So the last dev diary addressed two relatively minor religions, Sikh and Zoroastrianism. Sikh is recieving a completely unique overhaul to its Guru mechanics, which, on top of its current military might, might give it the push it needed to be one of the better religions in the region. The Zoroastrian reworks, while not much more than a watered down version of the Coptic mechanics, are given fair enough attention for what's a one province (two in the next patch) religion.
On that note (along with the Confucian inquisitor thread), I was wondering if Confucianism could get an overhaul too, considering how it's the only remaining non-Pagan religion in the game that actively punishes the nation for using its mechanics, while providing... less than satisfactory bonuses. In case some of you haven't played as a Confucian nation before (I don't blame you, the two countries that start with it are both rather boring to play), here's a quick overview of the mechanics.
It's rather obvious that Paradox designed Confucianism to be a 'Humanist' religion that strays far away from actively converting provinces. Converting merely a few provinces would instantly drop Harmony to 0, meaning you get 0, or even negative Tolerance of the True Faith, having the dubious honour of being the only religion in the game capable of doing so. This is however supposed to be balanced out by being able to harmonise religions. This may sound like a decent tradeoff on paper, but in reality,
It is simply better to leave religions unharmonised. Considering how it is extremely easy to reach +2 tolerance of both heretics (+2 base, +2 Humanist) and heathens (+2 Humanist, +1 Legitimacy, +2 Burgher privilege), taking Humanist would simply outclass harmonising religions, since not doing so would result in a net increase in unrest. (+2 tolerance of heretics/heathens -> 0 tolerance of the true faith) The harmonised religion bonuses are also pathetic when considering the opportunity cost of, well, not having the awful debuffs for 8 decades. -5% stab cost is laughable, +5% Trade Efficiency is barely noticeable, and +5% Production Efficiency wouldn't even be considered decent filler for a national idea. The only somewhat decent bonuses are the -0.5 Unrest and +5% Infantry Combat Ability, but considering how religions likes Protestantism can have -1 Unrest, +5% Land/Naval Morale and +2,5 Discipline simply from sitting there long enough, the ridiculously long period of debuffs Confucian countries need to suffer through doesn't make them nearly worth it.
On that note, harmonising takes both way too much time and harmony. Assuming you have an average of 1 stability, harmonising a religion costs 59.5 Harmony. Considering how you start off at 50 Harmony in 1444, this would mean that if you start harmonising a religion anytime before a decade has passed, you would be stuck at 0 Harmony for a fair amount of time until the religion finishes harmonising. Regaining enough Harmony to not have any debuffs would takes another 40 years, meaning that even if you're willing to be stuck with debuffs throughout the entire run, each religious harmonisation cycle requires a ridiculous 74 years. Of course, you also have the option of ignoring the Confucian mechanics and just letting Harmony sit at 100, but that brings us back to point 1 of it simply being better to leave religions unharmonised.
The low Harmony debuffs are also extremely painful. -3 Tolerance of the True Faith is already bad enough, but the +25% Development Cost is absolutely crippling for Ming and Korea, both countries located in the Far East, meaning they either have to dev for the first three institutions, or suffer a 150% Tech Cost penalty. A 25% increase in dev cost would mean that the average institution would cost around an extra 500 mana, summing up to 1500 wasted mana in total. While Korea is spared from further penalties bar the mildly inconvenient -1 yearly legitimacy, Ming is unique in that it also get -2 Yearly Meritocracy slapped on top of that, making it physically impossible to have positive meritocracy gain, even with 3 max level advisors. Small reminder that low meritocracy increases advisor costs.
On top of that, you for some reason, cannot culture convert provinces with a harmonised religion, while also being permanently locked out of converting the province to Confucianism. While this is less of a problem for Ming with its gigantic culture group, Korea is unique in that it is stuck with the worst culture group in the game, consisting solely of Korean. Their mission tree, as if the Confucian religon wasn't insulting enough, has several missions that require converting provinces to Korean culture, meaning they have to either tank the Harmony hits, or colonise a bunch of 3 dev Siberian provinces. (EDIT: A recent patch let provinces held by a colonial nation count for the mission as well, so you now also have the choice of colonising 3 dev Alaskan provinces instead.) Worst case scenario a random event fires changing the religion in Yukjin or Gyeongseong to Mahayana, locking out a branch in their mission tree permanently.
Enough ranting though, here's a few thoughts on what exactly Confucianism needs for it to not be a less than subpar religion that actively discourages the player from using its mechanics.
This would mean that instead of them being completely irrelevant, the player would have the agency in choosing between simply going Humanist, or taking 74 years of debuffs for a sizeable buff that lasts the rest of the campaign.
On that note (along with the Confucian inquisitor thread), I was wondering if Confucianism could get an overhaul too, considering how it's the only remaining non-Pagan religion in the game that actively punishes the nation for using its mechanics, while providing... less than satisfactory bonuses. In case some of you haven't played as a Confucian nation before (I don't blame you, the two countries that start with it are both rather boring to play), here's a quick overview of the mechanics.
- Confucianism gives +2 Tolerance of Heretics and -10% Admin Tech Cost
- Confucian nations have a Harmony meter that scales from 0 to 100.
- At 0 Harmony, the nation has -3 Tolerance of the True Faith, +25% Development Cost, -1 Yearly Legitimacy and -2 Yearly Meritocracy.
- At 100 Harmony they gain +1 Tolerance of the True Faith.
- Confucian nations can harmonise religions, which lets the nation treat provinces of that religion as the true faith.
- Harmony increases by 1 every year. Each point in stability increases harmony gain by +0.25 yearly, maxing out at +0.75 at 3 stability.
- Harmonising one religion takes 34 years, and decreases harmony by 3 every year.
- Confucian nations cannot culture convert provinces with harmonised religions.
- Confucian nations also cannot convert harmonised religions to Confucian.
- Converting non-harmonised religions to Confucian will directly reduce Harmony according to the development converted. E.G. Converting Furdan (15 dev) will decrease Harmony by 15.
- Harmonised religions will provide the following benefits.
| Christian | -5% Stability Cost |
| Muslim | +5% Trade Efficiency |
| Dharmic | +1 Tolerance of the True Faith |
| Shinto | +5% Infantry Combat Ability |
| Vajrayana | +5% Production Efficiency |
| Theravada | -5% Advisor Cost |
| Mahayana | -7% Idea Cost |
| Pagan | -0.5 Unrest |
It's rather obvious that Paradox designed Confucianism to be a 'Humanist' religion that strays far away from actively converting provinces. Converting merely a few provinces would instantly drop Harmony to 0, meaning you get 0, or even negative Tolerance of the True Faith, having the dubious honour of being the only religion in the game capable of doing so. This is however supposed to be balanced out by being able to harmonise religions. This may sound like a decent tradeoff on paper, but in reality,
It is simply better to leave religions unharmonised. Considering how it is extremely easy to reach +2 tolerance of both heretics (+2 base, +2 Humanist) and heathens (+2 Humanist, +1 Legitimacy, +2 Burgher privilege), taking Humanist would simply outclass harmonising religions, since not doing so would result in a net increase in unrest. (+2 tolerance of heretics/heathens -> 0 tolerance of the true faith) The harmonised religion bonuses are also pathetic when considering the opportunity cost of, well, not having the awful debuffs for 8 decades. -5% stab cost is laughable, +5% Trade Efficiency is barely noticeable, and +5% Production Efficiency wouldn't even be considered decent filler for a national idea. The only somewhat decent bonuses are the -0.5 Unrest and +5% Infantry Combat Ability, but considering how religions likes Protestantism can have -1 Unrest, +5% Land/Naval Morale and +2,5 Discipline simply from sitting there long enough, the ridiculously long period of debuffs Confucian countries need to suffer through doesn't make them nearly worth it.
On that note, harmonising takes both way too much time and harmony. Assuming you have an average of 1 stability, harmonising a religion costs 59.5 Harmony. Considering how you start off at 50 Harmony in 1444, this would mean that if you start harmonising a religion anytime before a decade has passed, you would be stuck at 0 Harmony for a fair amount of time until the religion finishes harmonising. Regaining enough Harmony to not have any debuffs would takes another 40 years, meaning that even if you're willing to be stuck with debuffs throughout the entire run, each religious harmonisation cycle requires a ridiculous 74 years. Of course, you also have the option of ignoring the Confucian mechanics and just letting Harmony sit at 100, but that brings us back to point 1 of it simply being better to leave religions unharmonised.
The low Harmony debuffs are also extremely painful. -3 Tolerance of the True Faith is already bad enough, but the +25% Development Cost is absolutely crippling for Ming and Korea, both countries located in the Far East, meaning they either have to dev for the first three institutions, or suffer a 150% Tech Cost penalty. A 25% increase in dev cost would mean that the average institution would cost around an extra 500 mana, summing up to 1500 wasted mana in total. While Korea is spared from further penalties bar the mildly inconvenient -1 yearly legitimacy, Ming is unique in that it also get -2 Yearly Meritocracy slapped on top of that, making it physically impossible to have positive meritocracy gain, even with 3 max level advisors. Small reminder that low meritocracy increases advisor costs.
On top of that, you for some reason, cannot culture convert provinces with a harmonised religion, while also being permanently locked out of converting the province to Confucianism. While this is less of a problem for Ming with its gigantic culture group, Korea is unique in that it is stuck with the worst culture group in the game, consisting solely of Korean. Their mission tree, as if the Confucian religon wasn't insulting enough, has several missions that require converting provinces to Korean culture, meaning they have to either tank the Harmony hits, or colonise a bunch of 3 dev Siberian provinces. (EDIT: A recent patch let provinces held by a colonial nation count for the mission as well, so you now also have the choice of colonising 3 dev Alaskan provinces instead.) Worst case scenario a random event fires changing the religion in Yukjin or Gyeongseong to Mahayana, locking out a branch in their mission tree permanently.
Enough ranting though, here's a few thoughts on what exactly Confucianism needs for it to not be a less than subpar religion that actively discourages the player from using its mechanics.
- Make the Harmony buffs/debuffs scale equally. (At a slightly decreased rate though). 0 Harmony would give -2 ToTF, +15% Dev Cost, -0.5 Yearly Legitimacy and -1 Yearly Meritocracy, while 100 Harmony would give +2 ToTF, -15% Dev Cost, +0.5 Yearly Legitimacy and +1 Yearly Meritocracy. This would mean that high Harmony would have somewhat of an effect, instead of the current system where the Harmony meter ranges from crippling to somewhat ignorable.
- Allow culture conversion in harmonised provinces. This would also be historically accurate, especially considering the heavy Sinicisation that occured under several Chinese dynasties. Even the Jurchen tribes that established the Qing dynasty were Sinicised nomads in a sense.
- Lower Harmony increase/decrease so that it doesn't change so rapidly. The base increase rate could be 0.5 while the harmonisation decrease rate would be -2. This would result in a slightly smaller net yearly decrease of 1.5 at 1 stability, but would also mean the regaining of harmony would take far longer. Harmonising a religion would still take 34 years, but would cost 51 Harmony instead of 59.5, while taking 66 years to recover.
- Make the Harmonisation bonuses actually significant instead of useless filler. Maybe something like
| Christian | -5% Tech Cost |
| Muslim | +10% Goods Produced |
| Dharmic | +2 Tolerance of the True Faith |
| Shinto | +5% Discipline |
| Vajrayana | +1 Diplomatic Reputation |
| Theravada | -10% Advisor Cost |
| Mahayana | -10% Idea Cost |
| Pagan | -1 National Unrest |
- Considering how most religions in game already have a holy site related to them {Christians (Rome), Muslims (Mecca/Medina), Hindus (Varanasi), Sikhs (Doaba), Buddhists (Pataliputra/Patna), Shintos (Ise), etc.}, maybe add a Confucian exclusive Holy Site in the ingame province of Yanzhou, giving +1 Tolerance of the True Faith, +0.5 Yearly Prestige and +10% Harmonisation Speed. (Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius, is somewhere within its boundaries.)
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