...but they are completely unplayable right now. TL;DR they are horrifyingly OP and absolutely need to be patched.
So like everybody and their grandma, I went for a Hellenic SPQR achievement in the Charlemagne start, defensive pacts, supernatural events, and shattered retreat on. Since I started as the small count of Thebes, house of Skelros, I needed power and fast. So I joined the Satanists. Despite all the negative corruption and trait events, once you get to level 3, you have a powerful combination of two powers; abduct and possess. So the turning point of my campaign is shortly after I became Basileus and the Abbasids lost to decadence. I managed to abduct the 3rd or 4th line to the sultanate of Egypt, and possessed him. I spent the next few years cutting through the line until he was heir. Then a sudden tyranny revolt overthrew his father and now my little puppet was sultan, and he accepted vassalization. So that was how I conquered all of Egypt and Levant. I spent the next few years just cleaning things up and revoking titles. For both of these powerful actions, there are pretty much no consequences for failure. I must have failed to grab the kid half a dozen times but nobody seemed to care. Possess rang no alarm bells either. They only slowly tick up your “suspicion” modifier and give you some corruption, which nobody can do anything about until you cross the suspicion threshold and a good enough chaplain catches you, which is almost never if you are the top liege. Nobody from other realms care either, even if you just tried to kidnap their children.
On the flip side, I had no idea that demanding conversion would almost always make your realm full of secret religion societies. Within a few years, I was being inundated with catholic bibles and norse sagas. The next thing I know, my heir and half my viceroys are also secret catholics. Now the insanity was really starting, since I made my dynasty very large, pretty much every other viceroyalty was of my dynasty. Plus all the chaplains hunting apostates, a bunch of my dynasty members including my heir become kinslayers. I finally get sick of seeing half of my dynasty turning into barbecue, so I use my heir to rise to the deacon of the society of jesus (by assassination of course). From here, I can see all the secret Catholics with around 90 members. So I get a hunting. I use spy on to arrest people and plots to kill them. I check back every few years and notice that the member count has not changed! In fact, after arresting and executing a bunch at once, it fills right back up to 90! It’s like they’re automatically spawning members or are able to instantly convert members to fill the rank. For the next few years, I can only see all the barbecue skewers going up across my empire but the society count change not at all. My only last resort is to go public, convert back to Hellenism, and hunt them down in the open. There seems to be no other way. Moreover, the SoJ has the same lack of consequences as the Satanists. No matter how many bibles they send out or grounds they prepare, they basically have no consequences to failing each individual action and will only get caught once they reach the suspicion threshold. And if they do get caught, it doesn’t matter because they can just spawn more of them.
I am not opposed to secret societies having crazy powers (hell, I love it). I am opposed to the fact that there’s pretty much zero risk using them. Society actions are far more reliable and have a smaller chance of consequence than the standard imprisonments and executions, so why wouldn’t you use them? Not using them is pretty much a dumb move unless you’re hardcore roleplaying, but that doesn’t stop the AI from messing around and randomly infecting your heirs with rabies. It seems like the only option, is to turn them off at the start, shutting both you and the AI from all the benefits (not really any risks). If these actions can have the same effect as assassination plots and imprisonment actions, they should have comparable consequences/risks. If I fail to kidnap his kid and I am discovered, my target should also get a chance to try and kidnap me. If I get caught trying to infect someone, there should be a good chance it could backfire on me. If being a member of a secret religion has a good chance of getting a character killed or the moral authority is extremely low, they should be very reluctant to join outside of extraordinary circumstances. And getting caught attempting to recruit someone should be an easy trip to the barbecue. Otherwise, what’s the point of trying to cultivate moral authority and building up a power base if I could just secretly convert everyone instead? What’s the point of bothering to enforce a public religion if there’s no risk practicing a secret one? What’s worse is that pretty much the only way to effectively eradicate one is to join it and force them all to go public, they kill them, or else they will just slip away. Because I remember that day in history class where Ferdinand and Isabella dressed up as jews to secretly infiltrate jewish communities during the Spanish Inquisition in order to eliminate apostates. Currently secret societies are too easy and powerful in the hands of players, too persistent and annoying in the hands of the AI. The constant barbecues remind me of when tournament massacres were still a thing, and half the realm would be killed or maimed for months after beginning a royal tournament. In the meantime, the only thing I can do is turn off the main feature of a paid dlc. At least in Sunset Invasion you can throw those Aztecs back into the sea.
So like everybody and their grandma, I went for a Hellenic SPQR achievement in the Charlemagne start, defensive pacts, supernatural events, and shattered retreat on. Since I started as the small count of Thebes, house of Skelros, I needed power and fast. So I joined the Satanists. Despite all the negative corruption and trait events, once you get to level 3, you have a powerful combination of two powers; abduct and possess. So the turning point of my campaign is shortly after I became Basileus and the Abbasids lost to decadence. I managed to abduct the 3rd or 4th line to the sultanate of Egypt, and possessed him. I spent the next few years cutting through the line until he was heir. Then a sudden tyranny revolt overthrew his father and now my little puppet was sultan, and he accepted vassalization. So that was how I conquered all of Egypt and Levant. I spent the next few years just cleaning things up and revoking titles. For both of these powerful actions, there are pretty much no consequences for failure. I must have failed to grab the kid half a dozen times but nobody seemed to care. Possess rang no alarm bells either. They only slowly tick up your “suspicion” modifier and give you some corruption, which nobody can do anything about until you cross the suspicion threshold and a good enough chaplain catches you, which is almost never if you are the top liege. Nobody from other realms care either, even if you just tried to kidnap their children.
On the flip side, I had no idea that demanding conversion would almost always make your realm full of secret religion societies. Within a few years, I was being inundated with catholic bibles and norse sagas. The next thing I know, my heir and half my viceroys are also secret catholics. Now the insanity was really starting, since I made my dynasty very large, pretty much every other viceroyalty was of my dynasty. Plus all the chaplains hunting apostates, a bunch of my dynasty members including my heir become kinslayers. I finally get sick of seeing half of my dynasty turning into barbecue, so I use my heir to rise to the deacon of the society of jesus (by assassination of course). From here, I can see all the secret Catholics with around 90 members. So I get a hunting. I use spy on to arrest people and plots to kill them. I check back every few years and notice that the member count has not changed! In fact, after arresting and executing a bunch at once, it fills right back up to 90! It’s like they’re automatically spawning members or are able to instantly convert members to fill the rank. For the next few years, I can only see all the barbecue skewers going up across my empire but the society count change not at all. My only last resort is to go public, convert back to Hellenism, and hunt them down in the open. There seems to be no other way. Moreover, the SoJ has the same lack of consequences as the Satanists. No matter how many bibles they send out or grounds they prepare, they basically have no consequences to failing each individual action and will only get caught once they reach the suspicion threshold. And if they do get caught, it doesn’t matter because they can just spawn more of them.
I am not opposed to secret societies having crazy powers (hell, I love it). I am opposed to the fact that there’s pretty much zero risk using them. Society actions are far more reliable and have a smaller chance of consequence than the standard imprisonments and executions, so why wouldn’t you use them? Not using them is pretty much a dumb move unless you’re hardcore roleplaying, but that doesn’t stop the AI from messing around and randomly infecting your heirs with rabies. It seems like the only option, is to turn them off at the start, shutting both you and the AI from all the benefits (not really any risks). If these actions can have the same effect as assassination plots and imprisonment actions, they should have comparable consequences/risks. If I fail to kidnap his kid and I am discovered, my target should also get a chance to try and kidnap me. If I get caught trying to infect someone, there should be a good chance it could backfire on me. If being a member of a secret religion has a good chance of getting a character killed or the moral authority is extremely low, they should be very reluctant to join outside of extraordinary circumstances. And getting caught attempting to recruit someone should be an easy trip to the barbecue. Otherwise, what’s the point of trying to cultivate moral authority and building up a power base if I could just secretly convert everyone instead? What’s the point of bothering to enforce a public religion if there’s no risk practicing a secret one? What’s worse is that pretty much the only way to effectively eradicate one is to join it and force them all to go public, they kill them, or else they will just slip away. Because I remember that day in history class where Ferdinand and Isabella dressed up as jews to secretly infiltrate jewish communities during the Spanish Inquisition in order to eliminate apostates. Currently secret societies are too easy and powerful in the hands of players, too persistent and annoying in the hands of the AI. The constant barbecues remind me of when tournament massacres were still a thing, and half the realm would be killed or maimed for months after beginning a royal tournament. In the meantime, the only thing I can do is turn off the main feature of a paid dlc. At least in Sunset Invasion you can throw those Aztecs back into the sea.
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