Christianisation of Eastern (Central) Europe

[unmerged(10423)]

In this thread, please discuss the ways for and results of christianising those Eastern European nations, which include Slavs (from the tribes at Elbe to the Russian steppes), Magyars, Avars, and Baltic nations within the AJFIFU mod.

The way:
I suggest that this is done by events, separately for each country.

These events can be triggered by special events in Germany (but which of the German countries?) and Byzantium. For example, Kievian Russia would have an event triggered by a Byzantine one, where the historical choice (for Kievians) would be to get baptised by Contantinopolitan envoys. An ahistorical choice would be still to accept a more western-like christianity.

Countries that failed to adopt christianity should still have this possibility as an ahistorical event choice. This would allow for the playability of these countries, which should be otherwise doomed and get absorbed by their mightier (and more modern) neighbours.

The results:
The result of adopting christianity were profound and not limited to the religious sphaere. In the game, I suggest to simulate this by the following developments:
- religion changed to christian (obvious)
- revoltrisk slightly increased for a short period (obvious)
- revolts following in separate events, specific for each country
- techgroup changed to latin or orthodox, according to where does the christianity come from (starting group should be exotic, see a separate thread for technology)
- innovativeness slightly increased - by 1 or 2 (reading introduced)
- centralisation lowered significantly for western christianity (a mighty class of imported priests arises, speaks latin and questions the traditional prince's powers sometimes)
- centralisation increased slightly for the eastern christianity (priests speak the local language and teach that the power of the prince comes from God almighty)
- some cash added for the eastern christianity (the rich eastern ceremonial added to the splendour of the court, I don't know how to simulate this better)
- aristocracy increased slightly and serfdom increased massively (the very concept of feudalism has just arrived, Gloria in Excelsis!)
- some events (random events?) decreasing the basic tax value of provinces should follow (donations of estates to the church)
- OTOH, the energetic colonising action by the church could offset the previous effect, so maybe we do nothing.

 

[unmerged(9076)]

You might want to include ahistorical pagan revival movements. If, for instance, a pagan power controls provinces X, Y, and Z, formerly pagan subjects might rally to it, thus increasing the chance of a random conversion (possibly) or simply revoltrisk.

Be wary of a permanent tax reduction in a province because of church estates. If that's implemented, there should be a way to confiscate said estates to balance it out.

Overall, however, I think what you've proposed is excellent. Do you need assistance in scripting the whole package?

 

[unmerged(10423)]

Hi, thank you for the comment.

- Church estates: look at the last but one point in my original proposal; also the increasing of serfdom and aristocracy correspond to this. Other than that, the introduction of modern tools and farming techniques, increasing of the ("internal") colonisation, induced by the Christianity, contributed to increased output overall.

- yes please, you may want to start with some nations. For now, I am busy professionally; also I want to correctthe tech levels issue.

 

[Kasperus]

Why would the eastern european nations have to start with exotic actually? Especially when compared to western Europe having latin? First of all the states in the east in 8th century are not that comparable to exotic tribes in America and Africa in 16th century, if only for the fact that they were not isolated from western European influence and as such were equally developed on military and trade-levels and basically also on the level of statehood. Secondly, Western Europe was in contrary to the 16th century and after not ahead the rest of the world in technological development during me - strictly speaking all of Europe was lagging behind the far east and islamitic world. And third, introduction of christianity had eventually no direct technological effect, apart of introduction of limited clerical bureaucracy, while you might question the benefits of feudalism...

Personally I would rather think of a solution in which the islam and China have the highest techgroup, followed by India, orthodox world and Buddhist world (if included) and then followed by western europe and then finally the pagan states in Europe. Of course all by itself it only has any benefit if you manage to work out the technological issues (cannot help here, I have not done anything with the techs in MES, but it DOES work as intended in our scenario)

 

[Ayeshteni]

Personally I would rather think of a solution in which the islam and China have the highest techgroup, followed by India, orthodox world and Buddhist world (if included) and then followed by western europe and then finally the pagan states in Europe. Of course all by itself it only has any benefit if you manage to work out the technological issues (cannot help here, I have not done anything with the techs in MES, but it DOES work as intended in our scenario)

Indeed I agree. Most of the 'inventions' and technological know-how came from China and the burgeoning Arab and Islamic World. Europe (both West and East) was a veritable backwater in comparison.

But again, the problem lies in the game mechanics here. If Browning can figure this out (and I sincerely hope he does ) then we can have different tech groups, rather than having every nation have latin (the highest) for progression.

However, as to starting events, dive straight in, and have a ball, we look forward to seeing them!
yours
Ayeshteni