Antipopes

[Rylock]

Here in my latest installment of "idea threads almost nobody will respond to", I want to discuss Antipopes.

There was a brief discussion a month or so back from a poster that mentioned an issue with the way Antipopes work--not just in CK2+, but in CK2 in general. I confess, I really had little notion of how Antipopes work at all. I've never played the Catholic game very much in my tests, generally speaking...insofar that I never pay attention to the College of Cardinals or the religious side of the game when I do play Catholics, outside of Crusades. I will occasionally see the Holy Roman Emperor set up an Antipope, but nobody seems to notice.

Which is part of the problem. It seems Antipopes should be a bigger deal.

Upon doing some checking, it seems they're a pretty good bargain for a ruler. You need to have Free Investiture and 2000 Prestige, and a Bishop who likes you better than the Pope, and then voila! Antipope. In return for the power to excommunicate whomever you like, you get -50 from the current Pope (your Antipope gets -1000 from the Pope) and other nations get the "Depose Antipope" CB on you, if they care to use it. A vassal can also form the Antiking Faction against you, which requires 500 Piety from them (good luck with that), and which will replace you if they fight a successful war against you.

That's really it. None of your vassals seem to care when you set up an Antipope, and certainly none of your Bishops do. Your Antipope is sure grateful, but that's all.

Seems like something more significant should happen.

I'm thinking of having an immediate reaction spawn among your vassals and among independent rulers, where they decide whether they object to this Antipope of yours. I also think changing the Antiking faction a bit...perhaps making it more of a "get rid of the Antipope"-focused thing, as opposed to a "usurp the throne...and also get rid of that Antipope" thing. At any rate, this would be a good time to chime in with any thoughts on the matter...though I can't guarantee that what gets suggested can be done. The Antipope mechanics themselves (other than the Prestige cost and the MA each Antipope takes from Catholicism) are completely hard-coded, for instance.

 

[Jack the Great]

I've always thought that it'd be a great idea to let other independent rulers choose which Pope they follow, and to change their minds. Historically, you had major powers choosing sides. In the 15th century for example, you had England and France backing one Pope, Castille and Aragon another, and the HRE another. It could add an interesting, volatile dimension to ecclesiastical politics.

Resolving schisms could involve religious wars against countries that shelter or support antipopes. Also, it'd be really interesting if there were some sort of recourse to a peaceful solution, like a religious council which deposes all or some of the contenders, and elects a new Pope in their stead.

 

[loup99]

A good concept and idea that you mentioned Rylock. And I do read these threads, but they feel so complete that it is hard to add anything sounding even half-decent.

 

[Gturkey]

Excellent idea, I think. Perhaps tagging characters as supporting given popes/anti-popes, and some opinion maluses between characters who support different contenders.

I also second the idea that there should be more interesting ways to resolve the crisis - currently they just seem to fizzle out, if they do at all. How councils would work is a tricky one - how did they occur/the schism get resolved historically?

 

[schwarherz]

how did they occur/the schism get resolved historically?

It didn't. That's why, to this day, it's such a big deal when the Pope and the Patriarch meet.

 

[Gturkey]

It didn't. That's why, to this day, it's such a big deal when the Pope and the Patriarch meet.

Ah no, sorry, poor choice of words on my part - I meant the later intra-Catholic schism with the Avignon Pope.

 

[Giacomo1405]

Ah no, sorry, poor choice of words on my part - I meant the later intra-Catholic schism with the Avignon Pope.

It's called "Western Schism" and was handled through Ecumenical Councils...

the three lines of popes ended in 1417 with the Konstanz Council(1414-1417) (all cardinals agreed to submit to this Council authority)...
The (anti)Pope of Pisa (Ioannes XXIII ) and the (anti)Pope of Avignon (Benedictus XIII) were officially declared AntiPopes (as all their predecessor in these two lines) and deposed...
The Pope of Rome (Gregorius XIII) was accepted as Pope, but he willingly resigned to avoid further conflict with the supporters of the other lines...
Martinus V was elected Pope (from now there is only one Pope in Rome)...
There were other Bishops who elected other (anti)Popes (2 Benedictus XIV - Clemens VIII) until 1430, but were almost irrelevant and eventually autonomously fell in line under Rome...


P.S.
The Pisan line of Antipopes lasted only 2 Popes, from 1409 to the Konstanz Council...
The Avignon line of Antipopes also lasted only 2 Popes, but from 1378 to Konstanz Council (before 1378, there were, from 1305, 7 Popes who ruled from Avignon, with no Antipopes)...

 

[Elminster12]

It seems that a two-stage MA penalty would be advisable. Everyone kind of flips out when there're suddenly multiple popes, but once they've been around for a while, things calm down somewhat. Everyone's sorted out which pope they're going to listen to. So what I'm suggesting is applying two MA penalties: one that is permanent as long as an antipope exists and one that expires after a decade or two. The situation can be resolved either by forcing the other popes to step down or via a council. Perhaps have an event where the "winner" of the council is prompted to resign in the interest of the church(as a nod to Gregorious XIII). Refusing might lead to relation maluses with losing parties or perhaps even a small, temporary MA penalty.

 

[thekonkoe]

To try and to keep this thread going and spur discussion I'll propose something that is probably impossible to mod but would be interesting.

What should happen if Rome falls to the ERE or even some other Orthodox power while there exists an Antipope?

Historically the ERE was in no position to pull something like this off at the time, but CK2 can be pretty divergent. Personally I think this could be a short cut to Pentarchy. If anything I think this may even be more plausible than the existing mechanic to end the Schism. A Bishop of Rome in communion with the East, with some level of imperial backing should be a serious contender as the heir of Saint Peter if there is an ongoing dispute. Existing Antipopes could have the option of becoming king-level Patriarchs, and the Pentarchy mechanics for conversion could be used in some form.

One big issue I can foresee is that this may make it too easy for Christianity to unite. Post-schism orthodoxy would probably easily maintain high MA and may be balance breaking, I personally have no experience with it.

 

[Giacomo1405]

Here are my two major suggestions from my thread (which contains the balance concerns for which I suggested them).

1. When an Antipope captures Rome, all Catholic Rulers would be given the option to acknowledge him as Pope or continue to acknowledge the old pope (if he lives). Those who continue to view the old pope as the rightful liege of Christendom would continue to have the depose Antipope CB with the added bonus of restoring the papacy. If a ruler trying to depose the "antipope" loses their war (surrender not white peace) they would receive an event demanding their acknowledgement of the "pope" or their abdication. If the monarch abdicates their heir would be given the choice to acknowledge the new pope or risk vassals having a different religious head and forming antiking factions. If the old pope dies, his supporters would be given the option, one at a time in order of highest score, to give up and acknowledge the new Roman pope or Appoint(/acknowledge an appointed) "true" papal successor.

2. Allow Catholics to recognize antipopes as their pope; instead of being treating like autocephalous patriarchs they would be able to divide Catholism between two or more religious heads.

I have no modding expierance, but from what I understand, most of it could be pretty simple event and Cb modding provided there is a simple way to get an event to fire for all Catholics (I'm included to think there is) and a simple command exists to change a character's religious head (I'm less sure about that one). I don't think any of it would go into uncharted territory.

This are good suggestions and the 1point only problem could be in creating an event that creates an Antipope (what you're suggesting in the last line of point 1)...
the 2point might be harder (if possible at all) to code...

 

[Rylock]

Here are my two major suggestions from my thread (which contains the balance concerns for which I suggested them).

1. When an Antipope captures Rome, all Catholic Rulers would be given the option to acknowledge him as Pope or continue to acknowledge the old pope (if he lives). Those who continue to view the old pope as the rightful liege of Christendom would continue to have the depose Antipope CB with the added bonus of restoring the papacy. If a ruler trying to depose the "antipope" loses their war (surrender not white peace) they would receive an event demanding their acknowledgement of the "pope" or their abdication. If the monarch abdicates their heir would be given the choice to acknowledge the new pope or risk vassals having a different religious head and forming antiking factions. If the old pope dies, his supporters would be given the option, one at a time in order of highest score, to give up and acknowledge the new Roman pope or Appoint(/acknowledge an appointed) "true" papal successor.

2. Allow Catholics to recognize antipopes as their pope; instead of being treating like autocephalous patriarchs they would be able to divide Catholism between two or more religious heads.

I have no modding expierance, but from what I understand, most of it could be pretty simple event and Cb modding provided there is a simple way to get an event to fire for all Catholics (I'm included to think there is) and a simple command exists to change a character's religious head (I'm less sure about that one). I don't think any of it would go into uncharted territory.

There is no way to mod who the rightful religion head is... so while I could base an event off of an antipope successfully taking the papacy (via the cb), I could not afterwards have someone consider one or the other their "rightful" pope. Nor can I have someone decide to support the antipope in favor of the pope if he's not of their realm (outside of opinion modifiers).

Insofar as the game is concerned, an antipope is created when a bishop has a claim on the papacy -- and thus automatically becomes the rightful religion head of everyone in their realm. Whoever holds the papacy, meanwhile, is the rightful religion head of everyone in christendom who doesn't have an antipope in their realm. There's no way to change that.

 

[Rylock]

At a minimum, however, I think a way to get the AI to make concerted pushes against vassal popes would be a good addition to the game. Is it possible to create a cb to force the independence of the pope and weight the ai towards using it?

Well, I've added reactions to antipopes on a realm level...so when an antipope's created, folks in the realm will either support or oppose him. Opposing him pushes them to the antiking faction (which is the one method where someone in a realm can have a different rightful religion head, though that's hard-coded).

I don't believe I can weight the AI towards using a cb more -- though I may be wrong. Currently the only AI weighting I've seen involves restricting them from using cb's at all in certain instances, but it might work the same way as with decisions... but, then again, it might not. The AI doesn't, after all, automatically use any CB that's valid, so there are other factors going on behind the scenes (and which we can't really mod).

The mod already has a Restore Papacy CB, which will free the papacy if it's been vassalized...but that doesn't involve replacing the Antipope (who isn't an Antipope anymore, but just the Pope). It just frees him from vassalage. How often the AI would use that, I'm not sure, but the option is certainly there.

 

[Athalcor]

From what I've read here, giving a Bishop a claim on the Papacy turns him into an Antipope. That would make a better mechanic for forming an Antipapacy alltogether than just a click-to-Antipope mechanic (while the regular way to do it could be 'turned off' by ridiculous reqs).

Why? Well, I guess that a ruler should be able to form an Antipapacy on occasion of a rift with the Pope (i.e. excommunication or refusal to lift free investiture) - the Antipapacy would be formed as a result of an event option. Then vassals/bishops of the realm react (similar to the Investiture Controversy IRL). After that, the Antipapacy overlord should be gradually 'forced' to end the Schism by invading Rome because similarly as it happened IRL, with every new Antipope, new era of unrest among vassals should follow (also with every new Antipope, there should be a MA hit). There could actually be several outcomes:
- The Papacy faction in the realm emerges victorious, the Antipapacy ends, papal investiture implemented
- The overlord of the Antipapacy sacks Rome and installs a new Pope there, gaining a protection for his realm against enforcing papal investiture for some time
- The overlord of the Antipapacy gives up/his successor decides to disband the Antipapacy, papal investiture implemented

Also two possible fantasy options:
- If the Antipapacy keeps on existing for a long time and the Catholic MA declines to a certain value, the Antipope could offer the overlord to turn heretic, possibly swaying other Christian rulers along
- Upon deposing the Pope, the former Antipope could remain seated in the realm he comes from, thus be influenced by the Antipapacy creator (similar to the Avignon Papacy)