Coming Distractions for the Playership

The Pending Arrival of Shia Islam in Renaissance

By John Muir

I am beginning a process to split the Moslem religion in Renaissance into two parts, the Shia and the Sunni. This document is to describe what I have found that it will take to make this split. It has some information that may be of interest to Catholics contemplating a Reformation. The actual implementation of the split is probably a year away (1521).

First, there will be no negative effect on any current Moslem player who does not actively join in conversion to Shia. Their Religion will suddenly change to Sunni but their piety and other stats will be unchanged. Second, Shia and Sunni will both be bound by the current game rules for Moslems. Third, if you do decide to join the Shia, there are several negative consequences that you should start working to minimize before conversion. Keep reading for details.

So, why am I doing this if there are negative repercussions? A little history:

As some of you know, I was recruited by the long-time Ottoman Sultan, advised by Jim Chapin, to be his data manager. I ran one account for many years and processed the data that Jim gathered himself and through player contacts. There was a robust Moslem community in the game but some major players dropped out and Jim took on their accounts to keep the religion vibrant while fending off a series of Catholic incursions. Finally, when the Mamluke advisor, Frank Misak, had to drop out, it was too much of a load and Jim asked me to take over Frank’s accounts. I couldn’t manage that but did take the families of two of Frank’s accounts and have run them as clones ever since. A few months later, Jim Chapin died suddenly.

I hung on and kept playing, though it was less fun with the larger amount of turn submissions. I was hoping that someone would pick up the other Moslem positions. It didn’t happen, though Gerald Austin did make some valiant efforts for a while and a few others briefly tried a few families. Then there were several years where I was the only active Moslem player.

So, I actually took a look at Moslem history during the early 1500’s. It was every bit as unsettled as Europe during the same period. By 1520, the Mamlukes had fallen to the Ottomans; the Ottoman Empire was about to reach its greatest heights and then hold the entire empire in place until the 1900’s. There was a change in leadership in North Africa. And the WhiteSheep Turks were overthrown by their relatives, a group of Azeri-speaking tribes from around Tabriz whose religious practice had been Sufi but who had recently embraced the Shia branch of Islam. This group created the Safavid Empire as they conquered WhiteSheep territory in northern Iran and southern Iraq. In the west they were beaten decisively by the Ottomans, turned SE, conquered all of Persia and part of Khorasan, and made their ruler the first Shah of Persia. Within a few generations, they were speaking Persian (Farsi) but remained Shia, and have influenced regional politics up to the present day.

I already advised the Safavid family and nobody had played the WhiteSheep or Khorasan for about a decade, so I figured I might as well have a try at recreating history. Everybody needs a goal to work towards. I sent some initial exploratory inquiries to the GM about creating a Shah of Persia and discovered that a Shah/Sultan is such a special position that it can belong only to a one-persona family. An Emir from an existing family cannot be promoted to Shah/Sultan. In the short term, I could promote one of the Azeri-speaking Safavids to Emir of Azerbaijan and use the family to lead the conquest of the territory of the WhiteSheep. I started that program about two or three years ago. Being unopposed by any players, it hasn’t been too difficult to get the WhiteSheep down to eighteen cities, with only five of over two thousand population. The allied Emirs of Azerbaijan, Hormuz and Hamadan control over forty cities.

As political control proceeded, I did more exploration with the GM and learned some of the negatives of innovation. The Shia, converting from an established religion to a new one, will lose all reputation for Piety. This is especially a problem for Moslems. To become an Emir, a Moslem persona must have a combined Morale + Popularity + Piety of 2400 or greater. Morale is very hard for a Moslem to increase as it can only be done with ducats. Popularity is rather easy to increase if you have lots of letter writers and artists. Piety can only be increased with pilgrimage or ducats and takes about ten years to maximize (and 100,000 ducats) without access to Mecca. Once an Emir, always an Emir, though. Most of my personas have Piety of 999 and losing that would mean it would take many years, or at least five years and a lot of morale ducats, to regain the abilty to create Emirs. Obviously, I am going to create a lot of Emirs (including some for cities I don’t control yet) before I make the conversions happen.

Another negative: My three accounts are intermixed with families who will convert and those who will not. All families in an account must be of the same religion. I was going to have to clone an additional account to take on the Shah’s family in any case. I am cloning the fourth account now with a placeholder family (Afshar) in it. Then I will start shifting a few families each month from one account to another until I have the future Shia in two and the future Sunni in the other two. The split will be along geographic lines based on where families have citizenship. My accounts break out pretty evenly. The Moslems in Ottoman areas and Arabia will remain Sunni; the families from Persia will convert to Shia. Anyone else making a partial conversion to Shia will have to clone or realign accounts.

Due to movement of personas in the past, some are in the “wrong” geographic area. A few Emirs will have to claim new titles and turn over their current titles to more appropriate families. A Shia running a major city in ultra-conservative Yemen isn’t a good fit. This isn’t a game requirement but is just my personal preference to keep the regions and their political leadership more distinct and uniform in religious affiliation.

The Shia and Sunni are not automatically enemies and I will not be discriminating against any Sunni in Shia areas. The game rules, however, are that I will no longer be freely able to transfer troops between my accounts. So I am making extra efforts to see that both groups have at least a cadre of specialty troops (arquebusiers, pikemen and heavy cavalry) before the split. They aren’t a big part of the Moslem forces but I wouldn’t want either group to be cut off from the possibility of training troops in the future. Just another detail for other players to consider.

Other Moslem players are invited to join in, if they desire. Several have helped by changing cities that they control from WhiteSheep to local Emirs. I don’t ask for religious conversion or fealty to the Shah, nor for any control over the city, just that it not show up as WhiteSheep on the Sovereignty list. Everyone has been very understanding and helpful.

As you note regional Moslem flurries of combat, family transfers, title shifts and other signs of confusion and unrest in the newsletter, don’t worry. It is not aimed outside the region and is Age-appropriate activity.