Paradox Studio Thread

[LovisXVI]

Mormonism has more in common with Gnosticism than Christianity

Well yeah, but Gnosticism is a type of Christianity, so it's kind of a moot point, unless you exclude all variants aside from Chalcedonian creed sects. This is the same game with Adamites, Bogomils Cathars, and Paulicians.

shielding them from missionary activity

They didn't have interest in converting India for much the same reason Muslims didn't, the natives outnumbered them 10, 000 to 1 and massive revolts are bad for business, which is why the British were there in the first place. The sepoy rebellion which very nearly threw the British off of India was fueled in part due to fears by the Hindus and Muslims of disrespect towards their respective religions, you could easily imagine that actually attempting to suppress their religions would have ended very poorly, very quickly.

Also very important to note that Spanish Inquisitorial suppression didn't work. In basically every former Spanish colony, after church influence started to wane, the local folk practices popped up again. Mexico and the Andes especially. Hell in Goa, which was held by Portugal for centuries and underwent some pretty serious repression, not long after it got taken by Indians, Catholic association cratered and is only a fourth of the population.

 

[Sooty Soot]

But that would never happen because this is CK3, the game where you can replace the most historically successful religions with bacchanalian nudist cults and no one bats an eye.

It's a damn shame that these extreme-deviationist custom religions you can make don't cripple you withholy wars, crusades/jihads against you, and religious revolts considering that you had people like Ibn Taymiyya IRL who called for Total Mongol Death because they rejected Sharia but claimed to be Muslims, now imagine what the Catholic Church or even more radical sects like Iconoclasts or Fratecelli would do if you had actual Adamists trying to prosletyize and even waging holy wars.

 

[Computer God Autism]

I can see, in the EU4/V2 timeframe, a basis for a Kirishitan religion that may explore what would happen when a civilization based around one divine monarchy buts up against the institutions of another (maybe the Emperor adopts Catholicism to make himself Pope of Jappery)

In the case of a Catholic Japan, the most realistic scenario would be Emperor remaining the symbolic head of the traditional Japanese religion while the Oda/Toyotomi/whoever actually runs the government converts/flip-flops to Christianity. Maybe there'd be a Gallican-style Japanese church later but the only way the Imperial Family would really be able to do anything resembling Taiping is if Protestantism took hold in Japan, which wasn't really a possibility in the given timeframe.

Big question with Christianity in India in the colonial timeframe, I think, is what if the British had, instead of giving into their nasty demon religions and shielding them from missionary activity, instead declared Spanish-style total war on everything vile in their culture.

We actually have an example with Goa. The Inquisition clamping down on their practices still makes Hindu nationalists and turd world fetishists seethe today while Goa Catholics are the only group of Indians I consistently hear people talk about in a positive way.

Well yeah, but Gnosticism is a type of Christianity,

That only rejects most of the central tenets, including the basic ontology and eschatology, of Christianity. Denouncing their doctrines as not being Christian was one of the only things the Chalcedonians, Miaphysites, and Nestorians could all agree on after their schisms. Even the Arians didn't accept them as Christians.

Catholic association cratered and is only a fourth of the population.

Because the Indian government encouraged the mass migration of Hindus into the state to undercut what they considered a potential fifth column while Catholics who have the means have been leaving for other countries for decades.

 

[LovisXVI]

That only rejects most of the central tenets, including the basic ontology and eschatology, of Christianity.

They don't reject the singular doctrine that defines a Christian sect from a Jewish or Muslim one: a belief in the unique connection that Jesus had with God and is the supreme prophet. I get that a lot of you people don't like that fact, but as far as I am concerned, Gnosticism and Mormonism are types of Christianity as they check all the boxes that I consider to be the core elements of what makes something Christian. They're stupid, sure, but so are faggot Episcopalians, and you would have to be a crack-smoking ideologue to say they weren't Christians.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

They don't reject the singular doctrine that defines a Christian sect from a Jewish or Muslim one: a belief in the unique connection that Jesus had with God and is the supreme prophet. I get that a lot of you people don't like that fact, but as far as I am concerned, Gnosticism and Mormonism are types of Christianity as they check all the boxes that I consider to be the core elements of what makes something Christian. They're stupid, sure, but so are faggot Episcopalians, and you would have to be a crack-smoking ideologue to say they weren't Christians.

I'm not sure if I can agree with Gnostics being Christians, but I do agree about Mormons and I'm open to your position.

 

[LovisXVI]

I'm not sure if I can agree with Gnostics being Christians, but I do agree about Mormons and I'm open to your position.

I find that a lot of people get uncomfortable about grouping things they don't like with stuff they do, as it "says something" about the thing they do like. It doesn't really, it's just about categorizing ideas and concepts in a way that is useful for discussion and rumination. Besides, I am sure most Christians would prefer "Gnosticism is a type of Christianity" to my alternative take: "Christianity is a type of Gnosticism".

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I find that a lot of people get uncomfortable about grouping things they don't like with stuff they do, as it "says something" about the thing they do like. It doesn't really, it's just about categorizing ideas and concepts in a way that is useful for discussion and rumination. Besides, I am sure most Christians would prefer "Gnosticism is a type of Christianity" to my alternative take: "Christianity is a type of Gnosticism".

Oh I totally agree about that. More than anything, people evaluate the merits of a religious idea by how old or familiar it is. Nothing more or less. Their stupid shit is mighty important business because people have been believing it for a long time and they personally believe it (and we are all clever bois who only believe correct things), and it doesn't occur to them that they'd be heckling Jesus on the cross if they lived back then.

With trinitarianism I just don't see it as mattering so much. You've got this paradox of how this text can refer to several distinct entities as being the same thing (THE God). One by one people try to solve the contradictions inside the Bible and they all get branded heretics and exterminated because their understandable, perfectly reasonable metaphors offend some faggot. A user here recently corrected my misunderstanding of Arianism, said that it actually demotes Jesus to Not God, so that perhaps I could concede as being Not Christianity. But to me it makes no difference if this fella Jesus that we worship and pray to and literally call God and place at the center of our whole religion and regard as the savior of humanity is a part or mode or some entirely separate (in a henotheistic sense) god or else. Likewise, one denomination has these scriptures and prophets, another has these others. Another adds on some extra shit. Is Mormonism Christian? Of course. Is Christian Jewish? Of course. Things can, at once, be Christian and beyond Christianity when you define them in contrast to the rest of the Christian tradition.

My issue with Gnosticism is that while I see what you mean about it having Jesus in the center, it makes so many extensive other changes to this stuff (like having YHWH, as I understand, be a Devil separate from the real, good God) that it breaks from that "God of Abraham" every one else has.

 

[LovisXVI]

My issue with Gnosticism is that while I see what you mean about it having Jesus in the center, it makes so many extensive other changes to this stuff (like having YHWH, as I understand, be a Devil separate from the real, good God) that it breaks from that "God of Abraham" every one else has.

Well, could be extremely specific and say Christianity and Gnosticism are within the same "Reformist sects of the Jerusalem Cult of Yahweh that assert that Yeshua ben Yosef is the prophesied Messiah and has an exclusive connection with Yahweh/the Supreme God" category, but that's long and unwieldy and only includes those two religions.

 

[Computer God Autism]

a belief in the unique connection that Jesus had with God and is the supreme prophet.

The fundamental belief in Christianity is that Jesus is God, not the supreme prophet. If that was the case Christianity is no different to Islam. The early Christological schisms were all over the exact nature of Jesus' divinity, not over whether Jesus was the Monad, Demiurge or any number of quasi-pagan deities the Gnostics and other mystery cults added, nor whether Jesus' human nature was fundamentally evil like the rest of the world. This is why the Gnostics were not even represented at the Church councils that resulted in these schisms; they did not share fundamental theological tenets and were not interested in the internal theological debates of another religious system. This is without going into the matter that there was never a unified Gnostic religious body, the obvious influence Zoroastrianism had on the most popular Gnostic sects (and, depending on who you listen to, Buddhism too), and that no one can agree on when Gnosticism actually emerged as a distinctive belief system. What is obvious to me is that it is so syncretic of a religion that the only useful classification for it would either be as a religious group of its own, or to litigate and categorize every single Gnostic sect into about the four different religious groups they emerged from over their millennia of operation.

but so are faggot Episcopalians, and you would have to be a crack-smoking ideologue to say they weren't Christians.

Episcopalians are faggots because they make a mockery out of their own stated religion, not because they follow a schizoid Yankee who decided to rewrite the entire Bible so that God the Father has a physical body which he uses to bang God the Mother, and who was only a man before being exalted to Godhood, which itself is really just getting to rule over one of the many planets inhabited with alien life, who by emulating you can become like if you but wear the magic underwear.

You can say there's a lot of superficially comparative elements between Mormonism and Christianity, and sure, that does tend to happen when you create a fundamentally different religion on the framework of another with the intent of supplanting it. But at that point you might as well accuse Islam of being a Christian heresy if that's your criteria - which, funnily enough, would put you in the same company as Hilaire Belloc. And from my perspective there's more in common between Mormonism and Gnosticism than either have with Christianity.

 

[Sooty Soot]

Episcopalians are faggots because they make a mockery out of their own stated religion, not because they follow a schizoid Yankee who decided to rewrite the entire Bible so that God the Father has a physical body which he uses to bang God the Mother, and who was only a man before being exalted to Godhood, which itself is really just getting to rule over one of the many planets inhabited with alien life, who by emulating you can become like if you but wear the magic underwear.

Wait, aren't Episcopalians Anglicans? Since when did they believe all this stuff?

 

[LovisXVI]

Wait, aren't Episcopalians Anglicans? Since when did they believe all this stuff?

He's talking about Mormons, admittedly the run-on sentence doesn't make it clear. LDS people believe in some whacky stuff, still Christians despite the coping many Nicene Christians give it.

 

[Sooty Soot]

He's talking about Mormons, admittedly the run-on sentence doesn't make it clear. LDS people believe in some whacky stuff, still Christians despite the coping many Nicene Christians give it.

Oh, I didn't notice that "not" right after that first sentence. Let's get back on track since the religiosperging is veering way off topic, the fact that Paradox didn't add an all encompassing settlement CB after horse lords is criminal. I used regular nomad invasion CBs to conquer all three kingdoms titles in Pakistan making sure to fullsiege everyone so I would get all the titles given to me instead of vassalizing their holder, then I settled and had to give independence to every vassal outside of the territory I wanted, and then tag using console commands to my former nomad vassals and make them nomads again since they became tribal.

 

[Slur Generator]

So they released this video focusing on the map and honestly, it looks worse than Imperator. It's not high-fidelity, and it's not even stylized in an interesting or intentional way. It's just bland and lifeless. I'm not playing EU5 for cutting-edge graphics, but if you're going to spotlight the map like it's something to be proud of, at least make it look decent. Right now it looks like a modder's early prototype, not a core part of a flagship title. If this is what they think is worth showing off, it doesn’t inspire much confidence.

Cant believe im saying this but make it more colorful, maybe something like a painterly style. Or just not showcase it at all and just focus on the gameplay.

 

[LovisXVI]

So they released this video focusing on the map and honestly, it looks worse than Imperator. It's not high-fidelity, and it's not even stylized in an interesting or intentional way. It's just bland and lifeless. I'm not playing EU5 for cutting-edge graphics, but if you're going to spotlight the map like it's something to be proud of, at least make it look decent. Right now it looks like a modder's early prototype, not a core part of a flagship title. If this is what they think is worth showing off, it doesn’t inspire much confidence.

Cant believe im saying this but make it more colorful, maybe something like a painterly style. Or just not showcase it at all and just focus on the gameplay.

I'm playing it with portraits turned off and flatmap turned on. Also imperator was the best looking PDX map, the water in particular looked beautiful. Always made me want to go for a swim when I played it.

 

[Super Hans v2]

So they released this video focusing on the map and honestly, it looks worse than Imperator. It's not high-fidelity, and it's not even stylized in an interesting or intentional way. It's just bland and lifeless. I'm not playing EU5 for cutting-edge graphics, but if you're going to spotlight the map like it's something to be proud of, at least make it look decent. Right now it looks like a modder's early prototype, not a core part of a flagship title. If this is what they think is worth showing off, it doesn’t inspire much confidence.

Cant believe im saying this but make it more colorful, maybe something like a painterly style. Or just not showcase it at all and just focus on the gameplay.

Wait, people use anything other than the political map?

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Wait, people use anything other than the political map?

Meme aside I do, a lot. State map mode to see what I should full state, institution, dev map mode, the local org map mode is super useful too. The parliament seat one can be useful as well when assigning seats to quickly let you know what has already been done.

Terrain is actually the least useful map mode there is. Simple terrain is far better since it lets you know at a glance what the terrain mods for battles will be.

 

[WarrenZHarding]

So, just out of curiosity, how many people would be interested in setting up a KF CK2 multiplayer game? Maybe we could set it up a few weeks from now and have it limited to vanilla only (+dlc). Just wondering if there would be interest.

 

[Jinn in the phone]

So, just out of curiosity, how many people would be interested in setting up a KF CK2 multiplayer game? Maybe we could set it up a few weeks from now and have it limited to vanilla only (+dlc). Just wondering if there would be interest.

I'd go for it, I'll be honest and say I've never done multiplayer but I just redownloaded CK2 and want to flex the skills gained from my wasted youth

 

[Kyria the Great]

So, just out of curiosity, how many people would be interested in setting up a KF CK2 multiplayer game? Maybe we could set it up a few weeks from now and have it limited to vanilla only (+dlc). Just wondering if there would be interest.

I'd be interested seeing what rules we would have

 

[WarrenZHarding]

I'd be interested seeing what rules we would have

I dont really have a preference. It would be my first big CK2 multi so Id be fine to hear from anyone more experienced, but default rules for the most part. Again, though, totally down to make changes if everyone thinks something else would be preferable.