EUIV - Development Diary - 11th of February 2020

[Jomini]

I might suggest something like the following to calculate the level of the DotF bonus:
[Total_Dev_Of_Religion_Contolled_By_Religion - Total_Dev_of_Total_of_Religion_NOT_Controlled_by_Religion]/Dev_of_Largest_Country_of_Religion

This makes it valuable for you to do all the things that we would expect a DoTF to try to do historically: pick religious over humanist, spend money converting your land, helping your religious brethren liberate other brethren, and forcing religious change on your enemies. Nonetheless, if you become the dominant country, the bonuses slide away.

This has the nice points of:
1. Not rewarding you for seeding 50 religious enclaves around the map. As is, I expect most WC runs will leave a bunch of isolated OPMs in bad regions (Tibet, Siberia, Central Africa, etc.) to power up the bonus. This could represent something like DoTF going from something like a prestige play that gives zeal to the populace to being just another title for a sprawling empire (e.g. something like happened with the Ottomans and Mamelukes in history).
2. Double hits the DoTF if they expand into a bunch of heathen or heretic clay and let it sit outside the religious fold.
3. Makes it harder to manage unholy alliances and reap the bonus. After all, right now the best option for keeping DoTF for Catholics in the early game is to ally the Ottomans and try to declare on their Catholic targets yourself (often winning you favors that you can then use to smack around other religious threats in the Reformation).
4. Does not tank the bonus in MP where a few states carve up all the territory of one religion even though no single state dominates. E.g. A world where the Catholics are Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal; Protestant is Scandinavia, Austria, and the remaining 7 HRE OPMs; Anglican is England and three colonial states; Reformed is The Netherlands, Prussia (northern Germany/Baltics), and Poland; and Orthodox is Russia, Circassia, Imereti, Krete, Pskov, and Smolensk should have very different bonuses. England holds the overwhelming dominance of Anglicanism, but might lose it if the colonials outgrow the motherland. Russia may keep alive a bunch of weak Orthodox revolters, but again should not get a huge bonus as these small appendages do little for the zeal of the faith. In contrast, the Catholics would have a much richer political setup where 4 powers could legitimately contest the title and would not simply dominate the religion from an imperial court. Five countries is an awful lot in MP games if pretty much all the clay is human controlled. In contrast 50 is not that bad if you are the only player running in the clay.
5. Does not reward the player for poaching all the High Dev own religious clay in the world. Owning Baghdad, Alexandria, Cairo, Constantinople, Mecca, and Medina should have a bigger impact on world religious politics than some random Sunni clay in Africa.
6. Reward small faiths for being dynamic and balanced rather than Ethiopia not caring once the country count is below 4.

Ultimately we want the situation to be dynamic and require real sacrifice, not just something where you pretend not to totally dominate a religious block for a bonus.

 

[Canute VII]

I might suggest something like the following to calculate the level of the DotF bonus:
[Total_Dev_Of_Religion_Contolled_By_Religion - Total_Dev_of_Total_of_Religion_NOT_Controlled_by_Religion]/Dev_of_Largest_Country_of_Religion

score = (world's total development of true faith - world's true faith development owned by heathen) / DoF's total development

I'm glad you actually came up with a very similar system to mine, litterally one page later in the thread. And you give additional arguments why this would be a good system.

 

[Marshall_Mueller]

Very late, i know!
In regards to the "new" mission tree system (Love it by the way!), have you guys considered a sort of symbiosis of the old and new mission systems? is that too time consuming for the programming department (absolute tech noob here)?

It would make it possible to differentiate between historical and ahistorical achievements, or even just offer short term steps in the long term goal of your mission tree (e.g. sometimes you have to wait a couple of years until you have the Coring range to take egypt as britain). I am also sure that it would be a great place to hide certain fun achievements, for example if henry VIII doesn't have an heir for 15 years, to proclaim elizabeth as the heiress

Basically a treasure trove for historical additional events

 

[SgtPenguinToaster]

very late, but instead of a single tier, perhaps bonuses that are always available, but are unlocked/advanced under certain criteria. that way number of countries can have a bonus independent of total religion dev, etc. you could have things like lower number of heretics, number of individual countries following the faith, number of provinces following your faith under control of a heretic or heathen, number of tags/provinces other than yours bordering heretics/heathens. make 5 or so criteria, maybe have a tier list within each criterion itself, in order to diversify play to maximise bonuses, and give goals other than blobbing, but making it harder to min max with vassal swarms vs you blobbing yourself.

 

[Jomini]

I'm glad you actually came up with a very similar system to mine, litterally one page later in the thread. And you give additional arguments why this would be a good system.

The big difference is that I think just using the largest religion state is better as it stops things like Russia losing Orthodox DoTF, the player sniping it, and then sitting back as Russia is allied with the other, remaining Orthodox states. DoTF is about inspiring the people of your state that you are not merely an empire with a religion, but that you are shouldering an extra burden; hiding behind Russia should not be that inspiring. Likewise, snagging the Shi'ite DoTF right as Persia forms would be less gimmicky for a lot of states.

Obviously, for a wide player, they would quickly become become both DoTF and largest state of the religion so the important mid-end game functions would be the same.

Ultimately, we should think about what a DoTF should being doing, and reward that directly. If the goal is to reward DoTF that have dynamic religio-political settings with multiple poles of strength, then we should scale to that directly.

 

[Canute VII]

The big difference is that I think just using the largest religion state is better as it stops things like Russia losing Orthodox DoTF, the player sniping it, and then sitting back as Russia is allied with the other, remaining Orthodox states. DoTF is about inspiring the people of your state that you are not merely an empire with a religion, but that you are shouldering an extra burden; hiding behind Russia should not be that inspiring. Likewise, snagging the Shi'ite DoTF right as Persia forms would be less gimmicky for a lot of states.

Obviously, for a wide player, they would quickly become become both DoTF and largest state of the religion so the important mid-end game functions would be the same.

Ultimately, we should think about what a DoTF should being doing, and reward that directly. If the goal is to reward DoTF that have dynamic religio-political settings with multiple poles of strength, then we should scale to that directly.

I see your reasoning. However, a small player-controlled orthodox DoF would

• have to do much figthing if Russia is attacked by an infidel, since said infidel will likely be of similar strength as Russia
• be a pimary target of the attacker if Russia is not attacked directly but called in as an ally, since the opponent would likely prioritize peacing out the weaker countries first
• would lickely try to outgrow Russia anyway, either by attacking Russia or by going colonial or for trade companies - in which case it would have to do some heavy converting, since owned heretic/heathen provinces diminish score (in my system)
• would be at constant Risk to loose the title to Russia, but I agree that this risk/downside should be somewhat larger, as the strongest country of the faith indeed should have precedence to actually become DoF.

Maybe if DoF is not the stongest country of the faith, it should get an opinion malus with the stongest country in order to represent that said country would be upset by its presumption. So e.g. Russia could have a negative opinion modifier of -20 against small player country "Presumed to claim DoF". If you really want to elaborate on this, give Russia a CB as well against the smaller country "Cede title of DoF".

The main reason I put "DoF's total development" into the formula instead of "Dev_of_Largest_Country_of_Religion" is that "DoF's total development" also includes all heretic/heathen provinces that the DoF could have converted but didn't. These will reduce score (in my system), while being totally within control of the player (or AI). So back to your orthodox example: small player country conquers a bunch of heathen provinces, doubling his total development. Now, score will be effectively halfed, until he converts all those provinces to the true faith. Even if halved, DoF boni will come in handy in this scenario and the player is actually doing what he is supposed to do: spread the faith.

I have no strong opinion on the pros and cons of your and my formula, but I hope this clarifies my reasoning.

 

[Beagá]

Is there an ETA for the patch? February, or only march?

 

[genyuab]

The new DoF looks pretty powerful, is there going to be any flavor added for religions that do not have DoF?

 

[Lord Hoosier]

Great work. I am excited that Catholic is getting an improvement.

 

[Don Wing]

Dependant of numbers of countries?? I should prefeer number of provinces/territories and/or development. Don´t forget this game is about a simulation, not and "age of empires" style skin for a game, try to develop a simulation of historical systems and not just game mechanics, the soul of this game is there.

Example where this mechanic punish historical faith powerhouses
Orthodox - Russia is a large country, but not many Orthodox countries left.
Islam - Create a proper Caliphate required to unite muslim world under one Estate.
Confucian - The defender of the faith should be rewarded for having provinces under mandate of heaven, not by descentraizing outside it.