No Holy War CB for Turkish Orthodox rulers

[Ranok]

I started a game as the Spartenos of Napoli. Seeing they were Greek Orthodox I decided to import a foreign culture to get some unique unit buildings, so married all my courtiers to Turkish women and had my court bishop working to convert them all. A generation later I've taken all of Sicily and my Turkish Orthodox son is ruling. The North Africans have been beating up Apulia et al and I want to Holy War them to take the land back, but the option is not available. When I try it says I need a valid CB to declare war:

I tried loading up as other Orthodox rulers (namely any Russian duke); sure enough they have the option to Holy War against Cyrencia.

I tried loading up as the Turkish Orthodox Duke of Itili, vassal of the Cumans in 1066. It seems he cannot wage Holy War against anyone either.

Finally, you can see in the screen I joined the Byzantines for protection. The Iconoclast heresy is spreading like wild fire, and when I convert to it, bam - Holy War is immediately available when I become Turkish Iconoclast.

So 2 issues here that I see:
1) Why is Holy War disabled for Turkish Orthodox rulers? Is it disabled for any other obscure combinations, eg Cuman Orthodox? Or is it some weird rule where you can only use Holy War if you have the same religion as your Leige? (And if so, again, why?)
2) Why can I ever marry Sunni Turkish women as an Orthodox ruler? I focus on bringing Orthodox Turkish ladies over first, but there are only 2 sources of them (Duke of Itili and one of his baronies, with the Duke being long gone now). Should cross-religion marriages like that be allowed? Seems very suspect.

Save attatched, you can see holy war is unavailable vs anyone, but immediately after adopting my leige's heresy it becomes available as an option.View attachment Sicily1093_04_29.rar

 

[BlckKnght]

Regarding your first question, I believe there is a bug with the mechanics of the Holy War CB. Currently it is completely disabled if you have a different religion than your Liege (including if one of you is a heretic). This has been reported before, in the context of Christians becoming vassals to the Mongol hordes. I believe the limit is supposed to only prevent holy wars against your liege's religion, but I'm not sure about that. This bug has been reported previously, though I'm not sure if it ever got attention from the Paradox staff.

I don't have an answer to your second question about cross-religion marriages. It would be interesting to be able to have a more religiously diverse court, but I think you'd need to build in a bunch of additional opinion modifiers (e.g. your fellow Christian rulers should dislike it if you marry or employ a Muslim and Muslim courtiers should be unhappy if you go on Crusade or declare a holy war on their coreligionists). In fact, it might make sense for that to also disable your Holy war CB (against the religions you have in the immediate family, at least).

 

[K-vald]

I'm sorry I haven't responded to this one, but I believe the problem is that the top liege of the Orthodox church is in fact part of the Iconoclast church. Just as with excommunication with the Pope, for example, you must have the same religious head as the person you're trying to excommunicate. You must therefore have the same religion as the person you're using your Holy War CB with.

You can see it this way: You're declaring Holy War in favour and for the liking of the Orthodox church's head. If he hasn't the same religion as you he isn't interested in your conquests and can't help you with the CB.

 

[BlckKnght]

K-vald, I don't think that's right. It has nothing to do with the religion of the head of the church, but rather with the ruler of the Byzantine Empire (the player's top liege). Other Orthodox rulers (who are not part of the Empire) still can declare holy wars, according to the OP's post. It's only the non-heretic vassals of a heretic Emperor who lose the CB. I recall seeing this same issue reported with more diverse religions when a player swears vassalage to one of the Mongol Hordes.

As I said above, I think the intent is for you to be unable to declare holy wars on members of your liege's religion, even if that's different than your own. You should be able to declare wars on anyone who's religion is different from both of you though.

Here's the current "can_use" clause from the "religious" CB (in common\cb_types.txt):

	can_use = {
		ROOT = {
			NOT = { religion_group = pagan_group }
			NOT = { same_realm = FROM }
			OR = {
				NOT = { religion_group = FROM }
				is_heresy_of = FROM
				is_parent_religion = FROM
			}
			top_liege = {
				religion = PREV
			}
		}
	}

The last block is the issue. I think it should be changed to:

			top_liege = {
				NOT = { religion = FROM }
			}

 

[K-vald]

Yes, you have a point and indeed that's the case. You are able, in the save, to declare war as a regular Orthodox ruler if you're not a vassal under the head of the church. I will pass this on to our internal forums.