Hindughals

[Marquoz]

As you're probably aware, there are some great monuments for the dharmic religions. In fact, they're so great that I decided I wanted to start a Mughals run where I convert to Hindu instead of staying Sunni. I haven't done a serious Mughal campaign in a long time--I last used them to get the Khaaaan achievement, but that was a very atypical run. This will be atypical as well, of course, but in a different way. I hereby dub my new nation the Hindughals.

Quick screenshot of the moment I formed the Mughals:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2765302206

So what are these monuments, you ask? Well, there are many good ones, but two really stand out. The first is the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi. At max level, it provides -15% CCR, -10% AE impact, and +15% Brahmins loyalty equilibrium. This means Hindughals can reach 85% CCR before taking claims into account: 25% from national ideas, 25% from Admin, 10% from assimilating the Hindustani culture, 15% from the Kashi Vishwanath, and 10% from picking Shiva as their deity. Massive.

The other is the Harmandir Sahib, in Doaba. At max level, it provides -15% minimum autonomy in territories (which includes TCs) and -0.1% monthly autonomy change. And you know how I love TCs.

But how to become Hindu? Well, I could have gone the religious rebels route, but it probably would have been a slow and painful process. Instead, when the Sikh religion spawned in the Punjab region, I took the decision to convert. This costs 2 stability and 100 prestige (and requires you to be at +1 stability to begin with), so be ready with some admin power.

Anyway, once you become SIkh, you can then convert to Hindu using the normal religious conversion option (the same one you use to go Protestant) at the cost of another 100 prestige. I also had an event fire shortly thereafter in which angry Sunnis tried to get the Shah to abdicate in favor of a Muslim ruler, which would have converted me back. I of course refused, but that cost another point of stability and gave a religious unrest malus to all my provinces. Combine that with the disunity from going Hindu in the first place (no dhimmi estate, obviously), and I had a major series of revolts on my hands.

I'm still in the process of dealing with the disunity. My first step was to add to my TCs. My capital is in Delhi now (though my trading port is back in Persia), so many new areas were eligible. I can't afford to TC them all yet, though. I still need the greater manpower, force limit, and tax income states provide, but I set up quite a few. TCs are yellow, states are green:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2765300266

Hindu isn't a great religion for converting (amongst other things, you can't become defender of the faith), so I plan to pick Religious as my third idea group. I should get a ton of mileage out of Deus Vult too, of course. In the meantime, I picked Vishnu as my first deity for the missionary strength during this time of transition. I also hired an inquisitor that I had available from doing an estate mission to convert a province from Shia to Sunni, and I'm using the "Enforce Religious Unity" state edict wherever I'm converting. I didn't select the "Religious Culture" estate privilege, though. The last thing I need is more intolerance.

Converting killed my growth for a decade while I dealt with all the revolts, but that's okay. I'm not looking to do a WC (I doubt I'll ever do another one), but to try something different and hopefully fun.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

For some reason I was under the impression that the Mughal Diwan government reform was invalidated if you flipped religion. Nice to hear that isn't the case. I have yet to do a campaign in that region myself; one of these days I'll get around to it.

[Marquoz]

You keep the Diwan, but you do have to re-pick your government reforms and you lose Iqta in the process. That's why it's not part of the 85% CCR list you can get as Hindughals.

And yes, you should definitely do a few runs in that region, Chatbot. It's different and fun.

[RCMidas]

Let's not forget that getting your Innovativeness up will eventually give an extra -10% to all power costs, which will include (by definition) the admin cost for coring. That means this combo will eventually provide you with the max -90% to coring costs that you can get, plus a multiplicative -70% to that from your late-game admin efficiency (or even -75% if you grab that Granadan monument).

[Radene]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Let's not forget that getting your Innovativeness up will eventually give an extra -10% to all power costs, which will include (by definition) the admin cost for coring. That means this combo will eventually provide you with the max -90% to coring costs that you can get, plus a multiplicative -70% to that from your late-game admin efficiency (or even -75% if you grab that Granadan monument).

Yeah. Mughals literally can core provinces by sending an messenger who says "We're great, aren't we?" and the people cheer.

I think my record with them was 94.5% core cost reduction. When you're coring capitals for a single digit amount of admin mana...

[Marquoz]

I forgot to add one way I'm boosting my conversion power. There's a Hindu decision, the Haridasa movement, that requires +1 stability but gives you a permanent +2 conversion strength bonus and -10% stability cost modifier. Definitely worthwhile.

[Medicles]

Soooo... Admin, Influence and Religion to also get to possibly -95% culture conversion cost with the Buddha Statues and adjacency bonus?

[Marquoz]

I don't know if any of the events necessary for me to be able to select Buddha as a deity will fire as the Mughals--I've never wanted to make that happen before. And I'm not a fan of culture conversion anyway, although 95% off might change my mind, lol.

Also, I just discovered that conquering Varnasi (which I needed to do anyway to get the monument and assimilate Hindustani culture) gives Hindu nations another missionary. Woot!

[Narrowmind]

I've been studying the Mughals the last few days. Very interesting run you're on to! Keep us updated!

[RCMidas]

If you're not on the beta build, you can bypass the normal restriction on getting Buddha as a deity by granting the Brahmin "Choose Personal Deity" privilege and then doing so - if I remember the workaround rightly. Otherwise, you'd need to have started as one of the Malay nations who get this as a specific mission reward.

However, if you do get Buddha as a deity, head out to Indochina and grab Hue. A Hindu Buddha-deity Hue with the Imperial City will give you an extra -10% territory autonomy and -25% state maintenance on top of that.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

If you're not on the beta build...

I started this in the 1.33 beta, so not an option.

However, if you do get Buddha as a deity, head out to Indochina and grab Hue. A Hindu Buddha-deity Hue with the Imperial City will give you an extra -10% territory autonomy and -25% state maintenance on top of that.

Sounds like yet another great monument, and Indonesia is always a good expansion target. But again, I don't know that I'll ever be able to select Buddha as a deity. Even if I could, would the bonuses persist when I switched back to Shiva with a later monarch? Shiva is definitely the top pick for extreme CCR and blobbing.

[Kapika96]

Too bad you didn't do this on the previous patch where you could use the glitch to select Buddha and get access to all Buddhist monuments too. Hindu Mughals with Buddha deity are totally OP!

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by Kapika96:

Hindu Mughals...

I must insist upon Hindughals. My thread, my rules. Hmmmph.

[RCMidas]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Even if I could, would the bonuses persist when I switched back to Shiva with a later monarch? Shiva is definitely the top pick for extreme CCR and blobbing.

"Buddha has been chosen as personal deity" is the requirement, so I'm guessing not. You'd have to pick between the use of the monument and the value of Shiva as a god on a per-20yr/ruler basis.

Actually, Buddha might be better than Shiva for when you want to convert the places you've cored up. You can pick up like +3 missionaries and +5% missionary strength (among other good bonuses like -10% tech cost) from other Buddho-dharmic monuments.

But yes, Shiva for the actual conquest is the best, and Buddha for the spread of Hinduism thereafter. Perfect combo for a One Faith if anyone is ever bothered with that. At least until the patch goes live or someone minmaxes the Malay-to-Mughals play.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Even if I could, would the bonuses persist when I switched back to Shiva with a later monarch? Shiva is definitely the top pick for extreme CCR and blobbing.

"Buddha has been chosen as personal deity" is the requirement, so I'm guessing not. You'd have to pick between the use of the monument and the value of Shiva as a god on a per-20yr/ruler basis.

Very cool, Midas. But it sounds like the Buddha option won't work in my current game.

[RCMidas]

Yeah, that'll be reserved for future games starting as... *checks notes* ... Majapahit, Sunda, or Khmer.

And on further inspection, I recommend Majapahit. The mission after the one that unlocks Buddha as a personal deity also gives the country the Islamic Propagate Religion trade option (and makes your Hindu provinces immune to the same). Which means you can now spread Hinduism through your 50%+ trade power pseudo-Reformation Centre merchants.

You'd just need to dance back and forth between Islam and Hinduism a couple of times (and culture-shift) to manage the change. Unpleasant and almost certainly not really worth it unless you're on some kind of meme run, but the option does technically exist.