adopt a god

Hi folks. Just wondering if anyone has had experience with this neat feature I found. You know how the first thing to go in a conqured settled is usually their forigen temples and the gods (in order to reduce culture penalty)? Well, it turns some at least one forigen god can be "adopted" into the roman culture.

I refer to the spanish goddess Epona. The romans can adopt her temple and build a series of "Temple of the Horse". This is espcially sweet for Juli and Scipio since this temple gives lots of exp (+4 for awsome temple of the horse) for troops trained.

Has anyone else been able to adopt any other gods?

I MIGHT just stop destroying temples to Ahurah-Mazda(The Parthian temples) and accept him into my religion jsut tot see if it'll work.

I just learned about this myself - apparently Epona is the only god which can be adopted. Some dieties can be replaced by similar versions however. ie: If you conquer a Selucid settlement with a temple to Hephaestus as the Scipii, you can then upgrade said temple into one for Vulcan without having to go thru the destroy and rebuild phase.

Didn't know about this. This sounds like it needs more investigating as there may be other examples too. ~D

If its the same type of temple e.g. hermes and mercury (both trade) then you can keep building up to the higher levels without destroying them

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Originally Posted by Trajen the 1st

I MIGHT just stop destroying temples to Ahurah-Mazda(The Parthian temples) and accept him into my religion jsut tot see if it'll work.

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well, you only need one functional temple to see if it'll work. perferbly the largest temple possible, which also means it'll give you the most trouble in terms of culture penalty. When I took over Epona's temple I was temped to trash it, but saw the nice exp bonus and decided to hang onto it and discovered the adoptation by accident. Since it was in ibera, that whole region already has a built in unrest factor of +15% or something, so it wasn't as easy as it sounds to hang on an non-exterminated settlement for the number of turns required at the time (about 20) to romanize that god forsaken place.

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Originally Posted by SMZ

I just learned about this myself - apparently Epona is the only god which can be adopted. Some dieties can be replaced by similar versions however. ie: If you conquer a Selucid settlement with a temple to Hephaestus as the Scipii, you can then upgrade said temple into one for Vulcan without having to go thru the destroy and rebuild phase.

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that's really too bad, becasue this was a nice "hidden" feature that actually made sense in a historical way as well (the romans did tend to absorb forigen gods into their culture, part of the reason why that empire was so great.)

it also made temple building slightly less boring as as scipio I was basically building neptune temples on all costal settlements and then vulcan/saturn with the rest.

it was really nice for my faction to gain access to that temple of the horse since I am now able to train units with +5 exp in it and then move it into a neighbor provice that gives the +3 weapons +3 armour bonus. I am now a lot more willing to accept losses in battles, simply because I know it won't be a pain in the ass to rebuild my army (including experience) back up.

Oh as a side note, as I accept more losses now, I'm beginning to notice that if your faction leader or heir dies in glorious combant (ie heavily outnumbered, you manage to kill far more of them than they did you, and you also have to LOOSE the battle), your popularity with the people and sometimes with the sentate increases.

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Originally Posted by cruix

Hi folks. Just wondering if anyone has had experience with this neat feature I found. You know how the first thing to go in a conqured settled is usually their forigen temples and the gods (in order to reduce culture penalty)? Well, it turns some at least one forigen god can be "adopted" into the roman culture.

I refer to the spanish goddess Epona. The romans can adopt her temple and build a series of "Temple of the Horse". This is espcially sweet for Juli and Scipio since this temple gives lots of exp (+4 for awsome temple of the horse) for troops trained.

Has anyone else been able to adopt any other gods?

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I thought you got a +5 exp. bonus, or maybe that's just the partheon ~;)

well Epona is the only one, that's why it's so special, for the rest just read SMZ's post.

:balloon2:

The adoption of a god may be useful, but I would be careful about the culture penalty. And if I really wanted to get the XP bonus etc., and find it difficult to maintain order, I would destroy the other buildings and rebuild them.

I don't think you get a cultural penalty once you upgrade into a Roman temple, so if you build Awesome temple of epona there should be no cultural penalty, as you have adopted that God/Goddess into Roman culture.

yes , MOR is right.

because you've adopted the god , it is one of yours - meaning there is no culture penalty.

:balloon2:

Ok, the temple may not give the cultural penalty but the other buildings will. So if I found it difficult to mainatin order, I would destroy some of them and then rebuild. That will reduce the culture penalty.

Also, check population and level before capturing the town and if it's near a city upgrade level, occupy it and hope that you can hold it long enough to build a governor's building --- this alone accounts for around 20% of culture penalty. The effect of replacing a temple is limited to 5% in my experience.

Anyway, to stick to the topic, has anyone figured out those adoption mechanics? I find it rather strange to be able to adopt certain temples which are identical to yours effect-wise and others not. I mean, is there any coherence in being to upgrade the ...say, temple of Horus (not sure about the name, though...one with equal law and happiness bonus) to the respective Armenian temple of Armazd while at the same time not being able to adopt temples of Zeus (Pontus, identical effect-wise)? The culture group doesn't seem to account since both Armenians and Pontics are Easterlings.

You should be able to upgrade any temple as Romans because they didn't historically persecute religious groups untill the Constantine the Great banned all religions apart from Christianity and Judaism.

Still I don't really know how the cultural penalty works.

If I walk into an egyptian city with a Temple City for example is there a cultural penalty from the temple?

What If I use my assassins to destroy the temple city and have it repaired would that take out the cultural penalty?

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Originally Posted by Horatius

If I walk into an egyptian city with a Temple City for example is there a cultural penalty from the temple?

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The temple is another culture's building and accordingly generates culture penalty as long as it stands.

The Egyptians are an exception, though: if you capture the Pyramids, all Egyptian cultural penalty in your empire will be entirely removed.

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What If I use my assassins to destroy the temple city and have it repaired would that take out the cultural penalty?

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No. It still stands there.

Don't focus on the temple too much. It's not too special since it reduces culture penalty by only 5%. Many other "normal" buildings also do. Upgrading the government building is far more important.
In addition, destroying the temple too hastily could make things difficult in a newly-captured town. Make sure to replace it as long as you can easily pacify the town for a few turns without temple bonuses, though.

[QUOTE=Horatius]You should be able to upgrade any temple as Romans because they didn't historically persecute religious groups untill the Constantine the Great banned all religions apart from Christianity and Judaism.

QUOTE]
I'm not sure if it applied during the R:TW period, and I don't know what the penalties were, but religions did have to be officially licensed to be practiced within the Empire.
There are cases of some persecution - e.g. against the druids, and Claudius is reported as having expelled the Jews from Rome (though evidently this didn't last that long). I can't put my hands on the exact details, but I did read of cases of eastern mystery cults suffering penalties when their activities were considered to have got out of hand.

[QUOTE=Flavius Clemens]

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Originally Posted by Horatius

You should be able to upgrade any temple as Romans because they didn't historically persecute religious groups untill the Constantine the Great banned all religions apart from Christianity and Judaism.

QUOTE]
I'm not sure if it applied during the R:TW period, and I don't know what the penalties were, but religions did have to be officially licensed to be practiced within the Empire.
There are cases of some persecution - e.g. against the druids, and Claudius is reported as having expelled the Jews from Rome (though evidently this didn't last that long). I can't put my hands on the exact details, but I did read of cases of eastern mystery cults suffering penalties when their activities were considered to have got out of hand.

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Romans persecuted national groups but didn't care about religion.
The druids were the tribal leaders of the britons, and for that reason the Romans killed them, not for ideological reasons but because it was much easier to rule britainia with the leaders dead.

Eastern Mystery Cults were adopted by the Roman Army, and many temples of Mithras and other Eastern Gods were discovered in the ruins of many Roman Fortifications.

Persecuting people over nationality isn't ok, but that is what the Romans persecuted, not religion.

I have another question. Would leaving entertainment buildings like the greek Odeon or the Tavern standing help or hurt overall?

well after being inspired by the works of other modders, I took some effort in trying to understand the game files. Afer sifting through export_descr_buildings.txt, it is quite clear that Epona is the only one that can be adopted outright as many have mentioned. But this does leave the room open for some adoption modding, since it's simply inserting additional factions into the build's prereqs. So, here's another issue that may be interesting to people and historical scholars - which exsisting temples should modded so the romans can adopt them? It'd be nice to have historical evidence/justification rather than just becasue one thinks it'd be nice to adopt that god.

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Originally Posted by Horatius

I have another question. Would leaving entertainment buildings like the greek Odeon or the Tavern standing help or hurt overall?

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Not sure about that. Not every building seems to remove 5% penalty when destroyed/replaced....still needs to be figured out...

However if these buildings you mentioned are upgraded (e.g. bardic circle with 10% bonus instead of tavern with 5%), removing them would lower public order overall.

Well just removing a building would not do anythign to your culture, since you didn't increased % of your buildings that way.

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Originally Posted by cruix

well after being inspired by the works of other modders, I took some effort in trying to understand the game files. Afer sifting through export_descr_buildings.txt, it is quite clear that Epona is the only one that can be adopted outright as many have mentioned. But this does leave the room open for some adoption modding, since it's simply inserting additional factions into the build's prereqs. So, here's another issue that may be interesting to people and historical scholars - which exsisting temples should modded so the romans can adopt them? It'd be nice to have historical evidence/justification rather than just becasue one thinks it'd be nice to adopt that god.

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The only Gods that wouldn't make sense are the Britons because the druids were leaders of their communities and armies as well as heads of religion, and so the Romans treated them as such and killed them, the result being the total destruction of that religion. Everyone else would historically make sense adopting.

Roman Soldiers would sacrifice and prey to whatever god/religion whose territory they were in. The reason was not multiculturalism it was the Romans believed that those Gods existed along with their Gods and didn't want to get devine punishment from a local deity for not sacrificing to him/her before a battle as thanks for being the lands gaurdian. So unless you are playing as the Senate and People of Rome adopting Gods makes sense because armies on the march paid their respects to foriegn gods on a regular basis.

The Romans adopted these Gods.

Ississ had very large numbers of well of Romans as well as Plebians who worshipped the her, among other Egyptian Gods.

Horus to was popular among all classess of Romans.

Zorastor was popular among lower classess, and many descriptions of "Horrible pagan traitors" Constantine brought to justice (by converting to christianity by the sword or executing) appear to be describing Zorastrians (For example worshipping the flame as sacred and other elements christians credit them with).

The Romans literally adopted the Greek Gods, for example Jupiter is just Zues with a different name, the only God that wasn't the same as Roman was Ares, and even he had many temples built for him throughout Italy. Greeks living in Rome got many Satirists attacking them, whose anti-greek complaints about their using the greek alphabets on buildings they made can be read today.

Imenhotep was usually worshipped as a second extra god by Romans who addedd issis and Osiris to their list of gods to worship.

The most important foriegn god who was adopted was Mithras, he was more popular then the real chief god Jupiter, but hes not in the game.

Hercules was actually the Roman name for the Greek Heracles who were identical in the mythology so Romans should be able to adopt him.

Despite the way Cato the Elder ended everything with "Carthogo Delende Est" Baal was worshipped by many Romans, they hated the Carthaginians for not being Romans, not for religion aparently. Most Temples of Baal were detroyed during the reign of Constantine though.

I could go through each one, but as I said before the only Gods that wouldn't fit into historical reality are the British Gods, slaves who were captured in war would bring their religion with them to Rome, and it would spread among the Urban Poor, who felt nothing wrong with getting favor from as many Gods as possible, which makes any non British deity make sense.

Hope that helped you.

It's such a pain to wait for the Gauls to build a Sacred Circle of Epona.

I once had to conquer their next to last town, and build everything up and then leave the temple of Epona. As well as importing the necessary population. Then I could give it back to them so the ONLY choice was to build it to Sacred Circle. Then re-conquer.

Ugh.

Horatius, the Romans only killed off the British Priesthood, not the religion. In general the Romans identified local gods with their own. So the "barbarians" worshipped the same gods, but with added Roman names.

Playing as Scipii I've noticed some other nation's temples can simply be upgraded to next level and re-named to Roman gods in process, but I've never done this. How exactly do you adopt this temple?

When you can upgrade a foreign temple to a temple with one of your gods, its not quite the same as the 'adopting a god' that occurs with the Temple of Epona.

In the export_desc_buildings.txt file all the temples are listed. Each temple is classified as a temple of fun, leadership, governing, battle, battleforge, fertility (to name just a few.) If the captured temple is of the same type as one you can build, then you upgrade the temple and it simply changes to the name of your factions equivalent temple.

The temple of Epona (Temple of Horse) has no Roman equivalent, but if one is captured by a Roman faction they can then upgrade it all the way to Pantheon status. Thus, its been 'adopted' by the Romans.

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Originally Posted by HarunTaiwan

It's such a pain to wait for the Gauls to build a Sacred Circle of Epona.

I once had to conquer their next to last town, and build everything up and then leave the temple of Epona. As well as importing the necessary population. Then I could give it back to them so the ONLY choice was to build it to Sacred Circle. Then re-conquer.

Ugh.

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that's why you get them from the Spainish and not that gauls. assuming you don't go on a blitzkerg along the coast or do a backyard drop into ibera, by the time you get to ibera there's usually at least one epona level 3 temple.

I understand that, but what I want to know is are there any special circumstances in which this can done and of which I should be aware of. Someone mensioned waiting for Gauls to upgrade their temple. And am I allowed to plunder and exterminate as I conquer the town or will this disable the adoptation (something like this was also mensioned previously). Finally, apart from Spain and Gauls, is there any other faction that can build temples of Epona?


Thanks.

Just Epona. :no:

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Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall

Horatius, the Romans only killed off the British Priesthood, not the religion. In general the Romans identified local gods with their own. So the "barbarians" worshipped the same gods, but with added Roman names.

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The thing that made the Briton Gods distinct was the Druids, killing the Druids destroyed much of the faith, for example Stone Henge an important part of that religion will forever be a mystery, although the Britons along with the Roman Garrisons there did worship the British Gods.

Compared to what Christians did, or what Muslims did to other religions the treatment of the Britons was fair, but in comparison to what Romans of the time did elsewere it wasn't, and the game is all about capturing the time isn't it?

Interesting thing to try would be giving to all greek and roman factions ability to build 2nd and later levels of all greek or roman temples.

That way, specific factions will still have affinity of builing 3 or 4 specific temples, but will be able to upgrade other temples of same pantheon.

Could you tell me how to do that?

Well go to buildings.txt file (or something like that in data folder), and make later levels of temples (not first), buildable by other faction of same cultural group.

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Originally Posted by player1

Well go to buildings.txt file (or something like that in data folder), and make later levels of temples (not first), buildable by other faction of same cultural group.

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Can you give me some more details because I went to the RTW files and haven't been able to find were to make the change.

Look in export_descr_buildings.txt (data folder), and look for temples. They usually have some code names like temple_of_justice or temple_of_hunting. You need change faction type for those higher level temples, so that those temples could be upgraded even for factions that can't normally build shrines.

Also, if you're not sure which temple is what, you could look in export_buildings.txt in data\text folder to see the real names of those temples (like Shrine of Esus for gauls, instead shrine_of_justice).

Thanks player 1