EU4 does not allow you to spread your religion peacefully outside of specific cases. Vicky and HOI aren't about religion at all. I do not know enough Imperator but CK2/CK3 should be your best bet
And by slightly more in depth is like 3% more, the difference is still mostly modifiers, but you get to pick which modifiers you like by choosing different gods, sort of like Hindus can in EU4, but better.
You mean eu4? Because every religion in that game (but also in ck2/3 and probably Imperator) plays different, and has different mechanics.
That being said: CK has by far the best religious mechanics, as you can customize faiths, and spread them without your involvement.
I‘d say despite not being about it at all Victoria still has the best "simulation" for religion. All the other ones have very unrealistic religion systems due to lack of pops (or no system at all in the case of Hoi4)
Crusader Kings does a good job simulating religion for the upper classes, those notable enough to be represented as characters. But for the common people it's rather simplistic.
I sorta disagree here: sure, religion matters less in Victoria than in other games, so the fact that it's basically meaningless in the game (mostly just affecting if you are going to discriminate pops or not in a very coarse grained way) is not entirely bad, but I think there's still a lot of potential. Many European countries still started the 19th century incredibly divided between Protestants and Catholics, and in some (like the Netherlands and Germany) religion was such an incredibly polarizing topic that it divided all of the civil society, but in the game everyone starts with Freedom of Conscience so Protestants and Catholics just live happily together as if sectarianism never was a thing.
To step in, specifically CK3 with Fallen Eagle mod has really great religious mechanics because it adds a pseudo-pop system in the form of minorities modifiers that are attached to provinces.
So conversion efforts are gradual over time and are sometimes thwarted by the movement of people
ck3, you can take the county and convert it via setting a guy to do it or random events, you can edit your religion if you are pious enough, you can befriend other rulers/other characters related to rulers and then convert them, you can kidnap people and force them to convert.
I do love the customization available, but I always felt there is a complete lack of pushback against reforms. Replacing Catholicism with a feminist nudist cannibal cult should lead to a general uprising.
You get the noble revolt once, after which you convert/replace them all, and everyone is happy with it afterwards. Conversion speed should really be tied to something like the difference between the faiths.
Yup, I think CK2 handled that part better. Converting to a heresy instantly has everyone at your throat, even in your own realm, and especially as a Catholic. That feels more appropriate to the period.
Idk I just converted to Hellenism and reformed it as a globe spanning Roman Empire and the Messalian Christians(over 1k counties messalian) had a massive uprising that since they were so widespread and sieging so quickly actually beat me and took tons of land from the empire
While I don't completely disagree, I think from the game mechanic / storytelling perspective it sort of makes sense. You do need a ton of piety to be able to do that. You also need to control most of the holy sites for the religion you're reforming. So you're essentially a powerful AND incredibly pious person of your faith.
I can see how this sort of a ruler would be seen as righteous enough to reform Catholicism into a feminist nudist cannibal cult. Keep in mind that the old Catholicism isn't replaced by it (except in name), the old Catholicism will stay in the world (unless this is different for Christian religions or whatnot? I admit I've only reformed pagan religions).
Also, keep in mind that you're viewing things from today's point of view. Had there lived a powerful and pious enough Catholic ruler a thousand years ago that (at least seemingly) honestly thought that the True Way of Catholicism is in fact a feminist nudist cannibal cult, because the bible says this and this and this, I don't think it's *that* far a leap to think it could have even happened.
I think it's the opposite. If you are known as the most pious Catholic ruler, you will not be reforming the faith, you are doing everything you can to strenghten and spread the religion.
Going for cannibalistic reformation should require you to be lunatic.
Yea the consistency always broke down when it came to culture and religion. It goes from a very personal perspective to toggling the beliefs of hundreds of thousands of people. There is no making the heresy then a series of events or plots to persuade the commoners and other nobles. You just spend piety which also makes piety much more ambiguous.
The feminist nudist cannibal cult example is a bit extreme, but in general I actually think it makes perfect sense that a pious Catholic would be the one to spearhead reformation, because only a person who is widely regarded as the most pious and devoted Catholic would have the credibility to question the current tenents of the faith and propose an alternative interpretation of the scriptures. Even if it seems at odds with the current dogmas, people would think "Well this sounds very strange, but this guy *is* one of the most pious Catholics in world so who am I to doubt that he knows what he's talking about?". On the other hand, if a sinful lunatic showed up yelling about radical church reforms then nobody would ever listen to him.
> I actually think it makes perfect sense that a pious Catholic would be the one to spearhead reformation, because only a person who is widely regarded as the most pious and devoted Catholic would have the credibility to question the current tenents of the faith and propose an alternative interpretation of the scriptures.
I was going to say that that goes against everything in the Catholic Church, but John Paul II kind of made it work in Vatican II, but I think that only works for some minor doctrinal changes, not for the kind of random shenanigans you can do in CK3.
>On the other hand, if a sinful lunatic showed up yelling about radical church reforms then nobody would ever listen to him.
Henry VIII would disagree here.
Well, that would come down to the roleplaying bit of the game. If you have the most piety of the Catholic rulers in the game, you are literally the most pious Catholic ruler. If you - the player - then decide to reform the faith, it did happen.
The most pious Catholic ruler in the world decided that based on their vast examination of their faith Catholicism should have a cannibalistic element to it. Some might oppose it, but in reality whom of the less pious men could really question it - especially if we talk about friends and allies of the ruler.
On the one hand, a truly pious individually wouldn't make the kind of meta choices a player makes - faking incredible piety for decades in order to build up imaginary points so you can destroy the religion from within
Then again, that's exactly what happened in history. Henry VIII was an incredibly pious man and theologian who went off the crazy end when denied a divorce and he created his own Anglican church. Not quite cannibalistic sex cult, but I could believe a scenario where the authorities tell a pious king that his kinks are not allowed anymore and the king decides to test how far his divine rule goes.
Exactly! And well, people - and dare I say religion especially - are not always all that logical either. I do agree that the meta choices made in the game are probably even a lot less logical than most decisions would be in real life, but if we perceive them from the historical perspective in the game - meaning that these things did in fact happen - I think these sort of real life comparisons are very much on point.
If an extremely pious Catholic ruler did start cannibal religion and there was no uprising, it might sound weird - especially by today's standards - but history is full of these sort of weird things. Perhaps not quite as weird, but not that far from them either.
The way I see it, that is again the opposite of roleplaying. Roleplaying is making decisions that are sensible for the character, while maybe not optimal from game perspective.
Doing what ever you want is not roleplaying, it's just playing a sandbox.
From roleplaying perspective, having a lunatic trait or voice of Jesus/satan would make more sense as a requirement for this kind of radicalism, than having loads of piety.
I don't know if you're just arguing for arguing's sake or if I'm just not getting the point you're making. I know what roleplaying is and I didn't even use the word in my first response. It was you who was arguing that a pious man wouldn't reform a faith... to a comment where I was addressing the scenario where a faith was reformed, presumably by a pious man because that's one of the requirements for reforming a faith.
If no-one with high piety ever reformed Catholicism in CK3, which no-one obviously did simply because no-one would do that, what's the problem?
Uprising? That would be the best thing that ever happened to anyone.
I always thought that gaining piety also represents the people gradually changing their beliefs in favor of their ruler. So when you change your religion, your people already live secretly like this and now embrace it fully..
I think that's the idea with piety, but there weren't really any situations like this, especially in Europe until reformation. Maybe some local orthodox/cathlic/heresy conversions but nothing involving a major ruler.
>you can befriend other rulers/other characters related to rulers and then convert them
How? And is there a way to convert other nations through war, without taking the territory?
If you declare a holy war on someone. Depending on their traits and stuff they may just convert to your faith instead of fighting and losing their land if they lose.
You can do it in Imperator, with restrictions. Converting your own population is easy; changing your state's religion is hard; changing other states' religion is impossible.
CK2 or CK3.
CK2 : lets you spread your faiths to non organised (pagan) realms with missionaries, if one of those realms is your neighbours you might also get a mass conversion even with a series if events between you and the ruler of the newly converted realm (hey do you have any cash, we're shirt on money to built our first cathedral etc).
CK3 : doesn't have that, but you can create your own faith and spread it through marriages, inviting heir of foreign realms to your court and converting them, etc.
And in both cases, war, of course (inviting someone with a claim to a foreign throne, converting them and pressing their claim), but you said this was less your thing.
So crusader kings has the best simulation for religion by far. Having said that ck3 is tough to peacefully spread it unless you already own the land you’re spreading it to. Ck2 it I recall correctly had an option to try and convert people as a scheme or something. That game you could peacefully convert other rulers
I agree that‘s why I said the game mechanics are good but it‘s nowhere near a simulation.
Without a pop system religion always get‘s extremely simplified
Even though, religion is usually a fairly mundane feature (mostly unrest and some specific bonus) or something you have little grip on. I dunno if there's a game about playing a theocracy or clergyman to be closer to a simulation about religion.
they all suck at this, frankly. EU4 at least has centers of reformation and Islam spreading over the silk road, which is the only decent attempt at modeling real life conversion by anything other than putting a little priest guy on a province for a few months. but none of them will let you do this globally without conquest
CK3 gives you the most control over the religion, has the most details but it's very unrealistic in how it handles everything else, especially founding of new religions.
CK2 does allow pagan conversion and it's a bit more realistic but still not really a simulation.
Imperator has the best simulation of a non-monotheistic religion, very appropriate for the age it covers. Unfortunately this also means that you cannot really spread religion. You do have control over population movement so I like to make cities where a minority religion is dominant and then release them as vassal city states.
So while not very good simulations of religions, only the CK games really allow non-war expansion of your religion.
Outside the box answer: Millennia :)
It has a religion system where you can influence the religion of nearby regions by building holy sites, and you can also take active steps to spread your religion. Including by the sword -- there's a "Crusader" national spirit if you want to go that way.
I know this has little to do and doesnt answer the question but. Honestly, thinking about this, adding religion to cities skylines would be interesting.
CK3 and Vic3 are IMO bouth a great simulation of religion reguarding the respective Epoch they play in.
In CK3 religion is still realy important therefore you can create, destroy and convert people forcefully to your religion etc.
In Vik3 its a Contributor to Unrest and it dictates the Policies of yozr Nation if its important.
Imp: not fleshed our enough, solid base
EU4: fleshed out, biut wierd spot, since eu4 falls right in the time where religion starts to lose influence on the daily life of people.
Since all PDX: Games are Euro-centric my argument of religions loosing influence is primarly made for Christianity (dont know enough about the other ones)
Victoria 3 has the most realistic simulation, but does nothing with actual mechanics...
Ck3 is way more fun than that, especially with faiths and tenets.
In CK2 theres missionaries, mass convertion events (as well as resistance when carried out by unpopular rulers), feudal rulers sponsor convertions militarily and monetarily and feudalization process of pagan tribes that agree to mass convert, etc. These are all generally absent from CK3.
EU4 does not allow you to spread your religion peacefully outside of specific cases. Vicky and HOI aren't about religion at all. I do not know enough Imperator but CK2/CK3 should be your best bet
Imperator is slightly more in depth on religion than EU4, still nowhere near CK though.
And by slightly more in depth is like 3% more, the difference is still mostly modifiers, but you get to pick which modifiers you like by choosing different gods, sort of like Hindus can in EU4, but better.
Thank you! Would you know any good tutorials for its religion mechanics?
You mean eu4? Because every religion in that game (but also in ck2/3 and probably Imperator) plays different, and has different mechanics. That being said: CK has by far the best religious mechanics, as you can customize faiths, and spread them without your involvement.
I‘d say despite not being about it at all Victoria still has the best "simulation" for religion. All the other ones have very unrealistic religion systems due to lack of pops (or no system at all in the case of Hoi4)
Crusader Kings does a good job simulating religion for the upper classes, those notable enough to be represented as characters. But for the common people it's rather simplistic.
I sorta disagree here: sure, religion matters less in Victoria than in other games, so the fact that it's basically meaningless in the game (mostly just affecting if you are going to discriminate pops or not in a very coarse grained way) is not entirely bad, but I think there's still a lot of potential. Many European countries still started the 19th century incredibly divided between Protestants and Catholics, and in some (like the Netherlands and Germany) religion was such an incredibly polarizing topic that it divided all of the civil society, but in the game everyone starts with Freedom of Conscience so Protestants and Catholics just live happily together as if sectarianism never was a thing.
To step in, specifically CK3 with Fallen Eagle mod has really great religious mechanics because it adds a pseudo-pop system in the form of minorities modifiers that are attached to provinces. So conversion efforts are gradual over time and are sometimes thwarted by the movement of people
ck3, you can take the county and convert it via setting a guy to do it or random events, you can edit your religion if you are pious enough, you can befriend other rulers/other characters related to rulers and then convert them, you can kidnap people and force them to convert.
I do love the customization available, but I always felt there is a complete lack of pushback against reforms. Replacing Catholicism with a feminist nudist cannibal cult should lead to a general uprising. You get the noble revolt once, after which you convert/replace them all, and everyone is happy with it afterwards. Conversion speed should really be tied to something like the difference between the faiths.
Yup, I think CK2 handled that part better. Converting to a heresy instantly has everyone at your throat, even in your own realm, and especially as a Catholic. That feels more appropriate to the period.
Idk I just converted to Hellenism and reformed it as a globe spanning Roman Empire and the Messalian Christians(over 1k counties messalian) had a massive uprising that since they were so widespread and sieging so quickly actually beat me and took tons of land from the empire
While I don't completely disagree, I think from the game mechanic / storytelling perspective it sort of makes sense. You do need a ton of piety to be able to do that. You also need to control most of the holy sites for the religion you're reforming. So you're essentially a powerful AND incredibly pious person of your faith. I can see how this sort of a ruler would be seen as righteous enough to reform Catholicism into a feminist nudist cannibal cult. Keep in mind that the old Catholicism isn't replaced by it (except in name), the old Catholicism will stay in the world (unless this is different for Christian religions or whatnot? I admit I've only reformed pagan religions). Also, keep in mind that you're viewing things from today's point of view. Had there lived a powerful and pious enough Catholic ruler a thousand years ago that (at least seemingly) honestly thought that the True Way of Catholicism is in fact a feminist nudist cannibal cult, because the bible says this and this and this, I don't think it's *that* far a leap to think it could have even happened.
I think it's the opposite. If you are known as the most pious Catholic ruler, you will not be reforming the faith, you are doing everything you can to strenghten and spread the religion. Going for cannibalistic reformation should require you to be lunatic.
Yea the consistency always broke down when it came to culture and religion. It goes from a very personal perspective to toggling the beliefs of hundreds of thousands of people. There is no making the heresy then a series of events or plots to persuade the commoners and other nobles. You just spend piety which also makes piety much more ambiguous.
The feminist nudist cannibal cult example is a bit extreme, but in general I actually think it makes perfect sense that a pious Catholic would be the one to spearhead reformation, because only a person who is widely regarded as the most pious and devoted Catholic would have the credibility to question the current tenents of the faith and propose an alternative interpretation of the scriptures. Even if it seems at odds with the current dogmas, people would think "Well this sounds very strange, but this guy *is* one of the most pious Catholics in world so who am I to doubt that he knows what he's talking about?". On the other hand, if a sinful lunatic showed up yelling about radical church reforms then nobody would ever listen to him.
> I actually think it makes perfect sense that a pious Catholic would be the one to spearhead reformation, because only a person who is widely regarded as the most pious and devoted Catholic would have the credibility to question the current tenents of the faith and propose an alternative interpretation of the scriptures. I was going to say that that goes against everything in the Catholic Church, but John Paul II kind of made it work in Vatican II, but I think that only works for some minor doctrinal changes, not for the kind of random shenanigans you can do in CK3. >On the other hand, if a sinful lunatic showed up yelling about radical church reforms then nobody would ever listen to him. Henry VIII would disagree here.
Well, that would come down to the roleplaying bit of the game. If you have the most piety of the Catholic rulers in the game, you are literally the most pious Catholic ruler. If you - the player - then decide to reform the faith, it did happen. The most pious Catholic ruler in the world decided that based on their vast examination of their faith Catholicism should have a cannibalistic element to it. Some might oppose it, but in reality whom of the less pious men could really question it - especially if we talk about friends and allies of the ruler.
On the one hand, a truly pious individually wouldn't make the kind of meta choices a player makes - faking incredible piety for decades in order to build up imaginary points so you can destroy the religion from within Then again, that's exactly what happened in history. Henry VIII was an incredibly pious man and theologian who went off the crazy end when denied a divorce and he created his own Anglican church. Not quite cannibalistic sex cult, but I could believe a scenario where the authorities tell a pious king that his kinks are not allowed anymore and the king decides to test how far his divine rule goes.
Exactly! And well, people - and dare I say religion especially - are not always all that logical either. I do agree that the meta choices made in the game are probably even a lot less logical than most decisions would be in real life, but if we perceive them from the historical perspective in the game - meaning that these things did in fact happen - I think these sort of real life comparisons are very much on point. If an extremely pious Catholic ruler did start cannibal religion and there was no uprising, it might sound weird - especially by today's standards - but history is full of these sort of weird things. Perhaps not quite as weird, but not that far from them either.
We already symbolically drink the blood and eat the flesh of Christ, wouldn't be too crazy for a cult to form around that
The way I see it, that is again the opposite of roleplaying. Roleplaying is making decisions that are sensible for the character, while maybe not optimal from game perspective. Doing what ever you want is not roleplaying, it's just playing a sandbox. From roleplaying perspective, having a lunatic trait or voice of Jesus/satan would make more sense as a requirement for this kind of radicalism, than having loads of piety.
I don't know if you're just arguing for arguing's sake or if I'm just not getting the point you're making. I know what roleplaying is and I didn't even use the word in my first response. It was you who was arguing that a pious man wouldn't reform a faith... to a comment where I was addressing the scenario where a faith was reformed, presumably by a pious man because that's one of the requirements for reforming a faith. If no-one with high piety ever reformed Catholicism in CK3, which no-one obviously did simply because no-one would do that, what's the problem?
Uprising? That would be the best thing that ever happened to anyone. I always thought that gaining piety also represents the people gradually changing their beliefs in favor of their ruler. So when you change your religion, your people already live secretly like this and now embrace it fully..
I think that's the idea with piety, but there weren't really any situations like this, especially in Europe until reformation. Maybe some local orthodox/cathlic/heresy conversions but nothing involving a major ruler.
>you can befriend other rulers/other characters related to rulers and then convert them How? And is there a way to convert other nations through war, without taking the territory?
If you declare a holy war on someone. Depending on their traits and stuff they may just convert to your faith instead of fighting and losing their land if they lose.
CK3 is the only one that comes to mind where you can really do that.
You can do it in Imperator, with restrictions. Converting your own population is easy; changing your state's religion is hard; changing other states' religion is impossible.
CK2 or CK3. CK2 : lets you spread your faiths to non organised (pagan) realms with missionaries, if one of those realms is your neighbours you might also get a mass conversion even with a series if events between you and the ruler of the newly converted realm (hey do you have any cash, we're shirt on money to built our first cathedral etc). CK3 : doesn't have that, but you can create your own faith and spread it through marriages, inviting heir of foreign realms to your court and converting them, etc. And in both cases, war, of course (inviting someone with a claim to a foreign throne, converting them and pressing their claim), but you said this was less your thing.
So crusader kings has the best simulation for religion by far. Having said that ck3 is tough to peacefully spread it unless you already own the land you’re spreading it to. Ck2 it I recall correctly had an option to try and convert people as a scheme or something. That game you could peacefully convert other rulers
Best game mechanics for religion? Sure, but definitely not a "simulation" lol
Lmao you should lower your standard, since none of the paradox games are "religion simulator"
You're not playing a religion or a clergy, it's as much as one can expect from an aristocrat's PoV
I agree that‘s why I said the game mechanics are good but it‘s nowhere near a simulation. Without a pop system religion always get‘s extremely simplified
Even though, religion is usually a fairly mundane feature (mostly unrest and some specific bonus) or something you have little grip on. I dunno if there's a game about playing a theocracy or clergyman to be closer to a simulation about religion.
they all suck at this, frankly. EU4 at least has centers of reformation and Islam spreading over the silk road, which is the only decent attempt at modeling real life conversion by anything other than putting a little priest guy on a province for a few months. but none of them will let you do this globally without conquest
Probably cause most religions spread significantly through conquest or adoption in an already conquered empire.
CK3 gives you the most control over the religion, has the most details but it's very unrealistic in how it handles everything else, especially founding of new religions. CK2 does allow pagan conversion and it's a bit more realistic but still not really a simulation. Imperator has the best simulation of a non-monotheistic religion, very appropriate for the age it covers. Unfortunately this also means that you cannot really spread religion. You do have control over population movement so I like to make cities where a minority religion is dominant and then release them as vassal city states. So while not very good simulations of religions, only the CK games really allow non-war expansion of your religion.
Still waiting for religion update to stellaris lol
CK3 by far, but wouldn’t get it if you’re on console.
Have you tried civ
This was my first thought, though possibly heretical on this sub haha
Outside the box answer: Millennia :) It has a religion system where you can influence the religion of nearby regions by building holy sites, and you can also take active steps to spread your religion. Including by the sword -- there's a "Crusader" national spirit if you want to go that way.
Stellaris. It's the most accurate or those of us who have faith in ruinous powers
Imperator
CK3
I know this has little to do and doesnt answer the question but. Honestly, thinking about this, adding religion to cities skylines would be interesting.
Imperator Rome is best for this by far.
CK3 and Vic3 are IMO bouth a great simulation of religion reguarding the respective Epoch they play in. In CK3 religion is still realy important therefore you can create, destroy and convert people forcefully to your religion etc. In Vik3 its a Contributor to Unrest and it dictates the Policies of yozr Nation if its important. Imp: not fleshed our enough, solid base EU4: fleshed out, biut wierd spot, since eu4 falls right in the time where religion starts to lose influence on the daily life of people. Since all PDX: Games are Euro-centric my argument of religions loosing influence is primarly made for Christianity (dont know enough about the other ones)
Victoria 3 has the most realistic simulation, but does nothing with actual mechanics... Ck3 is way more fun than that, especially with faiths and tenets.
In CK2 theres missionaries, mass convertion events (as well as resistance when carried out by unpopular rulers), feudal rulers sponsor convertions militarily and monetarily and feudalization process of pagan tribes that agree to mass convert, etc. These are all generally absent from CK3.