Controlling Heresy

[Wraith094]

So in my current game heresy has gotten out of control. The Church lost two crusades early on and eventually dipped to 30-ish% moral authority somehow, so I was rather alarmed to see the Fraticelli and Waldensian heresies spreading like weeds in continental Europe. This crossed the Channel to England, and so I basically have a Fraticelli south, Lollard north, and Catholic center in England and am barely stemming the tide. My court chaplains suck at converting provinces and the heresies spread back to converted provinces much faster than I can convert the heretics. I have to spend quite a bit of time and money constantly to appease and eventually convert the heretic southern/northern dukes (their children are converts and so are several of their vassals, and I cannot control their religions at all).

It gets worse, as England is basically the only major Catholic kingdom still standing. The Holy Roman Emperors juggle between being Fraticelli and Cathar, and most of Germany is Fraticelli. France and its rulers are almost entirely Waldensian. Paganism is creeping from Finland down the Scandinavian Penninsula. Oh, and the muslims have almost totally conquered Iberia, and the Mongols have spread across Russia and Persia like the plague. Even the frigging Orthodox Church is starting to collapse under the tide of heresy for some reason. The only good thing to come of this is Fraticelli Scotland and Ireland, which enables me to repeatedly Holy War for rapid land gain.

There was an attempt about 40 years ago to revitalize Catholicism with a Crusade for Syria but that failed miserably because I was the only kingdom to join in. Since then Catholic MA has recovered to about 50%. I have not abused anti-Popes at all, either (I avoid them for personal balance reasons) and I am unaware of any others existing. Is this way past the point of no return? Is there any hope of the Catholic Church regaining dominance in this Europe?

[grumphie]

continue fighting holy wars. stick to catholism. hope the other catolic powers are quickly eliminaed to prevent more dropping. afte rthat, get you own, catholic, dynasty memebers in line for youw onw duchies n counties. once the british isles are under control you can do the same for france ect.

once moral authority has risen high enough heresies should slowly be pushed back, but i odnt have high hopes for you getting the rulers abck to catholism. i'd turn pagan and get some horse archers on the go.

[Zarky]

What's your crown authority? I think it was medium CA that allows free revokation of infidel titles meaning no prestige hit or relationship hit with other lords, still the -80 for the person you're revoking from. This should allow you to revoke titles and pass them to good faithful christians who then put their own court chaplains on convert duty, assuming they don't succumb to the heresy themselves at some point.

I'd say the situation is so dire you should leave rest of Europe be and concentrate on pacifying your own lands, you can later holy war your way through Europe and hand out king titles to dynasty members making them independent again.

I'd also say you should also at least consider finding a very young high diplomacy bishop, make him anti-pope and install him in Rome, so that religious authority increases on monthly basis thanks to papal diplomacy.

[Wraith094]

Yeah I'm at Medium CA right now. The thing is my heretic duke vassals aren't so low in loyalty that I want to revoke their titles but they're low enough that a gift and an honorary title isn't quite enough to force the religion change. That and there's too much of a lack of Catholic courtiers, nobles, and even family members to properly redistribute the titles, especially since I'm gaining large amounts of land in Scotland that also have to be redistributed.

[kbernges]

If your piety is rather high (I am hazarding to guess it is, with the holy wars and such), you could always use the Invite Holy Man to Court decision under Intrigue to add new people to put in charge, cost is fixed (unlike the gold cost for Invite Noble) and very reasonable, though these have a non-trivial probability of picking up Celibate or Chaste that makes them fairly unviable as feudal vassals. Keep fighting holy wars, each victory empowers the church. The diplomatically skilled antipope is a possible choice but should not be attempted unless you know you can force the original Pope's surrender in very short order as the drain on moral authority is extremely severe. As said, the continent is lost, for now: you should as the previous poster suggested get your own lands under control so you have a solid base from which to restore the continent to the fold once the moral authority of the church is restored to the point you no longer have to worry about your realm. I can't imagine any of the other realms, despite their conversion to heresy, are doing much better with the patchwork they have.

[xGhost4000x]

It's weird that it has gotten so out of control for you. We'd been at 0% for about 10 years in our MP game before my Anti-Pope died and it finally started rising again. Infact the little bit it did affect helped us greatly, I was able to take large portions of france.

My suggestion is to just get rid of your heretical vassals. If you really like them so much and are roleplaying. Just revoke them and give the titles to their kids. That way they like you a crap load and you have catholic vassals, all the while keeping the tradition of that specific family ruling those lands.

[Graspiloot]

That sounds like such an amazing game! My games never get out of control religionwise. If anything a big part of the world is catholic (that may also be thanks to me, the king of Navarra, solemn protector of christianity against the moor!).