What is the best Eastern religion?

[Kuromiya]

I'm looking to convert to an Eastern religion - Buddhist, Hindu, or Jain. I am tribal. Which is the best religion, and why?


Hinduism seems like all of it has a strict no-incest rule, which sucks. They are also strictly monogamous, which also sucks. Bhakti sounds more useful than Puja, but Shaivism and Kalikula (which have the best flavour IMO) are both Puja religions. Kalikula's Esotericism seems more useful than Shaivist Monasticism, BUT, Kalikula is feminist, which really really sucks for tribes. I'd be happy to go Equal, in fact I would prefer it if I could keep Agnatic-Cognatic succession, but getting locked into Cognatic for Odin-knows how long sounds like a disaster.

Buddhists allow incest and polygamy, so they seem like a much more reasonable plan. However, I'm not really keen on Dharmic Pacifism, especially as a tribe. Theravada might be alright since I am in Bengal right now, and plan to focus on the Bengal and Tamilakam regions, which will put holy sites right in my path. However, Ari is not saddled with Dharmic pacifism, and seems to be pretty lawless. So maybe that would be better?

Jain has naked people. However, the various branches are all saddled with Dharmic pacifism (like Buddhism), and monogamy (like Hinduism), and they've got an unbelievable number of Sins. I don't see any upside for going with Jainism, beside the naked people.



I'm thinking Ari would be best, but what have your experiences been like with Eastern religions so far?

[Zaidah]

I would say... create your own that fits you the best. I will most likely manage as I can with the religion I start with, and create a new one once I get to play an erudit character and I expanded enough. If really your starting religion works against your plans, then take one that will annoy you the less.

[Kuromiya]

Well, I can't create my own, since I have 250 piety and I'm an unreformed pagan and it's Ironman so I can't cheat.

I didn't think I'd have to qualify this question as the question seems fairly straightforward and hard to misunderstand, but OK: of the vanilla in-game Eastern religions, which one is best?

[Gestum]

Originally posted by KickySonichu:

Well, I can't create my own, since I have 250 piety and I'm an unreformed pagan and it's Ironman so I can't cheat.

I didn't think I'd have to qualify this question as the question seems fairly straightforward and hard to misunderstand, but OK: of the vanilla in-game Eastern religions, which one is best?

Not that hard to gather enough piety in a lifetime with theology focus and the associated piety discounts. Maybe with your heir if your current character isn't suitable, but I really rather quickly reformed an unreformed pagan religion.

[Zaidah]

"Best" is relative. If you want a religion that allows you to expand and, later, wage great holy wars, check if there are one that allows the "conquest" casus belli, avoid the pcasifism ones. If seeing nudes people is fun enough for you to go for Jain, then why not.

Monogamy can has upside as well (gold or prestige on marriage, no lost of prestige if not enough wives, and easier to manage succession).

Same with incest, if it's allowed, AI will use it and you'll have often inbreed family members and could potentially waste good potential genetic tree.

It's really up to you...

[Kuromiya]

Originally posted by Gestum:

Originally posted by KickySonichu:

Well, I can't create my own, since I have 250 piety and I'm an unreformed pagan and it's Ironman so I can't cheat.

I didn't think I'd have to qualify this question as the question seems fairly straightforward and hard to misunderstand, but OK: of the vanilla in-game Eastern religions, which one is best?

Not that hard to gather enough piety in a lifetime with theology focus and the associated piety discounts. Maybe with your heir if your current character isn't suitable, but I really rather quickly reformed an unreformed pagan religion.

That's not an answer to the question I asked.

And even if I did want to waste an entire lifetime of perk unlocks and piety hoarding doing so, I can't reform the Tengri religion anyway, because I have no Tengri sites, as I am - as previously stated - in Bengal. If you've found some way to reform an unreformed pagan religion without controlling three Holy Sites, by all means, let me know, so I can go back to playing as Norse.

It's really up to you...

I know it's up to me. However, I'm asking for other people's input. What is the best Eastern religion, in your experience? (or even just in your opinion, if you have no experience with it)

I offered several parameters of my own for you to consider - tribal, fun flavour, want flexibility in war and marriage, no Equality, etc - but if you'd rather respond with the religion best suited to YOUR playstyle, you may also do so.

[Zaidah]

I didn't test them indeed (actually I began a game with a friend, but didn't really see what the religion does so far), but I know most of the tenets/doctrines.

Feminism probably sucks indeed to find good marriage. Also I heard the AI don't do matrilineal, but I'm not sure if it was only for male dominated/equality faith or not. I wouldn't go for it if that's the case.
> Wouldn't recommand, unless the AI marriage works as intended with female dominated faith. Also, you can die when giving birth, can really screw things up if you're still stuck with partition :C

I wouldn't ever go for a religion with pacifism, I checked and saw that not only great holy wars aren't allowed, standart holy wars (county/duchy) aren't either, so you can only use your court chapelain or the marriage game to expand... or claimant, but it's unreliable on what revendication you'll get, also you want to have dynasty member ruling your lands at some point.
> Would avoid at all cost, as you'll loose your freedom to choose who you can invade, or have to spend gold for every county you want to get if you don't have the right claimants.

Incest with close relatives is a risky move, but can be rewarding, especially early game as you'll most likely try to get super heir as fast as you can, which will involve marrying 2 close relatives from your previous quality offspring. Though, I wouldn't try brother-sister marriage, you'll most likely get 50% of inbreed children, and it won't do well for the upcoming generation... aunt-nephew incest is enough I would say.
> Would recommand for quality offsprings and dynasty members, but be carefull if brother-sister marriage is allowed.

You have as much "bad" traits as you have "good" one, so if you educate your children you should be able to manage it (I would at least), unless you want to focus a lot on intrigue I guess.
> Very manageable if you educate your children (or heir at least), unless you want to focus on intrigue a lot.

Faith with monogamy can be managed as well, if you manage to seduce the right people (or have a one good mariage at worst). Depends if bastard can be legitimize or not. From my experience, I almost never use bastard and manage instead of getting the right heir, either by disheriting the ones before, or choosing the one I want once I can have the high crown authority. Also, if divorce is allowed, it's even better.
> Very manageable, mostly if you can divorce by yourself, but you better choose your wife right anyway (you sometimes might want to wait 5-10 years for your genius bride to be adult). If legitimizing bastard is allowed, it leaves a lot of opportunities open.

I'm not playing right now so I can't see the map, holy sites and such, so I can't tell much about that :/

Sorry that it's a bit of a mess, I tried to sum the upsides and downside of the doctrines/tenets you mentioned, and related them with my experience. From your preferences you mentioned, pacifism is the biggest no. About marriage flexibility, a "light" incest (like the catholic one) is honestly enough, while avoiding the inbreeding issues most of the time.

A last note about equality, is that you can still choose male/female preference, and the AI will choose the "male preference" succession law on their main tltle whenever they can (or you can add the law yourself before giving away the title). It works rather well (the higher titles stay with male ruler, but there are also a lot of female countess), and you can change it to choose a better female heir, or mitigate the partition if you have more boys than girls. I'm doing my main playthrough with it and it's really enjoyable. Just make sure to put that male preference when it comes to AI, as I mentioned, marriage issues if you don't manage it yourself...

Hope it helped, good reading

[Zaidah]

I just checked something about reformed and unreformed faith : you always have the "conquest" casus belli if you have an unreformed religion, but loose it if it gets reformed (unless you have one specific tenet), so it can make early game with pacifism more manageable as you'll still be able to conquer your neighboors (it will cost prestige instead of piety).

[CrUsHeR]

TBH my game started in 1066 Pagan was probably the most powerful i've had so far. You can go full learning and diplomacy, get only virtuous heirs with massive skills, and with max tech & economy you become eventually unbeatable. If you need a title for an heir, you can simply revoke a duchy - your vassals will practically never rebel (at least noone will join the rebel just in case).

Money is effectively infnite after a while (+200/month with Bengal and Deccan Empire), you can simply bribe anyone for +100 to +200 opinion to do whatever you want. Stacking only barracks for the Palace Guards and the elephant pens makes you practically invincible in combat.



Dharmic Pacifism is actually really good, because no members of your faith can do holy wars, your fervor is practically always at 100%. So you will likely never hear the word "heresy" during your playthrough.

Keep in mind that you still get a subjugation CB once per lifetime; also all the other eastern (indian) faiths are considered Astray, making Holy Wars entirely useless except against the Bön or Muslims you might encounter.

Obviously you can also forge claims like crazy, so once you have Divine Right you can just press forged claims for half a kingdom, usurp it, and get the rest through a following de jure war. If you only forge claims on the king's own titles you can also directly get everything else with de jure wars (without a truce break). Or just bribe/sway and vassalize.

[CrUsHeR]

BTW - Pagan starts as Theravada, which seems to be the best Buddhist faith.

- male dominated (equal is total garbage until you get Primogeniture + heir designation)
- polygamy (perfect for spymasters, larger gene pool for breeding, less problems with incest due to many half-siblings, also ideal combined with celibacy)
- cousin marriage (the safe form of incest, required for Genius dynasty breeding)
- dharmic pacificsm (see my post above, also +1 domain, +10 opinion with everyone)
- literalism (can get lots of piety through debates, also extra virtues without downside)
- monasticism (make useless/excess people monks, temperate is a virtue)

Having so many possible virtues is a BIG potential boost to general opinion. And all the virtues are great.
The only sin you might get more often on heirs through education is Impatient, which at least doesn't have any further downsides.

[Bike Knight]

I decided on Vaishnavite Hinduism in my last game (goal was becoming Chakravarti). No incest allowed does suck yes, but Hindus have 7 (seven) holy sites including a health boosting one. I can confirm that Bhakti is much more useful than Puja which is why I'd definitely go for Vaishnavite over Shaivite or Srikula.

[Xef]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

BTW - Pagan starts as Theravada, which seems to be the best Buddhist faith.

- male dominated (equal is total garbage until you get Primogeniture + heir designation)
- polygamy (perfect for spymasters, larger gene pool for breeding, less problems with incest due to many half-siblings, also ideal combined with celibacy)
- cousin marriage (the safe form of incest, required for Genius dynasty breeding)
- dharmic pacificsm (see my post above, also +1 domain, +10 opinion with everyone)
- literalism (can get lots of piety through debates, also extra virtues without downside)
- monasticism (make useless/excess people monks, temperate is a virtue)

Having so many possible virtues is a BIG potential boost to general opinion. And all the virtues are great.
The only sin you might get more often on heirs through education is Impatient, which at least doesn't have any further downsides.

Why do you think equal is garbage? You can still use male preference succession laws while allowing both genders to work as councillors and knights, I never really saw any downside to it.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Xef:

Why do you think equal is garbage? You can still use male preference succession laws while allowing both genders to work as councillors and knights, I never really saw any downside to it.

Okay you can change the law. But doesn't it also allow female rulers having multiple husbands?

So e.g. one of your wives inherits a title, she can marry 3 other guys.

No extra councilor is worth this disgrace. And likely you will get lover's pox from sharing your bed and wife with other men.

[Zaidah]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Originally posted by Xef:

Why do you think equal is garbage? You can still use male preference succession laws while allowing both genders to work as councillors and knights, I never really saw any downside to it.

Okay you can change the law. But doesn't it also allow female rulers having multiple husbands?

So e.g. one of your wives inherits a title, she can marry 3 other guys.

No extra councilor is worth this disgrace. And likely you will get lover's pox from sharing your bed and wife with other men.

Depends of each vassals, whether they have equality, male or female preference succession law on their titles. On equality, both can have multiple husbands/wives. On male/female preference, only the male/female can have multiple wives/husband.
Though, the AI often choose male preference when they can afford the prestige cost of the law.

[Xef]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Originally posted by Xef:

Why do you think equal is garbage? You can still use male preference succession laws while allowing both genders to work as councillors and knights, I never really saw any downside to it.

Okay you can change the law. But doesn't it also allow female rulers having multiple husbands?

So e.g. one of your wives inherits a title, she can marry 3 other guys.

No extra councilor is worth this disgrace. And likely you will get lover's pox from sharing your bed and wife with other men.

I think the whole concubinage thing is tied to realm succession so if you had male preference it'd be so that only males can have concubines. I don't remember whether other rulers sticked to equal or changed to male preference along with myself, they probably used equal instead of male preference (I remember seeing a lot of female rulers). I never ran into any problem that would be caused by it though, lover's pox seemed just as rare as in any other game.

Personally I still prefer equal whenever I can take it just so I can use anyone for council and as knights and also so I can push all the possible claims and grant titles to whoever happens to be the best choice. Also you can sneakily jump into female preference if there'd be better heir on that side. Overall I'd say equal is the most flexible and gives you most options, you should give it a try.

[CrUsHeR]

Hmm okay so i just looked this up - for all the indian & chinese faiths, those allowing polygamy (Theravada + Ari) do not allow equal gender rights.

Nangchos + Vajrayana still allow concubinage, so you may want to avoid them if you don't want your wife having orgies with other men.