Newbie question: How can I achieve religious uniformity?

[Ilkuul]

I have 4 provinces, two of which are Protestant and two Reformed. But my state religion remains Catholic. (Playing Utrecht in 1601.) How can this be?

In several places the game talks of achieving religious uniformity. How can I (a) get all my provinces to have the same religion (which I do not want to be Catholicism, so I can't use missionaries)? And (b), change my state religion to match that of my provinces? Or maybe (b) has to precede (a) so I can use missionaries?

 

[Ilkuul]

I have 4 provinces, two of which are Protestant and two Reformed. But my state religion remains Catholic. (Playing Utrecht in 1601.) How can this be?

In several places the game talks of achieving religious uniformity. How can I (a) get all my provinces to have the same religion (which I do not want to be Catholicism, so I can't use missionaries)? And (b), change my state religion to match that of my provinces? Or maybe (b) has to precede (a) so I can use missionaries?

I've just now seen the screen you get by clicking "Age of Reformation" at the top left: and that has an option "Join the Reformation", which involves exactly what I'm asking here, i.e. changing the state religion. And when I mouse-over the requirements, one of them is that "Religion in Utrecht is Reformed"—which it is. Yet it has a red cross against "One of the following must be true" — i.e. apparently I haven't met that requirement. How come, when the religion of the province is Reformed? Or is it saying that all four provinces must have the same religion? Which brings me back to my question (a) above…

 

[Jespoke]

I've just now seen the screen you get by clicking "Age of Reformation" at the top left: and that has an option "Join the Reformation", which involves exactly what I'm asking here, i.e. changing the state religion. And when I mouse-over the requirements, one of them is that "Religion in Utrecht is Reformed"—which it is. Yet it has a red cross against "One of the following must be true" — i.e. apparently I haven't met that requirement. How come, when the religion of the province is Reformed? Or is it saying that all four provinces must have the same religion? Which brings me back to my question (a) above…

On the top left of the religion tab is a button to change the state religion, at the cost of 100 prestige. What is your Tolerance of Heretics at? You can see it on the religion tab too, if it is below 3 you will have been getting penalties from the output of your Protestant/Reformed provinces until now, and will continue to do so from provinces you don't convert to your new state religion after you switch.

Now that i think about it, you should also check in the government tab if you have accepted the cultures of your subjects, as that is another penalty like the one for heretics that may affect your economy/manpower.

 

[Ilkuul]

On the top left of the religion tab is a button to change the state religion, at the cost of 100 prestige. What is your Tolerance of Heretics at? You can see it on the religion tab too, if it is below 3 you will have been getting penalties from the output of your Protestant/Reformed provinces until now, and will continue to do so from provinces you don't convert to your new state religion after you switch.

Now that i think about it, you should also check in the government tab if you have accepted the cultures of your subjects, as that is another penalty like the one for heretics that may affect your economy/manpower.

Hah! I'm still getting used to the interface, so it didn't occur to me that there could be another screen lurking behind those praying hands! (Though I've already seen that with the Institutions on the Technology tab.) My Tolerance of Heretics is good: 5.0. One question: will I ever recover from the loss of prestige?! –100 is a huge penalty!

Another question: I currently have 2 missionaries that I've never used. Will they automatically become Protestant missionaries if I convert, or will I have to earn new ones? Connected to this, from your first para I assume if I change the state religion to Protestantism it will still be up to me to convert my Reformed provinces?

About accepting the cultures of my subjects: I hadn't noticed the button enabling you to promote minority cultures, so I'm glad you pointed that out. But more importantly, is that connected with converting to a different religion? Should I get my minority culture accepted before attempting to convert? Or are they separate issues?

Thanks for making me aware of these things!

 

[bokorthedust]

If you don't want to sacrifice 100 prestige for the religion flip, you could set your missionary maintenance to 0 in the economy tab, then send your missionary to one of the protestant or reformed provinces. Eventually a religious uprising should occur, and if you let the rebels siege down your provinces, they will flip the religion's province to their denomination. If more than 50% of your country's development becomes the religion you want to flip to, you can accept the rebels demands to flip to that religion. You will lose 10% crown land some prestige, but not 100, so it's more easy to recover it, as well as the lost crown land.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

One question: will I ever recover from the loss of prestige?! –100 is a huge penalty!

Yes, you will.

Another question: I currently have 2 missionaries that I've never used. Will they automatically become Protestant missionaries if I convert, or will I have to earn new ones? Connected to this, from your first para I assume if I change the state religion to Protestantism it will still be up to me to convert my Reformed provinces?

Missionaries don't have religions. Or, at least, they're very flexible about them. The function of a missionary is to convert a province to your state-religion. It doesn't matter if your religion has changed since you "acquired" that missionary. Changing your state-religion won't affect the religion in any of your provinces, it affects what you can change that religion to.

About accepting the cultures of my subjects: I hadn't noticed the button enabling you to promote minority cultures, so I'm glad you pointed that out. But more importantly, is that connected with converting to a different religion? Should I get my minority culture accepted before attempting to convert? Or are they separate issues?

Culture and religion are more-or-less unrelated. A culture being unnaccepted makes it slightly slower to change the religion in that province, but it's rarely insurmountable. You can only change the culture in a province if the religion is the same as your state religion. (Unless you're a Confucian nation, but don't worry abotu that at the moment). I don't think culture and religion interact much outside of those two things.

 

[Opanashc]

Yes, you will.

Missionaries don't have religions. Or, at least, they're very flexible about them.

Which can lead to fun situations, such as having a Catholic vassal as a Sunni nation, and converting vassal provinces from Sunni to Catholic as the overlord.

 

[GrandEurypterid]

Two things to note-

-Prestige is pretty easy to get back if you have some smaller nations to bully; most prestige doesn't scale, and you don't have to share prestige if you're fighting alone (or with only your own subjects), so it's much better to stomp on multiple little nations alone than to fight one big war if your prestige is a tad under the weather. Generally, 'political' peace deals are better for prestige- make them give up claims, rivals or treaties- and winning battles will also give you prestige. Diplomatic Insult CBs give a massive buff to prestige earned, too.

-If you have high enough tolerance (+3 IIRC), you won't get religious disunity at all; it's preferable to have .lots of same-religion provinces, though, so it's still a good idea to convert provinces or switch to the majority religion unless there's specific reasons not to (e.g if you're a Catholic with an abundance of cardinals compared to other countries). You can check the current effects of your religious unity in the Religion tab.

 

[Ilkuul]

Yes, you will.

Well, it seems I won't regain that prestige without some special effort on my part! I converted in 1602 and I've been concentrating on other peaceful activities since: it's now 1610 and my Prestige is still at –55! Looks like I'll have to do some "stomping" on smaller nations, as GrandEurypterid puts it!

 

[Ilkuul]

Missionaries don't have religions. Or, at least, they're very flexible about them. The function of a missionary is to convert a province to your state-religion. It doesn't matter if your religion has changed since you "acquired" that missionary. Changing your state-religion won't affect the religion in any of your provinces, it affects what you can change that religion to.

OK, thanks for clarifying that. Actually I'd already decided to take the risk, and as you say, my former Catholic missionaries quite happily started peddling the Reformed faith! (As a former missionary myself, I find that rather appalling!)

Culture and religion are more-or-less unrelated. A culture being unnaccepted makes it slightly slower to change the religion in that province, but it's rarely insurmountable. You can only change the culture in a province if the religion is the same as your state religion. (Unless you're a Confucian nation, but don't worry abotu that at the moment). I don't think culture and religion interact much outside of those two things.

OK. Well, I did promote the minority culture (Westphalian) before converting the state religion to Reformed. The missionaries then did their stuff with no problems in my two Protestant provinces. (My religious tolerance was +5, which obviously helped.)

But I notice both you and the Wiki talk about changing the culture. Do you mean "converting" my Westphalians so they become Dutch? Or is that just another way of talking about promoting an unaccepted culture? ’Cos I don't see any mechanism on the Government tab to actually convert the Westphalian culture so that it disappears and only Dutch remains: unless I'm missing something…

 

[Ilkuul]

Which can lead to fun situations, such as having a Catholic vassal as a Sunni nation, and converting vassal provinces from Sunni to Catholic as the overlord.

Haha, the mind boggles!

 

[Ilkuul]

Two things to note-

-Prestige is pretty easy to get back if you have some smaller nations to bully; most prestige doesn't scale, and you don't have to share prestige if you're fighting alone (or with only your own subjects), so it's much better to stomp on multiple little nations alone than to fight one big war if your prestige is a tad under the weather. Generally, 'political' peace deals are better for prestige- make them give up claims, rivals or treaties- and winning battles will also give you prestige. Diplomatic Insult CBs give a massive buff to prestige earned, too.

-If you have high enough tolerance (+3 IIRC), you won't get religious disunity at all; it's preferable to have .lots of same-religion provinces, though, so it's still a good idea to convert provinces or switch to the majority religion unless there's specific reasons not to (e.g if you're a Catholic with an abundance of cardinals compared to other countries). You can check the current effects of your religious unity in the Religion tab.

Thanks for that "stomping" suggestion! If I can afford enough troops that sounds like a good way to regain lost prestige!

Re religious disunity, you're right: I had tolerance of +5, and that meant it all went very smoothly, no unrest at all. Your example of having many cardinals is a good one to bear in mind as a situation where one might not want to change the state religion.

 

[Ilkuul]

If you don't want to sacrifice 100 prestige for the religion flip, you could set your missionary maintenance to 0 in the economy tab, then send your missionary to one of the protestant or reformed provinces. Eventually a religious uprising should occur, and if you let the rebels siege down your provinces, they will flip the religion's province to their denomination. If more than 50% of your country's development becomes the religion you want to flip to, you can accept the rebels demands to flip to that religion. You will lose 10% crown land some prestige, but not 100, so it's more easy to recover it, as well as the lost crown land.

Complicated—but I'll keep a note of that for future reference! I've certainly suffered in my present game from the loss of prestige.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

But I notice both you and the Wiki talk about changing the culture. Do you mean "converting" my Westphalians so they become Dutch? Or is that just another way of talking about promoting an unaccepted culture? ’Cos I don't see any mechanism on the Government tab to actually convert the Westphalian culture so that it disappears and only Dutch remains: unless I'm missing something…

Culture-conversion is done on a province-by-province basis.

When available, the button next to the province's culture will be coloured, and you can click it to view of a list of the cultures you can change a province to. You can always change it to your nation's primary culture (Dutch, in this case), or the culture of an adjacent province. A province can always be changed back to it's original culture from 1444, if it's been changed. Either way, it costs Diplomatic power.

Westphalian is a lower priority for changing though, because it's part of the same Culture Group (German) as Dutch. Same-group cultures have reduced penalties. Either way, the penalties are removed if you accept the culture. The colour of the culture name on the province indicates its effects: Green is a primary or accepted culture, with no penalties. Yellow is a (Non-promoted) culture in the same group as your primary culture, with small (-15%) penalties to manpower and tax income. Red is a (non-promoted) culture from a different group, with larger penalties to manpower and tax, an extra 2 unrest, and a penalty to local missionary strength.

If you enter the culture mapmode, it will show the culture groups on the map. If you have a province selected, the map will show the individual cultures in that group.

I mentioned you can change the culture in a province to something other than your primary culture. If you're wondering why you would: normally you wouldn't, but the main reason people do is when they want to change their primary culture. You need the majority of the development of the provinces in your states (but not territories) to be the target culture in order to change to it. The most common reason for culture-switching is unlocking decisions to form other nations. Switching to Dutch to form the Netherlands, as an example.

Generally, province-culture isn't a super-high priority: It's usually not worth avoiding diplomatic technology or ideas to change a province's culture instead. But if you have an excess of diplomatic points, it is an option to spend them on.

 

[Ilkuul]

Culture-conversion is done on a province-by-province basis.
View attachment 823128
When available, the button next to the province's culture will be coloured, and you can click it to view of a list of the cultures you can change a province to. You can always change it to your nation's primary culture (Dutch, in this case), or the culture of an adjacent province. A province can always be changed back to it's original culture from 1444, if it's been changed. Either way, it costs Diplomatic power.

Westphalian is a lower priority for changing though, because it's part of the same Culture Group (German) as Dutch. Same-group cultures have reduced penalties. Either way, the penalties are removed if you accept the culture. The colour of the culture name on the province indicates its effects: Green is a primary or accepted culture, with no penalties. Yellow is a (Non-promoted) culture in the same group as your primary culture, with small (-15%) penalties to manpower and tax income. Red is a (non-promoted) culture from a different group, with larger penalties to manpower and tax, an extra 2 unrest, and a penalty to local missionary strength.

If you enter the culture mapmode, it will show the culture groups on the map. If you have a province selected, the map will show the individual cultures in that group.

I mentioned you can change the culture in a province to something other than your primary culture. If you're wondering why you would: normally you wouldn't, but the main reason people do is when they want to change their primary culture. You need the majority of the development of the provinces in your states (but not territories) to be the target culture in order to change to it. The most common reason for culture-switching is unlocking decisions to form other nations. Switching to Dutch to form the Netherlands, as an example.

Generally, province-culture isn't a super-high priority: It's usually not worth avoiding diplomatic technology or ideas to change a province's culture instead. But if you have an excess of diplomatic points, it is an option to spend them on.

Ah! I see it now on the province screen. Thanks, that's very helpful, especially about the culture groups as well.