Is it worth for Catholics to convert?

[unmerged(25273)]

I wonder whether it makes sense to convert to protestant or reformed at all.

Catholic countries can play with papacy which is great - the bigger you get the better your chance to have cardinals cutting your badboy.
Also, if you want to be a global player, you enjoy more colonists and a deal of narrowmindedness gives you both an increased colonial growth and higher influence at the holy see to reduce your badboy.
Pick the unam sanctam idea eraly enough to avoid protestant provinces and you should be fine.

I actually wonder whether Catholic religion (is a bit) overpowered.

 

[anomanderus]

I wonder whether it makes sense to convert to protestant or reformed at all.

Catholic countries can play with papacy which is great - the bigger you get the better your chance to have cardinals cutting your badboy.
Also, if you want to be a global player, you enjoy more colonists and a deal of narrowmindedness gives you both an increased colonial growth and higher influence at the holy see to reduce your badboy.
Pick the unam sanctam idea eraly enough to avoid protestant provinces and you should be fine.

I actually wonder whether Catholic religion (is a bit) overpowered.

Catholics, Sunnis and Confucians are overpowered simply by the fact that they have most of the games major states. orthodoxy eventually gets russia but that's it. Depending on who converts to protestantism and calvinism you either get powerful allies or weak dependent states. But the main reason why you would convert is because of the stab loss and drop in relations which make the game more enjoyable.

 

[Junuxx]

Protestantism/Reformed can be very attractive to traders, peaceful colonizers and minors in general. That it isn't as well suited to world conquering powerplaying as Catholicism doesn't mean that it doesn't 'make sense' to convert. It simply depends on your playstyle.

 

[naggy]

Protestantism gets +10% tax and PE, the chance to take Rome for +.5 missionaries, and they can use Unam Sanctum to go hog wild on Catholics.

Reformed generally doesn't seem to be worth it.

 

[Tormodius]

Good question Thomas Paine.

I have neither time nor interest in calculating all the variables this game has put in, but there is alot to this religious thing really! Some of them are obvious like those you mention yourself.

However I do find it might often become expensive in both the number of missionaries and their payments to remain Catholic. In addition you will be forced into remaining narrowmindedness to even get the missionaries you need. To be protestant will evolve at some good rate in certain regions, and will thus cost you less in missionaries to remain that way. You might need a missionary now and then, but not too often.

In addition it depends on neighbouring states, and your prefered allies. In my opinion this is the most important account, as it might get you killed if you screw up.(if your not a very big military power) You can more easily create alliances with those of your own faith, and to claim Defender of the True Faith will get you casus belli against other religions so if you even think about changing your religion, take a look at the big picture. Plot your cunning plans for the world and then chose whatever suits you

Since reformist faiths are spreading out on its own and especially if you are a colonial power which will try to remain your colonies catholic. All the religious refugees will sometimes reform your colonies and this will cost ya in additon, up to very high amounts if your have big colonial empire.
And in the case of this there are years of this refugee sympthom that you cannot at all succeed in converting them. This makes the situation more ideal for reformist countries with such colonial empires. However there are good policies (and some bad) to counter any of these effects, so you will manage fine as catholic country even if these refugees comes or you occupy any protestant provinces.

 

[enf91]

The Protestant and Reformed religions have a bonus to tolerance of other religions, and they get the Dissolution of the Monasteries Act and the Popery Act, which are good. Reformed is good for major traders like the Netherlands or the Hansa, and it gets a boost to colony growth (Catholicism gives a bonus to colonist placement CHANCE, not colony growth). As people have said, it depends on your playstyle.

 

[gardel va]

I like to switch to Reformed or Protestant because it's more challenging. I'll also confess to liking them because they're the underdogs for most of the game.

 

[Darth Moose]

Protestantism seems to be worth it for a large nation mid- to northern Europe, such as France, the Germanic nations, etc. You get the two 10% economic bonuses, and a tidy sum of cash as well. Reformed doesn't seem to be worth the effort. That said, I've only done it once, when I played France -> HRE as my first HTTT game.

If you are playing an Iberian or Italian nation, it is easy & better to stay Catholic, due to the much slower spread of protestantism / reformism in these nations.

That said, Unam Santum (IN) was better than Deus Vult (HTTT), though they are nominally the same idea. In IN you could grab your own religion provinces from a religious enemy for free. In HTTT you have a 2 BB / province cost using the Cleansing of Heresy CB, regardless of the province religion versus your own or the heretic owner's.

 

[ZechsMerquise73]

I've been wondering, why would a country lose all its stability when their population is totally protestant and their leader converts to protestantism?

 

[enf91]

The people are shocked that the government actually did something.

 

[unmerged(84079)]

I think it's more to do with you uprooting the Catholic institutions everywhere and creating new Protestant/Reformed ones.

If you are playing an Iberian or Italian nation, it is easy & better to stay Catholic, due to the much slower spread of protestantism / reformism in these nations.

Genereally this is true, but in a Venice game where I had almost all Italy went either Protestant or Reformed, can't remember, none of my provinces required missionary conversion thanks to the event firing so often - I was shocked to say the least.

 

[anomanderus]

I like to switch to Reformed or Protestant because it's more challenging. I'll also confess to liking them because they're the underdogs for most of the game.

This. Protestants against the machine, baby!

 

[HNT]

Protestantism gets +10% tax and PE, the chance to take Rome for +.5 missionaries, and they can use Unam Sanctum to go hog wild on Catholics.

Reformed generally doesn't seem to be worth it.

Reformed is very good for
1) a colonial game due to the bonus for colonial growth. Reformed has 1 colonist/year as catholics; protestant is rather bad for a colonial game.
2) trading based nations as TE is +10%;

Besides, reformed has the same advantages as protestants in relation to Rome bonusses etc.

 

[Dafool]

Protestantism is for nations that tend to be contiguous and based more on aggressive expansion. The production and tax bonus is what makes this so. The lack of support for colonies and trading make his the best type for your average "blob," that's not going to be able to support a large navy or will have too much BB to keep merchants in CoTs.

Reformed is for trading nations, while allowing for a bit of colonizing as well. The trade bonus is really the deal sealer here if that's what you need. The colonizing bonus isn't bad, but it's not quite as good as the Catholic bonus. The tax penalty isn't going to be helpful for a really large nation, so it's better for somewhat smaller nations that want to use tech and trade as their main tools.

Catholicism is for colonizing(or if you're just too lazy to convert all your provinces). The colonizing bonuses are a bit better than the reformed colonizing bonuses, especially early game. This walks hand in hand with the fact that a serious colonizer will probably want to get started as early as possible, which means you may have a good handful of colonies before the reformation even hits. This means it may be a burden to convert everything over once it does hit.

 

[DanubianCossak]

Genereally this is true, but in a Venice game where I had almost all Italy went either Protestant or Reformed, can't remember, none of my provinces required missionary conversion thanks to the event firing so often - I was shocked to say the least.

Well Italians should convert slower just for being in their culture group, but i think the reason it happened at all to you is probably because u went partially or fully innovative and/or free people. Theres a number of stuff that can speed spread of protestant/reformed religion, for example having ecumenism national idea, or having 0 tolerance for heretics etc, or having a province right next to the county that had the original religion activation event (they get a special country flag that speeds spreading for them and countries around them).

 

[Trin Tragula]

Catholics, Sunnis and Confucians are overpowered simply by the fact that they have most of the games major states.

I've had all of Europe convert to protestantism in a few games Wasn't me that did it either.

 

[Dr Zaius]

If you convert you will avoid the excommunication. I was playing as Venice and all my rulers were excommunicated. I paid many money to improve relations with the Pope, but he insult me, until our relations were under 100.

In my opinion, if you are a republic, the best thing you can do is convert either to reformism or protestantism. Just remember enacting the declaration of indulgence decision and choose ecumenism idea. Forget about using missionaries, at least in Europe, because you will have +3 tolerance to heretics. (Just wondering what will happen if you choose Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite, Would you need humanist tolerance for making your provinces convert to the wrong religion?)

 

[unmerged(136348)]

i always convert to protestant when i have time and enough missionaries.

it's worth it when your 10% in production and taxes overshadow the 30% tax mallus for having wrong religions in most of the provinces other religion. That is usually in 1600+ if you're already mostly blue then it's worth it immediately. but for the sake of argument let's presume you're a 10+ province nation so you can't just get the spread of religion event over night in all provinces.

-protestant province can't switch to other religions by event so you're on safe ground from that aspect. while if you remain catholic you have to enact 3-4 reforms plus a NI so you suppress religion changing events.

-you get bonuses for conquering rome, jerusalem and mecca.

-converting destroys relations with other catholic countries (including alliances, marriages.. so it's a good way to get out of stuff and go to war) but boosts with protestant ones

- you get a 5 stability hit and that's a problem if you're huge. but not that big a deal. 5-6 years of recovery and you're good as new

- around 1600-1650 an economicaly dominating country gets research almost ahead of its time so the 10-50 years it takes to get your country fine tuned is not a big loss, and gives you an edge production and taxes wise.

- 10% trade in my games is usually a lot less because i tend to blob so reformed is not an option. besides i dislike the cross icon

 

[HNT]

i always convert to protestant when i have time and enough missionaries.

it's worth it when your 10% in production and taxes overshadow the 30% tax mallus for having wrong religions in most of the provinces other religion. That is usually in 1600+ if you're already mostly blue then it's worth it immediately. but for the sake of argument let's presume you're a 10+ province nation so you can't just get the spread of religion event over night in all provinces.

-protestant province can't switch to other religions by event so you're on safe ground from that aspect. while if you remain catholic you have to enact 3-4 reforms plus a NI so you suppress religion changing events.

-you get bonuses for conquering rome, jerusalem and mecca.

-converting destroys relations with other catholic countries (including alliances, marriages.. so it's a good way to get out of stuff and go to war) but boosts with protestant ones

- you get a 5 stability hit and that's a problem if you're huge. but not that big a deal. 5-6 years of recovery and you're good as new

- around 1600-1650 an economicaly dominating country gets research almost ahead of its time so the 10-50 years it takes to get your country fine tuned is not a big loss, and gives you an edge production and taxes wise.

- 10% trade in my games is usually a lot less because i tend to blob so reformed is not an option. besides i dislike the cross icon

It's also nice that you get an awful lot of money on conversion and you can enact church taxes. The stab hit looks worse than it is, indeed. The Church Attendance duty NI might be an interesting option to reduce its consequences further. This NI gives also the possibility of "gilded Iconography" which improves missionary chances. The tax penalty for provinces having different religion than the state religion is 30% in IN and 10*tolerance for HT3, iirc.

 

[unmerged(175591)]

Once Papal States converted to Protestantism. :rofl: