Some India related questions for my game

[HeyIAmInfinity]

This is my white hun achievement run that i decided to play until the end date and collect some achievements on the way.

I switched to shia early and now i'm wondering if its the right time to flip hindu. I could wait a few hundreds years but then i would need to convert even more vassals then now.
What i'm after are the indian religion achievements and maybe a few others.

My first question is what happens when i flip hindu? Will i get a caste? Will my heir? If not how can i get anyone in my dynasty to end up with a caste?

Second question is if this is a good time to flip, or it might be better to abuse the muslim invasion a bit more. Main issue is decadent family draining my piety but also a few large kingdoms being shia.

Third question, does it make sense as hindu to focus on full conversion or will i have to accept having buddist and jain vassals?

Fourth question, how the heel do you kill the tiger with your own hands? Not related but kill the caliph/pope with elephants?

Last question, do surrendering to a mongol invasion destroy my empire title? or would i be a vassal emperor (mongol invasion hasnt happened and i'm getting worried given my expansion north)?

Low troops/money is due to the new holding slot event that pushed me 2k in debt.

 

[jonjowett]

My first question is what happens when i flip hindu? Will i get a caste? Will my heir? If not how can i get anyone in my dynasty to end up with a caste?

There should be an (expensive) intrigue menu decision to "become kshatriya". According to the wiki: "Spouse and children also become Kshatriya (if unlanded and in character's court)".

Second question is if this is a good time to flip, or it might be better to abuse the muslim invasion a bit more. Main issue is decadent family draining my piety but also a few large kingdoms being shia.

If you flip and create the empire of India, you will get increased levies and taxes from vassals that are currently in bengal & deccan. But you might lose de jure drift progress on other kingdoms.

However, you will over time lose the effect of Jizya. (You'll lose it immediately on your own demesne. Afterwards, as count+ vassals convert to Hinduism, they will also lose Jizya on their own demesne.)

Third question, does it make sense as hindu to focus on full conversion or will i have to accept having buddist and jain vassals?

It takes longer to convert provinces to a religion in the same religious group. (Eg: It will be slower to convert a Buddhist county to Hinduism than to convert a Shia county to Hinduism.)

For vassals, it depends how much you want to micro-manage. You could in theory force conversion all the way down to baron level, but that sounds like a really boring way to spend 6 hours. You're probably big enough that you can ignore the "heathen" opinion malus from the vast majority of your vassals. For those that you can't ignore, I suggest you find non-religious reasons to revoke their titles - religious revocation gives a negative opinion malus to everyone of that religion in your realm, and your realm is massive, so religious revocation is really an all-or-nothing strategy.

Fourth question, how the heel do you kill the tiger with your own hands?

If you have your capital in India, the normal grand hunt event chain is replaced by a tiger hunt. You don't always find the tiger, and you don't always face it yourself.

Not related but kill the caliph/pope with elephants?

Imprison the Caliph/Pope and execute them. Maybe back up your save beforehand, because I'm not certain that the execution method is forced to be elephants.

Last question, do surrendering to a mongol invasion destroy my empire title? or would i be a vassal emperor (mongol invasion hasnt happened and i'm getting worried given my expansion north)?

If you surrender immediately, you will lose whichever kingdom they target. If you let the invasion run to 100%, you might lose some other counties in addition (depending on what they siege).

You are big enough to defeat them, but there might be logistical problems getting your armies into position if you're the first person they attack. In this case, it might make sense to: surrender immediately, stabilise your realm, declare holy war on them (repeatedly). Their event troops won't be replenished for several decades after they initially appear, so you can definitely wear them down by attrition.

Also, remember that the Mongols are very likely to win the war in China. If you get some indication that they are about to appear, you should start spending all your Grace asap.

 

[HeyIAmInfinity]

Thanks for your answers, it clarified a lot of what i wasn't sure about.

A few more things that came to mind.

Does the ai use the decision to convert from hindu to other religions (or is that mainly a player thing)?

Do videroyalty require caste? Granting viceroy doesn't require council approval so i wonder if there are other things it might be exempt from.

Is the 30% hindu morale somewhat comparable to the muslim decadence bonus? With a low number of troops obviusly not, but when you have 20k retinues and 80k vassal troops (before religion change) i wonder if it might make my armies stronger than quantity.

Do Muslim have secret cults? I haven't seen Indian ones so i wonder if its just a christian thing, it was very annoying to have 1/3 of my realm flip to orthodox in my previous game (and it happened 3 times).

 

[Caeserion]

Does the ai use the decision to convert from hindu to other religions (or is that mainly a player thing)?

Sometimes. You're better off just asking them to convert when they have high opinion of you though.

Do videroyalty require caste? Granting viceroy doesn't require council approval so i wonder if there are other things it might be exempt from.

Thats an interesting question. The thing is, you can't grant a viceroyalty (kingdom or duchy) to someone who's unlanded, they need at least a county beforehand. So they will be of the correct caste (or have no caste) before you give them the viceroyalty anyway.

Is the 30% hindu morale somewhat comparable to the muslim decadence bonus? With a low number of troops obviusly not, but when you have 20k retinues and 80k vassal troops (before religion change) i wonder if it might make my armies stronger than quantity.

The decadence bonus is money and morale. As Emperor of a united India you will probably never lack for money so you don't need that although it is a nice bonus. At 0% decadence muslims can get a maximum of 19% demesne income and 24.9% morale bonus. Hindus will only have a 30% morale bonus but they can go on raids so you can make up the difference in demesne income from raiding.

Do Muslim have secret cults? I haven't seen Indian ones so i wonder if its just a christian thing, it was very annoying to have 1/3 of my realm flip to orthodox in my previous game (and it happened 3 times).

All religions in secret cults. If you have not seen them in your current game it is either a matter of RNG, or you turned that game rule off.

 

[HeyIAmInfinity]

@Caeserion in case it wasnt clear, the first question i wasnt thinking the decision to flip from hindu to jain or buddist, not the adopt liege religion.

Thanks for the answers, do you think it mkaes any sense for me to start an hindu cult or would just demand conversion and have my viceroy get into accidents be a better options?

I confused the muslim morale bonus with a levy bonus, focusing on managing decadent relatives made me forget what the bonus actually is.

 

[jonjowett]

Do videroyalty require caste? Granting viceroy doesn't require council approval so i wonder if there are other things it might be exempt from.

Thats an interesting question. The thing is, you can't grant a viceroyalty (kingdom or duchy) to someone who's unlanded, they need at least a county beforehand. So they will be of the correct caste (or have no caste) before you give them the viceroyalty anyway.

More precisely: You can grant viceroyalties to any feudal-type count+ character. (IE: You can't give viceroyalties to theocracies or republics.) Their caste has no impact.

@Caeserion in case it wasnt clear, the first question i wasnt thinking the decision to flip from hindu to jain or buddist, not the adopt liege religion.

I don't know for certain, but I strongly suspect that the AI is unlikely to take this decision.

Thanks for the answers, do you think it mkaes any sense for me to start an hindu cult or would just demand conversion and have my viceroy get into accidents be a better options?

I don't think there's any point in starting a hindu cult - you are so powerful that there's no reason to hide your new faith.

If you demand conversion from your vassals, some fraction of characters will falsely convert and join secret cults, which causes headaches later. If you're small/medium-sized, this can be worthwhile. However, you're pretty large (4-5 empires!), so I think it'd be easier for you to deal with a realm that's religiously divided than to deal with constant religious cults.

What I would do in your situation is:

• convert
• convert your heir (because he may not have enough piety/prestige to convert when he succeeds you)
• downgrade title revocation law to "Allowed" (instead of "Religious") (to signal to your vassals that you are embracing tolerance, and to prevent you from accidentally using religious revocation to destroy your empire)
• monitor your vassals for rebellious tendencies (and either arrange accidents or encourage them to rebel so you can take their titles)
• for key vassals (if you have any), educate their heirs (with heritage focus and a zealous+gregarious guardian of your religion+culture)
• when you conquer new territory, ensure that the new vassals you create follow your religion
• within a few decades (a century at most), the vast majority of your Muslim vassals will have changed to your new religion of their own accord

 

[HeyIAmInfinity]

Thanks everyone and sorry for the spelling mistakes.

 

[DPS]

More precisely: You can grant viceroyalties to any feudal-type count+ character. (IE: You can't give viceroyalties to theocracies or republics.) Their caste has no impact.

I'm not 100% sure this works for Hindus, but it's been a long time--like before Monks and Mystics introduced secret religious cults--since I've played a Hindu ruler, so I'm not sure.

]I don't know for certain, but I strongly suspect that the AI is unlikely to take this decision.

I don't know for certain either, but I can almost guarantee that someone on the forum has dug into the files and knows the answer. I do agree that even if the AI can take the decision, it's an unlikely to do so.

I don't think there's any point in starting a hindu cult - you are so powerful that there's no reason to hide your new faith.

Agree. Starting a secret cult is for vassals and fairly week independent rulers--you don't need to do it.

If you demand conversion from your vassals, some fraction of characters will falsely convert and join secret cults, which causes headaches later. If you're small/medium-sized, this can be worthwhile. However, you're pretty large (4-5 empires!), so I think it'd be easier for you to deal with a realm that's religiously divided than to deal with constant religious cults.

Agree.

What I would do in your situation is:

• convert
• convert your heir (because he may not have enough piety/prestige to convert when he succeeds you)

If you openly convert, AFAIK your children will automatically convert as well, though it's possible that your current heir might be a brother or nephew or some other relative.

• downgrade title revocation law to "Allowed" (instead of "Religious") (to signal to your vassals that you are embracing tolerance, and to prevent you from accidentally using religious revocation to destroy your empire)

You don't technically need to change your revocation law, just be careful not to revoke any titles from any Muslim vassals unless you have a valid non-religious reason to revoke (i.e., they're traitors) until you get to the point where you have very few Muslim vassals left.

• monitor your vassals for rebellious tendencies (and either arrange accidents or encourage them to rebel so you can take their titles)

You should be doing this anyway, though using your spymaster to discourage them from revolting is also a valid response.

• for key vassals (if you have any), educate their heirs (with heritage focus and a zealous+gregarious guardian of your religion+culture)

As long as the guardian is of your religion and culture, children with the Heritage focus that they are tutoring will flip regardless of the traits of the guardian; technically the traits of the guardian don't matter. However, a zealous guardian is a good choice just to make sure that the guardian doesn't have a secret religion.

• when you conquer new territory, ensure that the new vassals you create follow your religion

Yeah, and also make sure that the new vassals are of my culture, too, so that you don't get the opinion malus for being a foreigner. This is just standard gameplay.

• within a few decades (a century at most), the vast majority of your Muslim vassals will have changed to your new religion of their own accord

Yep.

 

[Emperor Lowborn]

First of all, nice one on the white hun achievement.

It seems like you're interested in Hindu for the raiding, holy wars, and morale bonus... these are attractive, but I would suggest considering other options for a few reasons.

The caste system has a few drawbacks. If you're very stable/lucky (and bear in mind you will be losing open succession and defaulting to gavelkind) it's not as much of an issue, but adopting the kshatriya caste is indeed expensive. If an heir isn't a close family member and hasn't converted yet, they'll need to take this decision too.
This also means that a lot of very good marriage candidates for your dynasts will no longer be available, because their families are brahmin or vaishya.
I've also found that when you grant a holding to someone they tend to get the relevant caste trait for free, so be careful giving baronies to family members with claims when you have a young and unpopular heir.

Not to trash your plans, but who are you going to raid and holy war against? The arabian peninsula is fragmented and should still have (relatively) low tech levels, but your vassals will likely conquer it all before you can land troops there.

I would suggest switching to jain, giving everyone a couple generations to either convert or syncretise, and then switching to a compatible culture and adopting chinese imperialism. The jain/imperialism combo is spectacularly OP, and playing it in an ironman game is one of life's finer pleasures.

 

[HeyIAmInfinity]

My plan is to form britannia and conquer rome, constantinople and mecca. Holy war is necessary and that limits me to hindu. Morale is just a bonus and i don't care about raiding at this point. The decision to gain a caste i just 5k gold, 2k if i get to 12 learning.

Arabia looks fragmented because i usurped a kingdom and that broke half of the middle east and southern arabia in duchies/counties.

I think jain is what i started as for the white hun run and i seriously hate it, i didn't flip for shia for the invasion cb, i flipped because it was the fastest i could get to holy war.
Gavelkind isn't an issue because i just need 10 years to flip to primogeniture.

What benefit would i get from chinese government form compared to my duchy veroy and external wars? And wouldn't imperialism lock me out of forming the empire of britannia?

 

[Emperor Lowborn]

Apologies for the confusion, I didn't realise you were looking to expand further.
Disregard that advice, you won't want jainism or imperialism if that's your plan : ]

 

[jonjowett]

My plan is to form britannia and conquer rome, constantinople and mecca.

That's a lot of conquest!

I strongly suggest you pursue the Alexander or Ashoka bloodlines, to get access to the invasion CB. (Ashoka seems easiest for you based on the wiki info, but I've only ever done Alexander so I don't know for sure.) Having the ability to take the entirety of Byzantium or Germany in one war seems like it would be pretty useful.

 

[DPS]

Apologies for the confusion, I didn't realise you were looking to expand further.
Disregard that advice, you won't want jainism or imperialism if that's your plan : ]

I was wondering what you were thinking; Jain is pretty much the worst religion for expansion, but if you thought he just wanted internal stability, then yeah, it would be a very good choice.

 

[Emperor Lowborn]

Yeah sorry, I misinterpreted the "Indian achievements" comment in the OP.

Ok, Indian achievements... so I'm guessing that you got Beyond the Indus and Great Indian Sultanate before converting to Hindu and creating India?
I'm not sure how St Thomas' Dream will work at this point, ie what would happen to your primary title if you switch to Christianity* (after getting British Raj, obviously).
*On that point, if you don't already have Smash the Patriarchy you may want to consider Messalian (via holding Baghdad or Jerusalem) for your Christian religion, as Nestorianism's moral authority is unlikely to be much of an obstacle.

Red Sea Resort and What Schism should be fairly straightforward, but be mindful of other religions' moral authority slowing your conversion down.
You'll pick up Protector of the Holy Places if you don't have that already, too.

Just FYI, the invasion CB from the Alexander and Ashoka bloodlines doesn't stack, and the Ashoka one can take a very long time to get (ie from the initial pop-up to actually creating the bloodline).

I've only ever had the End Times event chain fire when playing in the east, so if you don't have it already you may be able to get that when the plague comes.

I Can See its Stripes and Papal Mache are a matter of luck, just keep hunting, and executing Caliphs.

Kali Maaa should be easy to pick up, remember to hold onto any imprisoned kings along the way.

And don't forget to grant independence to a heap of vassals at the end of your playthrough for Ten Thrones.

Hopefully this will prove a little more helpful than my last post!

 

[Caeserion]

And wouldn't imperialism lock me out of forming the empire of britannia?

You are thinking of Imperial government type which is exclusive to the Byzantine Empire and does indeed disable the creation of other empire titles. However Imperial law is different and enabling does not change your government type, you will remain feudal and will be able to create titles as you please. Chinese Imperial government is another form of government which gives +10 vassal limit, +1 piety per month, no opinion from wrong religion even when offering marriage, no penalties from wrong government type, and free duchy revocation and vassal retraction. Imperial administration law gives free vassal retraction and duchy revocation and a +15 vassal limit.

Additionally, if you're going for India related achievements, consider conquering Jerusalem too, since there is an achievement for having Rome, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Mecca and Medina in the same realm.

I understand why you don't want to go for Jainism but note that going to Britannia via duchy level holy wars will take quite a long time. I'd recommend trying to get the Blood of Ashoka so you can declare kingdom level wars. The other method is to have any indian religion and then culture flip to your targets cultural group. That will allow you to use cultural subjugation CB on them and you will be able to take all their territory in one war.

Also I love that you did this. I did the same thing when HF came out and it took a long time because I was determined to remain Jain and didn't get the Ashoka bloodline.

 

[Emperor Lowborn]

Chinese Imperialism does prevent you from creating empires, you can't usurp kingdoms or empires with it either.

Forget I said anything about Chinese Imperialism.

 

[DPS]

My plan is to form britannia and conquer rome, constantinople and mecca. Holy war is necessary and that limits me to hindu. Morale is just a bonus and i don't care about raiding at this point. The decision to gain a caste i just 5k gold, 2k if i get to 12 learning.

Do you have any Zoroastrian, Bon, or Zunist provinces left in your realm? If so, I would suggest moving your capital to one of their provinces and converting to the local religion as an alternative to Hindu. Even if there are no provinces of those faiths left in your realm, you might still be able to convert if there are still characters of those faiths that you can get into your courts. With Zoroastrianism, you already hold the Persian Empire title or at least should be able to form it soon, and could then immediately appoint a Moabadan-Moabad. With Bon or Zunist, you hold enough holy sites to reform them right away, except that you'll have to do several county conquests to get their MA back up enough. The advantage of converting to one of these faiths instead of Hindu is that you get access not only to Holy Wars, but Great Holy Wars.

Judaism or one of the other pagan faiths in theory would work as well, but for Judaism you'd have to conquer enough counties to restore the Kingdom of Israel and rebuild the Third Temple first so you can reinstate the Kohen Gadol, and for the other pagans, you almost certainly have a lot of counties to conquer before you can even get into a position to be able to reform them.

 

[jonjowett]

Just FYI, the invasion CB from the Alexander and Ashoka bloodlines doesn't stack, and the Ashoka one can take a very long time to get (ie from the initial pop-up to actually creating the bloodline).

I thought there might be some kind of issue with Ashoka; thanks for specifying exactly what it is. It's a pity, because Ashoka would be much more appropriate for an emperor of India.

Do you have any Zoroastrian, Bon, or Zunist provinces left in your realm? If so, I would suggest moving your capital to one of their provinces and converting to the local religion as an alternative to Hindu. Even if there are no provinces of those faiths left in your realm, you might still be able to convert if there are still characters of those faiths that you can get into your courts. With Zoroastrianism, you already hold the Persian Empire title or at least should be able to form it soon, and could then immediately appoint a Moabadan-Moabad. With Bon or Zunist, you hold enough holy sites to reform them right away, except that you'll have to do several county conquests to get their MA back up enough. The advantage of converting to one of these faiths instead of Hindu is that you get access not only to Holy Wars, but Great Holy Wars.

First, I would suggest reserving the "shift capital" method of conversion for occasions when you want to autoconvert your close family. (Barring certain exceptions, you can only move capital once per lifetime/50yrs, so it's a big deal.) On most occasions, I find it more useful to secretly convert (from personal county religion, personal county containing a holy site, friend, wife, concubine) then immediately personally adopt faith.

I agree that it might be worthwhile to flip to a religion that has GHWs. Reforming a pagan religion (Zun/Bon) with Temporal would allow you to pick the GHW target, but would make it a bit more difficult to temporarily switch to another religion for utility (eg. to join the Hermetics or a different warrior lodge). Reforming a pagan religion to suit your playstyle might also make things a bit easier.

 

[HeyIAmInfinity]

Do you have any Zoroastrian, Bon, or Zunist provinces left in your realm? If so, I would suggest moving your capital to one of their provinces and converting to the local religion as an alternative to Hindu. Even if there are no provinces of those faiths left in your realm, you might still be able to convert if there are still characters of those faiths that you can get into your courts. With Zoroastrianism, you already hold the Persian Empire title or at least should be able to form it soon, and could then immediately appoint a Moabadan-Moabad. With Bon or Zunist, you hold enough holy sites to reform them right away, except that you'll have to do several county conquests to get their MA back up enough. The advantage of converting to one of these faiths instead of Hindu is that you get access not only to Holy Wars, but Great Holy Wars.

Judaism or one of the other pagan faiths in theory would work as well, but for Judaism you'd have to conquer enough counties to restore the Kingdom of Israel and rebuild the Third Temple first so you can reinstate the Kohen Gadol, and for the other pagans, you almost certainly have a lot of counties to conquer before you can even get into a position to be able to reform them.

I need an Indian religion to get the achievement for converting Mecca/Rome/Constantinople and Britannia empire.
If I end up getting these very early I might consider switching to get some other achievement.

The crush the patriarch achieve look interesting if I get an empress.

I’m at 111/161 achievement and I already got a lot in my last run (Frisia Norse catholic world conquest).

The hardest achievement will be to reach the end date. I was so bored for the last 100 years of my Frisia game.

 

[DPS]

I find it more useful to secretly convert (from personal county religion, personal county containing a holy site, friend, wife, concubine) then immediately personally adopt faith.

We'll, we had already discussed the idea that he is so large that he should be strong enough that he doesn't really need to start a secret cult, but I suppose it may be a matter of personal preference. Certainly, though, converting via a concubine, etc., is a perfectly valid choice

I agree that it might be worthwhile to flip to a religion that has GHWs. Reforming a pagan religion (Zun/Bon) with Temporal would allow you to pick the GHW target, but would make it a bit more difficult to temporarily switch to another religion for utility (eg. to join the Hermetics or a different warrior lodge). Reforming a pagan religion to suit your playstyle might also make things a bit easier.

FWIW, Zunists have access to the Hermetic Society;. too bad he needs a Dharmic faith.