OK so here is my suggestion to integrate Morale Authority modifiers and Heir Designation into SELIN.
Heir Designation
I am considering granting Heir Designation to:
-
Statist Soul: self-evident and the trigger of this discussion
-
Jewish and
Gnostic Civilizations: these somewhat marginal spiritual cultures give more importance to efficient transmission of power by a line of charismatic rulers than otherwise traditional ways to define succession. In terms of gameplay,
Jewish civilization is very limited anyway;
Gnostic civilization deserved a special attention to make it more unique.
In practice, that would mean the following, rather substantial list (excluding reforming religions). The list of quite long but "makes sense" and interestingly sheds light on an interesting set of relatively exotic religions.
Code:
amun
arian
batembuzi
beelshamen
bogomilist
bud_pratyeka
bud_zen
indoh_bud
indoh_confucian
indoh_hindu
indoh_zor
jud_ark
jud_sabaoth
jud_zion
judaism
jupiter
kintu
kubera
luwian
mand_ruha
mandaean
mani
mani_ahriman
mani_germanic
mani_mithra
mani_slavic
mithra
mithra_christ
murjiah
neoplato
norse_christ
orthodox
plato_christ
plato_islam
plato_pythagorean
roman_imperial
sethian
sol
sol_apollo
sol_boreas
sol_christ
sol_islam
sol_mani
sol_norse
sol_slav
solomonic_christ
sowilo
sunni
svaroh
tengri_rod
unctionist
valentinian
vidharma
yahyanism
zor_hindu
Morale Authority
We had discussed applying a negative modifier to MA to Statist religions in exchange of the interesting Heir Designation feature. This idea remains valid; furthermore, the feature can be used, to some lesser extent, for other relevant SELIN characteristics to produce interesting game-play effects, modeling the inherent doctrinal strength and solidity of the various religious systems competing with each other in LI.
Concretely, my proposed typology is as follows:
By Doctrinal Status:
Local variation (eg unctionism) -5
Heretical doctrine (eg cathar) +5
By Civilization:
Buddhist +5
Islamic +5
By Soul:
State -10
Messianic +5
Clerical +10
By Mentality:
Ancestral -5
Bastion of the Faith +10
As you can guess, this has effects all across the board. Religions considered as more "artificial" or more "primitive" will be weaker, while the more "militant", "strict" or "organized" ones will tend to be more competitive. Modifier is kept to 5 if they are not relevant in terms of balancing: Bastion of the Faith and Clerical deserved a small boost, Statist needs the malus as discussed to compensate for Heir Designation.
As a result, the winners of this approach are the
Haruri (Islamic / Heretical / Clerical) and
Almaqahi (Archaic / Mainstream / Clerical / Bastion of the Faith)
faiths with +20 each. Play Harurite if you want to convert. Losers are, notably, some of the Sol-Barbarian syncretisms, such as
Apollo-Boreasean,
Óðinn-Sólar and
Horsic with -20 each.