Welcome to another development diary about Europa Universalis IV. Today we’ll go into details about mechanics for some religions, that will become available with the next expansion.


Protestanstism
Each protestant church will have their own name in the interface, like Church of England and so on. You can then customise the benefits of your church, and also change it over time whenever you need. To change the aspect of your church, you have to spend Church Power.

Church Power is accumulated each month, depending on your current religious unity, and your monarchs abilities.

Adding an aspect to your church costs 100 church power, but you can remove an aspect at any time, but that will lower your stability by 1.

A Church can have up to 3 different aspects, and there are 12 different ones to pick from. Some of these include.

• Holy Sacraments: +2.5% Discipline
• Individual Creeds: -5% Idea Costs
• Adult Baptism: +1% Missionary Strength.

Buddhism
The Buddhist Faith gained the concept of Karma. Karma needs to be balanced, because if it goes too positive or negative, you end up with penalties. If you go too positive you end up with penalties to your diplomatic abilities, and if you go too negative, you end up with penalties to your military abilities.

However, If you keep a balanced karma, you gain bonuses to both diplomatic and military abilities.

Some examples on how you gain Karma include: Starting wars decrease Karma, while honoring defensive alliances increase Karma.

While adding the Karma mechanic and its related events it also became clear that the game setup could benefit from splitting the existing religion into Vajrayana, Mahayana and Theravada. These three religions will all use the same Karma mechanic but don't all share the same events related to it and can in some cases have different event options in the events they do share. Events related to Lamas are for instance reserved for the Vajrayana faith while only Theravada countries can turn to Ceylon for spiritual inspiration. The three religions also differ in what bonuses they provide.

Next week we will talk about about subjects and how to interact with them...

 

[kerannymi]

Hmm, karma is the general idea that if you do good things good comes back to you, if you do bad things, bad returns to you (both in deed and in intent),.

That's not what karma is that's what people think it is

„Karma” means „action”. Every action you take (doesn't mater good or bad) entangles you more and more into the horror that is „samsara”, the circle of birth and death, also called "life". You don't want that. What you want is to break free from this mortal coil and never come back (Nirvana). To do that you need not to have any karma. That's more or less the basics of what karma is for all dharmic religions

you cannot live a normal live without acquiring any „karma” but you can live a good life (like giving some money to monasteries) and hoping that being a good person will put you in a better position next life to achieve „the enlightenment”. Maybe you will be a monk in a monastery and then you will be able to spend all day meditating and not acquiring any “karma”.

So following that logic, from the point of view ONLY of a Buddhist, you would see karma as encouraging you toward balance. Everyone else would say "Wha?" that's not karma, doesn't make sense. All neighboring faiths would say to get more good karma means do more of the good stuff no matter what, balance be danged.

The main difference between Hinduism and Buddhism its that in Hinduism god is very important in achieving „nirvana” and Buddhism is a little „atheistic” in the sens that yes, there are gods but they are pathetic a not as cool as humans. humans are in better position to achieve “nirvana” and all gods are, like, super jelly of us.

 

[Arinsar]

I am curious. Why do so many here think going Reformed is a no brainer compared to Protestantism? I tend to like Protestantism for the discount on ideas cost. Never have gone reformed. Considered it, but every time I view it, I conclude it's not worth it. What am I missing?

Math , monarch points saved thanks to reduction are way less attractive than reformed bonuses. Reformation usually starts when you have filled two idea groups.

 

[Witto]

Agreed... Except at probably $30. I fail to see how it will be less. Hope I am proven wrong.

Probably 20$ - 25$ imho

 

[Konair0s]

Or at lest the name of the expansion? the map changes, the fort changes, which completely change the way the wars will be fight right now, the new development system and free cites, which give the ability to play as a single province minor, and other changes, all huge but giving that we still don't have the name of the expansion suggest that the real pièce de résistance is yet to come. what could be bigger than these?

Probably it will be "The Art of Various Things".
Or "Various things of nations".

Names of DLCs kinda sucked up to this point, in meaning that they hardly represented the relevant changes. They can just drop the naming whatsoever and call it incrementally - DLC 1, DLC 2, DLC 3.

 

[jakt]

America, though it technically wasn't a state church, it would still be odd to see 'The Church of America'. I don't know, maybe they could modify the American Dream to accommodate this.

I do think that forming the USA should abolish state church, thus giving an entirely other "religion" that is highly tolerant of all other religions (or makes all religions "accepted"), and events should move provinces not christian within the US to become random christian with short MTTH, but this is only for the US which is hardly something many would play in this game so it's not a huge deal but would be nice to see

 

[Dakilla TM]

Yay! Protestantism is awesome now! And I'm kinda iffy on Buddhism, but I'll wait to play the game before I say anything

 

[Metz]

I do think that forming the USA should abolish state church, thus giving an entirely other "religion" that is highly tolerant of all other religions (or makes all religions "accepted"), and events should move provinces not christian within the US to become random christian with short MTTH, but this is only for the US which is hardly something many would play in this game so it's not a huge deal but would be nice to see

Congregationalism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregationalism

 

[Metz]

Or maybe a way to deal with state church is that only monarchies can have them? That way republics like the United States don't have state church, they can have something else?

 

[Umega]

Next week we will talk about about subjects and how to interact with them...

Sounds like a previous Art of War DD...

 

[Me_]

Could you tell us if the Buddhist religions all get -10% advisor cost and +2 tolerance of heretics, or are those bonuses different for each one?

 

[saegoto]

Will Colonial Nations make their own church or be stuck to your church? As they grow will they be able to have their own church?

yea. CN should be stuck to its overlord church name.

 

[YuriiH]

I wonder where is Taoism. There may be rather cool mechanics to introduce Wu-wei, Emperors that follow Tao, naturalness, events for country leader in seeking for immortality, etc.
And, of course, correct symbol that should be withdrawn from current Confucianism in EU4.
By the way, no info on Confucianism and Shinto…

 

[Metz]

yea. CN should be stuck to its overlord church name.

It could go deeper into your CN wanting religious freedom so you allow them to choose their own religion or make their own church based on the religions in their provinces.

 

[eddyr]

Good stuff Paradox, I'd love to see leader/general portraits and we'd have an even more flavoursome game!

 

[Dewit]

That's not what karma is that's what people think it is

„Karma” means „action”. Every action you take (doesn't mater good or bad) entangles you more and more into the horror that is „samsara”, the circle of birth and death, also called "life". You don't want that. What you want is to break free from this mortal coil and never come back (Nirvana). To do that you need not to have any karma. That's more or less the basics of what karma is for all dharmic religions

you cannot live a normal live without acquiring any „karma” but you can live a good life (like giving some money to monasteries) and hoping that being a good person will put you in a better position next life to achieve „the enlightenment”. Maybe you will be a monk in a monastery and then you will be able to spend all day meditating and not acquiring any “karma”.

According to wikipedia, this interpretation and the causality with the rebirth theme is just one of multiple interpretations of the concept of Karma.
I remain unconvinced.

 

[wingzero890]

Is Buddhist now part of the Dharmic religion group? Can Hindus switch between Buddhism and Hindu, like in CK2?

 

[Sir Tornado]

So... what is the point in remaining Catholic now that Protestantism is being made uber powerful and even customizable?

 

[Nyrael]

So... what is the point in remaining Catholic now that Protestantism is being made uber powerful and even customizable?

For other types of bonuses (Papal Influence Actions and Treaty of Tordelias), as well as easier time winning the Thirty Years War? Protestantism has customizations (limited to three options), but we still have to see numbers, not to mention that they lost their previous OP modifiers.

 

[ThreeMinutesEarly]

I think it would be interesting for the aspects to align with conservative and reformist ideas, and they can give relation bonuses for Catholic or reformed/protestant nations. This could go some way to simulate stuff like the Act of Six Articles which aimed to improve England's relations with the Catholics without going back to Rome.

It could also go someway to mitigate the relation penalty I'm not sure Protestant nations should have with Reformed. At least, not as much as the Catholics do. Though I'm only basing this on Huguenots migrating to England and the Netherlands after Fontaineblaeu, which to me indicated there wasn't much stigma between the two branches of the reformation, there is probably something I'm missing.

Both my points are probably way off from being accurate though.

Also, hyped for what sounds like peace time mechanics coming up next.

 

[AluminumSoldier]

Lots of good stuff here. The Karma system in particular looks very interesting. I'm sure the values of the bonuses and maluses will be fanagled by modders once it's released, so I'm not actually that concerned with how it comes out. The base mechanic is good, and the specifics can be adjusted.