Paradox Studio Thread

[Blackstar]

First proper Tinto Flavor today, covering Florence:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-flavour-2-17th-of-january-2025-florence.1726233/

Close up map of Central Italy:

 

[Computer God Autism]

Also another thing that really irritates me, it really was the last time religion had a major in your face impact on history and it's completely glossed over.

Given that only twenty-five years ago the global empire decided to devote itself to retard wars in the Middle East because of some well-educated Mohammadeans, philosemitic Protestant death cults and an ethno-religious group of genestealers, I would say that the roughly hundred years where religion ceased being a major historical force in favor of ideologies was an outlier and a period of interregnum.

 

[thefreshmaker]

Oh yeah I always found it weird that the game that covers the era where big business rose had no corporation mechanics or anthing it was just pure output

Yeah but Victoria 3 fixed this because now you can choose to have one or two corporations which give 5% mining efficiency and which never activate because it requires a high cost of input goods that the game is designed around making low cost.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Given that only twenty-five years ago the global empire decided to devote itself to retard wars in the Middle East because of some well-educated Mohammadeans, philosemitic Protestant death cults and an ethno-religious group of genestealers, I would say that the roughly hundred years where religion ceased being a major historical force in favor of ideologies was an outlier and a period of interregnum.

In a way communism, with it`s utopian promisse and militant atheism, was a religion. And still is.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I don't know how you'd really go about representing religion. I remember seeing a screenshot where the American Devout was an Abolitionist Interest Group. Maybe I imagined it or confused it with a mockup or suggestion. But while there's truth to the idea that the religious were behind it, behind Progressivism, behind Fascism, behind this and that and the other, they were often behind lots of other things, usually contradictory. To me, that's a suggestion that religion should at most be a separate system ticking away in the background. I don't know that the nuances of religion can really be implemented meaningfully except where it has some significance in ethnic strife or some specific institution.

 

[thefreshmaker]

I remember seeing a screenshot where the American Devout was an Abolitionist Interest Group. Maybe I imagined it or confused it with a mockup or suggestion.

The USA starts with the religious interest group as quite powerful (10-20% IIRC, I'm not opening the game again to check) however because of how strict IGs are in Vicky 3 they don't care about slavery in any of their interests. The devs attempted to represent how abolitionism was largely evangelical (versus Southerners being largely baptist) in origin in the states by making their leader Charles Finney with the abolitionist trait. Unfortunately, he's old and once he dies religious IGs are strongly weighted to authoritarian and slaver leaders. Also unfortunately, religion requires either of the two state religion laws to grow/spread (with secular laws religion will refuse to convert or grow) so religious groups become completely anemic within a few years.

Anti slavery forces move from 45% total to closer to 20% after a few years in game because of the static bonuses laws give rather than the actual size of pop groups underlying the political interest groups actual power base. Unless you get some super lucky RNG, abolitionists quickly die out as a political force until the economy develops enough to have academics and business a viable group by the mid game (around the 1860s). This might seem accurate with dates, but it more just shows the inaccuracy of sticking to materialist views as dogma. Abolitionists were actually the majority in the US, but the corruption of Congress by slavers and their advantage with the electoral college meant the abolitionist vote was suppressed until Lincoln won, with Southerners split in the ballot between union or rebellion Democrat candidates.

The system is only workable with a big view of history based around often incorrect factoids and Reddit-tier logic. The boot strapping of traits to leaders to try and make the system make sense in a Marxian lense is quite hilarious; landowners is a static group with the same effects everywhere, but needs to have slaver leaders in the US and market liberal leaders in the UK just to try and give it sense against history. Of course, a critical review of history would reveal the landowners in the US were largely split between Northern small freeholders and Southern slavers closer to Roman Lantifundium, and UK landowners transformed their agricultural lands into hunting estates and made their money off of the first factories.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

The system is only workable with a big view of history based around often incorrect factoids and Reddit-tier logic. The boot strapping of traits to leaders to try and make the system make sense in a Marxian lense is quite hilarious; landowners is a static group with the same effects everywhere, but needs to have slaver leaders in the US and market liberal leaders in the UK just to try and give it sense against history. Of course, a critical review of history would reveal the landowners in the US were largely split between Northern small freeholders and Southern slavers closer to Roman Lantifundium, and UK landowners transformed their agricultural lands into hunting estates and made their money off of the first factories.

I’ve heard of the “Slave Power” but am skeptical; as I understand the Great Lakes states and much of the urban Bew England masses were entirely indifferent to slavery as long as it wasn’t in their states or Western land they wanted to become their states.

I would have had ideologies work like in Victoria II, kept the concept of laws (reforms and policies were a bad feature of V2) but also had a layer of sub-ideology traits to modify the meaning of ideologies.

V2 actually did a good job of representing interest groups in that pops had a class-based bias towards ideologies, but it wasn’t a 1-to-1 EVERYBODY thinks this way or they’re brainwashed thing.

If you keep it rooted in ideology, you can still have it be obvious at a glance what a country is like, but then have that basic worldview be adapted. In America, for example, I’d argue that Liberal accurately describes both Jacksonians and Republicans, but the former has a strong bent towards Laissez-Faire and Free Trade (consistent with Liberals elsewhere) while the latter has a bent towards Protectionism and Interventionism (consistent with Conservatives elsewhere). Likewise, Jacksonian Pro-Slavery is at odds with Liberalism worldwide, whereas Republican Abolitionism matches it. Fire-Eaters would be squarely Reactionary, their worldview was starting to run in very authoritarian directions.

I’m not sure how exactly you go about simplifying the effects of “religion,” to me it seems to bound up in the very specific flavor of religion. But one could say that church participation is worth modeling in and of itself, maybe as a power multiplier for religious-based ideologies. Religiosity could be something similar while also driving “Consciousness” (Marxist, but I think a very useful idea) up or down. So something like a Reactionary pop with a Neo-Confucian sub-ideology will, under conditions of high Religiosity, be driven heavily towards obedience and conservatism on reform, while a Protestant with the Progressive sub-ideology could become much more pro-social reform as their Religiosity increases.

Religiosity, then, just juices or nukes the impact of certain ideologies when combined with certain religions. And unless there’s a coherent theory of how religious revivals break out, that’s adaptable to a grand strategy game, it could be a semi-random wave pattern.

Edit: BTW, I feel like this is relevant up to the present day. As someone else mentioned, very tongue-in-cheek but true, the Bushian Jihad (worse than the Butlerian Jihad) and all of the Israel bullshit has basically been a giant holy war/proxy holy war for Evangelicals. I'm starting to think that a "Radicalism" concept distinct from both Militancy and Consciousness is needed.
Consciousness = The awareness/engagement of a pop in the world around it, how well it actually understands things, ie a low consciousness peasant riots when there's no bread, a high consciousness peasant organizes a mass movement, inarticulate rage vs articulate rage
Militancy = Willingness to resort to fisticuffs, how pissed they are about the state of things
Radicalism = How far in on its chosen ideology a Pop is. I mean, are all Liberals, Socialists, Fascists and so on equally Liberal, Socialist or Fascist? Why are there not finer layers of distinction? Especially useful for representing the difference between conventional politics and secular politics-as-civil-religion that you have in today's world.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Abolitionists were actually the majority in the US

I don't want to turn this into a history spergout but this is about as reductionist an understanding of history as Vicky 3's portrayal.

Gradual emancipation was the majority opinion in America, and included many large slaveowners as adherents - including Thomas Jefferson, who was responsible for preventing the spread of slavery into the Northwest concession. Said northwesterners were not interested in fighting a war for the sake of abolition; if you read any amount of Union soldier diaries or interviews it would be abundantly apparent that most voluntary Union soldiers were fighting because they believed in preserving the Union. Abolition was not being blocked by the uniquely corrupting forces of slave power, which was just one of many interest groups in the antebellum American political landscape (and had its northern counterpart in the form of rail barons), and that it was not pushed through even after the most vociferous plo-slavery politicians had left Washington because their states seceded should speak to the actual popularity of the position.

V2 doesn't even do a good job of representing slavery as an institution. It essentially was designed with the intent of only simulating the abolition of slavery in Dixie and Brazil; all slaves are just complete illiterates who only do field work, have no trades or income, and essentially just exist to be whipped by honkey until the player steps in. While it is possible to represent that many of them were also artisans (I know the Age of Enlightenment mod does this, but I can't speak to how effective it is), the game isn't built around that or the idea that slaves could also work in factories or buy their own emancipation. There's also no short-term drawbacks to abolishing slavery; there's no recompense nor simulation of the social or economic upheaval involved in having a large population of former slaves with none of the social guarantees they used to have milling about or in wiping out a large portion of the wealth of many farmer and aristocrat pops. And don't even think of trying to simulate Islamic slavery where there were entire castes of slaves who held more freedom and authority than the freemen in those societies.

Religiosity could be something similar while also driving “Consciousness” (Marxist, but I think a very useful idea) up or down. So something like a Reactionary pop with a Neo-Confucian sub-ideology will, under conditions of high Religiosity, be driven heavily towards obedience and conservatism on reform, while a Protestant with the Progressive sub-ideology could become much more pro-social reform as their Religiosity increases.

I second this. Low religiosity should lead to pops becoming more in favor of revolutionary movements as well (not just Communist - a lot of people forget that Talleyrand was a Bishop). I do think the V3 idea of having religions have certain taboos was a good one; highly religious Islamic pops shouldn't be consuming alcohol, though obviously that should be negated by low religiosity. I do think having a way to represent separate institutions in the country and who controls how much of them would be important to properly representing religion as a political dynamic - e.g. highly religious Catholics would be fine with more education reform if church schools are still the most prestigious/numerous, but would be against it if the liberal government with a freemason president is the one appointing new schoolmasters.

 

[thefreshmaker]

I’ve heard of the “Slave Power” but am skeptical; as I understand the Great Lakes states and much of the urban Bew England masses were entirely indifferent to slavery as long as it wasn’t in their states or Western land they wanted to become their states.

Gradual emancipation was the majority opinion in America, and included many large slaveowners as adherents - including Thomas Jefferson, who was responsible for preventing the spread of slavery into the Northwest concession. Said northwesterners were not interested in fighting a war for the sake of abolition; if you read any amount of Union soldier diaries or interviews it would be abundantly apparent that most voluntary Union soldiers were fighting because they believed in preserving the Union. Abolition was not being blocked by the uniquely corrupting forces of slave power, which was just one of many interest groups in the antebellum American political landscape (and had its northern counterpart in the form of rail barons), and that it was not pushed through even after the most vociferous plo-slavery politicians had left Washington because their states seceded should speak to the actual popularity of the position.

My intent was not to portray the situation as black/white, where everyone was a slaver or bleeding-heart anti-slaver.

Most of the forces of abolition were in fact indifferent, but the power of the South over the country propelled them further to become anti-slavery by necessity. Northerners did not care, by and large, as long as it was not in their backyard, however they experienced decades of gag orders and civil wars in territories over slavery, abuse of power by Southern members, etc, which caused them to become radicalised towards banning it. Likewise, the Southerners viewed any and all actions to limit slavery as being just the first step in the complete abolition of the black man, which was not going to happen under their watch. It's important to note that from the founding of USA there was not a single anti-slavery or abolitionist President until Lincoln, and due to the formation of the various government institutions the Northerners did not hold a majority over any of them. It's no chance that as soon as anti-slaver forces took control of both the Presidency and Congress that the Southerners rebelled.

The majority of Americans were against slavery, however it was similar to how most Americans are against furthering climate change. It was a third or fourth order issue rather than being top of their mind. It's also why the civil war did not occur until several months after secession - the primary concern was preservation of the Union for the North, but for the South it was preservation of slavery against what they saw as just the beginning of growing abolitionist power; you either have pro-slaver forces running the show, or it's as good as dead in the long run.

 

[Computer God Autism]

but the power of the South over the country

Was not consistent nor persistent. Every House Gag had a Tariff of Abominations weighed against it; it was a constant back and forth, which is the point of federalism.

however they experienced decades of gag orders and civil wars in territories over slavery

The worst atrocities committed in Bleeding Kansas were by John Brown, a radical abolitionist, serial killer and wannabe doomsday cult leader horrorcow who later tried to start a race war in the south with the backing of an actual conspiracy of New England politicians and businessmen.

It's important to note that from the founding of USA there was not a single anti-slavery or abolitionist President until Lincoln

Lincoln was not an abolitionist, he put preserving slavery on the table at the Hampton Roads conference if the Confederacy would surrender, repeatedly made statements he was more interested in the preservation of the Union than the abolition of slavery and ordered generals who carried out the Emancipation Proclamation in slave states that had not seceded to return the slaves they freed to their masters.

What do you mean by anti-slavery? Was Thomas Jefferson not anti-slavery for restricting the spread of slavery to the Northwest because he was born into a slaveholding family?

and due to the formation of the various government institutions the Northerners did not hold a majority over any of them.

When the US held its first elections there were 26 senatorial seats, with 16 of them belonging to northern states. You are delusional if you think the North was somehow politically out in the cold until the South decided that it was going to secede because for some reason it couldn't push through its slave agenda despite monopolizing all political power and public opinion being ambivalent.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Most of the forces of abolition were in fact indifferent, but the power of the South over the country propelled them further to become anti-slavery by necessity. Northerners did not care, by and large, as long as it was not in their backyard, however they experienced decades of gag orders and civil wars in territories over slavery, abuse of power by Southern members, etc, which caused them to become radicalised towards banning it. Likewise, the Southerners viewed any and all actions to limit slavery as being just the first step in the complete abolition of the black man, which was not going to happen under their watch.

This is also (I have a ramble about it in this or another thread) how I would represent the idea of "Northern secession" as an alternate history scenario. It's goofy af, but the one way you can somewhat try to justify the idea of it is in a US where Fire Eaters are somehow both so extremely militant AND powerful that they are able to practically enforce censorship and slave patrols in the North, sparking a secession.

It's important to note that from the founding of USA there was not a single anti-slavery or abolitionist President until Lincoln, and due to the formation of the various government institutions the Northerners did not hold a majority over any of them. It's no chance that as soon as anti-slaver forces took control of both the Presidency and Congress that the Southerners rebelled.

Only if you take a very extreme (for their own day) interpretation of anti-slavery. Thomas Jefferson bans the Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the whole Northwest Territory that becomes the Great Lakes/Rust Belt?!

I second this. Low religiosity should lead to pops becoming more in favor of revolutionary movements as well (not just Communist - a lot of people forget that Talleyrand was a Bishop). I do think the V3 idea of having religions have certain taboos was a good one; highly religious Islamic pops shouldn't be consuming alcohol, though obviously that should be negated by low religiosity. I do think having a way to represent separate institutions in the country and who controls how much of them would be important to properly representing religion as a political dynamic - e.g. highly religious Catholics would be fine with more education reform if church schools are still the most prestigious/numerous, but would be against it if the liberal government with a freemason president is the one appointing new schoolmasters.

I think religious activity needs to be divided in some fashion into Religious Organization and Religious Fervor. A lot of shithole countries, especially Catholic ones, would have very strong, well-organized, politically active Churches and a population that silently hated them. In Victoria II terms, it would be like a force multiplier on Party Loyalty, on Movements, on party share in the legislature; the underlying population doesn't necessarily agree with the religious agenda, but the church or, in the Protestant world, churches are effective at mass-mobilizing. And organized religions are more manipulable. Then, Religious Fervor is what increases genuine mass appeal, which based on the prevailing ideologies/sub-ideologies gets channeled in different directions. Another one from American history: Christian socialism, like you see in the labor movement.

So, you can wind up with:
Irreligious, disorganized societies = Religion just doesn't have much of an impact in and of itself

Fervent, disorganized societies = Probably more prone to radical stances but doesn't translate into action, which could cause outbursts of; chaotic but ineffective tone

Irreligious, organized societies = The churches have a large political impact way out of line with the people's desires. Population is disengaged from politics, society is stable, but the divide runs a serious risk of causing a major political conflict down the line as the population radicalizes from its disengagement and anger.

Fervent, organized societies = An immense amount of energy for reform campaigns. Could be very dangerous if its ideology/leadership is deranged, but is more manipulable since the people are responsive to authority and have a sense of purpose. Can often be transformational.

I think that the general trend would be that religiosity drives organization up and then organization drives religiosity down (if that sounds controversial, the economics of religion has tried to explain the life cycle of churches - why hardcore ones grow like wild and then become pussified and die - with a view like that). What drives religiosity up? I don't know. You don't want it to have a steady-state, it should be cyclical (certainly in America and the Middle East, presumably in other cultures too). I think some factors that may drive it up could be things like:
- Low Consciousness/education
- High Consciousness/education conditional on social upheaval in a disorganized society (not being religious is causing turmoil, so people flip to religion)
Whatever the case, Terra Invicta may be a place to look for inspiration with how it represents change in societies. Just, you know, you'd be doing this with pops and not literally one country with one panel of statistics for it.

Think of the low consciousness scenario as being like a Third World cesspool that is so mired in ignorance it cannot help be anything other than Medieval, while the high consciousness scenario is like the way Reformation in Europe and Great Awakening in America accompanied mass commercial expansion.

Communism is definitely a religion for a ton of little reasons, don't know that I'd treat it as one mechanically since religion is more about the cultural identity/background of the Pop than fine details of if they actually believe that bread becomes bloody Jesus meat. Orthodox Russia, for example, never lost its Orthodox cultural background just because of Communism, whereas places like Persia that were paved over by Islam very much did lose their Zoroastrian, Christian, pagan characters.

V2 doesn't even do a good job of representing slavery as an institution. It essentially was designed with the intent of only simulating the abolition of slavery in Dixie and Brazil; all slaves are just complete illiterates who only do field work, have no trades or income, and essentially just exist to be whipped by honkey until the player steps in. While it is possible to represent that many of them were also artisans (I know the Age of Enlightenment mod does this, but I can't speak to how effective it is), the game isn't built around that or the idea that slaves could also work in factories or buy their own emancipation. There's also no short-term drawbacks to abolishing slavery; there's no recompense nor simulation of the social or economic upheaval involved in having a large population of former slaves with none of the social guarantees they used to have milling about or in wiping out a large portion of the wealth of many farmer and aristocrat pops. And don't even think of trying to simulate Islamic slavery where there were entire castes of slaves who held more freedom and authority than the freemen in those societies.

As you noted, slaves were suitable to industry. It's more geographical reasons why industry was delayed in its introduction to the South. I don't recall much of what I'd change to them, but them being Artisans is simply historical fact. I don't really feel that there's any reason they shouldn't be usable as Proletariat/Craftsmen. I think you could argue that the game (based on the V2 class system I remember) maybe should have a distinction between Engineers and Mechanics/Operators, unless you want to argue that Clerks are already equivalent to Engineers, which I think is how a lot of PDM factories already work. There could be a problem in that a slave society can produce plenty of Mechanics but few Clerks to actually use with them, so the industrial sector would be bigger than it being limited to Whites but it would still be small.

I think that Slaves should exist in some kind of market where they can be bought and shuffled around. They could travel with their owner Pop or they could be sold in open markets, but this goes back to needing some kind of ownership mechanic anyways; "Capitalists" are not some generic group that all get paid out of some fund. There really should be a way that Farmers (Yeomen) also own Slaves. Nearly a third of the Southern population owned ONE slave per household. That was a class of people that were definitely not "Aristocrats" by any stretch of the imagination, but the ownership of a slave has huge impacts on a person's politics.

I never gave it any thought before, but I think that Pro-Slavery sentiment as an ideology/reform movement ought to be propagated mostly by the practice already being around. It's a thing that survives pretty much exclusively on tradition in that a free country doesn't just suddenly want to introduce it. You see how the existence of a huge upper yeoman class has a huge impact as people don't just care about themselves but also neighbors; the lower two-thirds don't want to deprive the upper third of their property, whereas in a world where that 1% are the only slaveowners that may be a very realistic goal.

I think these games are also missing the possibility for wage slavery situations like company towns. You can argue about how accurate the extreme Marxist labor historian depiction of it is, but there IS something there that's notably different from regular wage workers in the same way that feudal serfs simply are not slaves and they are not freemen.

The worst atrocities committed in Bleeding Kansas were by John Brown, a radical abolitionist, serial killer and wannabe doomsday cult leader horrorcow who later tried to start a race war in the south with the backing of an actual conspiracy of New England politicians and businessmen.

This does not get discussed anywhere near enough. I first learned about it in A Disease in the Public Mind. It's way too pro-Confederate of a book (Fleming seems to really want you to feel sorry for the planters), but it walked through the way Brown (whose first victim was a free Black man, and was a sociopath indifferent to the death of his son) was bankrolled by high poobahs. The reaction of the Northern press was the thing that I think made secession inevitable (because it demonstrated to Southerners that large numbers of Northerners would actively celebrate their murder).

I thought of it with how the Summer of Floyd riots and Antifa were banrkolled and protected by Leftist poobahs.

In my game theory-like model of the Civil War (something that could be made into an actual PDM-like event chain mod), Bleeding Kansas (or the alt-history equivalent) makes John Brown inevitable, and then John Brown sets it that an abolitionist party victory sets off secession. Kansas loads the gun, Brown cocks the gun, and Republican victory pulls the trigger. It puts everything on a strict timetable.

I don't remember everything I've written about it before, but inspired heavily by A Disease in the Public Mind, I do recall thinking of the Slavery Question in terms of provocations, fear, hysteria. The danger and paradox is that slavery has to be put under some pressure to want to get rid of it, but not pressure that makes it defensive. When either side turtles up both sides radicalize rapidly. A big chunk of the War is abolitionist retardation (well-meant, right side of history, yadda yadda, but still retarded) burning any chance of coaxing the South, in its turtle fortress mentality, into a compromise.

Historically, you do need popular sovereignty to have a Bleeding Kansas. Popular sovereignty may be thought of as a move that kicks the problem down the line (the sides always are more spiteful about what they don't get than happy about what they do get) but then enables the actual shooting. Without popular sovereignty you may not get Bleeding Kansas, but you may get some other kind of backlash event to reflect states outraged that (think they) have been screwed over too many times at the territory-carving table, or feel threatened by continued population growth in the other section.

Playing America in this timeframe in a grand strategy game should feel like Twilight Struggle: crisis and tension, you're constantly miserable because it constantly feels like things could spiral out of control horribly (they will). You never feel like you're winning, you just feel like you're losing more slowly, but if you keep losing "more slowly" for long enough you win. Playing peaceful-gradual-emancipation should be like playing the Soviets in Twilight Struggle: you have a lot of momentum early on (earlier, if we're talking an early start date like Concert of Europe 1821 or earlier still), but if you fail to pull it off quickly you're probably fucked. Playing slavery/the Confederacy is the same, actually (better an earlier war when the South is relatively strong, or strangle abolitionism in its grave), playing war emancipation/the Union gets better the later you can drag it out. Basically, the sides have dug in later on, and time always favors Northern militarism.

IRL I think it's a solid argument that the Haitian Revolution is what derails the huge abolitionist upswell of the American Revolution. If you go all the way back to that, I think if you get rid of Haiti you really do have a chance of gradual emancipation in the Southern states of their own will. Haiti is the disaster all the other disasters flow out of.

 

[Computer God Autism]

This is also (I have a ramble about it in this or another thread) how I would represent the idea of "Northern secession" as an alternate history scenario. It's goofy af, but the one way you can somewhat try to justify the idea of it is in a US where Fire Eaters are somehow both so extremely militant AND powerful that they are able to practically enforce censorship and slave patrols in the North, sparking a secession.

Depending on the timeframe you wouldn't even need something like that - you'd just need the Hartford Convention to go differently.

I think religious activity needs to be divided in some fashion into Religious Organization and Religious Fervor. A lot of shithole countries, especially Catholic ones, would have very strong, well-organized, politically active Churches and a population that silently hated them. In Victoria II terms, it would be like a force multiplier on Party Loyalty, on Movements, on party share in the legislature; the underlying population doesn't necessarily agree with the religious agenda, but the church or, in the Protestant world, churches are effective at mass-mobilizing.

Eh, I don't think you'd need a separate modifier - you'd just need proper Church-State mechanics. State Churches, at least in the Christian world, tended to encourage laziness and corruption amongst lower level clergy (Adam Smith actually devoted a chapter to this in Wealth of Nations, though most editions remove it) while a large part of why American Protestantism was so successful at mobilizing was because there was an overabundance of denominations with little state support.

Doing that successfully would require Vicky to also simulate land ownership, which is obviously a big thing for state churches, but there should be a reaction mechanism to secularization - e.g. the Directorate's attempt to totally dechristianize France wound up causing a religious revival (and mass resistance amongst the religious) amongst the laity in the 1800s.

I think some factors that may drive it up could be things like:
- Low Consciousness/education
- High Consciousness/education conditional on social upheaval in a disorganized society (not being religious is causing turmoil, so people flip to religion)

In addition to government (player) actions and passive government positions, urbanization should be another factor; it's a topic discussed and debated to death amongst sociologists and some political theorists, but there's a general consensus that dense populations create an anonymizing factor that is conducive to deviancy and makes more casual religious communities difficult to maintain.

It's a thing that survives pretty much exclusively on tradition in that a free country doesn't just suddenly want to introduce it

In the Christian world, yes. In post colonial Africa and the Dar-al Islam?

I think these games are also missing the possibility for wage slavery situations like company towns.

Now that you mention it I'm surprised there's not even a mention of company towns in V2. Obviously not having corporate mechanics or land ownership contributes but the least Johan could have done was have some social reform or event for it.

 

[JJLiautaud]

IRL I think it's a solid argument that the Haitian Revolution is what derails the huge abolitionist upswell of the American Revolution. If you go all the way back to that, I think if you get rid of Haiti you really do have a chance of gradual emancipation in the Southern states of their own will. Haiti is the disaster all the other disasters flow out of.

Ironically correct more than any other factor the Haitian revolt and the genocide that followed was the one factor that made the ACW inevitable, after that there was no politically acceptable compromise that the South would accept because any emancipation the South felt would result in them being murdered in their beds and in fact I believe the Slave states tightened up their slave laws after Haiti no more deathbed liberties and increased restrictions on Freedmen.

In addition to government (player) actions and passive government positions, urbanization should be another factor; it's a topic discussed and debated to death amongst sociologists and some political theorists, but there's a general consensus that dense populations create an anonymizing factor that is conducive to deviancy and makes more casual religious communities difficult to maintain

Which is odd given that Christianity spread out from towns and cities when it first got started.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Ironically correct more than any other factor the Haitian revolt and the genocide that followed was the one factor that made the ACW inevitable, after that there was no politically acceptable compromise that the South would accept because any emancipation the South felt would result in them being murdered in their beds and in fact I believe the Slave states tightened up their slave laws after Haiti no more deathbed liberties and increased restrictions on Freedmen.

Haiti was bad (very bad), but there were still many in the south in favor of gradual emancipation who retained high office after it - if anything it gave the American Colonization society its kickstart. The thing that, imo, really worked to put the discussion of gradual emancipation in its grave was Nat Turner's rebellion, which was effectively a localized Haitian revolution; it was after that most state laws against teaching slaves to read were passed (that plenty of slaveholders just ignored, including Jeff Davis lmao) and abolitionist pamphlets began to be criminalized.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

In the Christian world, yes. In post colonial Africa and the Dar-al Islam?

Could be tied to their religion directly?

Now that you mention it I'm surprised there's not even a mention of company towns in V2. Obviously not having corporate mechanics or land ownership contributes but the least Johan could have done was have some social reform or event for it.

Because that effected White Southerners and not just Blacks. Have to memoryhole it.

Eh, I don't think you'd need a separate modifier - you'd just need proper Church-State mechanics. State Churches, at least in the Christian world, tended to encourage laziness and corruption amongst lower level clergy (Adam Smith actually devoted a chapter to this in Wealth of Nations, though most editions remove it) while a large part of why American Protestantism was so successful at mobilizing was because there was an overabundance of denominations with little state support.

I actually almost mentioned Smith and his follow-ups. An economist of religion, Iannaccone, had a model of intense denominations growing faster than lax ones due to their intensity (he argued that they can screen for "free riders" with their rules, whether you take that as meaning using their social services or just free riding on the reputation/energy of an engaged congregation). Other people used his work to try to extend this to answer more questions, like coming up with rigorous explanations for patterns where super hardcore sects emerge, grow rapidly, BECOME the big gay, and then die a slow embarassing death of gay (as things like Presbyterianism did).

I thought that Iannaccone and Smith would naturally go together to make predictions that state religions would cause irreligion. (Much worse than just organization, but I think even private organization would still have a similar effect.) If people can't have a church that's close enough to their desires they often just drop out in bitterness. Eventually they radicalize into atheism. I could be wrong on this, but my impression is that the supposedly "based" Catholic Southern Europe is actually chock-full of atheism, much more than the Protestant world (and certainly than the Calvinist/Evangelical world), it's just that Catholics count anybody that ever looked at a church as a member. I've heard that specific places like Czechia that had hardcore Reformation movements but were crushed kind of lost their religious soul starting then. I think this kind of thing is a huge chunk of why the French, Mexican and Russian Revolutions became atheistic while the American Revolution complemented its religious culture neatly (British even called it a "Presbyterian rebellion"): those were countries where Christianity made Government Whore because the Church had killed every type of Christianity. Whereas the Americans had a very religiously diverse population where each church was another potential sect of anti-government radicals.

The connection between Calvinism and Anabaptism (I don't really give a shit about Lutheranism or Episcopalianism, both might as well be Catholic) and the rise of representative governments/liberalism is something I'm passionate about.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Which is odd given that Christianity spread out from towns and cities when it first got started.

Well, part of it is that the urban life of Pax Romana antiquity were vastly different to the urban life of the industrial age. It's common in historical portrayals of the latter to make 19th century urban life seem as dreadful and inhospitable as possible (not that it was great, especially compared to now, but London's east end was not the norm for everyone in every industrial city), but the reality of ancient city life wasn't much better, and life expectancy in the megalopolises were worse. Rome at the height of its population had about the population density of modern Calcutta with the city limits of a medieval burg; the senatorial elite preferred to stay in their latifundia for a reason. Pagan temples typically didn't offer religious communities, or much charity for that matter; many of them were essentially just places for the upper classes to hold dinner parties, and the most notable exception were the Cybelenes, who cut their own dicks off. So Christianity offering a religious community to people who lack one, as well as charity (nevermind being willing to take in infants that would otherwise be exposed) as part of active missionizing gave them a massive edge over the pagan temples, while not demanding circumcision and sumptuary laws gave them a massive edge over the Jews. Christianity did also have a comprehensive theology, which gave it an intellectual appeal that a lot of henotheisms and mystery cults were lacking.

It's a fascinating topic but I don't want to derail further, so I'll just recommend to read Rodney Stark's Cities of God if you want a good scholarly overview on the topic. Suffice to say a lot of these considerations don't really exist when the Industrial Revolution was sparking off a massive wave of urbanization; the church had a relatively secure powerbase and wasn't a novelty anymore, though obviously church charity still featured heavily in the literature of the time.

I could be wrong on this, but my impression is that the supposedly "based" Catholic Southern Europe is actually chock-full of atheism, much more than the Protestant world (and certainly than the Calvinist/Evangelical world), it's just that Catholics count anybody that ever looked at a church as a member. I've heard that specific places like Czechia that had hardcore Reformation movements but were crushed kind of lost their religious soul starting then.

Apologies for the double-post but anecdotally I can say it's a bit of both; part of the reason why Irreligious as a category is so popular in places like Czechia is because the government refuses to recognize independent or non-former state church denominations (this is particularly bad in Germany where Baptist church plants were having to register as sports clubs to get tax exemption status, or Belgium where they're just classified as a cult), so actual religiosity is higher than some numbers would make you believe (which is not to say that these places are bastions of religious activity, just that they're not totally dead).

On the other hand the Catholic church was spiritually dead in its heartland for about a century; the tradcaths who will seethe over neocalvinist capitalism destroying western civilization through feminism will conveniently forget the French revolution happened in a Catholic country and the largest and most successful anarchist and socialist movements were in Spain, France and Italy in the 20th century.

Ultimately I think the issue is that over the past thirty or so years there's been an increasing self-sorting mechanism amongst western populations when it comes to religion as the Cold War consensus died out. Those who were around/involved in active religious communities are becoming more religious and those whose only exposure to it was as a vestigial civil religion are giving it up in favor of any number of vaguely spiritual beliefs. A particularly illustrative example for me was seeing mass attendance decrease at the same time as youth involvement and use of the Latin Mass resurges.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Ultimately I think the issue is that over the past thirty or so years there's been an increasing self-sorting mechanism amongst western populations when it comes to religion as the Cold War consensus died out. Those who were around/involved in active religious communities are becoming more religious and those whose only exposure to it was as a vestigial civil religion are giving it up in favor of any number of vaguely spiritual beliefs. A particularly illustrative example for me was seeing mass attendance decrease at the same time as youth involvement and use of the Latin Mass resurges.

Good post, informative
With this, it also goes towards explaining the mass conversion of Catholic Latinos to Evangelical, Pentecostal and Mormon denominations. More religious than Catholic Europe for reasons of unga bunga Third World jungle, but dropped Catholicism to become hardcore tongue speakers the moment they could. Came long after secularization, but took a while to get enough of a critical mass of converts to be effective. Religion is a “positive network good,” can’t do Catholicism or Protestantism without buddies, takes a long time to get the ball rolling.

I may be overly bold, but I predict Latin America as a whole going majority Protestant like regions of Brazil and Guatemala have.

 

[Amerikaner Teddybär]

Speaking of, Stellaris did a dev diary today about 4.0, and they're once again fucking with entire game mechanics. Individual pops are getting axed: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...v-diary-366-announcing-stellaris-4-0.1726042/

Oh boy, can't wait to relearn a good chunk of the game for the 50th time.

 

[Willie B. Hardigan]

I may be overly bold, but I predict Latin America as a whole going majority Protestant like regions of Brazil and Guatemala have.

That will never happen, at least in the way you're suggesting. Catholicism is a foundational block for a lot of those nations so them giving it up just like that would be like suggesting a Middle Eastern country dropping Islam in the far future. The more likely route is that a new branch of Roman Catholicism will emerge from the current religious exchanges in North & South America that will look something akin to Old Catholic Evangelicalism. An eventual merging or universal compromise will probably formulate naturally between Protestantism and Catholicism as the two have been taking pages from each other's doctrines for so long that the differences will be too minute to tell. People are becoming too socially conservative for mainline Protestant sects while also distrusting institutional bodies to the point where the Pope or Vatican™ no longer has spiritual authority for most.

Whatever is formulated here will probably spread to Europe due to the internet and cultural connection the United States has to its colonies NATO members. I may be completely wrong because accurately predicting a whole new religion is borderline impossible but that seems to be the general direction that the Western religion is taking.

It probably still sounds like Protastism wins in the end to you, but it'll never feel that way to the people in Mexico or Brazil.

 

[LovisXVI]

That will never happen, at least in the way you're suggesting. Catholicism is a foundational block for a lot of those nations so them giving it up just like that would be like suggesting a Middle Eastern country dropping Islam in the far future.

That isn't that unlikely though. Secularization is really tearing through the ME, and places like Egypt are on the fast track to just not caring.