The CK2-EU4 Converter Improvement Project

[rageair]

I was speaking in-game, not history. Arabian peninsula completely devoid of islam ingame would take very long indeed.

Depends entirely on how the authority of the conquering religion is doing and/or how high the stewardship is of the rulers (triggering religion/culture flip events). I've managed to convert all India in less than 150 years, so it's all relative.

I would disagree however that there are obvious things to be corrected. Huge changes in the last years of CK2 would probably not have influenced the rotw in EUIV start...

Subjective, I think there are.

And afaik the converter does not take into account the timespan in which stuff happened.

There's almost always an alternative way of doing assessments without relying on date data from CK2. Not always, but most of the times.

I mean if India was dharmic for most if Ck2's timespan and player persia goes nuts and swallows it whole that should not make SEAsia Muslim...

It would obviously not be based entirely on state religion, as that aspect of CK2 is a very fleeting factor. What could be used as a trigger though is a combination of state religions and religious presence cross-referenced with the standard EU4 setup.

The chances of it happening in 1066 or 867 is rather unlikely. Far less unlikely in if you start in 480 however.:happy:

While unlikely, definitely not impossible!
Especially if players are involved!

I think it should be a simple boolean of is Islam successful? If Yes Indonesia is Muslim, If No it is its native religion of Pagan/Dharmic.

Why? Two reasons.

Aside from Christianity, no other religion that succeeds in the peninsula is particularly prosyltising. Judaism, Zoroastrianism, the rare Gnostics like the Manicheans, rare "others" like the Yazidi and Druze are all either "you're born into it" religions or just not historically easily spread.

Islam has the concept of the Ummah and Christianity of Evangelism. They're your only two real spreaders.

However, (second reason) a Christian Arabia would almost certainly be one that has a different culture than the native Arabs, and would likely replace them. This would have unpredictable results on the Indonesian trade situation. It's possible that in this time period that Western Christianity could not make it to Indonesia.

Nestorians are a different matter I guess, but it'd be such a rare case that they'd become dominant, should it really get our attention?

Now, if you wanted to make things real complex you could do a "which is dominant?" clause for Sunni, Shia, Ibadi, Zikri, Hurufi or Nestorian in the Arabian Peninsula and make that the religion of Indonesia. If none are dominant, you default to Dharmic/Pagan.

I enjoy reading your reasoning! That's the kind of discussion I was hoping for.
While the article I read specifically mentioned that the rulers of Indonesia converted by their own behalf to get closer to the merchants, I'm sure there was an unmentioned element of proselytizing involved.
I like the idea of checking for the religions you mentioned, maybe with the addition of a few more, and otherwise defaulting to Hinduism/Animist.

Sorry, China's just too static and centralised. It doesn't convert unless it wants to. I say we leave China alone.

Leave China alone! Leave it alone!

I'm sensing a slight bias here?
I don't necessarily want to change china, but I'm tempted in crafting events much like the one where Buddhism spreads in china (standard EU4 event) but tailored for however the situation looks. China's been a place of many faiths for a long time. They've had everything from Muslims to Manicheans in their population depending on the time period, but mostly depending on the mood of their current Emperor.

I agree that there is a problem here. If Islam is weak it shouldn't spread beyond the borders of the map on conversion. I think that the most sensible decision here however is not to try and spread the dominant religion of Arabia, but instead turn the far eastern muslin nations animist if there is too small a Islamic presence. Islam in Indonesia is an odd quirk of history rather than something that is certain to be replicated by any religion in the right place.

Agreed!

An invasion obviously didn’t happen because lets face it you can’t tell your empire to invade outside the map in ck2 and it’s better to assume that means that you didn’t invade beyond the map then to say that you did and just didn’t notice.

That's a kind of reasoning I can go along with!

How about trade routes spreading Islam over land? The land between china and where our map ends in Bengal was a bunch of small states sparsely populated and in the eyes of its neighbours on either the east and west mostly worthless (I’m so sorry anyone from Myanmar). What trade was going between china and India would have been going through Tibet to the north instead. Tibet is one of the most staunchly Buddhist countries in history that was in this time frame exerting religious pressure outwards. Another country that seems unlikely to convert without military intervention. It seems to me that there is very little chance of any religion making the jump from India to china in that time period, regardless of how well it spreads.

Indeed, the nations in-between India and Indochina would likely be affected.

I don't think it's as unlikely as everyone believes it is that China would be affected by outwards religious pressure. I'm not saying that we should go ahead and change religion in China, but if you read about Chinas religious history you will find that there's been/are loads of other religions than Taoism in China. Especially in the areas that were temporarily ruled by Mongols, as they promoted other religions to spread (especially Islam). What the Chinese enjoyed doing during this time, though, was to absorb minorities through forced marriage. They often kept their religion even though they adopted Chinese culture.

That said I do think that we should only move beyond the map bounds in extreme circumstances and for the vast majority of games nothing should change. For the most part you should never actually see any change in the outside world. We’re not trying to do a full overhaul or unwrite the history of Asia.

Exactly, we'd naturally make sure that if the situation in large mimics the 1444 start nothing would change.

If you start to apply changes outside the CK2 map, you should probably also look at Africa. If Mali don't turn Muslim, or you have a strong Miaphysite Abyssinian Empire, you should probably have an africa that was much less green.

Mali maybe, but everything around Ethiopia was already muslim before the start of CKII.

Indeed! It seems likely that West Africa should follow the development of Mali, especially if the West African faith is reformed. As most of the kingdoms in that area converted during the mid-late period of CK2 gameplay.
East Africa should likely stay Muslim, as they converted before the timeline of CK2, as noted above.

So, in summary, the only two areas we think need ripple effects are West Africa and Indonesia?

I'm thinking West Africa, Indonesia and the area in-between India and Indochina.

In addition to the above, I've been thinking that Muslim hordes, such as Chagatai, should probably conform to the religions of the CK2 Mongol hordes. It was during CK2's timeline that the hordes supposedly favoured Islam over the other religions and largely converted to it. And as anyone that has played a few CK2 games knows, the Mongols randomly favour a religion sometime during the later stages of the game. I'm unsure if the event should check for the state religions of the major Hordes or if it should have a more refined trigger, suggestions are welcome. This should especially be true if Tengri is reformed and prevalent.

I'm still holding out for a Vinland appearing in the new world (In Greenland Eastern Canada) at some point determined with a "Vikings Successful?" Tag.

I knew someone would ask for pathfinder scenario
This is exactly what I feared would happen. *symbolically washes hands*

The best fan-made CK2->EU3 converter (Raziot's) actually did this. The conditions were if the Norse religion was reformed, and a Norse state held large tracts of land along with a few key provinces (Iceland, Faeroes). The game would then assign them Greenland and the tip of Newfoundland, effectively granting them a head start on colonization.
I personally find this idea to rather fun, as well as rewarding for a player that's managed to reform the Norse religion. It would almost never affect a normal game.

I think someone should start by making a "weak Islam" set of history files that makes Southeast Asia Buddhist/Pagan/Hindu. Then the player could copy-paste it into their converted game if they think it's appropriate (or it can be a mod that you enable before conversion, both work).

My thoughts exactly.

No, I won't do a separate thing for this. Either I do it or I don't, but I see no reason not to do it.
I don't understand your aversion to this when the converter already changes so much. I wouldn't have thought that this mod would have been of interest to people who dislike variation, especially variation based on interpretation of real history.

I just feel that you can't really judge whether Islam could have spread to Indonesia by simply applying an algorithm to the 1444 situation.

There's so much in this converter that's based on speculation already. I think it's perfectly reasonable to craft an algorithm checking the current religious setup to determine how Indonesia has fared.
What one can know though is that religiously converting an area as large as the Middle East would take at the very least 100 years (in CK2), which means that the proposed event would not even trigger unless the game already suffered from a large case of alternate history. And in a case like that, who can really judge anything? All we can do is speculate, and that's what makes it so much fun.

 

[Phibs]

[...] I've managed to convert all India in less than 150 years, so it's all relative. [...]

There's almost always an alternative way of doing assessments without relying on date data from CK2. Not always, but most of the times. [...]

It would obviously not be based entirely on state religion, as that aspect of CK2 is a very fleeting factor. What could be used as a trigger though is a combination of state religions and religious presence cross-referenced with the standard EU4 setup.

That's exactly the problem.
Shia persia takes india (sunni arab peninsula) -> slow conversion. Even though "Islam" is succesful.
The holy sites really mess things up if you want to measure the success over time of a religion.

Exactly, we'd naturally make sure that if the situation in large mimics the 1444 start nothing would change.

Sounds promising...

The best fan-made CK2->EU3 converter (Raziot's) actually did this. The conditions were if the Norse religion was reformed, and a Norse state held large tracts of land along with a few key provinces (Iceland, Faeroes). The game would then assign them Greenland and the tip of Newfoundland, effectively granting them a head start on colonization.
I personally find this idea to rather fun, as well as rewarding for a player that's managed to reform the Norse religion. It would almost never affect a normal game.

... then again ...

I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun. We just want different things.

I don't understand your aversion to this when the converter already changes so much. I wouldn't have thought that this mod would have been of interest to people who dislike variation, especially variation based on interpretation of real history.

There's so much in this converter that's based on speculation already. I think it's perfectly reasonable to craft an algorithm checking the current religious setup to determine how Indonesia has fared.
What one can know though is that religiously converting an area as large as the Middle East would take at the very least 100 years (in CK2), which means that the proposed event would not even trigger unless the game already suffered from a large case of alternate history. And in a case like that, who can really judge anything? All we can do is speculate, and that's what makes it so much fun.

Again: People enjoy different things.


All of this would be seperate event in a seperate file (like the culture split) I presume?

If so I'll drop the issue, since it'd be an easy adjustment to make (emptying the file in question).

 

[rageair]

That's exactly the problem.
Shia persia takes india (sunni arab peninsula) -> slow conversion. Even though "Islam" is succesful.
The holy sites really mess things up if you want to measure the success over time of a religion.

Well, if Shia rulers have held India for a long time without having converted much, thus not triggering the event spreading it further, should they really be considered successful? A situation like that would actually be rather closely related to the vanilla 1444 start, where there's a few Muslim nations in India without many Muslim subjects!

If Shia in the same case would have had all the holy sites and converted all of India, they'd trigger the event. Sounds reasonable to me!

In any case, if authority is low most conversions come from stewardship-related events.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun. We just want different things.

Again: People enjoy different things.

That's fair enough. It's interesting to hear and know peoples point of views though.

All of this would be seperate event in a seperate file (like the culture split) I presume?

If so I'll drop the issue, since it'd be an easy adjustment to make (emptying the file in question).

Yes.

 

[Kljunas]

No, I won't do a separate thing for this. Either I do it or I don't, but I see no reason not to do it.
I don't understand your aversion to this when the converter already changes so much. I wouldn't have thought that this mod would have been of interest to people who dislike variation, especially variation based on interpretation of real history.

I'm not averted to variation, I'm just a bit sceptical about using an EU4 event to determine how successfully Islam might have spread. Ultimately it's a binary decision which isn't that hard to make for a human, so it's just saving the work of writing a fairly complex event (also considering that weak Islam is a fairly rare situation to begin with). But if you have the motivation to write it then go for it!

I just thought that since "megacampaign enthusiasts" often tinker with their converted game to change some stuff, having to manually enable a pagan Indonesia wouldn't be an issue.

 

[AvroLancaster]

On the topic of a Vinland

I think that we need to be very careful when it comes to changing too much. Having a Vinland is one of those things that starts to get close to my ahistoricity tolerance limit (I know we've already rocketed past Phibs'). This is a replacement for the vanilla converter, so staying closer to vanilla would be preferable, we aren't talking about plausible extrapolation at this point, but something different.

However, if we were to do a Vinland, there's a way to do it right and a way to do it wrong.

So, first I think we need to understand how the Vinland (and Greenland) settlements came to die out. It basically stems from a failure to adapt and is a well-studied series of events.

So, for Greenland, the dominant theory goes like this:
There was a minor ice age in the late middle ages (well known) and the decreasing temperature meant that the barley, oats, rye, and wheat that the Norse planted couldn't thrive in Greenland.

Now, the Greenland Norse basically chopped the earth up as they farmed in a practice known as turf cutting. I'm not an expert agrarian, but apparently this is not great for the topsoil, and it sped up the process of soil erosion. The entire colony was chronically malnourished.

Add to this the fact that they did not get along with the natives, and saw them as unchristian heathens to be fought or converted meant that they had no friends on the island, and more importantly that they couldn't learn anything from the Dorset and Thule about how to live in the arctic.

The story of the Greenland Norse ends with them submitting to the Danish throne in the late 1300's in order to receive support and protection. Communication and travel being what it was in that century, the Danes failed to support them and lost contact. They would send out expeditions in the coming decades and centuries, but alas, the colonies had perished.

Now, for Vinland, it's a lot more speculative, but the most convincing arguments I've. heard relate to there basically being too few Norsemen to sustain the colony. In essence the success of Vinland, or Markland, or any of the other potential sites, hinged on the success of Greenland.

Keeping this in mind, let's look at the wrong way to do it.

To do it wrong, you'd basically just invent a way for Vinland to be successful and do it. You might take the perspective that since Greenland submitted to Denmark, then why not just give the colonies to Denmark at the beginning as an "elegant" solution? You might completely miss the political and technical reasons why the colonies fail and produce a change that just buffs a Norse power for no reason.

So what would doing it right look like?

To do it right, you have to understand the historical situation that the entire Norse away-colonies were in. They were founded by adventurers outside of the sphere of European kings and when they were brought into the Kalmar union, the Kings of Europe couldn't stop their failure or did not care to.

To do it right the colonies would only exist when the conditions for them to solve their fatal problems existed.

Their problems:

Can't farm in a changing climate

Neighbours are enemies who are adapted better than you to the arctic

Too few Norsemen

I can only see one solution that historically could have worked, and that's one of Norse/Native understanding and cooperation.

The Norse would have to adopt the ways of the Thule, the Dorset or the Beothuk (Skraelings) and become ice-fishers and whale hunters for Greenland to survive. If Greenland survives, Vinland can survive.

This means that instead of re-establishing contact with the other Norse, that they instead choose local allies. This cannot happen if they are Christian in my opinion. Now, here's the kicker, I don't think it can happen with any organised religion, including reformed Norse. The reason is that as long as the Greenlanders saw the Thule as being alien outsiders, whose ways were of course inferior, then they likely wouldn't have learned from them and lived alongside them. An unreformed (or Old Norse) Greenland could have a spiritual understanding with the ancestor-worshipping shamanist/animist Thule/Dorset/Beothuk.

In addition, they'd need to abandon their homeland, and not turn to them for support. What would that look like? I think that the situation that would prove best for creating Vinland would be one where Norse is unreformed but strong enough to resist Christianity by at least 999AD, and Iceland (their closest link to the Norselands) is occupied by another power or culture that is discontinuous with the Norse. An Irish Iceland would do, so would an Arab or Scottish, or whatever Iceland.

And what would that make EU4's Vinland look like? I say 4 independent OPMs. A province in Labrador called Markland, a province in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland called Vinland, and a province in Greenland called Greenland. The remaining OPM would be in Greenland's second colony space, and would represent an Inuit state that co-adapted along with the Norse.

The nature of these states would be one where the Norse are half-North American Native in terms of their institutions and views, and their Inuit co-adaptors are half-Norse.

This would mean a new tech group (I know, everyone's opposed to those, but hear me out). One set halfway between Western and American. It could get the North American Native units. Why do I think they would deserve a new tech group? Because we're talking about a confluence of events that would likely never come about except deliberately, and it deserves to be fleshed out properly.

EDIT: The Norse were Iron-age, the natives were stone-age. A society built by both of them would be vastly ahead of their stone-age neighbours, but would be something entirely unlike the rest of Europe. It would likely not be a place where the institutions of European domination could have spontaneously arose.

Anyway, that's my take on a potential viking colony.

 

[keytium]

OK so there has been a lot of back and forth here so I’m not going to quote people directly and answer each thing. Let’s try and breakdown the issue into some specifics. As far as I can tell the possible areas that might be affected are; The East African coast, West Africa, Indonesia, Indochina, the area between Indochina/ming/india, China itself, Chagtai and Vinland. So my views on each are;

The east African coast: To be specific I’m talking about the nations; Ajuuraan Mogadishu, Malinda, Mobasa, Kilwa and Sofala. These are all Sunni I think that if we do institute a system for calculating ‘failed’ Islam, then these countries should be taken into account. Ajuuraan is an interesting case as well. It owns one province that is actually on the ck2 map; In EU4 it controls the horn of Africa. Do we give Ajuuraan’s land to whoever controls the ck2 province? Do we keep it separate, but base it’s religion on the one in that province?

West Africa: I think this is the least contentious of all the areas. I think this one can be simply decided at the start of EU4. If neither Mali nor Songhai are Islamic, then The Hausa and Kanem Bornu should be animist or reformed west Africa if that exists.

Indonesia This is the one that I think is the most jarring when the conversion doesn’t line up with history. Islam was late getting here and it is completely possible for Islam in Arabia to have been marginalized in the timeframe of ck2 before Indonesia had been converted. In some timelines it just doesn’t make sense. I do however agree that it’s very hard to tell just from the end state that we are given in EU4 how long a window the Arabian traders might have had to spread their faith. This is a good time to mention though that I don’t think in this case ‘failed Islam’ can be viewed as a single on/off flag. It would require more failure to not convert eastern Africa. To put that another way, spreading Islam to east Africa should be easier to achieve than spreading it to Indonesia. To be explicit by Indonesia I’m talking about the nations of Malacca, Aceh, Brunei, Majapahit and Makassar.

Indochina The area that is modern Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam should not convert. It just shouldn’t, but of course if anyone has anything they think is particularly convincing to say on the matter I will listen.

between Indochina/ming/india: So the nations of Shan, Arakan, Pegu, Taungu and maybe Lan Na. These areas I’m less sure on, if one of the Abrahamic faiths was particularly powerful in the eastern reaches of the CK2 map in the mid to late CK2 timeframe it would likely have significantly changed the history of these areas. I’m up in the air on this one.

China proper By which I mean Ming and Ming alone. Insular and reclusive Ming. I just don’t see it happening that in 1444 one of the western religions would have already managed to win a significant foothold in the country. Likewise western Manicheans might well have affected the strength of the religion in china, but not to the degree where we can justify changing any of the provinces religion. Minorities aren’t represented in EU4 so Manichean would have to become dominant in a specific area to make it onto the map. Where would that even be? Perhaps Manichean should have a conversion bonus against the eastern religions to represent the support of the already existent minority? The events that Rageair suggested mimicking the spread of Buddhism events in china are an interesting idea however. Obviously it’s possible for one of the western religions or Manichean to get themselves into a similar position to the one held by Buddhism in the timeframe of CK2 so maybe?

Chagtai: Has to change under certain circumstances. If the area around it isn’t Islamic there is no reason for it to be. Add up the border provinces and if more than half aren’t Islamic switch it to Buddhism maybe? Not sure on the specifics here, but I’m definitely in favor of Chagtai being affected in the conversion.

Vinland: Do not want. If it is included it certainly shouldn’t be tied to the Norse reformation, the AI manages to do that on their own in what like 20% of games? I’ve certainly seen it happen multiple times. Avrolancaster’s ideas are all really cool, but a lot of work and not really all that fun from a gameplay point of view. Non western OPMs just sound obnoxiously difficult. Historically speaking though he’s right that the conditions and technology just couldn’t support traditional colonization as eu4 portrays it, where we differ is that I think that means we just shouldn’t include it. Now if we ever get around to changing up the sunset invasion start then Vikings in North America could be included, evidently passage across the Atlantic is no longer a challenge in that timeline.

I believe that the general issue in regards to Islam beyond the map is about not being able to tell how long the Arabic traders had to spread their religion. The only way that we could tell this is if we had a calculation event in CK2 that works it out. Something that say ran every five years and counted how many Islamic ports on the Indian Ocean there are and what branch of Islam they ascribed to. Over time the variable would tick up until it either did or did not reach some preset goal. Then when the decision is pressed at the end of the game, titular landless king titles are created for each effectible nation beyond the map and a dummy character of the right name, dynasty and stats of the ruler of that nation is created and given the title and the ‘correct’ religion. If we enter those titular titles into the nation table those dummy characters should the rulers of the correct nations in Eu4. Then we change the religion of those lands based on the religion of the ruler. The only downside is that it commits us to having a recurring maintenance event in CK2, such a thing might be useful in other ways as well though.

 

[Cuthuthulu]

That sums things up nicely. In short, our biggest concern would be what to do with Islam. Vinland won't be appearing*. China will stay the same religiously as long as the Ming are around and I don't see how anything that happens in Europe is going to stop the rise of the Ming.

*Unless the upcoming DLC is a $20 Vinland expansion

 

[AvroLancaster]

The east African coast: To be specific I’m talking about the nations; Ajuuraan Mogadishu, Malinda, Mobasa, Kilwa and Sofala. These are all Sunni I think that if we do institute a system for calculating ‘failed’ Islam, then these countries should be taken into account. Ajuuraan is an interesting case as well. It owns one province that is actually on the ck2 map; In EU4 it controls the horn of Africa. Do we give Ajuuraan’s land to whoever controls the ck2 province? Do we keep it separate, but base it’s religion on the one in that province?

West Africa: I think this is the least contentious of all the areas. I think this one can be simply decided at the start of EU4. If neither Mali nor Songhai are Islamic, then The Hausa and Kanem Bornu should be animist or reformed west Africa if that exists.

Indonesia This is the one that I think is the most jarring when the conversion doesn’t line up with history. Islam was late getting here and it is completely possible for Islam in Arabia to have been marginalized in the timeframe of ck2 before Indonesia had been converted. In some timelines it just doesn’t make sense. I do however agree that it’s very hard to tell just from the end state that we are given in EU4 how long a window the Arabian traders might have had to spread their faith. This is a good time to mention though that I don’t think in this case ‘failed Islam’ can be viewed as a single on/off flag. It would require more failure to not convert eastern Africa. To put that another way, spreading Islam to east Africa should be easier to achieve than spreading it to Indonesia. To be explicit by Indonesia I’m talking about the nations of Malacca, Aceh, Brunei, Majapahit and Makassar.

The only caveat I'd add here is that it'd be nice to see Indonesia's Islam correlated to the type of Islam in Arabia if we don't get "Islam has failed" returned. An entirely Hurufi Arabia could export Hurufism to Indonesia, likewise I think that the check for West Africa should go like this:

Do Songhai or Mali exist?
If YES then are either Sunni?
If YES then no change

If neither Songhai or Mali exist, what religion do the occupiers have?
Give that religion to the Muslim West Africans.

If Songhai or Mali exist and are not muslim, what religion does the larger of the two have?
Give that religion to the Muslim West Africans.

China proper By which I mean Ming and Ming alone. Insular and reclusive Ming. I just don’t see it happening that in 1444 one of the western religions would have already managed to win a significant foothold in the country. Likewise western Manicheans might well have affected the strength of the religion in china, but not to the degree where we can justify changing any of the provinces religion. Minorities aren’t represented in EU4 so Manichean would have to become dominant in a specific area to make it onto the map. Where would that even be? Perhaps Manichean should have a conversion bonus against the eastern religions to represent the support of the already existent minority? The events that Rageair suggested mimicking the spread of Buddhism events in china are an interesting idea however. Obviously it’s possible for one of the western religions or Manichean to get themselves into a similar position to the one held by Buddhism in the timeframe of CK2 so maybe?

Chagtai: Has to change under certain circumstances. If the area around it isn’t Islamic there is no reason for it to be. Add up the border provinces and if more than half aren’t Islamic switch it to Buddhism maybe? Not sure on the specifics here, but I’m definitely in favor of Chagtai being affected in the conversion.

Agree on both points

Vinland: Do not want. If it is included it certainly shouldn’t be tied to the Norse reformation, the AI manages to do that on their own in what like 20% of games? I’ve certainly seen it happen multiple times. Avrolancaster’s ideas are all really cool, but a lot of work and not really all that fun from a gameplay point of view. Non western OPMs just sound obnoxiously difficult. Historically speaking though he’s right that the conditions and technology just couldn’t support traditional colonization as eu4 portrays it, where we differ is that I think that means we just shouldn’t include it. Now if we ever get around to changing up the sunset invasion start then Vikings in North America could be included, evidently passage across the Atlantic is no longer a challenge in that timeline.

I don't particularly want Vinland either. The way I see it though is that IF it is going to be done it should be done right. Whether or not it goes into the converter is out of my hands directly, so I'll push for no Vinland where I can, and a proper Vinland where I can't.

Avrolancaster’s ideas are all really cool

 

[keytium]

The only caveat I'd add here is that it'd be nice to see Indonesia's Islam correlated to the type of Islam in Arabia if we don't get "Islam has failed" returned. An entirely Hurufi Arabia could export Hurufism to Indonesia

Agreed.

Do Songhai or Mali exist?
If YES then are either Sunni?
If YES then no change

If neither Songhai or Mali exist, what religion do the occupiers have?
Give that religion to the Muslim West Africans.

If Songhai or Mali exist and are not muslim, what religion does the larger of the two have?
Give that religion to the Muslim West Africans.

I don't think the check should be for Mali and Songhai specifically. Targeting Tags is not a good idea when talking about converted games, likewise convoluted triggers to work out what are the Mali/Songhai analogues are just likely to go wrong. Easiest solution? Just count how many of each religion are present in the provinces that are historically Songhai and the eastern part of mali. The one with the most provinces wins. Although I do think that if reformed west African exists it should get the west African nations by default. West Africa is sort of the 'thing' of the west African religion. It would be mean to take it away from them.

 

[Cuthuthulu]

The only caveat I'd add here is that it'd be nice to see Indonesia's Islam correlated to the type of Islam in Arabia if we don't get "Islam has failed" returned. An entirely Hurufi Arabia could export Hurufism to Indonesia, likewise I think that the check for West Africa should go like this:

Agreed completely.

 

[NinjaCow64]

When you guys get around to doing Sunset Invasion, I think having a Colonial Nation in Europe/The Old World would be really funny. Might be diverging a bit too much from vanilla but then we are talking about the Sunset Invasion.

 

[keytium]

When you guys get around to doing Sunset Invasion, I think having a Colonial Nation in Europe/The Old World would be really funny. Might be diverging a bit too much from vanilla but then we are talking about the Sunset Invasion.

You mean the Aztec lands in CK2 converting as a colony of the Aztec empire in EU4? Because that's totally how I would want to handle it. I don't think that sunset invasion is high on the to-do list though.

 

[Cuthuthulu]

When you guys get around to doing Sunset Invasion, I think having a Colonial Nation in Europe/The Old World would be really funny. Might be diverging a bit too much from vanilla but then we are talking about the Sunset Invasion.

There's actually a unique narrative event involving Vinland with Sunset Invasion enabled! It does not go well.

EDIT: Oh you mean having the Aztecs convert as a colonial nation. I've considered this and it would be relatively simply to do actually.

 

[Phibs]

I believe that the general issue in regards to Islam beyond the map is about not being able to tell how long the Arabic traders had to spread their religion. The only way that we could tell this is if we had a calculation event in CK2 that works it out. Something that say ran every five years and counted how many Islamic ports on the Indian Ocean there are and what branch of Islam they ascribed to. Over time the variable would tick up until it either did or did not reach some preset goal. Then when the decision is pressed at the end of the game, titular landless king titles are created for each effectible nation beyond the map and a dummy character of the right name, dynasty and stats of the ruler of that nation is created and given the title and the ‘correct’ religion. If we enter those titular titles into the nation table those dummy characters should the rulers of the correct nations in Eu4. Then we change the religion of those lands based on the religion of the ruler. The only downside is that it commits us to having a recurring maintenance event in CK2, such a thing might be useful in other ways as well though.

If this is indeed possible I'd actually be all for it.

I'm not against the idea per se (well vinland do not want, but hey), my main concern was islam's (or rather the various islams) success over time and thus its ability to 'export', which imo cannot be simply based on the state of affairs @ CKII end date.

When this could be adequately recorded, I'd be on-board

 

[LumberKing]

There's actually a unique narrative event involving Vinland with Sunset Invasion enabled! It does not go well.

EDIT: Oh you mean having the Aztecs convert as a colonial nation. I've considered this and it would be relatively simply to do actually.

Ooh, I have not seen this before.

 

[Labrynian Rebel]

The east African coast: To be specific I’m talking about the nations; Ajuuraan Mogadishu, Malinda, Mobasa, Kilwa and Sofala. These are all Sunni I think that if we do institute a system for calculating ‘failed’ Islam, then these countries should be taken into account. Ajuuraan is an interesting case as well. It owns one province that is actually on the ck2 map; In EU4 it controls the horn of Africa. Do we give Ajuuraan’s land to whoever controls the ck2 province? Do we keep it separate, but base it’s religion on the one in that province?

The CK II provinces should not go to Ajuuraan, but I believe Ajuuraan should have cores on them nonetheless and whatever religion the CK II province is Ajuuraan should be as well. Also the "Swahili Coast" was a really big part of the Indian Ocean Trade Network that made Indonesia Muslim so that should be looked into as well.

 

[Kljunas]

The east African coast: To be specific I’m talking about the nations; Ajuuraan Mogadishu, Malinda, Mobasa, Kilwa and Sofala. These are all Sunni I think that if we do institute a system for calculating ‘failed’ Islam, then these countries should be taken into account. Ajuuraan is an interesting case as well. It owns one province that is actually on the ck2 map; In EU4 it controls the horn of Africa. Do we give Ajuuraan’s land to whoever controls the ck2 province? Do we keep it separate, but base it’s religion on the one in that province?

I'd like to know actually: was there a major city in that EU4 province? If it was on the northern half of the province then the province should go to the CK2 owner imo.

I think Islam spread there quite early on though, so I think the vanilla religious setup should remain no matter what.

West Africa: I think this is the least contentious of all the areas. I think this one can be simply decided at the start of EU4. If neither Mali nor Songhai are Islamic, then The Hausa and Kanem Bornu should be animist or reformed west Africa if that exists.

I think they should adopt whatever religion Mali has.

Chagtai: Has to change under certain circumstances. If the area around it isn’t Islamic there is no reason for it to be. Add up the border provinces and if more than half aren’t Islamic switch it to Buddhism maybe? Not sure on the specifics here, but I’m definitely in favor of Chagtai being affected in the conversion.

It should depend on what the Mongols converted to imo. Maybe check the Timurids' religion, if there's no Timurids then check the Golden Horde or Ilkhanate? It should also affect the handful of uncolonised Muslim provinces north of Mongolia, even though it doesn't really matter.

Vinland: Do not want. If it is included it certainly shouldn’t be tied to the Norse reformation, the AI manages to do that on their own in what like 20% of games? I’ve certainly seen it happen multiple times. Avrolancaster’s ideas are all really cool, but a lot of work and not really all that fun from a gameplay point of view. Non western OPMs just sound obnoxiously difficult. Historically speaking though he’s right that the conditions and technology just couldn’t support traditional colonization as eu4 portrays it, where we differ is that I think that means we just shouldn’t include it. Now if we ever get around to changing up the sunset invasion start then Vikings in North America could be included, evidently passage across the Atlantic is no longer a challenge in that timeline.

Yeah I don't think Vinland should be included. I don't think anything in CK2 would have had any significant influence on the success of Vinland. After all the Scandinavian kingdoms were pretty "strong" in our timeline and kept a hold of key provinces such as Iceland, but Vinland still failed.

And yeah tying it to Norse reformation isn't a good idea. Vinland was discovered around 1000 AD, and Leif Eriksson was a Christian.

 

[Dinotrex37]

So, I was thinking about the way the converter handles the HRE. If the HRE exists in CK2, and doesn’t absolute CA, it will have EU4’s HRE mechanics. The flaw I see with this is that in many games started in 867 the HRE may never form, making things less interesting in EU4. However, I think it’s fathomable that some other large empire could form and fill a similar role as the HRE.
Say, for example, instead of the HRE, karling inheritance produces a massive Francia which encompasses all of de jure francia as well lotharingia, frisia and parts of italy. Such a large empire would probably be difficult to keep unified, and as such might follow a similar path as the HRE, becoming more and more decentralized until it reaches the point it is at in EU4.
Seeing as this mod is about supporting alternate histories, I think there should be a dynamic HRE system. Depending on their crown authority, converted empires level realms would be implemented with HRE mechanics:

200 holdings or less = no HRE mechanics.

200-300 holdings = HRE mechanics if crown authority is autonomous or low.

300-400 holdings = HRE mechanics if crown authority is medium or lower.

400-500 holdings = HRE mechanics if crown authority is not absolute.

Obviously, this is just a suggestion. I know virtually nothing about the code of either game, so I don’t know how hard/easy it would be to implement this.

 

[AvroLancaster]

So, I was thinking about the way the converter handles the HRE. If the HRE exists in CK2, and doesn’t absolute CA, it will have EU4’s HRE mechanics. The flaw I see with this is that in many games started in 867 the HRE may never form, making things less interesting in EU4. However, I think it’s fathomable that some other large empire could form and fill a similar role as the HRE.
Say, for example, instead of the HRE, karling inheritance produces a massive Francia which encompasses all of de jure francia as well lotharingia, frisia and parts of italy. Such a large empire would probably be difficult to keep unified, and as such might follow a similar path as the HRE, becoming more and more decentralized until it reaches the point it is at in EU4.
Seeing as this mod is about supporting alternate histories, I think there should be a dynamic HRE system. Depending on their crown authority, converted empires level realms would be implemented with HRE mechanics:

200 holdings or less = no HRE mechanics.

200-300 holdings = HRE mechanics if crown authority is autonomous or low.

300-400 holdings = HRE mechanics if crown authority is medium or lower.

400-500 holdings = HRE mechanics if crown authority is not absolute.

Obviously, this is just a suggestion. I know virtually nothing about the code of either game, so I don’t know how hard/easy it would be to implement this.

EU4 supports only one region with HRE mechanics. I would love to see a system though that can select another HRE candidate if the HRE has not formed.

I've had games where the HRE swallows France and forms Francia, and holds a dual Empire together. I cannot tell you how the converter treats such a case because it is too broken to successfully convert the game over.

 

[Labrynian Rebel]

I think there should be a dynamic system for HRE mechanics but only for one empire (since that's a limitation)

Pretty much if the HRE exists convert as normal

If the HRE does not exist then give HRE mechanics to one of the other empires, which one it will be should be dynamically decided.

Some factors that I think would be appropriate:
Empire is Catholic
Empire is held by Karlings
Empire is German or Frankish
Empire owns Rome, Wien or Constantinople
etc.

...and so on with each of these "values" getting a number, and whichever empire gets the most gets HRE mechanics. And there should be a minimum value needed so if the only empire that exists is the Mongolian Empire and they don't automatically get HRE mechanics just because they're the only one that exists. In other words we should have one empire with HRE mechanics for gameplay purposes whenever it makes sense, but if it doesn't then don't force it.