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Mind-bogglingly popular game series that you follow from early on and cannot stop, waiting for new installment like a drooling addict.

Long-runner soap opera you're too invested into to just stop watching it.

A fun little comic strip in the daily newspaper that's been around forever.

3/6

Who said it's fun? I didn't for sure.

I'm just waiting here for it to die horribly already so it will stop showing on my Unread Posts list.

[Haspen]

You decide to let the priests take control of the proceedings.

THe first topic is thus Religion Tax. Various clergy mention how it makes hard to keep maintenance of holy buildings and keep a supply of various religious implements and incenses whilst also paying annual tax to the Crown. All three cults agree that they want it repealed (a rare occurence, this).

A) Nah.
B) Sure.

[Weirdsound]

B

Our economy is fixed, we can repeal that nasty little tax!

[Prophet]

B

[ZBridges]

A

[helmacon]

B

And this will give us some serious bargaining power for the rest of the council.

[Harry Baldman]

A

I don't think they've provided much of a justification for being tax-exempt. Perhaps they would like to take advantage of the Settlement Policy instead and bring their faiths to Orcworld if they'd like to increase their income streams to better deal with the taxes? (also bullshit the Alldivines can't afford the tax, they run entire private militaries that they sell to the highest bidder, tax the bastards into oblivion)

Seriously though, the reason we did Religious Tolerance to begin with is that privileged religions have annoyed the piss out of us and indeed every monarch before us, and taking a stand against such nonsense should only be encouraged.

And this will give us some serious bargaining power for the rest of the council.

It won't do anything of the sort because we're just giving them what they want before specifying what we expect of them, and that's just unsound bargaining right there.

Furthermore, the people are reasonably happy, the economy is booming, we have a full army itching for a fight and no outstanding foreign conflicts - they want to start trouble, they can feckin' well bring it and see how that goes for them.

[Kashyyk]

A - We could revisit this later if needed.

[VoidSlayer]

B No tax, but do not expect support, live or die on your own dime!

[Maximum Spin]

Ugh, I don't want to repeal the tax, but I don't want to deliberately antagonise the religions by refusing to their faces after you guys barged us into the meeting, either.
Well, A anyway.

[crazyabe]

B.

[Weirdsound]

Don't look at it as a question of "do the cults deserve tax exempt status," look at it as a game mechanic.

End of Year 1154 AD: Established Religion Tax:
Various congregations are given away territories and various tax exemptions for those. With erosion of religious influences upon the state, its prime opportunity to dip our hand into prime source of income that is donations and tithes gathered by those numerous cults present in the empire. It will surely not please them, and, by extension, your subjects.

The way it is phrased, the religion tax seems to trade Happiness for money. For all we know, the religion tax is throwing an inverted festival every year. We are no longer facing a crisis of money, so I see no reason to continue making the trade.

As it stands, our happiness is one point away from being an issue, while our income is fine now that we have wine, gold, and are not building a godamn fortress anymore. I'm not afraid of facing a rebellion with 9 army, but if we do, I'd rather the Alldivine not drag their well trained battlebrothers into it.

[Harry Baldman]

I didn't really get the impression that it works that way - certainly didn't notice Happiness wantonly dipping like such a trade would imply (instead I think we mostly dropped our happiness via tax increases to the general population). I figured it was a one-time Happiness sacrifice which optionally opened up events such as this.

[Weirdsound]

I didn't really get the impression that it works that way - certainly didn't notice Happiness wantonly dipping like such a trade would imply (instead I think we mostly dropped our happiness via tax increases to the general population). I figured it was a one-time Happiness sacrifice which optionally opened up events such as this.

You may be right. Honestly, I'm not sure. All I know is that we don't need the money now, would rather not live the constant fear of having the cults rebel at a bad time (we could deal with it now, but I've noticed rebellions do tend to happen when our troops are preoccupied elsewhere), and could very easily re-instate the tax if we ever stumble into a financial emergency once again. It just strikes me as a shadow we have chosen to live under for one econ point a year. Shadows are mostly harmless, but scary because you can't always tell what is hiding in them.

[Harry Baldman]

Oh, true enough that we don't need the tax, I like it not because of the Econ increase but because it weakens our organized religions, which I see as a good thing because we don't centrally control any of them and they historically only ever seem to cause us grief. And since there's no pope for us to shutter inside Avignon to establish control, that just leaves the Religious Tax as the tool du jour for eroding religious institutions within the Empire. Ideally we keep the tax there for so long that it just becomes the default and normal state of affairs, perhaps compelling neighboring states to impose similar taxes and just completely fucking organized religion in the entire region (which is likely what these denominations started the Congress to chat about, and a sign that it might actually work).

[Weirdsound]

Frankly, the only cult present at this meeting that worries me is the Alldivine, because they actually keep a church militia. As it stands, that is the religion that Cyl actually pratices, and their armies are more likely to aid us than harm us if the tax goes away.

Honestly, I think the various faiths do a fair job of checking and balancing each other without our help. If we had one religion that monopolized the worship of our populace, I might share your concern. For now, the whatever happiness penalties the tax brings strikes me as a more real and concrete threat than one of the local cults abruptly rising up without warning and going full Damned on us.