If I read "Pagan DLC" one more time...

[FabiusBile]

I agree that the modders will do it if paradox does not

and I will bet 10 healthy cows and 1 bull. and 8 goats

I will bet 10 unhealthy chickens then. Glad to get rid of them. I'm sure chicken pox is a nice excuse.

Now back on topic; I want to see Pagans, but I'm at a complete loss how to make them interesting. There was no central pagan Authority, and most likely it would just be like christianity but without all the churches and and so on. And everyone hates you and can declare war on you/invade with holy war cb. That is all currently already in the game. With LOR they added Retinues and with SoI decadence and special rules for muslims. So what is special about the pagans that can be implemented in CK2 and makes sense.

I don't believe conversion to christianity should be a given if you choose to play as them. That is not the goal in an Paradox Game .

 

[Oriflamme]

In an interview, Johan said the next DLC is going to be "big", "at least as big as SoI" and "its been widely requested since launch". Sounds like Northern Pagans to me, although Republics are similarly viable.

I predict that playable pagans is next, with maybe even an earlier start date to perhaps 1000 or a little earlier, because that's around the time that you had the Norwegians, Poles and Magyars converting.

There would be some interesting features, as kingdoms didn't become Christian overnight, and the long, slow process of conversion should be represented properly.

Of course, in my opinion, it would not be right to not include some enhancements to the current church structure. I would really like it if you could play as theocracies, but if they said it would be too difficult to play as the pope, then that might not happen.

 

[markmid]

I will bet 10 unhealthy chickens then. Glad to get rid of them. I'm sure chicken pox is a nice excuse.

Now back on topic; I want to see Pagans, but I'm at a complete loss how to make them interesting. There was no central pagan Authority, and most likely it would just be like christianity but without all the churches and and so on. And everyone hates you and can declare war on you/invade with holy war cb. That is all currently already in the game. With LOR they added Retinues and with SoI decadence and special rules for muslims. So what is special about the pagans that can be implemented in CK2 and makes sense.

I don't believe conversion to christianity should be a given if you choose to play as them. That is not the goal in an Paradox Game .

1, Viking Raids in the Norse mod were fun. - I always pictured hordes myself moving about the map, raids for manpower (slaves, money, prestige etc all could be possible). The mechanics of the game are less about stability and more about temporary alliances for pagans, taking what you can for now. Rewarding you for the temporary holding and conversion of lands around you not ruling them all as a blob. Wars between tribes are not really wars, but more temporary feuds, pillaging and plundering, while they all band together (and get bonuses from the local population assisting) the second any 'outsider' steps foot in their territory. All in all a more dynamic, less static type of gameplay, with plenty of aggression but the wars not as devastating if you lose. More splintering of tribes, or hordes but a mighty back swing against the more organised empires/kingdoms to give them staying power and balance. = At least in the 'early game', this is what i'd do either in an alternative scenario or if you swung the clock back 200 years and did crown laws that were in the minus.

2, Moral authority of the church having a greater impact. If those lands are not converted, if Rome loses spain, southern italy etc, heresy has more impact, with religious heads for heresies. In fact put the moral authority lower to start with (at any earlier dates) and it takes work to be raised up, make it difficult at first in the earlier periods, thus making playing those european powers struggling to establish themselves more rewarding as you go on. Again this can be modelled in even lower crown authority to start with and more aggressive neighbors.

3, Relations move up and down more between local rulers, more events for that, so your trading partner one year is your raiding target the next.

-edit, more ideas!

4, Pagan Hordes/Warbands - (Crusades), Large amounts of people falling under a warlords banner, if successful great prestige, manpower boosts, wealth for the raiders and -lowered crown authority for the target-, and/or splintering of the targets sieged vassels into independent realms. If a fledgling kingdom can't protect itself from the enemies at the gate that are ransacking its towns, it's own people don't trust it.

I had toyed with medieval communes to represent this kind of scenario anyway.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Now back on topic; I want to see Pagans, but I'm at a complete loss how to make them interesting. There was no central pagan Authority, and most likely it would just be like christianity but without all the churches and and so on. And everyone hates you and can declare war on you/invade with holy war cb. That is all currently already in the game. With LOR they added Retinues and with SoI decadence and special rules for muslims. So what is special about the pagans that can be implemented in CK2 and makes sense.

I don't believe conversion to christianity should be a given if you choose to play as them. That is not the goal in an Paradox Game .

I think conversion to Christianity/Islam (remember, there's pagans elsewhere on the map who would more likely convert to Islam), is somewhat a given. What I *don't* think is a given, however, is the rate of conversion and the extent of conversion. In Lithuania, one of the last bastions of paganism, for instance, clear pagan rituals and ideas were still around as late as the 1700s (maybe later) among the peasantry - and not just pagan ideas blended with Christianity, I mean actual pagan rituals and the like. So I think, as stated before, an interesting mechanic for pagans is simply some sort of traditionalism vs. conversion slider or law or modifier or something, where each pagan slowly converts to a religion - or might try resisting, difficult as it may be. So while conversion may be likely, with this sort of traditionalism vs. conversion spectrum (rather than zero-sum full pagan or fully converted system), it allows players to attempt staying "more" pagan/traditional even if it's a bit of a challenge (an analogy would be like playing a Muslim ruler with SoI but being nice to all your brothers and nephews and uncles and not imprisoning them - it's difficult, your decadence will probably rise, and your chances of getting assassinated increase dramatically... but it's not impossible to play like that; on a somewhat similar vein, for pagan rulers, converting to Christianity or Islam is, at the end of the day, a better choice... but you don't have to, and you can challenge yourself to survive as a hardcore traditionalist).

 

[Tirunus]

A lot of players seem to have brought into the concept, mostly promoted by modern day Wiccans and Asatru, that Norse and Celtic pagans generally lived a life more free of restrictions and obligations than Christians.

There is no evidence of this, it seems quite clear that the various European pagan religions placed equally onerous (albeit different) obligations on believers to what Christianity did. But players love the idea of SMASHING the WEAK CHRISTIANS with their PAGAN WARRIORS in the name of MIGHTY THOR, so pagan DLCs have always been a hugely popular idea.

 

[Bad_Haggis]

Quiet, the pagan kings and lords didn't have a semi literate church hierarchy to help them centralise power.

 

[Darthvegeta800]

Personally i'm hoping for the Teutonic Knights to be playable 'somehow'.

 

[markmid]

Quiet, the pagan kings and lords didn't have a semi literate church hierarchy to help them centralise power.

Basically there were differences, the poster who brought that up a few pages ago is just highlighting a set of differences between two generalised groups and then generalising wildly themselves. Which we could all do back and forth. The differences make for opportunities for differing gameplay, however and I'm not sure what their point actually was at the end of it all.

To the person who brought it up initially a page or so ago - There were more and less restrictions. *shrug* I don't think as many people played viking warriors who raided, pillaged and did blots to play the nice liberal minded folk that they were inferring? Some might of done with other groups sure, but my vikings I don't think were that friendly or freedom loving, at least until they'd raided the inn, then they could be.

 

[Federalist girl]

I have no interest in playing as pagans, but I'll still buy it anyway even if the main patch gives us all the improvements (just like I have no interest in Muslims, but I bought SoI). Why? Because I love CK2 and I want them to keep developing it.

So stop whining and give them your money.

(p.s. I better get my Greek faces soon!!)

 

[Nuril]

Quiet, the pagan kings and lords didn't have a semi literate church hierarchy to help them centralise power.

Just use your non-Church-hierarchy literate lawmen, then? The Church hierarchy only becomes relevant to acquiring power after the people converted anyway. If anything it was a massive pain to tow the party-line of the Church until much later, as any infraction on pagan liberties and customs were liable to get you deposed in favour of a friendlier ruler, as happened with a few Swedish Kings who tried banning the Blót while still a small minority.

A couple of Norwegian ones too, who were tyrannical in general to support the Church. Quite literal Conversion by the Sword over there, for example: "I order you and all your subjects to be baptised. If you refuse, I'll have you killed on the spot and I swear I will ravage every island with fire and steel.". Lovely. No surprise he died in combat.

Speaking of lawmen:

(Pretty:neat:how:both:Runic:and:Latin:writing:developed:dots:to:separate:the:words:instead:of:writing:all:of:it inonelinelikethis, with Latin later just going with spaces)

 

[Talq]

A Pagan DLC would probably consist largely of setting flavour & events for Pagan countries with some challenge because Mongols, African pagans, and Scandanavian Pagans aren't really similar. They also would probably need to consider giving them different CBs, because shoehorning in a religious head would be both ahistorical and make it look like Christianity with different names.

The other major challenge is stopping the Baltic pagans from being destroyed by 1100, which because its a fundamental game balance issue (everybody can declare war on them, and everybody does) is going to be tricky to correct (and no, giving Mecklemburg 50x as many troops to fight off the HRE is both silly, and asking for abuse). Historically the pagans didn't have to fight off the full forces of the kings of every country around them (let alone every couple of years), in part because of geography and in part because kings didnt gain much advantage from rebellious lands a long way from their centres of power, which would likely slip from their control at the slightest sign of internal weakness.

 

[Nuril]

A Pagan DLC would probably consist largely of setting flavour & events for Pagan countries with some challenge because Mongols, African pagans, and Scandanavian Pagans aren't really similar.

Which is why me and some others advocate "Northern Pagans DLC" (Ásatrú, Suomenusko, Romuva and Slavianstvo*) and a "Steppe Hordes DLC" as a logical split, with Tengri being in the latter. It's not very likely, since they'll probably want to sell it as "Now you can play all the pagans!", but it would be good as far as developing quality content goes. The ones around the Baltic in the "Northern Pagans DLC" have more in common and quite bit of exchange (Including marriages and politics).

The African ones aren't generally considered at all since they were thrown in recently and are just a couple of generic already-occupied provinces.

*Added Slavic paganism because the ones past the Pruthenians aren't actually Baltic pagans.

 

[Jeltz]

Personally I wish more for a Republic DLC, but making the Pagan DLC first makes much more sense from what I beleive Paradox point of view is. Many more have requested pagans, and adding pagans require fewer changes to basic game mechnics since most pagan groups were in large part feudal and dynastic. Adding Pagans also unlocks the posisbility of making the Mongol hordes playable. The Pagan DLC also seems harder to screw up as bad, and therefore less risky. Adding mechanics for Republics might require an huge rebalancing of the entire game.

I will love seeing a Pagan DLC if that is what we will get and then just wait for the eventual republic DLC.

 

[Jeltz]

Which is why me and some others advocate a split between "Northern Pagans DLC" (Ásatrú, Suomenusko, Romuva and Slavianstvo*) and a "Steppe Hordes DLC" as a logical split, with Tengri being in the latter. It's not very likely, since they'll probably want to sell it as "Now you can play all the pagans!", but it would be good as far as developing quality content goes. The ones around the Baltic in the "Northern Pagans DLC" have more in common and quite bit of exchange (Including marriages and politics).

The African ones aren't generally considered at all since they were thrown in recently and are just a couple of generic already-occupied provinces.

*Added Slavic paganism because the ones past the Pruthenians aren't actually Baltic pagans.

I agree with your split but I doubt they would do this. Separating steppe nomads and the other pagans does make sense.

Though I wish Zoroastrians and African Pagans would get some love too. Especially the African Pagans since they should have much more power in 1066 with both more provinces and nobles. AFAIK the first King of Mali who tried hard to convert the nobility was Musa I (reigned 1312 - 1337). And it was not until even later the people started to convert in any significant numbers. So from the entire timespan from 1066 to 1336 should have a mostly pagan Mali.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Though I wish Zoroastrians and African Pagans would get some love too. Especially the African Pagans since they should have much more power in 1066 with both more provinces and nobles. AFAIK the first King of Mali who tried hard to convert the nobility was Musa I (reigned 1312 - 1337). And it was not until even later the people started to convert in any significant numbers. So from the entire timespan from 1066 to 1336 should have a mostly pagan Mali.

Since Sunset Invasion, I've been hoping that PI also releases more "minor" DLC - but this time focused on more historical aspects of the game, such as improving Iberia or the Celts... or, in this case, giving some flavor stuff for the Zoroastrians and African pagans.

 

[Kalderus]

Many people talk about an inevitability of your chosen pagan realm converting to Christianity or Islam, but another interesting aspect that players could do is to centralize and/or monotheize your faith, so that the Christians/Muslims/whoever would take you more seriously, even if they still distrust you.

This could be accomplished by establishing a head of your faith, a clergy, written/codified religious laws, and some sort of "divine principle" (ie: Skylord Tengri has chosen you to rule).

They would likely still view you as infidels, but you might just possibly be able to make your chosen pagan faith seem more"civilized" and less heathen in their eyes (ala Zoroastrian Persia's view on Christian Rome once it had been centralized/civilized in their point of view).

 

[TheLionHeart]

I for one think that the time frame does not need to be moved back. It only needs to change the way holy wars work against Baltic pagans.

As of now the pagans actually seem like they do a pretty good job of defending themselves...against one target. For example, the king of Poland declares a holy war against a small romuva tribe then tons of other romuva pagans will come to their assistance making that one province much harder to take. But at the same time the king of Denmark declares holy war upon one a romuva tribe, but this time the other tribes don't join in since they are still at war with Poland. Next, the Kaiser calls a holy war, then the Grand prince of Polotsk and so on. At the end of this madness the Baltic pagans are completely destroyed in just a few years. (creating quite ugly borders I might add)

This is mostly what happens in the majority of my games and would make playing as any Baltic pagans unfathomable. This could be fixed by changing how holy wars work against pagans. The problem isn't that their not strong enough the real problem is their organization. Instead when you call a holy war on a romuva tribe you should not just be calling it on one person and then the others reacting, instead it should be declaring war upon every member of that pagan religious group. This way if a leader can still gain land from pagans but it is far more difficult. This will allow pagans to last to a much later point in the game. This is not to make the pagans overpowered and conquering every weak nation near them. Once the Teutonic Order is founded a chance that the pope will call a northern crusade will trigger.

A northern crusade will function similar to a regular crusade, except that only kings in Scandinavia can join it. The crusade should only be for duchies and should affect all pagans in an area, if successful the highest contributor should get a large amount of prestige and piety as well as better relations with the pope, secondary contributors should get smaller prestige and piety bonuses. The land however should not be given to the highest contributor it should instead be given to the Teutonic order. The northern crusade event has a higher chance of triggering than a regular crusade and should only be called on romuva pagans.

 

[SlackBladder]

The thing about Pagans is that they cover such a broad range of different religions it would be hard to do them all justice in a single DLC. I can see multiple pagan DLCs being made, like the above suggestion to treat the steppe nomads separately.

 

[SplingeMcGraw]

If I hear "Republic DLC" one more time...

It goes both ways!

 

[unmerged(530718)]

I for one think that the time frame does not need to be moved back. It only needs to change the way holy wars work against Baltic pagans.

As of now the pagans actually seem like they do a pretty good job of defending themselves...against one target. For example, the king of Poland declares a holy war against a small romuva tribe then tons of other romuva pagans will come to their assistance making that one province much harder to take. But at the same time the king of Denmark declares holy war upon one a romuva tribe, but this time the other tribes don't join in since they are still at war with Poland. Next, the Kaiser calls a holy war, then the Grand prince of Polotsk and so on. At the end of this madness the Baltic pagans are completely destroyed in just a few years. (creating quite ugly borders I might add)

This is mostly what happens in the majority of my games and would make playing as any Baltic pagans unfathomable. This could be fixed by changing how holy wars work against pagans. The problem isn't that their not strong enough the real problem is their organization. Instead when you call a holy war on a romuva tribe you should not just be calling it on one person and then the others reacting, instead it should be declaring war upon every member of that pagan religious group. This way if a leader can still gain land from pagans but it is far more difficult. This will allow pagans to last to a much later point in the game. This is not to make the pagans overpowered and conquering every weak nation near them. Once the Teutonic Order is founded a chance that the pope will call a northern crusade will trigger.

A northern crusade will function similar to a regular crusade, except that only kings in Scandinavia can join it. The crusade should only be for duchies and should affect all pagans in an area, if successful the highest contributor should get a large amount of prestige and piety as well as better relations with the pope, secondary contributors should get smaller prestige and piety bonuses. The land however should not be given to the highest contributor it should instead be given to the Teutonic order. The northern crusade event has a higher chance of triggering than a regular crusade and should only be called on romuva pagans.

I quite like your idea of northern crusade but they would need to somehow change the IA. Because I am pretty sure the IA would not give a shit about a crusade without some land winning. At least in my games, when it happened (e.g someone still had the title of king of jerusalem but had lost all lands), the IA would never join the crusade.