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Hi, before Holy Fury release I posted my tier list for pagan doctrines
I
have received few private messages and some even answered to the thread
when the post was very old. So I decided to update my list after I
played some Holy Fury. I will explain some of my choices based on how it
worked out in my games.
For the reference https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Pagans#Reformation
Nature: Two tiers here. I will explain at the end of ‘paragraph’
Tier 1:
Stability:
It does what it says, your vassals rarely start any factions, your
domain limit is huge, all is well… until you want to start some wars. It
is really painful to expand with CBs at our disposal as Peaceful
religion. However, it is good when you expanded before reformation, and
want to settle down and rely more on our vassals and domain rather than
stats of our ruler. I used it in my game Tengri Horde → Jurchen Reformed
Bon Chinese Empire and just dominated silk road. It gets pretty boring
tbh.
Warmongering: I think most of us are familiar with it, because unreformed Germanics and Tengri have it. Its full potential is available when we are huge feudal empire and rely more on our vassal levies. It has its downsides because it makes AI more aggressive and incompetent AI can tank our MA very hard. It has synergy with Agnatic and Enatic doctries, giving us new CB for Patriarchal and Matriarchal depositions. Basically we attack opposite gender ruler, depose him/her and force our gender law on their realm.
Unyielding: This would be my number one if I had to chose. Flat bonus to levy, garrison size and moral. Standard stuff for defensive pagans. Sometimes simple solutions are the best.
If we
pick it as germanic, tengri or aztec we will lose any troop bonus that
we couldve inherited from unreformed religion. Totally fine for
religions without 30% levy bonus, but if you want to expand then other
natures are better.
Tier 2
Proselytizing:
I will be honest, I never picked it. If someone used it with success
please advocate this nature in comments. I feel it is a waste of slot
and good for role play only.
Dogmatic: See above. It has a synergy with incest doctrine making us high god of our religion. Ive heard it is currently bugged.
Cosmopolitan: I used it once, its fun, allows us to snatch some alliances with infidel neighbours, or non-aggro pacts with infidel vassals. Doesnt block us from raiding, hunting focus etc. Best one in the loser tier.
When
I started writing this tier list I wanted to put all natures in one
tier, but realised I have never really used dogmatic and proselytizing
because they feel lackluster to me.
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You might also like these
Bloodline tier list
Tribal Guide 2020
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Moving on to Doctrines
Tier 1: No changes here from previous list.
- Meritocracy
- Agnatic Clans
- Enatic Clans
- Ancestor Veneration
Enatic
and Agnatic clans allow us to get open succession law which is super
strong as we know from muslims. Our domain can only grow overtime and we
can develop our provinces without fear of it being lost to gavelkind.
Similar story with Ancestor Veneration, but with more hassle of sucking
up to the old dudes, the one disadvantage of Ancestor Veneration is that
we must pick either Hierocratic or Autocephalous leadership (I think).
Meritocracy is just delayed open succession after we get to
Primogeniture law.
Tier 2: nice little bonuses
- Astrology
- Divine Marriage
- Haruspicy
- Bloodthirsty Gods
- Religious Tax
- Syncretism
- Monasticism
Fun
and flavourful doctrines or flat bonuses (infidel tax and monasticism) .
Bloodthirsty gods is very fun, we can get a bloodline, have our
champion win several death matches, and we have access to Flower War cb
which cripples enemy economy when we win. I never tried Astrology and
Haruspicy, I think they have the same amount of events as bloodthirsty
gods, but I have yet to try them. I used syncretism as my doctrine in my
Jurchen Bon game, its nice little bonus to relations if we want
multi-culti empire, with a bit of rng help we can get 2 sympathies at
once (with the use of faith focus). I changed my mind about divine
marriage doctrine, it actually allows us to breed new bloodlines fairly
easy into our dynasty.
Tier 2b
- Unrelenting
- Animistic
- Stability
These
three are weird. First two cancel themselves if they are picked
together. Unrelenting cannot be picked with unyielding, and it cancels
out any unreformed levy or troops bonus. However, its 10% bonus attack
for all our troops so it is not that bad I guess, just weird.
Unrelenting also ignores unreformed pagan attrition but we can easily
overcome it with tech later in game. Animistic has same problems as
unrelenting, it gives rite of passage event when reaching adulthood
which has some flavour. Stability removes short reign penalty, which was
not a problem for me ever. It says we can spend piety to improve
curtier abilities but we can do it once per 5 years and can improve stat
for one point. It has synergy with enatic/agnatic or meritocracy, after
9 successful boosts for close family relative we get a bloodline.
Tier 3:
- Polygamy
- Equality
- Daring
- Sea Bound
Polygamy
is just negative prestige bonus if we dont have enough wives, and
concubines have the same fertility rate and we can set them aside so
there isnt really need to have polygamy. Equality can be achieved with
enough tech by the year 950+ . Daring is a good way to lose moral
authority because AI is incompetent, and we as a player will need
prepared invasion only once (maybe twice). Seabound is just useless
without Daring and picking these two doctrines is silly (unless we are
not getting bored with constant raiding on our foes).
Religion unique doctrines
Tier 1
- Harmonious
- Invaders
- Totem Guardians
- Defender of Dievas
Invaders
are only here because they have 3 shitty doctrines that are good when
they are packed in one slot. Harmonious expands our pool of talent but
makes it harder to stack bloodlines due to disallowed cousin incest.
Totems and Dievas have that good succesion law going for them.
Tier 2
- Civilised
- Dawnbreakers
- Children of Perun
If
dawnbreakers would have divine marriage paired with something else than
polygamy it would be tier 1. I haven't tried Perun+Daring, I wonder if
it would give pirate trait. If it doesnt then Children of Perun is tier 3
really, nothing cool in it, I think it was specifically designed to
sail rivers around Russia. Civilised is closer to tier 3 than tier 1, if
we pick this doctrine as Roman Emperor we will never use its full
potential as we are locked in Imperial Elective succession.
Tier 3
- Eternal Riders
- Survivors of Ukko
- Sons of Ragnarok
Eternal
Raiders will take away bonus for levy and light cavalry and give us 10%
bonus attack for all our troops, don't know if its fair exchange, I
will do maths later, and as I said polygamy just sucks and is a prestige
drain, on top of that now tribals with polygamy mechanic (muslims and
reformed pagans with polygamy) will use wife mechanics instead of
concubines. Sons of Ragnarok is combination of two bad doctrines, if we
dont pick it, we will still retain ability to have viking trait and
coastal county conquest cb, however, we will lose river sailing and
prepared invasion ability which we dont need later in game ( and AI can
close rivers for us by having enough fort level in river counties)
Leadership.
I think these are well balanced. I used autonomous most often which
gives some flat bonuses. Temporal gives us nice hat upon reformation,
and is part of synergy dogmatic, divine marriage which does not work
atm. Hierocratic and Autocephalous is a good way when we don't want to
bother much with religious head but want to have high MA.
Thats it, tell me what you think.
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