Changing Bonuses for Sunni and other religions

[unmerged(6159)]

The question is a little simpler for the other seven religions, since (a couple stray events excepted) players can't voluntarily jump from one to another. In those cases we can change the religions in ways that may make them stronger or weaker if we think this will improve historicity.Well, see my comments above. Broadly speaking, if the four convertable religions are comparable in multiplayer, then they will probably be fairly even in single player too, so the overall simulation level will stay fairly good (or at least not get worse).Well honestly, we're making so many changes at this point that the best approach may be to throw in everything we think is a good change that MIGHT be playable, and then balance things from there.

My concern is that radically reworking all these religions will have pretty big gameplay concerns and could very well lead to something that is much inferior to vanilla.

This is especially true in the far east. Consider how completely things are being changed there, from the new states in formerly uncolonized India and Indonesia, to the new larger China incorporating the Manchu and Dai Viet, to the introduction of the Mongols, to the re-worked Chinese revolts and Japanese warring states period, to the event-based European intrusions in India and southeast Asia, to the re-worked strategic decision sequence for China, to the increased manpower, and so on. Whatever balance the vanilla GC has in that area is totally fried by the changes we're already implementing.

The increased manpower is already in 1.08, so that onedoesn't count . As to the rest of it, I think it is important to distinguish between things which we've more or less agreed to do, and ideas on which there is still a degree of disagreement. In my opinion, the things which will clearly be different from vanilla are:
- the new states in formerly uncolonized India and Indonesia,
-new larger China incorporating the Manchu and Dai Viet,
-re-worked Chinese revolts and Japanese warring states period,
-re-worked strategic decision sequence for China
Things that I think are unclear are:
-the event-based European intrusions in India and southeast Asia
-the introduction of the Mongols

Of the first the Indonesian and Indian set up has been in use for a long time in both EEP and AGC. We'll have to see how much the strategic decision changes things, but in the historical path it shouldn't change too much. The larger China and the revolts clearly have pretty big implications.

We may as well re-work the eastern religions while we're at it, if we think that's a realistic thing to do.

Realism that makes the game play out in unrealistic ways is a horrible thing to do. If the religions are going to be reworked I would like to get the answers to what I think are too critical questions
-How will these changes make the religious effects more like real life?
-How will the changes make the game play out better?
And without good answers to both of these questions I would oppose doing anything.

Changing religions will have very big effects on gameplay. For instance MKJ is basically suggesting that all Christians have one less diplomat per year, and that CRC will be much better than it currently is. These will profoundly affect game choices. These things ought to be considered very carefully, and I fully support doing this in a incremental way, to be sure that the game still plays out in a sensible way.

Isn't the stability bonus on a per-province basis? So large sunni empires will get a big boost from this.

Not as far as I know. It's fixed regardless of size.

 

[Avernite]

Well, if you would even want to change the religions, which I'm not sure is such a great idea anyway, you shouldn't give the muslems diplomats 'because they were constantly having political dealings with other nations'. Half of Europe intermarried every two generations, allied every 100 years with any other nation, and backstabbed everyone, too. They were as active as the muslems, maybe even more active. They had those endless amounts of German states to deal with, and they dealt with them, too.

 

[doktarr]

My concern is that radically reworking all these religions will have pretty big gameplay concerns and could very well lead to something that is much inferior to vanilla.

I agree that that is the overriding concern. My point was more that in the case of some (not all) of these changes, I don't have any reason to expect that they will hurt gameplay and moreover we've moved so far from the vanilla GC model in other ways that a balance overhaul may be called for anyway.

Realism that makes the game play out in unrealistic ways is a horrible thing to do.

I agree. If we are in a situation where the current religious setup (or a minor tweak of it) produces good results, and a change to more "realistic" settings causes ahistorical outcomes, then that would be a really bad move. But we've made a ton of changes in several places, and in some cases we need significant work on initial alliances, initial relations, province taxvalues and manpower, and probably some events, in order to get the long-term game outcome to be realistic. This is especially true in east Asia. In those cases, I really don't see the harm in spending our effort to try and balance the setup for a more realistic set of religious bonuses.

If the religions are going to be reworked I would like to get the answers to what I think are too critical questions
-How will these changes make the religious effects more like real life?

Well, I think that MKJ and Jinnai's comments above address a lot of those points.

-How will the changes make the game play out better?

The obvious benefit would be that if it made nations advantages and disadvantages more historically accurate, we will get more historical outcomes from the AI, and more historical choices by human players. That's the theory behind almost all of our changes, right?

Changing religions will have very big effects on gameplay. For instance MKJ is basically suggesting that all Christians have one less diplomat per year,

Yes, that's a big change, one that's not necessarily a good idea. Hard to say without testing, of course.

and that CRC will be much better than it currently is.

More stable, better trade, worse taxes, less diplomats. Probably better, but it's not totally obvious to me. At any rate, as I said it's very important for the four convertable religions to stay fairly balanced relative to one another.

These will profoundly affect game choices. These things ought to be considered very carefully, and I fully support doing this in a incremental way, to be sure that the game still plays out in a sensible way.

I think some would argue that our games alre already not working out in a sensible way. I don't mean that as a knock on our hard work at all, but there's plenty of places where the historical result is the exception, not the rule. There's a ton of work ahead in this project in terms of tweaking taxvalues, manpower, and initial relations/DPs/alliances/troops/merchants/et cetera, in order to get historical results.

Not as far as I know. It's fixed regardless of size.

According to the FAQ:

Stab bonus: Bonus/mitigant (you must divide this by 100). Stability cost is per province. 25 if same religion as state, much higher otherwise.The bonus/malus here subtracts or adds to that cost. For example, Catholics pay 19 ducats per Catholic province (25 - 600/100 = 19). A 4 province, 100% Catholic nation pays 76 ducats per stability point.

That sure sounds like a per-province bonus to me.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

Did they change that from EU1? Oh well, I'm more than happy to defer to the FAQ.

I think some would argue that our games alre already not working out in a sensible way. I don't mean that as a knock on our hard work at all, but there's plenty of places where the historical result is the exception, not the rule. There's a ton of work ahead in this project in terms of tweaking taxvalues, manpower, and initial relations/DPs/alliances/troops/merchants/et cetera, in order to get historical results.

Very true.

 

[Mad King James]

Hey all I did was go over the current religion setup with a critical eye for what the religion would and would not actually affect.

It's not my fault the current religion stats make no sense

 

[unmerged(9404)]

It sounds to me like this was mostly a question of which of the four convertable Christian religions is best for MP play. Now, don't get me wrong - that's an extremely important question, and we should make sure that if we change the settings of those four religions, they all stay fairly even in MP. This does not PRECLUDE doing an overhaul if we think it will make the game more realistic or improve overall simulation quality, but it does mean that such a job is a lot harder.

I would support Norrefeldt here the MP played religions (5 christians and sunni) were balanced in the betas in such a way that none was superior to the other. so I wouldn't touch that without a very good reason. The religion were less touched and can change more.

That said I think I support doktars original idea, though the stab bonus might be toned down or maybe sunnis should get a negative amount missionaries (if that is possible). It makes conquering non sunni provinces favourable in the short term (lower increased stab) but a liability in the long term (either get narrowminded or live with the other religions).

 

[unmerged(17856)]

Although I am tending to side with Norrefeldt, and be a little conservative, I do like the protestant increase in colonists!

I always hated it that I had to stay entirely narrowminded in order to get a sufficient amount of colonists under Protestantism. England was protestant and did a helluva lota colonizing.

Was in it in the original EU1 that Protestant gave you a bonus colonists for every protestant coastal province? OR was that a feature that used to be in EU2 but was removed? Anyone know what I'm talking about? :wacko:

 

[unmerged(10128)]

i basically dont think any of the asian religions should have better techspeed. especially techspeed 0 for buddhism. it's not a matter of whether they were in absolute terms neutral to tech innovations or not. It's a matter of their tech progress in relative terms to the europeans (taking catholic as the norm). Should buddhist countries advance at the same pace as catholic countries? simply no.

 

[Registered]

Was in it in the original EU1 that Protestant gave you a bonus colonists for every protestant coastal province? OR was that a feature that used to be in EU2 but was removed? Anyone know what I'm talking about? :wacko:

IIRC coastal protestant provinces give you extra merchants, i'm unsure if it's an x number of merchant/province, or a set bonus no matter the amount of provinces though.

 

[unmerged(17856)]

damn, where the hell did I come up with the settlers bonus then?! :wacko: ah well, I guess lack of sleep from craming for finals will do that to you...

 

[unmerged(2456)]

i basically dont think any of the asian religions should have better techspeed. especially techspeed 0 for buddhism. it's not a matter of whether they were in absolute terms neutral to tech innovations or not. It's a matter of their tech progress in relative terms to the europeans (taking catholic as the norm). Should buddhist countries advance at the same pace as catholic countries? simply no.

Don't worry about this. This is in addition to the techgroups they are in which almost all of asia is using China or pagan. A few are using muslim which all are the 3 slowest so having buddhism at 0 won't make them advance faster than even CRC in all but maybe the most extreme cases.

 

[Incompetent]

About changing tax income: Tax income in EU2 isn't all about the money. One reason why giving CRC a tax penalty is bad is that their ability to recruit troops would suffer... not good for a warmonger's religion. Likewise Chinese bureaucracy should be reflected in impaired production efficiency, not tax income. Tax income is more about levels of centralised government control than economic efficiency.

The thing about the Pagan countries in EU2 is that many of them weren't really countries, and certainly didn't have much central authority. This didn't make them backward per se (Christian nomadic tribes would have been just as backward), so they shouldn't be given heavy penalties to production and trade (which after all go mostly into tech), and to techspeed itself; this can be done through making the 'exotic' tech group even worse, and giving them poor DP settings. However IMO they should get a big tax penalty, reducing their ability to raise armies, as well as (say) -1 missionary/year and -0.5 diplomats/year.

 

[Zander]

I'm all in favor of revamping the religious model. I've been considering that for my own games anyway, and, as noted, AGCEEP is so different from vanilla that the vanilla religious model isn't necessarily the best way to go.

I'd like to make a few general points:

1) I encourage giving at least +1 diplomat to every religion. No player should have to be stuck with 1 diplomat per year, regardless of his/her situation.

2) I've never particularly approved of the way the Christian religions are "just better". We don't need to perfectly balance every religion, but presumably tech group should be serving as more of an impediment to India than Hindusim.

3) I do favor making Protestant slightly better than Catholic, and Reformed better than that. Converting yourself is often unpleasant, and having to wait until 1540 to settle/having to convert everything you conquer is a significant minus.

4) While I'm all in favor of considering what makes sense "in-game" (e.g. more church lands = less tax), I'd also suggest considering the game impact of settings. In particular:

Tax bonus: Bigger impact in early game, less impact in late game. Bigger impact for different culture-religion countries, less impact for homogeneous countries. The Ottomans, for example, might benefit a lot from a tax bonus.

Production income: Relatively level.

Trade efficiency: Barely significant early game, hugely important late game. Bonus has an exponential effect. (Not only increases income, but increases chance of placing/keeping merchants) I'd be wary of a +20 to anyone for that reason. That being said, it might well make sense to give trade bonuses to nations that are supposed to flourish late (Reformed?) and penalties or no bonus to nations that should start to flag in the late game. (Islam? Eastern religions?)


So, for example, it might make sense to give Sunni a tax bonus and trade penalty, whatever the in-game arguments, so that they are stronger in the early game and weaker later.

 

[unmerged(17856)]

Well if we're having an MP scenario, then I think we'd ought to stick to the more MP balanced situation. Unless there's some way to implement two, one for each scenario (SP 1419 and MP 1520) but I don't think there's an easy way to do that.

And to clarfiy...the AGCEEP religious definitions were outdated since 1.05 ? Shouldn't we then simply update it first to 1.08 and see how that goes?

 

[Norrefeldt]

2) I've never particularly approved of the way the Christian religions are "just better". We don't need to perfectly balance every religion, but presumably tech group should be serving as more of an impediment to India than Hindusim.

3) I do favor making Protestant slightly better than Catholic, and Reformed better than that. Converting yourself is often unpleasant, and having to wait until 1540 to settle/having to convert everything you conquer is a significant minus.

4) While I'm all in favor of considering what makes sense "in-game" (e.g. more church lands = less tax), I'd also suggest considering the game impact of settings. In particular:

Trade efficiency: Barely significant early game, hugely important late game. Bonus has an exponential effect. (Not only increases income, but increases chance of placing/keeping merchants) I'd be wary of a +20 to anyone for that reason. That being said, it might well make sense to give trade bonuses to nations that are supposed to flourish late (Reformed?) and penalties or no bonus to nations that should start to flag in the late game. (Islam? Eastern religions?)

So, for example, it might make sense to give Sunni a tax bonus and trade penalty, whatever the in-game arguments, so that they are stronger in the early game and weaker later.

2)It's a way of getting historical outcome, not a judgement on religions. What is earned if we make the religions more alike if we then have to spend a lot of time in rebalancing the game with changing tech speeds in the different groups? I say we just earn a lot of work, and probably a worse outcome since we don't have 5% of the testing that the vanilla model have had.

3)It's like that in the vanilla model. It used to be a no-brainer to go reformed as France in 1.07, and it took several long MP games to find the current model. I don't say this model is perfect, but we should think twice before we claim we can improve it. I'm mostly thinking of the Christian religions, Sunni and Shiite, since they matter in MP.

4)Your idea is interesting and should be tested. Still, it has the problem of making conversions even more worthwhile for the Sunni states.

Well if we're having an MP scenario, then I think we'd ought to stick to the more MP balanced situation. Unless there's some way to implement two, one for each scenario (SP 1419 and MP 1520) but I don't think there's an easy way to do that.

And to clarfiy...the AGCEEP religious definitions were outdated since 1.05 ? Shouldn't we then simply update it first to 1.08 and see how that goes?

I definetly support changing our setup to the 1.08 version. We should start modifying from there.

 

[Norrefeldt]

Sunni islam:
...

No effect on trade
The same problems were however a boon for trade, and throughout the period the most prolific traders were muslim. Here I'd say +20%

No effect on taxation
+20% for a variety of reasons. First of all is the Sunni custom of heavily taxing religious minorities as opposed to violence. Secondly is the large numbers of wealthy persecuted minorities because of this custom.

No effect on morale
Sunni Islam should have somewhat of a bonus, maybe +20

Shiite islam

...

No effect on trade.
Again, like Sunni Islam, trade was often the lifeblood. +20

The vanilla game have reformed with +10% in trade. They are *absolute killers* with this, even if they get much fewer merchants than someone holding several CoT:s. In MP they often end up with five-ten times the trade income of Catholic states with comparable tech and the same or slightly more merchants.
The taxation bonus will make conversions even more profitable. I'd go for a very innovative Sunni state.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Well historically they didn't do as much trade everywhere, but where they did they were much better at it.

 

[Arilou]

Let's look at all these critically shall we?

Protestantism:
Techspeed bonus of 1
Stability penalty of -300
+10% bonus to production efficiency
No effect on trade
+10% tax income
no effect on morale
1 extra colonist a year
1 extra diplomat a year
1 extra missionary every 2 years

The techspeed is OK i guess. Stability penalty too. I'd support a higher tax income bonus rather than a production effic. bonus actually... But that might depend. I think the bonus missionary might actually be slashed totally, all provinces that are "supposed" to be protestant convert automatically at the Reformation anyway. The 1 extra diplomay I suppose is used to model the efficient and advanced european diplomacy, so I'd keep it.

Reformed:
Techspeed bonus of 2
Stability penalty of -300
No effect on production
+10% trade income
-10% tax income
no effect on morale
2 extra colonists a year
1 extra diplomat a year
1 extra missionary every 2 years

The difference between Reformed and Protestant/Lutheran/Anglican is basically that while protestantism is a state-church (controlled and owned by the state) the reformed church(es) are independent of the government (and often of each other) Not sure exactly what should be done, but I think it looks OK right now. Possibly remove the taxation malus?

Counterreformed
Techspeed penalty of -3
Stability bonus of 600
No effect on production
-10% trade income
No effect on taxation
+50 morale
2 extra colonists a year
2 extra diplomats a year
2 extra missionaries a year

Remove the trade malus and give them a tax malus instead. Also increase the stab bonus (800?)

Catholicism
Techspeed penalty of -1
Stability bonus of 600
No effect on production
No effect on trade
No effect on taxation
No effect on morale
2 extra colonists a year
2 extra diplomats a year
1 extra missionary a year

Remove the tech penalty, add a tax malus, but a pretty low one.

Orthodox
Techspeed penalty of -1
Stability bonus of 800
No effect on production
No effect on trade
No effect on taxation
No effect on morale
1 extra colonist a year
no extra diplomats
1 extra missionary a year

Not sure about this one. I'd consider giving them 0.5 extra diplomats, just to make it more feasible for Russia et. al. to actually have some sort of diplomatic exchange going Tax malus might be approporiate but in that case remove the techspeed penalty.

Sunni islam
Techspeed penalty of -1
Stability bonus of 600
No effect on production
No effect on trade
No effect on taxation
No effect on morale
no extra colonists
no extra diplomats
1 extra missionary per year

Remove the extra missionary, grant them a bigger stability bonus, maybe a small trade or taxation bonus as well.... A morale bonus would fit too. Sunni Islam should be pretty good. Possibly also add 0.5 diplomats just to facilitate diplomnacy.

Shiite islam
Techspeed penalty of -3
Stability bonus of 600
No effect on production
No effect on trade
-20% tax income
+50 morale
no extra colonists
no extra diplomats
1 extra missionary per year

Increase the stab bonus, and if sunni is givena morale bonus, increase it as well. Maybe lower production?

Paganism
Techspeed penalty of -25
Stability penalty of -500
No effect on production
No effect on trade
No effect on taxation
No effect on morale
no extra colonists
no extra diplomats
no extra missionaries

Feels like too big a penalty to techspeed... Maybe give a taxation malus instead and lower (not remove) the techspeed malus?

Confucianism
Techspeed penalty of -10
Stability bonus of 1000
No effect on production
No effect on trade
-20% tax income
No effect on morale
no extra colonists
no extra diplomats
no extra missionaries

Remove taxation malus (WHY!?) replace with a bonus and instead give a reasonably large trade (and possibly production) malus. Give confucianism a PENALTY to diplomats. (not a large one, maybe -0.5) and maybe colonists as well...

Buddhism
Techspeed penalty of -5
Stability bonus of 500
No effect on production
No effect on trade
-20% tax income
No effect on morale
no extra colonists
no extra diplomats
1 extra missionary per year

Possibly a small morale bonus? Otherwise seems OK.

Hinduism
Techspeed penalty of -10
Stability penalty of -300
No effect on production
No effect on trade
+5% tax income
+50 morale
no extra colonists
no extra diplomats
no extra missionaries

[/QUOTE]

Techspeed penalty should be the same as Buddhism, or possibly even Sunni. Stability malus should be removed, replaced bya bonus. Remove the tax income bonus.

 

[Alexandre]

Counterreformed

Orthodox

No effect on taxation
Should actually be -10% as well, as with Catholicism the church owned much of the land.

Less land was owned than in the West, and the church was more subservient to the temporal rulers. I'd split the difference between Catholicism and Protestant/Reformed.

no extra diplomats
Why not? I don't see why they shouldn't get 1 extra like the rest of Christianity.

I think because Russia was somewhat isolated. On the diplomatic front, I'm afraid that we're going to make a mistake whatever we choose: Russia and especially Ethiopia should have diplomatic penalties. The Balkans shouldn't. The Byzantines should have diplomatic bonuses.

Alexandre

 

[Norrefeldt]

Well historically they didn't do as much trade everywhere, but where they did they were much better at it.

Giving anyone +20% in trade is senseless and will make the game unplayable in MP.
It don't support any changes to the Christians (and hardly any to the Muslims). Johan did five or six tweaks to get where the vanilla game is after massive feedback and actual playtesting. Thinking we can beat him with this discussion and a few hands-off is presumptuous to say the least IMO.