Missonary addition

[RichardJNL]

Dear eu4 fans/devs
My idea is to add a decision and/or a button on the Religous screen to change the religion of the missionaries.
And if you reach certain Threshold you get a decision to swap to that religion
- disadvantaged for this action
Only works if you have heretic/heathen religion in your country
(optional) Stability hit if you change the missionaries faith
(optional) X amount of years - tolerance to true faith

+
Give players option to swap religion without using exploits
More dynamic/fun gameplay experience

I always wanted to change religion and now I am getting more familiar with eu4 and the cultural conversion tactics and the state mechanics, I noticed you can, for example, form Russia as Norway if you change your state accordingly.
Explained
If you change your states to provinces where Muscovy is the main culture, you can make it your primary culture (50% threshold);
this enables you to form Russia (if the didn't change it this patch :X)

So if we could change the religion mechanics to be similar to the culture mechanics that would be awesome

Hoping for some feedback to improve it, and maybe some developer or other players will look into this or at least answer why this is a bad idea!

 

[luis jorge]

I strongly agree

 

[TorakCZE]

That's good idea, it could be interesting

 

[Piotrzeci]

EU4 certainly needs other means of changing state religion. Exploiting zealots feels very cheesy as they can easily be spawned, convert provinces they occupy (How? o.0) and can convert you to any religion. I think it should be done by decisions or maybe even events. What I agree on however is that current system does not do the job.

 

[RichardJNL]

Exploiting zealots feels very cheesy as they can easily be spawned, convert provinces they occupy (How? o.0) and can convert you to any religion.

Yes, this is the reason I want this change, and if you have high tolerance of heathen/heretics and/or high amount of - national unrest. spawning these revolts is a nightmare.
And it is just a frustrating game mechanic.

. I think it should be done by decisions or maybe even events.

This is precisely my idea.
Example
You should be able to set your faith of your missionaries; to one of your present religions in your country. (religion screen?)
For example, if you are Sunni (true faith), but you have Shai religion province in your country you should be able to set your missionaries to the religion shai religion
This means that you can convert Sunni provinces to Shai.
Balance: (open for change)
If this action would be without penalty I think religion swapping would be too easy so to counter this it should lower your tolerance of the true faith by -2 for 10 years, and also 1 drop in stabilty.

Also if you want to swap your State religion(true faith) you should get a stability hit of 3 for instance, and if this is too unbalanced still i am sure we can come up with some other penalties .

Thank you for feedback, need all the attention I can get

 

[HFresch]

Hi, I encountered this post from YouTube, and seeing as very few are disagreeing with this suggestion, I'll give you my two cents on the matter.

I'll preface this by saying that I think it is fair that changing a country's religion should be difficult and penalizing. Europa Universalis is a historical simulation game, and nations changing state religion has been very rare in history, apart from some common changes. These include the Christian reformation, where many nations changed state religion from Catholicism to Protestant or Reformed Catholicism, or the introduction and acceptance of Sikhism into the Hindu sphere. These changes are possible to do easily already in the game, by clicking on a button.

Now, when considering the true matter of this thread, we need to consider a Muslim sheikh converting to Christianity, or a Catholic king embracing Othodoxy. Even after searching the internet for a bit, I cannot find a single example of such a thing ever happening. These religions are so fundamentally different, that someone truly believing in the religious texts of one, will not accept the other a true. Most religions are by nature mutually exclusive, and as such, a radical shift from one to the other just doesn't happen on a national level.

An argument I see used to justify this change is that "culture conversion is so easy, why shouldn't religious conversion be equally easy". Well, heads of state embracing new cultures has actually happened several times in history! An example is when Norway gained their independence. they invited a Danish prince to be their new king. The Danish prince accepted, and embraced the Norwegian culture in order to represent his new people. Similar things have happened when inheritances happen in unexpected ways. Embracing a new culture seems to be simpler than embracing a new religion.

So in conclusion, I disagree with this addition. Changing state religions between vastly different beliefs should be very punishing, as it is currently.

 

[luis jorge]

Yeah, I mean I don´t see many native culture in the americas, australia but in places like India, why can you culture convert them in a game if the brits couldn´t do it irl?

 

[RichardJNL]

Hi, I encountered this post from YouTube, and seeing as very few are disagreeing with this suggestion, I'll give you my two cents on the matter.

I'll preface this by saying that I think it is fair that changing a country's religion should be difficult and penalizing. Europa Universalis is a historical simulation game, and nations changing state religion has been very rare in history, apart from some common changes. These include the Christian reformation, where many nations changed state religion from Catholicism to Protestant or Reformed Catholicism, or the introduction and acceptance of Sikhism into the Hindu sphere. These changes are possible to do easily already in the game, by clicking on a button.

Now, when considering the true matter of this thread, we need to consider a Muslim sheikh converting to Christianity, or a Catholic king embracing Orthodoxy. Even after searching the internet for a bit, I cannot find a single example of such a thing ever happening. These religions are so fundamentally different, that someone truly believing in the religious texts of one, will not accept the other a true. Most religions are by nature mutually exclusive, and as such, a radical shift from one to the other just doesn't happen on a national level.

An argument I see used to justify this change is that "culture conversion is so easy, why shouldn't religious conversion be equally easy". Well, heads of state embracing new cultures has actually happened several times in history! An example is when Norway gained their independence. they invited a Danish prince to be their new king. The Danish prince accepted, and embraced the Norwegian culture in order to represent his new people. Similar things have happened when inheritances happen in unexpected ways. Embracing a new culture seems to be simpler than embracing a new religion.

First of all thank you for this thought out commend. I myself am not religious irl but I have a very strong feeling about my own culture so i assumed in a historical context, that the change of state-culture and -religion happen with the same frequency, i am not a historian so i take your word for this.

So in conclusion, I disagree with this addition. Changing state religions between vastly different beliefs should be very punishing, as it is currently.

Although this patch, "cradle of civilization" I noticed that you can't convert your religion at all. I was playing as Kilwa and most of my country was fethist (more then 50%). After the fethist revolt, i tried to swap my state religion, but the developers removed the ability to swap your nations faith with religious rebels.
Can we agree that if your country contains more heretic/heathen faith compare to the true faith, that we can convert the state faith to this new faith.
So for this example, Sunni is my state faith but fethist is more popular; we so add an event that allows us to swap the state religion to the dominant religion for like
idk 2-5 stability?

Also you make a very strong argument that changing the missionaries of the state to other religion is very costly in real life, but in eu4 we have no mechanic that allows this. Give this mechanic some penalties, national unrest, tolerance of faith, drop, stability hits, anything!

Conclusie: there is no system in eu4 that allows you to play with religion, and i think it is one of the more interesting dynamics to play with, even thought it might be historically speaking hard to convert his nation to swap religion. I know we can make a system where religion can be more dynamic with the cultural conversation mechanics as an example.

 

[Zohtun]

First of all thank you for this thought out commend. I myself am not religious irl but I have a very strong feeling about my own culture so i assumed in a historical context, that the change of state-culture and -religion happen with the same frequency, i am not a historian so i take your word for this.



Although this patch, "cradle of civilization" I noticed that you can't convert your religion at all. I was playing as Kilwa and most of my country was fethist (more then 50%). After the fethist revolt, i tried to swap my state religion, but the developers removed the ability to swap your nations faith with religious rebels.
Can we agree that if your country contains more heretic/heathen faith compare to the true faith, that we can convert the state faith to this new faith.
So for this example, Sunni is my state faith but fethist is more popular; we so add an event that allows us to swap the state religion to the dominant religion for like
idk 2-5 stability?

Also you make a very strong argument that changing the missionaries of the state to other religion is very costly in real life, but in eu4 we have no mechanic that allows this. Give this mechanic some penalties, national unrest, tolerance of faith, drop, stability hits, anything!

Conclusie: there is no system in eu4 that allows you to play with religion, and i think it is one of the more interesting dynamics to play with, even thought it might be historically speaking hard to convert his nation to swap religion. I know we can make a system where religion can be more dynamic with the cultural conversation mechanics as an example.

Can't convert to Fetishist from Muslim. Can only convert to Fetishist from Animalist (and Animalist is the only Pagan which can be converted to via rebels).

Been like that for as far back as I can recall.

 

[RichardJNL]

Can't convert to Fetishist from Muslim. Can only convert to Fetishist from Animalist (and Animalist is the only Pagan which can be converted to via rebels).

Been like that for as far back as I can recall.

The previous patch you where able to switch from Islam to Coptic, I did this with Mamluks.
And because Sunni and coptic are different religion groups i assumed the changed that you are unable to swap religion groups anymore.

 

[HFresch]

The previous patch you where able to switch from Islam to Coptic, I did this with Mamluks.
And because Sunni and coptic are different religion groups i assumed the changed that you are unable to swap religion groups anymore.

Fetishist is considered a pagan religion, like totemist and animist. These religions are special in that a non-pagan religion cannot be converted to these under normal circumstances, and it is harder to convert provinces into these religions. Coptic is not a pagan religion, and as such you can convert to that religion as per normal.

I understand the confusion if you didn't know these mechanics beforehand!

 

[RichardJNL]

Fetishist is considered a pagan religion, like totemist and animist. These religions are special in that a non-pagan religion cannot be converted to these under normal circumstances, and it is harder to convert provinces into these religions. Coptic is not a pagan religion, and as such you can convert to that religion as per normal.

I understand the confusion if you didn't know these mechanics beforehand!

Might be me personally but i don't like these hidden mechanics, this is why I made this post.
I just want a clear system, just like the decision between humanist and religious, humanist give you less revolts . But religion gives you bonuses like deus vult, but while you are converting your province you get an increase in revolt risk.

I want to make a similar decision/system for religion, you either convert your province to the state religion, or you take a short-mid term penalty to change your religion and enjoy the benefits later.
+ it gives the game more replayability.

 

[SmoothKid]

People want a button for everything. Too many easy fixes makes for a mundane play experience.

 

[SmoothKid]

What is this suppose to mean? I like the mandate of heaven dlc.

What it means is that they continually add buttons to help the player through the game. It is getting easier and easier to play because there are more buttons to bail you out of a jam or enhance your country. I feel like since I began playing this game there has been more give than take in that regard (meaning more bonus for the player using the buttons than malus). What it does is kind of makes me not want to play after I'm the greatest power. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE this game. And I realize that I can increase the difficulty or play a different patch or disable DLC or whatever. That's not my point. I guess I would rather see resources go to making sure all systems are working properly rather than get a bunch more content. I mean, the game is VERY fleshed out already. Problem is, the devs can't sell QA/balancing and they have to sell us something or all development will have to cease on a fantastic, but aging game. That said, I own all of the major DLC. I like features on everything I've bought, but there are also features that I don't care for. But I'll continue to spend my money with PDX and Eu4 because I won't wanna miss out and I want EU4 to stay relevant. It is sort of a double edged sword for me.

 

[cub298]

That's not my point. I guess I would rather see resources go to making sure all systems are working properly rather than get a bunch more content. I mean, the game is VERY fleshed out already. Problem is, the devs can't sell QA/balancing and they have to sell us something or all development will have to cease on a fantastic, but aging game. That said, I own all of the major DLC. I like features on everything I've bought, but there are also features that I don't care for. But I'll continue to spend my money with PDX and Eu4 because I won't wanna miss out and I want EU4 to stay relevant. It is sort of a double edged sword for me.

I have to agree with all the points you just said and mainly on a point that you kind of got lost, that the devs can sell something new, but they can't sell game balance. With how their selling solution is set up, they only get money or the incentive when they add something new to the game, not when they repolish something they already done. They used to have it where they would add to the game and then take the next patch to look back at the last, to fix some of the problems. These last patches, they did not give themselves a breather from new content, and just kept adding more content. Now seems to be less free content and more paid, with also very little talk of what it will mean for the people who don't pay for the content, it seems.

Just a brief look into it and some expansion upon it.

 

[RichardJNL]

What it means is that they continually add buttons to help the player through the game. It is getting easier and easier to play because there are more buttons to bail you out of a jam or enhance your country. I feel like since I began playing this game there has been more give than take in that regard (meaning more bonus for the player using the buttons than malus). What it does is kind of makes me not want to play after I'm the greatest power.

Sorry to say but this is a terrible argument against more buttons if the game is getting too easy just play on higher difficulties, or what helps for me, try to go for harder achievements. Most of the buttons in eu4 actually have a use, it adds interesting dynamics and more replayability for the game.
I mean if you can do a world conquest with ryuku on the highest difficulty and you found this easy, you should look at yourself did i finish this game? Sometimes you did everything in the game and everything you do is "easy".
For me the game is more about finding out new ways to play, and in my eyes the game has a lot of dynamic elements that allow you to experiment with eu4.
And religion is one of the few remaining static systems in eu4, and I think it is time for this to change!
I mean every religion has been expanded upon and I love this, but now when I am choosing a nation to play, I look at the religion it starts with, because it is almost impossible to switch.

. I guess I would rather see resources go to making sure all systems are working properly rather than get a bunch more content. I mean, the game is VERY fleshed out already. Problem is, the devs can't sell QA/balancing and they have to sell us something or all development will have to cease on a fantastic, but aging game

In my eyes, they have been doing nothing but improving the game, but paradox also has to sell interesting dynamics feathers for the game, and the expansion of the religion screen I logical in my eyes.
I mean did any of you play eu4 when it was just released, and if so, you can't tell me with a straight face that the game has gone backwards. You can make the argument that the game has become more complex and it is harder for new players to get into the game. But at its core all these new mechanics have been a good thing for the game!

They used to have it where they would add to the game and then take the next patch to look back at the last, to fix some of the problems. These last patches, they did not give themselves a breather from new content, and just kept adding more content. Now seems to be less free content and more paid, with also very little talk of what it will mean for the people who don't pay for the content, it seems.

You know paradox is one of the few developers who correct their games in a big way, just look at Rome 2. Sure the removed crashing problem, etc(this not rome 2 forum), but at its core, it still has majors problem. Other game studies just realise a new game to correct their mistakes there. I think we reach a stage in eu4 where there are little to no major game breaking bugs in the game. And me and you just want to see there favourite stuff added to there game!

 

[SmoothKid]

I'm sorry that you couldn't understand my "argument" fully. It wasn't an argument at all, but whatevs. No, "all" of these mechanics have not been good for the game. But that's a matter of opinion, just like your opinion that changing religion should be a thing. Here's how I read your argument: "Religious manipulation is too hard, and I want it easier for personal reasons." That won't cut it, man. It isn't historically accurate to switch religions on a whim, and it would be silly to implement it in the game. Read up on the religious mechanics and cheeses and you'll gain a better understanding of how to go from religion to religion more easily (maybe even easier than it should be, but cheese is fun sometimes). These sorts of things can seem to enhance the game at first, but in the long run simply give the player more maneuverability in a system of the game that doesn't warrant it. Religion has been rigid over the course of history, so making it very flexible in a game like this would be 'meh'. Here are more examples of buttons that I can use that I think effect game balance more than intended:

Manpower button from professionalism, especially with no cooldown. (Think of Prussia. Always has too many military points. Now they can simply wage war forever, no problem, and with the best troops in the game) I had full professionalism and hit the button 20 times in a row. Silly as hell. Where are these men coming from? how do I have MILLIONS suddenly ready to pick up arms when I had zero just one in-game day before? Simply put, OP. A button placed there to counteract an incomplete professionalism system. Most player Recruit a few generals at half price and there they are back up to 100 after grabbing a nice chunk of manpower.

Development buttons. I can dump 1k monarch points into my gold mine and it is instantly ten times more developed than it was. In one day. That's not realistic at all. I use development like everyone else does. For gold production, for institutions, and for a monarch point dump when I have too many. I don't really want to see it have a cooldown or anything, but the system is lacking. I don't claim to know how to fix it, but it does seem a little OP in certain circumstances.

Advisor promotion: This is one I like, but it is beginning to seem OP. I am swimming in monarch points all the time after becoming the #1 world power. I am swimming in ducats, now too, thanks to AI and trade good changes. I can run +5 advisors constantly and just throw mana at whatever I want. This just turns your steamroll blob into a hyper train toward WC.

I'm sure there are more that I can't list off the top of my head, but add all of these systems together and you have a MUCH easier experience than in previous patches. So no, sir, I cannot agree that most of the additions to this game from vanilla have made it more challenging. I can argue the opposite, though, if we must have an "argument". Again, I'm not saying I want them to do away with features, but they COULD spend more time balancing these things. Maybe make it cost 10% prof to raise levies from professionalism. Maybe make development cost 25% more (there are still development cost modifiers to stack). maybe make promoted advisors significantly more expensive or have multiple negative events for each type of advisor that could happen if they are promoted? I don't claim to be a developer and my ideas would probably suck, if I'm honest. I do know that it could these mechanics could be kept and improved upon to enhance the player's experience. I'd like to see that happen. The more features they add to this game, the more mindless button pressing there is. That's the current trend, and that is a fact. Can't argue facts, friend.

 

[AndrejK]

Hi, I encountered this post from YouTube, and seeing as very few are disagreeing with this suggestion, I'll give you my two cents on the matter.

I'll preface this by saying that I think it is fair that changing a country's religion should be difficult and penalizing. Europa Universalis is a historical simulation game, and nations changing state religion has been very rare in history, apart from some common changes. These include the Christian reformation, where many nations changed state religion from Catholicism to Protestant or Reformed Catholicism, or the introduction and acceptance of Sikhism into the Hindu sphere. These changes are possible to do easily already in the game, by clicking on a button.

Now, when considering the true matter of this thread, we need to consider a Muslim sheikh converting to Christianity, or a Catholic king embracing Othodoxy. Even after searching the internet for a bit, I cannot find a single example of such a thing ever happening. These religions are so fundamentally different, that someone truly believing in the religious texts of one, will not accept the other a true. Most religions are by nature mutually exclusive, and as such, a radical shift from one to the other just doesn't happen on a national level.

An argument I see used to justify this change is that "culture conversion is so easy, why shouldn't religious conversion be equally easy". Well, heads of state embracing new cultures has actually happened several times in history! An example is when Norway gained their independence. they invited a Danish prince to be their new king. The Danish prince accepted, and embraced the Norwegian culture in order to represent his new people. Similar things have happened when inheritances happen in unexpected ways. Embracing a new culture seems to be simpler than embracing a new religion.

So in conclusion, I disagree with this addition. Changing state religions between vastly different beliefs should be very punishing, as it is currently.

The ruling family of Lebanon converted to Marobute Catholicism from Islam

 

[RichardJNL]

It's time to revive this forum post again, with the upcoming release of the newest eu4 dlc.
The latest developer clash showed me again why I find the current system so strange.
Our great kaiser Johan was playing as the Ottomans and tag switched to Georgie and right after that he switched to the Byzantine empire.
But after he tag switched, he also wanted to switch his religion to orthodox.
He just spawned a couple of religious rebels and swapped to orthodox.

I am still of the opinion that there should be the possibility to do a slow but steady conversion to other religion, without the need of having to spawn religious rebels.