Inadvertently prevented religious leagues from forming

[Dukjlanin]

So I had an interesting experience in my current France->RE attempt. I was in an interesting diplomatic spot, in that I had a strong alliance with Styria, who was the Emperor. I went a little AE-happy early on in an attempt to preemptively conquer England, Aragon and Castille. When i took a quest to incorporate Savoy and took a couple provinces off them, I got the largest coalition against me that I've ever seen. England, Portugal, Castille, Naples, the Papal States, Tunis and literally every Italian and German minor. Since I was excommunicated and my relations with Catholic europe were horrendous, I said screw it and went Protestant as soon as the fuurst center of reformation appeared. Anyway long story short my vassals and allies crushed that coalition, and it eventually dissolved... but now that I was Protestant and the electors uniformly hated me, none of them wanted to go protestant. Reformed then spawned in Augsburg and Ulm and converted 90% of the HRE. The age of reformation ended with no religious leagues forming. I think this is actually a replicable strategy... if you are hostile to the electors they are unlikely to convert to your religion, and since reformed can't be electors in 99.9% of games (a silly decision imo, reformed electors should be allowed if the protestant league wins imo, but whatever)

Anyone have a similar experience?

 

[Bouchart]

Whether electors turn Protestant or not shouldn't have anything to do with their opinion of you. Several countries have a preferred religion. England, Denmark, Sweden, Brandenburg, and Prussia generally turn Protestant if they have the option. Switzerland and Scotland often go Reformed. Of these, only Brandenburg is an elector so they'll likely end up causing the religious league to form. Usually when the AI changes religion it is because of rebels or the Religious Turmoil disaster. Theocracies like Mainz get hit harder by this since they have lower heretic tolerance.

If you want to prevent the Protestant league from forming, you can pass the Erbkaisertum reform. Or you can destroy all centers of reformation and force convert everyone. That might not work on Bohemia, since they have their own set of events that can turn their provinces Protestant. Or dismantle the HRE entirely.

 

[Dukjlanin]

Yeah, I was curious as to whether my relations had anything to do with it. I was first to convert to Protestantism and immediately took Defender of the Faith, and even countries like Prussia that are designed to go Protestant were in a coalition against me for most of the Age of Reformatiom resisting reform. Some of their lands would get converted by centres of reformation but the dynasty just stayed wrong religion... everyone eventuallu went Reformed instead. Might have just been a coincidence...