Religions..

[bjornkri]

Right! Hi there

Now, I know that nations can turn protestant, but is that the only change that can occur? Can a player turn Muslim, for example? I don't know if this has ever happened in real history, that the 'opressors' take the religion of the oppressed, but it could become interesting. Easier alliances with the arabic nations, I presume.
I know that a muslim nation can be turned christian (as in the brilliant Papal state AAR), if the surrounding muslim states would capture that country, could they convert it back?

Ta ta!
Bjorn

 

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Now, I know that nations can turn protestant, but is that the only change that can occur?

Here are different choices:
catholic <---> protestant
protestant <---> reformed (Calvin)
catholic <---> counter-reformed.
(all of them are reversible)

Note that orthodox or muslim (suniites and chiites) can't change of religion. All non-european nations (india, china, Inca,...)are 'Pagans', sort of neutral status, making their province difficult to control without a bit of persuasive 'conversion'.

Counter-reformed states can force protestant and reformed states to come back to catholism as a peace condition instead of asking for provinces or money (Spain is very strong in this role). No other way to force an independant state to change religion (in papal state AAR, Greven has converted a conquered nation).

 

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I know it's crude and crap, but it works OK and its too late to fix.

 

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Sarges -

Your description of the different options is great, thanks for this info on the various choices. Now, I understand that all of Europe basically begins as either Orthodox or Catholic. Later on, players can then change the state religion to Protestant - this gives them a stability and dipolmacy hit, but provides a cash windfall, right?

What are the advantages of subsequently changing from Protestant to Reformed or Catholic to Counter-reformed?

Finally, my understanding on how the local religion of a province changes, the player can forcefully convert with missionaries. But are certain provinces just more prone to Protestantism (Scandanavia, England, Netherlands, etc.) at certain points in time? Do they convert on their own and as such provide the player with an incentive to change the state religion?

Thanks for the info.

 

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. Later on, players can then change the state religion to Protestant - this gives them a stability and dipolmacy hit, but provides a cash windfall, right?

Right?

What are the advantages of subsequently changing from Protestant to Reformed or Catholic to Counter-reformed?

Counter-reformed give you the possibility when negotiating peace with protestant or reformed to force them to come back to catholism.
I'm not absolute sure of reformed, but I thing their merchant are better.

But are certain provinces just more prone to Protestantism (Scandanavia, England, Netherlands, etc.) at certain points in time?

Yes, it is approximatively historical. Most of north Europe convert to protestantism or reform. South of Europe remains catholic.
With conversions or events, some province can change of religion.

Do they convert on their own and as such provide the player with an incentive to change the state religion?

They convert on their own (in fact it reflect the majoritar opinion of the population in the province). You are never obliged to convert, but if a majority of yours provinces are protestant and you don't tolerate them, prepare for a very, very, long internal war, permanents revolts and so on.

 

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Sarges-

This information is very helpful, merci beacoup. BTW - How do you compare this to some of the other strategy or war games you've played? It really sounds like it's in a class of its own, but if you have some general thoughts, I'd be interested in hearing them.

Au Revior -

Jacques (the Francais spelling of Jiminov)

 

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I see a possible problem with the catch-all Pagan religion for non-Christian/Muslim countries. Since it has been indicated that with a few tweaks any country on the map can be used, playing a Pagan country would provide some benefits. Buddhist/Confucianist/Taoist 'Pagan' China, for instance, could conquer Hindu 'Pagan' India and since the game considers them all the same religion, there would be no tolerance issues.

I can understand why they did it this way. The focus is on the Christian and Muslim worlds of Europe and the Middle East and, in their perspective, everyone else would be lumped together as the non-believers. The game is not designed to play China or India or the Incan Empire. But I wonder if they considered dividing the Pagan countries into major groups like Hindu, Asian (Buddhist, Taoist, etc.), Shinto and Native (perhaps divided into Asian, African and American branches). It still wouldn't be perfect, but it would better reflect the religious complexity of the world.

Since I am not a beta tester, I do not know if this is even a problem. But I thought I would bring it up.

 

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Pole -
I'm not a beta tester either, but I see the issue of religion as really adding a layer of complexity to EU that I don't think any other RTS game has tried to address. I'd guess that Paradox looked to make EU into a 'deep' game as seen by attrition, morale, trade, technology, expoloration/colonization and diplomacy. However I think that Paradox found that to get all these features they had to 'narrow' the range of focus into a 300 year period focusing on Europe and to a lesser extent the Middle East and North Africa.

Someday, I'm hopeful to be a beta tester for EU2, and I'll bet that in additon to other game expansions, we'll see a whole additional group of religions, such as those you mention above.

It would be really interesting to see if they began the EU timeline even earlier, (say prior to 1000 AD) then we'd see some real pagan religions such as the dieties worshipped by the Celts and Vikings.