Hello!
I don't usually frequent forums much, but I might require your assistance.
I haven't modded anything in years, but I have recently gotten really into CKII. With my one issue being my faith. I am an Orthodox Christian, and wish for my custom person to be as well, however this limits me to playing in the Balkans if I want to be anywhere near where my Germanic Ancestors came from (Im a DEEP RPer, especially in CKII). This has caused some pretty fun playthroughs creating Croatia, Austria, reclaiming Bulgaria, and even an Orthodox Italian Empire once, but I have been trying to find a good way to become Orthodox and spread the one true faith throughout Germany, France, or wherever I like! So far, all I have to do was click a button when creating a character and that's it, as if being the only Orthodox person in the entire realm, if not that half of the continent isn't as all completely odd and doesn't break immersion from the start. Well, thats when I got fed up aaaaaand...
"Saint Vladimir the Great Searches for the True Faith" by Johann Leberecht Eggink, showing St. Vladimir listening to the Orthodox Christian priest while the Roman Catholic envoy is moved aside.
In order to satisfy me, I have begun to create a mod for myself (and if good enough, for the community) which attempts to recreate the Christianization of Kievian Rus by St. Vladimir. For those not familiar, the short version of the story is that Vladimir was ruler of the Kievian Rus, and at first he tried to stabilize his realm by trying to re-establish the supremacy of the old gods but soon realized that was futile. He began to send envoys to seek out a new, monotheistic faith for his people. His envoys told him that the Muslims seemed sad and smelly (I kid you not), the Catholics had no beauty, and the Jews seemed interesting but had obviously been abandoned by God (again, I kid you not). They said of the Orthodox that they felt that upon entering the Holy City of Constantinople that they felt as if they had entered heaven itself. Soon Vladimir invited envoys from neighboring nations to try and convince him to take their religion. He directly insulted the Muslims with colorful language and dismissed them due to Islams requirements of circumcision and non-edibility of pork and abstention of drink, debated the Jews but declared that losing Jerusalem was proof that God had abandoned them. He considered Roman Catholicism, but found that the idea of the Papacy and being forced to swear fealty to the Pope was odd and didn't make sense with the actual religion. Eventually he converted to Orthodox Christianity when Emperor Basil II came to him for help. Vladimir agreed to help the Emperor, on the condition that he aid Vladimir in converting to Orthodoxy and betrothal to the Emperor's sister (for those who play EU4, this is the origin point of the recent "Third Rome" expansion focusing on Russia being known as "Third Rome" after Rome fell to the Germans and Byzantium falling to the Turks. The Rus claimed the legacy of Rome from this marriage into the "Roman" imperial family & following the Imperial faith, whereas the HRE claimed this from the Roman Catholic church).
What I aim to do in the finished mod, is to recreate this scenario for the player nation if the player is a follower of a non-Abrahamic faith, by a player triggered decision to "Seek A New Faith for Our People". Clicking to start the event will have little requirements, but starts the player on a step by step process which will introduce their character & their court to the 3 Abrahamic faiths, along with their current variations (such as Sunni/Shia, Orthodox/Catholic, etc.). Throughout this process, you will have various options which will guide you towards choosing to pick a version of one of the 3 Abrahamic faiths...OR choosing to fully embrace your current (pagan) religion at a terrible price which increases the instability of your people and your court the longer you take to say "Nevermind" to this whole "New Faith" thing to try and re-embrace paganism. The whole process of following the storyline decisions will involve you, your court, your vassals, your neighbors, the heads of every faith, the rulers of Empires and/or Kingdoms, and can open the door to an entirely new gameplay experience which transforms your region and the world forever over the course of a year or even multiple years depending on how you and the world responds to the various stages of your journey. Ideally, the end leaves you picking one of the 3 faiths, being on good terms with fellow nations which follow the same faiths, casus belli on nearby pagans, and new opportunities for you and your dynasty.
The way I see it planned out in my head is as follows:
With all of this in mind...I have not modded ANYTHING in YEARS. I feel like a 5 year old trying to break into the Pentagon doing this. Trying to make even the "simple" test version of this mod for myself has humbled me greatly, and I am forced to seek help with you, the community. I will of course continue exploring and trying to make this myself, but any aid would be welcome. I might be an Orthodox Christian, but I plan to treat all 3 major faiths with equal respect, and happily welcome followers from the other faiths to help, even if it is just to help understand their perspective better for when I begin writing the flavor text, as well as when considering possible effects of decisions. I grew up around Protestants & Roman Catholics, so my knowledge of the other faiths are very basic. Help me help you help us make the best mod we can!
I would like some advice, if not outright help, for creating this mod the way I envision. Any who provide useful advice WILL be credited should I post this mod out to steam workshop or elsewhere. Thanks!
I don't usually frequent forums much, but I might require your assistance.
I haven't modded anything in years, but I have recently gotten really into CKII. With my one issue being my faith. I am an Orthodox Christian, and wish for my custom person to be as well, however this limits me to playing in the Balkans if I want to be anywhere near where my Germanic Ancestors came from (Im a DEEP RPer, especially in CKII). This has caused some pretty fun playthroughs creating Croatia, Austria, reclaiming Bulgaria, and even an Orthodox Italian Empire once, but I have been trying to find a good way to become Orthodox and spread the one true faith throughout Germany, France, or wherever I like! So far, all I have to do was click a button when creating a character and that's it, as if being the only Orthodox person in the entire realm, if not that half of the continent isn't as all completely odd and doesn't break immersion from the start. Well, thats when I got fed up aaaaaand...
"Saint Vladimir the Great Searches for the True Faith" by Johann Leberecht Eggink, showing St. Vladimir listening to the Orthodox Christian priest while the Roman Catholic envoy is moved aside.
In order to satisfy me, I have begun to create a mod for myself (and if good enough, for the community) which attempts to recreate the Christianization of Kievian Rus by St. Vladimir. For those not familiar, the short version of the story is that Vladimir was ruler of the Kievian Rus, and at first he tried to stabilize his realm by trying to re-establish the supremacy of the old gods but soon realized that was futile. He began to send envoys to seek out a new, monotheistic faith for his people. His envoys told him that the Muslims seemed sad and smelly (I kid you not), the Catholics had no beauty, and the Jews seemed interesting but had obviously been abandoned by God (again, I kid you not). They said of the Orthodox that they felt that upon entering the Holy City of Constantinople that they felt as if they had entered heaven itself. Soon Vladimir invited envoys from neighboring nations to try and convince him to take their religion. He directly insulted the Muslims with colorful language and dismissed them due to Islams requirements of circumcision and non-edibility of pork and abstention of drink, debated the Jews but declared that losing Jerusalem was proof that God had abandoned them. He considered Roman Catholicism, but found that the idea of the Papacy and being forced to swear fealty to the Pope was odd and didn't make sense with the actual religion. Eventually he converted to Orthodox Christianity when Emperor Basil II came to him for help. Vladimir agreed to help the Emperor, on the condition that he aid Vladimir in converting to Orthodoxy and betrothal to the Emperor's sister (for those who play EU4, this is the origin point of the recent "Third Rome" expansion focusing on Russia being known as "Third Rome" after Rome fell to the Germans and Byzantium falling to the Turks. The Rus claimed the legacy of Rome from this marriage into the "Roman" imperial family & following the Imperial faith, whereas the HRE claimed this from the Roman Catholic church).
What I aim to do in the finished mod, is to recreate this scenario for the player nation if the player is a follower of a non-Abrahamic faith, by a player triggered decision to "Seek A New Faith for Our People". Clicking to start the event will have little requirements, but starts the player on a step by step process which will introduce their character & their court to the 3 Abrahamic faiths, along with their current variations (such as Sunni/Shia, Orthodox/Catholic, etc.). Throughout this process, you will have various options which will guide you towards choosing to pick a version of one of the 3 Abrahamic faiths...OR choosing to fully embrace your current (pagan) religion at a terrible price which increases the instability of your people and your court the longer you take to say "Nevermind" to this whole "New Faith" thing to try and re-embrace paganism. The whole process of following the storyline decisions will involve you, your court, your vassals, your neighbors, the heads of every faith, the rulers of Empires and/or Kingdoms, and can open the door to an entirely new gameplay experience which transforms your region and the world forever over the course of a year or even multiple years depending on how you and the world responds to the various stages of your journey. Ideally, the end leaves you picking one of the 3 faiths, being on good terms with fellow nations which follow the same faiths, casus belli on nearby pagans, and new opportunities for you and your dynasty.
The way I see it planned out in my head is as follows:
- Stage one shows you debating with yourself, and you can at this point choose to either seek new faith or basically say "No, our way is right".
- Stage two deploys envoys (debating using vassals or just generic un-named envoys) to the world to seek new faiths. At this point, they will arrive at 3 random Empire/Kingdom courts (one for each faith), with each ruler getting to decide to welcome them or dismiss them.
- Stage three, your envoys return with news on how they were treated, along with a briefing on each of the 3 faiths, and you will chose to pick various responses to each faith (such as "Interesting, but doesn't sound right..." -neutral-, "What nonsense is this?" -insult that religion-, "I would like to learn more..." -send for a holy man to come and teach you more-, etc.). If you don't pick any, you will have to choose between dropping the pursuit of a new faith, settling on a different pagan faith, or sending for Holy Men from each faith to come to court. If you Insult all of them, they will no longer participate in the story, and you will be forced to drop the pursuit of new faith or adopt a different pagan religion. If you insult one or two of them, they will no longer participate, but you wont be forced to choose paganism.
- Stage four has these holy men arrive at your court, and allows you to once more pick choices that show either neutrality, interest, or insult towards the faiths.
- Stage five will bring representatives of each version of the faiths you showed interest in, trying to persuade you toward their version. Neutrality is not available here, and your choices will boil down to saying "yes" or "no" to the various faiths, with saying "no" returning you to choosing your current pagan faith or a new pagan faith.
- Stage six will leave you with yourself to decide which of the faiths you wish to pursuit out of the faiths you said "yes" to, and will officially convert you to that faith and your vassals will be forced to convert or leave court, and will convert your capital province.
- Stage seven will automatically fire about a month or two later, and will be for your people. It will either convert your entire Empire/Kingdom, or will start a peasant revolt, in which case you will be forced to used the old fashioned way of converting. Upon about 80% of your nation being converted, you will have a final pop up informing you that the last remnants of the "old gods" are being rooted out, and your people are finding faith in the one true God, giving you some bonuses.
With all of this in mind...I have not modded ANYTHING in YEARS. I feel like a 5 year old trying to break into the Pentagon doing this. Trying to make even the "simple" test version of this mod for myself has humbled me greatly, and I am forced to seek help with you, the community. I will of course continue exploring and trying to make this myself, but any aid would be welcome. I might be an Orthodox Christian, but I plan to treat all 3 major faiths with equal respect, and happily welcome followers from the other faiths to help, even if it is just to help understand their perspective better for when I begin writing the flavor text, as well as when considering possible effects of decisions. I grew up around Protestants & Roman Catholics, so my knowledge of the other faiths are very basic. Help me help you help us make the best mod we can!
I would like some advice, if not outright help, for creating this mod the way I envision. Any who provide useful advice WILL be credited should I post this mod out to steam workshop or elsewhere. Thanks!
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