Why can't I convert Muslim provinces?

Question

I am playing as Castille and have captured Granada very early on as part of the Reconquista national mission.

However, this leaves me with three provinces of Sunni religion in my otherwise Catholic nation. From the beginning I was unable to convert them, because it said it would take indefinitely due to the following modifiers:

• Base value: +2%
• Sunni: -2%
• Earth Rampart: +0.1%
• Provincial Tax Income: -2.5%
• Local Missionary Strength: -2%

I have continued to play for many years now, but I am still unable to change these modifiers. This leaves me with a hotspot for rebels and no way to reach religious unity.

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1) What do Provincial Tax Income and Local Missionary Strength mean and how can I change these modifiers?

2) What is the best way to convert Muslim regions to Catholicism?

Answer 1

1a) The wealthier a province is, the more difficult it is to convert. Look at a correlation between the economic strength of a province, and that modifier. 1b) The "Local Missionary Strength" modifier is a natural feature of Sunni Islam, it reduces the effectiveness of your missionaries there by 2.5%, the stock strength of a missionary varies. You can see you bonuses and maluses on the religion tab.

You cannot remove the Local Missionary strength modifier from the Sunni faith outside of creating a mod for your game, so the only way you are going to even have a chance of converting Islamic provinces is with the Religious idea's "Divine Supremacy".

2) I would say the best way to convert Islamic provinces is to pour points into the Religious idea, and then starve them for wealth by supporting rebellions (which sap province wealth over time).

Answer 2

While the religious idea is good for this, it also let's you have one less idea tree to spend on, maybe, better ideas. Many Catholic countries have national decisions which can be unlocked by simple research that give you missionary strength of up to 4% (if I recall correctly) and you can always hire an advisor which gives you 2 extra %.

Answer 3

There is another way of reducing this tax income, which is by far the hardest thing if you play Castille from the earliest start. Apparently, when you conquer the Granada provinces, you can have your army with a general and send it to scorch the land a couple of times. I disagree about the benefit, since you can make up the process later on, and you do lose a lot of population this way (province tax is merely representation of a number of population that pays taxes - higher the population - higher the province tax). so if you still want to reduce those modifiers and have an advisor with +2% conversion bonus, you might do it in 5-10 yr time in the early stages of the game).

Answer 4

you can obtain 2% increase to missionary strength via an advisor. Then you will have to look at other factors (perhaps prestige, stability) to make up the rest

Answer 5

If you're willing to cheat, put a missionary in Granada, hit the ~ key and type setmissionaryprogress 223 100.

One day later it will be all converted.

Answer 6

Other answer cover a lot of grounds. So I won't go over those again.

There is one more option to overcome the Sunni penalty that I haven't seen provided here. This option requires you to have the DLC mandate of the heaven.

State Edict. There is one that give you 1% conversion strength in exchange for some ducat upkeep (reflected in state maintenance).

That said. There are downside to the state edict. It requires you to have a sparse state slot available to convert.

It is NOT required to core the state to take advantage of state edict 1% conversion strength. So you can turn it into a state temporarily and convert it. Then turn it back to territory once you are done.

Answer 7

The act of uniformity decision requires an administrative level of 8, and gives your missionaries +1.00%. The advancement of true religion act also gives a +1.00% bonus to your missionaries.

Answer 8

Changing where my merchants were deployed seems to affect this. When I had a merchant in Genoa directing trade upstream to Sevilla, my missionary progress in Almeria dropped dramatically.

But when I moved my merchant from Genoa to Venice, and instructed the merchant to collect revenue rather than direct it upstream, my missionary progress improved.

I don't understand why this is, though.

Answer 9

Here are tons of options to increase missionary chance: advisors, national decisions, incread stability, some (national) ideas. With the right choices you should be able to convert Sunni provinces, though it will never be easy or fast.

Answer 10

It is impossible. You have to depopulate that region.