Hellenic reformation choices

[SmashingQuasar]

Hey!

I'm about to reform the Hellenic faith. The year is 890 and I am the currently ruling Roman Emperor.
For the record I started as Charlemagne in 769, married the daugther of the Basileus, when he died she got a weak claim on ERE. She got pushed Basilissa, when she died our son got a strong claim so I got myself killed and inherited HRE + ERE. Then I took time to mend the Great Schism before restoring the Roman Empire and the Hellenic faith to void the Crusades.
I also got the Alexander bloodline.
I rushed Kingdom Vice-royalties so I already got those instated.
Finally I have the seamless robe of Jesus which I can give to China in exchange for a shattering of the Abbasid blob.
Background is important to understand the state of the current game.

I restored the Hellenic faith but through a secret society not going crazy about it because I just didn't want to loose the "Glorious" nickname.

Right now I'm about to reform the Hellenic faith and I'm hesitating between several combos. I don't aim for a world conquest. I aim to perfectly restore the Roman Empire (basically a perfect SPQR without any more land) and then stabilize the realm as much as possible and consolidate everything.

With all of this in mind, here are the combos I am considering:

My primary concern is to know whether or not the peaceful nature hinders the spread of the religion within the realm.

Thanks in advance for your help and insight!

 

[DPS]

If you want to spread your faith, you really need Proselytizing. Otherwise, your same-religion vassal won't help you spread the faith within the realm, except Zealous vassals will also help if you choose Dogmatic.

And you're right, Stability isn't that good. You might want to consider Divine Marriage, Polygamy, or Monasticism (for the +2 to learning) instead. You might also want to consider one of those instead of Civilized, even though Civilized is the Hellenic-only doctrine. Syncretism is useless, and since you're going to have an elective succession, Meritocracy does nothing for you, so all you're getting out of it is no opinion penalty for raised vassal levies, and you plan on being relatively peaceful, so that's not much of a bonus.

Temporal is the right choice unless you have ancestor veneration, unless you just don't want the religious head title (Ponifex Maximus in you case) as your primary title, or for RP reasons.

 

[Kurblius]

I agree with Proselytizing. Hardly any of your vassal counties will convert with the other Natures. Civilized is good if you have problem with raiding adventurers, but yeah it tends to work better when paired with an expansionist play. Pairing with Sea Bound in my current game is just awesome. Equality is also I think amazing, especially if you have matrilineal bloodlines - playing as female is the only way to stack lots of bloodlines. If you can raid, you should also be able to kidnap and turn men into consorts and then use their claims to inherit/press claims to entire Empires (so why shatter it? lol). You might need to the Sea Bound trait though - not sure if Reformed Hellenic can raid otherwise.

One thing I disagree with is the Temporal. You cannot excommunicate with Temporal. If you're concerned with internal stability and keeping your vassals in line then this is a crucial loss. I use excommunicate extensively to enforce cultural conformity, cut over-powerful vassals to size, and to undermine strong competitors to my intended heir. The main advantage of Temporal is the ability to declare a Great Holy War of your choosing, but if you're playing peaceful this is less important.

 

[SmashingQuasar]

Thanks for your answers!
Well I don't want to conquer all of the Abbasid territory. I just aim to reclaim the exact old borders of the Roman Empire and nothing else. I did a world conquest once and it has been more of a chore than anything else so I just don't want to do that again.
Raiding adventurers are indeed a pain but I think it will fix itself once I forbid vassal wars. This way they will finally be able to defend the realm instead of fighting over land.
To be honest I asked the same question on reddit earlier but didn't get many answers. However those I got are really different from yours (I'm not judging anything, I'm just more hesitating now). I feel like Enatic clan would be an awesome way to stack bloodlines. I also learned that it will stop the massive vassal blobbing that happen through marriage.
If the wiki is correct Hellenic can only raid after reformation and it is a feature available even without a specific doctrine. Again if wiki is correct but it seems very inconsistent about pagan reformation.

 

[knppel]

Civlized is a must-pick more or less. While as Augustus you'll not profit from heir appointment like your vassals will, having no penalty for raised levies is still way too useful (after all they will be able to constantly raid during peacetime).

You won't need enatic to stack bloodlines- simply elect people from sidebranches to inherit and form new bloodlines on them, or use your female relatives to breed with historic bloodline descendants, and later intermarry in the family, or raise their children into land and office. I'll not comment on "peaceful", that's literally a no-pro pick. Peace just doesn't keep the peace quite as good as the occasional war does.

After having tried it, I'd recommend bloodthirsty gods any day for Rome, most of all as it allows to hold blood gladiator games (careful though, your relatives might send their unlanded sons too!). You don't have to necessarily upgrade the traits or sacrifice hundreds of prisoners for it to yield big profits- it does also stack with the hellenic default feature of haruspicy, which will yield better results if you look into a humans' entrails rather than those of a bird.

My third pick was cosmopolitan, for once to roleplay (hahaha) , for a second for comfort. If you intend to not fight with the Caliph for a generation, why not settle this by a non aggression pact and a marriage agreement? Having the freedom to deal with all my neighbours, rather than to be limited to pagans and hordes only, was crucial- if you've already removed christendom it might be less needed here, but will still be useful for the muslim neighbours.