• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Hundhedning

Captain
59 Badges
Nov 28, 2006
419
0
  • Victoria 3 Sign Up
  • Imperator: Rome
  • 500k Club
  • Crusader Kings III: Royal Edition
  • Pillars of Eternity
  • Tyranny: Archon Edition
  • Shadowrun Returns
  • Shadowrun: Dragonfall
  • Shadowrun: Hong Kong
  • Age of Wonders III
  • Magicka
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Death or Dishonor
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Expansion Pass
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Together for Victory
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Colonel
  • For the Motherland
  • Semper Fi
  • Victoria 2
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods
  • Crusader Kings II: Reapers Due
  • Crusader Kings II: Holy Knight (pre-order)
  • Crusader Kings II: Way of Life
  • Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam
  • Crusader Kings II: Legacy of Rome
  • Crusader Kings II: Sunset Invasion
  • Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham
  • Crusader Kings II: Monks and Mystics
  • Crusader Kings II: Horse Lords
  • Crusader Kings II: Holy Fury
  • Crusader Kings II: Jade Dragon
  • Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne
  • Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India
  • Crusader Kings II: The Republic
  • Crusader Kings II: Conclave
  • Europa Universalis III: Collection
  • Age of Wonders
  • Hearts of Iron III
  • Crusader Kings Complete
A case has been made that one reason the pagans most likely wont get a DLC of their own is that it would be too hard to flesh them out enough to make them an interesting choice to play. I disagree, but there it is. Still there is the possibility to make a comprehensive mod which includes enough aspects of pagan/non-civilized life of the period to improve gamplay significantly. Before the actual modding begins, though, it'd be worthwhile o see what people would be interested in. In this I've drawn inspiration from a similar thread regarding muslims.

So, interesting aspects:

  • Lessen the impact of traits like lustful, celibate and chaste. The attitudes towards these are basically Christian in-game.
  • Private divorce (no permission from religious head needed)
  • Religious heads... I'm not sure if they should exist at all, but one theoretical possbility could be to start the game with low religious authority and existing "anti-popes". Hypothetically, you could then gradually strngthen your pagan faith by removing the competition and formalizing it (a long shot, I know).
  • Slavery. The ability to capture slaves in battle, use them as concubines, soldiers, whatever. Possibly also creating a system around slavery. AFAIK Baltic slave raids were among the reasons for the crusades against them.
  • Locking out the pagans from the events which are clearly Christian in flavour and replace them with pagan flavoured events
  • Possibly something done to Bishoprics to reflect the fact that paganism isn't formalized like that.
  • Perhaps event chains around theological disputes and discussions in regard to things like the relation to other pagans, to Christianity, organized religion etc.
  • Little graphical/GUI changes so you see less crosses.
  • Pagan flavoured flags, possibly using something similar to Vicky2's system which allows flag changing in game, only based on religion instead of government.
  • Also like V2, have various localizations of countries possible in the game, again, based on religion instead of government.


Further ideas will be edited in.
 
As the purpose of such a mod would be to play as pagans; the pagans would need to get the holy war CB or functional equivalent to balance the ones that AI christians will surely use against the player.
 
(Edit: I'm pretty much speaking from the PoV of things to do in the DLC on some of this post, since I have no clue how one would accomplish any of it in just a mod, but oh well. Maybe there'd be some possibility of jerry-rigging the King to be an Anti-"pope" of his regional realm and be unable to do Pope-things since he's "subordinate" under the King, but still being able to grant himself divorces at will etc. Who knows. :) )

  • Lessen the impact of traits like lustful, celibate and chaste. The attitudes towards these are basically Christian in-game.

Not to mention that some traits would be out-right positive in a non-Christian country (though it depends on which religion, which again is why "Pagan" is such a useless term, since many had very little in common). :)

  • Religious heads... I'm not sure if they should exist at all, but one theoretical possbility could be to start the game with low religious authority and existing "anti-popes". Hypothetically, you could then gradually strengthen your pagan faith by removing the competition and formalizing it (a long shot, I know).
  • Possibly something done to Bishoprics to reflect the fact that paganism isn't formalized like that.

There should probably be Regional ones for Ásatrú/Norse, like looking towards the authority of Uppsala if you're within the Kingdom of Sweden (could make it De Jure based to not make it get quirky). Since the King was also the High Priest having bad Authority of your regional revered Temple reflects badly on the King (giving him incentive to keep it high and maintain the traditions so as to be viewed as the ceremonial Son of Freyr/Óðinn). The Icelanders also had the Allsherjargoði to sanctify the Althing, so then it would probably just end up being the Chief Diviner if it's a Republic and so forth. Either way the religion was often tied to the King/Ruler rather than as a separate institution.

You wouldn't necessarily have to subjugate others, though if you formalize the faith over time and they don't then there should probably be some "Traditionalist/Reformist" relation penalties between the realms. A thing in common I've seen with backlashes to the relentless push for Christianity in Europe is the reactionary response. Once the non-Christians are in quite a bad position there are attempts to shield the traditional faith by, as you say, reforming and attempting to make it more cohesive. Most often these are doomed to fail since they don't tend to pop up until the devout are on thin ice - or worse - it's as a retaliatory push for independence once Christianity has a beach-head for power (Think Julian the Apostate etc.). It's an attempt to survive by survival of the fittest. They aren't Christians and believe in the old ways, but they also realize that there are some elements to Christianity which would be vital to be able to withstand that relentless push. Would be nice to actually get to successfully navigate that rough period, since it's not like it'd be impossible.

And besides, it's not like they force us to stay primitive rather than prepare for Westernisation in EU3, so hopefully they'd think that was fine.

Christianity might've remained tied as subordinate to the state as well if not for that darn Ambrose, on the other hand. He certainly was unique in daring to get into that debate with the Imperial court.

  • Slavery. The ability to capture slaves in battle, use them as concubines, soldiers, whatever. Possibly also creating a system around slavery. AFAIK Baltic slave raids were among the reasons for the crusades against them.

Not that I'm against it - and although Paradox traditionally avoids controversial issues like depicting the Holocaust, they did put Slave-POPs in Victoria - I don't quite get why they'd be unique in this regard? Slavery was legal throughout most of Europe until the Enlightenment, it just so happened that "pagans" had less of a political problem capturing slaves from other western people. Slave trade thus became less acceptable as an export since it mostly dealt with local populations. There were still 10% of the English population in slavery in 1086, for example. This was also true as right of Thralls, though (As in to not be sold outside the country if you're a native).

It could be a good feature, just not sure why it'd be Pagan-specific (especially since a major importer of Europe's slaves at the time were the muslims).

  • Pagan flavoured flags, possibly using something similar to Vicky2's system which allows flag changing in game, only based on religion instead of government.

Would be nice a nice trinket. It certainly feels very wrong to have Erik the Heathen have a Cross as his symbol (IE the time the Christians deliberately established themselves in Uppsala to further their campaigns of stamping out Ásatrú).

  • Also like V2, have various localizations of countries possible in the game, again, based on religion instead of government.

I've actually had a short exchange with King on this, having started a thread regarding being able to use "_culture/_religion" modifiers to localization and the many helpful things it'd enable. He said it's considered as a possible thing to do in a patch, although he didn't say what time-frame to expect or that it was a sure thing.

I definitely need this. Mostly for the "_culture" half of it, but a religious side could be nice too (especially for things like "The Temple of St Peters").

Isn't there currently a flag changing system? I mean, I'm 99% certain that the Emir of Aswan doesn't have the same flag as the Duke of Aswan.

Not the same thing. "d_aswan" and "c_aswan" are separate titles. It'd be like making two tags in EU3 and then using a tag-switch to change the name. That's also impossible to do for the same territory as it is locked down in CK2 (and giving them extra titles just to change the name/flag gives them bonuses as well).
 
Last edited:
As the purpose of such a mod would be to play as pagans; the pagans would need to get the holy war CB or functional equivalent to balance the ones that AI christians will surely use against the player.

Perhaps. I'm not sure about this, though. If so, I'm leaning towards "functional equivalent". I doubt pagan religion could get organized enough to proclaim holy wars of the type meant within the game.
 
You wouldn't necessarily have to subjugate others, though if you formalize the faith over time and they don't then there should probably be some "Traditionalist/Reformist" relation penalties between the realms. A thing in common I've seen with backlashes to the relentless push for Christianity in Europe is the reactionary response. Once the non-Christians are in quite a bad position there are attempts to shield the traditional faith by, as you say, reforming and attempting to make it more cohesive. Most often these are doomed to fail since they don't tend to pop up until the devout are on thin ice - or worse - it's as a retaliatory push for independence once Christianity has a beach-head for power (Think Julian the Apostate etc.). It's an attempt to survive by survival of the fittest. They aren't Christians and believe in the old ways, but they also realize that there are some elements to Christianity which would be vital to be able to withstand that relentless push. Would be nice to actually get to successfully navigate that rough period, since it's not like it'd be impossible.

I'm thinking you could achieve some of this by adding heretics to the various pagan denominations. I'll try that and see what happens.
 
For the holy wars thing as I've been thinking it over its seems like the pagans getting a claim duchy CB on people who use a holy war CB on them would be a better fit forg able historical plausibilty. In originally suggesting pagans get the Holy war CB I was more concerned about them being able to turnabout the claim duchy mechanic of it than wether they'd be fighting for the 'greater glory of <insert pagan diety here>'.
 
Not the same thing. "d_aswan" and "c_aswan" are separate titles. It'd be like making two tags in EU3 and then using a tag-switch to change the name. That's also impossible to do for the same territory as it is locked down in CK2 (and giving them extra titles just to change the name/flag gives them bonuses as well).
Actually, within religion.txt there is a line called has_coa_on_barony_only = yes/no. If it's set to yes, then it will load the flag for each count-plus level title. If it's set to no, it will randomly generate a flag based on rules for that religion. The muslims randomly generate flags for their religion, so the sheikdom of palermo has a different flag than the county of palermo. Just tested flipping it to no on the christian group myself, and it generated random flags for all titles as if they were christian baronies.
Should be easy enough to do for pagans, but you will have to modify interface/coat_of_arms.txt to include an entry for the pagan group.
 
I think, maybe, the vassals of pagan lords could have the option to duel out disputes. It would seem somewhat appropriate for the norse at least. Also it would be cool to see the pagans get the option of having a raid casus belli on their non-pagan neighbours. In relation to matters of honor, I recall the norse, at least, felt raiding for gold legitimate retaliation. Hence, one of the theories of viking expansion, was that the catholics gave them a large double standard, or refused to trade with them, and thus they'd feel just in raiding them. It seems like a fun random event at least.
 
There should be some religion specific casus bellis such as "Viking Raid" for the Norse religion.

This could be launched to get the suggested slaves and a large sum of compensation of gold. Of course the Jarl who launched the raid would also get a prestige boost.
 
Thoughts on pagans... where to start.

First, I wouldn't necessarily call them "non-civilized".

Second, some background. "Pagan" covers a lot of territory.

Start here because it's good enough for rough work, read more if you're serious about studying the topic:

Animism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism
Totemism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totemism
Shamanism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism
Polytheism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytheism
Mystery Cults: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_cult

Even polytheism covers a lot of ground, as the cultures it appears in vary from ancient Egypt, to Sumeria, to Greece, to Shinto, to the Norse, to the Celtic variations, and on and on and on.

Any particular "pagan" religion might spread across any part of that conceptual landscape.

Some will have a large hierarchy with a religious head, some will not. And there's some promise and merit in your idea of a leader being able to push a religion into a more formal or less formal structure.

The lines between "magic", "religion", and "science" (as we'd call it today) are very blurred.

As you note, divorce is typically a legal or personal matter, not something for which one needs permission from religious authorities.

Slavery is not universal.

Multiple spouses should be an option, particularly in the Asian/Eastern tribes. The reaction to lovers, children born out of wedlock, etc, will vary. In many cases, it's violation of the marriage "contract" as a personal violation, rather than an afront against god, that is the sticking point. As with most historical cultures, however, there is almost always much more pressure on women to remain faithful in marriage than on men. But for some of these cultures, a single woman having a child does not necessarily suffer the great loss of prestige and "piety", particularly if the father is of higher social status, and fathering such a child bears little stigma. Again, all this varies GREATLY depending on the culture and religion, so please don't jump on me for misrepresenting "all pagans". In general Greco-Roman culture, women were far more often regarded with mistrust, and their sexuality as a dangerous thing. Paraphrasing here, but it is reported that a pagan queen once commented, in response to a slight against her morals by a Roman woman, that "We breed with the best of our men, while you debase yourself to the worst".

There is evidence, in archaeology as well as in the myths and stories of these people, that some of the cultures did have female warriors, religious leaders, and political leaders to some degree.

Almost universally, amongst the tribal (note again that I didn't say "non-civilized", they did build some very impressive towns and fortifcations in parts of Europe, they did have some written languages of their own, etc) societies, gluttony is regarded as shameful. Wealth and excess are acceptably expressed through generousity to one's followers and peers, not through displays of consumption and hoarding.

For most of these cultures, the world is not viewed in terms of moral dichotomies. If "wroth" can be admired, so can patience. If burning ambition is the stuff of legendary warriors, that does not mean that the loyal second who watches that warrior's back is worthy of scorn. It is not a simple matter of honoring one and despising the other. If there were an overarching catagory of "religion_overgroup", one would probably place Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zorastrianism into one overgroup, as those religions DO feature overarching moral dichotomy as part of their worldview.
 
In terms of CBs:

"Tribal Raid", which has been included in some of the mods regarding pagans -- the ability to raid a county, and gain prestige, take gold, and seize prisoners. I wonder if it's possible to have a specific kind of attack target different holding types first. Ignore the hard-shelled castles, raid the soft towns and foreign temples instead.

"Liberate", again, I've seen this in a mod thread -- the ability to seize provinces in which the culture or religion is your own, but the rulers are not.
 
"Liberate", again, I've seen this in a mod thread -- the ability to seize provinces in which the culture or religion is your own, but the rulers are not.

I'd love to get a well-coded version for this to use, since they shouldn't be going on "Holy War", but certainly have an interest in not letting Christians gradually claw their way deeper into their territory bit-by-bit, out of simple self-preservation. A Casus Belli like this to allow them to try and expel them from power would be swell (with both Culture and Religion mattering, like you said. Otherwise, with these overly rapid conversions, you'd end up with patchwork territories).
 
I'd love to get a well-coded version for this to use, since they shouldn't be going on "Holy War", but certainly have an interest in not letting Christians gradually claw their way deeper into their territory bit-by-bit, out of simple self-preservation. A Casus Belli like this to allow them to try and expel them from power would be swell (with both Culture and Religion mattering, like you said. Otherwise, with these overly rapid conversions, you'd end up with patchwork territories).

Exactly. It would give the pagans the ability to strike back and reseize a province grabbed from them in a holy war by a Christian or Muslim ruler, without giving the pagans the lethal combination of their cheap bonus soldier buildings and outright holy wars.
 
Exactly. It would give the pagans the ability to strike back and reseize a province grabbed from them in a holy war by a Christian or Muslim ruler, without giving the pagans the lethal combination of their cheap bonus soldier buildings and outright holy wars.

I'd suggest having a significantly shorter Truce-time, too, so that they'd be capable of reclaiming 3-4 provinces in the same span of time as a Holy War truce, since it's on a province-by-province basis (for the triggers needed), while at the same time the Christians/Muslims seize whole Duchies. Can't see it becoming a huge issue since they'd still be restrained to things in their cultural/religious sphere. Would also mean you'd have to prepare beyond just completing the limited current objective, since even if you beat back the Pagans they might be back with more recovered numbers than you in a couple of years (if you over-exert your initial forces). Pyrrhic Victories for over-extending in a pre-Imperial age. :D