Should Slavic be split in two?

[moscal]

General we had 4 types of slavic paganism.
1. Pommeranian paganism. Theology based on cult of Sun and Thunders. Central point of religion in Arkona. Priesthood in caste-style. High influences of catholicism and german culture. High militarism and very intolerant.
2. Russian paganism. Vladimir's pantheon. High influences of shamanism and nordic paganism. Very tolerant and missionary. Двоеверие
3. South-slavic paganism. Theology based on dualism (like in manicheism). High influences of catholicism, orthodoxy and italo-byzantine culture. Ability to assimilate (for many historians "bogomilism" is christianity with elements of south-slavic-pagan theology).
4. Rest-slavic-world. Every family or village can have own concept, father of family can also work as priest etc. Generally great prymitivism and lack of any deep concept.

This is only for informations. IMO - there haven't sense. Next religion, which is only aesthetics, isn't needed.

Reformation as it is have absolutely no sens, and is boring to play. It should be character related - be independant, have <20 learning, have a temple vassal with 15>Learning, have 500 piety. It should not be instant, instead it should trigger a period of instability (malus to relationship with your vassals and give a special CB on you to your same religion neighbourg for 5-10 years). Or perhaps even several wave of negative events, a bit like westernization in EU3.

In my mod (Better Slavic Pagan Mod) is other mechanism of reformation (decisions-events). IMO - this is more rational. Also in my mod is many differences between unformed and reformed. You can try this

 

[Streletz]

Talking crap about the two best religions in the game, smh...

So great that in all any Old gods starts I have a Tengri-Hungarian Russia, Romuva Poland-pommerania, and Tenrgi Balkans less then 100 years after the game start...

 

[Eldath]

So great that in all any Old gods starts I have a Tengri-Hungarian Russia, Romuva Poland-pommerania, and Tenrgi Balkans less then 100 years after the game start...

That would imply that Slavic is bad because they have to face tengri.
Guess what, tengri is designed to crush defensive pagans. Literally any other religion has a hard time against slavic, especially if you play it as feudal and focus on fighting enemies on your home turf. Now with warrior lodges and religion specific commander traits, slavic is even stronger in defensive play (even better than suomenusko in fact)

Tengri is OP, but you shouldn't have any problems as a slavic against christians or other defensive pagans.

 

[Streletz]

That would imply that Slavic is bad because they have to face tengri.
Guess what, tengri is designed to crush defensive pagans. Literally any other religion has a hard time against slavic, especially if you play it as feudal and focus on fighting enemies on your home turf. Now with warrior lodges and religion specific commander traits, slavic is even stronger in defensive play (even better than suomenusko in fact)

Tengri is OP, but you shouldn't have any problems as a slavic against christians or other defensive pagans.

that is partly what my post is about - what is the point to have strong bonuses on paper, while they are useless against your stronger/only neighbourg? Besides Tengri it's quite common for Germanic Sweden to conquer large chunks of slavic land (well that at least more historical then having nomads rampaging to the Finnish modern border)

And i disagree that you won't have problems against other defensive pagans - due to eldership succession it's quite common in my games to have an uber romuva Lithuania ramaging through the whole eastern Europe (in my current game where i play as Ghana, i.e. not meddling with Europe any way it's stretches from Pannonia to Estonia, even controlling lands in France and England god knows how, never falling appart due to Eldership). Needless to say, they also control the whole western slavic lands (eastern are Tengri as usual).

Heck, even Ilmen become Suomesnko before getting eaten by Hungary.

Yes, when player controlled ANY country can survive/expand, that's not what I'm about. My point is:

1) As a player Slavic is boring to play. Locked in Gavelkind, OP neighbourgs most of the time, no cool features, no unique features at all. To go out of Gavelking you have either to blob or to do gamey thing (or to convert to any other religion, best solution).

2) As an AI, slavic dissapears of the map in the first century of play. It's quite obvious that the dev planned slavic as a weak religion but with strong remaining power, and it's quite obvious that it is a failure too.

It needs something to be improved and more fun to play and to have a chance to survive until conversion to christianity. I'm not really into the OP idea to split it in 2-3 to make reformation easier.

It could be a good idea to remove the Tengri immunity to defensive attrition (after all there is a good historical reason while nomads did not expand into slavic/finnish-ugrish lands). However that could also lead to another extreme, as I saw that AI i incapable to handle attrition (I saw the HRE melting 10000 stacks sieging a non wargoal province), so that could lead to early hordes dissipation.

It could also be a good idea to improve slavic ability to raid - there is plenty of sources of documented sources of slavs raids on Byzantium, indicating that raiding was a quite important part of their revenue, and they didn't waited for Germanics to start it.

Finally a unique succession that prevent any non OPM to break apart (AI can't handle Gavelking). A succssion law where all the dinasty members (including those abroad) can vote could simulate the rurikid Russia, but i don't now how it's feating to other slavic countries.

To balance this, I would take away from them the pagan county conquest casus belly, as there isn't really big slavic expansions after the initial push up.

All that things are easy to mod, and I would give them a try to see if it's improving some thing, but I've just rolled back to 2.8 to play the wrhammer mod, so i'll post this later.

Edit: I've thought this a bit more, and I think that would be a good idea for all defensive pagans to have access to eldership (the only reason that i've would play a defensive vs offensive pagan), and remove their county conquest casus belli, making them able to expand only with the subjugation one. At least that would create a different playstyle.

 

[Eldath]

that is partly what my post is about - what is the point to have strong bonuses on paper, while they are useless against your stronger/only neighbourg? Besides Tengri it's quite common for Germanic Sweden to conquer large chunks of slavic land (well that at least more historical then having nomads rampaging to the Finnish modern border)

And i disagree that you won't have problems against other defensive pagans - due to eldership succession it's quite common in my games to have an uber romuva Lithuania ramaging through the whole eastern Europe (in my current game where i play as Ghana, i.e. not meddling with Europe any way it's stretches from Pannonia to Estonia, even controlling lands in France and England god knows how, never falling appart due to Eldership). Needless to say, they also control the whole western slavic lands (eastern are Tengri as usual).

Heck, even Ilmen become Suomesnko before getting eaten by Hungary.

Yes, when player controlled ANY country can survive/expand, that's not what I'm about. My point is:

1) As a player Slavic is boring to play. Locked in Gavelkind, OP neighbourgs most of the time, no cool features, no unique features at all. To go out of Gavelking you have either to blob or to do gamey thing (or to convert to any other religion, best solution).

2) As an AI, slavic dissapears of the map in the first century of play. It's quite obvious that the dev planned slavic as a weak religion but with strong remaining power, and it's quite obvious that it is a failure too.

It needs something to be improved and more fun to play and to have a chance to survive until conversion to christianity. I'm not really into the OP idea to split it in 2-3 to make reformation easier.

It could be a good idea to remove the Tengri immunity to defensive attrition (after all there is a good historical reason while nomads did not expand into slavic/finnish-ugrish lands). However that could also lead to another extreme, as I saw that AI i incapable to handle attrition (I saw the HRE melting 10000 stacks sieging a non wargoal province), so that could lead to early hordes dissipation.

It could also be a good idea to improve slavic ability to raid - there is plenty of sources of documented sources of slavs raids on Byzantium, indicating that raiding was a quite important part of their revenue, and they didn't waited for Germanics to start it.

Finally a unique succession that prevent any non OPM to break apart (AI can't handle Gavelking). A succssion law where all the dinasty members (including those abroad) can vote could simulate the rurikid Russia, but i don't now how it's feating to other slavic countries.

To balance this, I would take away from them the pagan county conquest casus belly, as there isn't really big slavic expansions after the initial push up.

All that things are easy to mod, and I would give them a try to see if it's improving some thing, but I've just rolled back to 2.8 to play the wrhammer mod, so i'll post this later.

Edit: I've thought this a bit more, and I think that would be a good idea for all defensive pagans to have access to eldership (the only reason that i've would play a defensive vs offensive pagan), and remove their county conquest casus belli, making them able to expand only with the subjugation one. At least that would create a different playstyle.

Well Germanic also ignores defensive attrition, so the same applies for them as it does for Tengri, tbh.
Now the reason why Slavic is still pretty good, is because as time goes on, Tengri will convert to orthodox/catholicism via mass conversion, because tengri is VERY UNLIKELY to be reformed by the AI, and as the AI approaches absolute tribal organization, they have a habit of requesting mass conversion. If you reform slavic, you can take care of every problem that you talk about.
You can pick Agnatic/Enatic clans for Open succession law, or you can pick Ancestor Veneration for Eldership. They are one of the better choices anyway, so I really don't see why you wouldn't pick a doctrine that takes care of your bigger complaints. If you have a hard time reforming, you can raise your heir in a culture that allows you a better succession (irish have tanistry for example) until you can reform.

As for Slavic disappearing from the map, well, every unreformed pagan does eventually. Catholics take over Scandinavia over time, Bön are taken over by buddhists, Suomenusko get eaten by Sunni/manicheanism, Africans get eaten by Sunni. That and pagans will reques mass conversion if they are not reformed. This happens in my games all the time.

If you want to test my idea, use the console to reform slavic with : Proselytizing, ancestor veneration/agnatic clans, children of Perun, Temporal/Hierocratic.
It will not disappear from the map, in fact it will take over Eastern Europe and Russia.

If Germanic is refomed by the AI (that happens a lot actually), they have a tendency to keep warring against Christendom. I don't usually see Germanics going to war with Slavics.

 

[balmung60]

Romuva makes it to or nearly to the end of the timeframe without being wiped out, Tengri definitely survives until the end in the eastern parts of the map, and African, I believe, has a presence up through at least the very latest start date.

In-game, they likely get wiped out before then, but using the start date selector, it's apparent which Pagan faiths are "supposed" to go away first.

 

[Streletz]

Well Germanic also ignores defensive attrition, so the same applies for them as it does for Tengri, tbh.
Now the reason why Slavic is still pretty good, is because as time goes on, Tengri will convert to orthodox/catholicism via mass conversion, because tengri is VERY UNLIKELY to be reformed by the AI, and as the AI approaches absolute tribal organization, they have a habit of requesting mass conversion. If you reform slavic, you can take care of every problem that you talk about.
You can pick Agnatic/Enatic clans for Open succession law, or you can pick Ancestor Veneration for Eldership. They are one of the better choices anyway, so I really don't see why you wouldn't pick a doctrine that takes care of your bigger complaints. If you have a hard time reforming, you can raise your heir in a culture that allows you a better succession (irish have tanistry for example) until you can reform.

As for Slavic disappearing from the map, well, every unreformed pagan does eventually. Catholics take over Scandinavia over time, Bön are taken over by buddhists, Suomenusko get eaten by Sunni/manicheanism, Africans get eaten by Sunni. That and pagans will reques mass conversion if they are not reformed. This happens in my games all the time.

If you want to test my idea, use the console to reform slavic with : Proselytizing, ancestor veneration/agnatic clans, children of Perun, Temporal/Hierocratic.
It will not disappear from the map, in fact it will take over Eastern Europe and Russia.

If Germanic is refomed by the AI (that happens a lot actually), they have a tendency to keep warring against Christendom. I don't usually see Germanics going to war with Slavics.

I think you don't understand my main complaint.

I'm ok with all pagans disappearing off the map during the gameframe, or to survive only in remote parts. That's historical.

I'm not ok with having a whole religion disappearing off the map in the first century because it's badly balanced.

Yes Ck2 isn't an historical game, anything could happen. But actually pretty the same thing happens in all my games, it's boring and ahistorical, and it's due to bad balance, no game rng.

I'm not ok to have a religion to have a whole religion that I have to do gamey or senseless (roleplay wise) things to enjoy for playing (such as using console to prereform, fetch faraway province to reform or using tanistery heir).

 

[Zsrai]

I think you don't understand my main complaint.

I'm ok with all pagans disappearing off the map during the gameframe, or to survive only in remote parts. That's historical.

I'm not ok with having a whole religion disappearing off the map in the first century because it's badly balanced.

Yes Ck2 isn't an historical game, anything could happen. But actually pretty the same thing happens in all my games, it's boring and ahistorical, and it's due to bad balance, no game rng.

I've never once seen Slavic disappear off the map in the first century in all of my 769 games or my 867 games. I don't think I've ever seen it disappear in the first two centuries for either of those starts. One of us is the outlier here, and judging from everything else I've read over the last few years it's not me.

I'm not ok to have a religion to have a whole religion that I have to do gamey or senseless (roleplay wise) things to enjoy for playing (such as using console to prereform, fetch faraway province to reform or using tanistery heir).

Well reforming Slavic Paganism is already gamey and ahistorical; reforming any of the Pagan religions are, to more or less the same degree. If you don't want to blob out to get 5 Holy Sites, or even 3, then don't reform Slavic. You can always do Romuva, Suomenusko (sort of), Germanic (sort of), or African at 3 Holy Sites without much expansion. If you insist on reforming Slavic, then you're signing up for how spread out the Holy Sites are and how much you'll have to expand.

 

[Streletz]

I've never once seen Slavic disappear off the map in the first century in all of my 769 games or my 867 games. I don't think I've ever seen it disappear in the first two centuries for either of those starts. One of us is the outlier here, and judging from everything else I've read over the last few years it's not me.



Well reforming Slavic Paganism is already gamey and ahistorical; reforming any of the Pagan religions are, to more or less the same degree. If you don't want to blob out to get 5 Holy Sites, or even 3, then don't reform Slavic. You can always do Romuva, Suomenusko (sort of), Germanic (sort of), or African at 3 Holy Sites without much expansion. If you insist on reforming Slavic, then you're signing up for how spread out the Holy Sites are and how much you'll have to expand.

Here are the screens of my last game - Khazar expanded to Finland, Serbia revolted as a tengri nomad, Pannonia is Tengri, Pommerania and Bohemia are the last two slavic states, and it's only 868. It's like this on all of my games.

I'm agreeing with you about reforming. I've never played pagans a lot before holy fury, I don't like the reform mechanic, and the religion is rather OP after you're reformed it. If you don't aim for a reformation you're locked into (elective) gavelkind, making the game rather teditious after 3-4 generations, or forcing you into killing all your family/abusing concubines to keep you demesne and country.

I was just hoping that holy fury would change this mechanics, or at least add eldership for all defensive pagans. I'm quite bitter to have a large chunk of the map that I consider as implayable as far.

 

[King_of_Spain]

it was something that in real life was only attempted but never accomplished

Interesting – genuine question: who attempted it?

 

[De Vermandois]

Linguistically Slavic peoples are very close to each other, the first archeological culture that can be surely attributed to Slavs is Kiev culture which began in 2-3 century CE. In the Early Middle Ages all Slavic languages were mutually intelligible and their cultures, with all regional differences, did not move far away from each other. Slavic culture then was very young so I don't see any point in dividing their faiths in different branches.

 

[AndyScull]

Actually I like how slavic pagans are now. I play them a lot (being russian myself) and in Holy Fury they were really pumped up (also I always play from 769 start). Reforming with first ruler is easy (though not a real cakewalk).
Start as Ilmen (You have Novgorod), join warrior lodge - it gives your ruler survivability in battle, good commander traits and a lot of money from prisoners (2nd rank almost guarantees you'll capture at least one when sieging). Actually those lodges complement pagans very very well.
Those small Romuva countries between you and Plock allow you to conquest almost non-stop and expand very fast in that direction. Their 3+ holding provinces are very useful when they start producing levy for you.
Also Conquest CB gives very little threat, I never went above 2% with constant wars going on. By the time you reach Plock you already fabricated a claim on it so you grab it and then turn your attention to Kiev. Usually I use my only subjugation CB on it or take a hit and use a CB which lowers everyone's opinion. And here you go, I reform even before becoming a king. And then I get access to those new juicy OP doctrines...

 

[IndigoRage]

Interesting – genuine question: who attempted it?

Julian the Apostate was the last pagan roman emperor and he attempted to revitalize and reform the hellenistic belief system. Vladimir the Great was the Great Prince of Kiev and the guy who converted the Rus to Orthodoxy. Before he converted he had attempted a reformation of sorts by arranging statues of various traditional gods in front of his palace among other things. All it really did was piss off the adherents to those gods so he gave up and converted to Orthodoxy. (according to myth though it was because the Orthodox had the best alcohol)

 

[Riftwalker]

I'm aware that the Slavic community in Europe is quite large and widespread, but it recently dawned on me how hard (and somewhat ridiculous) it is for Balkan Slavs or far eastern Slavs to reform or assist the religion. The Holy sites are scattered around Europe, but still requires an enterprising fringe kingdom to cut a swathe into the Poland to Russia corridor. At the point of reformation, especially as one of the far away kingdoms like Serbia or Croatia, most will have needed to take over almost half the map and all of the religion, turning what seems to me like a mid-game mechanic into an end-game one.

Such occurred to me while trying to forge "Tueta's Bloodline" which requires being in the Dalmatia area, pagan or tribal, female, and to defeat the Byzantines. Tribalism had outlived its usefulness and so I needed to either reform or convert. The problem with reforming in such a situation is that I would need to basically be the size of 2-3 empires, well beyond this little regional flavor.

Maybe Slavic should be split into North and South? Or East and West? Or maybe just have more holy sites to make fringe players more fun or viable.

you can still claim counties as a pagan, so just claim the holy sites and wage wars in far off locals to get your holy sites together.

 

[ShadeThorn]

I had this problem in my current Russia campaign. Managed to pull the MA up from 33 to 50 by constantly raiding counties with infidel temples, stacking county conquest modifiers, and building temples; also got lucky and got 5% for pagan revival.

 

[Sir Roderick]

Julian the Apostate was the last pagan roman emperor and he attempted to revitalize and reform the hellenistic belief system. Vladimir the Great was the Great Prince of Kiev and the guy who converted the Rus to Orthodoxy. Before he converted he had attempted a reformation of sorts by arranging statues of various traditional gods in front of his palace among other things. All it really did was piss off the adherents to those gods so he gave up and converted to Orthodoxy. (according to myth though it was because the Orthodox had the best alcohol)

It wasn't about having the best alcohol, it was about not having alcohol at all (Islam), and being a bunch of losers (Judaism).
Also Germans(Catholic latin rite) having no sense of beauty; of course, if they would have visited Italy, especially Rome, it would have been different:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_the_Great#Christianization_of_the_Kievan_Rus'

The Primary Chronicle reports that in the year 987, after consultation with his boyars, Vladimir the Great sent envoys to study the religions of the various neighboring nations whose representatives had been urging him to embrace their respective faiths. The result is described by the chronicler Nestor. Of the Muslim Bulgarians of the Volga the envoys reported there is no gladness among them, only sorrow and a great stench.[11] He also reported that Islam was undesirable due to its taboo against alcoholic beverages and pork.[22] Vladimir remarked on the occasion: "Drinking is the joy of all Rus'. We cannot exist without that pleasure."[22] Ukrainian and Russian sources also describe Vladimir consulting with Jewish envoys and questioning them about their religion, but ultimately rejecting it as well, saying that their loss of Jerusalem was evidence that they had been abandoned by God.

His emissaries also visited pre-schism Latin Rite Christian and Eastern Rite Christian missionaries.[citation needed] Ultimately Vladimir settled on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In the churches of the Germans his emissaries saw no beauty; but at Constantinople, where the full festival ritual of the Byzantine Church was set in motion to impress them, they found their ideal: "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth", they reported, describing a majestic Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia, "nor such beauty, and we know not how to tell of it." Vladimir was impressed by this account of his envoys.[11]

 

[mattrhearn]

It outlives its usefullness when you need real soldiers rather than light infantry hordes. Or are so bad at vassal management the kingdom is consistently north korea. Plus succession laws, that's a driver for some.

Hunting Party retinues are fantastic and cost only prestige - which you can get aplenty by raiding. It actually makes North Korea Mode viable again in tribalism, because they'll make up for your lack of levies from being over demesne limit.

 

[Woifee]

Fabricate claimes on 3 holy sites and press them trough war or duel. Then you can let them go.