Hagraven Cults impossible to play as?

[xcoldhandsX]

So I attempted to play as the ruler of Skymarch, which is run by the Hagraven Cults. I noticed that by being at peace for too long I began to quickly lose prestige. "No problem, I'll just go to war!"

However, it seems that any desired conquests require a minimum of 150 prestige and any religious inquisitions/conquests/whatever have similar requirements. I also was not able to raid in any way.

So, at the risk of sounding foolish, is this aspect of the game simply unplayable? I need prestige to declare war but by not declaring war I rapidly lose prestige making it impossible to declare war. I continued on and managed to get a courtier with a weak claim in my court, only to notice that pressing a weak claim has a similar laundry list of traits that make declaring war impossible.

In this case, the claimant had the "greedy" trait (this was the only condition not met by the press claim requirements) therefore making it impossible to declare war, which honestly baffles me. Maybe I'm not seeing this right, but for what possible reason could someone being "greedy" or not be the ultimate difference between war (for a religion that thrives on it) and peace (which causes my prestige to wither).

Any help would be much appreciated.

EDIT: I was also unable to do any raiding.

 

[WildPeacock]

I believe you can raid too to avoid the prestige loss, but your religion may not allow it. I'll look into the matter.

 

[xcoldhandsX]

That's what I thought but I was unable to do any raiding.

 

[Darsara]

You should be able to loot, but remember that you cannot raid Old Gods worshipers. You will probably need to target Nine worshipers or Red Guards, not fellow Reachmen.

 

[SholanShaman]

Getting piety as a hagraven cultist is easy, since the religious decisions in guaranteed prestige. With enough piety, you can holy war or save up and become a hagraven/briarheart.

Also in the most recent patch they changed it so that pagans could raid each other (or maybe disabled it, I don't recall), or you could raid in non bordering territories. You may not get all the money, but you will get the presage and piety if you finish the siege.

 

[MyFaceBurns]

I ruled for 64 years, did nothing to reduce my favour, and ended with less than 500 favour. I was getting like 0.35 a month or something. This is as a hagraven cultist.

Also, the religion casus belli takes away 500 piety when you use it, so unless you want 1 war per 70 years this isn't efficient.

I overcame this problem by making concubines of my daughters and choosing all the prestige-giving options. Not difficult to get a mere 150.

 

[Arakhor]

Who knew that incest would help you live forever?