Pagan Heresies Redone

[Caeserion]

Pᴀɢᴀɴ:
There are two paths I see for Pagan heresies

Now that pagan reformation has doctrines to choose from, and that the AI only chooses a specific set when reforming, how about setting it so that each religion has a few sub-doctrines. When the religion is reformed, heresies can spawn pushing these sub-doctrines forward. For example:​

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The Norse faith reforms with Temporal, Warmongering, Unrelenting, and Sons of Ragnarok. The heresies have other doctrines assigned to them automatically - one heresy has Animistic instead of Unrelenting, another has Proselytizing instead of Warmongering and the final one wants Hierocratic instead of Temporal.​

Basically there is only one combination for the AI to take while two/three combinations are left to the heresies to take. If player chooses one of the 'heretical' combinations then they have to deal with the main combination as well as the others. If the player chooses a completely different combination then they have to deal with all the heresies as well as the main combination (because well its the player. It should be a little harder)​

Or instead, of assigning sub-doctrines to each religion, make it so that the selection of each doctrine/nature/leadership has a counter-doctrine to it (save for the unique one). Temporal leaders will always face calls to hand over religious authority, while Hierocratic leaders will face calls to devolve authority to kingdoms, leading to autocephaly. Autocephaly will face calls to degrade to Autonomous and autonomous religions will have powerful rulers who will seek to unify the religion under them, leading to Temporal or Hierocratic. Choosing either Agnatic or Enatic will spawn an Equality Heresy. Choosing Warmongering and Dogmatic will spawn heresies that see Proselytizing as the better option. Choosing Peaceful leads to an Unyielding heresy. And so on.​

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The heresies will emerge 50 years later or after the death of the reformer. The first heresy will spawn regardless of the religious MA at the time. They will be named dynamically after some priest vassal who will become the first one to convert to it, also converting his province to it (conditions: not a direct vassal of religious head, not a vassal to anyone in head's dynasty). The heresy gets a +10% MA boost for 15 years after spawning and has a high chance of converting anyone with a low opinion of the religious head.​

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This system is separate from the old_pagan heresy that spawns from the reformation itself. That should remain as well as this. The reason I am suggesting this is because the old_pagan heresy rarely wins or makes a comeback as well as to add more flavour.​

Isʟᴀᴍ:
Islam should have no heresies. Move all of them to separate religions but enable enmity and warfare between them.

• Kharjites should get the option to challenge any non-Kharjite Muslim to a duel. Their caliphate should also be locked to Elective as it's a tenet of their faith.
• Yazidi should be hated by all other Muslims because they are considered Devil Worshippers (not true but that is the perception). Not sure what special features to give them yet, I'll only be able to research that next week. Also if nothing else is implemented at least make them their own religion in a separate group.
• Hurufi should be renamed Sufism (or maybe use the Arabic name). They should have no caliphal figure, they should be autonomous or autocephalous.
• Zikri should be removed.
• Druze should be renamed Al-Muwahiddun. They should not have any religious head, being autonomous, they should have reincarnation, they should allow divorce despite a piety drop, their icon should be a five-pointed star.

Zᴏʀᴏᴀsᴛʀɪᴀɴ:

• Manichean should be it's own religion, not a Zoroastrian heresy. Give manicheans and zoroastrians more opinion penalties between each other however.

Jᴜᴅᴀɪsᴍ:

• Samaritan should not have Jerusalem as a holy site as they believe the Holy Site is Mount Gerizim. Apart from this I'm really not sure which mechanical differences to implement since the differences they do have can't really be shown in CK2 except in flavour text I guess.

 

[klopkr]

I'd love this if we could brainstorm some of the heresies we could make for the pagans. For example a cosmopolitan norse heresy could syncretise christanity into norse or an other could be based around thor as the single god, etc.

Having a syncretized heresy, and a monotheistic heresy for most pagans would seem pretty reasonable to me tbh.

 

[Caeserion]

I'd love this if we could brainstorm some of the heresies we could make for the pagans. For example a cosmopolitan norse heresy could syncretise christanity into norse or an other could be based around thor as the single god, etc.

Having a syncretized heresy, and a monotheistic heresy for most pagans would seem pretty reasonable to me tbh.

Yeah I wanted to come up with ideas for specific heresies but couldn't come up with any that were that good and didn't want to include weak material in the suggestion

Yeah those heresies sound good. And if the religion picks syncretism in the beginning there could be a dogmatic heresy (I don't remember which doctrine is the opposite of syncretism but you get the point)

I also made a suggestion about wonders (in my signature) so check that out. I'd love to get your thoughts on it.

 

[MateuszS]

I like it. And I think that both options can be merged:
- heresies regarding doctrine and nature would be random (so they would have Equality instead Sons of Ragnarok or Dogmatic instead Proselytizing), but in general they would copy reformer's choice (if possible)
- if the reformer doesn't go default route, "mainstream" heresy would appear as well (in addition to both doctrinal/natural)
- leadership heresy would be like in option two (so again, copy of reformer's choice but different leadership)
- and, of course, old rite faith heresy would still exist as well

So it seems that in the worst case scenario player would have to deal with 5 heresies

And I think about something else. IF one of new heresies becomes mainstream, it should have possibility to replace reformed religion (and then we would have Bjornite instead Norse, for example). However, I don't know how could it be applied for religious heads - maybe non-leadership heresies after takeover could create their own, if (former) religion allowed it?

 

[Al Davoodi]

Yeah but if some female or male ruler resist to adopt an agnatic or enatic reformed religion, he or she might be able and triggered by event to create an "alternative" reformed religion aka Heresy to keep her/his power secured. So there would be some kind of dynamic heresy.

 

[MateuszS]

I have another idea. Mainstream heresy doesn't have to necessarly pop up each time if player doesn't go entirely orthodox route, but should happen if he doesn't choose religion specific doctrine and/or differs by more then one usual slot (and maybe if chosen nature doesn't fit, i.e. Peaceful for Norse).

So, according to OP example The Norse faith reforms with Temporal, Warmongering, Unrelenting, and Sons of Ragnarok.
"True Nords" won't bother if player chose Hierocratic over Temporal or Proselytizing over Warmongering, but will be angry if reformed religion doesn't have SoR or is like Dogmatic-Unrelenting-SoR-Autonomus.

 

[Alyssea]

To add to your suggestion of "Temporal spawns Hierocratic heresy", maybe we could take inspiration from the Sunni-Shia split IRL. An event pops up when the pagan reformer/first temporal leader passes away, and while the temporal leadership title passes to the reformer's dynastic leader as usual, a group of dissenters appear who refuse to accept them as the religious head. Believing instead that leadership should be elected among the best (and that the reformer said this themselves), these dissenters adopt a new heresy and elect one of their own as pretender. The heresy would be named "Traditionalist (religion)", or the like.

The event would be reversed if the doctrine chosen was Hierocratic or Aurocephalous. Once both the reformer and first religious head dies, the reformer's heir would claim that both the reformer and the first religious head agreed that leadership would pass on dynastically along the reformer's line. Gathering supporters, they found the "Party of (reformer's heir)" and rebel against the supposed injustice. This event can happen to the player if they play as the heir to the reformer, if they refuse then the event will just repeat to the next closest successor.