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CK2 Dev Diary #29: Illumination

By the grace of God, I am finally back and able to pen another development diary, though my hands are still unsteady from the shocking things I saw while in hiding. I think it best to simply recount my harrowing experiences of the last few weeks. For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, there is much to be learned from my travails.

For many months, I had felt that something strange was going on at the office. In hindsight, the signs were all there; colleagues naming their daughters “Sophia”, hushed talk of “secret knowledge” and Dan “podcat” Lind suddenly breaking off his presentation of the next Hearts of Iron IV expansion in order to explain how the Creator is just an “evil emanation of the original Monad”. But it wasn’t until Björn “Metal King” Iversen took me aside to listen to the subliminal messages in various Judas Priest tracks that I finally realized the truth: the company had been infiltrated by Sethian Gnostics! I recognized some of the messages from the Second Treatise of the Great Seth and the Gospel of Judas...

I suddenly did not want to help Björn record any more death sounds. Who knows how many souls he has helped “liberate” from this earthly prison in his infernal studio? He eyed me with suspicion when I assured him that I had already achieved Gnosis. Beating a hasty retreat, I was forced to skulk in various unused meeting rooms for a full week until I could finally make my escape. While in hiding, I witnessed many disturbing sights; people wearing inverted pentagrams and muttering to themselves, a secret follower of Mahomet performing an odd prayer ritual, various outlandish and no doubt fraternal handshakes, and worst of all; a vile heathen festival in the lunchroom involving spiderwebs, skulls and a bloody brew spewing smoke.

The rot runs deep. There are worse things afoot than mere Gnostic heretics... I fear there are several other corrupt sects burrowing like ticks within our ranks. How could this happen? What malign stars have aligned in the skies above our afflicted nation? Dark heresiarchs are at work in the Realm, pulling strings from the shadows and inducting naïve game developers into their subversive cabals. Who can feel safe in these dark times?

I have written the Holy See with a plea for aid. My sole hope lies in the Holy Father, Pope Francis, though I wonder if he is made of stern enough stuff to unleash the Hounds of God, for I fear only the Dominicans can save us now, as they did in the times of Cardinal Torquemada, bless his soul...

May God send us a light, for the darkness surrounds us!

symbol_collection.jpg
 
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One thing that I have always found annoying is that the game makes assumptions about what religion is a 'religion' and what religion is a 'heresy'. I think it should be up to the characters to decide what's a religion and what a heresy. It is off course perfectly fine to code it so that characters of a specific religion view some other religion as heretical, but it seems strange that some religions are defined as heresies in the very description the game gives to the players. Also, if a province in my realm switches religion, say from orthodox to bogomolist, and I'm playing as a sunni character, I don't think my character's reaction would be 'oh help we've got this terrible heresy going on'. So I woud suggest getting the message that a heresy has appeared in <some province> in this situation is rather weird.
 
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One thing that I have always found annoying is that the game makes assumptions about what religion is a 'religion' and what religion is a 'heresy'. I think it should be up to the characters to decide what's a religion and what a heresy. It is off course perfectly fine to code it so that characters of a specific religion view some other religion as heretical, but it seems strange that some religions are defined as heresies in the very description the game gives to the players. Also, if a province in my realm switches religion, say from orthodox to bogomolist, and I'm playing as a sunni character, I don't think my character's reaction would be 'oh help we've got this terrible heresy going on'. So I woud suggest getting the message that a heresy has appeared in <some province> in this situation is rather weird.
Is not that quite dynamic? Subreligion worshipped by a majority of the religion's believers make the proper religion, while the one(s) worshipped by minority is a heresy.
In infidels' eyes it does not matter that much (and so the "that does not concern us" notofication) but you would rather want to know with who you are going to deal with sooner or later. Which subreligion will be dominant becomes a secondary matter.
 
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Any hope for an improved Manichaeism in the Far East for those of us who like to hang around the steppes? That'd be covered alongside the Gnostic religions I guess...

Should be interesting to go heretic...
 
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Could this mean we could get proper Old Pagen, Egyption and Hellenic Religions? i would love for an event to bring back the old, Pre-Christian and Islam religions in a actual expansion rather than just a mod.
 
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Could this mean we could get proper Old Pagen, Egyption and Hellenic Religions? i would love for an event to bring back the old, Pre-Christian and Islam religions in a actual expansion rather than just a mod.

Why would they? Those religions were well and truly dead by this time period so why would they focus on them rather than the existing ones? Also apart from the rather staggering ahistoricality from such a thing how would they implement it? As a ruler designer only kind of thing?

Paradox has been pretty staunch in their opinion that they are not going to implement such a thing and that it was a mistake to have hellenism and generic paganism in the game even only for the sake of the history files.
 
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Could this mean we could get proper Old Pagen, Egyption and Hellenic Religions? i would love for an event to bring back the old, Pre-Christian and Islam religions in a actual expansion rather than just a mod.

No. Just...no.
 
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Why would they? Those religions were well and truly dead by this time period so why would they focus on them rather than the existing ones? Also apart from the rather staggering ahistoricality from such a thing how would they implement it? As a ruler designer only kind of thing?

Paradox has been pretty staunch in their opinion that they are not going to implement such a thing and that it was a mistake to have hellenism and generic paganism in the game even only for the sake of the history files.

I completely agree, except for one mistake I must point out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniots#During_the_Macedonian_dynasty says that Hellenic was still practiced in the 9th century, abet by a minority in one province.
 
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Dead? No.
Beja practised their own version of Egyptian paganism well past Charlemagne, The Old Gods and even the base start dates; which had a huge focus on Isis worship.

Do you have a source for this? I'd like to confirm and find more about it.
 
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I know that this is fairly niche, but the addition of a Berber pagan religion for 769 (and possibly 867, but that would be similar to Zunism) would be interesting, as they had syncretized with many different traditional pantheons, and I'm pretty sure a few tribes also syncretized with Islam. I realize it isn't the same as actually having Hellenic or Egyptian paganism in game, but it's not too far off. There's more information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Berber_religion

It would also be cool to have antipopes become more important; different kings could pledge their allegiance to either the antipope or the Pope, and from there, there could be a large European war to install the antipope as the actual Pope (almost an equivalent to the League Wars in EUIV between the Catholics and Protestants).
 
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Apologies for the necro, but folks at Paradox what on earth happened to the Gnostics?! They're displayed right here alongside the Hermetics and Satanists in the image posted as part of the diary, yet from what I've seen in-game they're nowhere to be seen.
 
Apologies for the necro, but folks at Paradox what on earth happened to the Gnostics?! They're displayed right here alongside the Hermetics and Satanists in the image posted as part of the diary, yet from what I've seen in-game they're nowhere to be seen.
Time constraint I'd say, but maybe they shall be reborn.
 
Apologies for the necro, but folks at Paradox what on earth happened to the Gnostics?! They're displayed right here alongside the Hermetics and Satanists in the image posted as part of the diary, yet from what I've seen in-game they're nowhere to be seen.
They were dropped due to time constraints. However, the devs said that they are open to adding more societies and cults as updates in the future.
 
By the grace of God, I am finally back and able to pen another development diary, though my hands are still unsteady from the shocking things I saw while in hiding. I think it best to simply recount my harrowing experiences of the last few weeks. For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, there is much to be learned from my travails.

For many months, I had felt that something strange was going on at the office. In hindsight, the signs were all there; colleagues naming their daughters “Sophia”, hushed talk of “secret knowledge” and Dan “podcat” Lind suddenly breaking off his presentation of the next Hearts of Iron IV expansion in order to explain how the Creator is just an “evil emanation of the original Monad”. But it wasn’t until Björn “Metal King” Iversen took me aside to listen to the subliminal messages in various Judas Priest tracks that I finally realized the truth: the company had been infiltrated by Sethian Gnostics! I recognized some of the messages from the Second Treatise of the Great Seth and the Gospel of Judas...

I suddenly did not want to help Björn record any more death sounds. Who knows how many souls he has helped “liberate” from this earthly prison in his infernal studio? He eyed me with suspicion when I assured him that I had already achieved Gnosis. Beating a hasty retreat, I was forced to skulk in various unused meeting rooms for a full week until I could finally make my escape. While in hiding, I witnessed many disturbing sights; people wearing inverted pentagrams and muttering to themselves, a secret follower of Mahomet performing an odd prayer ritual, various outlandish and no doubt fraternal handshakes, and worst of all; a vile heathen festival in the lunchroom involving spiderwebs, skulls and a bloody brew spewing smoke.

The rot runs deep. There are worse things afoot than mere Gnostic heretics... I fear there are several other corrupt sects burrowing like ticks within our ranks. How could this happen? What malign stars have aligned in the skies above our afflicted nation? Dark heresiarchs are at work in the Realm, pulling strings from the shadows and inducting naïve game developers into their subversive cabals. Who can feel safe in these dark times?

I have written the Holy See with a plea for aid. My sole hope lies in the Holy Father, Pope Francis, though I wonder if he is made of stern enough stuff to unleash the Hounds of God, for I fear only the Dominicans can save us now, as they did in the times of Cardinal Torquemada, bless his soul...

May God send us a light, for the darkness surrounds us!

View attachment 217142

Why were the Gnostics scrapped mid-production?

Are they perhaps awaiting a patch?