was founded six years after Cortes conquered Mexico and six years before Pizarro landed in Peru. But the Muslims were invading India from roughly 1000 AD on, and had achieved enough success that by Tamerlane's time that there was a Sultanate based in Delhi for him to conquer.

 

[unmerged(77885)]

I hope there is a developer diary about how they are modifying hordes, especially the Mongols.

 

[BritNavFan]

I couldn't agree more. Recreating various Polytheistic religions in the post-Christian era is completely impossible. Just take the word religion in itself. None of the the pre-Christian polytheistic "religions" have any concept that corresponds to this. Pietas or Eusebia which are core principles in Greek and Roman Polytheism (just examples) would be better translated with loyalty, duty or fillial respect. Which just points out how interwoven they were with other social structures and cultural habits in a way that seem alien to post-Christian Europeans.

What's ironic here is that the word "religio" was coined by the Polytheistic pagan Romans before the birth of Christ, which we know from the fact that Cicero used it in his speeches.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

I'm not very good on Indian history, but I have had a few classes on Hindu mythology/religion, which also provided a good background on the basics of Indian civilization and political theory. I've also had a class on Buddhism, but that was a while ago.

The across-the-board tech advantage to Buddhists is, as others have mentioned, ridiculous. It was only in the West (and perhaps in the golden-age Islamic world, I'm not sure - although if anything, over time, non-religious subjects only decreased in favor in the Muslim intellectual world) that religious universities really morphed into general centers of knowledge, pioneering in natural as well as religious philosophy.

The Hindu raids have some foundation in reality/Hindu religious and political thought - although these raids were against coreligionists as well as heathens. The kings of the Mahabharata regularly raid each other, and successful raids (especially of cattle) are one way that Vedic kings asserted dominance over neighbors. However, I can only speak for the Vedic period of Indian history, or at least an idealized version of it, when society was more tribal, and the political scene of India was one of countless small states in ever-shifting relationships of dominance and alliance. This kind of tribal raiding makes less sense for a more developed India full of larger, more centralized states.

Nevertheless, and this is something of a hunch, I could easily see Medieval Indian kings engaging in raid-like behavior to assert their dominance over neighbors, or at least seeing military expeditions of submission as akin to, say Arjuna's expeditions throughout India to exact tribute and submission to his newly-crowned brother. The kind of system I'm thinking of fits in with a loose quasi-feudalism, where a king has to regularly assert their authority over vassal states to keep them within their sphere of influence. But talking of current game terms, I would rather model this with cheap subjugation cb's, not raiding as pagans currently know it.

EDIT: On the subject of paganism, I definitely would not take someone's adherence to neo-paganism as credentials to comment on ancient beliefs. However, if an individual has done a lot of research on ancient paganism in order to inform their beliefs, then that should be taken into account. So, as should be obvious, familiarity with modern scholarship should be the main criterion by which we should judge others, or ourselves, as authorities on a scholarly matter.

PS-EDIT: Caste should also stick around after conversion from Hinduism. Depending on time and place, it could still be socially significant even for Muslims. Kshatriya ancestry could still be flouted about as a sign of superiority over others even in the 20th century, though of course it wasn't as serious a matter as for Hindus.

 

[DominusNovus]

The modern world has the concept of total war, passed down from the Greeks and Romans to both the Christians and the Muslims.

Could you care to enlighten me about those Greco-Roman Holy Wars?

 

[BritNavFan]

Could you care to enlighten me about those Greco-Roman Holy Wars?

Could you care to enlighten me where I wrote the word "holy" in the sentence you quoted?

 

[unmerged(77885)]

Could you care to enlighten me about those Greco-Roman Holy Wars?

To be technical, didn't the Romans have a whole ritual with the temple of Mars everytime they declared war on another nation?

 

[frolix42]

Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant in the context of the game and the medieval era, as the poster I was quoting asked whether it was possible to abolish the caste system in game as a Hindu ruler. Obviously, as you say, that would be absurd in the CKII world. Though perhaps yes as a Buddhist or Jain ruler you could attempt to abolish it, but perhaps experience a lot of unrest as a result.

I'm thinking that eradicating Hinduism would make the caste traits a historical curiosity, that is to say, meaningless. It would have the same effect as abolishing the caste system.

I am well aware of the christian and monotheistic Baggage, But I will strongly disagree that it is impossible to revive the Pre-christian beliefs. It is totally possible, yes it wouldn't be the same. But religions change, the early Christians were quite different from the ones of today. Or how about Judaism, Rabbinical Judaism was not the same as during the time when they had their kingdom and the temple. Besides that is neither her nor there.

Can you think of a historical example of a ruler 867 - 1444 converting to a dead religion? Beyond Lithuanian and Norse rulers prudently juggling their religious allegiance, since those religions were still vibrant at the time. Of course if you wanted to, you could write an event into the game converting your ruler to the Hellenistic Pagan religion.

 

[vyshan]

To be technical, didn't the Romans have a whole ritual with the temple of Mars everytime they declared war on another nation?

I am not that big into roman religion, but I think(don't quote me on this), that it was more about asking Mars to grant them victory, then what holy wars are about.

 

[DominusNovus]

Could you care to enlighten me where I wrote the word "holy" in the sentence you quoted?

My apologies, the line above had 'Holy War', and the phrase 'total war' was right below it, so I saw it as another mention of Holy War.

Though, I don't think the Greeks did much total war; the Romans certainly could be said to have.

 

[DominusNovus]

To be technical, didn't the Romans have a whole ritual with the temple of Mars everytime they declared war on another nation?

To be sure, almost every society has some religious ceremonies revolving around war. My point was that the Romans didn't decide "Hey, you guys don't worship Mars, time to invade you."

 

[Videogames]

The Hindu raids have some foundation in reality/Hindu religious and political thought - although these raids were against coreligionists as well as heathens. The kings of the Mahabharata regularly raid each other, and successful raids (especially of cattle) are one way that Vedic kings asserted dominance over neighbors. However, I can only speak for the Vedic period of Indian history, or at least an idealized version of it, when society was more tribal, and the political scene of India was one of countless small states in ever-shifting relationships of dominance and alliance. This kind of tribal raiding makes less sense for a more developed India full of larger, more centralized states.

Nevertheless, and this is something of a hunch, I could easily see Medieval Indian kings engaging in raid-like behavior to assert their dominance over neighbors, or at least seeing military expeditions of submission as akin to, say Arjuna's expeditions throughout India to exact tribute and submission to his newly-crowned brother. The kind of system I'm thinking of fits in with a loose quasi-feudalism, where a king has to regularly assert their authority over vassal states to keep them within their sphere of influence. But talking of current game terms, I would rather model this with cheap subjugation cb's, not raiding as pagans currently know it.

I think you're on the right track about raiding and Hindu kingship. While you cite Vedic-period sources, I've read that that during the medieval period for instance that the Cholas engaged in a good deal of plundering of their neighbors. Distribution of the loot seized from the temples of other kingdoms amongst the vassals was part of the glue that kept the kingdom together. While in some cases (like Sri Lanka) the Cholas attempted to continue to rule territory after a successful campaign, in other cases they did not. I think allowing raiding is a good approximation of this. Another option might be to give Hindus a CB where "war reparations" are what they get from the target if they win.