Pagan Religion Reformation Advice

[persona23]

I am playing my first Holy Fury run and I am now at the point when I can reform the Slavic religion. I am am looking for advice on the best/most fun traits and I have a bunch of questions.

Meritocratic looks fairly useful for mid/late game when I finally manage to get rid of the hell that is Elective Gavelkind. However, I have seem it mentioned in another thread that I need the India DLC in order to actually use this feature. Is that true?

What are the pros/cons of the different leadership options. I have heard it said that the second one allows you to ask for Invasion CB. Is that true and if so is that CB limited to other realms of the same faith? Or does this come from the Doctrine trait Daring?

What are 'Great' holy wars? Is this the holy war you can declare to neighbors of different religion for a duchy or is it a new mechanic similar to Crusades?

What is the maximum number of secret societies available to reformed pagan religions?

And finally, even though this is not really connected to religion, what is currently the easiest way to become feudal? The decision requires maximum tribal organization which seems like it will be a pain to vote in if my realm keeps expanding.

 

[WJS]

I think you should be able to use Meritocratic regardless, but you might consider a second look at Agnatic/Enatic Clans as a possibility, too. These will change your succession to Open, meaning the child with the best titles inherits. You end up designating your heir by granting titles.

Also note that if you still use Elective Gavelkind, you still can't designate an heir (although you can with regular Gavelkind, which is available immediately to Tribal realms with a reformed pagan religion).

As for best leadership, it depends. Temporal rests power with you, and gives you bonuses, and you can call Great Holy Wars. Hierocratic means someone else calls the Great Holy Wars, but they also can excommunicate people. Autocephalous isn't really all that special. Autonomous gives up Great Holy Wars and excommunication, but everyone gets the bonuses.

Great Holy Wars are like Crusades.

The only secret societies are the Satanists (The Cold Ones for Slavic people), secret religious cults, and the Assassins. That's true no matter who you are. If you want access to the Hermetics, you need to choose Astrology.

To become feudal, voting in maximum tribal organization is the way, but once you're reformed, no other reformed council member will worry about it.

 

[Castimirr]

Great Holy Wars are the pagan equivalent of Jihads/Crusades, though they use the older mechanic where the war is instantly declared and then others can join. They target a kingdom. Normal Holy Wars target a dutchy.

The pagans only have their evil secret society, one per religion, and the secret society available if you secretly follow another religion. They still have their Warrior lodge as a public one. With Astrology you can also join the Hermetics.

To become feudal you need a level 4 Stone Hill Fort in your capital holding and maximum tribal organization. Once you are reformed the councilors seem to get a bonus to raising it so you can reform. I don't remember the exact modifier but I saw it recently. (I play with Conclave. If you aren't using that I don't know the details).

There is a lot to cover in terms of leadership but it really depends on how you play and what you are trying to do. Be aware though that if you have defense pacts turned on and take Temporal leadership, your threat-level triggering the defense pacts does apply to Great Holy Wars.

There is also an issue with Temporal and Ancestor Veneration. You can't venerator someone that died within three days of you getting the title, so it blocks you from venerating your characters if you don't hand the religious head title off to your before you die.

 

[WJS]

There is also an issue with Temporal and Ancestor Veneration. You can't venerator someone that died within three days of you getting the title, so it blocks you from venerating your characters if you don't hand the religious head title off to your before you die.

Quickly stated, you can never declare yourself a saint. Someone else has to.

 

[Wakizashi]

Ancestor Veneration has the extra neat feature that allows Eldership succession, an (in my opinion) pretty great succession law that makes a set of never more than 7 Elders elect your heir (of course you get a vote as well).

It's a great way to get out of Gavelkind upon reforming.

 

[junassa]

A couple things about Ancestor Veneration + Temporal:

1. If you don't care about achievements, there are mods that fixes the issue others have brought up. Check steam for mods.
2. Your vassals will like you more (+30 for like 30 years or so) if you venerate one of kin. Since most of my vassals are my kin I had a ruler with over 100+ opinion just for that.

 

[Dragatus]

IMeritocratic looks fairly useful for mid/late game when I finally manage to get rid of the hell that is Elective Gavelkind. However, I have seem it mentioned in another thread that I need the India DLC in order to actually use this feature. Is that true?

I can't confirm based on personal experience, but I've seen convincing reports made by others.

What are the pros/cons of the different leadership options.

Temporal: you choose the target for the great holy wars, you get a nice hat that gives you 4 extra stat points
Hierocratic: you can ask the "pagan pope" for excommunications and claims and Ancestor Veneration doctrine actually functions
Autocephalous: same as Hierocratic, except each king has a pet minipope, so you can't excommunicate or get claims in their kingdom
Autonomous: you get to pick one of four good traits

I have heard it said that the second one allows you to ask for Invasion CB. Is that true and if so is that CB limited to other realms of the same faith? Or does this come from the Doctrine trait Daring?

There is a distinction between papal invasions (granted by a religious leader against someone of your own religion) and prepared invasions. Prepared invasions are the thing that you get from Daring doctrine and they allow characters to launch an invasion of all land that the target holds in a specific de jure kingdom.

What are 'Great' holy wars? Is this the holy war you can declare to neighbors of different religion for a duchy or is it a new mechanic similar to Crusades?

They're like jihads. A more straightforward type of crusade. There will typically be no claimant, so whoever contributes most gets an entire kingdom. And if you don't contribute the most, you're doing something wrong.

What is the maximum number of secret societies available to reformed pagan religions?

Most societies aren't secret. Hermetic Society and the warrior lodge are public. The devil worshiping society will be secret though.

And finally, even though this is not really connected to religion, what is currently the easiest way to become feudal? The decision requires maximum tribal organization which seems like it will be a pain to vote in if my realm keeps expanding.

With Conclave DLC you just buy favors from half the councilors and that's it, really. Without Conclave DLC I'm not sure, but check the list of voters and see what you can do to get them over 50 opinion of you.[/quote]

 

[MateuszS]

Regarding reformation slots:
- warmongering is like unreformed Germanic - you have to either wage wars or simply raid others to appease vassals
- cosmopolitan is useless (you won't convert anything)
- if you want to convert heathen counties, choose prozelytizing or dogmatic (but with the latter your vassals will convert only other pagans)
- haruspicy itself is useless, can be considered with bloodthirsty gods or astrology
- astrology is good, access to Hermetic Society and zodiac signs put it in consideration
- bloodthirsty gods - big penalties for feudals
- meritocracy - you need either India or Jade Dragon DLC; itself is quite good
- stability is IMHO overrated, but it may work quite good with peaceful
- unrelenting doesn't work with animistic
- animistic is bugged: doesn't work with unrelenting and unyelding, rite of passage works only if you start as a child
- clans are very good option, as you can select your heir by simply granting him/her land and s/he will succeed you; note that with enatic clans you can't hire men anymore
- ancestor veneration - in theory, you can make lots of bloodlines; in practice, it may be a lot fewer)
- syncretism - useless
- daring - usually when you reform, you already have big kingdom/empire, so prepared invasion is useless for you; vassals may use it, but result can be bad; useless
- leadership - depends who you want to decide where to wage GHW; temporal gives you powerful artifact and ability to choose GHW target, but that's all; hierocratic is pagan pope; autocephalous is quite useless if you don't aim to create lots of independent pagan kingdoms; autonomus is... dubious (you can't wage GHWs and it doesn't work with dogmatic and ancestor veneration, but if you don't plan to expand via "crusades" and don't care about mentioned doctrines, you may take it as well (works good with peaceful as you won't be able to call GHWs anyway))

 

[balmung60]

The most societies you can get is by playing as Hellenic. Hellenic always gets hermetics and can get stoic intelligentia and a warrior lodge. Additionally, any religion can join the Assassins or whatever their version of Satanists is.

WRT to natures, pretty much anything but Proselytizing is a false choice. With Proselytizing, your vassals will always try to convert everything. With dogmatic, unyielding, or warmongering, they will if they're zealous, and cosmopolitan will never convert.

 

[Castimirr]

Mechanically Bloodthirsty Gods is pretty useless. The traits it gives you give negatives to feudal opinion, as was said above. I am having a ball with it though. It's not the mechanics are interesting or varied or anything, it's just really fitting the game I'm playing. I think at one point I almost completely destroyed the nobility of southern England because I had sacrificed so many of their families from raids. The penalty to feudal opinion has also not been particularly painful.

I probably won't pick it next time and there are far more powerful options, but it has been fun.

I do think they need to add a huge negative opinion modifier for your victims next of kin, especially for characters who are not members of a bloodthirsty religion.

It also made getting Holy Smoke a lot easier since I didn't have to manage to capture the pope during peace so I could call a Great Blot. (Which you can't do while at war, and if he is part of the war and you capture him, ending the war frees him).

 

[WJS]

Warmongering/Bloodthirsty is definitely not a min-max choice, but it is super, super fun.

 

[junassa]

My favorite (vanilla) reformation was: unyielding/Bloodthirsty/Ancestor/Temp. I also stayed tribal and because of the consort system was eventually able to press a claim on West Francia (and just barely missed out on East F; still upset about that).

 

[Dragatus]

I think the best approach to picking doctrines is to go for whatever sounds most fun rather than whatever is going to give you the best mechanical benefits. They're all 80% flavor, unless you're planning to stay tribal forever in which case it's highly advised to choose one that gives you either Eldership or Open succession to hold your realm together (unless you're Irish or other Celtic culture and can already use Tanistry for that).

 

[Wakizashi]

My favorite (vanilla) reformation was: unyielding/Bloodthirsty/Ancestor/Temp. I also stayed tribal and because of the consort system was eventually able to press a claim on West Francia (and just barely missed out on East F; still upset about that).

Wait how does that work? I didn't know you could press the claims of consorts that aren't your wife.

 

[WJS]

You sure can. I was just recently attacked by my neighbor pressing his consort's claim. Poetic justice when I won the war, got her in prison, and made her my consort.

 

[SSA]

I am playing my first Holy Fury run and I am now at the point when I can reform the Slavic religion. I am am looking for advice on the best/most fun traits and I have a bunch of questions.

Meritocratic looks fairly useful for mid/late game when I finally manage to get rid of the hell that is Elective Gavelkind. However, I have seem it mentioned in another thread that I need the India DLC in order to actually use this feature. Is that true?

What are the pros/cons of the different leadership options. I have heard it said that the second one allows you to ask for Invasion CB. Is that true and if so is that CB limited to other realms of the same faith? Or does this come from the Doctrine trait Daring?

What are 'Great' holy wars? Is this the holy war you can declare to neighbors of different religion for a duchy or is it a new mechanic similar to Crusades?

What is the maximum number of secret societies available to reformed pagan religions?

And finally, even though this is not really connected to religion, what is currently the easiest way to become feudal? The decision requires maximum tribal organization which seems like it will be a pain to vote in if my realm keeps expanding.

I don't know if you are playing with any mods, but I'm going to assume your playing without any of them, and I don't know which game rules you are playing, so I'm guessing your playing with the default rules.

Meritocratic is not worth it, unless you specifically want to go primogeniture or
Ultimogeniture and are only willing to nominate your direct children, (there may be so many better candidates), I'd say if you only have 2 reform slots, go for something like ancestor veneration, (you also either need Jade Dragon or Rajas of India according to the wiki, to properly get meritocratic to work, and it looks like you have Jade Dragon). Go Eldership, don't take Meritocratic.

Temporal means you are the leader, which means you have access to Great Holy Wars, you have no real benefit outside of that. (You are NOT a priest, and can't hold temples), but holy orders are less likely to go leave. You get access to a powerful artifact, but in return, you must act in a pious matter, and your title will always be your religious head title. (You must act proper according to your religious beliefs). You can't excommunicate or request claims.

Hierocratic means that it's similar to the papacy system, where there is one religious head, (NOT YOU), and they act like a priest and you can vassalize them, they can both excommunicate and give claims to others, you will still have access to GHWs. The disadvantages of this system is that if your religious head hates you, you will have the same problems as a pope hating you, (you can never nominate someone to become the head od the faith, and it's usually random).

Autocephalous is the absolute worst of the 4 leadership options, because you have very little power and options of ruling more people, and if other pagans convert to your now organized faith, they'll have their own way, without really caring about you, and even if the "Pope" of this type of religion is your vassal, he has no power, because all the power goes to the states, it's only worth it if you want other pagans of your religion outside your realm to be separate from the main faith.

Autonomous means you have an option of 4 traits, and no head, this has the advantage of no GHW, but the 4 branches have their own personal bonuses in the religion.

Great Holy Wars are wars for an entire kingdom against another religion. Unless you go Hellenistic you are stuck with just the warrior lodge as a pagan-exclusive society. There is options for the Hermetic Society if you have the proper reforms. The easiest way to go feudal is to build-up your capital and increase tribal authority.

 

[junassa]

Wait how does that work? I didn't know you could press the claims of consorts that aren't your wife.

Well first consorts are the male version of concubines. Since HF concubines/consorts keep their claims. I don't know if this is a bug or not. Anyway I raided and jailed two Karling princes. I forced the first one into a matri marriage; the first step is to give him to the woman (my daughter) as a consort, then marry them off. I also forced both of them to change religions. Somehow I screwed up on the second son; if memory serves before I could switch from consort to matri the father died so they both became kings of E. and W. Francia. At least I turned E, Francia pagan. Christianity is close to death in that save and I think it's not even 1000 yet.

 

[Wakizashi]

About the reforming to Feudal, it can take a while to get to Absolute Tribal Authority, since you need to wait 10 years between every raise of tribal authority. Except when your leader dies, then the next ruler can immediately raise tribal authority again. You could call it a consolation prize, when my pretty awesome King of Lithuania died "of natural causes" at only 49, and his successor was mauled by a wolf and died only a year or so later. Despite all the instability it wrought, it made it possible to raise from Low to High Tribal Authority in the space of only two years.

 

[persona23]

Despite everything I think my final decision wasn't as 'optimised' as I originally intended . I went with Cosmopolitan/Children of Perun/Meritocratic/Temporal.

I didn't give too much thought on nature, so I guess this was more of a roleplaying choice.

I chose Children of Perun mostly because it was a two for one and no short reign penalty seems quite nice before teching up. Ships on rivers seems quite useless to me, especially since I don't think I can actually build ports on the river. But maybe it could be useful for getting vassal troops together faster?

I didn't realise I can only choose my children for heirs with Meritocratic until I tried appointing a genius nephew as the heir to my now ultimogeniture empire. Sigh...

Temporal I'm happy with, I like having more of the POWA . My only problems are that I didn't know I wouldn't be able to use GHW immediately and that I'm now called 'Velikiy Volhv' instead of 'Tsar'. is there a way to change that?

Anyway, thanks for all the amazing responses, this thread has been a great source of information. I hope it could be as useful to future players as it was to me.

 

[balmung60]

You can't go back to being Tsar without handing out your religious head title, and then you can't use your shiny new crown.

Pagans can't use their GHW until after crusades or jihads unlock and you'll get an event informing you that you can do it. Note that Jews and Zoroastrians can use their GHW CB as soon as they restore their high priesthood, so with a fast restoration, they could get a significant head start over other religions on crusading.