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loup99

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Jan 22, 2013
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After having discussed this internally since a while back, I thought it might be time to share an updated plan for the Rise of Islam on the forum. This is inspired by @Zusk 's idea for it, with @Jolt 's suggestion for the Sunni/Shia split integrated to make for dynamic alternatives in addition to Enlil's work on the Quraysh setup.

Even though I don't like having multiple threads on the same topic, given that it has been a while since the old thread was opened and had discussion, I thought it would be better to open a new thread with an OP more representative. Do keep in mind that nothing is final, and some things undecided (for instance if the Quraysh should have a separate government type or not, which would require additional work and be only applied in one instance, which was why we ruled out an unique government type for the Roman Senate in the main mod unless someone else wanted to do it).

Here in this spoiler you have a brief and simple idea of how it could be implemented:
Hashimids

- At the start of the game present as a great merchant family (clan) of the Quraysh
- The Hashimid clan is ruled by Muhammads great-grandfather Hashim ibn 'Abd Manaf
- Landless but has a traditional inheritance instead of the default seniority
- Events will fire to track Hashim's children
- If one of his children gets married, they will give birth to the future Prophet

Prophet

- Could be a women, gives a more egalitarian religion, but less chance of success
- Name will be random depending on culture, and not scripted to "Muhammed"
- The Prophet will be out of the corresponding religion for most of his life
- At about age thirty gets a vision of the Arch-angel Gabriel
- The vision event has a higher chance of firing depending on the learning of the Prophet learning and may get it in his early twenties or late forties
- After the vision event has fired The Prophet will convert to Islam and gain the the trait 'The Prophet', giving a large Learning, Martial and Muslim opinion bonus and the Sayyid trait is added to family members

Islam

- If Arabia is Semitic pagan, the early Islamic religion will be similar to what we know
- If Arabia is of another (plausible) pagan religion than Semitic, The Prophet's new Islamic religion will be different
- If Arabia is of another (plausible) monotheistic religion rather than Semitic, The Prophet's new Islamic religion will be an heresy of that faith instead

Conversion of Hashimids

- If the Prophet is the ruler of the Hasimids, he will directly convert the clan, but those that have a bad relation won't convert
- If the Prophet is not the ruler of the Hasimids, he has a good chance of converting them, but those that have a bad relation won't convert, and if the ruler has a bad relation it is less likely
- If the Prophet is not the ruler of the Hasmids and the ruler decides to convert the Caliphate becomes tied to the Quraysh, and takes on a very elective nature
- If the clan does not convert, the Prophet goes exploring Arabia to seek others who would want to join his cause

Mecca

- The realm which converts to Islamic religion will ask the ruler of Mecca to convert
- If the ruler of Mecca refuses to convert, the Islamic realm will declare war upon Medina, together with his followers, and then return and attack Mecca from the new powerbase
- If the ruler of Mecca accepts to convert, the city goes to the Islamic realm
- The Prophet can then instead become a more spiritual rather than secular leader (akin to the Pope, giving the Prophet a theocratic government and altering the Iqta government)

Caliphate

- If the Islamic realm win the war to take Mecca after the refusal of the ruler, the first Caliph of Islam will be created
- Through a series of events the Caliphate gets event troops and claims to help encourage them to expand in a historical manner
- These event troops will be powerful, but not unlimited, so a strong Persia will be able to defend itself
- The Prophet/Caliphate may also, before attacking, send demands to other powerful realms like Persia and the ERE, asking them to convert

Sunni/Shia Split

- Whichever Caliph is the first to die without a direct male son, an event spawns which says that the religious and political elites of the Ummah disagreed on whom had succeed at the head of the Caliphate and created their own branch with whom they consider the rightful successor
- If the Caliphate title is inherited/taken by Muslim character of the non-prophet dynasty OR non-Sayyid, for any reason event spawns saying part of the religious and political elites in the Ummah refuse to accept someone who is not a direct descendant of the prophet at the command of the faithful
- Decadence value reaching >95%. Event spawns saying part of the religious and political elites of the Ummah believe that the Caliph, due to his unpious behaviour, no longer represents the true Islam espoused by the prophet
- The new Sh'ia Caliph should, if possible, be of the Prophet's dynasty, a Sayyid, probably a landed character, higher piety than 50, higher learning than 7 and should be the character that follows all these conditions that least likes whoever is the Sunni Caliph at the time the event triggers
- Those who appreciate the Sunni Caliph will by default stay Sunni, with their provinces, while those who do not will switch to Shia
- This will then be tied into historical Shia actions against Sunnis and vice versa, and be expanded further, to possibly connect with the vanilla "Rise of Shia" event

Customisation

- Through the game rules, a few options will be available at start
- One of those will be to always have the historical Islam
- Another will be giving additional troop power (I prefer giving as little "doomstacks" as possible) to guarantee that he succeeds, even though Persia and the ERE are not as weak as in history
- Finally, it will be possible to completely disable the Rise of Islam

If you have any feedback, questions or wish to see anything clarified, post in the thread and I will try to see how it can be considered and how it can be modified.
 
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nice! i definitely like how this looks. my questions:

since there's going to be both a historical setup and a DIY approach, how is that going to go? are they going to be developed in parallel? or will historical be made, tested, debugged, and THEN an ahistorical version done?

just how limited are you guys in this endeavor? will mecca and medina ALWAYS be the nerve center of islam? can religious features (raiding, polygamy or concubinage, incest, etc.) be added in ingame?

how will the Ibadis appear? unlike the sunni/shi'ite split and the catholic/orthodox split, which were both primarily political in nature but with religious undertones, the Ibadi sect along with the much more extremist Kharijites formed about 20 years after Muhammad's death in opposition to a caliph, predating the actual sunni/shi'ite split by a good while.
 
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I am very happy hearing the updated plan on this. It's nice knowing that we can make sure the historical version of the religion is what appears, but ahistorical versions will be fun for multiple playthroughs.
 
since there's going to be both a historical setup and a DIY approach, how is that going to go? are they going to be developed in parallel? or will historical be made, tested, debugged, and THEN an ahistorical version done?
The two will be developed in parallel/one after the other, but it won't matter much for you given that both will, (at least If I'm the one implementing) be in the same release of the mod. Given the way the strictly historical version will be developed, there will be less testing with it.

just how limited are you guys in this endeavor? will mecca and medina ALWAYS be the nerve center of islam? can religious features (raiding, polygamy or concubinage, incest, etc.) be added in ingame?
In this preliminary plan, the two cities will always be the nerve center. Dynamically altering those was discussed previously, but given the importance of Mecca being a holy site already with the Kaaba I found it logical to keep it, however if there are alternative locations in Arabia that fit in with the setting, those could be considered. As for religious features, I'm not the modding expert in the team, but it is possible to have many different versions of Islam and have characters convert if the features change.

how will the Ibadis appear? unlike the sunni/shi'ite split and the catholic/orthodox split, which were both primarily political in nature but with religious undertones, the Ibadi sect along with the much more extremist Kharijites formed about 20 years after Muhammad's death in opposition to a caliph, predating the actual sunni/shi'ite split by a good while.
The Ibadis will be present, as promised. However, you do raise a good point by mentioning them, and while writing the above a while ago I didn't consider them, but it is of course an important possibility to model. Did you have anything specific in mind?
 
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Very good idea, could you possibly add the ability for this event to re-fire (maybe in different areas)?
 
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Very good idea, could you possibly add the ability for this event to re-fire (maybe in different areas)?
What do you mean by "re-fire"? That it would fire again in case it failed the first time?

If that was your thought, not sure if that would be optimal, given that a constant repeat of the Rise of Islam wouldn't be plausible and be annoying for the player. Other game mechanics that would apply in case a ruler manages to take hold of a province or one has been converted, in addition to courtiers being around. Maybe as a setting though? As for different areas, as I answered aruon, while I'm open to consider it, it would require a lot of thinking around various possibilities and plausible sites.
 
The Ibadis will be present, as promised. However, you do raise a good point by mentioning them, and while writing the above a while ago I didn't consider them, but it is of course an important possibility to model. Did you have anything specific in mind?

according to some wikis, the Ibadis along with their extremist relatives, the Khawarij AKA Kharijites (a sect that modern day Islamic extremists like boko haram, ISIS/ISIL, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, etc. basically derive their policy of brutality from) were part of the rebel factions against the 3rd caliph, Uthman; who's relaxed restrictions, nepotism, and tyrannical deputies (the govenors) are what put the Rashidun caliphate on the road to collapse in the first place and set the stage for Ali to be made caliph.

following the assassination of the 4th caliph, Ali (the first shi'ite Imam), in the 8th century the Ibadis proceeded to be something of a pain in the ass for now ascendant Umayyads. eventually the Ibadis just kept losing ground until their order was almost entirely exiled/enclosed into Oman, which at that point was very remote and somewhat secretive due to being on the wrong side of the Rub al-khali from mecca and medina and the nerve center of their now much more secretive order being in inner Oman (bordering the persian gulf).

so really what saved the Ibadis was just going somewhere (in this case, the figurative and literal ass end of arabia) where nobody would bother to attack them.

TL;DR they were revolters who; like the Kharijites; developed their own sect of islam in the process, miraculously surviving the wrath of 2 major empires over many decades.

mechanics wise- they and the Kharijites spring up with the first major revolt against a unified Islam caliph, they insta-convert a non-d_hedjaz county (or maybe a full duchy?) within Islam. when the Prophet dies and the islamic world gets split between the sunnis and shi'ites, the ibadis remain unaffected. EDIT: and to ensure that they survive, maybe could unified Islam rulers NOT be able to demand conversion from those within the islamic religious group?
 
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according to some wikis, the Ibadis along with their extremist relatives, the Khawarij AKA Kharijites (a sect that modern day Islamic extremists like boko haram, ISIS/ISIL, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, etc. basically derive their policy of brutality from) were part of the rebel factions against the 3rd caliph, Uthman; who's relaxed restrictions, nepotism, and tyrannical deputies (the govenors) are what put the Rashidun caliphate on the road to collapse in the first place and set the stage for Ali to be made caliph.

following the assassination of the 4th caliph, Ali (the first shi'ite Imam), in the 8th century the Ibadis proceeded to be something of a pain in the ass for now ascendant Umayyads. eventually the Ibadis just kept losing ground until their order was almost entirely exiled/enclosed into Oman, which at that point was very remote and somewhat secretive due to being on the wrong side of the Rub al-khali from mecca and medina and the nerve center of their now much more secretive order being in inner Oman (bordering the persian gulf).

so really what saved the Ibadis was just going somewhere (in this case, the figurative and literal ass end of arabia) where nobody would bother to attack them.

TL;DR they were revolters who; like the Kharijites; developed their own sect of islam in the process, miraculously surviving the wrath of 2 major empires over many decades.
Although the Kharijites were a sect with very rigorous ideas, I think that any paralells with present day groups can be saved for another discussion. They did support Ali, but then stopped after a while due to different ideas, with the more pacifist Ibadis breaking off from the Kharijites and the two evolving differently.

mechanics wise- they and the Kharijites spring up with the first major revolt against a unified Islam caliph, they insta-convert a non-d_hedjaz county (or maybe a full duchy?) within Islam. when the Prophet dies and the islamic world gets split between the sunnis and shi'ites, the ibadis remain unaffected. EDIT: and to ensure that they survive, maybe could unified Islam rulers NOT be able to demand conversion from those within the islamic religious group?
If the player/IA reproduces history under certain conditions, an event based upon historical conditions could convert a province and be the start of a potential rebellion. And as you say, they would not be directly affected by the split given that they would come into existence before it. However, I don't see why there should be a specific system to ensure that they survive, unless we can see a distinct difference. From what I understand, their survival could be described with vanilla mechanics and the tolerance system that has been discussed.
 
However, I don't see why there should be a specific system to ensure that they survive, unless we can see a distinct difference. From what I understand, their survival could be described with vanilla mechanics and the tolerance system that has been discussed.

well your much more educated on the specifics of CK2 modding than I am. I was just giving an example from what i knew that could work and would make sense, since pre-schism Islam had no official sects as far as mainstream heresy was considered, just variations.
 
well your much more educated on the specifics of CK2 modding than I am. I was just giving an example from what i knew that could work and would make sense, since pre-schism Islam had no official sects as far as mainstream heresy was considered, just variations.
No, your suggestion is possible and could be implemented, I just wanted to know why there should be an exception between Ibadi-Islam that would be different from Insular-Nicene (for instance). Otherwise, if we implement Numarhr's suggestion in the other thread, this will probably be solved.
 
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This all sounds fantastic, and is a good compromise between a rigorous historicity and the emergent-based storytelling the game is known for. Wonderful work!

Do you have any examples as to how Islam could be altered if a non-monotheistic, non-Semitic ruler is power where the Prophet has their vision? You mention that it will be different from the traditional blend of Semitic and monotheism, I'm just curious if something had already been worked out.
 
Do you have any examples as to how Islam could be altered if a non-monotheistic, non-Semitic ruler is power where the Prophet has their vision? You mention that it will be different from the traditional blend of Semitic and monotheism, I'm just curious if something had already been worked out.
No, the concrete implementation of that is something that is still subject to discussion.

As a heresy to a Christian religion, it could be tied to some Church council events. For other monotheistic religions, it would be a special heresy that could have some potentially interesting flavour. As a blend with another Pagan religion than Semitic, there could be some differences in terms of flavour and nature of the religion, but for that it will have to be investigated further on what concretely in Islam is more close to Semitic traditions, to see how it could translate ingame.
 
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What do you mean by "re-fire"? That it would fire again in case it failed the first time?

If that was your thought, not sure if that would be optimal, given that a constant repeat of the Rise of Islam wouldn't be plausible and be annoying for the player. Other game mechanics that would apply in case a ruler manages to take hold of a province or one has been converted, in addition to courtiers being around. Maybe as a setting though? As for different areas, as I answered aruon, while I'm open to consider it, it would require a lot of thinking around various possibilities and plausible sites.
I meant that the event should happen again, but in different areas.
 
I meant that the event should happen again, but in different areas.
With the current plan, it is not possible, no.

But the rise of more dynamic heresies is actually something that has been discussed in the past.
 
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What pagan religions would count as plausible?
 
What pagan religions would count as plausible?
It has not yet been entirely been decided, so if you have any specific situations in mind, it's open for discussion.

I won't make any major additions before Enlil has shared his work, so in the meantime this is a bit on hold code-wise.