Questions regarding Religion and Cultures

[Casual Tactician]

How exaclty will EB2 use the m2tw religion mechanic and the seven culture slots?

All I could find on the topic were this statement from the FAQ:

Q: Will you represent cultures? How and which ones?
A: We will use the religion mechanism to represent socio-political affinities, which are in competition in varying degrees in any given settlement. This competition may end up in civil unrest, if a culture gets closer in importance to the dominant one. Certain factions will need to evolve to another culture, which will certainly trigger unrest throughout the territory, and that transition will be harder if the player wants to do it too fast. The cultures are:
- Arid Nomadism
- Steppe Nomadism
- Eastern Imperial
- Eastern Tribal
- European Tribal
- Forest Tribal
- Western Mediterranean Polities
- Hellenistic Polities
- Indian Tribal

And Kull answering to a post from Linus:

Is it really necessary to have two kinds of Nomadism as culture? Why not melting them to "Nomadism" and instead including "Kushitic" as a culture? I think representing Africa accurate should have a higher priority then 2 forms of Nomadism, espicially if it is possible then to include Meroe as a faction with it's own potraits.

There aren't two different Nomad cultures (in the sense that M2TW only has 7 cultures, like RTW before it). The steppe nomads are the same as always, but we have added the "Arid Nomad" religion to the "Semitic culture" (for Nabatu and Massylia). Assuming the Team (or some future modder) wanted to add Kush as a somewhat unique looking faction, you could:
- Create unique settlements - M2TW allows these to be different from one faction to another, even in the same culture. This would not be EASY, but it would be possible.
- Create unique portraits via "religion" - Let's assume we put Kush in the Semitic culture - if we gave them the "Forest Tribal" religion, then they could have unique portraits as no other faction in the Semitic group uses that religion.
- Create unique voice mods and text using "accents" - Right now all are spoken for, but one *could* take one of the lesser used accents and utilize it purely for Kush.

All of the above (and perhaps a few other things) are EXACTLY what has been done to make the Taksahila faction unique, even though they are part of the Eastern culture. Now this doesn't solve everything, since UIs and standard events can only be split up by culture. But even so, that still leaves a wide range of customization options that allow us to differentiate factions and make them feel far more unique and immersive than was possible with EB1.

It seems it's possible to give eg. Taksashila it's own unique portraits, using a mix of religion and culture - if I'm correct. Which I'm not sure of. This all seems to have a hell of a lot of potential.

Now my questions (NOTE: I'm going to keep calling religions religions rather than 'socio-political affinities' to not get people confused):

1. What's the limit for religions in M2TW? Is it the nine currently used in EB2?

2. Could someone explain the religions (aka "socio-political affinities") more detailed? What is eg. "Western Mediterranean Polities"? Do Rome and Carthage share the same religion, or is Carthage predominantly "Eastern Imperial"?

2. What effect will the competing religions have on unit recruitment? Does eg. recruitment of low tier phalanx units require a certain level of "Hellenistic Polities", and do high tier phalanx units require a higher level?

3. Which buildings (eg. government, province, populace, temples, 'wonders'... ) will influence religion? Will such buildings allow to train priests (renamed to eg. envoys), that can influence religion levels?

4. What factors other than buildings influence religion levels?

5. How are characters affected, and how do they themselves affect religion levels and public order? Do characters have traits or ancillaries that can influence religion levels (in the way priests do)? Are characters affected by religion buildings via traits and ancillaries? I can remember reading a tweet some time ago, that mentioned that temples can also give characters bad traits or something the like.

6. How are public order levels affected? Are there any major balancing problems?

7. What does the FAQ mean, when stating "Certain factions will need to evolve to another culture"? Which factions? And how does that evolution look like?

8. How exactly does mixing of religion and cultures, as Kull mentions above, work? One or two examples with specific factions would be really helpful. Is eg. Rome 'Roman(culture)-Western Mediterranean Polities(religion)'? But what about the Arche Seleukeia? And what does this mix offer for the representation of the 28 factions and what does it change when conquering foreign settlements?

PS: Are the seven cultures going to be the same as in EB1 (Roman, West Hellenic, East Hellenic, Semitic, Eastern, Nomad, Barbarian)?

[QuintusSertorius]

I can't for the life of me find it now, but someone posted a map showing the provinces with the culture(s) they contained which tied into this.

[Kull]

How exaclty will EB2 use the m2tw religion mechanic and the seven culture slots?

All I could find on the topic were this statement from the FAQ:And Kull answering to a post from Linus:It seems it's possible to give eg. Taksashila it's own unique portraits, using a mix of religion and culture - if I'm correct. Which I'm not sure of. This all seems to have a hell of a lot of potential.

Yes, yes it does.

Now my questions (NOTE: I'm going to keep calling religions religions rather than 'socio-political affinities' to not get people confused):

1. What's the limit for religions in M2TW? Is it the nine currently used in EB2?

Yes, nine.

2. Could someone explain the religions (aka "socio-political affinities") more detailed? What is eg. "Western Mediterranean Polities"? Do Rome and Carthage share the same religion, or is Carthage predominantly "Eastern Imperial"?

Rome and Carthage are Western Med Polities. But their cultures are different (Roman vs. Semitic), so the "look" of their portraits buildings, interfaces - basically everything - remains totally separate.

2. What effect will the competing religions have on unit recruitment? Does eg. recruitment of low tier phalanx units require a certain level of "Hellenistic Polities", and do high tier phalanx units require a higher level?

Sort of. The religion (i.e. the percentage) controls the type of government you can build, and THAT controls the kind of units you can recruit, which are ALSO restricted by region. So it adds a lot more nuance to the game. This is one of the reasons we ditched the much anticipated "populace buildings" - they would have immediately and eternally allowed recruitment of certain units in every province, regardless of religion or owning faction. It was a sledgehammer sitting next to our pretty scalpels.

3. Which buildings (eg. government, province, populace, temples, 'wonders'... ) will influence religion? Will such buildings allow to train priests (renamed to eg. envoys), that can influence religion levels?

Can't recall off hand, but there aren't many. Governments (of the right sort) and colonies. Possibly something else. Colonies matter, by the way.

4. What factors other than buildings influence religion levels?

I think that's it.

5. How are characters affected, and how do they themselves affect religion levels and public order? Do characters have traits or ancillaries that can influence religion levels (in the way priests do)? Are characters affected by religion buildings via traits and ancillaries? I can remember reading a tweet some time ago, that mentioned that temples can also give characters bad traits or something the like.

In EB2, temples aren't related to this sort of "religion". Think of it as a sort of culture that can shift over time, and as it does, that unlocks other areas of the game. Very, very powerful in terms of the things we can do with it.

6. How are public order levels affected? Are there any major balancing problems?

Public Order is very much affected. The populace doesn't like being controlled by a faction with a different religion. As for balancing, well it seems to work in our tests to this point. It's something you need to be aware of as you conquer your way across the map.

7. What does the FAQ mean, when stating "Certain factions will need to evolve to another culture"? Which factions? And how does that evolution look like?

Think "reforms". We'll leave it at that.

8. How exactly does mixing of religion and cultures, as Kull mentions above, work? One or two examples with specific factions would be really helpful. Is eg. Rome 'Roman(culture)-Western Mediterranean Polities(religion)'? But what about the Arche Seleukeia? And what does this mix offer for the representation of the 28 factions and what does it change when conquering foreign settlements?

There are two things going on here. The religion mechanism allows for the "culture" of a city/province to change over time, depending upon who is controlling it. RTW-type cultures were totally faction based, and once a faction of culture "x" conquered a place, they could more or less build everything just as they could back home. We used government types and MIC-levels and AOP to slow things down or keep the culture extension within historical boundaries, but it was very much a predefined and controlled system. The religion mechanism is totally different since it CAN shift over time, and that opens the possibilities to all sorts of things. Most of which we are - realistically - only scratching the surface of.

The second feature of religion is that you can use it to make same-culture factions look very different from one another. As noted in my earlier post, portraits in particular can be subdivided into different groups within the same culture. Thus within the Eastern Culture, the Indians look completely different from Pontos and Hayasdan who in turn look different from Parthia. Same with Semitic, where Carthage and Saba don't look anything like each other anymore. Other mechanisms can enhance this. Settlements can be different for EVERY faction, and the "voice" (both text and voice mods) are controlled by nine different "culture IDs", most of which parallel the existing seven, but not all. So your Germanic Diplomats will speak with a different "voice" than would the Gallic ones, for example. Cultures still control the UI (and thus the icons) along with message pics and text, but overall there is much more granularity to the game. Playing as Saba will not feel ANYTHING like playing as Carthage, even if you do share the same UI.

PS: Are the seven cultures going to be the same as in EB1 (Roman, West Hellenic, East Hellenic, Semitic, Eastern, Nomad, Barbarian)?

Yes. No changes here.

[Casual Tactician]

Thanks for the extensive answer! It was rather insightful. +rep

I can't wait for august to finally come.

[Legion_IX]

"4. What factors other than buildings influence religion levels?"
I think that's it.

What's about governors with specific traits?

[V.T. Marvin]

Actually the hard-coded limit to religions in M2TW:K is 10 religion slots and we are using them all. Besides the 9 socio-political types, or "cultures" we also have one generic "religion" used for gameplay mechanics purposes.

[Legion_IX]

Actually the hard-coded limit to religions in M2TW:K is 10 religion slots and we are using them all. Besides the 9 socio-political types, or "cultures" we also have one generic "religion" used for gameplay mechanics purposes.

Which one is it and which factions have such religion?

[V.T. Marvin]

It is called "rel_x" (internally) or "Eleutheroi" (externally) and Eleutheroi (slaves) faction has it, but in a sense it is present anywhere (scripting purposes, you know)...

EDIT:

The idea was to take advantage of M2TW mechanics that is supposed to auto-destroy buildings associated with a different religion upon conquest in order to get rid of buildings that represent policies rather than infrastructure and thus should not be taken over automatically by the conqueror. Unfortunately it does not work that way.

In any case we keep this religion slot reserved for such purpose in case that a way is found in the future to take exploit it.

[Legion_IX]

It is called "rel_x" (internally) or "Eleutheroi" (externally) and Eleutheroi (slaves) faction has it, but in a sense it is present anywhere (scripting purposes, you know)...

I see. Thanks

[Casual Tactician]

It is called "rel_x" (internally) or "Eleutheroi" (externally) and Eleutheroi (slaves) faction has it, but in a sense it is present anywhere (scripting purposes, you know)...

EDIT:

The idea was to take advantage of M2TW mechanics that is supposed to auto-destroy buildings associated with a different religion upon conquest in order to get rid of buildings that represent policies rather than infrastructure and thus should not be taken over automatically by the conqueror. Unfortunately it does not work that way.

In any case we keep this religion slot reserved for such purpose in case that a way is found in the future to take exploit it.

Just by the off chance, that you (the team) are unaware of this, the Fourt Age TW team have a mechanism to make the AI destroy unneeded buildings - it's for an upcoming RTW-mod though. But perhaps that or a similar mechanism would also work for M2TW/EB2? Here a quote from the features thread of that RTW-mod:

AI Destroys Useless Buildings

A major shortcoming of RTW's campaign AI is that it does not destroy buildings. If a faction captures a settlement that has buildings which are useless or even damaging to it and beneficial to the previous owner, it simply lets them be. This is a big advantage for the player especially, who essentially suffers no long-term consequences for losing a settlement to the AI, as all his faction's buildings will be there when he takes it again. In order to counter this limitation, a new system has been implemented in DoM which makes the AI destroy any buildings it does not benefit from as soon as a province is stabilised (its official culture is not a minority). This has a very powerful impact, because losing a settlement even briefly can result in expensive, time-consuming buildings being destroyed and lots of money and time having to be invested again in order to rebuild.

Images 1-2: The existing buildings upon capturing a province of the Empire of Harad with the Reunited Kingdom. The ones marked with red are useless/damaging to RK (Empire of Harad's Provincial Control, Empire of Harad's Military Development, Execution Square and Haradrian Culture Conversion).
Image 3: Upon activating "Local Governance" (which lets the AI manage the settlement for the player), the buildings marked in red have been destroyed. No other buildings have been touched (Markets, etc.) as they provide bonuses for RK as well.
Image 4: Reunited Kingdom builds some of its own faction- and culture-specific buildings, which are the three visible on the second slide of the building panel (Provincial Control, Military Development and Cultural Conversion).
Image 5: The Empire of Harad retakes the settlement and immediately destroys only those three buildings.

BTW, anyone interested in modding and what new stuff you can do with the good old RTW-engine, have a look at the above linked thread.

[Kull]

This is either built-in to M2TW or something we coded, because un-shared buildings are lost on conquest.

[clone]

you speak of changing culture.some questions
1 are you going to make a distinction between type of goverment and type of conquest(assimilation -partial assimilation-non assimilation
for example eb1 didnt make distinction between a kh tyranos enchorios in a greek city and in a roman city. now in eb2 where recruitment is done mostly by goverment are you going to change it?
2 change of culture should be very very slowly but i would like to ask will all faction can change the culture of the province( celts capturing athens for example)

[Kull]

you speak of changing culture.some questions
1 are you going to make a distinction between type of goverment and type of conquest(assimilation -partial assimilation-non assimilation
for example eb1 didnt make distinction between a kh tyranos enchorios in a greek city and in a roman city. now in eb2 where recruitment is done mostly by goverment are you going to change it?
2 change of culture should be very very slowly but i would like to ask will all faction can change the culture of the province( celts capturing athens for example)

Governments matter. An Allied State is just what it (should) sound like. A different culture that supports your faction. As such, the culture won't change. Why would it? The people who ran it before you conquered the place are still in charge. But they can supply you with troops - their kind of troops - almost immediately. Ah...but you want to change the province such that the culture becomes the same as yours? You can, but it will take time and nobody will be happy about it, and you won't be able to recruit "your" sorts of troops - or any others - for quite some while. So. Which choice do you make?

As for culture change, there is no "master culture". Any culture can convert another.

[clone]

Governments matter. An Allied State is just what it (should) sound like. A different culture that supports your faction. As such, the culture won't change. Why would it? The people who ran it before you conquered the place are still in charge. But they can supply you with troops - their kind of troops - almost immediately. Ah...but you want to change the province such that the culture becomes the same as yours? You can, but it will take time and nobody will be happy about it, and you won't be able to recruit "your" sorts of troops - or any others - for quite some while. So. Which choice do you make?

As for culture change, there is no "master culture". Any culture can convert another.

1 about goverments:some goverments are more culture specific but some are not.for example i understand that with macedonian symachos ephrouros helenizetion is going to be light to non existance.but some goverments like satrapia are newtral.you should be able to choose using satrapia if you want to helenize them or not
2 would nt be weird germans converting greeks or romans.even romans that conqured greeks didnt convert them rather the greeks did.i thing "barbarian" factions should have only migration to a province in order to populate it after the have terorized the locan populace(killed,exile or simple terrorize them)

[Legion_IX]

Governments matter. An Allied State is just what it (should) sound like. A different culture that supports your faction. As such, the culture won't change. Why would it? The people who ran it before you conquered the place are still in charge. But they can supply you with troops - their kind of troops - almost immediately. Ah...but you want to change the province such that the culture becomes the same as yours? You can, but it will take time and nobody will be happy about it, and you won't be able to recruit "your" sorts of troops - or any others - for quite some while. So. Which choice do you make?

As for culture change, there is no "master culture". Any culture can convert another.

Is the rate of assimilation for every culture the same or are there some specific bonuses/penalties?

What I mean are categories (like low-middle-good-very good) for to be assimilated and assimilate others. For example continental celts can be assimilated very easy but they are good to assimilate others, germans are very difficult to assimilate but also bad in assimilating other cultures, greeks are relatively difficult to assimilate and good in assimilating others, romans are very difficult to assimilate and also very effective in assimilating other cultures and so on. The result would be that only good assimilators can succesfully assimilate tough cultures. For example romans, probably greeks and some others have a chance to assimilate Germania, for Carthago it would be very, very difficult and for Pritanoi or Armenians nearly impossible.

[Gryphon Templar]

So it is theoretically possible to recruit elite soldiers (Like Cataphracts for Hayasdan) in each region? So no dependence on Homeland regions more and it only depends on culture-religion?

[Kull]

So it is theoretically possible to recruit elite soldiers (Like Cataphracts for Hayasdan) in each region? So no dependence on Homeland regions more and it only depends on culture-religion?

Certain units are restricted to historical locations others not. It's not just blob your culture and recruit everything wherever you go. Ugh.

[Gryphon Templar]

Thanks for the clarification, "recruited your sorts of troops" has sounded a little after that.

[naq]

Certain units are restricted to historical locations others not. It's not just blob your culture and recruit everything wherever you go. Ugh.

Why not make it require high level of culture, for example require 100% parthian culture for cataphract? That could be used to represent the migration of peoples to newly conquered areas.

[QuintusSertorius]

Is it really so hard for people to use some regionals/mercenaries in their armies, rather than solely factional troops? Historical armies of this period were always a mixture of cultures, I don't understand this desire some people have to only want to use one culture's troops alone.