The Inevitability of Fate or Why Bother Delaying the Reformation

[Mr. Particularist]

Just... just say a Hail Mary and pay your indulgences on your way out...

Anyhow, I decided to start a run as the Popeman and see how much could I delay the reformation if I devoted every resource I had at my disposal to that end.

It turns out... it was almost a decade. 8 years tops.

Since the start I picked every decision that would reduce reform desire (tanking stab along the way) and filled the Curia coffers at every chance I got (didn't enact a single golden bull just to save money), all the while keeping my chances at being elected at a nice 70% or more. I know Investigate Heresy used to increase reform desire by 10% each time the button was used but it was later changed to 50% due to very delayed reformations (which is, by the way, the point of doing it). Since 50% is quite a lot, so I only began using the button if reform desire surpassed 95%.

When the Borgias happened, I had like 7,5k ducats in the curia coffers and it was around 1492 or so. From there it was watching the reform desire meter like a hawk and pushing the button very carefully until the coffers emptied. The results? Reform Desire increased at a +900% rate and every two or three months it jumped from 89% to 104% or something equally ridiculous.

After all that careful management, Martin Luther slammed the Ninety-five Theses in March of the Year of the Lord 1500. Real-life Papal States did a better job than me, since it happened in 1517. Now IMAGINE how fast it could've happened if I played the part of a corrupt papacy and even investigated heresy early on to help it grow faster.

Therefore: why bother trying to delay the Reformation if the difference is so small? What's the point? If 10% was to little, 50% is too much. Tune it down a notch or make it a non-linear increase to at least shave some decades of reformation if you play your cards right.

 

[Big Bad France]

It just needs tweaked. Maybe 20 or 25 percent is the sweet spot.

 

[Mr. Particularist]

Well, that depends on what the devs want in regards to the Reformation timing.

I'll assume that Reformation must happen since too many important events and even the age flow depend on that.

Therefore, what would be the intended earliest date for the Reformation trigger? And what would be the latest? And how influential should player action be in that regard? (my personal preferences would be: 1480 if everything goes to hell, 1560 if the Catholic church gets their act together double quick, and big catholic nations and the Pope should have big influence on this)

In a single run I did everything I could to delay the Reformation with the tag that in theory should have the greatest impact on Reform Desire, and the difference was largely insignificant. I think the original 10% increase was OK, but I bet it caused problems in multiplayer due to pushing the age transition to the 1550s. So, instead of decreasing the player impact on the date, maybe they should have introduced some sort of counterplay to investigating heresy aside from "whoever sits on Saint Peter's Chair decides and that's it". Hell, let them use Curia influence to denounce the vices of the Church from inside and thus increase reform desire, or have cardinals pick a stance like in the Council of Trent to see if they are fighting or profiting from the corruption of the the papacy.

 

[TheHostName]

Correct me if i'm wrong but doen't the reformation MTTH start to check when the desire is above 85%? I do also believe the check does not stop if you are under 85%. So you litarelly startet the check early/ normal time and just kept it at around 100%. Repeat this with a ceiling of 80% and you will succed.

 

[Mr. Particularist]

Correct me if i'm wrong but doen't the reformation MTTH start to check when the desire is above 85%? I do also believe the check does not stop if you are under 85%. So you litarelly startet the check early/ normal time and just kept it at around 100%. Repeat this with a ceiling of 80% and you will succed.

Well, the wiki says it's at 100%, so I figure it's that value unless there is a first threshold at 85%. Even so, preventing the meter to reach 100% is the same as doing it for 85%, and with 9000 ducats spent in Investigate Heresy I could only delay it for a decade (and at that point it jumped at intervals of +13% each time, so it wouldn't matter much when the coffers run out).

 

[Alyosha]

Sounds like another mechanic that was balanced around infrequent dev multiplayer matches that don’t reflect the reality of 95% of players.

 

[Jomini]

The problem appears to be that during the last round of tag & province inflation we added a lot of Catholic States (the French Duchies, a ton of HRE tags, and few odd things like Croatia). With the current mechanisms this dramatically increases the rate of reform desire and also makes it a lot more state dependent. For instance, if there is consolidation (Austria inherits three or four PUs, Brandenburg allies Austria and eats a number of minors, Burgundy has an early inheritance with consolidation, and the Pope runs amok in Italy), the timing can be significantly delayed.

In contrast you can see it faster if things happen like punching dead tags out of France, England, Iberia, and maintaining all of the tags of the HRE.

The real solution is to make all of the Reform Desire events scale with the percentage of Catholic provinces they effect. E.g. If Austria has 5% of the Catholic provinces while Scotland has 2%, Austria's impact on Reform Desire should be 250% larger than Scotland. This way we do not end up out of whack every time a round of tag inflation occurs. Likewise, we can have reasonable times for the Reformation in both MP (the 5 or whatever player tags that hold 90% of the catholic tags have much larger impacts per choice).

Lastly, not every positive result should be the one that increases Reform Desire. A state might revoke quindennial annates for some benefice, and both keep more gold in the kingdom and make everyone happier about the Catholic church. This would certainly annoy the Pope, but would also result in there being less push for church independence.

Doing the old, fiddle with the numbers till they come out right is still going to be imbalanced for things like a Hussite run and will certainly fail again should we get further tag inflation.

 

[TheHostName]

The statement about the wiki made me curious and I searched for the event.

Spoiler

mean_time_to_happen = {
months = 4000

modifier = {
factor = 2
PAP = { is_part_of_hre = yes }
OR = {
culture_group = germanic
culture_group = scandinavian
culture_group = british
culture_group = west_slavic
}
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.9
reform_desire = 1.05
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.9
reform_desire = 1.10
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.9
reform_desire = 1.15
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.9
reform_desire = 1.20
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.9
reform_desire = 1.25
}

modifier = {
factor = 0.75
NOT = { num_of_cities = 10 }
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.75
NOT = { num_of_cities = 2 }
}

modifier = {
factor = 0.75
has_idea_group = innovativeness_ideas
}
modifier = {
factor = 1.25
has_idea_group = religious_ideas
}

modifier = {
factor = 0.95
NOT = { has_opinion = { who = PAP value = -50 } }
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.85
NOT = { has_opinion = { who = PAP value = -100 } }
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.75
NOT = { has_opinion = { who = PAP value = -150 } }
}
modifier = {
factor = 2.0
government = theocracy
}
modifier = {
factor = 8.0
OR = {
NOT = { exists = PAP }
PAP = { is_part_of_hre = no }
}
OR = {
culture_group = latin
culture_group = iberian
}
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.75
PAP = { is_part_of_hre = yes }
is_part_of_hre = no
OR = {
culture_group = latin
culture_group = iberian
}
}
}

If I read this correctly than it does indeed start at 100% reform desire. However the part about the size of a tag and the amount of tags is far more important. This check/MTTH happens for every tag, which means that with every addional tag the chance for it spawning early increases. The tags that were added are small ones which also modifies the MTTH further for them.

Or in other words. It is more likely to have someone roll a small number (= early spawn) if you have more People roll their dice. So the solution has not to be entirely on how much and how fast the reform desire is generated, but also on the chance PER tag to fire once 100% is reached. I suggest to increase the MTTH.

 

[Jomini]

The statement about the wiki made me curious and I searched for the event.

Spoiler

mean_time_to_happen = {
months = 4000

modifier = {
factor = 2
PAP = { is_part_of_hre = yes }
OR = {
culture_group = germanic
culture_group = scandinavian
culture_group = british
culture_group = west_slavic
}
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.9
reform_desire = 1.05
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.9
reform_desire = 1.10
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.9
reform_desire = 1.15
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.9
reform_desire = 1.20
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.9
reform_desire = 1.25
}

modifier = {
factor = 0.75
NOT = { num_of_cities = 10 }
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.75
NOT = { num_of_cities = 2 }
}

modifier = {
factor = 0.75
has_idea_group = innovativeness_ideas
}
modifier = {
factor = 1.25
has_idea_group = religious_ideas
}

modifier = {
factor = 0.95
NOT = { has_opinion = { who = PAP value = -50 } }
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.85
NOT = { has_opinion = { who = PAP value = -100 } }
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.75
NOT = { has_opinion = { who = PAP value = -150 } }
}
modifier = {
factor = 2.0
government = theocracy
}
modifier = {
factor = 8.0
OR = {
NOT = { exists = PAP }
PAP = { is_part_of_hre = no }
}
OR = {
culture_group = latin
culture_group = iberian
}
}
modifier = {
factor = 0.75
PAP = { is_part_of_hre = yes }
is_part_of_hre = no
OR = {
culture_group = latin
culture_group = iberian
}
}
}

If I read this correctly than it does indeed start at 100% reform desire. However the part about the size of a tag and the amount of tags is far more important. This check/MTTH happens for every tag, which means that with every addional tag the chance for it spawning early increases. The tags that were added are small ones which also modifies the MTTH further for them.

Or in other words. It is more likely to have someone roll a small number (= early spawn) if you have more People roll their dice. So the solution has not to be entirely on how much and how fast the reform desire is generated, but also on the chance PER tag to fire once 100% is reached. I suggest to increase the MTTH.

The trouble with that is that if you crush a bunch of minors you end up with a very late Reformation. E.g. In muliplayer, it takes only a couple of decades to eat all the British Minors, all the French vassals, a very large chunk of the HRE minors, Italy, the Balkan Catholics, and the Baltic states. Even in SP, it is wildly hard to balance if I got Hussite and convert 100 minors prior to the Reformation with a little help from the OE and Russians to pare back the Catholics.

Really, the events need to have some scaling factor based on how much of Catholicism lies within their borders. The typical twiddling with MTTH with static factors will lead to wild swings depending on game state. If we want a reliable Reformation date (say +/- 15 years of history), then we cannot make assumptions about the number or distribution of Catholic states. It just turns too heavily on how things like the HRE turn out.

 

[grommile]

Or in other words. It is more likely to have someone roll a small number (= early spawn) if you have more People roll their dice. So the solution has not to be entirely on how much and how fast the reform desire is generated, but also on the chance PER tag to fire once 100% is reached. I suggest to increase the MTTH.

Here's a more robust idea (well, unless someone is going out of their way to punch the Pope in the face, but oh well), inspired by CK3.

We don't have the equivalent of faith-scope events, but we can approximate it as follows: Have an event (possibly hidden) for PAP with an immediate clause that picks a suitable Catholic country and triggers the Reformation in it.

 

[RobbieAB]

We don't have the equivalent of faith-scope events, but we can approximate it as follows: Have an event (possibly hidden) for PAP with an immediate clause that picks a suitable Catholic country and triggers the Reformation in it.

What happens if I have eaten the papal states?

 

[Skagzill]

I feel that events that add to reform desire are kinda static that is why increase in Catholic tags leads to earlier Reformation. Here are some of my ideas:

1. Countries who didnt embrace Renaissance dont get events that increase reform desire.
2. Papal controler and allies of Pope dont get events increasing desire.
3. Countries that took the decision that needs Pope to hate you get double reform desire from these events.
4. Pope should probably get events when reform desire hits certain thresholds that allows him to take action that eaither decreases desire at certain costs, or increase it further if nothing is done.


Just some thoughts.

EDIT: Maybe HRE Emperor should also have ability to influence reform desire, considerting the driving force behind Reformation IRL was undermining both Pope and Emperor. Perhaps if reformation doesnt trigger by the time Emperor reaches the branching reforms then decentralization refors also lower reform desire.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

Out of curiosity, since I don't know whether it changed or was ever addressed in the first place, what happens if there is no Catholism at all (e.g. imported CK2 save)? Does the Age of Reformation never trigger...?

 

[Jomini]

What happens if I have eaten the papal states?

I think a better solution would be tying the Reformation to the Papal Controller. That should work as long as there are Catholic states and nobody has restored the Pentarchy (which seems alt-history enough to say maybe Europe no longer needs a Reformation). Just put something like "is controlller and date is after 1510 = * 100" to the weighting if nothing else.

 

[RobbieAB]

@Jomini I completely agree that it makes no sense to have a reformation if there are no catholic countries left