Controversial Christian Civilisation Concept

Age of Mythology: Retold Discussion
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Disclaimer

This is not an advertisement for a Christian civilisation.
This thread does not mean that I want a Christian civilisation over any Polytechnic Pantheon.
This thread is about discussing possibilities to make a Christian faction work within the Framework of AoM(R).

Inspiration

The civilisations are inspired by Early Medieval (Dark Age) myths and legends particularly the tales of King Arthur, Sigurd the Dragon Slayer and Roland the most famous Paladin of Charlemagne.
The buildings should all use Pre-Romanesque or Romanesque architecture and not later medieval styles like Gothic.
Mythical Age unit should be on a similar technological level as current Norse Mythical Age units whit Kite Shields and without plate amour.

A lot of the units and mechanics are clearly inspired by AoE4 and that is not a coincidence.
The Greeks were designed to hook in AoE2 players, so I designed the Christian Civilisation to hook in AoE4 players.

The 3 sub civilisations are inspired by German, French and British myths.

Archangels

Instead of Major Gods you choose Archangels.
They are the most important messengers of the one God and therefore have similar powers compared to Gods in Polytheistic religions.

Michael

  • Focused on Infantry and Military in general
  • Infantry have more HP
  • Unique Unit: Teutonic Knight
  • Unique Hero: Sigurd
  • God Power: Can grant Infantry wings that allows them to temporarily fly

Gabriel

  • Focused on Economy
  • Villagers train faster
  • Keeps are cheaper
  • Unique Unit: Paladin
  • Unique Hero: Roland
  • God Power: Can see what technologies the enemy is researching or has researched including Age Ups

Raphael

  • Focused on Archers
  • Garrisoned units heal faster
  • Civil units move faster (Villagers, Traders, Monks, Fishing Ships and Transports)
  • Unique Unit: Long Bowmen
  • Unique Hero: King Arthur
  • God Power: Temporary increases speed of all unity (military and economically)

Age up Mechanic: Churches

  • Christians Age up by building Churches
  • They function like Landmarks from AoE4
  • They have bonuses that are tied to the building itself
  • They research mythological technologies and train myth units
  • Each Church has the patronage of a different Saint
  • The bonuses granted are based on the Saint
  • The Churches are inspired by Pre-Romanesque architecture but not based on real Churches

The reasoning behind this that there are obviously no “Minor Gods” and just letting Saints replace them 1 to 1 would be strange. So I choose to use the Age up System from AoE4 to make clear that Saints are not the same as gods.

Buildings and Units

Monastery

  • I Monk (Heals units, picks up relics and converts enemies, is not a Hero)
  • IV Inquisitor (Bonus damage vs. Heretics (other Christians))
  • IV Crusader (Bonus damage vs. Heathens (none Christian units))

Monks

  • Can Heal and pick up Relics in Archaic Age
  • Can be upgraded to convert enemies in later Ages
  • Successful conversion cost 1 Favour per enemy unit population
  • Myth units and Heroes are immune to conversions
  • Do receive full damage from Myth units because they are not heroes

Barracks

  • II Pikeman (basic Infantry)
  • III Man at Arms (Heavy Infantry, good against other Infantry)

Archery Range

  • II Bowman (basic Archer)
  • III Crossbowman (Archer with bonus damage vs. Heroes)

Stable

  • II Horseman (Basic Cavalry)
  • III Knight (Hero Cavalry)

Keep

  • III Springald (Anti Siege Siege unit)
  • III Capped Ram (Melee Siege unit)
  • IV Trebuchet (Long range Siege unit)

Unique Units

  • Teutonic Knight (Replaces Man at Arms, better armoured but slower sleep)
  • Paladin (Replaces Knight, higher HP but higher costs)
  • Long Bowman (Replaces Bowman, longer range but slower speed)

Favour generation: Tithe

10% of all resources collected by Christian Villagers around Monasteries are donated to them. Trade, resource trickles and converted enemy Villagers are excluded from that.

The resources are split into 4 equal parts:

  1. Goes into Favour generation
  2. Goes into the wealth of the Monastery
  3. Goes into reinforcing the Monastery
  4. Goes into healing allied units

1. Favour

It’s just a Favour generation. Not sure if 1 to 1 would be too much. Maybe 1 to 0.5.

2. Wealth of the Monastery

It’s a Gold value that accumulates in the Monastery. It can not be accessed by the player, only looted by the enemy.

3. Reinforcement of the Monastery

It improves the HP of the monastery unit it reaches a limit.
If enemies damage the Monastery they get Gold equivalent to the damage they cause.
If the HP limit is reached the Monastery gains a small permanent Favour and Gold trickle. But this trickle is gone if the Monastery in damaged.

4. Healing allies

The Monastery can save up some healing when there are no damaged units around.
Other then that it just heals units nearby as long as it collects resources.

Effect on the gameplay

Monasteries give you a good and reliable Favour income but they cost you a little bit of your economy, similar to the Greek Trade-off.
The interesting part is that Monasteries become prime targets for your enemy since they can loot Gold from them but at the same time they can become very durable since they gain more HP as they gain more wealth.
This creates a gameplay dynamic where your enemy is trying to raid you Monasteries similar to historic Viking raids.

Heroes

Every Archangle has a unique Hero that spawns at the beginning of a match similar to a Pharaoh.

The heroes work like Jeanne d’Arc from AoE4, they level up by doing things and become more powerful by doing so.

Level 1

  • The Heroes function like Villagers
  • They can experience by collecting resources and building buildings

Level 2

  • The Heroes become Soldiers
  • All 3 of them become a Melee Infantry
  • They can a strong bonus vs. Myth units
  • They gain the most experience from killing Myth units
  • They can not pick up Relics like most heroes

Level 3

  • King Arthur and Rolland become a Cavalry unit, Sigurd stays an Infantry
  • They now all gain a heroic Aura
  • Sigurd: Increases melee armour of nearby human units (including Siege)
  • Roland: Increases work rate of nearby villagers
  • King Arthur: Attack speed of nearby human units (excluding Siege)
  • All Heroes gain unique bonuses
  • Sigurd: Very high Melee armour
  • Roland: Can assist building construction (speeds up construction of one building)
  • King Arthur Deals Divine Damage

Level 4

  • All Heroes gain a unique ability
  • Sigurd: Becomes temporarily almost invincible (99% armour against everything but Divine damage)
  • Roland: Uses his Olifant to teleport to make all military units teleport to his position but he dies in the process
  • King Arthur: Uses Excalibur to temporarily deals very high damage to all units (not buildings)

Knights

  • Have higher base stats then most Heroes but do less bonus damage vs. Myth units
  • Similar to old Jarls
  • Since they are officially Heroes the take less damage from Myth units and are immune to most of their abilities
  • Can not pick up Relics

Monks

  • Are not heroes
  • Can pick up relics

Myth units

I’m not going to make a list of all possible Saints and Myth units because that would be a little to long and would take more research.
Feel free to suggest more things.

Dragons

  • There should be multiple Dragon based Myth units
  • Dragons are cool!
  • Flying ones, walking ones, swimming ones

Golems

  • More associated with Jews but still kinda fitting I think
  • Were originally planned as a Greek unit for AoM

Witches

  • Witch units really only started at the end of the Middle Ages but the believes are a lot older
  • They could have all kinds of cool abilities

Angles

  • Different kinds of Angles are perfect myth units

Titan: Seraph

The Seraphim are the most powerful type of angle.
They have 3 pairs of wings and are often depicted with many eyes or other monstrous things.

God Powers

There are a lot of examples of God doing powerful things in the Bible and tales about Saints.
Biblical Plagues would be a good start. They were targeted at Egypt so they perfectly fit into AoM. Locust Swarm is already an Egyptian God Power for example.

Thoughts

This concept is not complete. There are bonuses and stuff missing.
I did not make a list of potential Saint yet for example, I might add that later though since I already did some research on that.

I know that the idea of making a Monotheistic civilisation is something a lot of people don’t like but I think it’s still an idea worth discussing.
There is a lot of potential in a civilisation like that and it fits within the time frame if it only includes things from before 1000 AD.
Most of what we know of Norse Mythology comes from the Edda that was written down in the 13th century, after things like the Song of Roland were written down.

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Perfect concept! I dream about it.

As for the architectural style, I think it could be inspired by fairy tales and fantasy - idealized Middle Ages style.

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It is an interesting concept. As opposed as I am to a christian pantheon in AoM.

When it comes to the major god choices, Mary and Jesus instead of archangels, since those two actually have statues in many places in real life, while among the archangels, only Michael is really recognizeable at a glance.

Alternatively, to keep it with the tradition of having one “evil” major god in each pantheon (Loki for the Norse, Poseidon (Hades as the red herring) for the Greeks, Set for the Egyptians, Gaia as a reversion of the pattern, being the one “good” major god for the Atlanteans) The Devil as a third major god would be a possible fit (Often called Lucifer, but that name was taken from a Roman god, if not much else from him)

Alongside myth units based on witches, why not demons as well? Especially if the Devil/Lucifer is a thing, with exclusive access to some of them, like only Zeus gets Medusa and only Loki gets the Nidhöggr.

Might perhaps be more controversial that way, but also more iconic, and with more clearly distinct statues.

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I think the issue sort of is that the Christian faith at its core rejects violence, sure we have crusades and mortal rulers can declare war “render onto cæsar” and so on, but the religion at its core preaches forgiveness and kindness and it is literally a sin to kill. It also has the issue that it is still largely practised world wide, it is after all still the largest religion in the world. Most of the religions, if not all of them, in AOM are dead, no one actually seriously believe in Odin or Zeus.

Witchcraft also while today being seen as a thing the Christians hacked down upon was in reality seen by the catholic church as peasant superstition. The church basically never took witchcraft seriously.

Lastly we have the issue of the religion, or rather the fact you left out quiet large chunks of the religions to focus on basically just western Europe. Christianity before the rise of Islam was a huge religion stretching into central asia, even before the reformation you have things like the Copts, the orthodox and eastern Christianity. If you where going to go with a “minor god” system i would assume showing the different sects would be a more interesting approach than angels.

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I thought about doing Saints as Major Gods but I thought that would be strange.
Also Jesus is God so having him be the Major God of one would be really strange.

For the Statutes. I mean Roland (the hero) has probably more statutes than any of the Archangles and probably beats most Saints too.
Not sure what kinda statues the TCs should have but many just a Cross.

A lot of Minor Gods from existing Pantheons were historically a lot more popular then the Major Gods. There are very little people that worshipped Loki for example. Many Greek Minor gods had more worshippers then Poseidon and Hades.

Thought about that too but it makes 0 sense for Christians to worship Lucifer or something like that. All current “evil” gods are not really or full evil and actually had some followship back then. Lucifer was never actually worshipped in any real way.
Also strange to go for Lucifer and then pick normal Saints like anyone else.

Yeah why not.

The Middle Ages were not known to particularly peaceful in Europe, were they?

A lot of religions have peaceful messages and ideologies but the reality often looks very different.

A lot of current Myth units also make little sense to be send by a god.
You can have an army out of myth units and the heroes that ###### #### right now.
Many myth units are theoretically the enemies of the gods, like all the giants from the Norse.
Why does Balder, the god of all good and nice things, unlock Fire Giants and Ragnarök?

Most civilisations from AoE2/3/4 still exist today so they should not be in a game?

The Chinese are already the next DLC and there are many people that still believe in those gods to some degree.
Also this would rule out civilisations like the Japanese or Indians.
Even Zoroastrianism still has a lot of followers.

There wouldn’t be many civilisations left. Basically only from places that later converted ti Christianity and Islam.

There were and are many completely different cultures and civilisation that practice Christianity, it would be impossible to make them into one civilisation.
Or would you want a civilisation based of things that never coexisted in one place?
Like Syrian, Ethiopian, Egyptian, Armenian, Slavic, Greek, Italian, Spanish, French, British, German, etc. units, buildings and technologies all thrown together?
Ethiopian Archers, Armenian Cataphracts and Italian Pikeman trained by the same civilisation?

I think every AoM Pantheon has to focus on one play.
In the case of the Greeks they just make a new civilisation within the same pantheon.
The same could be done for Christians too.
Or maybe they need a new type of civilisation, where the human units are different but the religious things are the same.

After all I just wanted to make a concept that is in itself consistent and works as it’s own. It’s not supposed to mean other things should not be able to be represented in the game in some way.

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Honestly, 90% of what you suggested are attempts at workarounds for Christianity making no sense and being strange in an AoM context.

And now you’re designing them for a completely different game? The cross would mean Jesus as major god. That’s what I meant with statues. For the town centers. Jesus (on the cross) the virgin Mary, and either Michael or the Devil, would be instantly recognizeable. Three Angels wouldn’t be that obvious to tell apart.

When he was a Roman God, rather than the Devil, he was. Also, while very likely no one actually worshipped the Devil, a lot of people were accused of doing so.

I distinctly remember saying that too, in a different place, and directly corresponds with the Devil thing.

One way or the other, be it the way you suggested, with the changes I suggested, or like some youtube video I saw (where he went “abrahamic is the strongest, stat wise, and it’s not even close” and had a whole thing based on it that every non-christian opponent would have a hell-portal spawn next to them that would spawn demons and grant them devils as additional minor gods to buff the non-christians in order to balance that out)
I wouln’t want it added.
The changes I suggested were more for the sake of a what-if-game.

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Okay let me give you an example

Greek heroes could very often be described doing things like raiding and murdering people for really no other goal in life than wanting to. While Christian states did go to war etc. war was overall seen as evil and had to be framed as such, for example by arguing you are doing it in defence of yourself or someone else. You wont find a person described as a hero in the Christian world who just goes around murdering people, they have to have a reason to do so that justifies it morally.

Obviously we can find examples that goes against this but the general rule of Christianity is that war and killing is a last resort. Rulers that wared too much or for the wrong reason could get excommunicated, indicating that really war wasn’t seen as a generally good thing.

We straight up have gods of war and stories of the gods fighting in a more direct way for the other religions in the game.

There is a difference between depicting a civilisation or nation vs depicting a religion. They are already careful when it comes to depicting nations in AOE (hence no slavery in AOE3). I don’t see how a depiction of Christianity wouldn’t end up making a lot of people mad, either because it is the wrong sect or because you make peoples god into a god power.

As it is also a mono-god religion i think similar rules applies

Okay let me then ask you, do you think the game should have an Islamic or Jewish civ?

The point is that the Religion doesn’t really fit into a system that otherwise is usually culture focused. Which seemingly you are aware of.

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The core of AoM is that every civilisation is unique.
Most new civilisations will have some features that people think wouldn’t fit into the game.
If the Atlanteans were added to the game now there would be a massive opposition to it for sure. They brake so many established rules.

I wanted to focus the civilisation more on the heroes and Medieval legends.
Making one of them evil would be pretty strange. I don’t think King Arthur followed the devil.

But with this mindset we are very limited in the civilisation selection.
A lot of religions still have a big following around the world including the Chinese one added in the next DLC.

They originally had multiple gods.

Islam is generally a little newer so it would be harder to fit it into the timeline but generally why now.
It would have to be very early Islam.
Though I think a Christian DLC would sell better.

As I said before AoM is about unique civilisation and not about trying to fit everything into a small ruleset, that would be AoE2.
Atlanteans and Chinese are already braking a lot of rules from the original 3 civilisations.
Maybe all of the rules this civilisation brakes will all also be broken by other civilisations before.

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This could be very interesting. And I have no problem with listing Christianity as mythology. I always enjoy religious fiction.

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I don’t see the devs ever going for such a controversial move while there are so many more popular candidates for a new polytheistic pantheon.
But it’s an interesting concept, and it could work as a mod.
I think your age up and favor mechanics seem fitting for the concept.

A few notes:

  • Some of the units (crusader, inquisitor, Teutonic Knight) are beyond the timeframe you want to represent, unless you change your end date from around 1000 to at least around 1200 when the Teutonic Order was founded.
  • Sigurd is the Norse version of the hero (the slayer of Fafnir), the German version would be Siegfried.
  • Maybe “Miracles” should replace “God Powers” for this civ? They could require to be cast near a hero, monk, church, or monastery but would otherwise work similar.
  • I would give this civ some kind of god power shield mechanic - maybe a nun unit that can pray to create a temporary shield effect in an area, with a larger radius if praying near churches & monasteries?
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With that argument, you could go add in Cthulhu, the flying spaghetti monster, and horoscopes as well.

I’m not saying future civs can’t make things different. If Aztecs are ever gonna be made, we’re pretty much expecting no cavalry of any kind.
I don’t think we’ll get a civ without any human units whatsoever, or without heroes of some kind, or without myth units or godpowers.
Different conditions for aging up, fine. Not needing to age up at all, not fine. Unique statues for major gods is something that, while it doesn’t matter for the gameplay, I consider important enough for the stylistic language of the game to be a rule that can’t be broken. Maybe I’m wrong. But if there’s a pantheon with no major god statue at the town center, I’m not expecting there to be a second or third major god to that pantheon.

A civilisation that can’t collect wood from trees, but has a different method of obtaining wood exclusive to them, that’s something else than if the civilisation didn’t need wood at all, for anything.

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I think the reason it’s so controversial is that the game is called Age of Mythology, not Age of Religion.

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I don’t have an issue with seeing christianity as a mythology.
One I happen to dislike for personal reasons, but that shouldn’t matter.
I also believe that it would be difficult to squeeze it into the AoM format to make it feel like a part of AoM.
But that doesn’t mean just because it’s a practiced religion that it isn’t a mythology.

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Very nice concept! It may actually be easier to implement than my previous idea of an Abrahamic pantheon. Making Christians a medieval civ would also make them stand out much more and this could lead to a very interesting campaign featuring them alongside the Norse.

I like the monasteries mechanic and as you mentioned it would fit very well thematically. The knight is the obvious hero unit of course and I think it would be nice for them to have a list of random names (Lancelot, Perceval, Tristan, etc…) like the hersir and pharao.

As for myth units, I have some ideas:

Also, I’d make the seraph a myth unit, alongside other types of angels such as the cherub and the ophan.
OIP (8)

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For the titan, my number 1 choice would be the Beast (or seven headed dragon) which is an incarnation of the devil in the Apocalypse.

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God power ideas:

Those are only a few ideas. What do you think?

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I agree with that. That’s why I made multiple concepts for Polytheistic Pantheons already. Likely more to come like Japanese.

I made the Crusader and Inquisitor a Mythical Age unit because of that. Also there were some Crusaders and some Inquisitors before 1000 AD but of course not in the way most people would recognise them.

I didn’t find a good replacement for Teutonic Knight, do you have a better idea. You could read it as “a knight that happened to be Teutonic (German)”.

Might fit better. Not sure what name is more common in English.

They can still be called God Powers because they are from God but they could also be called Miracles too.
Not sure if limiting them to happen around those kinda units/buildings would be a good idea. Maybe to many unique mechanics in one civilisation.

Hmm maybe Monasteries get a god power shield that slowly grows in range the more resources they collect. That would prevent people from sniping them with god powers to gain Gold.

There are a lot of people that want Cthulhu, I don’t.

I generally think if there is enough people wanting it it should be possible to add it, right?
That might sound simple but I think whatever most people want should be added. That makes the most sense right?
Don’t listen to the people that want to veto a civilisation/pantheon, listen to the people that are in favour of it. Everything will have people that don’t want it. Aztecs are the most requested civilisation, yet there is a significant number of people that hate the idea of any American civilisation being added to the game.

I think it would probably be possible to have a civilisation that doesn’t have the traditional human unit, hero and myth unit combination.
In the end it’s not that different from the default infantry, archer and cavalry counter system and we already have a civilisation without archers and we will likely see ones without cavalry or maybe even without infantry.

But not sure how that could be done and what mythology would be suitable for such a radically different setup.
Maybe a civ where some Myth units have a strong bonus vs. other myth units but there are no heroes.

I do somewhat agree to that. The statues are a nice and clear visual representation of what civilisation you play at.
One of the reasons why I choose Gabriel for the French is because he is associated with the lily, which was also the symbol for France. So it could be a statue with a large fleur-de-lis on it.

But maybe it would be best to use the main hero as Statue. Maybe even remove the Archangels completely and have the heroes be the name of the civilisations.
AoE4 already did that once. It wasn’t very popular there but I think it fits a lot better into AoM where heroes are already an important part of the game.

I consider making a concept for that too. That would be mutually exclusive with this civ of course.
Major gods would be Jesus, Muhammad and Moses or something like that.
Technically Muslims believe in all 3 of those.

Oh yeah of course!

They look cool.

I kinda wanted to avoid demon type units in my proposal but other Pantheons can also summon a lot of “evil” creatures too.

This one would be hard to implement and useless on land maps. But obviously very cool if it works.

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I already did say, if Aztecs are added, we can pretty much expect them to have no cavalry. And that’s fine.
That’s like the Norse having no real archers. What I was referring to was a civ with no human units, meaning no “regular” human military. Where you only have heroes or myth units.
That’s what I don’t think is gonna happen.

It does make sense, but it still has to be made in a way for it to fit into the game. Even if it’s something as commonly asked for as the Aztecs. And if it can’t be made to fit into the game, it’s gonna stick out like a sore thumb, and not in a good way.

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“Non Angli sed Angeli”!

Overall I like the proposal. In particular, I think the “gods” (not actually gods) are well chosen.

For major gods, the “obvious” choice would be the Holy Trinity, but that wouldn’t work because (a) there’s a sense in which they’re the same as each other (although that sense depends on what kind of Christian you are), and (b) they’re canonically too powerful to depict in this context. Archangels don’t have those problems – plus they have good name recognition.

I particularly like dedicating churches to saints in place of minor gods. You could link each saint’s gameplay to their martyrdom, e.g. St Edmund grants some kind of protection against ranged attacks, St Lawrence’s myth unit has a fire-based attack, etc.

I think it’s a bit odd that you went with later medieval units in some cases, e.g. pikemen, knights, trebuchets, Teutonic Knights. Not sure what to suggest instead, though.

I’m not keen on golems and witches for myth units. As you say, golems are more of a Jewish thing. Witches are more associated with the early modern period, and in some cases, with the Devil.

Normally I would be wary of depicting a religion/mythology that is still practised/believed. In the case of Christianity, though, AoM is a western game and Christianity has had such a huge impact on western culture that I don’t think it’s a problem – especially as @Skadidesu’s concept is based on Christianity in western Europe.

In a similar vein, for example, it’s totally fine for a Japanese game to be based around Shinto beliefs and myths (I think Ōkami is the obvious example, but there are others) – but I’d be more wary about a non-Japanese game based around those beliefs, or a Japanese game based around some other culture’s beliefs.

These are great ideas, and to me, feel more thematically appropriate than witches and golems.

Can I also suggest the bonnacon: an ox-like creature with a long-ranged flaming poo attack. (Yes, really.)

Generally, medieval bestiaries could be a good source of myth units – especially those creatures that are associated with Christ in some way.

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Exactly. That’s why I don’t think it should be a problem. Fun should always prevail over accuracy.

I’ve started a concept for this a long time ago. Prophets are the main hero units (1 per player) and god powers are casted from them. Of course, the human unit roster would be different from one to another, or at least have different skins.

Yeah, I’m not sure if it can be done with the game engine.

Lmao yes I’ve thought about the bonnacon but I thought it would be too odd. But hey, I’ve suggested a goose tree as a god power, so why not? And yes, medieval bestiaries are great sources of inspiration for the devs.

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That would be really hard to pull off.
Like a demon faction that that just has demons?

Don’t think that will ever happen either. We need to see how many DLC AoMR will get in the first place anyway.

I assume that the majority would likely not request something that doesn’t fit in.

People believed in Witches before that and also all other mythologies have the evil creatures as myth units too.

Yeah a lot of cool stuff there.

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I’ve seen quite a few suggestions that I feel like don’t fit in. And while I don’t see your Christian design as a request, but a thought exercise, so it doesn’t count, I still struggle to imagine it fitting into AoM. And that’s despite being pretty much the best fan-design for a Christian faction I’ve seen so far.

It’s absolutely possible that my strong bias against Christianity, which I don’t deny, is at play here.

Angels or saints or prophets (or a combination) as major and minor gods, angels and demons and dragons as myth units, saints or prophets as heroes, biblical miracles as god powers, seen it all before.
Your early medieval, pre-gothic suggestion is a first. Most people I’ve seen to suggest Christian civs either go Crusades and Holy Roman Empire, or they go Ancient Israelites.

The term “Witch” derives from the Celtic term “wicca” which vaguely translates to “wise” or “wisdom” and was often used to describe herbalists and nurses in earlier periods. Including Druids, from the actual Celts, male and female.
In the Germanic room, there were the Völur, almost exclusively women (singular Wölva, plural Völur) that were herbalists and healers as well, but also seers, having prophetic abilities and creating charms. This made them very well respected figures in the pagan communities of modern day Denmark, northern Germany, and parts of Scandinavia. To the point they’d be invited to dine with chieftains and kings, and could travel alone and didn’t have to fear bandits.

In Germany, where most Witch Trials happened, the word for witch is Hexe, which comes from Hagazussa, which means “sitting on a fence” and describes a demonic being living in a fence or hedge. Which in a symbolic way describes the witch as something that lives on the border between the known, civilized, tamed, and the unknown, wild, uncharted, dangerous, the wilderness, the “out there”, and frequently crosses it.

And after christianisation, those people simply continued their work, still practiced their herbal medicine, blessed the harvests, and many other things. Just not with the same level of respect and reverence from the ruling class or the general population.
With things like the Luther reformation, the spread of ######### and the mini-ice age in the 1400s, and later the pleague, they were easy to blame, as “who can do one thing, can do the opposite”, and people actually thought that makes sense and believed that.
“Magic users”, both male and female, exist in many mythologies. In Greek mythology, we get Cassandra, Medea, Circe… In most ancient religions, most priests were considered magic users, and that goes back to stone age shamans…