Catholicism is too weak in the 769 start

[josefrees]

It seems to be doing pretty good most games unless I directly raid the crap out of Rome and Canterbury

 

[Kazanov]

Started as Asturias in 769, completely obliterated the Islamic world, and in 1100...most pagans turned into christians.

I agree that the AI has some problems, my empire is the only Christian one, Italy fell to some Bizantine vassal who are norse pagans and i cannot liberate them, france its divided between Aquitaine, Burgundy and a lot of duchies in the north, the Welsh owns half of Germany and Germany is the other big christian kingdom...but they have 6k levies. The christian pagans are still weak, but we have won some crusades, at least they fixed that in HF.

I have 40k levies and 6k in retinues but my success its only because i have more than 1.3k hours of game time. The IA needs to git gud, so much gavelkind...

 

[AEWHistory]

When discussing the situation/strength of Catholicism in the 769 start you need to keep in mind the historical situation that the church found itself in IRL. Within a century and a half Christianity had been driven out of North Africa, Iberia, much of the Middle East, and was being threatened in Italy and Anatolia. The situation didn’t really much improve in the years following the game start. France would come under attack, as would England, and the pagans of Eastern Europe would begin to stir and threaten Christian areas. IRL the Christians survived and, ultimately, pushed back, but the whole point of the game is that sometimes this might not happen. Truth be told, I’d say it was a damn near run thing. Admittedly this is all counter-factual history, but it doesn’t take much of a leap to see England lost to the Pagans (if only for a time). Sicily could easily be Muslim today. And with Byzantium recovering after Manzikert Eastern Europe might be Muslim as well.

Anyway, my point being that the RCC doesn’t seem so badly underpowered in 769. Most of the time it fares well and sometimes it collapses in my experience. Seems about right to me. YMMV of course.

 

[vandevere]

When discussing the situation/strength of Catholicism in the 769 start you need to keep in mind the historical situation that the church found itself in IRL. Within a century and a half Christianity had been driven out of North Africa, Iberia, much of the Middle East, and was being threatened in Italy and Anatolia. The situation didn’t really much improve in the years following the game start. France would come under attack, as would England, and the pagans of Eastern Europe would begin to stir and threaten Christian areas. IRL the Christians survived and, ultimately, pushed back, but the whole point of the game is that sometimes this might not happen. Truth be told, I’d say it was a damn near run thing. Admittedly this is all counter-factual history, but it doesn’t take much of a leap to see England lost to the Pagans (if only for a time). Sicily could easily be Muslim today. And with Byzantium recovering after Manzikert Eastern Europe might be Muslim as well.

Anyway, my point being that the RCC doesn’t seem so badly underpowered in 769. Most of the time it fares well and sometimes it collapses in my experience. Seems about right to me. YMMV of course.

One thing I can think of to make 769 a little more balanced would be to have Charlemagne start out already Crowned King of West Francia, so he doesn't have to deal with the Uncrowned Malus on top of everything else.

If Charlemagne manages to form either Francia, or the HRE, afterward, there can always be special scripted Papal Coronation Events for that. But Charlemagne-and Karloman too-should start out already crowned. Even if only by a bishop...

 

[Rubidium]

When discussing the situation/strength of Catholicism in the 769 start you need to keep in mind the historical situation that the church found itself in IRL. Within a century and a half Christianity had been driven out of North Africa, Iberia, much of the Middle East, and was being threatened in Italy and Anatolia. The situation didn’t really much improve in the years following the game start. France would come under attack, as would England, and the pagans of Eastern Europe would begin to stir and threaten Christian areas. IRL the Christians survived and, ultimately, pushed back, but the whole point of the game is that sometimes this might not happen. Truth be told, I’d say it was a damn near run thing. Admittedly this is all counter-factual history, but it doesn’t take much of a leap to see England lost to the Pagans (if only for a time). Sicily could easily be Muslim today. And with Byzantium recovering after Manzikert Eastern Europe might be Muslim as well.

Anyway, my point being that the RCC doesn’t seem so badly underpowered in 769. Most of the time it fares well and sometimes it collapses in my experience. Seems about right to me. YMMV of course.

That's far too gloomy a description of Christianity in 769. The Umayyads had already been more or less stopped at Tours. The "core" Catholic lands (France/Italy/the British Isles) were safe (even when the Vikings would start invading next century, they converted almost immediately upon settling in new lands, because they couldn't rule over Christian lands otherwise). The Magyars would be a threat, but not yet. It's not a coincidence that Charlemagne was launching campaigns to try and conquer his neighbors (Catholic, Muslim and Pagan) more or less constantly, rather than the other way around.

 

[User29]

That's far too gloomy a description of Christianity in 769. The Umayyads had already been more or less stopped at Tours.

I really don't want to open this can of worms again but the situation at Tours was still quite likely just a large raid that had gone too deep and the Hammer simply punted them out, it was hardly a full scale invasion with intentions of taking over the realm. And of course the political situation in Spain is completely different in 769 too, The Umayyads were no longer in distant Damascus but in Cordoba with a fresh new dynast on the throne, with a completely new political outlook focused on their one holding rather than a distant imperial periphery.

The "core" Catholic lands (France/Italy/the British Isles) were safe (even when the Vikings would start invading next century, they converted almost immediately upon settling in new lands, because they couldn't rule over Christian lands otherwise).

Why is France and Germany "core" catholic lands in any view besides hindsight? Africa used to be core Christian lands in much the same vein and inarguably for a longer time and with deeper roots. The Vikings had pagan kings in Britain upwards of 40-50 years after the great Heathen and Great Summer armies too, some certainly converted sooner, the king of East Anglia after Alfred defeated him for one, but kings as late as Erik Bloodaxe were still mightily pagan and that's nearly a hundred years after the old gods start date, so no "converted almost immediately" is not gonna cut it.

The Magyars would be a threat, but not yet. It's not a coincidence that Charlemagne was launching campaigns to try and conquer his neighbors (Catholic, Muslim and Pagan) more or less constantly, rather than the other way around.

Charlemagne had the most militarized and most centralized state in western Europe, one he inherited from his father and grandfather, all competent rulers with a strong centralizing hand and they waged military campaigns every year, and they were the biggest state around even prior to the Carolingian takeover of Francia. They certainly proved Catholicism and Christianity wasn't simply going to get overrun by the pagans and Muslims who surrounded them but it's a far cry from saying it wasn't gloomy for a contemporary christian seeing muslim and pagan raids only ever increasing in the century after Charlemagnes death.

Historically Christianity would only rebound after the battle of Tours, but this is a hindsight point of view, at the time the borders were stable but hardly expanding.

My point basically being, it probably wasn't that gloomy in the sense that Christians didn't feel the world was ending anymore, but as far as the muslims were concerned, the world already ended for Christianity, and the Christians themselves were so insularly focused at this point they hardly had a conception of "moral authority of the church" So I think the current implementation of moral authority in the game is fine as it is indeed solid in the start, but cut off another limb or two, kent, galicia, toulouse, and the stability of the church may have indeed been critically questioned.

 

[BunnyBavarian]

The stranger parts for me has been less involved with MA, but Charlie being uncrowned and having the traditional Aquitanian Revolt dukes has quite often led to that last remaining Merovingian ending up king of what Charlie has at the start
At one point it ended up being that with Pepin (Karlomann) controlling middle-east Francia (plus what Charlie was left with) and a safe Algolifing Bavaria.
Quit at that point because it looked way too easy to overrun the Low Countries and upper East Francia.
Only thing worse would have been if Pepin the Hunchback had been legitimized.

 

[rennerpetey]

I've been trying to form Rome as Venice (pretty hard post HF because the new Byzantine election system makes it extremely hard to get a Catholic on the throne), and I've had to restart multiple times due to catholic authority being too low for invasions. This is because Sweden manages to reform the Germanic faith and the Muslims manage to take Spain and both manage to Holy war France because its fallen into bordergore. I've seen England fall to Saxony, but not always.

 

[Tilarium]

One of the big issues is that the Karlings are Catholicism in the 769. Meaning that they control most of the area where the threat. The problem is that Karl is so focused on forming the HRE that he rarely messes with Iberia until the HRE is formed but he rarely gets it because Saxony always seems to hold him up.

 

[Blackwhitecavias]

In my current 867 (as Haraldr Fairhair)game one of the Karling Rulers managed to get East and West-Francia, Aquitaine and Italy and then went on to form Francia with those, Norway and Denmark both converted to Christianity (I liberated them and set up Germanic rulers again, but the AI wouldn't do that). If the Aztecs had not arrived and I hadn't taken East and West Francia for the Norse Catholicism would most likely have prevailed.

 

[Kapitalisti]

If you want certain Catholic dominance, play the 1066 start date. I for one like the fact that Catholicism/Christianity in general is standing on the edge of the knife in the earlier starts.

 

[General WVPM]

Small recap of history of the Christian world up to 769.
1st century Christianity started
2nd and 3rd century Christianity gained followers, while persecuted by Romans
4th century Romans convert to Christianity
5th century Roman Empire collapses, but Christianity has spread across it
6th century barbarians that had conquered the Romans convert to Christianity
7th century Islam started and goes on rampage, conquering the Sassanid and Eastern Roman empires.
8th century Islam continues it's rampage into Spain and France.
In the east the Byzantines barely held on vs the muslim onslaught.
In northern and eastern Europe paganism continues to be practices.
Only in 732 the Franks stopped the muslim world conquest attempt by crushing them at Tours.
The legendary hero that commanded the Franks, Charles Martel, basically ruled the Franks after that.
His descendants would really rule it without the charade.
Western Christianity was limited to the Britannia, Ireland, France, Southern Germany and Italy. The rest was pagan, muslim or Orthodox (which wasn't actually split off at this point).
These lands were far from united. Many small kingdoms existed in Britannia and Ireland. Northern Italy was united under the Lombards, while the Franks ruled France and Southern Germany. Meanwhile the muslims were united under the ummayad caliphs. They only split up in 2 empires after the Abbasid Revolution (747-750).
If the Franks had not stopped the muslims or Constantinople fell (besieged 674-678, 717-718) then it's very likely that Christianity would have been some forgotten religion of which only some records remain (as it's likely the muslims would have erased most evidence).
That's the backstory for the 769 start.
So Christianity was very very weak and fragile in 769. But it survived and thrived. It spread across the world and turned into the largest religion (by number of followers).

 

[Tizazef]

The ridiculous amount of looting going on along with the buffs to tribals via their prestige retinues tanks MA into the ground. Sure, this happened historically, the raids on Western Europe are quite famous and created trauma on the cultural level for a good few centuries, but I don't remember Catholicism just straight up collapsing because of it. The effects of looting a temple need to be severely cut down, and/or the AI needs to get their goddamn shit together, actually defend their own fricking provinces, and learn how to deal with wars and rebels. Also the Pope needs to stop excommunicating half of all kings in Christendom, that shit is insane.

 

[Delinard.]

The problem is:
-Asturias cant form alliances at all
-Aquataine has -50 modifier against karl for no reason,you don't see this anywhere else.
-Karl cant build forts and loses all his men to this dumb pagan attrition.
-Ummayads are super stable and very rarely do they get high decadence when they constantly win holy wars,their casulties from fighting catholic uprisings and asturias are next to none.
-After few decades,Ummamayad economy scales so high that they start making +20.00 per month.
-Asturias starts with 1950 event troops this patch but it's not enough for AI to survive,this can be fixed by giving them a little more men if king aurelio is AI.
-Pope is a crackhead.
-Theres too many high chiefdoms in 769 when they should exist in 876 instead,most of tribes in 769 should be OPM chiefs.
-When saxon wars event fires,sometimes karl gets forced into war with 50 tribes,you shouldnt have to turn off defensive pacts to fix this.
One can easyly deal with most of this becose he is a "player" but AI can't deal with it at all.
So if you start the game as some weaker catholic,you will watch your religion fall apart.
Sure sometimes catholics seem to do well,but thats rare from all observer games i tested or from all games where i played as a weak catholic guy.

 

[Ramidel]

In my current game, there's a giant Karlingblob over all the Francias. Spain is pretty much toast, and Italy is divided between my Romagna, a rump Lombardy and an even more rump Byzantium in Sardinia (the Byzantine Empire is fractured and collapsing, but its successor states are mostly Iconoclast). So Christianity's pretty much doing fine.

The only trouble it's had with moral authority was when the Pope excommunicated me, probably because I'm holding Rome. I just set up an antipope and went on with my day, and a bit of heresy bloomed for a while.

(Disclaimer: I don't play with defensive pacts.)

 

[SamuraiLordofWii]

When i started a Persia game in 769. Catholisem won it all at the end even the byzantine empire swapped to this religion somehow even i have no idea how that happend. But this lead to them crusade for iraq which is bad. Biggest Mess up are the Hordes still own land deep into scandivania but half of them turn catholic aswell :/

 

[DPS]

IMO, anyone who claims that "such-and-such" always happens in the 769 start hasn't played the game enough, has had a very unusual run of RNG luck, or is seeing "such-and-such" due to their own actions. There are a wide range of outcomes. I've seen tribal pagans eat into Catholic territory (oddly, it's usually been unreformed Slavic; Germanic often gets reformed but reformed still generally collapses in the face of Catholics except sometimes they do manage to take over Britain), I've seen the Ummayyads take all of France, I've seen nomads pretty much take over all of Europe, I've seen the HRE form (even once with almost exact historical borders), I've seen France expand significantly into Hispania, I've seen Western Europe break up into dozens of small realms but still Catholic with high Catholic MA, I've even seen almost all Catholic areas flip to a heresy but still not collapse in the face of Muslims or pagans, etc.--all of that being stuff I've seen the AI do when I've been playing somewhere other than Europe. 'Bout the only thing I haven't seen is the Byzantine AI mend the Schism or reform the Roman Empire.

I'm on my first game of the Beta, and playing in Africa. So far I haven't done anything directly to affect Europe (I've been conquering Nubia and Ethiopia and poaching a few counties from the Muslims) and while Charlie didn't accomplish anything the Catholics have taken about a third of Hispania and almost all of Saxony (and Germanic did get reformed in this game, but it's been another case where it doesn't seem to have done them much good) and Catholic MA is at 100,

 

[sigeena]

The starting years for Catholicism in 769 is always rough. MA tends to drop very quick, and don't be surprised if it hovers around 0-20 for a number of years. But once 900 comes around and Crusades kicks in, MA will go up pretty quickly especially with the Holy Orders forming. I'm at 1000's now and there's been 4 successful Crusades. MA for Catholicism is around 70-100. Islam has come off the worst, as the new decadence revolts shatters the large blobs, so their Caliphate tends to be weak. Weak caliphates tends to result in lower MA.

Germanic has reformed, and is still thriving in Scandinavia and parts of Spain.

 

[Byzantium2000]

I'll say Byzantim always gets rekted in my 769 games and die in 150 years tops unless they Convert to Catholic and then they will take over the world, but of course that's cause their neighbors have the Core land they own. I definitely feel like Catholicism got nerfed with Holy fury but I haven't seen it die yet even after over 16 observer games. One things for sure though If Charlemagne doesn't form the Hre which he does 1/10 games for me Catholicism won't become a Stable religion. I blame that on raiding and Holy fury Buffed Muslim blobs except the Ummayyads who are quite fair now with Hispania Changes.

Muslims taking over Sicily Permently and all of Europe post Siege of Constantinople is straight Muslim Wank Fantasy, get that nonsense out of here. Muslims God tier days were over by 769 and were now just Strongest countries on Earth Tier limited by Geography and The Roman /Tang Empire.

 

[AEWHistory]

I'll say Byzantim always gets rekted in my 769 games and die in 150 years tops unless they Convert to Catholic and then they will take over the world, but of course that's cause their neighbors have the Core land they own. I definitely feel like Catholicism got nerfed with Holy fury but I haven't seen it die yet even after over 16 observer games. One things for sure though If Charlemagne doesn't form the Hre which he does 1/10 games for me Catholicism won't become a Stable religion. I blame that on raiding and Holy fury Buffed Muslim blobs except the Ummayyads who are quite fair now with Hispania Changes.


Wank Fantasy, get that nonsense out of here. Muslims God tier days were over by 769 and were now just Strongest countries on Earth Tier limited by Geography and The Roman /Tang Empire.

What are you talking about? The Emirate Sicily didn't even come into existence until 831 and it lasted until 1091. And this doesn't even touch on other issues like the Turkish advance toward Central Europe centuries later. So no, I don't see how you can imply that Muslim advances had ended by 769. They just weren't as dramatic as before. Please read up on the history.

Edit: would you like me to recommend some books?