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Dynamic Holy Sites - Conquer, Sanctify, Exile

Sanctify and activate every holy site for every faith. Deactivate and exile every other faith from every holy site.

Every faith can sanctify & activate every holy site for their faith, every faith can deactivate & exile every other faith from every holy site. Each holy site can be active or non-active on a faith-by-faith basis, every faith has a unique holy site list separate from every other faith's holy site list.

Make holy sites a dynamic mechanic that evolves with the gameworld. As holy sites change rulers and faiths, they become places of veneration to new faiths, and alienated from their old controllers. Paint the map in your faith's colour and add every holy site to your collection.

Works for the player and the AI, every vanilla faith, every vanilla holy site, and every custom faith created within the game.

By far my largest and most ambitious mod.

Every faith can activate every holy site through the sanctification decision. The decision taker must control the holy site, the site be the active holy site of a faith, every liege in the hierarchy must be of the same faith, and the county must follow the faith.

Sanctification decisions will appear in the decisions menu when at one tier below the required piety level. At default sanctification decisions will be shown at piety level Faithful (2), and able to be taken at piety level Devoted Servant (3).

When a holy site is sanctified every other faith that shares the holy site will be exiled and the holy site will be deactivated for their faith.

Rulers can opt in an event after the sanctification decision to protect a different faith's holy sites within their realm from exile, for the lifetime of the ruler, in exchange for a benefice. The player can opt to protect any living faith who would be exiled, the AI will consider protection for faiths it holds to be merely astray, and if an AI Islamic ruler then additional faiths that are of dhimmi status, and if an AI Christian ruler then additional Jewish faiths.

Faiths exiled from their core holy sites may reactivate them after the eons of time pass if they are still living and have character followers in a return mechanic. Configurable by game rule, the default setting is after 120 years, can also be disabled.

Zealous members of exiled faiths will loathe the sanctifier and may become rivals. Likewise zealous members of the decision takers own faith will admire the sanctifier and may become friends.

Custom faiths created in game have access to all the above mechanisms. Because of vanilla limitations they will share a common holy site list with their parent faith(s), they will not be able to deactivate & exile their parent faith from holy sites, any holy sites they or their parent faith(s) activate will also be active for their parent faith(s), and any holy site they or their parent faith are exiled from will also become deactivated for both custom and parent faith(s).

Every holy site province can now construct a grand religious building for that faith's religious group as a regular building. Holy site provinces have an extra building slot added. As holy sites change hands between faiths the grand religious building will become disabled and can be replaced by the correct religious building for the faith.

Dynamic Holy Sites requires a fresh campaign save to add latent and faith-unique holy site lists to each faith on map creation that can then be activated, and deactivated, dynamically in gameplay.

• Starting Holy Sites Active on Game Start: Choose from only living faiths, living faiths plus a small number of tailored sites (like Mt Olympus), or every faith (including heresies that have yet to spawn and faiths that are no longer active). MUST BE SELECTED PRIOR TO CLICKING 'PLAY AS ANY RULER IN 867/1066' & GENERATING MAP.
  
• This affects what holy sites can be activated, as the site must be an existing holy site of a faith to be sanctified.
  
• Faiths inactive on game start will have their core holy sites activated when they spawn as a heresy, or a character or county converts to the new faith.
  
• Piety tier level required. Sanctification decisions will appear at one tier below the piety level required to take the decision.
  
• Piety and gold costs for the sanctification decision.
  
• Cooldown per faith on taking the sanctification decision. Player and AI operate on separate cooldowns.
  
• Length of time before still living faiths attempt to return to core holy sites they have been exiled from. Can be disabled.

Because holy sites must be added to every faith Dynamic Holy Sites will not ordinarily be compatible with any mod that also changes the religion and faith entries in 'common\religion\religions\'. Religion mods that do not add new faiths or new holy sites should be easy to produce patches and made compatible. Religion mods that add new faiths or holy sites will be much more difficult to patch, but see the Modding Resource section below.

Building mods may have an issue as the grand religious buildings need to be added to the vanilla 'common\holdings\00_holdings.txt'. Should be easy to patch.

Council task mods that modify the chaplin conversion speed may have an issue as the new holy site keys need to be added to some of the conversion script values. Should be easy to patch.

Not compatible yet with mods that remove areas and counties from the map, will cause slow downs as the mod searches for the missing holy site baronies and the counties that house them.

If you have an overhaul or big religion mod then feel free to incorporate Dynamic Holy Sites, with an acknowledgment, into your mod.

Because of vanilla limitations in modding holy sites, every holy site must be added as a unique variant to every faith, and scripted effects must be produced to activate and deactivate those unique holy site keys for each faith, and unique loc made. The work for vanilla faiths and vanilla holy sites has been done here, but if your big religion mod also needs to touch the same files in 'common\religion' then I'm happy for you to include Dynamic Holy Sites directly into your mod. Get in touch in the comments or a discussion if you need help with adding new faiths and holy sites.

Loc translators, if you could translate 'dynamic_holy_sites_misc_loc_l_english.yml' as normal, but for 'dynamic_holy_sites_decision_loc_l_english.yml' if you just translate one decision I can produce the rest of the decisions loc from that single translation as a template. You don't need to do any of the holy sites loc in the 'religion' folder as they refer to vanilla keys that are already translated in the vanilla loc.

See Also
My Collection of CK3 Fixes, Features, & Reworks