Every Religion Should Be Viable

[Siu-King**]

Simply put, TLDR: all religions should be somehow viable, a good choice one way or another, each with their unique bonuses and mechanics as an appeal; it should be a strategic/tactical choice in which religion you want to convert to, not because it's simply a no-brainer to convert out of a deadweight.

Having different mechanics is fine, like:
Muslim with Piety, u want to keep it at one side
Buddhist with Karma, u want to balance it
Orthodox with PA, max it
Hindu with Deity, take your pick...etc

However when it comes to conversion strength, stability, or tolerance, each religion should be at least good at something:
like Christian - conversion all the way (esp Coptic/Orthodox) - No Unrest decisions
Muslim - conversion (used to be) and also good at tolerance with Dhimmi - Ruler stat determined conversion/unrest decision
Hindu - tolerance all the way, and with a unrest decision
Tengri - great tolerance with some not-bad generic pagan unrest/stab cost decision

Then we got the rest, which are good at NOTHING, like Buddhist - No bonus tolerance of true faith, terrible conversion strength, minimal missionary, there used to be +1/2 tolerance to heathens when i did TTM in 1.14 and now those are replaced by useless crap, so you might have better luck with Hindu. (no brainer conversion)
The list goes on, and ironically, Tengri & Fetishist might be better choice in a lot of cases (even though the game kept asking you to convert away from pagan)

 

[Sfan]

Fetishist is actually an excellent religion, I would rate it just slightly below the toptier religions. It has a permanent -3 unrest if you conquer Madagascar.

 

[Tacticus101]

Buddhist has excellent bonuses, 5% discipline and 2 dip rep are two of the strongest you can get, and each variant has some strong benefits like 5% moral.

You can also get +3% missionary strength and +1 accepted culture from decisions, plus another 2% if you get a border with any Christians. That's quite a lot.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Buddhism can get 4 missionaries if you take religious, subjects will consistently get 2% from enforced heritage, and most importantly they can make tributaries even if you're not horde. Once you start to snowball you can start making diplomatic tributaries out of nations that are large enough to give monarch points.

Small military bonus (probably low karma all the time) with 5% strength from decisions to convert and tributaries is enough to make it average-ish.

 

[Swami]

A religion should be fun, not strong perse. I mean usually you roleplay a country and don't just switch because one is better. If you are a min max, paint all the map your colour player, then it doesn't matter what they change about religions, because one will always be slightly better and thus the better pick.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A religion should be fun, not strong perse. I mean usually you roleplay a country and don't just switch because one is better. If you are a min max, paint all the map your colour player, then it doesn't matter what they change about religions, because one will always be slightly better and thus the better pick.

He did say viable, not necessarily equally competitive.

There are a number of religions that are very weak to the point of being false choices. Generic pagans, Zoro, Judaism, and Sikh are in this category. Shinto, Confucian, and Buddhism used to share it, and they're still on the weak side.

For a few patches Buddhism was such hot garbage that the current version of Animist/Totemist was actually stronger.

 

[PhoenixG]

Buddhism best part was you didn't pay any dip for any unlawful demands, but they patch that out.

 

[Orkonkel]

Every religion is viable.

 

[Zaddy]

Every religion is viable.

Animist/Totemist is viable? Have you ever played one?

I really dislike the fact that some religions are just straight up better than others, it promotes the idea that some religions are more valid/are just better/led to a country being great etc. I reject that interpretation of history. And from a gameplay standpoint, playing as an Animist or Totemist and just counting down the days until you can stop gimping yourself and convert to Hindu or Islam or Christianity is lame. If we're gonna have religions give special bonuses, I'd prefer they all be at least somewhat viable so some religions aren't just silly false choices. I mean I guess Jewish and Zoro are supposed to just be meme religions but at the very least give something to Animist? Shinto is still bad but its better than it was.

 

[DanubianCossak]

This is EU not civilization, wrong forum/game mate! *angry face*

 

[Zaddy]

This is EU not civilization, wrong forum/game mate! *angry face*

I'm unsure if this is directed at me and/or you're being sarcastic.

 

[DanubianCossak]

I'm unsure if this is directed at me and/or you're being sarcastic.

Yes.

 

[ecrurudesby]

Animist/Totemist is viable? Have you ever played one?

If every country is viable then every religion is viable. You're p'raps confusing viable with competitive, or strong, or interesting.

I really dislike the fact that some religions are just straight up better than others, it promotes the idea that some religions are more valid/are just better/led to a country being great etc. I reject that interpretation of history.

This again. Do you also dislike that some countries start with more provinces than others? Or that not every province has the same development level? Or that not every country has a +5% discipline national idea?

If I had to propose a reason for why some religions in EU4 have more or "better" features, it might be that the parts of the world where those religions were centred had more stuff going on, more complex societies, as well as more records/better record keeping. Thus there is more to draw on when designing game features. Christendom for example had the Papacy, the Reformation, and the Great Schism. Christianity went through many well documented changes and affected things greatly during this period; and alongside Islam (which is also a complex and storied religion), expanded the most globally. I'll stick my neck out and say there is no such variance or complexity within Animism or Totemist.

 

[Zaddy]

If every country is viable then every religion is viable. You're p'raps confusing viable with competitive, or strong, or interesting.

Aside from the unrelated tangent about relating country viability to religious viability, viable is defined as being able to work successfully or feasibly. Animst is not viable. It is an option (albeit a particularly boring one) but it doesn't "work" like Hindu/Abrahamic faiths work. Two missionaries max with abysmal conversion throughput and no interesting mechanics that makes it worthwhile is not viable.

This again. Do you also dislike that some countries start with more provinces than others? Or that not every province has the same development level? Or that not every country has a +5% discipline national idea?

No. Don't ask silly questions please? I'm fine with ideasets being different. This creates a varied gameplay difference. Animst gameplay has one mechanic: get out of Animst as fast as possible. Thats not terribly interesting nor does it create good gameplay, especially when most every religion at least has some argument for converting to that faith.

If I had to propose a reason for why some religions in EU4 have more or "better" features, it might be that the parts of the world where those religions were centred had more stuff going on, more complex societies, as well as more records/better record keeping. Thus there is more to draw on when designing game features. Christendom for example had the Papacy, the Reformation, and the Great Schism. Christianity went through many well documented changes and affected things greatly during this period; and alongside Islam (which is also a complex and storied religion), expanded the most globally. I'll stick my neck out and say there is no such variance or complexity within Animism or Totemist.

Hell, as far as I know you could say the same thing about Tengri, or Nahuatl, or Mayan, or Inti, or Fetishist. These are all reasonably interesting religions with reasonable bonuses. What makes Animist different? Would it really be so hard as to perhaps just give Animist syncretic faith mechanics? Seems reasonably appropriate to me.

 

[Zalmoxis]

I don't think every religion should be 'competitive' per say, but every religion should have a flavor. Totemism and animism for example are week religions but they tend to have very strong national ideas, so it works. But they could have a feature or some events that gives them some neat ability even if converting would still be the overall better strategy.

 

[Nyrael]

Animist/Totemist is viable? Have you ever played one?

I really dislike the fact that some religions are just straight up better than others, it promotes the idea that some religions are more valid/are just better/led to a country being great etc. I reject that interpretation of history. And from a gameplay standpoint, playing as an Animist or Totemist and just counting down the days until you can stop gimping yourself and convert to Hindu or Islam or Christianity is lame. If we're gonna have religions give special bonuses, I'd prefer they all be at least somewhat viable so some religions aren't just silly false choices. I mean I guess Jewish and Zoro are supposed to just be meme religions but at the very least give something to Animist? Shinto is still bad but its better than it was.

Animism shouldn't get any flavor, it should disappear more and more as DLCs get released, and replaced by proper unique religions.
Though making them too viable should also be bad. The fact is that Animist and Shamanist religions have, in every part of the world, been replaced or syncretized by the newer, philosophical religions.

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

Some religions were significantly more successful than other religions and there is nothing wrong with that being represented in the game. No part of a religion's success at propagating is at all correlated with its "Correctness" but rather the ideas that come along with it. EU4 is not a balanced game by design. History was not balanced. The battle for ideological supremacy was not balanced. That's not to say that today's results were total inevitable but not every nation, person, or religion stood a realistic chance at dominating the world as it was in 1444.

Also, I think you're confusing "Viable" and "Competitive". You can spread the Animist faith if you set your self up to do so. It is technically viable in the sense that you can experience success with it. It is not competitive, but I doubt a realistic argument could be made for it being competitive as the ideas that comprise "animist" were not competitive in terms of spreading and the peoples that followed that wide array of ideas were not competitive in general.

 

[Laurent1944]

Historically, some religions are more competitive than others. For example there are many examples of kings/states converting from various pagan religions to Christian/Muslims (and some case to Judaism. I don't know enough the history of the Indian and Eastern religions to talk about it) while you will find very few if any case of Christian/Muslims becoming pagan. What happened was that in recently converted areas, sometimes a still pagan will raise to power after a Christian/Muslim one ruled, but usually in some years of decade after the first non-pagan ruler the new religion was firmly in place.

I have read a book by an atheist about the rise of the Christian faith in the Roman Empire, and he analyses the cause of the success of the religion as in a marketing study. No moral judgement, but just an analysis of the ideas put forward (and in any religion, the common people will only be talked about a small part of the religious doctrine, so the "communication" policy is important) and what was new in Christianity compared to existing religions (by the way, many religions, including the late Roman Empire pagan one, have notion of a supreme God who created the world).

In game terms, viability of a religion is measured in the fact that it is able to resist other faiths and remain on the map. It is highly linked to the viability of the states following this religion, as most conversion in EU4 is done after conquest (except for some events, or the reformation centers in Europe). In most cases "weak" religions are followed by "weak" states that will be conquered and then converted by more powerful neighbours, but that is historical. Conversion itself in game is far too fast compared to reality, where in many cases the old religion will remain active for centuries (like for example Zoroastrian faith surviving in Iran, or Fetish faith becoming Vaudou in christian dominated area).

As a player, you can succeed in defending and even expanding with any country, and so any religion. The ones lacking conversion power should first concentrate on conquering their own "religious area", ie all other countries following the same religion, and then can slowly expand their religion. You just can hope to do "One faith" world conquest with anybody (or maybe you can if you're a very strong player but it is harder).

 

[Vieras]

Every religion should not be a competitive choice but every religion should have something interesting going for them. Just like not every country should to have Prussian National Ideas but every country should have some National Ideas. Right now Animist and Totemist are essentially like countries without National Ideas. At the start of the game Animist and Totemist religions cover almost the entire New World and yet Norse religion has better mechanics than they do.

I honestly don't understand why so many players are arguing against having mechanics for these two religions. They have been adding new religious mechanics in almost every DLC (including mechanics for Fetishist which in my understanding was in kind of similiar situations than Animist and Totemist) why should they not add flavor for these last two religions? I don't think tuning Animist and Totemist would be particularly labor intensive compared to anything else.

 

[Nyrael]

I honestly don't understand why so many players are arguing against having mechanics for these two religions. They have been adding new religious mechanics in almost every DLC (including mechanics for Fetishist which in my understanding was in kind of similiar situations than Animist and Totemist) why should they not add flavor for these last two religions? I don't think tuning Animist and Totemist would be particularly labor intensive compared to anything else.

I don't see many players arguing against unique mechanics. The main argument is viability: one stance is that it should be a religion equally strong as others, while the other is that it should be weak enough that most people would want to convert out of it.