Clergy: Ideation and Feedback

[opaxite]

Introduction
I have very little knowledge about making TW mods, so I'd be very grateful for more ideas, feedback on feasibility, general usefulness and balancing problems these ideas would create. Please let me know if anyone wants to cooperate on this.

I've been thinking about the potential of Priests and what could be done about them in order to make them a satisfying, historically accurate part of the game. As there is much less priests in the game (especially in the beginning), we could focus on the remaining individuals a bit more. For the first 100 turns or so, I only had two priests, which seems both pretty manageable, but also under-utilized. All I did with the priests was increasing religious conversion in a province once the Pope told me so, and occasionally go fight some heretics.

Could we turn Priests into much more influential characters, as they were in history? Could we actually make them memorable, create a bond with the player, make them influence the gameplay and improve roleplay? And, most importantly, how could we do this just expanding existing mechanics?

Historical background
Just taking from what I've read: During middle ages, priests were very influental characters. From converting heretics in pagan lands, being murdered and becoming martyrs and saint patrons of whole nations, performing the role of scientists, physicians and philosophers, to striking unrest, igniting rebellions and starting reformation.

Existing Vanilla mechanics: What we can work with
This is what I figured can be worked on with Priests. Please correct me if I'm using some terms wrong, and if there's things I'm missing. In general, most of the priests are only getting 2 to 3 ancillaries, so there's enough space for that.

Triggers

• Agent created
• End turn in region
• Time in region
• End turn in settlement
• Time in settlement
• Interactions with a witch or heretic

Missions

• Papal missions
• Council missions
• Guild missions

Here's how it works in vanilla:
https://totalwar.fandom.com/wiki/Pri...II:_Total_War)

Rough Ideas Dumpster
Here I'm trying to propose: Trigger / What happens in Priest's life / How that could translate to a game mechanic. I haven't even gotten too deep into reading about the role of Clergy in Middle ages and there seems to be plenty of potential.

Priest: Triggers

• Agent created / Priest Consecrated / Ancillary or Trait created – Not worth adding anything probably, maybe just a better explanation in Agent created text
• Time in settlement with Library / Spend time in library / Very low chance of getting a Book ancillary (maybe with Scholar trait, like with Generals?)
• Time in settlement with Religious building and School / Writing and translating / Very low chance of writing a Tractate ancillary
• Time in settlement with a religious knights order / Being influenced by the order / Getting Cisterian trait
• End turn in settlement with a religious building / Preach / Increased conversion or reducing religious unrest in the settlement – isn't this in the game already?
• Time in settlement with brothel buildings / Getting corrupt / Getting negative traits, just like Generals
• Time in settlement with high tier religious building / Chance to get Provost trait, if Piety high enough: Basicaly adding a step between a Priest and a Cardinal; Can't become cardinal without this trait.

Priests: Effects on General

• End turn in settlement with a general and religious building / Baptize the general / Chance for the general to trigger "Baptized" trait (exclusive with Orthodox), way to increase their piety, give the priest a reason to travel around baptizing family members.

Priests: Missions

• Papal mission: Time in region – Spread religion in pagan lands / Chance of getting killed and becoming martyr and eventually patron saint / No idea how this could work further without scripting, ideas welcome
• Papal mission: End turn in region – Pilgrimage to Jerusalem / Trait to increase Piety
• Papal mission: Time in Region – Pilgrimage to Rome / Speaks Latin Trait / Needed to become a Cardinal
• Guild mission: Time in Region – Study in Paris / Positive trait like Merchants have the Studied in Bologna trait

Cardinals: Triggers

• Time in settlement with high tier Religious building and a University / Becoming specialized / Chance of getting Abbot, Doctor Universalis, Philosopher, Mathematician, Doctor Ecclesiae traits: Inspired by this Wiki; Could be very rare and have multiple effects
• End turn with high tier Religious building / “Provincial titles” for Priests like Bishop of Prague if cathedral present. One per character.
• Time in settlement with Hight tier Religious building and University / Writing and translating / Very low chance of writing a Codex ancillary

Cardinals: Effects on General

• End turn in settlement with a general / Influence the general / Low Chance of Triggering a General's trait, either Increasing or decreasing their piety based on Cardinal's faith
• End turn in settlement with a general / Influence construction / Decreasing time needed to build high tier religious buildings
• End turn in settlement with "Orthodox" trait general and High-tier religious building / Influence the general / A small chance to remove that trait?

Less viable ideas, scripting probably needed

• If a priest or cardinal has certain traits, he could be requested to be sent to a council, with a time limit. He can be condemned as a heretic and burned at stake; Basically just the Inquisitor mechanic somehow triggered.
• Mentioned above, becoming Martyr and Patron saint, there's a whole world around relics and martyr remains: Could be as simple as Martyr’s robe, or more specific, like Cross of Saint Adalbert. Not sure how these could be acquired, probably time in region after a priest is murdered there, but that doesn't pose much of a challenge. Would be also great if Generals could acquire those, so relics are not that incredibly rare.
• Scripted event: Inspired by the Hussites in Bohemia, there could be a an event where a high-level heretic spawned, probably with a couple of rebel stacks with him, Prague could just revolt, etc.
• Priests also composed songs and translated Bible; Probably not worth exploring.

[j.a.luna]

Good thread @opaxite!Are you going to make the modifications in the mod to make it possible?

I would add in this post some old religion proposal that i said some time ago...

1. Add more type of religions in sship as Shias, Sunnis (for fatimids/mamluks) and Judaism( maybe through creating Jewish neighborhoods with their benefits in exchange for converting part of your population to Judaism) and even schismatics like Protestantism in the Catholic church.

2. Make and remake the important religious figures as:
- The Antipope--- For catholic factions that have a cardenal and have been excommunicated, will have the figure of the Pope on the minimap (ecclesiastical figure), normally the HRE will be the one who has more preference in being able to acquire this figure (historically in Italy there were power struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines for the Church and the Pope)

- The Echumenical Patriarch of Contantinople--- currently as it is created in the game, you have to be an orthodox faction, have a metropolitan(8+piety)and have Constantinople (spend a turn in the settlement), a figure with more religious benefits, I would add a new skin different from the other orthodox metropolitans, perhaps an outfit black...

-The Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad--- for muslim factions ( sunni) , new skin for him, you must have Baghdad and have a Great Iman with 8+ piety, religious benefits and movement, similar to echumenical patriarch figure as maximum religious figure for Muslims (if there is a religious division it would only be for the sunnies)

-Iman/ Mulá/ Great Mufti--- Similar to catholic factions for priest/bishop and Cardenal but for muslim factions. Mula figure need at least and Jama ( church level), for Great Mufti need 8+ piety level, need new skins for the 3 level of muslims religious figures, maybe with small aesthetic touches like white beard and different outfit for Great Mufti, benefits could be added through traits and ancillaries (similar to echumenical patriarch with the title of ecumenical patriarch in the ancillaries and in their traits with their benefits for having those positions)

-Sorcerer / Shaman / Supreme Shaman--- Similar to catholic and muslims religious hierarchy but for pagans and tengrism

- -Jewish rabbis--- They would be introduced by script or perhaps in a similar way to heretics, but only through the new building Jewish neighborhoods or neighborhoods because these Jewish communities would have their own religious figures, need new figure and skin and traits

-review of heretic and witches figures, also i would add a boom of heretics with the event of Catars in south of France and Toulousse region.

3. Historical Conversion of factions, as mongols in muslims , lthuanians in catholics and also cumans in christians or muslims with its corresponding event and change in its structures, also that they give you the option to choose if you want to convert with its benefits and damages, although this requires a lot of work...


So I leave here in this thread my religious proposals for the mod, already raised previously in other threads. Maybe you could help me to make the modifications since I don't have much knowledge in it... Other mods like Bellum Crucis or Vanilla Beyond have similar characteristics to the ones I have mentioned in case you want to take a look at them.

I hope to help with my proposals and together improve this wonderful mod!

[opaxite]

Hi j.a.luna, thanks for the ideas, love your thinking!
My intention is a submod for SSHIP. I need to start small with something manageable, as I'm new to modding, but I will be recording all ideas and prioritizing them down the line. It's always about finding the middle ground between benefits and feasibility, and right now, I need a "Proof of Concept". I've divided my answers into separate parts below:

[1] Add more type of religions
In general, there's 10 possible religions in M2TW and SSHIP I think SSHIP uses 6 or 7 slots, so there's definitely space for adding more religions. I don't think it's necessarily worth it to add another main religion that would compete with others, but there might be some advantages from letting minor religions into your cities. If you have any examples from other mods, feel free to share!

[2] Make and remake the important religious figures (Antipope, Patriarch, Caliph, Iman, Sorcerer, Jewish rabbis...)
I'd absolutely love to do this at one point. Sadly, to my knowledge, there can only be 1 "pope" type of figure. You can "rebrand" him in various ways, but you can't add more, e.g. in Third Age, Sauron is essentailly the Pope from M2TW. I can think of some kind of ancillary or trait that a cardinal from an excommunicated faction would gain, or unique ancillary for each of those religions. But essentially, the only thing you can change about priests, is how they influence religious conversion, how likely are they to ascend in hierarchy, how likely are they to turn heretic, and how likely are they to denounce a heretic. Also Heretics are able to influence other characters that end turn next to them, maybe it could work for Priests as well, but AI would not know how to use this. So I'm afraid that anything that can be done will be more or less cosmetic adjustments. In any case, it might still be a worthwhile effort, even if solely for roleplaying reasons.

[3] Review of Heretics and Witches
I think this deserves attention. Even though the base mechanics can't be changed much again, right now both heretics and witches look like fantasy units to me. Historically speaking, many were declared a heretic purely for political and power-related reasons, they did not walk barefoot in ragged clothes, etc. Moreover, if there was some kind of advantage to "breeding" heretics, it could introduce an interesting layer to the game. With that being said, this might potentially be a very large task to design and balance, and again, not something AI could benefit from. But just having more believable character models is worth exploring!

[4] Booms of heretics
Basically spawning heretics with high "piety", they could bear historical names, and be accompannied with rebel armies, if that's what historically happened (I know of Hussites in Bohemia). If those hussites would capture a settlement and the pope would send a crusade against them, we would have a historical event reenactment! I'm not sure how spawning currently works, but my assumption is this should not be that complicated to make.

[5] Historical Conversion of Factions
Here I have no idea how it could work, even though, historically it's been the case many times. Do you know if there are existing mods that do this? I could perhaps reverse engineer a bit, but this might forever be beyond my capabilities, as it sounds rather complex.

Please feel free to brainstorm further!

[Jurand of Cracow]

[1] Add more type of religions
In general, there's 10 possible religions in M2TW and SSHIP I think SSHIP uses 6 or 7 slots, so there's definitely space for adding more religions. I don't think it's necessarily worth it to add another main religion that would compete with others, but there might be some advantages from letting minor religions into your cities. If you have any examples from other mods, feel free to share!

[2] Make and remake the important religious figures (Antipope, Patriarch, Caliph, Iman, Sorcerer, Jewish rabbis...)
I'd absolutely love to do this at one point. Sadly, to my knowledge, there can only be 1 "pope" type of figure. You can "rebrand" him in various ways, but you can't add more, e.g. in Third Age, Sauron is essentailly the Pope from M2TW. I can think of some kind of ancillary or trait that a cardinal from an excommunicated faction would gain, or unique ancillary for each of those religions. But essentially, the only thing you can change about priests, is how they influence religious conversion, how likely are they to ascend in hierarchy, how likely are they to turn heretic, and how likely are they to denounce a heretic. Also Heretics are able to influence other characters that end turn next to them, maybe it could work for Priests as well, but AI would not know how to use this. So I'm afraid that anything that can be done will be more or less cosmetic adjustments. In any case, it might still be a worthwhile effort, even if solely for roleplaying reasons.

[3] Review of Heretics and Witches
I think this deserves attention. Even though the base mechanics can't be changed much again, right now both heretics and witches look like fantasy units to me. Historically speaking, many were declared a heretic purely for political and power-related reasons, they did not walk barefoot in ragged clothes, etc. Moreover, if there was some kind of advantage to "breeding" heretics, it could introduce an interesting layer to the game. With that being said, this might potentially be a very large task to design and balance, and again, not something AI could benefit from. But just having more believable character models is worth exploring!

[4] Booms of heretics
Basically spawning heretics with high "piety", they could bear historical names, and be accompannied with rebel armies, if that's what historically happened (I know of Hussites in Bohemia). If those hussites would capture a settlement and the pope would send a crusade against them, we would have a historical event reenactment! I'm not sure how spawning currently works, but my assumption is this should not be that complicated to make.

[5] Historical Conversion of Factions
Here I have no idea how it could work, even though, historically it's been the case many times. Do you know if there are existing mods that do this? I could perhaps reverse engineer a bit, but this might forever be beyond my capabilities, as it sounds rather complex.

Please feel free to brainstorm further!

ad. 1 - more religions are possible, I'd be much in favour of having Islam split into Shiite and Sunni, and Pagan into Lithuanian and Tengri.
ad. 3 - actually, Witches are purely fantasy character, while Heretics and Inquisitors could be somehow modelled... or maybe not. I don't know.
ad. 5 - here is a tutorial how to do it. Frankly speaking, I wouldn't start with something so advanced. There's a world to learn beforehand. If you want to do some coding, you may review the traits of the witches, heretics and study (from various TWC tutorials) how do they work in practice.
Or you may embark on improving guilds in the SSHIP?
Or maybe the portraits of the generals?
Big things have small beginnings.