Thoughts on Estate Privilege: Religious Culture?

[Josar]

The new patch brought new privileges, and one of the most interesting ones is Religious Culture.

On one hand it gives great bonuses to provinces that are both your religion, and accepted culture, as well as slight global missionary strength, and culture conversion cost.

However the penalties for either wrong culture and religion are heavy, so you will likely get rebellions even after separatism has went away. Additionally, it gives the clergy 30 influence for only 10 loyalty, so it could make any clergy state privileges hard to remove once granted.

What do you think? It is an interesting tool, that could even make one culture runs more viable, but seems to have a bit too many downsides for a normal religious run.

 

[Eolath]

I think it's borderline unusable in 99% of all scenarios, similar to command of the military. Only the most greedy of MP players and OC players that are okay with massive influence in exchange for a small culture conversion cost could realistically fit this this into their game.

Most of this is IMHO because they (IIRC it was Ogele who also designed the new privileges) overnerfed it after player complaints, to be clear, this is what it looked like before

Spoiler: Religious culture pre nerf

Too strong? Maybe.. but now it's too weak. I don't even see how people think a few 10% local modifiers are all that good, they don't stack well with buildings that also add local modifiers. If you're scraping the bottom of the barrel in an MP game, sure, but even then you'll have to deal with the hefty downsides.

Also not too sure if it's even worth discussing this, since people wanted it to be changed to what it is right now...

 

[LSF]

I think it's borderline unusable in 99% of all scenarios, similar to command of the military. Only the most greedy of MP players and OC players that are okay with massive influence in exchange for a small culture conversion cost could realistically fit this this into their game.

Most of this is IMHO because they (IIRC it was Ogele who also designed the new privileges) overnerfed it after player complaints, to be clear, this is what it looked like before

Spoiler: Religious culture pre nerf

Too strong? Maybe.. but now it's too weak. I don't even see how people think a few 10% local modifiers are all that good, they don't stack well with buildings that also add local modifiers. If you're scraping the bottom of the barrel in an MP game, sure, but even then you'll have to deal with the hefty downsides.

Also not too sure if it's even worth discussing this, since people wanted it to be changed to what it is right now...

+10% is strong, but what is really strong in the initial proposal is -25% culture conversion cost with the "price" of just +2 unrest, quite easy to get -100% culture conversion cost and paying just the minimun (I dont know if 10% or 5% of normal cost).

 

[Victoria 3 finally]

+10% is strong, but what is really strong in the initial proposal is -25% culture conversion cost with the "price" of just +2 unrest, quite easy to get -100% culture conversion cost and paying just the minimun (I dont know if 10% or 5% of normal cost).

You say that like it would turn culötue conversion into a viable tactic instead of just making OC less tedious.

 

[Rhazzaz0r]

I think it's borderline unusable in 99% of all scenarios, similar to command of the military. Only the most greedy of MP players and OC players that are okay with massive influence in exchange for a small culture conversion cost could realistically fit this this into their game.

Most of this is IMHO because they (IIRC it was Ogele who also designed the new privileges) overnerfed it after player complaints, to be clear, this is what it looked like before

Spoiler: Religious culture pre nerf

Too strong? Maybe.. but now it's too weak. I don't even see how people think a few 10% local modifiers are all that good, they don't stack well with buildings that also add local modifiers. If you're scraping the bottom of the barrel in an MP game, sure, but even then you'll have to deal with the hefty downsides.

Also not too sure if it's even worth discussing this, since people wanted it to be changed to what it is right now...

I mean in MP literally every1 is gonna take it, 10% better provinces and free 10% culture conversion cost is really broken. But the cost isnt worth it for SP, making your provinces better in exchange for having a harder conquest time seems bad. Only really useful if playing a chill campaign in the HRE as Prussia or Netherlands or sth like that I'd say.

 

[Less2]

Absolutely suicidal in SP. +5.5 unrest in wrong religion/wrong culture provinces for basically irrelevant bonuses. In MP I guess it's... OK. The +10%s are pretty minor and cultural conversion isn't really ever a powergaming move.

The +25 same religion opinion looks situationally pretty nice. Can definitely see it used to turn important GPs friendly, diplo-vassalize, or avoid coalitions in AE-heavy places like the HRE.

A big problem is that there's just too many privileges for our max 4 privilege slots. That's only 2 slots after you take +1 mana and +100 governing cap for each estate, which is basically a given.

 

[Terixis]

The new estate privileges are sadly underpowered and have insane influence increases making them very undesirable. And I start to tear up just thinking about how poor Controlled Gold Mining got brutally murdered between the dev diary and release...

 

[Reman]

Agree with Less2: You could use this privilege for a one-faith or one-culture run, but it's otherwise really bad in normal games.

The Religious Diplomats privilege, on the other hand, is pretty good. It's like the only new one that's actually worthwhile. The +25 opinion is great for AE control, and it's with the clergy who have much fewer good privileges, so there's less competition. It also happens to be yet another stealth buff for Sunni.

 

[Jespoke]

I have used it so far a game where i was taking religious ideas anyway, and two games starting in the HRE. If you are playing a gameplan which is going to convert and accept most of its land anyway, it is just good. It is not like the clergy had anything good to put in its 4th slot before anyway, though it faces stiff competition from the other new clergy privilege if you are staying Catholic or Sunni.

That said, i hate when they make privileges with way more influence than loyalty. At least it is not as awful as privileges that don't give loyalty at all, but still.

 

[RMS Oceanic]

I have used it so far a game where i was taking religious ideas anyway, and two games starting in the HRE. If you are playing a gameplan which is going to convert and accept most of its land anyway, it is just good. It is not like the clergy had anything good to put in its 4th slot before anyway, though it faces stiff competition from the other new clergy privilege if you are staying Catholic or Sunni.

That said, i hate when they make privileges with way more influence than loyalty. At least it is not as awful as privileges that don't give loyalty at all, but still.

The influence is the price you pay for its benefits. Harder to revoke, lower absolutism, lower crownland share etc. Tweaks may be need to make those costs worth it - they certainly are for Religious Diplomats in Catholic/Sunni/Hindu countries - but the design principle makes sense to me.

 

[JacobiteJames]

The new patch brought new privileges, and one of the most interesting ones is Religious Culture.

On one hand it gives great bonuses to provinces that are both your religion, and accepted culture, as well as slight global missionary strength, and culture conversion cost.

However the penalties for either wrong culture and religion are heavy, so you will likely get rebellions even after separatism has went away. Additionally, it gives the clergy 30 influence for only 10 loyalty, so it could make any clergy state privileges hard to remove once granted.

What do you think? It is an interesting tool, that could even make one culture runs more viable, but seems to have a bit too many downsides for a normal religious run.

I do it just so i can be historically accurate and oppress the irish in my 1929485th England game

 

[marcavis]

I used it recently to good avail as Ethiopia, where converting a lot of land before Religious ideas are viable is needed, and the 1% helps

 

[Josar]

+10% is strong, but what is really strong in the initial proposal is -25% culture conversion cost with the "price" of just +2 unrest, quite easy to get -100% culture conversion cost and paying just the minimun (I dont know if 10% or 5% of normal cost).

You might pay the minimum, but you still have to deal with the massive time it takes to convert a culture, which is not reduced.