Paradox Games

That reminds me - in case you're unaware, all natures except Proselytizing and Peaceful are traps.

There are three coded AI religious missionary use behaviors - 0: will never try to convert provinces; 1: will try to convert provinces if zealous (not necessarily zealous the trait, but anything that gives a sufficiently high ai_zeal rating); and 2: will always try to convert provinces. These are coded to target same group or other groups.

Default religions have the following behaviors, all defined at the group level:

Pagan natures have the following AI missionary behaviors:

This means that only Proselytizing and Unyielding will ever convert other religion groups and only Proselytizing will do so reliably. It also means that Unyielding has the suicidal behavior of being unwilling to enforce religious uniformity in its realm unless characters are feeling zealous, including on the Old version of the faith, when the nature's entire bonus is dependent upon having same religion land to fight upon. Dogmatic, Cosmopolitan, and Warmongering cannot reliably take, hold, and stabilize infidel lands. Also note that Warmongering and Unyielding are literally less interested in converting other Pagans than they were before reforming. It also means that every single nature except Proselytizing is inferior at conversion compared to its non-Pagan counterpart.

Peaceful isn't a trap because it negates the wrong religion unrest penalty. You'd think Cosmopolitan would also get this, but it doesn't.

You could just send in your own Chaplain to do it if your vassals aren't doing it. Beats them going and finding (and burning) random-ass "heretics" when I keep them in court.

Rule of thumb - if there are no secret cults or devil worshipers, just keep your Chaplain on deployment permanently. Or else the idiot will go and accuse your genius son of heresy and burn his ass on the stake For the Evulz. Rage-inducing shit when that happens.

What I really, really do NOT like is those fucking Secret Cults for something incredibly stupid and petty. Keep that option disabled unless you want to deal with the near continuous bullshit of your courtiers joining some random-ass cult. Even worse if they are your heirs.

Can't tell how many times I've tried to induct my Sons into a Warrior Lodge, only to find they've joined the Secret Cult of Bumfuck Nowhere Gods. Fuck that shit.

You could, but good luck converting all of k_germany all by your lonesome after you win that Great Holy War. And RIP any other independent realms following your religion. With Proselytizing, you can reasonably count on your vassals to handle huge amounts of conversion, thus integrating lands much more quickly.

Also, turn off secret religion cults - it's way better having a game where more than zero other people in your entire realm actually follow your faith.

Edited by Balmung on May 30th 2019 at 7:47:52 AM

And consider turning off Devil Worshippers as well. They've been nerfed from BS peak, but are still nasty Chaos Cults.

Is it possible to convert your Empire into Devil Worshiping and conquer Europe in the name of Satan?

Satanism doesn't exist as a religion - it's only a cult form. So right now, nope.

Nothing stopping you from getting mods that do just that though.

Closest thing in the game is to play as Reformed Pagan, with Blood Sacrifices and all that jazz. Evil and Satan-like from an Eurasian perspective, but perfectly sane from your perspective.

Edited by TechPriest90 on May 30th 2019 at 9:36:50 AM

Do you know what would be really cool? A Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade mod for Hearts of Iron IV. So there'd probably be a focus tree where Germany attacks Japan, Protect Gear tech that changes the look of all of your units to look like the Kerberos Panzer Cops, etc.

Or at least that would be a set of equipment you can make for Elite troops.

I do wonder though, what the backstory to that world is. All I know is that America helped in neither World War, which likely means that Imperial Germany is still around, but what caused World War 2 then? Revanchism on part of the Entente? Expansionism under a new Kaiser? Or what?

@Balmung: Why would I want to convert them? I'm too busy making them pay their taxes.

I agree that Cosmopolitan should help with wrong-religion unrest, though - kinda the whole point. As it stands, it's a double-layered trap.

Bonus points: If I have Bloodthirsty Gods, then not only can I not get Proselytizing (or Peaceful, lol), I want a revolt now and then. Bloodthirsty Gods is one of those traits where its mechanical optimization is completely beside the point.

Edited by Ramidel on May 30th 2019 at 7:14:05 AM

Re: Satanism: y'all really sleeping on the Lucifer-worshipping, incest-practicing, gender equality-enforcing Messalians.

yeah, but if you're doing religious tax, you benefit most from Peaceful, which is one of the two non-trap natures. If you have bloodthirsty gods, you can certainly use the extra prisoners, but it seems like a drop in the bucket compared to a typical raiding trip around the Adriatic Sea.

Well, CKII does have a tendency to bring out the worst in people.

Trust me, it is nothing compared to Dwarf Fortress.

Hey, I try to take good care of my dwarfs!

That's definitely getting favorited.

0/10, no Aztec sacrifices in that vid. -1/10 for being a stupidly cruel git. "Burn the infidel!" "Um, listen, King Fuckwad, imprison the infidel and ransom him to his own Odin-damned King instead."

First rule of justice. If they won't end a plot, you imprison them. If they resist, smash their territory. If they can afford bail, go ahead and ransom them. If they can't, you take their title. If there's no title, you sacrifice them to the gods for piety points. I funded my religious reformation drive mostly from the donations of plotters who were too stupid to give up without a fight.

Just for the record, that video was a compilation of out of context quotes of his extensive collections of Lets Plays.

Ugh, trying to get the latest version of the Crusader Kings 2 Warhammer mod onto my computer but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, because it won't show up on the mod browser. Am I putting it in the wrong spot? Or is it not showing up because it's not compatible with the current version of the game?

If it's not showing up at all, you're probably putting it in the wrong spot.

If it's showing up but it's crashing, it's probably not updated for the new patch.

Look for Paradox Interactive in My Documents (I assume you're on Windows), open crusader kings II, and look for a folder called "mod". If it doesn't exist, make it and put the mod there, and make sure to extract the zip you downloaded. The game can open zipped mods, but it needs the .mod file to point it at the right file or directory (the .mod can point at an uncompressed folder or a compressed file, and with workshop mods, usually points at a compressed file, while manually downloaded mods are often distributed with the .mod and directory compressed together, but the actual content not stored as a zip)

Edited by Balmung on May 30th 2019 at 10:09:40 AM

@Balmung: Peaceful may not be a trap, but it doesn't fit well with pagan gameplay (by which I mean warrior lodges).

Continued my three-player coop game (Syracuse/Rome/Sparta) in Imperator yesterday and that's the current status of the map◊.

After splitting Italy down the middle with the Roman player (he resettled most of the Italic pops up north, mind), I turned my eye south and invaded Carthage. After three wars I hold most of their African holdings, with Carthage being reduced to a client state that only holds the Baleares and a few coastal cities now.

I had some loyalty issues with my newly gained provinces for a time because they're both the wrong culture and the wrong religion - and I appointed a pretty corrupt guy as governor, so much fun to be had. It never developed into a potential civil war risk, though.

Right now I've started to culturally assimilate some of the inland provinces to provide settlers for colonisation - I also begun with the colonisation of Tripolitania, hopefully culminating in the vassalisation of Cyrenaica down the line.

Overall the Sparta player might have the easiest venue of expansion - while he had to face some pretty big obstacles early on, all the prime real estate in his direction is predominantly Greek, while the Rome player has to deal with both Celts and internal issues.

One major problem Sparta and I will have to face in the future is Egypt - they used to be allied to us, but when we helped them ina war against Phrygia, they snatched up all the stuff in Greece and broke their alliance afterwards, screwing the Sparta player out of the land he wanted. They're also our major trading partner - at least until we can go to war with them. The Sparta player and I already agreed that I'll take over Egypt while he expands into the Levant.

Some bonus screenshots: Cultural map◊ Religius map◊

Fun fact: This yellow dot in the middle of my kingdom? That's the location of an Isis cult. Neapolis used to be mainly Jewish after Rome relocated all the Italic pops up north before handing the city to me. When the event popped up, I decided "Sure, why not" - because of how sparsely populated the city was, most of its population turned Kemetic. Rome's resettlement program turned out to be a blessing in disguise in the long run because it allowed me to easily assimilate most of Magna Graecia.

Africa's a bit more difficult - my second biggest culture after Siceliote is Carthaginian, but right now I'm favouring additional trade routes over assimilation.

I also have the biggest navy in the Mediterranean right now - the second and third biggest navies belong to Sparta, of all nations, and Egypt after the latter finally got access to wood. Rome hasn't bothered much with a navy after taking over Sardinia and Corsica - their expansion route is mainly up north.

We'll probably split Spain between us as well at some point, provided we can crack the barbarian resistance - some of those tribes have around 100 cohorts.

About the trap thing . . . honestly, even as a Christian I rarely noticed my vassals successfully converting provinces. It happened periodically, but not all that often. So I'll just continue converting with my chaplain like I always do.

If you win a Crusade or change religion and install or convert/replace your vassals, provided that they have a temple holding among their vassals (otherwise, they have a hard time getting people who can hold the job), there will be quite a bit of conversion. Having all these chaplains running around is part of why religions that actually use them tend to spread like wildfire in a realm once a ruler converts (and isn't swiftly overthrown).

Totally forgot that EU4 is on free weekend. In case there is anyone here who doesn't own it already.

Okay, we finished our coop game and that's the end state of the map.

I basically achieved everything I set out to do, including becoming an empire◊. When I enacted the decision, the game gave me quite a scare, as my income suddenly dropped to -8. After I picked some national ideas, it fixed itself in the next month.

While we still had some 29 years to go we decided to end it here because of these jerks◊. You see that troop number? These are mainly free-of-charge clan retinues - and while the tribe is stil running a deficit, it has no actual impact on their ability to fight wars.

The Rome player and I actually tried to sandwich them between us to polish our borders in Spain a bit, but instead our invasion forces kept being rolled over by the Galicians.

I think I now understand why most players despise Imperator's tribal mechanics - if you play as a tribe, you're buggered and if the AI plays a tribe, you're also buggered.

Was still a fun game overall, but I'm probably gonna hold off on starting a new campaign before the next update.

It's weird that tribes are broken, as uncivilized nations I'd expect them to be crippled as per Paradox standard.

You seem to be the one in the thread who has played Imperator the most if you don't mind me asking what's your opinion on it?