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.)

 

[Ozamu]

Finally after a hard day's work, I come back home only to find this magnificent dev diary! I think my prejudices towards this expansion are slowly starting to fade away.

Only if certain heresies got some more substance to them, it would make my day

 

[Blond_Knight]

I'm looking forward to making Ireland Buddhist.

 

[sreckom92]

They kind of did that with the Wendish empire and carpathia.

Anyhow Hindustan can just be a Roman Empire thing with a special decision.

That would be nice.

 

[Jokolytic]

Make the north side of the subcontinent of de jure "Hindustan" and the south side and Sri Lanka under "Deccan". Bam, historicity problem solved.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Deccan is mostly correct (it is encompassing the entire Deccan plateau) and Bengal is largely correct as well (Bengalis were culturally dominant in the area Bengal Empire seems to fall in), my point is that Rajastan Empire is just wrong. It is almost as if they looked up the political map of current India, picked up the biggest state (geographically speaking) and put it's name on the map... the problem with this kind of exercise is one, the vast amounts of land of that state is desert, the actual population is much less, and two, the Rajasthani community was never culturally dominant over the area designated as Rajastan (Empire), so much so that their language never even had a written script.

Renaming it to Punjab or (more historically appropriate) Hindustan would be much more accurate. Actually, Punjab would be the most geographically accurate, Punjab literally means "Land of Seven Rivers", which is what that Empire would actually be

Out of curiosity, would any other names besides Punjab work in that region, in your opinion?

 

[vyshan]

btw how moddable is the caste system? would I be able to say apply it to people who are not hindus?

 

[Calad]

I believe modders will love opinion modifier about who to marry. Maybe this will help elsewhere to prevent Emperor to marry genius Irish landless girls?

 

[Kljunas]

Deccan is mostly correct (it is encompassing the entire Deccan plateau) and Bengal is largely correct as well (Bengalis were culturally dominant in the area Bengal Empire seems to fall in), my point is that Rajastan Empire is just wrong. It is almost as if they looked up the political map of current India, picked up the biggest state (geographically speaking) and put it's name on the map... the problem with this kind of exercise is one, the vast amounts of land of that state is desert, the actual population is much less, and two, the Rajasthani community was never culturally dominant over the area designated as Rajastan (Empire), so much so that their language never even had a written script.

Renaming it to Punjab or (more historically appropriate) Hindustan would be much more accurate. Actually, Punjab would be the most geographically accurate, Punjab literally means "Land of Seven Rivers", which is what that Empire would actually be

Hindustan would work I guess. They probably didn't call it Punjab because there's already a kingdom-level with that name though.

 

[unmerged(794199)]

No heresies or different schools? So, Theravada/Mahayana Buddhism aren't represented separately?

I like the change of focus for these religions, but do feel that Buddhism and Hinduism might be a little overly-stereotyped in the way they work - I like the fact that this is acknowledged in the OP for the Buddhist philosophy focus, but the learning and philosophy Buddhism encompassed was a poor match for the way tech progression works in CKII. Sure, there were militant Buddhist schools of thought, including at least one that saw skills in warfare as the route to enlightenment (I can't recall the details), but musings on personal enlightenment in whatever context don't really lend themselves to building better castle walls or convincing your vassals they like you more. Religious tolerance is also not really a core feature, certainly of Hinduism but also of Buddhist schools towards one another. Granted these are examples from outside India, but Cambodia during the CKII period saw both internecine warfare between Theravada and Mahayana and between Hinduism and Buddhism (with the former as the aggressor) - many Buddhist monuments were defaced, destroyed or replaced by Hindu apostates, so the difference was clearly one of doctrine; for their part the Buddhists left Hindu structures and exterior carvings mostly intact, but removed religious icons like linga from their temples and repurposed the interiors with Buddhist imagery.

And yes, I am sad that it seems a missed opportunity to expand to India but not to Indochina, when the CKII period covers most of this region's most interesting medieval history and such charismatic factions as the Khmer, Bagan and Champa.

 

[Damarrocarion]

Will there be increased tolerance towards Zoroastrians, just in case there are courtiers in India or if Zoroastrian rulers happen to escape to India after losing their lands?

 

[Helios Ra]

No heresies or different schools? So, Theravada/Mahayana Buddhism aren't represented separately?

I like the change of focus for these religions, but do feel that Buddhism and Hinduism might be a little overly-stereotyped in the way they work - I like the fact that this is acknowledged in the OP for the Buddhist philosophy focus, but the learning and philosophy Buddhism encompassed was a poor match for the way tech progression works in CKII. Sure, there were militant Buddhist schools of thought, including at least one that saw skills in warfare as the route to enlightenment (I can't recall the details), but musings on personal enlightenment in whatever context don't really lend themselves to building better castle walls or convincing your vassals they like you more. Religious tolerance is also not really a core feature, certainly of Hinduism but also of Buddhist schools towards one another. Granted these are examples from outside India, but Cambodia during the CKII period saw both internecine warfare between Theravada and Mahayana and between Hinduism and Buddhism (with the former as the aggressor) - many Buddhist monuments were defaced, destroyed or replaced by Hindu apostates, so the difference was clearly one of doctrine; for their part the Buddhists left Hindu structures and exterior carvings mostly intact, but removed religious icons like linga from their temples and repurposed the interiors with Buddhist imagery.

And yes, I am sad that it seems a missed opportunity to expand to India but not to Indochina, when the CKII period covers most of this region's most interesting medieval history and such charismatic factions as the Khmer, Bagan and Champa.

I had somehow forgotten about the Mahayana/Theravada split. That should be there certainly!

I think Southeast Asia would need its own expansion though. Feudalism wasn't practiced the way it was in India. The whole mandala state structure with waxing wand waning "borders" depending on the king's authority would be hard to represent, as would purifying the realm by confiscating land from the temples and whatnot.

 

[Thure]

No heresies or different schools? So, Theravada/Mahayana Buddhism aren't represented separately?

"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."

They are represented. But not as heresies. That would be completelly different.

 

[vyshan]

"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."

They are represented. But not as heresies. That would be completelly different.

I would love if this was for the Pagan faiths. I hope this is moddable in.

 

[panther-anthro]

Any chance of something along the lines of a titular Baktria title if you're a Latin or Byzantine group leader who conquers Baktria?

 

[unmerged(794199)]

"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."

They are represented. But not as heresies. That would be completelly different.

Okay, that makes sense - I'll grant that it makes little sense for either to be a Buddhist heresy (when 'three religions' were first mentioned I expected that, as with Islam and Christianity, Buddhism would be split in to two religions). I know that today Mahayana is essentially Indochinese rather than subcontinental, but I presume it had a presence in India during the game's time period.

It's just that Westerners are generally familiar with the Crusades and various Christian wars, whereas most Westerners don't know much about Asian history, and thus tend to project some sort of strange orientalist image of them as a peaceful, idyllic paradise before the Europeans came.

I suspect it has a lot to do with the way Buddhism was popularised in the West in the 1960s and later - it became part of a pro-peace Western subculture, and the form of Buddhism introduced was rather specific to a particular school of Buddhist thought in Nepal that influenced the Beatles and others (while this is the same Nepal whose Buddhist rulers sent armies to support 19th Century invasions of China by Tibet's militant - and also Buddhist - theocracy, I suspect that Nepalese Buddhism has moderated itself since). It's the same way you'll see Buddhism associated with such things as vegetarianism, while vegetarianism is wholly unknown in a number of fully Buddhist countries - again, Cambodia is a good example.

 

[Thure]

I would love if this was for the Pagan faiths. I hope this is moddable in.

Moddable yes. But please not in vanilla. European Pagans (beside Hellenic) didn't work like that. They never chose a single deity.

 

[DesNibelungen]

The European equivalent would be merging Germany and Poland into one Empire and calling it: "Polish Empire".

India was once part of something called the "British Empire".

 

[Chef Boyardee]

So pumped for this. Already planning out my first empire.

 

[drakeheath]

I had somehow forgotten about the Mahayana/Theravada split. That should be there certainly!

I think Southeast Asia would need its own expansion though. Feudalism wasn't practiced the way it was in India. The whole mandala state structure with waxing wand waning "borders" depending on the king's authority would be hard to represent, as would purifying the realm by confiscating land from the temples and whatnot.

You could have crown authority change based on the ruler's stats and free title revocation on temples.

All and all I would like for Paradox to move more east with the next Expansion, maybe Southeast Asia and the Indies, with China and Mongolia being in the one after that.

 

[vyshan]

Moddable yes. But please not in vanilla. European Pagans (beside Hellenic) didn't work like that. They never chose a single deity.

I am well aware of what european Polytheism was and is like; as I am a Gaelic Polytheist. I know they generally didn't choose a single deity for the most, though the beskers kind of were like holy warriors of Odin. But this is one of the few ways that we have to repersent that polytheistic nature, as well as their pluralistic nature; the Norse didn't care much who you worshiped, so if you gave your offerings to Perun or Chernabog or Lugh they were fine.

I am curious, how would you repersent the polytheistic and pluralisitc nature of the pagan faiths?