Reforming Rome in 10 years

[DoubleA]

So. I started late game as an Italian duke. Now I'm the Byzantine Empire. Still Italian and Catholic. I snowballed into power, like I always do, but now that I have LoR, lots of fun things just opened up and I have little time to do them.

I have all the requirements to form the Roman Empire except five territorial ones: Alexandria (Egypt), Jerusalem (HRE), Modena (Papal vassal), Latium (herp derp), and Croatia (surprisingly enough, Croatia). Alexandria is easy, Croatia involves me inviting a cousin over and giving him a kingdom or something, Jerusalem should be similar to Croatia in theory but of the four claimants only one is male and he's married to a HRE countess with two sons so will probably require lots of stabbing, and Modena will be easy if I don't get excom'd. This just leaves Latium.

As you can probably guess, the Pope is the only other guy in Italy. Unfortunately, I don't have de jure claims on Latium because it's de jure Papal land. No claimants, obviously. So how, exactly, am I going to get Latium? I have the Catholic Ecumenical Patriarch (don't ask because I don't have an answer) as my vassal, but he doesn't show up on the religion list and thus can't be anti-pope'd. It doesn't seem like I can give any of my arch-bishops kingdoms, even the one that's related to me. Based on my readings all over the Internet, antipope wars just end up in a new pope, which I don't really care about right now. So, again, how am I going to get Latium?

 

[unmerged(228153)]

Fabricating claims with a 20+ diplomacy chancellor, I guess? Though it's quite a slow method.

 

[Lorehead]

Have your chancellor forge claims on the counties, or at least enough to usurp the duchy. Become a heretic and declare holy war. You could also become King of Italy for the de jure claims, presuming the region hasn’t already drifted out. Finally, I’ve read you could create a king-archbishop, make him antipope, and then install him as your vassal pope, although I haven’t actually tested this.

 

[DoubleA]

Fabricating claims with a 20+ diplomacy chancellor, I guess? Though it's quite a slow method.

Have your chancellor forge claims on the counties, or at least enough to usurp the duchy.

My chancellor has 31, so it's worth a shot. Maybe I'll get a claim on the duchy itself.

Become a heretic and declare holy war.

Any way I can trigger this manually? Or increase the odds?

You could also become King of Italy for the de jure claims, presuming the region hasn’t already drifted out.

I am and it has.

Finally, I’ve read you could create a king-archbishop, make him antipope, and then install him as your vassal pope, although I haven’t actually tested this.

As far as I can tell, I can't give a count-tier bishop a king title, and the one king-tier bishop I have isn't showing up on the religion tab (but I doubt the Ecumenical Patriarch would show up there, even if he is Catholic).

edit: It doesn't work for duke-tier bishops either.

 

[unmerged(445219)]

Any way I can trigger this manually? Or increase the odds?

Create an anti-pope and lower the moral authority. Once you get a heretic in your kingdom ( you might already have one ), revoke a bishopric and appoint him. Appoint him as your court chaplain as well. You can look up the heretic event to see what traits are best to trigger the event. (I assume it would be cynical and some other traits) After you own Rome, there is a decision to return to Catholicism for 500 piety.

M
As far as I can tell, I can't give a count-tier bishop a king title, and the one king-tier bishop I have isn't showing up on the religion tab (but I doubt the Ecumenical Patriarch would show up there, even if he is Catholic).

There is a way to bypass this. Find someone with a Strong claim on a knigdom and invite him. Make him a prince-bishop, then press his claim for the kingdom. Although I doubt you can also make him anti-pope and get the papacy as a vassal. There was an old method to vassalize the Papacy but it has been patched. Now, if you do somehow end up with the Papacy and revoke the title, you will get a game over screen.

 

[DoubleA]

Create an anti-pope and lower the moral authority. Once you get a heretic in your kingdom ( you might already have one ), revoke a bishopric and appoint him. Appoint him as your court chaplain as well. You can look up the heretic event to see what traits are best to trigger the event. (I assume it would be cynical and some other traits) After you own Rome, there is a decision to return to Catholicism for 500 piety.

Gave a heretic the arch-bishoporic of Nice and I couldn't appoint him to chaplain. That makes sense, but it doesn't make me any less pissed off.

There is a way to bypass this. Find someone with a Strong claim on a knigdom and invite him. Make him a prince-bishop, then press his claim for the kingdom. Although I doubt you can also make him anti-pope and get the papacy as a vassal. There was an old method to vassalize the Papacy but it has been patched. Now, if you do somehow end up with the Papacy and revoke the title, you will get a game over screen.

That doesn't seem practical, but I would still do it if I could. And I can't.

I'm getting to the point where I'll just switch to the Pope for a day and force him to swear fealty. Oh, and Croatia.

 

[onodera]

To trigger the conversion even you should pick the most uneducated court chaplain and send him to research technology in your capital. But you might be better off fabricating the claim instead. Heresy is a pain in the bottom.

 

[unmerged(445219)]

I'm getting to the point where I'll just switch to the Pope for a day and force him to swear fealty. Oh, and Croatia.

Switching to the pope will give you a Game Over sign. You can do "claim d_latium" if you really wanted to though. Or "religion lollard", declare war and "religion catholic" afterwards.

If you're looking to do it completely legit, all I can think of is giving the surrounding counties to heretics/heathens and hoping one of them fabricates a claim you can press.

 

[DoubleA]

To trigger the conversion even you should pick the most uneducated court chaplain and send him to research technology in your capital. But you might be better off fabricating the claim instead. Heresy is a pain in the bottom.

I have enough troops and money to curbstop anyone.

It looks like heresy is my best option right now. It'd help for the HRE too. Can I still holy war against Muslims?

 

[Lorehead]

I have the Catholic Ecumenical Patriarch (don't ask because I don't have an answer) as my vassal, but he doesn't show up on the religion list and thus can't be anti-pope'd.

Oh, right, there was a dicussion a couple of weeks ago and I ran some tests. What happened was this: the Ecumenical Patriarchate is in Constantinople and has open elective succession. So, when you converted Constantinople to Catholic, new courtiers that appear there also became Catholic. Eventually, one of them got elected. This really should be fixed.

 

[Lorehead]

It looks like heresy is my best option right now. It'd help for the HRE too. Can I still holy war against Muslims?

Yes. Invite a few heretics to your court, and they should make converts, possibly including yourself or your heir. If you won’t be educating him yourself anyway, you can have one of them convert him that way, too. Converting back (if you even feel like it) by decision is easy.

On a side note, it would probably be better to have the decision to convert to the religion of your populace than to to your “base religion.”

 

[JonStryker]

As long as there really only are you and the pope in Italy I'd just create Italy and de-jure fight for Latium. If that's not possible fabricating claims is your way to go. Imho going heretic just for getting Latium is way to much work

 

[Mods]

on a sidenote, how do people take rome as byzantium? (assuming they stay orthodox)

 

[Lessing]

Vassalizing the pope still works.

1. You must be an emperor. Get a king-level bishop with free investiture for max benefits. The how is the problem. Either give a bishop many counties and duchies in a kingdom, then put a weak and awful king above him (maybe even pagan, muslim or heretic?). Then hope that the arch-bishop revolts and steals the title. A safer way would be to press a kingdom claim and to make the claimant a bishop before you end the war. That will 100% make him a king-level bishop. I've done it many times in this patch.

2. Now make the king-bishop antipope and press his claim on the papacy. Now you have a pope who is also a king-bishop. This lead in my game to me being able to pick the next pope, because I can pick the next king, and the kingdom title overrules the pope title concerning succession.

Voila, Latium is yours, and you can put family members on the highest catholic throne at will.

 

[DC123456789]

on a sidenote, how do people take rome as byzantium? (assuming they stay orthodox)

Normal claim fabrication works fine if you're not Catholic.

 

[DoubleA]

Vassalizing the pope still works.

1. You must be an emperor. Get a king-level bishop with free investiture for max benefits. The how is the problem. Either give a bishop many counties and duchies in a kingdom, then put a weak and awful king above him (maybe even pagan, muslim or heretic?). Then hope that the arch-bishop revolts and steals the title. A safer way would be to press a kingdom claim and to make the claimant a bishop before you end the war. That will 100% make him a king-level bishop. I've done it many times in this patch.

2. Now make the king-bishop antipope and press his claim on the papacy. Now you have a pope who is also a king-bishop. This lead in my game to me being able to pick the next pope, because I can pick the next king, and the kingdom title overrules the pope title concerning succession.

Voila, Latium is yours, and you can put family members on the highest catholic throne at will.

Great, I can do that with my cousin, the future king of Croatia.

If I convert to EU3, will I still be the Roman Empire?

 

[Lorehead]

If I convert to EU3, will I still be the Roman Empire?

I don’t believe there’s an official converter. I also believe you’d have to mod in the title, perhaps from EU:Rome.

 

[Alyiakal]

The Roman Empire tag doesn't appear to exist in the default EU3 game files. The converter I used applies the Byzantine tag, which is good enough for me.

 

[Lorehead]

The Roman Empire tag doesn't appear to exist in the default EU3 game files. The converter I used applies the Byzantine tag, which is good enough for me.

Reasonable enough!

Of course, if you have formed the Roman Empire in CK2, pretty much all the Byzantine missions in EU3 are moot for you, because they’re designed for a start of Thrace plus Morea.

 

[Blastaz]

on a sidenote, how do people take rome as byzantium? (assuming they stay orthodox)

Within a few decades of the game start.

Invite the greek orthodox spartenos counts in naples to become your vassal on day 1. When you can spare the army push de jure claims on the two other independent counties. Then fabricate claims on rome, and pick it up swiftly. Possible to get the pentarchy by 1100 fairly easily if you're ruthless and lucky.