A very general few questions about religion

[Boogie Knight]

Hello! I've posted once or twice here before but I've mostly just lurked. I'm very, very interested in this mod and will probably download it as soon as I have the time.

Now I appreciate this mod isn't yet finished, I just wanted to ask a few question about religion. Specifically, how heavily is it represented?

I know temples are in the game; do specific factions build temples to specific gods, or is it just 'Temple' levels 1, 2, and 3? I know that's probably a bit of a pedantic question but these things matter to me. Is there a choice to build temples exclusively for one god or goddess, like vanilla Med2's Lithuania choosing just one temple building line in a settlement, effectively devoting that settlement and its units to that particular deity? Or are the temples all-inclusive of that faction's pantheon?

Are there units devoted to the service of particular deities? Again, Lithuania had such units as Giltine's Chosen or Deivas' Guard. Are there similar units here, unlocked by the building of religious centres or other means? I was looking at EB1's Casse roster the other day and saw something like warrior druids - that sort of thing, really. I don't know enough about the subject of ancient religions to know if such things actually existed across the ancient world, though druids were of course mentioned fighting at Hollyhead. If we know for certain they didn't exist then I'd rather not have them, but if they're attested to (and I know you guys know your history) it'd be great to have them in.

I'm sure I'll remember something I've forgotten to ask later on, but to finish up for now, is the representation of these religions evenly spread insofar as is possible? Have some factions had more attention in this area than others? Obviously there's more we know about from some cultures than others, but does each faction have some sort of religious element?

And to FINALLY finish up properly this time, if the answer to any of these questions is no, are there plans to implement such things in the future?

Many thanks in advance!

[Darkan]

As far as I can remember (haven't played the mod in about 2-3 weeks), the temple line designation in the building browser is the same for all factions, as in Temple of Forge, Temple of Law, Temple of Fertility etc. (I remember them being 5), but depending on the faction you play, each temple is dedicated to one God/Goddess. Also, I think they will be worked on at some point as people have mainly found that the temple of law line is the best to use, but I don't actually know if anyone played a long enough campaign to test whether the others are worthwhile.

Regarding units, none that I've seen are connected to the temples or have religious reasons for being in the mod, but granted I only played a bit of Pergamon and Rome, so can't actually speak for the other factions.

I don't know if you are/were aware of this or if it was intended in your question/s, but know that religion has been replaced with culture, so instead the city info screen will show (Messana, for example, in Sicily, from memory) something like 35% Western Polities, 45% Hellenistic Polities..., where western polities represents west Mediterranean culture, hellenistic is hellenic culture, etc.

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

[Mantaprey]

Are there units devoted to the service of particular deities.

From what i remember sacred band get extra recruitment from the highest level temple of battle, its a goddess that i cant remember right now. In the Succelos description it mentions hammer wielding fanatics so it may be a future unit. Succelos main area of worship is located in the wales region.

[Jervaj]

Yeah, the temples are dedicated to different goods in each faction although the main lines are basically the same with some small differences in some factions.

[QuintusSertorius]

What is different even at the lower levels, though, is he impact of temples on FMs in that settlement. Both on their development of traits and acquisition of ancillaries.

[Boogie Knight]

Thank you all for the answers. Very helpful!

One thing I don't understand though; two of you have said that the Temples are dedicated to different (faction-specific? Yes? No?) gods, but Darkan's reply implied the Temple building line is the same for each faction. So is this dedication to be found in the names of the buildings themselves, or their description? Darkan's explanation about culture and how it has replaced the religion stat of the vanilla game makes me wonder: do the buildings all come in the new versions of these themes, much as Christian factions would build churches and Muslim ones Mosques?

For example: would factions of the Hellenistic Polities culture all build the same Temple line, perhaps unique to them, which would venerate the same gods? In this case, the gods of the ancient Greeks?

I'm very interested to hear that different temples give different traits to FMs (I'm assuming you mean family members?) - this also makes me wonder, if a faction of one culture captures the settlement of another, are their temples destroyed?

[Jervaj]

What is meant is that yo uhave the common ones for example, temple of governors, temple of fertility, temple of fun....
But in each faction the god changes.
The temple that for Rome is Mars for KH is Ares and each faction has its gods for every line.
About the buldings. Yeah they differ from culture to culture though most have their equivalent in every culture but they look and are named different. Theres even differences in factions that share the same culture sometimes.

The only building that gets destroyed when you capture a settlement is the goverment. The others you can destroy them mannually but most keep doing what they did before. And when youa re able to upgrade them they change to your faction's equivalent while doing so. Theres some though, like polis or colonies that become useless to you if you dont share the culture or even when you do. They even give negative bonus sometimes so its wise to destroy them when possible.

[Shadowwalker]

.
The temple that for Rome is Mars for KH is Ares and each faction has its gods for every line.

[nitpicker mode]
Not entirely true, Jervaj. There are factions missing the "temple of governors" line (some barbarian onces I don't seem to be able to remeber which faction exactly, though).

And Saba has exactly 2 temple lines at the moment - battle and governor. (With the current bonuses the temples provide I only ever build temples of Almagah/governor with Saba, because you direly need those law upgrades as Saba, holding provinces in eastern Arabia or the Nile region and making some money still is fairly impossible otherwise ).
[/nitpicker mode]

The Temple line of buildings have no impact on the culture division within a settlement.

There are factions though that need a certain government/temple combination for their reforms as this combination does give a culture conversion bonus, which is mentioned in the descriptions of the respective government buildings. *cough* Saba *cough*

[Jervaj]

[nitpicker mode]
Not entirely true, Jervaj. There are factions missing the "temple of governors" line (some barbarian onces I don't seem to be able to remeber which faction exactly, though).

And Saba has exactly 2 temple lines at the moment - battle and governor. (With the current bonuses the temples provide I only ever build temples of Almagah/governor with Saba, because you direly need those law upgrades as Saba, holding provinces in eastern Arabia or the Nile region and making some money still is fairly impossible otherwise ).
[/nitpicker mode]

There are factions though that need a certain government/temple combination for their reforms as this combination does give a culture conversion bonus, which is mentioned in the descriptions of the respective government buildings. *cough* Saba *cough*

[counternitpicker mode]I will quote myself:

Yeah, the temples are dedicated to different goods in each faction although the main lines are basically the same with some small differences in some factions.

[/counternitpicker mode]

No offence, I actually expect you laugh with this

[Darkan]

There are factions though that need a certain government/temple combination for their reforms as this combination does give a culture conversion bonus, which is mentioned in the descriptions of the respective government buildings. *cough* Saba *cough*

It's good to know. I haven't played Saba at all. I guess after the autumn release we might get/work on some kind of explanation material regarding culture, reforms, economy, traits, etc.

[Hummer]

Negative bonus on a temple of a different culture? Are you sure?

[Jervaj]

I didnt said temples I said: "The only building that gets destroyed when you capture a settlement is the goverment. The others you can destroy them manually but most keep doing what they did before."

Temples are included in this group. At least the ones i have seen so far.

But Polis or colonies ussually give only a negative impact on happiness if culture doesnt match.

[Hummer]

My bad, I misunderstood.

[Darkan]

The Temple line of buildings have no impact on the culture division within a settlement. It's not like vanilla, when you build a church/mosque and the associated religion starts going up. There are other buildings that influence this (culture, I mean).

[Boogie Knight]

Wow. It sounds like they're a lot more important than I'd anticipated. So far I haven't played much; about twenty turns as the Sweboz in 2.03k and I've just started a new campaign in 2.04 as the Aedui. As the Sweboz my economy went into the red on the second turn and by turn twenty I had -19,000 minai. It's looking like the Aedui are headed in that direction as well. So I haven't been able to properly explore temple building just yet, but I'm looking forward to it!

[delra]

You need to waste all your starting troops to start seeing light in terms of finances. Just waste them on something that prevents you from being conquered in the meantime, like a conquest of your enemies.