Something is seriously wrong with how Fervor works especially for Catholics

[Coemgen]

It worked pretty well in Iberia, I can't argue with your point in other places. I mean hell, look at England, just made its own Anglican church!

England happened in 1564, which was a completely different world. The closest medieval Europe got to that was the Gallican Church or the Moravian Church, but still, nowhere close. All heresies were also huge failures, until the printing press and martin luther.

 

[RoboSenshi]

Is not just catholic in my game byzantine is bogomilst
half France and england is insular
Spain and Brittany and Duke gascogne armagnac is muslim

4 crusader all win but all just convert to islam

The faith and heresy system is broken

I am play with strict regional heresy

Yes exactly. I'm also experiencing the same thing. It needs serious tweaking.

I wonder where the belief that Catholicism was overpowered came from. The crusades were neither successful in the long term, nor could the Mongols be defeated. If the Mongols had not broken off the European campaign, they would have advanced to Central Europe after the Battle of Liegnitz and Muhi. There were also internal problems with heresies and anti-popes which ended in the Reformation and the Thirty Years War.

When I mean OP I'm not talking about military strength, I'm talking about it's prevelence. Catholicism certainly dominated all of Europe for hundreds of years. And even if the Crusades failed, the pope was still able to convince lots of powerful kings to throw their soldiers into the meat grinder for centuries. It should be ridiculously hard for the kingdoms of Europe to fall the Heresy in the game. And if they do, they should be immediately attacked to restore a christian ruler back on the throne. At the moment, the game treats Catholicism as if it was historically weak in this time period, which is not the case.

 

[Coemgen]

Having Catholicism die out by 900 CE due to ravaging heresy might be fun, but it's simply non-historical.

 

[Dearmad]

Having Catholicism die out by 900 CE due to ravaging heresy might be fun, but it's simply non-historical.

It's actually not even fun...

 

[grommile]

It's actually not even fun...

It's fun... if it only happens when the History Ruiner sets out to make it happen.

 

[Matt516]

The system where Crusades lower fervor is already nonsensical, but then every single realm with a sinful bishop lowers fervor by 10 - a whole 10% of the maximum. Who thought this was reasonable, for some random bishop in the middle of nowhere to lower Catholicism's fervor by 10?

Granted 10 is probably too much for a single bishop, but the fundamental idea is good IMO. If you have corrupt clergy all over the place, it's reasonable for it to make the Faith less strong.

 

[Undead Martyr]

were they fighting more heresies, or was the Church centralizing more and cracking down more on heterodox practices using the new tools at its disposal?

this was at the same time as there were Crusades in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, the idea that Catholicism was beset by internal troubles seems absurd to me.

Its important to consider that the 9th and 10th century Papacies were at a relative nadir. The pope was all but appojnted by either the frankish emperors or eventually thr tusculani family, while the clergy, being largely nobility, were shamelessly sinful, worldly, often acting like secular lords (drinking, feasting, having wives and concubines, leading armies etc). The Gregorian Reforms ended this and sparked a century long confrontation with the Emperors, but in many ways it was a situation not dissimilar to the 14th or 15th century church, albeit the papacy was in a better position to "get with the times" and leverage increased fervor and popular demand for reform and piety to suit its own ends.

Granted 10 is probably too much for a single bishop, but the fundamental idea is good IMO. If you have corrupt clergy all over the place, it's reasonable for it to make the Faith less strong.

Moral authority largely did the same thing and much better. Fervor should be increased by holy wars, especially successful ones. The crusades saw an uptick in piety, but also displays of mob bigotry against European jews as one instance.

 

[krios41]

Is it weird to think the trigger for a Crusade should be the other way around. In my head it kinda makes sense at least? idk
Low fervor -> do a crusade -> increase fervor -> (preferably) win crusade -> get max fervor

 

[Mackus]

Granted 10 is probably too much for a single bishop, but the fundamental idea is good IMO. If you have corrupt clergy all over the place, it's reasonable for it to make the Faith less strong.

Cause and even should be reversed. When fervor is low, most of auto-generated realm archbishops should be wicked. When fervor is high, most of them should be virtuous.

 

[anonymous_jones]

Also the Heresiarch trait that they get when they rebel...+2 Marshall, +2 Prowess, +2 Learning. Why? It's not like they start off at war.

 

[Coemgen]

Granted 10 is probably too much for a single bishop, but the fundamental idea is good IMO. If you have corrupt clergy all over the place, it's reasonable for it to make the Faith less strong.

It might sound reasonable, but it's not really historic. The Saeculum obscurum is generally considered the lowest moment in the papacy, with the most immoral popes (this is also called the Pornocracy). It was also one of the moments of greatest expansion in Catholicism, with Poland, Denmark, Sweden. and Hungary becoming catholic, England catholicism solidifying and the overall spread of the religion. It also saw the rise of many monastic orders, in particular Cluny. This is true for other religions too. Islam spread a lot under some of the most decadent Caliphs.


In reality, religion was always a local matter, and a far away bishop's naughty deeds had zero impact. Also because the spread of information was limited. It's not a coincidence that the first successful challenge to the Church's authority (the Protestant reformation) happened during the spread of the printing press and that Martin Luther wholeheartedly embraced it.

Clashes between Emperor and Pope for investitures, internal Church politics, the King of France suppressing the Templars, etc... are way more important in determining fervor IMO.

 

[iniudan]

England happened in 1564, which was a completely different world. The closest medieval Europe got to that was the Gallican Church or the Moravian Church, but still, nowhere close. All heresies were also huge failures, until the printing press and martin luther.

The Cathar were successful for quite a while, mostly because the counts of Toulouse didn't mind them and not many could do anything about it, as they mostly were vassal of France in name only until the Albigensian Crusade, which still took 20 years and the birth of the inquisition to get rid of them.

For me how much heresy there is Europe is fine, the problem is that ruler convert to it, causing mass conversion of realm, an heresiarch ruler should be a rare thing. Instead of converting they should probably develop sympathy for the heresy, reducing religious rebellion chance but losing ability to convert the county of the heresy they are sympathetic to.

 

[Vin55]

You also had heresey in bohemia with Jan Hus, also you should have counter popes. But it should be made clear that all heresey where crushed until the reformation (which was a political and religious affair). I had games where insular takes over big parts (dead since the early middle ages in 1066). Where the spanish convert, where I nearly die to Spanish muslims and revolts all 2 years which is just too much they come with more then the ruler of the nation had).
Also the East and North of the balticum gets never converted by the 12th century the crusades where quite sucessful and the German Order state was strong for 200 years. You should give the emperor an event for that to found and help them. (maybe also a cb for mecklenburg).
But as of now it is just stupid in Spain when the catholic Kings who stopped muslim onslought for centuries just convert. (by 13th century they controlled Cordoba already) And only in Granada did the muslim hold out for longer.
So yeah it should not be made so you can convert all in 5 days, but 5-10 years for catholics should be fair...

 

[TankRush]

On the one hand, I have to concede that things are definitely needing adjustment for Catholics and those misbehaving Bishops. Because my current character's nephew should not have been able to literally topple the Pope and take over Rome and the rest of central Italy.

On the other hand, I love that he kicked the Pope out of Rome, because he's also a giant, and a crusader king that I installed in a crusade against Acquitaine, who are now muslim heretics rulings over Insular Christians, and had some counties over there because inheritence has been getting messy (I actually passed on the opportunity to play him because my main kingdom in France is a mess and didn't want it to die, and actually hadn't considered taking Rome for myself!).

 

[giovdb]

After playing some more, here's another take:

Fervor with catholic is weak... but... it might not be a bad thing. I was also pissed with the low fervor, so I switched Religions. And then the Pope launched a Crusade against me. Although I had over 22K troops, I was facing 60K. They just overwhelm the land and I can't take stuff back fast enough (sieging their provinces is capped at 50% for the defender, 150% for the offense).

So if Catholics had stronger fervor, there would literally not have ANY incentive at all to move away from it. Their crusades are really strong.

 

[Miroku20X6]

Granted 10 is probably too much for a single bishop, but the fundamental idea is good IMO. If you have corrupt clergy all over the place, it's reasonable for it to make the Faith less strong.

Part of the problem is that (from what I understand) the event is driven by the size of the faith and then fires, choosing a sinful or righteous priest based on whether it was the good priest or bad priest event. But I believe that which event fires has NOTHING to do with ratio of good to bad priests. Like, there could be 80 good priests vs 20 bad priests, but the bad priest event will still fire more often based on extent of the religion. If there were 20 good priests vs 80 bad priests, it would not influence MTTH of the event.

Again, I could be wrong, but that’s how I understand the MTTH of the event, which is absurd.

 

[giovdb]

And the misbehaving bishops is not only for Catholics. All the heresies have it too (but granted, there's less of them).

 

[Coemgen]

And the misbehaving bishops is not only for Catholics. All the heresies have it too (but granted, there's less of them).

It's weighted by size, so the same event will destroy Catholicism and do nothing to fervor of heresies. Which makes little sense.
If there's one naughty bishop, it should have a bigger effect in a small religion with only a couple bishops, rather than one huge one where the naughty bishop is just one out of thousands.

I think the default setting should be historical (hence we don't really see successful heresies), but then there could be a settings toggle to increase heresy/fervor loss fo Catholicism etc...

 

[giovdb]

It's weighted by size, so the same event will destroy Catholicism and do nothing to fervor of heresies. Which makes little sense.
If there's one naughty bishop, it should have a bigger effect in a small religion with only a couple bishops, rather than one huge one where the naughty bishop is just one out of thousands.

I think the default setting should be historical (hence we don't really see successful heresies), but then there could be a settings toggle to increase heresy/fervor loss fo Catholicism etc...

What I'm saying is: The heresy religions ALSO get their OWN bad bishop events. Not just Catholics. Bad bishops are everywhere.

 

[Coemgen]

Ye

What I'm saying is: The heresy religions ALSO get their OWN bad bishop events. Not just Catholics. Bad bishops are everywhere.

yes, but they are weighted differently, so they do much less damage in small religion. Which is why the issues with fervor affect primarily Catholicism.