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...

 

[turnad]

You know the saying - Two wrongs don't make a right...

But you can't say it's less fun, there is nothing fun in the first place. There is literally nothing! You may as well as play as any of the far east religions, they are all the same on that front. You can dislike the direction and say it doesn't add anything fun, but you can't say it subtracted it.

 

[Druplesnubb]

I think you should rename the eastern religion group to Buddhist. A lot of people won't know what all these new names mean, and putting them in a Buddhist group would help clarify that they're subsets of Buddhism. Confucianism and Shintoism meanwhile had a lot of syncretism with Buddhism, and I don't think putting them in the Buddhist group would be unjustified. I think it would show that the people in these countries follow Buddhism too.

 

[perhje]

You know the saying - Two wrongs don't make a right...

It seems like a powerful bonus that goes away if you don't balance, not a thing that gives negatives to your nation if you don't so I wouldn't call it a negative, but with that being said, i thougt it was a little weird that those karma slider is best in the middle. A solution could be that the middle bonus was the same but at lowest you get twice dicipline and no reputation and at highest you get the opposite. Buddhist countries aren't that strong anyway and this can give you an oppurtunity to choose between a diplomatic and a warfare way for your buddhist country.

 

[yls3431]

Church power doesnt seem right. In so many cases strong religious organizations( churches in this case) would prevent goverments taking profitable actions rather than appropriate(for them) actions.

So Religous Power or Zeal seems more appropriate for this new mechanic. Though this has nothing to do with gameplay.

 

[Konair0s]

The protestant churches look great and I hope it is not an end. Hope to see something for Orthodox church as well.

The karma looks bad though. All effects on other Churches are administrative, but this one goes somewhere where a country has collective karma which works magically. Attacked someone? Boom your troops are less effective now because karma!

Also, isn't karma - something what accumulates through lifes?

I understand it is hard to think of something else, but it doesn't look good when it transites in some magical wonderland. It is almost like make the events about God to have increased chances of success based on your piety/devotion.

 

[Panzerschiffe]

 

[neondt]

The protestant churches look great and I hope it is not an end. Hope to see something for Orthodox church as well.

The karma looks bad though. All effects on other Churches are administrative, but this one goes somewhere where a country has collective karma which works magically. Attacked someone? Boom your troops are less effective now because karma!

Also, isn't karma - something what accumulates through lifes?

I understand it is hard to think of something else, but it doesn't look good when it transites in some magical wonderland. It is almost like make the events about God to have increased chances of success based on your piety/devotion.

Yeah that does seem weird. I suppose you could argue that it's more about perceived karma making troops less effective due to lack of faith in the ruler or something. But then, going to war wasn't seen as impious, at least in Theravada nations (the only kind I'm really familiar with). Going to war and winning prestige wasn't frowned upon at all, it meant more spoils with which to build massive temples. What made a ruler impious was being like this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suriyenthrathibodi - extremely hedonistic, cruel in a personal rather than a "national" way.

 

[Krajzen]

I think you should rename the eastern religion group to Buddhist. A lot of people won't know what all these new names mean, and putting them in a Buddhist group would help clarify that they're subsets of Buddhism. Confucianism and Shintoism meanwhile had a lot of syncretism with Buddhism, and I don't think putting them in the Buddhist group would be unjustified. I think it would show that the people in these countries follow Buddhism too.

I fail to imagine people not managing to connect mahayana, theravada and vayrayana with buddhism - hm let's see, buddhist-sounding religions present on the place of unitary buddhism... They are clearly Muslim sects!

 

[Koivin]

Church power doesnt seem right. In so many cases strong religious organizations( churches in this case) would prevent goverments taking profitable actions rather than appropriate(for them) actions.

So Religous Power or Zeal seems more appropriate for this new mechanic. Though this has nothing to do with gameplay.

Just call it protestant mana.

 

[jorishilhorst]

the karma/balance thing sounds off. There has not been a concept that countries should wage an adequate amount of war. (where not enough war / too much war causes issues). There should not be a penalty for being too honourable (always accepting to join your allies in a fight is being penalized?)

this may have sounded ok in the design meeting but really, it makes no sense and makes it feel like an artificial thing to balance, not something to roleplay. It also implies this was a consideration at the time. Again compared to the patriarchy power consideration, this may be a thing (I don't know) but I would be interested in seeing any examples of wars being declared because the country had been too busy being loyal to their allies, etc.

Probably a devoutness slider would be more appropriate. If your country is very devoutly buddhist you'll incur more wrath if you break treaties or betray your friends in other ways. (or do other negative things) where if the country is very lax you can get away with lavish feasts, not going to temple and declaring war on whoever. At least in a spiritual sense. (but perhaps you end up being more open to being converted to other religions)

anyways last paragraph is just brainstorming but seriously, the balance concept looks bad to me and sounds like it would stop me personally from starting a game in s.e. asia post-patch.

 

[Grand Historian]

Will Religious Zeal stacking and CoR conversion range be fixed?

 

[Lord Finnish]

This is going to be the best patch/expansion ever.

To think that could be said after AoW

 

[perhje]

Church power doesnt seem right. In so many cases strong religious organizations( churches in this case) would prevent goverments taking profitable actions rather than appropriate(for them) actions.

So Religous Power or Zeal seems more appropriate for this new mechanic. Though this has nothing to do with gameplay.

The protestant churches was always under the command of the monarch, and many have had those bonds until this day so a strong protestant church was only a good for the king to easier get his will. Of course the protestant kings was under God and the bible but the clergy was appointed by him and under his command.

 

[Krajzen]

The protestant churches look great and I hope it is not an end. Hope to see something for Orthodox church as well.

The karma looks bad though. All effects on other Churches are administrative, but this one goes somewhere where a country has collective karma which works magically. Attacked someone? Boom your troops are less effective now because karma!

Also, isn't karma - something what accumulates through lifes?

I understand it is hard to think of something else, but it doesn't look good when it transites in some magical wonderland. It is almost like make the events about God to have increased chances of success based on your piety/devotion.

Karma is exactly as abstract as Piety for muslims, Fervor points for Reformed and Doom points for Nahuatl. Are all a bit nonsensical when looked from purely rational perspective, they should be treated as game mechanisms basing on some abstracted cultural characteristics (???). There is already Power Projection, Monarch Points, Ducats everywhere etc.

 

[Konair0s]

Karma is exactly as abstract as Piety for muslims, Fervor points for Reformed and Doom points for Nahuatl. Are all a bit nonsensical when looked from purely rational perspective, they should be treated as game mechanisms basing on some abstracted cultural characteristics (???). There is already Power Projection, Monarch Points, Ducats everywhere etc.

I understand the abstraction, but it should have some rationale behind it, imo. Right now I don't get it.

Yeah that does seem weird. I suppose you could argue that it's more about perceived karma making troops less effective due to lack of faith in the ruler or something. But then, going to war wasn't seen as impious, at least in Theravada nations (the only kind I'm really familiar with). Going to war and winning prestige wasn't frowned upon at all, it meant more spoils with which to build massive temples. What made a ruler impious was being like this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suriyenthrathibodi - extremely hedonistic, cruel in a personal rather than a "national" way.

Even if perceived karma, isn't it something what accumulates through lifes? Unlike the piety for Muslims, which clearly can be justified as "perceived piety".

 

[Suzaku]

As if that 2,5% Discipline really changed everything.

Reformed +15% Morale is MUCH STRONGER buff to the Prussia than 2,5% Discipline.

What if you can get Both moral and discipline?

 

[Amosblanco]

Wonder everyone will rush for the Reformed and the Protestantism after the Reformation. The bonus of Catholic is rubbish in comparison.
I love the Buddhist mechanic, making playing those South East Asian minors much more fun.

 

[neondt]

Even if perceived karma, isn't it something what accumulates through lifes? Unlike the piety for Muslims, which clearly can be justified as "perceived piety".

Yes, but then every ruler would start with near-maximum karma because they were born into royal families, so they must have earned it through being awesome in a previous life. I don't think this system makes sense if we compare it to "actual" karma.

 

[Simmy93]

FINALLY I can do what Ian Paisley did and start a church when they won't let me be head of another.

 

[LordNeidhart]

Things are looking up, but I wonder, are the new interfaces that have been shown in the recent diaries such as this one and Parliament view still being worked on? I surely hope they are, because when you compare them to the HRE and the Papacy Screen, or even the Ming/republican faction window, they all look so lifeless and dull. I'd say that hopefully they're just not ready yet, but considering the way the mesoamerican reform window looks I'm actually not that confident...