Religious Conversion and the Case of the Disappearing Religious Minorities

[GrounchoVilla]

It's a dark and smoggy night in New York City. Just a collection of citizens and criminals off having a good time together, not knowing whose a threat and who isn't. Enter a blonde bombshell with a problem that needed to be solved.
"I hear you're the best PI in Manhattan" she says
"Depends on who you ask" you say, putting down your whiskey.
"Don sent me" she says. "I got a missing friend. Many missing friends actually. The whole Jewish community has disappeared. So did the Catholic community. They've been replaced by god-fearing protestants"

ok film noir tropes aside, religious conversion in game is unrealistic in a way that's kind of problematic. Religious minorities convert to the state religion at a set rate which is unrealistic but also leads to the functional erasure of religious minorities. It would be one thing if this was an active effort by the player but its just a passive process that happens - you dont even need religious schools, they just speed it up. Yet the reality is more like religious minorities continue to persist even when religious conversion is heavily supported by the state. I dont know if an alternative would be something more like Attila TW's mechanics for religious conversion which give religious minorities some core persistence through the game. Perhaps one solution would be to reduce the rate of conversion (a) when the population is below a certain %, (b) if they have sufficient clergy, (c) if they are sufficiently radicalized, or (d) if the community has some longstanding traditional and cultural tie to an area.

I've been noticing this in my Egypt game with the copts - the copts are just converting to Sunni Islam at an unrealistic rate - the default rate of conversion ought to be lower than the organic population growth of the minority, meaning even if they go down as a % their net numbers go up. After all copts remain a large and fundamental part of Egyptian society in 2023, they didn't all just convert to Islam in the century after the Khedive was founded.

There should also be laws and mechanics which allow players to benefit somewhat from diversity. There are laws that allow players to benefit from homogeneity. There are also laws which allow for pluralism like multiculturalism and religious freedom but neither give benefits for actually having some amount of diversity. You're just rewarded with immigrants who will assimilate and convert to the state religion over time anyways.

one more thought - with the addition of atheism, there ought to be a small organic growth of atheist populations without needing state atheism ... I dont know if that is planned, but it would make sense seeing as how atheism is not just a product of vanguard parties. perhaps that is already being considered, but just a thought

 

[MfgLuckbot]

Yeah there should be diminishing returns on any form of society transformation. The first few are easy to get, but that leaves the diehard people in the original pop and the effort one needs to spend should grow exponentially the more you've already worked.

Same should apply for rooting out radicals, crime if they implement it, pops supporting IGs etc. Whenever you discourage someone from something it will pick the low hanging fruits first

 

[mursolini]

There should also be laws and mechanics which allow players to benefit somewhat from diversity. There are laws that allow players to benefit from homogeneity. There are also laws which allow for pluralism like multiculturalism and religious freedom but neither give benefits for actually having some amount of diversity. You're just rewarded with immigrants who will assimilate and convert to the state religion over time anyways.

You do profit from diversity, you can have more people that aren`t discriminated, which improves public approval and increases number of people that can advance. Which is especially great for migrants since those rarely are of requested religion&etnicity.

 

[Oglesby]

I was under the impression that Religion conversions only happen if they are being discriminated against, so a 'Total Separation' NYC shouldn't be converting. Even if it was 'Freedom of Conscience' the Catholics shouldn't convert to Protestants since they would be accepted as they share a trait.

 

[UmbrellaWork]

Without making assimilation and conversion happen more easily, large numbers of pop units can become a heavy load on CPU in later game - this is ahistorical, but there is no good way to avoid performance issues

 

[$ilent_$trider]

Without making assimilation and conversion happen more easily, large numbers of pop units can become a heavy load on CPU in later game - this is ahistorical, but there is no good way to avoid performance issues

I made a proposal to reduce the game to only 6 states (North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania). That way state calculations are only done 6 times.

 

[GrounchoVilla]

You do profit from diversity, you can have more people that aren`t discriminated, which improves public approval and increases number of people that can advance. Which is especially great for migrants since those rarely are of requested religion&etnicity.

Well, you profit from diversity indirectly in having more immigration, but to benefit from that you need to have the right immigration laws. also, in that case they still tend to assimilate (especially if you have state schools)

I was under the impression that Religion conversions only happen if they are being discriminated against, so a 'Total Separation' NYC shouldn't be converting. Even if it was 'Freedom of Conscience' the Catholics shouldn't convert to Protestants since they would be accepted as they share a trait.

yeah, but this means countries like egypt that have freedom of conscience still have ahistorical levels of religious conversion. and cracking down on the devout is usually lower on everyone's list of priorities than cracking down on the landowners - for good reason, since the landowners have more tangible negative effects

Without making assimilation and conversion happen more easily, large numbers of pop units can become a heavy load on CPU in later game - this is ahistorical, but there is no good way to avoid performance issues

performance is an issue which of course needs to be considered, but its an odd historical simulator where the "normal" progression of events includes the effective elimination of religious minorities through conversion. I also think this could be addressed with better optimization but then im no programmer so i dont really know what im talking about there

 

[Oglesby]

yeah, but this means countries like egypt that have freedom of conscience still have ahistorical levels of religious conversion. and cracking down on the devout is usually lower on everyone's list of priorities than cracking down on the landowners - for good reason, since the landowners have more tangible negative effects

If the wiki is to be believed, the base conversion is 0.2% per month though there is a minimum number of converts of 10 (if it is able to conversion is allowed). This means there are two zones, one zone is linear where it will always convert ten and one were it will convert 0.2% of the population.

The minimum pop point for this to happen is 5000. At 5000 pops it takes 50 months or over 40 years. Anything at or below this pop point takes Pop/10 months.
For anything over that point it is more complicated as you would need to figure out how long it takes to get the pop below that point and then just at 500 months it will take to get the rest of the way. (Pop * (1-C_rate)^months_to_min ≤ Pop_min).
For 6000 pops it takes 92 months to get to below 5000 so a total of 592 months or over 49 years.

for 7000 pop, 55.67 years
for 8000 pop, 61.23 years
for 10000 pops, 70.52 years

If we are going full out (level 5 religious schools and edict) we can push C_rate to 0.006 which reduces the Pop_min to 1666.67
Now the points are
5000 pop, 29.10 years
6000 pop, 31.63 years
7000 pop, 33.76 years
8000 pop, 35.61 years
10000 pops, 38.70 years

If they reduced the minimum converted it would start the exponential part sooner. (i.e if we had a min of 1, 5000 pops would take over 137.51 year at base and 60.98 full tilt.)

I guess how fast is too fast?

 

[mursolini]

Well, you profit from diversity indirectly in having more immigration, but to benefit from that you need to have the right immigration laws. also, in that case they still tend to assimilate (especially if you have state schools)

That's plenty enough benefit

 

[GrounchoVilla]

That's plenty enough benefit

Im not saying immigration isnt a huge benefit. I'm just saying thats not an advantage to diversity in itself, its just a consequence of multiculturalism and no state religion. The diversity is the effect of the same cause as the immigration, not the cause of the immigration, and is no benefit if the state has a net negative immigration

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

Yeah, more liberal Acceptance laws should throttle conversion and assimilation as they get more advanced. Perhaps moreso conversion than assimilation.

I think the main problem is that unlike Culture there are no Religious 'homelands' where pops of that religion won't convert no matter the circumstances leading to the situation you have with you Copts.

Im not saying immigration isnt a huge benefit. I'm just saying thats not an advantage to diversity in itself, its just a consequence of multiculturalism and no state religion. The diversity is the effect of the same cause as the immigration, not the cause of the immigration, and is no benefit if the state has a net negative immigration

What sort of benefits should diversity in and of itself have on the country mechanics wise?

 

[mursolini]

Im not saying immigration isnt a huge benefit. I'm just saying thats not an advantage to diversity in itself, its just a consequence of multiculturalism and no state religion. The diversity is the effect of the same cause as the immigration, not the cause of the immigration, and is no benefit if the state has a net negative immigration

There is some political advantage to having gropus included/excluded in temrs of governance, but that is about it. Unless the game codes in some racial&cultural stereotypes, that people of different origin are better at some things, that is how it is goind to be.

If you don`t have any religious or cultural minorities, nor are you trying to obtain them - sure, no benefit, so you might as well not have multiculturalism. Don`t see any issue, considering how valuable extra people are in game`s terms, passing on them is a huge handicap in itself.

 

[Cry_Havok]

What sort of benefits should diversity in and of itself have on the country mechanics wise?

Diplomatic ones for one. Not having a state religion can have tangible benefits diplomatically (possibly give a sliding opposing faith diplomatic debuff for state religion/freedom of consciousness nations with other religions). Also making secular academia/administration explicitly better PMs from an efficiency standpoint could be worth exploring

 

[Me_]

Maybe multiculturalism should simply give more Workforce ratio. Less institutionalized discrimination = more open job market?

 

[Life is Comedy]

Maybe multiculturalism should simply give more Workforce ratio. Less institutionalized discrimination = more open job market?

Please No ! You can already reach 55% right now, mostly because of +20%p from trade Unions.

 

[mursolini]

Maybe multiculturalism should simply give more Workforce ratio. Less institutionalized discrimination = more open job market?

Based on what? People are discriminated out of better jobs, and multiculturalism removes the barrier(which is a huge advantage, if you have significant minorities), but on what basis are we supposed to get more workforce ratio? In fact, the reverse could be true. If man of no longer discriminated culture gets a better job, women may drop out of workforce and be stay at home mom.