I´ve married the Pope!

[Me_]

There's absolutely no point in making the Pope marriable. All that does is giving the player an exploit to play with. Popes having bastard children would be fine as long as they couldn't claim the Papacy (but they could claim other titles that the Pope could have).

 

[Hidden Legend]

So before becomeing Pope the character can be treated the same as anything else but after becomeing Pope the character becomes locked for marrying and all bishops with living wives must be denied election to Pope.

 

[HolisticGod]

Bishops really shouldn't be marriageable either. I'm sure you could have seen a total breakdown in the social code of the Catholic Church in this period-certainly the view of some historians and contemporaries would say the upshot of ecclesiastical celibacy was further exploitation of women-but is it worth trying to simulate properly? Much better just to eliminate marriage among "clerical" characters.

And it isn't simply cosmetic. If you allow bishops and popes to marry, their descendants become potential successors. While certain sees definitely ran in families, making them heritable in this way would be completely ahistorical and would erase the distinction between secular and ecclesiastical territories.

 

[Alextrasia]

i should have done an AAR out of this game -.- 40 years of wars and after that 200 years of ruling and defending the Kingdom of Jerusalem ;D
By the way the Queen who married the pope ruled this kingdom for 65 years. She died at the age of 73 and added 12000 Prestige and 5500 Piety to my score ... was quite impressive to see that she was the best Ruler i ever had in this game! So never be sad if a women heirs your stuff. She might be the greatest ruler you will ever play. The only bad thing about her was that she lived longer than all her children which died all about the age of 40-50. This way her grandson heired and he was quite stupid and all the glory of my Queen was gone -.-

Bye the way can anyone tell me where the screenshots of ckII were saved. i cant find mine^^

 

[Hidden Legend]

But that was definatly a problem right into the 12th Century and there were noble families that did have members in the clergy right the way through the middle ages even into the 17th century. The famous Cardinal Richeleau (my spelling incorrect i think) was part of a noble family and came to power through the church,

Depending on the individuals and their actions which is what the game is about you get the problems. Surely you would like to have a vibrant game to fight rather than a game which is ridged and only has one way to play. Part of the individual persons trying to gain something makes the game more imersive and a challenge to play.

Some families during the middle ages and later would rely on the sponsorship of a rich uncle in the church. The Cromwel family made its name and prosperity origionaly due to Henry VIII's minister.

I really think that it is just a personal belief of people that the Church should remain untainted that people dont want this in the game when the point is that nothing is untainted and part of the game is trying to keep the political structures in place through personal relationships. If you take that out of the game then there is no game.

 

[Hidden Legend]

i should have done an AAR out of this game -.- 40 years of wars and after that 200 years of ruling and defending the Kingdom of Jerusalem ;D
By the way the Queen who married the pope ruled this kingdom for 65 years. She died at the age of 73 and added 12000 Prestige and 5500 Piety to my score ... was quite impressive to see that she was the best Ruler i ever had in this game! So never be sad if a women heirs your stuff. She might be the greatest ruler you will ever play. The only bad thing about her was that she lived longer than all her children which died all about the age of 40-50. This way her grandson heired and he was quite stupid and all the glory of my Queen was gone -.-

Bye the way can anyone tell me where the screenshots of ckII were saved. i cant find mine^^

Print screen saves them you then have to go to program files x86 and look in the game folder there i think. Similar to euiii.

 

[HolisticGod]

Hidden Legend,

Er, but I'm not suggesting Bishops and the Pope shouldn't have secular territories if they inherit them, or that families shouldn't be using sees to build wealth and prestige and gain access to levies. To the contrary, I think there's a lot of room to build on what Paradox has provided in that respect. I'd like the sees to be even more important than they are, and essential to families without primogeniture (which was common in Germany up to the TYW). Without diocese in which to place sons, lands were subdivided tremendously. You couldn't leave sons without incomes.

But that's quite distinct from allowing the bishops to marry, bear legitimate children and pass on church estates as officially hereditary.

 

[unmerged(121326)]

And it isn't simply cosmetic. If you allow bishops and popes to marry, their descendants become potential successors. While certain sees definitely ran in families, making them heritable in this way would be completely ahistorical and would erase the distinction between secular and ecclesiastical territories.

Um dude. As soon as a character becomes a bishop he is denied inheritance, and the line is effectively broken (try giving a bishophric to your son in game, it will give a warning saying that he will be cut-off). I'm assuming his children would be cut off as well. Also, bishophrics are set to "open elective" succession, rather than familly succession. If I'm not mistaken the game is already set up to prevent children of bishops from inheriting.

Anyway, as Hidden Legend correctly points out, the problem you describe did in fact risk becoming a real problem IRL (not for the Pope, but definetly for local bishops and priests), and it was indeed a huge headache-inducing mess. That's partially *why* they enacted clerical celibacy. I think this might be a case of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnrealistic.

 

[wright1331]

Has anyone successfully set up an anti-Pope yet?

Yes I have managed to set up the anti Pope, I was playing as Aragon and had a kingdom of around 7 provinces. I think I might have even had positive relations with the pope and i Know i had over 1000 peity. After about a year of having the anti pope I noticed my income went from about 4-5 gold a month to around 48/ month. Needless to say it went on for a few decades till i quit the game, but I had TONS of cash and was building up everything in my kingdom

 

[HolisticGod]

Evil,

You misunderstand me. Hidden Legend was suggesting that bishops and popes should be allowed to marry and have children (as it would be interesting to see them try to establish hereditary lands). I was explaining the distinction between ecclesiastical rulers and ecclesiastical dynasties, and why I thought there was too little payoff in the engine simulating this properly. I think the thing with the Pope is an obvious bug and should be fixed, and wasn't suggesting the engine handles inheritance among bishops improperly.

As for hereditary sees, there's no question. It was one of the principal grievances of the Reformation. But within this time period, direct inheritance through one's own sons was (as far as I know) virtually non-existent. One pope in the dark ages, as I recall, succeeded his father, but he was born before his father took the holy orders.

EDIT: Also, it sounds as though the legitimate descendants of married bishops and even the pope can become pretenders to the sees. If that's the case, it should certainly be fixed.

 

[unmerged(121326)]

You misunderstand me. Hidden Legend was suggesting that bishops and popes should be allowed to marry and have children (as it would be interesting to see them try to establish hereditary lands). I was explaining the distinction between ecclesiastical rulers and ecclesiastical dynasties, and why I thought there was too little payoff in the engine simulating this properly. I think the thing with the Pope is an obvious bug and should be fixed, and wasn't suggesting the engine handles inheritance among bishops improperly.

As for hereditary sees, there's no question. It was one of the principal grievances of the Reformation. But within this time period, direct inheritance through one's own sons was (as far as I know) virtually non-existent. One pope in the dark ages, as I recall, succeeded his father, but he was born before his father took the holy orders.

OK that basically what I'm saying too...I'm confused over what we're arguing about in the first place.

All I'm arguing for is a modded game setup that allows clergy to marry until the 1120s...but denies their progeniture any inheritance. Simple as that.

Game hits 1120s, and if Pope has enough moral authority, demands that your ruler change his laws to "clerical celibacy" (similar to the papal investiture mechanic).

The gameplay affect would only be that you could have an illigitimate unlanded dynasty-branch descended from your ecclesiastical relatives, who might (like bastards) plot and covet land.