[Mod] HaMashiakh: A Jewish Messiah Mod

[damanamana]

LINK TO THE STEAM PAGE HERE

ARE YOU A JEW WHO'S JEALOUS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS WITH THEIR COOL SAOSHYANT TRAIT? EVER WANTED SOMETHING MORE MEMORABLE TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU CONQUER YOUR WAY BACK TO ISRAEL?

THIS MOD CHANGES THAT!

When you Rebuild the Temple by decision, now you'll get a building in the barony of Jerusalem to represent it! It gives both the barony's holder and that character's liege a significant amount of prestige and piety. It cannot be upgraded as of right now.

When you Restore the Priesthood by decision, now the Kohen Gadol will anoint your ruler the Jewish Messiah: the Mashiakh! You'll get a cool trait (HaMashiakh) and so will your descendants (Beit HaMashiakh). It passes patrilineally like Sayyid and Saoshyant Descendant. Be careful! Becoming the Jewish Messiah will make Christians and Muslims *extremely angry* at your infidel sacrilege!

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I've also added Mizrahi Jews, because they were (and are) a huge portion of the global Jewish community. Now Mizrahim will appear across the map by event just like Ashkenazim and Sephardim do.

I've also changed the Jewish holy sites:
- Jewish holy sites are shuffled around for better gameplay: Jerusalem (duh), Baghdad (because of the Talmudic Academies), Alexandria (massive contemporaneous Jewish community), Axum (to help Semien, and also because of the Ark), and Sinai (duh)
- Karaite holy sites are the same as Jewish holy sites, except they have Hamadan (location of the Tomb of Esther and Mordechai) instead of Axum.
- Samaritan holy sites are hyper-concentrated in the Kingdom of Israel, to reflect their small geographic scope and historical stability: Hebron, Safed, Beersheb, Tiberias, and Sinai.

And I added more crusade weights.
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I highly recommend using my mod with the Sanhedrin Society mod. I also highly recommend Artifact Acquisition and Overhaul, which adds Jewish artifacts and rebalances many others.

My mod is most likely not going to be compatible with other content that changes holy sites or cultures, sorry. This mod is not compatible with my other mod Islamic Roman Empire for that reason. I'll (probably) make a combined mod eventually.

This mod also not compatible with my other mod Islamic Roman Empire because both mods add cultures. I'll (probably) make a combined mod eventually.
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Credit to Starwarsfan541 of the (now defunct?) Gloria Regni mod for the HaMashiakh and Beit Hamashiakh trait icons.

 

[Minchandre]

This is pretty cool; I'm definitely going to include it in my next game (I'm thinking...Jewish Haesteinn).

And, of course, we can't just say that something's cool, we need to criticize it

Consider changing the Karaite holy sites, a couple of which no sense and seem to have been chosen by the devs at random. I'd include:

-Jerusalem (duh)
-Baghdad, the origin point of the movement
-Hamadan (honestly, kinda questionable - it was chosen because Benjamin Nahawandi, a prominent early Karaite, is presumably named for the town of Nahawand, which is in Hamadan province in the game)
-Alexandria (among the large and thriving Jewish population was a large and thriving Karaite population)
-Constantinople

You could also consider swapping one of those out for Crimea, though this is more questionable - Crimean Karaites appeared late in the game's timeframe, and don't seem to be related to e.g. Khazars..

Also consider including Rome or Constantinople as a religious center for "mainstream" Judaism. Both were major Jewish centers during the time period, and Constantinople would also give the Khazars (or Judean Jews) something to reach for.

Your Samaritan holy sites are on point. Well...I get that you want to emphasize that the Samaritan holy site isn't in Jerusalem, but Mt Gezerim and Nablus are actually definitely in the Jerusalem province in the game.

I don't know if you've included it, but Karaites and Samaritans absolutely should not have a Meshiach, but a Cohen Gadol is appropriate, since this role is described at length in the Torah (and the Samaritans actually have Cohen Gadol to this day). I'm torn as to whether or not they should be able to build a new Temple.

You should also add an option for non-Jewish people who conquer a be-Templed Jerusalem to destroy it for a minor amount of gold and enormous amounts of anger from Jews

 

[damanamana]

snip

Thank you for your feedback!

Concerning Karaite holy sites: I chose Damascus over Baghdad because I made Baghdad a Jewish holy site (because of the Talmudic Academies) and wanted some locational variety. The same concern applies to Alexandria and Sinai. Constantinople is an interesting idea - I'll switch Dhofar for it. Thank you!

The point of a Jewish holy site in the Black Sea / steppe is to boost the Khazars' control over their MA. A Karaite holy site wouldn't do that. Someone on Reddit suggested Atil instead, which I'm still thinking about. What do you think?

You're right about Mt. Gerizim! I compared Google Maps and the interactive province map and I could have sworn that Nablus looked like it would be in Tiberias, but checking \landed_titles.txt it's apparently a barony in Jerusalem. My bad! Thank you.

Karaites and Samaritans can't become Mashiakh. The event giving out traits is triggered by the "Restore the Priesthood" decision, so only Jewish characters can do it. I'm considering giving Samaritans and/or Karaites a religious head, but haven't decided yet. Either way, neither heresy will have the ability to rebuild the Temple.

I don't think they would tbh. Christians and Muslims have a habit of converting the religious buildings they conquer into churches / mosques.

 

[Minchandre]

The point of a Jewish holy site in the Black Sea / steppe is to boost the Khazars' control over their MA. A Karaite holy site wouldn't do that. Someone on Reddit suggested Atil instead, which I'm still thinking about. What do you think?

I mean, sure, why not. There's not really any reason to do so, but I guess no reason not to. A Jewish Khazaria could well promote Atil as a center of learning and scholarship. Beyond that...there were well-established Jewish communities in the Caucasus in this time period, but again, not exactly known as centers of scholarship. Samarkand had a large and vibrant Jewish community, known as a center of scholarship, but that might be further from the Khazars than you want.

 

[damanamana]

I mean, sure, why not. There's not really any reason to do so, but I guess no reason not to. A Jewish Khazaria could well promote Atil as a center of learning and scholarship. Beyond that...there were well-established Jewish communities in the Caucasus in this time period, but again, not exactly known as centers of scholarship. Samarkand had a large and vibrant Jewish community, known as a center of scholarship, but that might be further from the Khazars than you want.

I agree that it makes no historical sense. It's a purely game-design decision. But I made that decision without really playing a lot of Khazaria games - do you think it's needed? Do nomadic realms even deal with religious heresies and revolts? If there's no game-design reason to put the holy site there, then there shouldn't be a Jewish holy site there.

 

[Minchandre]

I agree that it makes no historical sense. It's a purely game-design decision. But I made that decision without really playing a lot of Khazaria games - do you think it's needed? Do nomadic realms even deal with religious heresies and revolts? If there's no game-design reason to put the holy site there, then there shouldn't be a Jewish holy site there.

I haven't played a lot of Khazaria games, unfortunately - I really don't like nomadic mechanics. I have to reason to assume that they don't deal with those issues, though.

 

[damanamana]

Small update just now to:

• fix some Sons of Abraham event text around (Kohanim still exist and there wouldn't be any difficulty finding one to be the Kohen Gadol, PDX. Come on.)
• shuffle holy sites around (see Steam mod description)
• some other localisation things, nbd

 

[damanamana]

Just shifted holy sites around. Now both Jews and Karaites share Alexandria, Sinai, Jerusalem, and Baghdad. The fifth Jewish holy site is Axum. The fifth Karaite holy site is Hamadan.

I also added another recommended compatible mod: Artifact Aquisition and Overhaul. It's excellent.

 

[MadJester2013]

file to download is where exactly? Steam hates me for some reason

 

[damanamana]

file to download is where exactly? Steam hates me for some reason

For now, only Steam

 

[Lionhero]

Is there a way to change the opinion modifiers? I want to make the Jewish opinion +100(if not higher) and the non jewish religions -20 or something in that range. Is that possible? Thank you

 

[damanamana]

Is there a way to change the opinion modifiers? I want to make the Jewish opinion +100(if not higher) and the non jewish religions -20 or something in that range. Is that possible? Thank you

For the Mashiakh trait? Sure. It's defined in /mod/HaMashiakh/common/traits/HaMashiakh_traits.txt so all you need to do is change the values.

 

[Lionhero]

For the Mashiakh trait? Sure. It's defined in /mod/HaMashiakh/common/traits/HaMashiakh_traits.txt so all you need to do is change the values.

Thank you!