Emperor Question: How Does the AI Usually Deal With the Reformation

[JScott991]

So I've come back to my favorite game of all-time to try the Emperor update and I'm loving it. But I'm very curious about how the Protestant Reformation usually goes. I always play as Austria and so I do my very best to squash the centers of Reformation before they can do much damage. It's actually a very stressful part of the game that I don't enjoy that much but I'm wondering if I still understand how the AI deals with it. I'm curious if I can be a bit more patient and still be successful in keeping most of the Empire Catholic.

If I didn't intervene and destroy the centers that pop up in OPMs, would basically all of Germany become Protestant? Do any AI nations really fight back against becoming Protestant? Are there events later that guide some nations back to Catholicism?

From what I can see, if you don't crush the centers immediately, Protestantism grows like a weed. And the AI seems fairly indifferent to whether it's Catholic or Protestant, so once a majority of the provinces of a nation become Protestant, the ruler converts too.

Am I overreacting? Will some Catholic German nations remain even if I don't intervene from the very second the Reformation starts?

I'm asking because my efforts usually result in Protestantism being almost completely snuffed out by the late 1500s, and the religious war events of the early 1600s are a bit of a joke. The whole map of Europe is usually back to being Catholic by 1650 or so (once I can start enforcing religion as the emperor).

As a side note, do centers of Reformation ever pop up in England or Scandinavia? So far in my replays, I haven't seen any of those nations have significant Protestant activity.

 

[Siddy00]

To keep it (somewhat) brief: my personal experience is that, without player intervention, most of Germany typically turns either Protestant or Reformed before the league war --- at least the smaller ones, the bishoprics usually remain catholic and the larger nations (Bohemia, Brandenburg) are also hard to convert. England/Great Britain will typically turn Anglican, and the major powers (France, Spain, Commonwealth, Denmark) will typically remain Catholic. The league war itself is a bloody mess. That being said, however, most league wars in my games are a mess in any case since the other majors ignore religion and just join leagues based on rivalries (which I will grant is (up to a point) historically accurate, to my knowledge). In my last game as a Catholic emperor (Burgundy), I got rid of all the protestant centers of reformation but one or two reformed ones spawned in uneasy places. Somehow, the Knights (still an OPM on Rhodes) ended up leading the Protestant league with the Ottomans and Russia on their side.

Then again, there was a serious lack of Protestant activity in Germany during my last two playthroughs. One was as Brandenburg, in which I was waiting for it to spawn to form Prussia; the other was as a Hussite Bohemia. In the former, the AI emperor was apparently at war with the OPM the Reformation spawned in and immediately converted them back, meaning I had to convert Germany with one center less (and the one I spawned myself was busy converting my own lands first for some time). In the latter, and this also addresses your last question, the Reformation spawned in Scotland and converted all of it plus half of England, but it never got to converting Germany and a second center spawned very late. In the end, I ended up turning most of the HRE Hussite (before dissolving the HRE after the league war).

Edit: to answer "Am I overreacting?": I think you're completely right in wanting to avoid it

 

[Cpt.Cross]

I always find that the winner in the league war is whoever the Ottomans join. The most important nations stay catholic anyway so it doesnt matter how many flip to protestant/reformed.

England and Denmark seem to get protestant activity but not always and I have never seen Sweden flip to protestant as an AI.

 

[Zander]

Yes, if you leave the CoRs most of the Empire will go Protestant, unless it is one of those weird games where everything else goes Protestant instead. So in terms of achieving your goals, you're quite right to crush CoRs immediately and brutally.

 

[JScott991]

Yes, if you leave the CoRs most of the Empire will go Protestant, unless it is one of those weird games where everything else goes Protestant instead. So in terms of achieving your goals, you're quite right to crush CoRs immediately and brutally.

I was hoping there might be a middle ground where I could save some of the Empire as Catholic, while not completely stamping out Protestantism by 1600.

In my games in the past, it was very hard (if not impossible) to keep nations like Bavaria (now Landshut), Brandenburg, Hesse, etc. from going Protestant. Most every German state, including the multiprovince ones, just slipped into it because of the op'd religious zeal modifiers. So you had to crush the centers before they did harm because no AI nation was going to flip back or push against the reformation.

 

[Guibou]

Depends what you want in your campaign. If you let the CoR go it will be a mess and 50 years without imperial authority gain. Even after the league war, even if you manage to keep half catholic, it will take time to convert and cost Imperial authority again. If you want to pass reforms quick, crush them. If you want to get the papacy easy as only a few nation left are catholic, let the CoR do there thing.

Sadly, it's one or the other in that case. Even nation with Resistance to reformation like Bavaria are broken and get targeted first. The Age ability is yet to be proved usefull too. In the end, only the nation that can't convert will be catholic and the rest one reformed or protestant (edit: in the HRE).

 

[TeutonicTortoise]

One problem is that when its league war time Catholics join the catholic side unless rivaled to the emperor and since Austria is a weird case of how strong are they actually. They have the manpower and FL from being emperor to put them on a similar level but because of their lack of development and income unless they get the Hungary PU or inheritance you can easily see Ottomans and France not rivaling them and therefore being open to both joining the Catholics compared to what happened historically. Germany's + UK cant best, some Italians, austria, spain, PLC, France and maybe Ottomans or Russia. A player in Austria usually expands to apoint where they can be rivaled ans therefore can have a spicy league war unless they've stomped the Ottomans and taken their income vacuum

 

[Misha]

In my most recent playthrough as England, the 3rd Protestant Center of Reformation did spawn in Scotland, in the province of Ayrshire. Since I had the 2nd Protestant CoR in London, the Ayrshire CoR soon ran out of eligible provinces to convert. Between the London CoR & my missionary working steadily, England, Scotland, & Ireland were soon all converted to Protestant. Apparently the CoR range is limited, & Ayrshire could have little impact on the Continent.

The Ayrshire CoR may have been the result of my actions. I noticed it right after I had forced my vassal who owned the province to convert to Protestant. I’m not sure whether it had just appeared before my action & I hadn’t noticed it, or if it appeared more-or-less as a result of my action.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

@JScott991

Just as a note, whilst I would strongly encourage you to destroy all centres of Reformation with lightning speed, as the Reformation is the sole threat to any good Austria campaign, I would say that the Protestant CoR is more important than Reformed. That is, electors going Reformed doesn't trigger the league wars, but electors going Protestant will.

 

[petertju]

One thing I noticed in 1.30 compared to previous patches, is that Scandinavia almost always stays catholic. In previous patches, at least one of Sweden and Denmark turned protestant/reformed. I honestly think that I haven't seen any protestant/reformed sweden since 1.30.