Difficulty of province-wide religious conversions

[Alexandre]

Originally posted by Sputnik
Isn’t illogical when you try to colonize a province populated with 40,000 Muslim fundamentalist (aggressive level: very high, plus having zero tolerance for Muslims) and then send 500 people and suddenly the whole town is now Christian?
Shouldn’t be more realistic if this was represent with percentage model: say 10% Catholics, 90% Muslims. And then the revolt risk for our example would be calculated as = Bonus + 0.9*Cr + 0.1*Mr.
Where Bonus is bonus risk (positive or negative) due to stability level, war exhaustion, etc .
Cr = tolerance level for Catholics.
Mr = tolerance level for Muslims.
It should be mentioned that unless changed by random event, the state religion percentage should gradually increase over time in every city. However this will not go with constant speed. The less tolerance you have for some religion, the faster you are going to convert. Obviously disadvantage is higher revolt risk.

Ideally, we'd have a percentage for each religion: e.g. 73% Sunni, 12% Shite, 12% Orthodox, 5% Catholic, and 3% Pagan.

When the Czar sends a missionary, he increases the number of Orthodox adherents by a set number (let's say, 1,000 people). That will increase the Orthodox percentage. But, the groups that are reduced will be based upon a combination of random chance, religious resistance to conversion and the tolleration level for each religion.

During wars, the population will be killed off at random, potentially hitting one faith far harder than an other -- but without predictability.

Alexandre

 

[Aetius]

Originally posted by Alexandre


Ideally, we'd have a percentage for each religion: e.g. 73% Sunni, 12% Shite, 12% Orthodox, 5% Catholic, and 3% Pagan.
Alexandre

I agree with the percentage idea, since there is a fixed amount of religions it shouldn't increase the data too much. However using concept like increasing a certain number of believers leads to problems I think. A more static approach would be better, the official religion or most preferred religion gradually takes over at the smaller religions expense
Just general information Gibbon list some causes of the success of Christian conversions: intolerance, an afterlife, reported miracles, high morals and church discipline. Russell adds a holy book and the collapse of previous civilisation. Islam has had success on with similar circumstances, I am not too sure of the existance of miracles in Islam but the others fit the bill.
The point I am trying to make is that it would be nice if Christianity and Islam would be better at conversions and resisting conversions.

 

[Sputnik]

How about also adding option of massacring of the heretics? Something in the lines of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day? So if Paris has 45% Protestants 55% Catholics and have 100,000 population and the massacre produces 33 1/3% elimination, 33 1/3/% converting to state religion, and 33 1/3% untouched, if you, the just king of France choose to massacre that would result into Paris with 85,000 population out of which 15,000 are protestant or 17,6%.
Of course a massacre would cause a temporary drop of the revenue from the unfortunate province, CB from all protestant countries (and drop of relations with them).
This is maybe too much to ask, but such things were actually happening in the history. Maybe it shouldn’t be an option but instead a random event (which would occur more frequently if your religion tolerance toward some religion minority is lower)

 

[Sputnik]

I forget to put and so that everybody will think of me as a peace-loving man.

 

[Spruce]

I would also love to work with religious minorities in provinces.

Perhaps you could work with stating the major religion and the minorities. I don't know if the exact % can have some added value.

 

[Malthus]

I like the ideas floating around on this thread.

To summerize: a "percentage based" religious model, gradual conversion to the state religion based on level of persicution combined with the presently-occuring revolt risk for persicution (which models the inquisition and its equivalents), and infuence of missionaries, which would be most effective against "shamanistic" religions and less so against other state-level religions (i.e. extremely difficult to convert Muslims to Christianity, except by force).

I have a few ideas for comment:

1. Missionaries, if successful in converting "natives", add to the %chance for successful colonization;

2. There should be other forces in the model outside of state control which influence % religion. One idea already exists -- random events. Another would be a religious version of the "neigbour bonus", in which each province bordering on the target province influences its religion, modeling conversion and migration;

3. Perhaps an additional feature could be the building of churches or mosques in cities, which would add to the "state" religion conversion factor. Reformed protestants wouldn't get them, catholics would have a bonus, etc.

4. The game paramaters should be such that it is extremely difficult - yet possible - to convert your provinces to the "state" religion.

 

[Alexandre]

Originally posted by Malthus
I like the ideas floating around on this thread.

To summerize: a "percentage based" religious model, gradual conversion to the state religion based on level of persicution combined with the presently-occuring revolt risk for persicution (which models the inquisition and its equivalents), and infuence of missionaries, which would be most effective against "shamanistic" religions and less so against other state-level religions (i.e. extremely difficult to convert Muslims to Christianity, except by force).

Agreed. As I've previously said, it should be harder to convert the Barbary pirates to Christianity than the Aztecs. I'd also agrue that it should be harder to convert Moslems to Christianity than one brand of Christianity to another. But, given the fact that there were areas where conversion did take place, it is important that it remains a realistic posibility.

1. Missionaries, if successful in converting "natives", add to the %chance for successful colonization;

Interesting. I hadn't thought of that. It would also make it harder for a country with another religion to colonize the province.

2. There should be other forces in the model outside of state control which influence % religion. One idea already exists -- random events. Another would be a religious version of the "neigbour bonus", in which each province bordering on the target province influences its religion, modeling conversion and migration;

This is realistic: ethnic and religious borders are always somewhat permiable. These conversion possibilities should also affect natives: for example, there is a large Orthodox Eskimo population in Alsaka as a result of Russian colonial rule in the 19th century.

3. Perhaps an additional feature could be the building of churches or mosques in cities, which would add to the "state" religion conversion factor. Reformed protestants wouldn't get them, catholics would have a bonus, etc.

I'm in favor of getting a little more control over what is happening in my cities. Instead of calling them churches, I'd suggest that they get called Cathedrals, since we're only building one per province. My gut feeling is that the Cathedral should automatically belong to the state religion until the edict of tolleration. Thereafer,and between the Orthodox and other religons, there should be a right to build multiple Cathedrals, so if Poland builds a Catholic Cathedral in a province, and losses it to Prussia, Prussia can build a second, Protestant cathedral. When Prussia loses the province to Russia, Russia can build an Orthodox cathedral.

A monarch should have the option to tear down a cathedral, gaining about half of its construction cost, and lossing a good 25 diplomatic points with that Cathedral's co-religionists.

4. The game paramaters should be such that it is extremely difficult - yet possible - to convert your provinces to the "state" religion.

Most states did get the majority of their populations to follow the state religion so its important that it is possible -- just at a real cost.

Alexandre

 

[Alexandre]

Originally posted by Lucidor
Couldn't the resistance to change/competitiveness be inhereditary in the religion as such?

A shamanistic religion without a large volume of scriptures and commentaries and such would stand very little chance against the unified attempts of Catholic missionaries, especially when these are armed with the firmly rooted belief that there can be no other truth - a concept alien to the loose shaman beliefs?

Agree 100%

Applied to inter-christian conflicts, perhaps a branch of Christendom pleasant to most people would get more converts? For instance: If Lutheranism came to the poor farmers of Northern Finland they would embrace it more enthusiastic than Genoese merchants.

How would you impliment this?

Alexandre

 

[Alexandre]

Originally posted by Sputnik
How about also adding option of massacring of the heretics? Something in the lines of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day? So if Paris has 45% Protestants 55% Catholics and have 100,000 population and the massacre produces 33 1/3% elimination, 33 1/3/% converting to state religion, and 33 1/3% untouched, if you, the just king of France choose to massacre that would result into Paris with 85,000 population out of which 15,000 are protestant or 17,6%.
Of course a massacre would cause a temporary drop of the revenue from the unfortunate province, CB from all protestant countries (and drop of relations with them).
This is maybe too much to ask, but such things were actually happening in the history. Maybe it shouldn’t be an option but instead a random event (which would occur more frequently if your religion tolerance toward some religion minority is lower)

Nasty -- but realistic. There should be a higher revolt risk among all religious minorities, and especially among those whom you are intolerant of.

Alexandre

 

[Lucidor]

Originally posted by Alexandre

Agree 100%


How would you impliment this?

Alexandre [/B]

Well... There should perhaps be a value for each province, since the city size doesn'r necessarily tie in to the total population of the city. So, a "poor" province like Tavastelän should have a higher tolerance for protestantism, especially if no improvements have been built...

Come to think of it: This would be a real pain to implement, since to be realistic, all these percentages would have to be modified over time... I see factors outside the players reach at work here, so maybe it's not such a good idea after all...

 

[Spruce]

We came up already with the idea of missionaries vs religious minorities.

There is also one common ground I would like to go furhter into. It's about how can nations influence ohter nations on the religious scale (influence religion).

I myself came up with the idea of offensive missionaries (units that can't be seen by armies) and can cross country borders without having to DOW another nation. Maybe the idea is non realistic (something like the civilisation unit cleric).

In this thread I saw the idea of migrations from one nation to the other (someting like the technologie bonus, coming from the neigbouring nations). Is this perhaps a better starting ground to model these things?

 

[Lucidor]

Originally posted by Spruce
I myself came up with the idea of offensive missionaries (units that can't be seen by armies) and can cross country borders without having to DOW another nation. Maybe the idea is non realistic (something like the civilisation unit cleric).

If the missionaries are too offensive to the target province, perhaps they would end their day at the stake?

Great idea, never mind the pun.

 

[Malthus]

Spruce, I would like to reply to your idea of "offensive" missionaries.

I believe that this idea is actually quite realistic. I seem to recall that during the reign of Elizabeth I, the Catholics set up an academy to train priests to stir up catholic sentiment in England (called Doai? -- something like that). Catholic grandees built "priest holes" to hide them.

Alas, the attempt failed. But at least it was tried.

For the game, such "offensive" missionaries could have two uses - either to increase % of your chosen religion in an "enemy" province, or to encourage existing co-religionists to rebel. Such activity should reduce relations drasically, but not amount to a CB.

I can see a good use for such missionaries, particularly to disrupt key provinces during war.

This mechanism could complement the "neigbour bonus" conversion factor, which would be outside player control.

 

[Aetius]

Originally posted by Malthus
3. Perhaps an additional feature could be the building of churches or mosques in cities, which would add to the "state" religion conversion factor. Reformed protestants wouldn't get them, catholics would have a bonus, etc.

I don't agree on no. 3. First for historical reasons:
The church and the state were separate in Catholic countries and it doesn't seem like very many churches were built by the governments of countries in them, most of them (to my meager knowledge) were built with the help of cash from the church and through donations from wealthy individuals (who could be the rulers). In protestant countries the church seems to have been a part of government. Calvinist countries I know nothing of but I suspect it was close to the Catholic approach.
Secondly from game perspective: If you'd carry out the idea in the EU game it would lead to a pretty strange world. Countries that are completely Catholic, let's say the Papal States, would, if the AI is working properly, not build churches in their home countries. Countries (let's say England) that convert to a different religion would on the other hand build huge amounts of churches in area (let's say Ireland) with different relgious beliefs. It also feels a bit strange to have religious buildings as a "build option" when there are hardly any other build options.

 

[Malthus]

Aetus, I stand corrected. Of course, on second thought, it would be strange to have "Cathedrals" only in newly aquired territory.

On the other hand, there are some historical precidents. I am thinking of the Catholic Churchs' bid to Christianize Japan, and the building of churches in Mexico (often on the same sites as as Aztec temples!) seems, to me at least, to represent part of a concious attempt to spread or impose Catholicism.

I am not as familiar with the church-state dynamics of protestant and reform, but rather based my comment on the "iconoclasm" prevelent in those religions (that is, hatred of images and fancy church buildings) -- more in evidence in reform than protestant, I imagine. (Note: protestants should have option to burn down Catholic churches)

Perhaps an addition to my suggestion would be that "Cathedreals" within a majority religion province are much less expensive to build, and add to the "resistance factor" of the province to outside "offensive missionaries" (see above) as well as acting to improve provincial stability. This would provide a hefty incentive to build within these provinces.

As for whether this build option should be added, I will only note that I am all in favour of increasing the build options within provinces, and solicit ideas for more of the same.

As for appropriateness of this particular build option, the building of fancy churches was certainly a part of this era and should be modeled. I seem to recall that the "sale of indulgences" which sparked Luther was intended to pay for building fancy churches in Rome...

 

[Spruce]

Wow,

great having Malthus on this forum. He seems to know lots of examples about historical events. And we seem to be on the same line.

IMO the construction of churches/cathedrals was quite important in history. Sometimes they were under construction for decades. It would also like to implement new construction options for EUII.

One of them is the church, why not? Perhaps it's pretty obvious to have already a church in your province. Maybe you can build a church in a colony or small city (=requirement is that province religion equals state religion). Maybe a nice church will have a lower revolt risk.

But I like also the idea of building cathedrals. They were huge projects during those days.

Cathedrals should be possible to build, having the effect to an increased population growth (it's a sign of prosperity) and increasing the chance that a neigbouring province having a different religion will revolt or change religion (or if you work with minorities, minorities could be added). Also Cathedrals should give a moral bonus for defending army units/fortresses.

 

[unmerged(2810)]

Historically, Orthodox missionizing by the EU period spent a great deal of effort on acculturation, which might explain why it went more slowly than RC or Protestant efforts but where it took root it managed to stay at least to the middle of the 20th century even without military conquest. To this day Orthodoxy is a religious force among the Inuit in Alaska. Indeed, some Protestant "mission" organizations have lamented how the "Eskimos" won't shed Orthodox Christianity for proper American Protestantism. The Orthodox population of China managed to survive the Boxer Rebellion and it has taken the Chicoms until this decade to put their extinction in site (they have prohibited the ordination or entry of Orthodox priests into Chicom territory).

How might this be modeled in EU2? Orthodox missionizing of a non-Mosaic population would take longer but be more resilient.

 

[unmerged(2810)]

Throwing off the new religion.

I hope that EU2 has a chance that a converted region may very well revert back to its old ways. This did happen historically.

 

[Alexandre]

Originally posted by Dogface
Historically, Orthodox missionizing by the EU period spent a great deal of effort on acculturation, which might explain why it went more slowly than RC or Protestant efforts but where it took root it managed to stay at least to the middle of the 20th century even without military conquest. To this day Orthodoxy is a religious force among the Inuit in Alaska. Indeed, some Protestant "mission" organizations have lamented how the "Eskimos" won't shed Orthodox Christianity for proper American Protestantism. The Orthodox population of China managed to survive the Boxer Rebellion and it has taken the Chicoms until this decade to put their extinction in site (they have prohibited the ordination or entry of Orthodox priests into Chicom territory).

How might this be modeled in EU2? Orthodox missionizing of a non-Mosaic population would take longer but be more resilient.

Actually, I don't think that is too hard to do. Each religion should have two aspects: Prostelization and Faithfulness. Prostelization should affect the success rate of a missionary, while Faithfulness should affect the religion's adherent's resitance to conversion. These numbers should be different for each religion.

Especially if EUII includes a religion percentage model, this would work well, allowing a new missionary effort to have a higher success rate against some religious groups than others.

If EUII retains the current system of one provincal religion, Orthodox provinces can have a higher resitance to conversion than others, but the % of chance of a non-Orthodox province converting to a state's Orthodoxy could be lower than that for other nations.

I hope that Paradox does incorporate some of the religious ideas in this thread into consideration for EUII and above.

Alexandre

 

[alvaro]

I don';t like that idea of builing churchs, but I think that maybe schools, if they were implemented in the new system, should help the conversion to a religion. anyway, shools were not among the tasks of the state at that time, and for instance in catholic countries the Church did have a big role in the education of the people. yeah, maybe is not either a good idea this. The State was more implicated in the universities and the influence of those were not so wide as the influence of the Church.

I guess that after this I could have a thread just to discuss with mysef.