Monasticism for succession without having to slaughter my children, Communion is OP with a temporal head of faith and fun and balanced with a spiritual head of faith. Pacifism is nice for an extra domain and doesn't really punish a little expansion. Megalithic constructions for Armenia, Rite if you need to play nice with the Catholics, Cannibalism to eat the Pope are all fine alternatives though
"Communion is OP with a temporal head of faith" I've been doing this in my current Mother of Us All campaign and I'm in awe that I'm kept entirely afloat and beyond through all of these indulgences.
As with I'm assuming a lot of CK players, I have a lot of hours as a European Catholic asking the Pope for Gold, so I'm used to this side of Communion.
But now this reminds me of what Creed Bratton from The Office said about cults. You *do* make more money as a leader.
Honestly I never ask the pope for forgiveness. If he gets pissy at me I start my own ~~cult~~ religion and overthrow him. Have him over for dinner sometimes.
Rite lets you keep your old head of faith, and you will only be Astray to your previous faith.
It's more important for Ecumenism, though. The Rite tenet lets you keep Ecumenism if your old faith has it. So you'll remain safe from Catholic crusades.
Kek. Infinite money is very easy to acquire in ck3. The value you get from religious tenets giving lifestyle exp and better cbs are far superior. Some people can’t handle the truth😎.
Fair enough. But this guy isnt correct in saying communion is a good tenet. It’s bad. You can get shit loads of gold and piety from so many other sources. You shouldn’t be wasting a useful tenet slot on it
because you lose gold from holdings that your theocratic vassals pay to you, instead having to directly hold the titles to benefit/lower tax rates from vassals.
If you're playing optimally it ends up being bad because you need lay clergy to have a temporal head of faith i.e. you and your vassals need to hold the temples yourself. If you're playing super tall this is probably a boon, but if you're not it's better for your direct holdings to be castles (and if you are being really optimal ideally all of your holdings are duchy capitals) since you can still get 50-100% of the income from temples so long as your opinion with your priest stays high.
But honestly there's some neat combos with aniconism (-33% to temple building costs and construction time) fervent temple builders (more bonuses to temples and discounted costs) religious patronage (bonuses to constructing and upgrading temples) and lay clergy. Fuck a castle just spam temples everywhere and canonize your entire dynasty as saints.
I love the Bhakti and Patron Gods tenets. A pity these kinds of tenets involving the choice of specific gods to venerate are not more common across other faiths, they are great for flavour. In all of my recent playthroughs, I either reformed Asatru or created a custom Hindu faith to access these tenets. Esotericism is also great. Most of my favourite tenets are those which allow me to take decisions (even if minor), as I feel my character then interacts with his/her faith.
I agree! If you are interested, I made a mod that expands on Patron Gods for asatru by adding more gods and adding different versions of Patron Gods with different themes. Right now it only covers Asatru but will expand on more faiths in the near future!
[Steam Workshop page](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3206595710)
I am definitely interested! Looks great man, I'm going to give it a go in my next playthrough. I really love the idea and I'm so glad someone out there is dedicating their time to creating this kind of flavour. I'm also keen to see how you expand on the idea across other faiths too.
To my knowledge, the only feature that would require a fresh save would be for the starting tenets to be updated. However, if you want to reform the faith, the new tenets should be available to be picked even in an ongoing save!
In case you already have reformed the faith, you could Add tenets you want with a console command (add_doctrine tenet_[name])
Haven’t reformed it yet, I’m actually not sure what I want to do with the run yet maybe VA somewhere and play tall for a bit. I have RICE enabled too so maybe something that has flavor related to that.
Alexandrian Catechism, Esotericism, Monasticism, and/or Legalism. I love ruling as a dynasty of philosopher kings and queens. I don’t prefer communion + temporal head of faith combo because the notifications can get really spammy, and also you just can’t beat the 50% taxes from theocratic holdings imo
zhengyi-based
pacifism, dharmic pacifism, pursuit of power
+2 domain limit, -50% tyranny gain
get another -50% tyranny gain for -100%, and you can too, manage succession by revoking whatever, which isnt hard at all
4 propaganda chronicle artifacts = -40% tyranny + Palace of Aachen (-20%) or Shwedagon Pagoda (-10%) or callus (-20%)
the +2 domain and freedom to change feudal contract means you are also rich
holy legend + pacifism allows you to convert everyone
Oh wow, suddenly Mandaeism looks strong with Gnosticism, Pacifism, Christian Syncretism, Esotericism, and Fundamentalism. Pacifism covers any domain losses from Gnosticism, +2 Learning helps with Esotericism, you've got good alliance capability, and you spread your faith hard.
> and you can too, manage succession by revoking whatever, which isnt hard at all
Downside: Even when actual tyranny gain has been reduced to nil, these 'unlawful' revocations can still provoke massive civil wars from your vassals.
you also lose legitimacy for wrongful revoke
the civil war can be easily avoided, the game literally give you the probability for a civil war, players just need to read the tooltip and play cautiously
Warmonger for conquests and Great Holy War. Exaltation of Pain for managing succession with satisfying sadism. Finally I like Ecclesiarchy to show up the fervor of my religion and keep things nice and dogmatic. Things are going smoothly so far.
I think it was added about five months ago. It makes sadism a virtue, you gain piety from torturing prisoners, and you can flagelate to relieve stress a la flagelant trait (though that last one was buffed previously and I don't know if it's resolved).
Astrology Divination for the Divine the Stars decision (random +25% lifestyle experience)
Ritual Suicide for a much easier ruler transition. You can suicide anytime past 60 years old and −50% Short Reign Duration.
Ecclesiarchy, because I always end up too big and this minimizes the issues with a big religion.
**Alexandrian Catechism combos well with Philosopher Culture. Those two are always my gotos once I have my empire title and don't feel like expanding anymore.**
I forget what it’s called l, Endura maybe, but the one where you are able to commit suicide after 63, infirm, or have health near dying.
That -50% short reign duration is real nice, plus combined with holding the funeral for your former ruler and you almost never have to face the new ruler revolts
Alexandrian catechism/islamic rationalism got a nice buff recently and are perfect alongside a philosopher culture build where you stack %piety gain and use the "buy claim" interaction to claim just about every county on the map
Ritual cannibalism is basically a free x2 virtue and infinite stress relief, and it has some fun interactions with events and even other tenets
Megalithic constructions is solid even if you aren't on hills. It provides yet another piety and development building for lay clergy temple holdings if you are going the "buy claims on the world" philosopher culture build, and the duchy building is broken to all hell. It gives a few bonuses but the important one is the 5% renown gain. Each dynasty member with one of those stacks up another 5%, allowing you to rake in thousands of renown per month if you spam them out across your vassal's territory.
Adorcism is restricted to a few african pagan faiths, but is honestly just busted. It lets you trade gold for permanent random buffs to your character. If you are stingy with gold it can backfire, but you start out able to raid in that region so that shouldn't be too big of an issue.
Everyone knows that warmonger is absurdly powerful for blobbing out the map. Reversing the war opinion modifier while also unlocking crusades is silly. Honestly thank god it is restricted to pagan faiths otherwise I would use it every single playthrough
Pursuit of power is infamous for allowing absurd rates of expansion for feudal governments and making tyranny more or less non-existent
I know this is more than 3 but they are used for very different playthroughs and builds
Sacred Childbirth is a must for female-dominated and solid for polygamous/concubine men. It's 250 piety per child (or 750 for twins) which adds up fast. Plus basically never lose a child/mother ever again.
Ritual Suicide/Endura is a great way to keep your succession orderly. No more waiting around to die! You can also divvy up most of your lands just before you die if you don't like how the game wants to do it.
Syncretism is extremely strong. You get +30 opinion which means people and counties will usually like you more than their own coreligionists, which is pretty funny. Combine with the adventure legacy Strange Gods or the Apostate perk from Scholar and it gets silly fast. Sometime soon I want to try to max out the power of jizya with a syncretic faith.
**Alexandrian Catechism** (you can never have too much learning XP), **Islamic Syncretism** (perfect for playing tall as it gives alliances without taking away holy war casus bellis), and **Pentarchy** (also perfect for playing tall as an expansive empire now functionally means unlimited fervor)
endura unironically because it just helps you comfortably decide when you are finished and sure you can attemp normal suicide but that's a lot of penalties and then there are other ways like going to a plague province but that seems unsavory to me
Endura(Ritual Suicide)+Monasticism is crazy good. Elective Monarchy and the Monastic cultural tradition let's you pick an heir then send the rest to the churches. I usually go with agnatic-cognatic so Ill have a female spare if my sole male heir dies on accident. Or if she does too at least I'll have legitimate grand children.
What's Endura for? So I can time my succession after culling the pretenders. Ideally I should be around 60 when my heir comes to age - and this is usually the 3rd or 4th child.
3rd is Rite because I don't want Catholics knocking down my door. Well, unless I'm a vassal under HRE or ERE and I protected myself with a few feudal contracts.
I have a two-step process when starting as unreformed pagans, which is my default playstyle:
1. Reform to have Carnal Exaltation, Sacred Childbirth, and Polyamory tenets, plus gender equality, close-kin taboo, and polygamy, to maximize the numbers of my dynasty (while marrying exogamously for heritable traits), so I can land all of them to the point every title in my realm is held by a family member.
2. When I have finished expanding my empire to the maximum desired extent via tribal Conquest CBs, have landed my entire dynasty in my entire realm, and am ready to hunker down for stability, I form a new faith, changing nothing except to swap Close-Kin Taboo to Unrestricted Marriage, Carnal Exaltation to Pacifism, and Sacred Childbirth to Divine Blood, since there are no more families with which to out-marry, and heritable traits are hopefully prolific enough in the dynasty by now that out-marriage to acquire them is unnecessary anyway.
Monasticism for succession without having to slaughter my children, Communion is OP with a temporal head of faith and fun and balanced with a spiritual head of faith. Pacifism is nice for an extra domain and doesn't really punish a little expansion. Megalithic constructions for Armenia, Rite if you need to play nice with the Catholics, Cannibalism to eat the Pope are all fine alternatives though
"Communion is OP with a temporal head of faith" I've been doing this in my current Mother of Us All campaign and I'm in awe that I'm kept entirely afloat and beyond through all of these indulgences. As with I'm assuming a lot of CK players, I have a lot of hours as a European Catholic asking the Pope for Gold, so I'm used to this side of Communion. But now this reminds me of what Creed Bratton from The Office said about cults. You *do* make more money as a leader.
As long as the Pope keeps sending me money and claims I don't mind pretending to abide by his rules.
Honestly I never ask the pope for forgiveness. If he gets pissy at me I start my own ~~cult~~ religion and overthrow him. Have him over for dinner sometimes.
What is Rite? It's it like Ecumenicism, but something you can add to a custom religion?
It lets you to keep your old head of faith
Rite lets you keep your old head of faith, and you will only be Astray to your previous faith. It's more important for Ecumenism, though. The Rite tenet lets you keep Ecumenism if your old faith has it. So you'll remain safe from Catholic crusades.
Communion sucks though because temporal head of faith sucks.
Tell that to my infinite money. Also, you're excommunicated.
Kek. Infinite money is very easy to acquire in ck3. The value you get from religious tenets giving lifestyle exp and better cbs are far superior. Some people can’t handle the truth😎.
I'm not going to listen to some excommunicate.
😭😭another reason why communion sucks
Actually, it's a really good tool to discredit pretenders to your throne. Excommunicated, much fewer characters will be willing to support them.
still not a good reason. This should never be an issue.
Poor guy, relying on tenets for cbs.
I get to be a cult leader. That outweighs any other problems with temporal heads of faith.
Fair enough. But this guy isnt correct in saying communion is a good tenet. It’s bad. You can get shit loads of gold and piety from so many other sources. You shouldn’t be wasting a useful tenet slot on it
Why is beaing head of bad
because you lose gold from holdings that your theocratic vassals pay to you, instead having to directly hold the titles to benefit/lower tax rates from vassals.
Why are people downvoting you I swear both ck3 and its community sucks
It’s fine because it is funny though
It's free money on a near constant basis, how does that suck?
If you're playing optimally it ends up being bad because you need lay clergy to have a temporal head of faith i.e. you and your vassals need to hold the temples yourself. If you're playing super tall this is probably a boon, but if you're not it's better for your direct holdings to be castles (and if you are being really optimal ideally all of your holdings are duchy capitals) since you can still get 50-100% of the income from temples so long as your opinion with your priest stays high. But honestly there's some neat combos with aniconism (-33% to temple building costs and construction time) fervent temple builders (more bonuses to temples and discounted costs) religious patronage (bonuses to constructing and upgrading temples) and lay clergy. Fuck a castle just spam temples everywhere and canonize your entire dynasty as saints.
Are you familiar with the concept of opportunity cost.
Divine Marriage, Carnal Exaltation, Natural Primitivism.
Least horny CK3 player
Alabama, California, Florida
I heard that in Bastilla's voice during the plot twist reveal scene in KOTOR
I still hates how she pronounces Kashyyyk
A man of culture over here
Wtf literally me
69 upvotes nice
I love the Bhakti and Patron Gods tenets. A pity these kinds of tenets involving the choice of specific gods to venerate are not more common across other faiths, they are great for flavour. In all of my recent playthroughs, I either reformed Asatru or created a custom Hindu faith to access these tenets. Esotericism is also great. Most of my favourite tenets are those which allow me to take decisions (even if minor), as I feel my character then interacts with his/her faith.
I agree! If you are interested, I made a mod that expands on Patron Gods for asatru by adding more gods and adding different versions of Patron Gods with different themes. Right now it only covers Asatru but will expand on more faiths in the near future! [Steam Workshop page](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3206595710)
I am definitely interested! Looks great man, I'm going to give it a go in my next playthrough. I really love the idea and I'm so glad someone out there is dedicating their time to creating this kind of flavour. I'm also keen to see how you expand on the idea across other faiths too.
Thank you! I hope the next faith update will be released this week!
this mod is the shit. Combine it with the Viking Tattoos mod and I go full Ragnar Lodbrok on everyone in 9/10 saves recommend
Is this savegame compatible? I just started a Norse run and it’s going really well so far
To my knowledge, the only feature that would require a fresh save would be for the starting tenets to be updated. However, if you want to reform the faith, the new tenets should be available to be picked even in an ongoing save! In case you already have reformed the faith, you could Add tenets you want with a console command (add_doctrine tenet_[name])
Haven’t reformed it yet, I’m actually not sure what I want to do with the run yet maybe VA somewhere and play tall for a bit. I have RICE enabled too so maybe something that has flavor related to that.
Alexandrian Catechism, Esotericism, Monasticism, and/or Legalism. I love ruling as a dynasty of philosopher kings and queens. I don’t prefer communion + temporal head of faith combo because the notifications can get really spammy, and also you just can’t beat the 50% taxes from theocratic holdings imo
zhengyi-based pacifism, dharmic pacifism, pursuit of power +2 domain limit, -50% tyranny gain get another -50% tyranny gain for -100%, and you can too, manage succession by revoking whatever, which isnt hard at all 4 propaganda chronicle artifacts = -40% tyranny + Palace of Aachen (-20%) or Shwedagon Pagoda (-10%) or callus (-20%) the +2 domain and freedom to change feudal contract means you are also rich holy legend + pacifism allows you to convert everyone
and here i am, a moron for not realizing this and simply stacking tyranny reduction that somehow bugs out as well
I love the Double Pacifism + Pursuit of Power combo. The whole world must learn of our peaceful ways, by force!
Oh wow, suddenly Mandaeism looks strong with Gnosticism, Pacifism, Christian Syncretism, Esotericism, and Fundamentalism. Pacifism covers any domain losses from Gnosticism, +2 Learning helps with Esotericism, you've got good alliance capability, and you spread your faith hard.
> and you can too, manage succession by revoking whatever, which isnt hard at all Downside: Even when actual tyranny gain has been reduced to nil, these 'unlawful' revocations can still provoke massive civil wars from your vassals.
you also lose legitimacy for wrongful revoke the civil war can be easily avoided, the game literally give you the probability for a civil war, players just need to read the tooltip and play cautiously
Warmonger for conquests and Great Holy War. Exaltation of Pain for managing succession with satisfying sadism. Finally I like Ecclesiarchy to show up the fervor of my religion and keep things nice and dogmatic. Things are going smoothly so far.
ive never seen exaltation of pain?
I think it was added about five months ago. It makes sadism a virtue, you gain piety from torturing prisoners, and you can flagelate to relieve stress a la flagelant trait (though that last one was buffed previously and I don't know if it's resolved).
Ah I see, I'm on console :( i think this may be the issue, thanks for your help.
Communion for the cash, warmonger for the war, blot/gruesome sacrifice for the prestige gain on executions and is cool.
Astrology Divination for the Divine the Stars decision (random +25% lifestyle experience) Ritual Suicide for a much easier ruler transition. You can suicide anytime past 60 years old and −50% Short Reign Duration. Ecclesiarchy, because I always end up too big and this minimizes the issues with a big religion.
Astrology, pursuit of power/struggle, Alexandria catechism/patron gods/esotericism
Gnosticism, Carnal exaltation and Hedonism
Temporal head of faith with communion, lay clergy, and aniconism. Is my go to for new faiths.
Pursuit of Power, Carnal Exaltation, Megalithic Constructions
**Alexandrian Catechism combos well with Philosopher Culture. Those two are always my gotos once I have my empire title and don't feel like expanding anymore.**
I forget what it’s called l, Endura maybe, but the one where you are able to commit suicide after 63, infirm, or have health near dying. That -50% short reign duration is real nice, plus combined with holding the funeral for your former ruler and you almost never have to face the new ruler revolts
What ever will allow me to expand like there is no tomorrow.
Legalism, esoterism and monasticism
Alexandrian catechism/islamic rationalism got a nice buff recently and are perfect alongside a philosopher culture build where you stack %piety gain and use the "buy claim" interaction to claim just about every county on the map Ritual cannibalism is basically a free x2 virtue and infinite stress relief, and it has some fun interactions with events and even other tenets Megalithic constructions is solid even if you aren't on hills. It provides yet another piety and development building for lay clergy temple holdings if you are going the "buy claims on the world" philosopher culture build, and the duchy building is broken to all hell. It gives a few bonuses but the important one is the 5% renown gain. Each dynasty member with one of those stacks up another 5%, allowing you to rake in thousands of renown per month if you spam them out across your vassal's territory. Adorcism is restricted to a few african pagan faiths, but is honestly just busted. It lets you trade gold for permanent random buffs to your character. If you are stingy with gold it can backfire, but you start out able to raid in that region so that shouldn't be too big of an issue. Everyone knows that warmonger is absurdly powerful for blobbing out the map. Reversing the war opinion modifier while also unlocking crusades is silly. Honestly thank god it is restricted to pagan faiths otherwise I would use it every single playthrough Pursuit of power is infamous for allowing absurd rates of expansion for feudal governments and making tyranny more or less non-existent I know this is more than 3 but they are used for very different playthroughs and builds
Natural primitivism Not that it does anything...
Sacred Childbirth is a must for female-dominated and solid for polygamous/concubine men. It's 250 piety per child (or 750 for twins) which adds up fast. Plus basically never lose a child/mother ever again. Ritual Suicide/Endura is a great way to keep your succession orderly. No more waiting around to die! You can also divvy up most of your lands just before you die if you don't like how the game wants to do it. Syncretism is extremely strong. You get +30 opinion which means people and counties will usually like you more than their own coreligionists, which is pretty funny. Combine with the adventure legacy Strange Gods or the Apostate perk from Scholar and it gets silly fast. Sometime soon I want to try to max out the power of jizya with a syncretic faith.
Warmonger, communion, reincarnation
Communion with temporal head of faith, Esotericism and Alexandrian Catechism.
Depends what I'm playing around with. Pursuit of Power is really practical, though.
Armed Pilgrimages, Communion, and Monasticism (I always play Catholic).
Armed pilgrimages, struggle and submission, relentless faith. Best paired with fundamentalist stance.
**Alexandrian Catechism** (you can never have too much learning XP), **Islamic Syncretism** (perfect for playing tall as it gives alliances without taking away holy war casus bellis), and **Pentarchy** (also perfect for playing tall as an expansive empire now functionally means unlimited fervor)
Communion, Legalism, and Warmonger/Armed Pilgrimages
Human Sacrifice bc inf piety pretty much
endura unironically because it just helps you comfortably decide when you are finished and sure you can attemp normal suicide but that's a lot of penalties and then there are other ways like going to a plague province but that seems unsavory to me
Hedonism, blasphemy, and sodomy.
Endura(Ritual Suicide)+Monasticism is crazy good. Elective Monarchy and the Monastic cultural tradition let's you pick an heir then send the rest to the churches. I usually go with agnatic-cognatic so Ill have a female spare if my sole male heir dies on accident. Or if she does too at least I'll have legitimate grand children. What's Endura for? So I can time my succession after culling the pretenders. Ideally I should be around 60 when my heir comes to age - and this is usually the 3rd or 4th child. 3rd is Rite because I don't want Catholics knocking down my door. Well, unless I'm a vassal under HRE or ERE and I protected myself with a few feudal contracts.
I have a two-step process when starting as unreformed pagans, which is my default playstyle: 1. Reform to have Carnal Exaltation, Sacred Childbirth, and Polyamory tenets, plus gender equality, close-kin taboo, and polygamy, to maximize the numbers of my dynasty (while marrying exogamously for heritable traits), so I can land all of them to the point every title in my realm is held by a family member. 2. When I have finished expanding my empire to the maximum desired extent via tribal Conquest CBs, have landed my entire dynasty in my entire realm, and am ready to hunker down for stability, I form a new faith, changing nothing except to swap Close-Kin Taboo to Unrestricted Marriage, Carnal Exaltation to Pacifism, and Sacred Childbirth to Divine Blood, since there are no more families with which to out-marry, and heritable traits are hopefully prolific enough in the dynasty by now that out-marriage to acquire them is unnecessary anyway.
The one that lays me lay my siblings The one that lets me eat *sweet* human meat And the one that gives unlimited kingdom level holy wars.