Dai Viet puzzle; how to do it?

[neondt]

That does remarkably little to actually fix the issue I have with the faith.

If I am at -100, then all that does is move me to -75, which is equal to exactly One declaration of war.

Look, can people have success and even enjoy playing with the mechanics as they exist? I would have to be an arrogant fool to say no.

But for me, the fact that the Buddhist faiths are the only ones that will actually make you weaker that you would otherwise be as any other religion should you play the karma game the wrong way makes them un-fun to me and forces me to place an entire region that I had previously been considering diving into on the no-fly list.

Now, could I mod out the penalties. Certainly. And I may do so. But that does not change the fact that, in my opinion, the karma mechanic is, to put bluntly, bad in it's current state.

As with all things, this is just one man's opinion, and if you actually do like it than more power to you.

I don't enjoy the Buddhist mechanics either. The way I modded it was to reset karma to 0 on new ruler, and swap around the penalties for high/low karma. The reason for the second part is that the penalties are contradictory to the other mechanics in the game, like army tradition (you fight more, you get better at fighting) and aggressive expansion (not being aggressive makes countries hate you less). This contradiction makes Buddhism flat out worse than every other religion (except for animism and shamanism).

The idea that Buddhism could force you to play differently is a goal I understand and appreciate. We saw this done well and interestingly with the Mesoamerican religions - particularly Nahuatl. Before Westernising as Aztecs, the game plays very differently while still being engaging and challenging. I don't personally think the Buddhist mechanics vary the gameplay in an interesting or fun way.

Furthermore, I think the Karma mechanic is uninspired. It doesn't really reflect the history of Buddhist countries in the period (though many of the events related to it are very well researched, particularly the Theravada events about monastic links with Ceylon). Successful conquerors in south-east Asia, for example, were as venerated as they were in Europe or anywhere else in the world. Their armies didn't become somehow worse as a result of their greater experience in war. I'd compare it to giving Christians penalties for declaring wars on the grounds that Jesus taught pacifism. The mechanic seems thematically flimsy to me.

 

[neondt]

The changes to Buddhism have basically given all Buddhist nations -10 discipline permanently.

There is some garbage being thrown around about how you can try to manage it but none of it sounds feasible from my time with Ayutthaya.

It's perfectly possible to manage. I just don't think that doing so is interesting or fun.