"Religious zeal" province modifier is insane and should be nerfed

[HypnoSkales]

It's totally absurd that a province has -100% missionary strength for 30(!) YEARS. It should be -10% at most, or maybe just -30% and decaying 1% per year. Nowadays taking religious ideas or even more, "embrace the counter-reformation" decision is useless. You can't convert your provinces anyways. Paradoxically, the counter-reformation decision is only useful when you're converting anything BUT protestants. I only take it to convert the New World as Spain for example. What's even the point of the +2 extra missionaries and +3% ms vs heretics if you can't use them for 30 years? What are you going to do? Send the missionaries to the converted provinces to make them have -95% missionary strength instead of -100% xd? Yeah, very helpful. I don't know which dev tested this and genuinely thought that it would be a good idea to make provinces IMPOSSIBLE to convert for 30 years, but no, it really isn't.

But seriously, changing it from an absurd -100% ms to a big, but manageable -10% ms would be ideal. If you take: base ms (+2%), inquisitor advisor (+2%), counter-reformation (+3% vs heretics), religious ideas (+3%), enforce religious unity edict (+1%), +3 stability (+1,5%), harsh stance during Council of Trent (+2% vs heretics), "zealot" ruler personality (+1%), and "enforced unity of faith" clergy privilege (+1%), that would add up to 16,5% ms, which would still make converting protestant provinces quite hard (since you won't have ALL those modifiers at once), but still, possible.

Also I saw over the course of the dev diaries that the +30%(?) religious unity idea (which is in humanist ideas in 1.34, and which was planned to be moved to religious ideas in 1.35.) was removed from religious ideas and placed back into humanist. Why is that? Humanist ideas don't need religious unity, because give +2 tolerance of heretics and heathens, which puts you at 100% religious unity anyways. The devs should have kept it in religious ideas imo. That would have made religious ideas an actually viable idea pick for dealing with the reformation as a European nation.

And before you say "just force convert countries with CoR lol" - yes, I know that. It's just that it feels way too cheesy for me, and while I definitely would do that in a minmaxing playthrough, I wouldn't like to do it in a roleplay one.

 

[HypnoSkales]

Also, converting to another religion (like protestantism) shouldn't give +10% ms vs heretics for 10 years, because it makes countries uniform quickly. Irl converting your whole country to protestantism was a bit harder than that (unless "centers of reformation" had already converted most of it), so it should probably only give +2% or +3% ms for those 10 years imo.

 

[Banedon Runestar]

First, even in Medieval times, the overwhelming majority of people died in the faith they were born to. Widespread conversions were rare. People really did think that their God would strike them down if the performed actions that they thought displeased their God. Inducing a person to abandon the faith of their parents is already a big thing, but I think expecting a person to learn the rites and requirements of multiple faiths within their (usually short) lifetimes is a bit much.

Second, Humanist and Religious do different things because they represent two different ways of dealing with inter-faith friction. Humanist ideas provide religious unity because Humanist ideas represent faith being personal and in the eyes of the state the faith that a commoner professes is irrelevant. Religious ideas provide conversion bonuses because Religious ideas represent faith being determined by the state, and any challenge to the state's power is unacceptable. You will either convert, pretend, or you will die.

 

[X112ww1X]

I do like the idea of the religious zeal modifier getting weaker and decaying over time. I would still start it at 100%.

 

[FishieFan]

Religious zeal makes the protestant reformation something major instead of easily done away with, theres little difference between -30% and -100% at that point

 

[RMS Oceanic]

I dislike how there's very little counterplay to a province of yours getting hit by a center of reformation. Like once it starts, your only hope is to fight into the HRE to capture the offending province and somehow convert it before your province flips. Otherwise you cannot change its religion at all for ~32 years.

It also doesn't jive with how the Council of Trent/Counter-Reformation is supposed to work. You can get extra missionaries and heretic mission strength so you head out there and... just accept the converted province for three decades. Something like a -8% or even a -10% modifier would be more reasonable, giving you the opportunity to convert it back if you put the effort into it. Every other aspect is covered by checking for the modifier itself rather than it's strength

Tangentially another annoying thing is when I as a Protestant strike into mostly Catholic France, the moment I take a bunch of land from them it feels like every reformed center makes it their next target, because the Resistance to Reformation modifiers Catholics get kind of unnaturally shapes where they convert. It would be nice if a CoR was less inclined to convert Catholic land owned by another Reformation religion. There are already modifiers to de-prioritize Orthodox provinces so the principle exists.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Something like a -8%

This was the original implementation. I still remember threads about players annoyed when they got a province flipped, converted it back despite the -8% penalty, only to have the province flipped again and stacking the zeal to an insurmountable 16%. I can still recall two different friends complaining about it out loud too, haha. Never did like the "solution" of just making it impossible in the first place.

 

[Pellucid]

The entire religious system in general is stupid. Shouldn't a province that has been one religion for a long time be HARDER to change, not easier? How is it possible to convert a majority populace in less than a year, when it should take decades at minimum?

It's a whole mess.

 

[AKLEONI]

One of the most stupid parts of the religion in the game is that the rebels are FAR BETTER at converting even the hardest provinces just by " brute force".

 

[FishieFan]

One of the most stupid parts of the religion in the game is that the rebels are FAR BETTER at converting even the hardest provinces just by " brute force".

How is that stupid?

 

[bokorthedust]

How is that stupid?

'We occupied Paris, they are all Tengri now!'

 

[AKLEONI]

How is that stupid?

If you let roam free they can convert every provinces, even the most develop ones just by occupying them at a speed that can't be match by a country.
This is one of the strategies used to change to another religion, just deactivate every fort and let occupy and convert all your country.

 

[FishieFan]

If you let roam free they can convert every provinces, even the most develop ones just by occupying them at a speed that can't be match by a country.

And? If wrong type it makes them a big threat to deal with that is hard to resolve

This is one of the strategies used to change to another religion, just deactivate every fort and let occupy and convert all your country.

Yes i know that

 

[AKLEONI]

And? If wrong type it makes them a big threat to deal with that is hard to resolve

Why would a group of fanatics of other religion convert a high development province just by occupying the city, It's simply absurd

 

[FishieFan]

Why would a group of fanatics of other religion convert a high development province just by occupying the city, It's simply absurd

Because forced conversions under fear of death happened in the past even if many were cryptos

 

[AKLEONI]

Because forced conversions under fear of death happened in the past even if many were cryptos

With your reasoning we should we able to insta-convert religion in every conquered province too

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How is that stupid?

Mostly in the weird inconsistency with how the game handles beliefs. Rebels can do it, but armies cannot, even if they are larger in scale and capability than the rebels 10x over or more. If we accept that military force is a functional way to change beliefs, we'd expect religious CB armies to be more effective than rebels by a wide margin, not less. But it would also make incidents like 30 years war really strange.

Missionaries can do it, but the same people then become incredibly resilient. Like 10x more resilient than the pope himself converting to Sikh. But only for one generation. This is also odd.

From a game mechanics perspective, it's not clear what purpose zeal is serving. A more competitive income/anti-rebel option, simply getting positive tolerance, completely disregards zeal. There's also always going to be some strangeness to religions in EU 4, because the faiths are *inherently* giving tangible benefits, completely independent from the society or governing structure of the nations who run them.

The rework to theocracy reform means that for nations that can switch (most of them in default EU 4 now), you can get missionaries and conversion power to keep up with expansion unless you're operating at ~record-competitive WC pace...for most religions anyway. There too, you have a hard cap on missionary count which can get bypassed via subjects...pure gameplay abstraction and presumably a balance choice...same deal for how much "unrest" gets derived solely from religion.

 

[Pellucid]

From a game mechanics perspective, it's not clear what purpose zeal is serving. A more competitive income/anti-rebel option, simply getting positive tolerance, completely disregards zeal. There's also always going to be some strangeness to religions in EU 4, because the faiths are *inherently* giving tangible benefits, completely independent from the society or governing structure of the nations who run them.

The purpose is as a band-aid to the flawed reformation system and the lack of understanding the devs have as to why the reformation succeeded in the first place.

In the real world, elites in various places were either convinced by the arguments or saw political convenience in conversion and then basically just informed the peasantry that they were changing some of the rituals on Sunday. In the game, the peasants convert and then try to force their elites to convert. It's all backwards.

So since the reformation's success in this game relies completely on nations having enough of their provinces flip and thus being forced to switch religion for the sake of stability, that combined with how easy it is to convert people in the game in general means the reformation will never succeed without the Religious Zeal modifier, since nations will convert provinces back as quickly as they're flipped to protestant and thus never see a majority religion change.

A more realistic reformation system would see the Emperor's enemies within the empire be incentivized to flip religion when the reformation fires, then see their lesser allies also incentivized to flip. Regional powers would then be able to exert pressure on their neighbors to flip, so Bohemia and Brandenburg, if protestant, would be trying to get their neighbors to go protestant. Austria, if catholic, would be trying to pressure their neighbors not to.

The system might need a special event chain for France's religious wars, as they were quite a bit different from the conflict within the HRE.

 

[FishieFan]

The purpose is as a band-aid to the flawed reformation system and the lack of understanding the devs have as to why the reformation succeeded in the first place.

In the real world, elites in various places were either convinced by the arguments or saw political convenience in conversion and then basically just informed the peasantry that they were changing some of the rituals on Sunday. In the game, the peasants convert and then try to force their elites to convert. It's all backwards.

So since the reformation's success in this game relies completely on nations having enough of their provinces flip and thus being forced to switch religion for the sake of stability, that combined with how easy it is to convert people in the game in general means the reformation will never succeed without the Religious Zeal modifier, since nations will convert provinces back as quickly as they're flipped to protestant and thus never see a majority religion change.

A more realistic reformation system would see the Emperor's enemies within the empire be incentivized to flip religion when the reformation fires, then see their lesser allies also incentivized to flip. Regional powers would then be able to exert pressure on their neighbors to flip, so Bohemia and Brandenburg, if protestant, would be trying to get their neighbors to go protestant. Austria, if catholic, would be trying to pressure their neighbors not to.

The system might need a special event chain for France's religious wars, as they were quite a bit different from the conflict within the HRE.

It does have to be remembered how helter skelter the reformation and counter reformation was, with various protestant and Catholic exclaves. The Hapsburgs may have only ever been at worst protestant friendly but had a large protestant population within their territories prior to the 30 years war. This is one reason why Cuius regio, eius religio was a win for the Hapsburgs as it meant the protestant princes of North Germany wouldn't immediately interfere with the Protestants of Bohemia and Upper Austria being persecuted

 

[st360]

I think the real problem is, the protestant reformation SHOULD be hard for nations, and at the end of the day not necessarily solvable. How many rulers in real life wanted to swing their country back to catholic (or into protestantism) but just couldn't, no matter how hard they tried and how many "+ missionary strength" they "stacked"? But at this point, the EU 4 playerbase has been trained to expect that you should be able to fix any problem in a year or two.

Conquer Italy as an African tribe? No problem, 260 days to build a transport ship and 3 rerolls for a good shock general.

Convert Japan to Turkish culture? 10 years for nationalism to wear off, 2 years to convert.

Sweden becoming Mughals, then Ming, then Scotland, then Aztecs? No problem, just save up 500 admin points and click 7 buttons.

Historically, the reformation was a horrible catastrophe which destroyed Europe for a century. But in EU 4 its practically being treated as a buff. "Boy I cant wait for the reformation to appear, so I can get +5% discipline and a bonus to coring costs!"