What's the point of syncretic religion tenets?

[Gas]

I've never really understood the value of having syncretic religion tenets, just how valuable (or limiting) are they?

[Gas]

For more context, I am taking the decision to adopt the old Basque religion (Era Zaharrak).

[AC Denton]

Synthetic tenets gives you a +30 opinion modifier both ways with rulers of the the respective religion and makes both faiths not hostile to each other.

It comes down to your approach: it's good if you're in somewhere like 876 Iberia, Pagan Scandinavia, India and I think China & Indonesia (Asian Expansion mod) and want to avoid holy wars and getting whooped by a strong opposition - you can just declare normal wars and won't suffer any holy wars (Crusades too, I think).
You can also intermarry with said religion more and get along better with them.

Of course the downside is you can't declare holy wars and you get a -20% country religion conversion debuff of the respective religion.

[ShepherdOfCats]

Off topic, but I've never understood why anyone would declare a holy war and risk having the defender get support from others, who aren't even allies. If I have a choice between holy war or literally any other CB, it's not going to be the holy war.

[PostalGibbon]

Originally posted by ShepherdOfCats:

Off topic, but I've never understood why anyone would declare a holy war and risk having the defender get support from others, who aren't even allies. If I have a choice between holy war or literally any other CB, it's not going to be the holy war.

Gold comes to mind, fabricating claims cost gold and holy wars only piety, not to mention holy wars gets full duchies, claim is RNG if you get single county or full duchy.

And gold is much more useful currency to used something else that claims, piety other hand does not have any good usage out of begging gold from Pope.

If you are playing tribal then you have conquest CB and none of these matter.

[Half-lidded Bruiser]

Originally posted by ShepherdOfCats:

Off topic, but I've never understood why anyone would declare a holy war and risk having the defender get support from others, who aren't even allies. If I have a choice between holy war or literally any other CB, it's not going to be the holy war.

Much easier CB to get (especially if your faith is of the Abrahamic religious family), and with the right Pluralistic-category doctrine (Fundamentalist), you will almost always be granted all of the counties, instead of getting a bunch of wrong-faith, non-de-jure vassals with horrible contracts.

[dwarfpcfan]

Syncretism won't stop holy wars or crusades/jihads from being declared against you. The Pope's A.I is hard coded to declare crusades against adjacent kingdoms that have a faith considered hostile or evil.

What syncretism does is 3 things, first because of the opinion/acceptance bonus it lets you marry outside your faith much easier. If you're investing heavily into the blood legacy/breeding inheritable traits this opens up the pool of potential good matches by a significant margin, especially if you are willing to take the meager legitimacy hit to marry lowborns with good traits.

Second it allows you to marry into realms of the faiths you are syncretic with since, as long as the opinion of the ruler is high enough they'll be open to marrying of daughters and sons. Which can eventually put your dynasty on the thrones of said realms (though most of the time said heirs will be forceably converted to the ruler's religion). Obviously if this fits your playstyle it also nets you alliances you may want.

Third it allows you to have vassals of the faith you are syncretic with and still keep your realm harmonious because they will have high opinion of you and thus be less likely to join factions against you.

Syncretism can really pay off if you are surrounded by other faiths (Which if you revive Era Zaharak you definitely will) but it won't stop holy wars at all, especially not if your realm has counties which contain holy sites (see Cologne and Canterbury for catholics which the pope will never stop trying to get back)

[Emperor Jeff]

Also lets you use that religion's artifacts, if that's what you want