Buddishm rework

[Szer]

Right now Buddhism has a few problems:
1) It penalizes player
2) It doesn't motivate player to play balanced

I hope I understand how Paradox want us to play Buddhism. We should do bad things (conquests for example) but not to much. And we should do good things (honoring alliance etc) but also not too much.
Problem is that there are not many ways to do good things so its almost always -10% discipline right now.

I've come with another solution.
Its all about choices and incentives and not about penalties (because penalties and increased core creation cost suck).
First of all we want Buddhist player to play balanced. Neither World Conquest, nor SimCity.
Buddhist player should switch from wartime to peace time such way so the more time he spends in war more incentive he would be given to go peace time and vice versa.

So we need some mechanic that stimulates player to go war on positive karma and stay at peace in war time
And second one we want stimulate neutral karma scenario.

Mechanic itself:
-1 karma each month while you at war (reaching -100 karma from 0 is possible in 8 years and 4 months)
+1 karma each month while you in peace
It's also hard to provide a peace motivation mechanic because every single bonus at the moment help you in war directly or not.

Bonuses image:

Points:
A - minimum Karma (-100). Achievable if you were in war for 8 years non-stop. Gives you:
+20% improve relations (applies only while you at peace)
+0.2 republic traditions / legitimacy (applies only while you at peace)

B - negative neutral Karma threshold (-25). This is the point where war incentive goes to zero. Gives you:
+35% improve relations (applies only while you at peace)
+0.35 republic traditions / legitimacy (applies only while you at peace)
-0.0 War Exhaustion (applies only while you at war)
-0% AE impact


C - Fully balanced Karma. Gives you:
+40% improve relations (applies only while you at peace)
+0.4 republic traditions / legitimacy (applies only while you at peace)
-0.4 War Exhaustion (applies only while you at war)
-20% AE impact

D - positive neutral Karma threshold (+25). This is the point where peace incentive goes to zero. Gives you:
+0% improve relations (applies only while you at peace)
+0.0 republic traditions / legitimacy (applies only while you at peace)
-0.35 War Exhaustion (applies only while you at war)
-17.5% AE impact

E - minimum Karma (+100). Achievable if you were in peace for 8 years non-stop. Gives you:
-0.4 War Exhaustion (applies only while you at war)
-20% AE impact

As you see peace bonuses useless in war and war bonuses useless in peace. It will stimulate player to balance their peace and war time spent in game. And also they will be motivated to be in center of Karma becuase they will get sum of both bonuses.

Min/max players probably will see such scenarios to play Buddhist:

Player starts with 0 Karma.
For the first 2-3 years he works on the alliances and improving relations with everyone around but after he gets 25 Karma he loses all his peace bonuses so he decides to conquer someone.
Lets say he declare war on somebody at +30 Karma so nice WE and AE impact reduction here. And these bonuses will grow bigger for a first 30 months of war (because he got 30 Karma) and drop fast after that so its not wise to be in war for long.
But lets say things go bad and this was a bloody war so our player now has -100 Karma.
He has lost his war bonuses long time ago so now he really want to stay in peace for a while and improve relations with everyone around and stable his realm through rep traditions/legitimacy.
These bonuses will grow from -100 to 0 Karma so he decides to stay in peace for a while.

That's how I see it.
No penalties, only motivations.

 

[alertiu5]

Gotta disagree that Buddhism idea as is is bad. Playing Ayutthaya game now, and it's pretty easy to stay balanced if you vassalize more and outright annex less. Current weak points imo:
1) [common for all non-abrahamics] too few missionaries to go and convert everything, so you pretty much have to go humanist, not religious
2) if you play in area with few countries/cores to release/return, then it's bad. I guess testing was done in Indochina where it's bearable
3) inconsistency of those karma events. Had 3 in 3 months once, and none in 5 years also happened.
4) bonuses are pretty meh compared to muslim ones, which incentivises players to just go Muslim.

But, barring few tweaks number-wise, I think a system of Buddhism works as it is in the sense that it gives a distinct playstyle where you expand mostly using DIP mana, not ADM one. If anything, we need more religion/nation influence on gameplay, not less.

 

[Szer]

Gotta disagree that Buddhism idea as is is bad. Playing Ayutthaya game now, and it's pretty easy to stay balanced if you vassalize more and outright annex less.

its not bad of course. I think its poorly implemented.
Why? Because penalties.
Lets take Muslims. Being pious - is profitable. Being non-pious - also profitable! Its not about penalties, you just get fun whichever style you choose.
Orthodox. Its okay to be at 100% PA, but its also okay to be at 0% PA. Its a choice and its fun to have choices.

Go back to Buddhism. Its just not fun to have -10% discipline or -2 dip rep. You are motivated to play at neutral Karma via frustration, not because of fun.
You are almost restricted by devs to play at non-neutral karma! There is no other religion that gives such harsh "bonuses".

Maybe it will be ok with some number tweak, but my point mostly is about removing penalties.
Players should be given fun choices instead of "just don't do it" karma mechanic. There is no religion in-game except Buddhism with slider which restrict and punish you (even neutral piety neither gives you something nor it penalize you).