Can't get the idea of this mod off my mind...

[caravel]

You can use Judaism and Heretical Cults for a religion, as I am in DATW (I'm the script writer). The problem is both lack cultures, which can be a problem. You can work around this by setting them up with any other culture, you just have to remember what you assigned them. For example, the Steppe factions in Dark Age are heretics (Steppe Culture Type) with a pagan culture, and they work fine. They properly spread their own religion, through time, agents and buildings, but EVERYONE hates them, thus they at least appear to be on the move. Just a note, Judaism is not as hated.

When using said religions coupled with a different culture, remember how this can effect unit recruitment, and also remember to add the lines "Place Culture Here"_CULTURE after the end of every unit you give them in the Startpos file. It works for me, but ask Macsen, he did with his Israelites in Ancient Total War, which you may be able to get a few ideas from.

That's good to know. So do your heretic Steppe factions have their heretic piety showing on their generals' info parchments in the correct form?

And this brings me to the next part. If religion were to be used as "culture" then how would piety still be viable? Perhaps piety could be seen as how much of a true Roman your general is as well as loyalty to the people/faction? Currently a pious general is the best choice of governor for a pious province. This could work as for example a "true Greek" being a better governor to "true Greeks" but a poor governor to non Greeks? Yes I think that would work well.

On the subject of jihads it's a doable idea but you might have a problem with them being spammed if they're too easily available. Also they'd be rather ahistorical as they were in MTW anyway. I'd also keep the Muslim relgion and culture as the Cathaginian/Eastern/Egyptian culture and not use it for the barbarians. They would be better as the Pagans. I'm not sure but I think you can probably mod Jihads to be used by other religions anyway, as they're not linked to a papacy like entity in the same way crusades are.

[ULC]

Yes they do. Although they no longer refer to piety but ethnicity (best I can come up with, if anyone else has any Ideas...back on subject!) and I have changed the wording so it makes sense, always thought it was funny to have a pious heretic for some reason, and I have changed the icon as well.

I PM you some links Kaidonni, hope their helpful. I would love to see this mod, I really hope you get it done. If you need anything just ask.

[Kaidonni]

Thanks for the links, YLC.

At the moment, for provinces, I'm considering a balance between vanilla RTW province layout and a little from one of the realism mods (primarily for extra regions here and there).

I really have six provinces spare to use in this mod, but if I use DATW's map, it might be wise to omit one of the Egpytian provinces on the south of the map, Thebais, from RTW. That way, I have seven provinces to play about with - gonna remove Malta and replace it with Baelaric Islands, and one of these seven provinces goes to become Corsica. One for the north of the British Isles. Leaves me with five...perhaps one to Norway/Sweden, leaves me with four... I could then proceed to split two of the provinces in Asia Minor, perhaps one in the Steppes, and add Ancona on to the Italian Peninsula, between Umbria and Apulia.

Now whether or not I can split Sicily into three provinces is something else. If only two, it again gives me another province to play about with and relocate. AHHH! Remembered, I have to decide between Sparta or Corinth as a settlement on the Peloponnesus - so that definitely means I relocate one province in that case (I'd rather have Sparta). Athens definitely remains, and hopefully I can add most of the other Greek provinces from RTW in, with the exception of perhaps the province of Thessalia (might need to relocate it as another province).

All comments on this are welcome.

[caravel]

To split Sicily you'd need to use a magnified sub map, otherwise it'll get too tight and crowded. You need to be able to fit several army stacks, several agents, titles and the fortress into the available space. The Pocket Mod map has a problem with Tripoli being too small. To fix this I would probably have to either increase it's size or use a modified maptex.tga with a sub map - which I'd rather avoid.

[sharpshooter]

Interesting to follow this thread ... thanks for the time on it people. Good luck with the mod Kaidonni - I think you should do it.

@ All

Are Jihads moddable, or strictly attached to the Muslims? I didn't see an answer to that ... and are they attached to the REL_MUSLIM, or MUSLIM_CULTURE ... or even to the FN_ ?

What I'm wondering is - could you, for example, have a faction with one type of religion and but another type of culture to work around this and still get a Barbarian horde, as Kaidonnis wants?

@ Caravel

Currently a pious general is the best choice of governor for a pious province.

Do you mean a province with high Zeal?

@ YLS

always thought it was funny to have a pious heretic for some reason,

Most famous heretics were pious - they weren't atheists. For example, Jan Hus and John Wycliffe came across as much more pious than the cynical church hierarchy whose practices they were opposing.

The word comes from the Greek, meaning "able to choose" - in other words, a free thinker. Heretics mainly rejected church doctrines and chose their own interpretations - as in the case of Hus, who refused to recant, even at the stake when offered freedom for doing so, unless he could be shown to be wrong according to the scriptures.

Just thought that might set your misgivings to rest.

[caravel]

@ Caravel

Currently a pious general is the best choice of governor for a pious province.

Do you mean a province with high Zeal?

A high piety province. A general is a better governor of a province with piety that most closely matches his own. Try placing a high piety muslim general as governor of a province that is over 50% catholic and watch the provincial happiness drop.

[ULC]

Originally posted by Sharpshooter
Most famous heretics were pious - they weren't atheists. For example, Jan Hus and John Wycliffe came across as much more pious than the cynical church hierarchy whose practices they were opposing.

The word comes from the Greek, meaning "able to choose" - in other words, a free thinker. Heretics mainly rejected church doctrines and chose their own interpretations - as in the case of Hus, who refused to recant, even at the stake when offered freedom for doing so, unless he could be shown to be wrong according to the scriptures.

Just thought that might set your misgivings to rest.

Hmm, thanks for the info on the origins of the word heretic. I currently own several books on history (one exciting one which starts around 3200 b.c. and ends with the fall of the Western Empire). I understand that heretics tended to be rather pious, what I was humoured by was the fact that CA used a burning book to represent the heretics, which seems strange. Book-burning Heretics? I thought that was the Catholic churchs' domain ?

.... , back on topic!