I have just published a guide on Romuva: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1685831533
Feel free to contribute with corrections and suggestions.
Feel free to contribute with corrections and suggestions.
Beginner's guide to Romuva
- Thread starter Dimitri Cosmos
- Start date
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Nicely done! I wish such a guide had existed when I first took a crack at becoming the Wendish Empire in my first post-HF game.
Two comments for you:
1. Did you mean to say "Hierocratic" instead of "Temporal" in your section on Reformation? I haven't played Romuva in a few months, but I think venerating your own family still requires that trick where you give your Temporal religious head title to your heir before you die. For that reason, I think Hierocratic works better with Ancestor Veneration than Temporal, but I realize this is an preference/opinion, not a necessity.
2. If you reform the religion before you become the Wendish Emperor, and don't choose Unrelenting, how do you recommend handling attrition when attacking Unreformed Slavic and Suomenusko realms (which surround you on all sides in 769)? I used the same reformation set-up you recommend, and it was real off-putting to watch my armies melt away every time I sieged down a pagan tribal holding.
The next time I try a Romuva 769 run, I swore I would choose Proselytizing, Veneration/Unyielding, and Hierocratic, just to avoid the attrition issue, to have an easier time converting the "Old Romuva" provinces inside de jure Lithunia, and to have a chance to get my dynasty members sainted (my point #1).
Either way, still an excellent guide- thanks for sharing!
Two comments for you:
1. Did you mean to say "Hierocratic" instead of "Temporal" in your section on Reformation? I haven't played Romuva in a few months, but I think venerating your own family still requires that trick where you give your Temporal religious head title to your heir before you die. For that reason, I think Hierocratic works better with Ancestor Veneration than Temporal, but I realize this is an preference/opinion, not a necessity.
2. If you reform the religion before you become the Wendish Emperor, and don't choose Unrelenting, how do you recommend handling attrition when attacking Unreformed Slavic and Suomenusko realms (which surround you on all sides in 769)? I used the same reformation set-up you recommend, and it was real off-putting to watch my armies melt away every time I sieged down a pagan tribal holding.
The next time I try a Romuva 769 run, I swore I would choose Proselytizing, Veneration/Unyielding, and Hierocratic, just to avoid the attrition issue, to have an easier time converting the "Old Romuva" provinces inside de jure Lithunia, and to have a chance to get my dynasty members sainted (my point #1).
Either way, still an excellent guide- thanks for sharing!
I have heard this argument before, but, in fact, it's not true. Maybe it was true in the past, but it's no longer true. In my last playtrough as Romuva, I used temporal and was granting veneration to my dynasty right and left. You also need to have a lot of vassals who are your kin to increase the chance of that happening. After 5 centuries I had more blessed ancestors in my dynasty that I could count.
After realising that temporal is no obstacle to getting blessed dynasty members, I really don't see the point of any leadership doctrine but temporal.
However, it's true that you need to give away the religious title to your heir to have a chance to get venerated YOURSELF after your death. But it's not GUARANTEED to happen, so I think it's not worth the effort and it's just easier to marry a female descendant of a blessed bloodline matrilinealy who is of your dynasty, but not a close kin.
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I have mentioned it further in the guide. The answer is: by building forts and raising your military organisation up to level 4 or higher. Furthermore, since high military organisation negates attrition, I don't think that "Unrelenting" is worth it in the long-term, even though it also provides 10% attack bonus. Perhaps, the only reason to choose "Unrelenting" is for early massive tribal expansion, if you prefer it, or if you really want that 10% bonus. However, "Unyielding" will serve you better against all those crusaders and invaders.
Yes, excellent point. If you have landed members of your dynasty getting sainted on their own, then it's less of a big deal if you can't venerate characters you played previously. I don't usually land members of my family, so I always forget about this work-around. Sorry about that.
Crap, should have waited until I saw your 2nd response, so I could hit both with a single post. Sorry again.
Yes, my issue likely was a lack of patience in my first Romuva run. I didn't want to wait to get the tech points for Level 4 Military, and I got tired of building forts everytime I sieged down an infidel holding. I 100% agree that Unyielding is the more appropriate given the real-life history of the Romuva religion. But since the game won't let you have both Unyielding and Unrelenting, I think Unrelenting has more near term value. But in the long run, Unyielding is definitely the better choice, no argument there.
Crap, should have waited until I saw your 2nd response, so I could hit both with a single post. Sorry again.
Yes, my issue likely was a lack of patience in my first Romuva run. I didn't want to wait to get the tech points for Level 4 Military, and I got tired of building forts everytime I sieged down an infidel holding. I 100% agree that Unyielding is the more appropriate given the real-life history of the Romuva religion. But since the game won't let you have both Unyielding and Unrelenting, I think Unrelenting has more near term value. But in the long run, Unyielding is definitely the better choice, no argument there.
You can raise military organisation faster by investing those extra 100 (or was it 130 in total?) military tech points from the learning focus.
If you're planning on a lot of expansion (and who isn't?
) and want religious uniformity to avoid religious revolts, it doesn't make any sense to choose anything except Proselytizing, because otherwise your vassal won't help you convert counties (unless you choose Dogmatic, in which case a vassal will try to convert, but only if he's zealous). It makes a certain amount of sense, but unfortunately it makes Proselytizing almost a necessity for expansionistic players.
If you're planning on a lot of expansion (and who isn't?
It's not that big of a problem, if all your vassals are of your religion. Religious revolts are a minor annoyance, but it's easy to put them down. As you progress further with your expansion, the moral authority of other religions is getting eroded and your religion is strengthened. Diviners convert non-reformed pagans quite fast, and as Christianity gets weaker, it's also quite easy to convert Christians. Ok, so, I had like 30 Catholic revolts, but after a few centuries I had eradicated all other European pagans and reduced Catholicism's MA to minimum (I think it was 0,5% or something like that, because all their holy sites were controlled by me and Jerusalem was controlled by either muslims or Bon - I don't remember exactly). About 80% of my empire was Romuvan and the rest was a matter of time. Plus, other pagan rulers (outside your realm) will want to convert to Romuva, as well.
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