Hellenic restoration and some other questions

[bobsmith937]

Hello lovelies,

I've just started on my obligatory ironman Holy Fury Hellenic Roman Empire run, my goal is reforming Hellenism/restoring Roman Empire/reclaiming imperial borders and then basking in my Roman Empire-ness and maybe trying to get that 10 independent dynastic thrones achievement. With it being ironman, though, I get one shot at reforming the religion and I'd hate to lose my progress through making an ill-considered decision. I'm leaning towards Peaceful/Civilized+Stability/Temporal, seems like a good combo for neutering my faction-happy vassals, with plenty of opportunities for expansion with imperial reconquest, county conquest, claim wars and the eventual Immortal Blood of Alexander bloodline.

That said,
1. Is the revolt from converting the Roman Empire to Hellenism via event chain that aggressive? Is it just all my vassals levies, or do event troops spawn to boost their number? Will a successfully put down revolt actually convert all vassals to Hellenism, and do any counties convert as well? Does it convert the Empire to unreformed Hellenic or does it make you reform right away? I imagine if I end up going with the Peaceful nature, restoring Hellenism via the post-restoration event chain would be best if it converts my vassals. Educating vassal heirs on an empire level just seems like tedious micro. My only qualm is that I'd like to form the Warrior Lodge as an unreformed Hellenic before reforming the religion, so I can keep it despite Peaceful nature.
2. How will the Peaceful nature affect the religious homogeneity of my Empire? With religious revocation in place I imagine redistributing my newly-conquered lands to Hellenic vassals won't be an issue, but do they bother converting their counties? Is converting counties through the councilor mission really that much harder with sufficient moral authority? Does Peaceful nature have any restrictions on tyrannical actions? I've tried the wiki and browsing old topics to find out some of these questions but there isn't a lot of info on Peaceful nature reformations.
3. Temporal vs Hierocratic. I think Temporal is rather cool with the ducal-level title for my dynasty and fancy stick, but Hierocratic seems like it could be more useful. A Hierocratic head of religion starts as my vassal if I'm an empire, correct? Having a vassal Pontiff in my pocket sounds like a rather attractive prospect.
4. Agnatic/Enatic Clans doctrines don't work with Imperial government type, correct? I do sorely miss my lowborn Commanders of yore.

Bunch of questions, I know, but as I've said I've found maybe 1 or 2 topics on reddit or PP that really expound on this topic.

Also, I <3 the Imperial government type. Once you get used to it and get cool with landing lots and lots of dynasty members, you basically have your own personal pick between a plethora of potential successors. Serious shortage of commanders, but you can hold cities, Imperial vassals don't care about viceroyalties, and the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE as Byzantium/Rome, vassal Merchant Republics, no longer have the -20 wrong government type penalty. Hopefully, no more endless faction forming with another jerkwad who hates me getting elected as soon as I make the last jerkwad happy.

 

[rennerpetey]

1. Make sure your vassal opinions are high. Think of it as being the same requirements as demanding religious conversion from a vassal. In general, only vassals with less than 45(I think) opinion or zealous vassals will revolt, and it will just be like a faction war with no event troops. When you reform, you start as unreformed, but if you've made the empire, you'll hold all of the necessary counties to reform right away, so you should do that. Your vassals will stay old Hellenic, but now that you can demand religious conversion, it shouldn't be too difficult to convert them. If you become Peaceful, you're screwed in terms of warrior societies unless you want to remain infinitely secretly old Hellenic.

2. I've noticed Vassals tend to switch between hunting apostates and proselytizing. Left to their own, vassal realm conversion takes a while. I don't think doctrine affects this. I reformed in 950, and 150 years later a little over half of my counties are Hellenic. I recommend that you mend the schism before you reform because it gives both Catholic and Orthodox moral authority a hit in the long term. The Christian counties left in my realm are a pretty even mix of Paulician, Orthodox, and Catholic because of all of the heresies that pop up when MA gets low. It is so much easier to proselytize when the other religion's MA is 0 and yours is 100. As for getting yours up, I recommend holy warring the christian nations around you instead of imperial conquest. It's usually pretty easy either way.

I don't think Peaceful restricts tyrannical actions, but it does disable Great Holy Wars (pagan crusades) which was a deal breaker for me. It does give a +3 to your demesne though, so its a trade.

3. Hierocratic is the path I went. If you go Temporal, your MA is directly linked to your character's piety and behavior. I also really liked the Title (Pontifex Maxima/maximus) and dress for the Hellenic Hierocratic high priest (white robes). They do start as your vassal.

4. My run was actually Venice to Rome, so I have a Merchant Republic type government.

PS: I would recommend using the Hellenic exclusive; Civilized doctrine when you reform because of no opinion malice for raised vassal levies.
If you didn't know, you have to have your capital in Roma to start the Roman Renaissance, which leads to Hellenism, but if you reform to Hellenism and if the pope has built 3 or more churches, you get the option to destroy all holdings except the capital and rebuild Roma which also gives a big hit to Christian MA. One thing you didn't mention was culture. When you use the Roman Renaissance, Roman Culture will also begin spreading throughout the empire and this takes a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG TIIIIIIIIIIME. Your Religions view may look gross for a couple centuries(faster if you're constantly proselytizing), but culture spread is so much slower. Being head of the monastic-type Hellenic society gives you the ability to convert any county in your realm to Roman culture for 1000 points, but even so I doubt you could fully homogenize your culture within imperial borders in half a millennium.

 

[Dadoverde]

I just ended my Roman Restoration, with a fine work with the dinasty in several thrones. Mend the Great Schism, restore the empire, revive hellenic and roman culture, and reform. Also get the Alexander bloodline, and the five achievement by Cosmopolitan and matrilineal marriage of daughters.

The revolt was minimal... I converted to Hellenic all my kings (of course, secret cults disabled) and only the Sicilian remained as a "true believer", so easily defeated.

Imperial government overrided any other succession mechanic. Civilized helped with the vassals, and I chose Temporal for playing like a true roman emperor with the title of Pontifex Maximus. Great Holy Wars and Alexander invasions helped even with the permanent defensive pacts.
I have no problems with succession, even a genius girl was empress. Born in purple is good for opinion (marry them late) and also the Stoic Intelligence serves a a Monastic order that you can still get celibate.

PS: As usual, the restored borders needs to get every single barony (Templars and Bektashi orders were a boring point), and also Maghreb was a little trouble because you need all their counties despite you get the Province restoration message with the northern ones.

 

[MateuszS]

I have some questions, too. I haven't played as BYZ yet, though.
- which start date is better? Charlemangled or The Old Gods?
- is it more preferable/easier mend the schism first?
- is it possible to get rid of their succession (by choosing agnatic/enatic clans during reformation)?