Ceremonial Faith

[Arryn]

Question for the devs (or anyone else): Does Ceremonial Faith's +2 preaching level per priest also apply to Calling God?

[Vicious Love]

This has already been asked, and I'm nearly certain the answer was "no". Another question on the same topic, though, does Ceremonial Faith only work in friendly territory, as the description implies?
If not, Ceremonial Faith plus large Groups of stealthy Seraphines/Monks might be an excellent combination, especially combined with a flying or teleporting immortal or two.

[von_Schmidt]

Pretty sure that Cf only works on friendly turf; Restless Worshippers in the one to use to spread the faith in unfriendly territory.

[Arryn]

Vicious Love said:
This has already been asked, and I'm nearly certain the answer was "no".

The answer given by pole_shift on Feb. 21 in post #255413 was "no", but I've been trying to get a confirmation of that from a dev, or from someone who's tested it recently (as there have been 4 patches since then). Regardless, if the answer is, indeed, no, then it's something the devs ought to change since calling one's god should definitely qualify as a "rightful religious ceremony". Otherwise the description should state that it applies only to preaching and not to prayer (which is a very odd distinction to make IMO, given that prayer is as much or more of a religious ceremony than preaching is).

[Kristoffer O]

Arryn said:

The answer given by pole_shift on Feb. 21 in post #255413 was "no", but I've been trying to get a confirmation of that from a dev, or from someone who's tested it recently (as there have been 4 patches since then). Regardless, if the answer is, indeed, no, then it's something the devs ought to change since calling one's god should definitely qualify as a "rightful religious ceremony". Otherwise the description should state that it applies only to preaching and not to prayer (which is a very odd distinction to make IMO, given that prayer is as much or more of a religious ceremony than preaching is).

I have no idea, but I suspect that it doesn't affect god calling.

Is god calling a prayer?

Why is the prayer more religious than preaching? This is a matter of definition of the term religion.

Personal religion, in wich prayer is indeed more important than preaching, is somewhat of a modern development. Not that it didn't exist before christianity, but it has become more prevalent or important in recent times and in the monotheistic religions. When the state (king) and religion becomes separate there is more room/need for individual religion and prayer. If the state and their gods can't protect me I ask my personal god for deliverance.

During roman times religion was a matter of state. Personal religion and piety was less common (apart from the household worship of lares and penates) before the influence of oriental mystery religions.

In times when religion was the institution that legitimized tradition and the current societal order official ceremonies and sacrifices were much of what religion was about. Preaching in dominions reflects this aspect of state religion (and should probably be called 'hold religious ceremony' or something like it).

Sorry, I got carried away.

Arryn, you are right in that there is no rational explanation of the current distinction between preaching and god calling. We havn't even though about it.

Preaching with ceremonial faith might be a way to influence people with huge and impressive ceremonies that do not have any particular effects on the god.

[Arryn]

Kristoffer O said:
Is god calling a prayer?

Yes. "I humbly beseech thy swift return, O mighty Lord! Thy people are in direst need of thee." It would be utter blasphemy to believe that one could summon a deity, as one might summon some common beast.

Kristoffer O said:
Why is the prayer more religious than preaching? This is a matter of definition of the term religion.

Definition is irrelevent. Preaching is the swaying of others to one's faith, and/or the instruction of those faithful and heathen into the glories of one's faith. Prayer, OTOH, is (ostensibly) the direct communion with one's deity. Now you tell me which is more holy? Preaching is hawking goods (faith), which is basically salesmanship. It is also education (or more accurately, dogmatic indoctrination, but that leads into a separate discussion which doesn't belong on this forum) of the masses. Prayer is an actual expression and practice of one's faith (as is sacrifice and various sundry other actions).

Having said the above, the calling of one's god, in game terms, is a ritualized ceremony done by one or more priests with the explicit and sole purpose of summoning said deity. It is inconsistent for the game to exclude this particular ritual from receiving the thematic bonus simply because it is focused at one's god and not the god's followers or enemies. It's also illogical from the standpoint that if the god is empowering his/her/its followers with enhanced priestly ability so as to better spread the faith, you'd think said god might want his/her/its followers to be able to bring him/her/it back from the dead ASAP so that said faith won't falter.

Kristoffer O said:
Personal religion, in wich prayer is indeed more important than preaching, is somewhat of a modern development.

You are SO wrong about this. You have it backwards. Preaching is a "modern" development. Modern in the sense of having arisen with civilization and writing. Pagan religions dating back to prehistoric times, including one of the oldest, Wicca (which remains somewhat popular even today), are much more focused on prayer and ritual and far less on evangelization and dogmatic instruction. Preaching is a tool that was developed to control commonfolk and bend them to the will of their rulers, who in ancient and medieval times were religious figures (or in certain countries even today).

[Cainehill]

Arryn said:
It's also illogical from the standpoint that if the god is empowering his/her/its followers with enhanced priestly ability so as to better spread the faith, you'd think said god might want his/her/its followers to be able to bring him/her/it back from the dead ASAP so that said faith won't falter.

Then again, as Neitzsche said, "God is Dead", and dead gods arguably shouldn't be able to impart any enhanced priestly power upon their followers while dead, because, well, dead gods aren't very much fun. I'm sure the deity _wants_ to be called back from the dead, but well, she's dead.

[Arryn]

Caine,

By that logic, the priests shouldn't be able to bring her back at all, for their power, derived from the god itself, would vanish upon the deity's demise. OTOH, if mortals (priests in this case) create their deity through their own power, then they can certainly invest themselves with extra power too. It either works one way, or the other. If the system is logically self-consistent.

Of course, I'm a firm believer in that there's no such thing as logical self-consistency with regards to the subject of religion, but that's a taboo subject here (and my thoughts on religion and politics are by now fairly well known to folks here).

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Arryn said:
It would be utter blasphemy to believe that one could summon a deity, as one might summon some common beast.

Hah, but you forget you're not really playing a deity in Dominions - only a creature powerful enough to pretend to be one, and to inspire faith great enough onto its followers to achieve miracles .

Having said the above, the calling of one's god, in game terms, is a ritualized ceremony done by one or more priests with the explicit and sole purpose of summoning said deity.

And you could as well add, "the smiting of one's god's enemies (Banishment, Smite, Holy Avenger), is one or more priests calling the god's power thru prayer with the explicit and sole purpose of defeating said deity's enemies". Same with Sermon of Courage and Fanaticism - after all, these two and preaching have the same objective: strenghtening the god's followers' faith to inspire courage (soldiers) or piety (commoners), which both help the god's cause (to be the sole reigning deity).

It is inconsistent for the game to exclude this particular ritual from receiving the thematic bonus simply because it is focused at one's god and not the god's followers or enemies.

I don't think it is inconsistent.

I see it like this: Ceremonial Faith is a clergy thing, and I have no problem with a better organized clergy preaching the masses more efficiently without that ability being linked to the god's very essence. Ceremonial Faith is defined as a 'Special Dominions' section for convenience and this may be misleading, maybe if there was a separate Category for it in the nation design menu (eg, 'Nation Properties', ie things not depending on to the god), you would not have a problem with it. To me the preaching bonus of CF is more akin to the research bonus Sages get, except Sages are available to everyone, while your clergy is only available to you.

[Arryn]

So what you're saying is that the ceremonial ritual for god-calling is (fundamentally) no different than that of a spell ritual (which also isn't granted a bonus in CF)?

Then I submit that the description should not refer to the bonus as applying to a "religious ceremony", since ceremonies are traditionally prayers (which in this game's terms means spells, not preaching). I suppose that the devs intended to mean that in CF preaching is ceremonialized (and thus very ritualized), but that blurs the line between what is preaching and what is a magic invocation (ritual) and the language one uses to describe such should be chosen more carefully to make this very clear. (Or, at least, explicitly state that god-calling isn't included in CF's effect.)