Has Buddhism been improved?

[Pomeranian]

I've heard that Buddhism is not as much as a hindrance as it used to be when it comes to expansion, is this true? I've wanted to play as a Buddhist nation for a while now but karma screwed me big time last time I gave it a shot (which was a couple of months ago). If Buddhism is a little more player friendly, can you recommend any interesting Buddhist nations to play as?

 

[neondt]

The penalties have been toned down a lot, and they've been switched around (so you don't get military penalties for being militaristic, or diplomatic penalties for being diplomatic...). Karma resets more on ruler death. Still not a fun or interesting system but at least now it doesn't get in the way of normal gameplay.

 

[Grand Historian]

The above.

It would be made more interesting if the opposite ends provided rewards as well (Iaponia Universalis does this, actually, but it's still stuck in 1.13).

 

[Soulburger]

It's ok. Recently had my first ever Buddhist campaign in 1.15 as Ayuttha. I'm a pretty slow player but I can understand how the religious mechanics can be frustrating for blobbers. Added my own personal restriction to keep the karma meter under 50 in either direction as well which made it a bit challenging. Its so tempting to gobble up territory after a victory but that will just sink your karma.

The trick is how to get called into wars by allies and use POI to get rewarded territory. Plus when you are warleader its nice that you can release nations for 0 dip in peace deals. You have to plan spitting out a small nation after a victory, raise relations to +100, wait for original country declare reconquest then use enforce peace to nab additional territory without any karma cost. Or release nation which goes bonkers on previous overlord and takes additional territory, you then declare on release nation, return some territory to old enemy while nabbing a province or two for yourself.

I was able to get White Elephant achievement while following those general guidelines. Then last 50 years I said screw it, let's eat up Ming! Rode -100 karma the rest of the way while I wiped them off the map.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's middle of the pack. Due to no DotF and harder to manage modifiers, it's pretty solidly weaker than Abrahamic religions, but it's probably the second best non-Abrahamic behind Hindu because you can get 2 triggered modifiers for missionaries/prestige pretty fast and decent conversion power to go with a small consistent boost like 5% morale or 10% advisor discount. Karma if you're not expanding like a snail is going to be floored often, but neutral @ start might help you out of a tough initial position.

It's easily better than Confucian, Shinto, any generic pagan. I'm not sure where to place it against new world faiths which get good bonuses but can't keep up with a decent expansion pace conversion wise and aren't good with humanist. I'm not sure between Buddhism and Tengri.

To me that's solidly mid-pack. The constant -diprep kind of sucks but nothing influence can't overpower. Rather than worrying about that over-much you just go neutral if you REALLY need the diprep and otherwise spam out -100 Karma and annex two vassals at once instead if needing to use up dip fast.

 

[TenshiN]

Buddhism is also awesome now because its Karma events come pretty often, are mostly harmless, have a free +1 stab event and generally replace most of the negative events that plague the earlygame. In my current Ava -> Shan campaign, i didn't get a single -stab or -mana event all the way until 1600 and only got the generic karma events, which does not have any seriously negative options.

 

[Ccd9]

I played a game with Ceylon. Early game was nice and i kept karma bonuses most of the time. But when you are big enough and can take 100% peace deals you will end up at -100. Admin efficiency made me stay -100 all the time. It should probably reduce karma loss on conquest also.

 

[petertel123]

the tibetan (vajrayana?) one is prettyy good if you can balance karma because it gives 10% morale and 5% discipline, obviously you're gonna go into the lower end of the karma scale in just a few decades but at least the morale is permanent and occasionally you can still get the discipline modifier (at least the game no longer gives you a 10% discipline malus for bad karma)

 

[Pomeranian]

Glad to hear that you no longer get miliary penalties for being militaristic. It would be nice if it was a bit like piety in the Islamic faiths in that more karma reduces discipline but give you dip rep, while low karma gives you discipline while reduces dip rep. Still, I'll probably give one of the Tibetan nations a shot and see how things have changed.