Imperator Rome is a game that faced many challenges
since its release in 2019.
When you saw the video title and thumbnail,
there is a good statistical chance that you
thought to yourself “What could any game
learn from Imperator: Rome?”
– Now, I do not want to deny the mixed reception
that is attached to this title, but I also
do not want to discuss this topic in this
video.
When we talk about Crusader Kings III, something
that always comes up is the fact that, no
doubt, CK3 captures religion in the most multifaceted
way that any game has ever captured it, especially
within the grand strategy genre.
The many layers of doctrines, tenets, heresies
and faith hostility within CK3 are an incredible
asset for the game.
What if I told you though that Imperator:
Rome has received a religious rework that
is so ingenious, that it can be viewed as
on par with the revolutionary nature of CK3’s
religious mechanics and yet went completely
under the radar for most fans of grand strategy?
I want to take you on a quick journey of what
Imperator’s system could get done for an
even better CK3 experience later down the
line.
Crusader Kings III knows an unprecedented
number of faiths and allows players to change
many key attributes of their character’s
faith, leading to entirely custom and new
faiths.
This sort of customisation has never been
seen before, but there is one incredibly vital
part that the customisation does not touch:
Holy sites.
Any newly created faith will stick to the
holy sites of its parent faith – for example,
if I were to create a new faith with Orthodox
Christianity being the original faith, the
new faith’s holy sites would also be Jerusalem,
Constantinople, Rome, Alexandria and Antioch
– the seats of the Pentarchy.
Historically and roleplay wise speaking however,
this would not always make sense.
If I were to create a new Orthodoxy-based
heresy that does not recognise the Pentarchy’s
legitimacy, but instead one single leader
sitting in Cherson, the distribution of Holy
Sites would surely have to be a different
one.
All in all, the design decision to always
have heresy holy sites stick to the parent
faith holy sites makes a lot of sense in terms
of balancing.
Otherwise at first glance, even if moving
holy sites had a steep cost attached, there
would be numerous ways of easily exploiting
it by placing them in such a way that the
player would never lose control of them.
To me, it seems as though the solution could
be the Imperator system.
Before we dive into it I want to stress the
following: This cannot be implemented “easily”.
Many work hours of adjusting the system to
CK3’s roleplay and character based gameplay
would have to go into this, before it could
actually be implemented in any way.
Do not take this video’s ideas as something
that (airquotes) “Paradox should’ve implemented
already”.
While I believe that this system could very
much be robust enough to work for CK3, nothing
in game design is ever truly easy.
Disclaimer aside, let’s take a look at Imperator’s
inner works:
Imperator’s Holy site system is incredibly
flexible and in its very basic design asks
one simple question: What makes a holy site
a holy site.
The answer to this question is given by Imperator
by introducing dynamic places of worship both
in them existing in the first place, but also
in their size, faith association and importance.
If you have never played Imperator or at least
haven’t played it since the religion rework,
the way it now works is that states choose
their central deities both from their official
religion and at times from foreign religions
that A) are a big part of the realm’s population
share or B) have a deity’s holy site present
inside of the realm.
Monotheistic faiths such as Judaism worship
Prophets instead of individual gods, seeing
as they only have one.
Some deities have holy sites at the start
of the game, others do not have a specific
central place of worship.
If the player – or the AI for that matter
– has the necessary resources, they can
proclaim a location inside of their realm
a new holy site.
Establishing a holy site will benefit everyone
that actively venerates that deity, meaning
the protection of that holy site is in the
interest of many more realms than just the
realms that owns it.
That is, unless one wants to see that holy
site gone and establish a new place of veneration
for the deity elsewhere.
If a realm in Imperator harbours holy sites
of foreign religions inside their own borders,
they can – if their official state faith
allows for this, of course – accept that
deity into their pantheon, leading to a direct
and dynamic form of faith syncretism.
Alternatively, they could desecrate the holy
site, dealing a blow to the foreign religion
by lowering the bonuses granted from worshipping
the holy site’s deity and angering realms
following that foreign religion.
This is not all however: Imperator also makes
good use of religious artifacts.
The bigger the city in which a holy site was
established, the more relics can be stored
inside it.
This adds effects on the local level, meaning
that being in control of a central place of
worship can lead to a considerable bump in
prosperity of a region.
Pilgrims, the hospitality industry and just
general fervour thanks to the artifacts all
help the region develop.
This in turn also means something for enemies
of that faith, deity and/or nation: Alexandria
for example serves as a holy site at game
start for Alexander The Great.
It harbours two important personal artifacts
of Alexander.
If an enemy nation were to occupy Alexandria,
they could simply choose to desecrate the
holy site, steal its artifacts and let Alexander
be forgotten.
This could be done by non-Hellenic realms
that care not for Hellenic gods to begin with
or even by a Hellenic nation that views Alexander
as a pretender god, not worthy of being worshipped
OR by a Hellenic nation that wants to move
Alexander’s central place of worship to
a different location, a Macedon king for example
that wants his ancestor’s worship brought
home to strengthen their reign.
The opportunities of this system offer an
incredibly flexible approach enabling the
player and the AI to create different circumstances
every playthrough.
And before I forget it: YES, you heard that
right, next to the canonical gods of the Hellenic
pantheon, there is also Alexander the Great.
Imperator utilises a mechanic of deifying
rulers that the player can also use for their
own purposes.
If a ruler is powerful enough, they can name
themselves among the other deities.
If however those deified rulers are no longer
worshipped by any realm of that religion,
they will slowly fade out of the Pantheon
and be forgotten.
That is how Imperator’s holy site system
works.
Don’t get me wrong, the applied system has
some issues and shortcomings, but the design
concept addresses why holy sites exist in
the first place: The association with deities
and/or prophets and their relics or miracleworks
is what drives the faithful to select places
all around the world.
Let’s paint a picture of how this could
be applied in Crusader Kings III:
I am the King of France and while of course
the major holy sites of the Catholic faith
play a big role in the pilgrimages undertaken
by the faithful of my realm, we have a number
of small, minor sites of worship that include
artifacts of minor significance, be it the
bones of a local saint or magnificent altars
to Mary, St. Peter and all the others.
Now it happens that some of these minor holy
sites gained more and more recognition by
the locals – this was facilitated by heavy
investments into the places of worship by
the crown to build for example cathedrals,
or by natural disasters occurring and people
believing that worshipping the respective
Patron Saints will ward off evil like it happened
with the Fourteen Holy Helper Saints during
the plague for example.
Minor holy sites such as these are natural
anchor points for anybody that wanted to create
a new heresy and, to apply CK3 mechanics,
having them inside one’s realm and investing
resources to build up their importance could
lower the cost of creating a heresy.
Major holy sites of any faith could be treated
as Doctrines that a player can exchange against
existing minor holy sites inside or outside
of their realm.
The cost of this of course is a balancing
issue that needs delicate treatment, but it
would be no different from changing the Head
of Faith or Religious Attitudes in the doctrine
screen as it is already possible.
On top of that, minor and major holy sites
could hold relics as described in the Imperator
system that give local bonuses, give more
importance to the respective holy sites which
in turn would lower the cost of raising minor
to major holy sites AND can be plundered by
people of the same or different faiths for
their nefarious purposes.
Of course, having a holy site plundered would
heavily impact the faith’s fervour score.
A minor holy site could be completely destroyed
by “desecrating” it in full, which would
lessen the importance of the local patron
saints unless a ruler were to rebuild it.
Major holy sites on the other hand could be
desecrated but would be viewed as major holy
sites now and for as long as the faith exists.
Jerusalem would not suddenly lose its significance
for Christians just because I wipe it off
the map, of course.
Polytheistic faiths could dedicate holy sites
to prophets, reformers, personifications of
gods and of course the classic gods themselves,
whereas monotheistic religions would focus
on prophets, heresiarchs, saints and so on
and so forth.
Hell, unreformed faiths such as Asatru could
even have rulers establish new major places
of worship by building temples, gathering
relics etc before being able to reform the
faith instead of requiring them blob out of
control to predefined holy places.
The location of the Irminsul should, in my
opinion not necessarily be one of the holy
sites to conquer if one were to reform the
Asatru faith in 1200.
At that point the Irminsul’s regional significance
had ended 400 years ago and the Asatru faith
of 1200 would certainly not be the same faith
as it was in 800.
Imperator’s flexible holy site system could
be implemented as a system with minor and
major holy sites used to store relics paired
with a dynamic system of creation, buildup
and destruction of such holy sites depending
on
the circumstances.
