Crypto-Religion

[riadach]

One of the most common practices through the middle Ages for dealing with religious conquest was the idea of outwardly practising the conqueror's faith while privately remaining loyal to the faith of one's fathers. This was of course most clearly seen after the reconquista in Spain where people became Crypto-Muslims and Crypto-Jews, openly asserting that they had converted to Catholicism, when in actual fact they were still practising their old faith in secret.

I think this could make a nice little feature, given the proliferation of Holy Wars, Jihads and Crusades in the game. The Crypto could then maintain good relations with their new liege and with their vassals, performing regular acts of charity etc to their old religion or maintaining religious holdings of the former religion, to affirm that they are still privately committed. You could then have other options such as being found out and tried for apostasy/heresy, or secretly organising a religious uprising/rebellion.

It would also make things more realistic if after a jihad or holy war, the vassals of the target province were given the option to convert or lose their lands. Perhaps it would make sense in such a scenario that players with high intrigue and high piety could also be given the option to become crypto.

 

[liamgamer55]

It'd be good to see "syndicalist" religions as a heresy (as was a feature in magni mundi for eu3). It makes lots of sense that initial converts either retain a lot of old practices or in fact are openly lying about their religion. As a feature magni mundi made it so that places had to be converted twice, once properly and secondly to stamp out heresy(which ingame may require a highly skilled chaplain to do, wheras initial converts is easy). It'd be great to see a two stage conversion system be in the game... and fortunately it's something that's very easy to mod. You can also easily show it on the map mode by choosing the colours of religion groups wisely and making halfway religions be part of their target group ("crypto" muslims would appear as christian syndicalists) which is halfway in colour between the two groups.

It would also make things, that after a jihad or holy war, if the vassals of the target province were given the option to convert or lose their lands. Perhaps it would make sense in such a scenario that players with high intrigue and high piety could also be given the option to become crypto.

Absolutely, it's a very important and very common feature of middle ages religion. It'd also apply to christians converting pagans in sweden as well possibly, depending on how harsh the persecution is as to how the people react to it. For example if you have a high learning and zealous chaplain it could make initial conversion easier but full conversion much harder (full blown spanish inquisitions everywhere isn't necassarily actually the best way to stamp out heresy).

 

[riadach]

I think part of what I was hoping for, would be the inability of the liege (be they player or npc) to tell which of his new subjects were crypto and which weren't. Would add a whole new level of intrigue and surreptition. Perhaps a theocracy DLC could even introduce such a mechanic.

 

[liamgamer55]

Well bear in mind, in ck2 the religion of the higher nobles is represented by the county and higher characters and the religions of the lower nobles is represented by a combination of both the barony level titles and province culture. Province religion only ever represents nobles, merchants and priests (of the 4 medieval classes). It may suck that peasants were irrelevent from a historical perspective but they for the most part were and that's how the game has been designed. Now with that said, often merchants would be much slower to convert than nobles, so it makes sense having half and half provinces and characters. It sounds a bit weird, but it was a fairly common historical practice as the OP said.

The fact that people's children are far less likely to keep up that guise than their parents would mean that proper conversion would take multiple generations. That would add a lot to the dynasty game. Rather than simply "oh if we want people to take longer to convert we'll just add a larger mean time to happen" instead it can be that some first generation converts aren't particularly pious and it'd be good to have a game mechanic representing that (e.g. syndicalist religions as a heresy of their parent religion). You could have events where your child's guardian has to choose between teaching the realm religion or his "crypto" religion... and if he has low intrigue he has a chance of being caught and put to death for heresy. It's medieval times, those things happen.

If I was in the mood to spend 10 hours modding it I could totally rebalance religion and insert crypto religions etc. That said, I'm not and I've got other modding projects in the works. Hopefully it makes it into the game officially though.

 

[Mods]

A bit silly how it works now: a zealous muslim in prison being demanded conversion by his catholic liege that he hates will become a zealous catholic that now loves his liege

 

[liamgamer55]

A bit silly how it works now: a zealous muslim in prison being demanded conversion by his catholic liege that he hates will become a zealous catholic that now loves his liege

Indeed, the current game mechanics simply cannot handle that situation. It'd be more like 60% chance normal catholic, 20% crypto muslim catholic (ingame it'd simply be called syndicalist catholic) and 20% zealous catholic.

 

[VersusAllOdds]

A bit silly how it works now: a zealous muslim in prison being demanded conversion by his catholic liege that he hates will become a zealous catholic that now loves his liege

Zealous people aren't zealous because their God is good, but because they are zealous people.
There's no greater fanatic than a convert!

Although, I see how this can be unrealistic.