CK II - [2.8.3.3] [SAHQ] Religious revocation law is easily abused by Muslims

[jonjowett]

One line summary of your issue
[2.8.3.3] [SAHQ] Religious revocation law is easily abused by Muslims

Game Version
[2.8.3.3] [SAHQ]

What expansions do you have installed?
All of the above

Do you have mods enabled?
No

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
The CB files make it quite clear that the devs intend Muslims to leave existing title holders in place after a successful invasion or holy war:

Spoiler

# Regular Holy War CB
religious = {
    name = CB_NAME_RELIGIOUS
    war_name = WAR_NAME_RELIGIOUS

######Removed a LOT of code unrelated to the point of this post

    on_success_title = {
        if = { # Standard Holy War behaviour for Non-Muslims and Muslims fighting other Muslims
######Again, removed because not relevant
        }
        if = { # Muslims fighting Non-Muslims preserve vassals
            limit = {
                ROOT = {
                    religion_group = muslim
                }
                FROM = {
                    NOT = {
                        religion_group = muslim
                    }
                }
            }
            custom_tooltip = {
                text = religious_cb_succ_muslim_tip
                hidden_tooltip = {
                    ROOT = {
                        vassalize_or_take_under_title = {
                            title = PREV
                            enemy = FROM
                            is_religious = yes
                            type = holy_war
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

muslim_invasion = {
    name = CB_NAME_INVASION
    war_name = WAR_NAME_INVASION

#####Snip or remove irrelevant code

    on_success_title = {
        custom_tooltip = {
            text = other_invasion_succ_tip
            hidden_tooltip = {
                ROOT = {
                    vassalize_or_take_under_title_destroy_duchies = { #####This is the important part - vassals are preserved and duchies are destroyed.
                        title = PREV
                        enemy = FROM
                        is_crusade = no # Even if the title holder is not participating in the war, gain holdings occupied by all Crusade participants
                        type = invasion
                    }

However, it is trivial to work around this by passing the Religious Revocation law - once you've done that, all you have to do is manually go through every newly-acquired holding and revoke each title. It costs a few hundred prestige (and it's rather tedious) but, assuming your realm is religiously uniform, there are no other negative consequences. It's a no-brainer.

It's also ahistorical - there's a good reason that the CB files are written the way they are. (I believe that Muslims did generally leave vassals of different religions in place, as long as those vassals didn't rebel.)

Suggested Resolution: Alter the Religious Revocation law for Muslims so that it's only justification for revokation from other Muslims (of a different denomination). Or you could alter it so that Muslims can only freely revoke from heresies of their own religion (eg. a Sunni overlord would have free revokation against a Yazidi vassal but not a Shia or Ibadi vassal.) The latter might make it more fun to play as the various Shia vassals of the Abbasids, so I think it's slightly better from a gameplay point of view - but I'm not sure how historically-accurate it is.

Alternative Resolution: Remove the Muslim-specific coding from the CB files because there's no point and it actually detracts from the game. If the AI wins such a war and has access to religious revokation, they will almost certainly choose to revoke rather than demanding conversion. If the player is in the same situation, they will probably make the same choice - except that, for the player, it's a long boring manual task that detracts from the fun of the game.

I can't see anything specifically addressing this issue in the dev diaries for Holy Fury, but it does seem like a good fit for the patch. Assuming you agree with me, of course!

Steps to reproduce the issue.
Win a holy war or invasion as a Muslim. Observe that wrong-religion vassals are preserved. Pass the religious revocation law (immediately, using the console). Revoke all of those wrong-religion vassals for free. Surely this isn't the intended gameplay?!

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[DanLynch]

Buddhists and Hindus have a vaguely similar issue: the set of religions they can holy war is different from the set of religions they can revoke, which leads to bizarre outcomes. For example, you can invite a claimant, press his claim, land him, win the war, and then immediately revoke every title he and his vassals have (except for the barony you just granted him) without tyranny because they are filthy unbelievers, but you can't just holy war for the exact same territory because those same vassals are neither infidels nor heretics.