Adding a new religion

[uanime5]

New religion
The information on which files to use was provided by Octavius. To add a new religion you need to do the following (since this is pretty straight forward I won't included diagrams).

1) Open descr_religion.txt and add you religion to the list (in this case diabolical), then assign a pip (small icon, which need to go in the ui\pips folder).
2) Open descr_religion_lookup.txt and add your religion to the religion look up.
3) Open text\religions.txt and add your religion to the list.
4) Open world\maps\base\descr_regions.txt and add your religion to the various settlements. However these setting will not take affect unless you delete the map.rwm file in the same folder (thanks to SigniferOne)

To make a faction this new religion open the desc_sm_facton.txt file and change the faction's religion to this new religion.

Religious buildings
As SigniferOne pointed out a religious building is designed to convert to a certain religion only, it does not convert to whatever your factional religion is. Below is the Catholic religious buildings, with the religion highlighted in red.

building temple_catholic
{
    convert_to temple_catholic_castle
    religion catholic
    levels small_church church abbey cathedral huge_cathedral 
    {
        small_church city requires factions { normans, denmark, hre, scotland, france, england, hungary, poland, venice, papal_states, portugal, spain, sicily, milan, } 
        {
            convert_to 0
            capability
            {
.
.
.

A new religious building needs to have the religion changed, in the example below it's changed to Latin.

building temple_latin
{
    religion latin
    levels cathedral
    {
        cathedral city requires factions { normans, denmark, hre, scotland, france, england, hungary, poland, venice, papal_states, portugal, spain, sicily, milan, venice, } 
        {
            capability
            {
                ;agent priest  0  requires factions { normans, denmark, scotland, hre, france, england, } 
                recruit_pool "Armored Clergy"  1   0.4   3  0  requires factions { denmark, } 
                happiness_bonus bonus 2
                religion_level bonus 5
                agent_limit priest 2
                pope_disapproval 1
                pope_approval 1
                population_health_bonus bonus 1
            }
            material wooden
            construction  4 
            cost  6400 
            settlement_min large_city
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
    }
    plugins 
    {
    }
}

For more information about adding new buildings see this thread http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=77577

[Sushiman]

ok but if i replace heretics with protestants then can i build churches?

[Eldgrim]

So if we wanted to make a backbone for the 'Pagan' religion already calculated in the game, could we do that? So the player can make a building/unit tree that affects Paganism positively?

[uanime5]

ok but if i replace heretics with protestants then can i build churches?

You can change the name of the religion Heretic to Protestants by modifying the text\religions.txt like this.

{heretic}	Protestant

However this will not allow the heretics to build churchs (these are a building and need to be asigned to a faction). If you alter the descr_sm_factions.txt file so that the religion of one of the Christian factions is heretic then you can build Churches that will promote Protestantism. However since heresy does not unite a faction like other religions it will cause some problems in the settlement. Also the rebels' religion will be Protestant, rather than heretic.

So if we wanted to make a backbone for the 'Pagan' religion already calculated in the game, could we do that? So the player can make a building/unit tree that affects Paganism positively?

You can make buildings that promote paganism. All you need to do is set a faction's religion to pagan and any religious building that they build will promote paganism. If also possible to make non-religious buildings promote paganism (or any other religion) by giving a building in the export_descr_buildings.txt file the 'religion_level bonus' trait (this trait must be followed by a number of the game will crash).

building bullring
{
 religion pagan
    levels plaza_del_toro 
    {
        plaza_del_toro city requires factions { portugal, spain, } 
        {
            capability
            {
                recruit_pool "Jinetes"  1   0.5   4  0  requires factions { spain, portugal, } 
                happiness_bonus bonus 1
                religion_level bonus 1
            }
            material wooden
            construction  4 
            cost  4800 
            settlement_min city
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
    }
    plugins 
    {
    }
}

You may want to read the guide on adding a new building to the game.

EDIT 10th August 2007: you need to specify which religion this building will promote or it won't work.

[SigniferOne]

uanime, I've had some problems with adding new religions. When the campaign loads (normally), if I click on a settlement details, it crashes. Needless to say, priests crash even more. Do you have any experience with this?

[alpaca]

Did you modify the appropriate files in /text (religions.txt)?

[SigniferOne]

But isn't it the case that you only need to modify text files if you want to avoid "unlocalized text" strings? I just want to see that it works at all, before adding text to it. Do you think it's critical? it needs to be placed in this tutorial then.