Ok so I’m going to get right to the point, Miaphysites I’m Ck2 were completely undeveloped and had little to no point being in the game as is. More often than not they would cease to exist in 300-400 years (from 769 start) in Egypt and 50% of the time Ethiopia/Abyssinia get’s conquered by the Abbasids. Moral Authority is always ridiculously low and the Monophysite heresy always spreads across the entire area and overtakes Miaphysitism. Meanwhile the Abbasids face virtually no revolts from the majority Christian Egypt, and as they expand forever, rarely collapsing, Egypt seems to forever get incorporated into the Abbasid empire both Religiously and Culturally. While Coptic culture was a step in the right direction for Egypt, it was ultimately pointless with how fast it would be converted to the Egyptian (Arabic group) culture and was in the Byzantine group, which is not really 100% accurate historically.
EDIT: BASED ON DEV DIARIES 1-4
EDIT: Tried to improve readability and deleted some unnecessary info!
- Now I didn’t list all these problems with Miaphysites for no reason, and about now your wondering ‘well, why does that matter?’. Well historically Egypt was Coptic Orthodox (Miaphysite) for a LOOOOOOONG time after the Abbasid conquest. Among some changes I recommeIslam didn’t begin taking hold until the Mamluks and Ottomans well into the 14th Century, it wouldn’t have been majority Muslim until around the Ottoman conquest, and even then it wouldn’t be until the Modern Era that every governate (basically modern county) in Egypt had a Muslim majority . To make my point let’s look at the History of Islam in Egypt: Historically the Abbasids hadn’t actually tried to convert Egypt because Mohammed the prophet had married a Coptic women and declared that the Copts were their brothers and to be kind to them when they conquered them. As a result Copts had been treated relatively well under Abbasids. Under the Fatimids, similarly the Copts had a majority in the entire sultanate, meaning that the Fatimids had to act very, very kind to the Coptics, the Grand Vizier (ironically a Ck2 council position), the second most powerful person next to the Sultan, was very often a Coptic Christian. Fustat, modern day Cairo, was settled and began to flourish as a place of Shia learning, and was the first real Egyptian County to convert to Islam. Afterword the Mamluks took over, and as an Egyptian based dynasty they found it easier to impose restrictions on fellow Egyptians since they were less likely to revolt then under a foreign power. Under the Mamluks persecution began and the country began to rapidly become Muslim, by the time Ottomans came over and began even harsher persecution on the Christians, they fell into minority. However take note that in the above history it wasn’t until the 1400’s that Egypt became Muslim. With Ck2 mechanics Egypt can be Muslim as soon as 950 A.D. with the unrealistic ease of conversion of the Miaphysites in Egypt.
- The way to fix this isn’t that hard actually. Assuming that religions will be greatly expanded upon based on the Doctrines and other mechanics being introduced for Ck3, I think that it makes sense for certain religions to be easier to convert than others. While Pagans who have no religious book to look at and no real leader are very easily converted, a religion that has historically survived 1400 years of persecution and still makes up 10-12% of a population should be getting a heavy conversion modifier that makes it insanely difficult to convert.
- That said I can almost hear people complaining that it’ll be too difficult to convert some religions then. Another good mechanic that could be added into Ck3, is forced conversion, a.k.a a zealous Muslim see the Miaphysite Egypt as a stain on the Great Islamic Abbasid empire, so he gathers his troops and heads to a province where he promptly razes it to the ground and repopulates it with good Muslims. This would however have to come with steep consequences in order to avoid players just burning down all their conquered land to enforce their religion and culture. For one all provinces with similar Religion and Culture should gain a BIG revolt risk increase, that way after burning one or two provinces the nearby counties begin to realize with horror that they’re next, in order to protect themselves they band together to defend their religion and nation. Additionally the newly destroyed province would lose all technology/development or whatever system they have so players don’t want to destroy rich provinces and would be willing to wait out the time to convert the province. Finally the Jizhya should be editable so that when you need taxes you can raise it at the risk of a proportional revolt risk in provinces.
- Continuing on theirs another fairly obvious problem that Feudalism doesn’t account for in Islam... foreign troops. Generally Muslim countries didn’t make use of foreign troops because of how likely they are to betray the country, that went double for Christians, especially considering that of their 2 fronts they were often against Catholics in Spain, and Orthodox in the Byzantine Empire. More likely the case was that during war a Muslim in charge of an Egyptian province would increase taxes to pay for the war effort, and for his own personal use would have a few trained soldiers to use, which Ck3 also seems to be adding to distinguish between trained and levy soldiers.
- The last problem has to do with a popular player complaint about Empires blobbing, personally the two that most often do it are the Abbasids and HRE in my games, and for the Abbasids at least, having less troops to use if they can only receive troops from Arabian provinces rather than conquered territory like Egypt would definitely help, that said, there’s another way to prevent Empire blobbing that can be perfectly represented by Egypt, but work as a good mechanic EVERYWHERE. You see in Ck2 peasant revolts were pretty weak, even early game I had a large enough retinue to stomp out unwanted surprises with no effort whatsoever. However historically peasant revolts can end very badly for everyone and sometimes a Lord, not even necessarily their lord, would have to concede certain things.
- This can be seen in the Bashmuric revolt. It was a large scale Egyptian rebellion against the Caliphate that exploded across Upper Egypt, the Sultan attempted to mellow them by taking the Coptic Patriarch hostage, only to be blown off of the map, the Caliph had to come in, and upon seeing their might conceded several of their requests that quenched most of the rebellions rather than fight them, the lone exception was the rebellion in Bashmur, hence the name, where they refused to surrender for 2 years until the Caliph reconquered them and razed the entire county to the ground
- Peasant Revolts are now factions! This sufficiently satisfies my request and thus no need to keep the original piece in this block of text (though I’ll keep the Bashmuric Revolt game above)
- That said maybe you’ve just wiped a province off the map and several thousand peasants have risen up against you in insane numbers, however you’re prepared with several trained knights that can make quick work of the peasants, and proceed to defeat the rebellion. It discourages empires from fighting wars they can’t afford and encourages the player to pay more attention to the peasants, which could add to the whole role play theme for the Ck3 game.
- Edit DD 20: Same parts were confirmed! Unique mechanics and tenants for Coptic Orthodoxy! Only changes is that it’s uncertain whether or not Armenian and Coptic churches will react and interact with Each Other... And I need more info on the Doctrines to make good assumptions, although if ‘ecumenical patriarchate’ implies what I think it does that would be a big disappointment since theirs nothing ‘ecumenical’ about any of the Patriarchs.
- The schism in 451 that split the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox (Chalcedon) was mainly politically motivated, a sort of three way political arena between Constantinople, Rome and Alexandria were Alexandria got a bit unlucky, that said since they were still in belief of the same thing more or less as the Eastern Orthodox who similarly changed few doctrines across their entire use , starting in 1968 with unofficial meetings the two branches realized they were saying the exact same thing in different terminology, and in 2001 both denominations, the Greek and Coptic Orthodox churches at least, recognized each other’s sacraments of Baptism and Marriage and have been trying to re-fuse and end the schism since then in a yearly Joint Conference.
- The point of this explanation is too point out that ending the Chalcedonian schism is a lot easier than ending the Great Schism (which can strangely be healed before it actually happened in-game) and should definitely be explored in Ck3 as an interesting mechanic, perhaps a Ecumenical council can be called to review and declare each other to be Orthodox and can allow them to refuse, and if done before 1054 (assuming that in Ck3 that Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy should be the same religion until 1054) could reunite all the Christian World and could allow for maybe more countries, like the Byzantines, looking to liberate one of the 5 first Bishoprics of Christianity; Alexandria.
- Dev Diary 20: Implies Monasctism is in Ck3!
- That said a separate Egyptian culture group from Byzantine that falls into a Afro-Asiatic/Levantine group (either one works) if it’s 3-tiered culture.Edit DD 20: Heresies have been replaced by Faiths it seems... which is reasonable and hopefully works in a way that doesn’t create the same problems as Ck2.
- And finally a crusade (or at least Holy War mechanic) mechanic that only triggers when a revolt happens in Egypt, historical precedence is when after the Coptic Patriarch was captured by a muslim sultan (can’t remember exact status), Makuria a Coptic nation procured 100,000 troops to free him. If Christianity in Egypt is threatened the other Coptic Nations (The ones most people will be playing in East Africa) will have the option to raise their troops in Defence of their Patriarch and invade Egypt, where they can create a new Coptic Egyptian State if they defeat the Abbasids or they surrender. This mechanic should only work when the Abbasids take the Coptic Patriarch hostage, which with the surprisingly large amount of times its been done should be also be an option for Muslims that would trigger a massive revolution. I’d assume the only time a player would do that is to finally get rid of Christianity in Egypt as winning the Crusade against them would result in Miaphysites being wiped out instantly without much other effort, although with the assumption that their would be enough troops that it wouldn’t be easy.
EDIT: BASED ON DEV DIARIES 1-4
- Monastaries can be a buildable building for Temple holdings in desert provinces for cultures and religions that need them. Certain holdings shouldn't be buildable in certain terrain, a city in the desert or a fort deep in the desert doesn't make very much sense, but monastaries fit perfectly into that situation, while on Miaphysites and Maybe Eastern Orthodoxy can build monastaries they're the only religions in Christianity pretty close to those.
- For development, I think that's the best way to emulate population, obviously that high development provinces have a much higher population, that way in a revolt the highest population centers get larger levies like I said would be appropriate earlier. The 3rd Dev Diary (War) also works well in that regard, since levies have been made much weaker than knight troops peasant rebellions with much higher troops are easier to emulate since thir large numbers wouldn't always be undefeatable compared to trained knights, but with large death stacks in developed provinces some large scale rebellions would still be dangerous, imagine Rome, Constantinople, or Alexandria with their atrocious populations rising in Rebellion? That would be much more dangerous than say Cornwall rebelling against England, for good reason.
- Control seems to be either a mechanic in addition to Revolt Risk or it's replacement. I think control would be a good simulator of some situations of percieved authority. Christians in Egypt used to be allowed to have their own courts seprate from muslims to represent how both had different ideas of what right and wrog was. Similialarly different religions and cultures will view their lords with less respect than someone of their power, the dev diary mentioned that someone of similiar religion and culture could be used to control the masses in the province of you need someone to manage it, which would help Miaphysites who don't have a king get represented (On the barony level I assume, not sure if the mechanic applies to counties).
- Dev Diary 20 Update: Armenian and Coptic separated! Will add more thoughts when more info is given.
- Dev Diary 20 Update: Probably to ambitious so I’ll wait for more info.
- Patriarch Mechanics: They have the ability to Consecrate Churches, you need to ask their permision to build a temple holding, they can consecrate saints, you need them to like you to gain sainthood. They can Excommunicate, if a Patriarch excommunicates another Patriarch, both remain the same religion (No schism) but both sides get Holy War CB on each other, if the Patriarchs removes the Excommunications, or one of them is deposed the Holy War ends. If the Excommucation lasts more than 50-75 years and one side changes Doctrine or Excommunicates ALL other Patriarchs a Schism may happen, in the first case other Patriarchs have the decision to join whatever side they agree with. Scism can end if Doctrine is changed back or Excommunications are lifted.
Dev Diary 20 Updates- Armenian and Coptic Orthodoxy are seperate! Which is both good and bad. On the good side it solves earlier problem where Coptic Pope shouldn’t have any authority over Armenia, on the other hand as separate faiths I’m worried that they will treat each other as different religions, will they get negative opinion modifiers? Will they start Religous wars against each other? What about Holy Sites, if Armenia gets Jerusalem does Coptic Orthodoxy lose moral authority? It doesn’t make much sense in these regards for them to be completely seperate. An ideal solution have them as one religion that has no specific Religous leader but 3 preset Patriarchs, the Coptic, Armenian and (Syrian optional). Each has de Jure territory as I suggested above and in rare cases new Patriarchs may be added.
- However the ‘Ecunemical Patriarch’ doctrine implies a very very bad misconception I’d hoped the dev team would have gotten rid of by now. There is no such thing as a Ecumenical Patriarch in Oriental and Orthodoxy and never will be, a Ecumenical Patriarch gets authority over all other Patriarchs, but all Patriarchs in Oriental Orthodoxy are by definition equal. And then comes the problem where if the Coptic Pope has Patriarchs under him and so does the Armenian it creates a bizarre scenario with no historical reference in any religion. The only way a two faith system as shown could work is of both interacted with members of each religion as the same, shared Holy Site bonuses of sites they both controlled, and are otherwise treated as the same religion just with different leaders, a few holy Sites and maybe a few changes in ‘crimes’ or other minor tenants in the religion etc.
EDIT: Tried to improve readability and deleted some unnecessary info!
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