Difficulty of province-wide religious conversions

[unmerged(2810)]

Widespread induced religious conversion on the EU level (send in one colony unit and convert a whole province) is a very poor model. After all, this lets England eliminate Roman Catholicism from Ireland for peanuts and in a space of six months, something that never happened, no matter what the "official" Church of Ireland might have been. Centuries of vicious oppression were unable to compel and enforce this change.

Likewise, with only one exeption (some Polish provinces), the Unia after Florence (1439) was extremely short-lived and ended up merely producing resented minority Uniates in otherwise Orthodox regions.

Generally, from my reading of history, if there was a "state" as Europe would recognize one at the time in place, mass conversion of entire regions simply didn't happen except as part of a general socio-political upheaval (The Reformations, conquest of the Aztecs, the Turkokratia), and in the case of the Turkokratia, it was not really completed in Turkish lands until the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Turkey in the 1920s upon its Armenian and Greek citizens.

Likewise, in EU currently, the colony of Maryland could NEVER HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED. Reality contradicts this, of course. Maryland *WAS* established as a haven for British Roman Catholics and it was dones so *after* the UK had abandoned Rome.

 

[Spruce]

I posted a thread about religion (name of thread=new feature). There I suggested to use a missionar and to use the model of:

-major religion in a province,
-minor religion in a province (minorities),

So a nation could be pagan, but a catholic minority can be present (=due to previous actions (=colonists, other)). Let's say, you treat those pagans right, and the province can be converted to catholic (=major religion).

I also added an offensive suggestion about the use of missionar as clerical converter. They can possibly introduce a minor religion in a province of another nation. This opens perspectives for the gameplay, I guess. The missionar is a special unit, invisible for the army. You do not need a CB to cross the country borders.

Let's say France sponsors some monks talking about the catholic church in Helvetia.

 

[unmerged(255)]

Originally posted by Dogface
Generally, from my reading of history, if there was a "state" as Europe would recognize one at the time in place, mass conversion of entire regions simply didn't happen except as part of a general socio-political upheaval (The Reformations, conquest of the Aztecs, the Turkokratia), and in the case of the Turkokratia, it was not really completed in Turkish lands until the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Turkey in the 1920s upon its Armenian and Greek citizens.

Great post Dogface, conversion of an entire region is way too easy in EU and the whole concept needs an overhaul for EU2.

One minor correction though, Armenian genocide took place in 1915; there had been atrocities to a latter extent in 1890s as well.

As for the Greeks of Asia Minor, most scholars do not consider it an ethnic cleansing since the conditions of a mutual population exchange between Greece and Turkey were established by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. To be sure, most Anatolian Greeks were already displaced by that date, but the fate of the Turkish population in areas occupied by the Greek army between 1919 and 1922 was not very different. In any case, by 1923 more than a million Anatolian Greeks left their ancient homeland for Greece while almost half a million ethnic Turks and Muslim Greeks were "sent back" to Turkey. Definitely a tragic event, but as one of my Greek friends on the EU boards remarked once, perhaps this was the only way to prevent further violence in an age of rising nationalism in that part of the world. Just consider what the citizens of former Yugoslavia went through during the past decade.

tuna

 

[unmerged(739)]

Uhhhhhhhhh

I thought that the religion only represented oonly that of the city just like the population level (apparently only this are really matters.

 

[unmerged(2810)]

Irrelevant.

Cities aren't a cakewalk to convert, either. And the UK still failed to convert Ireland away from Roman Catholicism.

 

[Sidney]

Greven has already stated that the populations of Ireland will be "taken care of" to stop the easy English conversion and creation of a glorious protestant ireland.

Your post actually got me think about the success/failure of governments in converting populations- in particular majority populations which is what the province relgion in EU represents. Populations would often "adapt" to the religion of the ruler/conquerer but in terms of the gov't sending missionaries to convert their own folks I'm off the top of my head a bit stumped. Maybe the answer here is just to get rid of missionary conversion just have province changes be part of the "Converting the Heretics/Heresy is Afoot" random events. The only area that leaves as a question is RoTW and how the game would handle a new colony where you had natives- if you'd have pagan colonies.

 

[unmerged(28)]

Colonists will no longer convert provinces.
Missionaries are in the game.

/Greven

 

[grumbold]

Many states spent considerable effort on either pacifying or converting the different religions. EU1 had a very artificial breakpoint at 5,000 people between the convertible and the unconvertible but at least it allowed the player to act on the religious issues. I would not want to see religious assimilation abstracted entirely to random events. The colonist is not perfect but it does involve an effort in time, money, a scarce resource and chance to effect a conversion. Ireland is perhaps the best example of where the system produces ahistorical events, but only if a player chooses to take that step in an effort to make England strong. It is not as if the AI exploits the potential and it does weaken the English early colonisation effort. If a player wants to expend them on Ireland rather than getting a toe-hold in America or Africa, so be it.


[edit]but I see Greven already has the answer

 

[Gjakoll]

Originally posted by Greven
Colonists will no longer convert provinces.
Missionaries are in the game.

/Greven

Hooray!

 

[Sidney]

Originally posted by grumbold
Many states spent considerable effort on either pacifying or converting the different religions.

The question is how successful were these efforts?

I'll be interested to see what effects the missionaries have in game terms for changing religions.

 

[Sir James]

Will the new system try to recreate conversion by population movement, either government sponsored (Ulster) or private initiative (Maryland)?

Will the reformation and similar events be modelled using missionaries (Calvin, Knox, etc) or will they stay as EU1 style events?

 

[viper37]

Originally posted by Greven
Colonists will no longer convert provinces.
Missionaries are in the game.

/Greven

Just one precision... When you say a colonist will no longer convert a province, do you also mean new colonization in a pagan province? I.E. a new city of 700 colonist in Quebec will be pagan, because the province was considered pagan before the arrival of the colonist?

 

[unmerged(28)]

Originally posted by viper37


Just one precision... When you say a colonist will no longer convert a province, do you also mean new colonization in a pagan province? I.E. a new city of 700 colonist in Quebec will be pagan, because the province was considered pagan before the arrival of the colonist?

Every succesful colonist will change the religion of a colony, but never a colony city. Thus the first 7 will have this ability.

/Greven

 

[Aetius]

conversion and Jihadding made too easy

I would like a gradual conversion of provinces to the "official line". In EU you can conquer a series of provinces and keep them for several hundred years without any change of religion. It would be nice if the heretic conversion event popped up more often so some change would happen over the long run. For me it seems that my provinces turn heretical as often as they become followers of the true faith. Being allowed to spend money on promoting domestic conversion, like stability would be nice if it could be done.
I dislike the fact that religious genocide seems to be the only to go when trying to convert provinces with large populations. It sort of destroys the entire point of trying it. It seems a bit weird that government imposed religion has no affect on religious choice of the populace and that the goverment can't spend vast moneys to get people on board. The Turks and Granada seem to have used a carrot and stick approach that has worked, so since the stick is allowed now, it would be nice if a carrot approach would be allowed, even if it were to be expensive.
On another note doesn't it seem strange that stability hits due to declaring war on states with one's own religion increases the chances of rebellion evenly even if one's provinces have different religions. You'd think that Orthodox provinces would be more upset if an Orthodox country was attacked than the Shiite provinces. Crusading as a Christian or Jihadding as a Muslims is easier in EU than attacking one's neighbours. I would expect the "freed/rescued" areas to become bellicose and rebellious when similar infidel area is to be helped by the Sword of Truth And Light And Other Words Starting With Capitals.

 

[unmerged(4944)]

I think Aetius brings up some very good points, especially in the gradual drift of provinces towards the national religion (it doesn't have to be dramatic 0.1% per province per year would enough). Or maybe just more of those events where a province changes religion - they're great.

For myself, I would prefer more flexibility in religions. I think its (barely) conceivable that orthodox nations might change to prot/cath, or that Hungary might have gone orthodox (I've had games where there were far more orthodox provinces than others).

Sure its extremely unlikely, and would there would have been disastrous consequences. Then again many other kings just gave the order and the country changed religion, so its not that odd to imagine God sending the tsar a vision like he did Constantine.

I actually feel allowing such options strengthens the historical model - because it will demonstrate how disastrous such a decision would have been, rather than just excluding it. Showing not telling as they say.

 

[Aetius]

Originally posted by Martinov

Sure its extremely unlikely, and would there would have been disastrous consequences. Then again many other kings just gave the order and the country changed religion, so its not that odd to imagine God sending the tsar a vision like he did Constantine.

I actually feel allowing such options strengthens the historical model - because it will demonstrate how disastrous such a decision would have been, rather than just excluding it. Showing not telling as they say.

A more flexible stability punishment scheme can't be too difficult to implement. Standard punishment for standard conversions and double or triple punishment for unconventional conversion. In some historical accounts China and Japan are described as being close to conversions to Christianity, personally I doubt it, but allowing it would be nice. England reverted to paganism, Julian tried to restore it why not Kleves? It should cause massive rebellions though and -300 or so in relationships with countries with the same religion and no benefits with those that share the religion one converts to.

 

[unmerged(2970)]

Ireland

Missionaries can also have different success rates (%) like colonists for establishing/upgrading colonies/tps and in this case some provinces will be more susceptible to conversion and other not (for example, Ireland will have 10-15% success rate of conversion).

What do you think about this?

 

[Aetius]

The question comes down to the implementation of missionaries I suppose ...

 

[Aetius]

Can the pope or councils declare crusades? That would be interesting. Giving everyone with a catholic state religion a Casus Belli against the heretics. In that case early conversions could cause a crusade against you. It would be another reason for not trying to go Hussite or Buddhist.

 

[unmerged(28)]

Through event in such case, no internal mechanism... It would otherwise be a bit strange in th later third of the game you ask me.

/Greven