Hey everyone. I just wanna preface this thread by stating my intended goal here. I'm confident that I can speak for a large section of the player base when I say that the current way the Religious Leagues work in EU4 leaves something to be desired. So this thread is meant to be a place where anyone who has issues with it can discuss ideas on how to improve it, and provide feedback for other people's suggestions. Hopefully, one or more devs take notice of it, and some changes might actually get implemented. And while I may be giving my own suggestions here, this is not a suggestion thread, but rather a thread where people can offer their own suggestions for improving the Religious Leagues, as well as offering feedback to the ideas of others and discussion of various suggestions, with the goal of collectively crafting a system that's better than what's currently implemented, that hopefully would get adopted in the actual game. That being said, I'll start things off by offering my ideas on how to overhaul the Religious Leagues.
Under the current system, the way the Religious Leagues work is this: If at least one HRE elector becomes Protestant, the Evangelical Union popup fires to inform the player that the Protestant and Catholic Leagues have been enabled, and can be joined. The Emperor of the HRE is always the leader of the Catholic League, and the Protestant Elector is always the initial leader of the Protestant League, with a Protestant nation of sufficient military strength able to take over the position if one exists (for example, a strong player Protestant Sweden/Scandinavia, or Prussia). The leader of the Protestant League can declare war on the Emperor with the special Religious League CB, and that automatically calls in both Leagues, with the wargoal set as winning 10% or more warscore from battles, and a special peace option to enforce one's religion as the official faith of the HRE for 50% of the warscore. If religious unity is enforced, then that faith becomes the official faith of the HRE. If it's Catholic, any non-catholic electors are stripped of their priveleges, and only Catholics can be electors or the Emperor, and the Emperor can enforce religious unity on princes, getting a CB if they refuse. If it's Protestant, then all Catholic Electors are stipped of their priveleges, the current Emperor looses his title, and a new Protestant Emperor is picked, able to enforce Protestantism against heretic princes. In the rare scenario where a vsat majority of princes are Reformed and the Protestants won, and event can fire to make Reformed the official faith of the HRE, with the same rules applying. If that option is not picked in the peacedeal, or the war drags on for more than 25 years, the Peace of Westphalia happens, in which case ANY Christian denomination can become the Emperor or an Elector, and the penalty for heretic princes is halved.
Now, for my first gripe about the Leagues, I'm going to address the Ottomans. Historically, they did get involved in the 30 Year's war, but at the time, most of their military efforts were focused elsewhere, like Iran. As it stands in the current game, they almost always join the Protestant League in order to oppose Austria, and then 250k+ Turks flood into Germany, sometimes singlehandedly carrying the Protestant League. Not only is this historically innacurate, but it's also incredibly frustrating, and immersion breaking, because what stake does a Muslim power have in determining the official Cristian denomination of the HRE? To solve this, I would like to propose the following restriction to joining a Religious League: A nation MUST be a denomination of Christianity to join a Religious League. Now, a player Ottomans could go Orthodox or Coptic, but that would mean they're Christian, so they'd have a spiritual stake in the conflict. They could also ally the leader of a League and get called into the war that way, but doing so makes the (IMO) important distinction of making it a political issue rather than one of faith.
My second issue with the Leagues comes down to the current restriction that exists for joining a League, which would be rendered a non-issue by introducing the Christian-only restriction to joining. As an example to explain this and provide context, I recently completed a game as Coptic Ethiopia. By the time the Leagues had formed, I was the 3rd rank Great Power, had won three wars against the Ottomans, regained the Holy Land, proclaimed a new Empire of Aksum, and had territory stretching from Alexandria to the Cape, as well as a moderate Mediterranean Fleet and I easily possessed the capacity to move my 150k troops to mainland Europe. I was allied to Catholic Austria and Spain, both of which joined the Catholic League, and while I may have had some doctrinal disagreements with the Pope in Rome, I still wanted to support my brothers in the faith against some upstart German Princes. Except I can't because my capital isn't in Europe. Which felt incredibly arbitrary, and immersion breaking. As another example, say you're a Catholic Kongo, with exploration ideas and the capacity to move your military to Europe. You're devout and an ardent supporter of the Pope in Rome, but aren't allowed to join the Catholic League, because your capital is in Africa. As a much more edge-case scenario, say that you are a Protestant former colonial nation that gained or was granted independence. You aren't allowed to support your Protestant brethren across the Atlantic, despite your ability to project military and naval strength in Europe. My solution for these issues is this: With the addition of a Christian-only restriction to joining a League, lift the restriction that one's capital must be in Europe, while also adding a restriction that one must be aware of the Emperor (ie; discovered their capital) to join a Religious League. Now an Ethiopia, Kongo, Christian American nation, or even Christians in Japan (if they are aware of the Emperor, though in the Japan case, I'm open to arguments against it, even though it would be a rare scenario to begin with) can join the Leagues if they so desire.
My third issue with the Leagues comes down to leadership of the Protestant League: IE, only a Protestant can lead it. To explain my issue with this, I will once again refer to two different games I had where this became a clear and aggravating issue. Case 1: A game I played as Hussite Bohemia. I explicitly differentiated my denomination of Christianity from Protestantism, and had, before the formation of the Leagues, forced a PU on Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania, as well as having subjugated Brandenburg and Saxony. By this point, I had integrated every one of those subjects save Lithuania, who I had enforced my religion on. Either through my Hussite Center of Reformation, or by the sword, over half the HRE followed the teaching of Huss, and I myself was an Elector. But despite the fact that I was the #2 Great Power (Ottomans are ridiculous as always), and that my denomination of Christianity is already dominaant in the HRE, I'm not allowed to lead the League opposing Catholics. My second example is as another game where I was a Reformed Hansa, who owned all of Scandinavia, the Baltic Coastline, a slice of Russia, the entire coast of Germany, had outposts in Scotland, and a Private Enterprise that owned the entirety of Canada. By the sword or Reformation Center, I had already enforced my faith upon just under half the empire, and there were more Reformed than Protestant nations, and Catholics were definitely in the minority. But I can't take charge in the Religious League formed in opposition to the Papal Puppets in Vienna.
I have two solutions for this dilemma. Firstly, allow a Hussite or Reformed nation to lead the Protestant League (perhaps with a penalty to military rating for not being Protestant), except they're still only able to enforce Protestantism, or Religious Peace.
However, my second solution is much more comprehensive: Different Leagues. As wars in EU4 currently work, there's no realistic way to have more than two Religious Leagues. But while a Catholic League is needed, I don't think there necessarily needs to be a Protestant League. Simply put, depending on circ*mstances, I would propose that different Leagues form in opposition to the Catholic League, with the following as some basic parameters for the rules of how this works. If the majority of heretic princes (IE, non-Catholic) are Hussite, and at least one Elector is Hussite (which is guaranteed if you're playing Hussite Bohemia), rather than a Protestant League, a Hussite League will form in opposition to the Emperor, with a Hussite Elector as its initial leader. This Hussite League will function identically to the current Protestant League, but if it enforces Religious unity in the HRE via war, it makes Hussite the official faith of the Empire, and sets it so that only Hussites can be Electors or the Emperor, as well as conferring a bonus to all Hussite nations the same way that Catholic or Protestant nations will gain a bonus for the rest of the game if their faith wins. Additionally, if the Hussite League succeeds, it enables Catholic, Protestant, or Reformed nations to convert to Hussite via the same mechanics that currently let you convert in-game. Of course, a Protestant or Reformed nation (again, probably with a penalty for being a different faith) could still become the leader of the Hussite League. In the same scenario, but where the majority of heretic princes and at least one Elector are Reformed, a Reformed League will form in opposition to the Catholic League, with the same rules and benefits for enforcing Religious Unity that I've already proposed.
I look forwards to seeing what other ideas people can come up with for improving the Religious League wars, and hope this starts some discourse that will entice change. And if anyone wants to offer their thoughts on my own ideas, you're more than welcome to do so.
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