[Ideas needed] The pope & technology

[thorfy]

Hey,
I recently came across some research on medieval universities (Aristoteles debate at University of Paris) which provoked some thoughts on CK2. I won't go into too much detail, before I do that I'd rather have something tangible done. At this moment it's merely an idea I'm fleshing out, but I'm short of inspiration (and experience) on one point so I thought I'd ask the community.

One central part of my idea is that I want to add a trait group to the pope: conservative/progressive. A progressive pope will promote technological advance for Christians, a conservative pope will make it more difficult (maybe even reverse it).
I am uncertain, however, whether and how to balance a conservative pope. I don't like the idea of just adding a "blocker". Can you think of any (somewhat historically plausible) advantages of a conservative pope? And vice versa, unwelcome side effects of a progressive head of church?

Any thoughts are welcome! Cheers.

 

[Korbah]

Papal Bull events forbidding certain areas of research which a player can decide to follow, or not. Following the edict makes the pope happy but gives you a character modifier nerfing tech point gain (can't remember if that's possible, might just be tech spread). Choosing to ignore the edict will upset the Pope, potentially leading to excommunication or something to that effect.

I would probably experiment with religious authority (increasing/decreasing based on number of people that adhere to the edict), but balancing that can be a pain.

 

[thorfy]

yea that was about what I was thinking, maybe with a negative province modifier (sort of an inverse councillor job) on dukes' and upwards capitols, that would reduce tech point gain. And a huge church relation penalty if you refuse, plus potential excommunication for using the study tech job for your court chaplain in that period. I am wondering if it is possible to make the AI understand the last part, though. I don't think there should be a bonus for acceptance, universities (whose influence I want to model) were church institutions for the most part, a ruler interfering in their business would be the exception (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Paris_strike_of_1229).

Religious authority seems fitting, I think I'll start with that and see how it develops.