Strange Occurence - Asking Bishop to Change Religion Results in A Random New Bishop Usurping Title

[marceror]

I started playing as the Duke of Sicily in 767 (might not be the exact start year?). My liege was the Byzantine Emperor, who was of Iconoclast religion/heresy. I created a custom ruler, but changed my religion to Orthodox.

When I started the game there was an indication that I was playing as an Iconoclast ruler in one of the initial game messages that generates, even though I was actually personally playing a proper Orthodox ruler. I ignored the message, thinking it was merely stating that I was part of an Iconoclast Empire.

At any rate, a bit into the game I noticed that if I asked a bishop to convert to Orthodox from Iconoclast, in most cases following the conversion, they would be replaced by a new Iconoclast bishop?! I eventually converted to Iconoclast myself, which at least ensures that my religion can match with that of my bishops. But, 100 years or so into the game, I'm finding this increasingly annoying. There are some catholic counts in my realm who are repeatedly turning their bishops to Catholic, as would be expected, but I'm constantly being notified of bishop after bishop after bishop usurping the titles, forcing an Iconoclast bishop into the role (at least, until they get converted and forced out).

I have a lot of hours in this game, and have never seen this before. Anyone else encountered it? Are there any known workarounds?

 

[Bernard95]

I noticed that myself in a recent campaign, prior to the hotfix. Only reason I noticed was because the bishop was both my character's friend and physician. Wasn't Iconoclast though, but regular Orthodox and the bishop was Catholic.

Edit: Still definitely a thing in September 2019. See this all the time in my games.

 

[tombom]

You notice this happening when you reform a pagan religion, suddenly you get message spam about all your old temple vassals having their titles usurped. It's really weird.

 

[Ciniod]

You notice this happening when you reform a pagan religion, suddenly you get message spam about all your old temple vassals having their titles usurped. It's really weird.

I don't think it's the same issue, though I haven't yet converted away from a reformed pagan and tried to convert bishops aswell, so it might be. Isn't this just priests who stay with the old ways being replaced by proper reformed bishops or something?

I tried out the different doctrines at one point and noticed that I don't get the same amount of priests usurping titles every time, sometimes 2, sometimes 4, sometimes 7 etc.

Alternatively it might also be due to some of your realm staying with the old ways, and bishops automatically go with the new ways, so in the areas with the old ways the bishops get replaced with bishops of the old ways.

Sadly I didn't check at the time since I didn't think much of it. Was more focused on other things.

 

[Leyrann]

Had something similar happen when I reformed today and took Enatic Clans. Of course generated rulers have to be female then, but even female temple holders were replaced (alternatively the old holders may have had the old religion, but then again almost all my vassals followed the reformation).

 

[Lewa263]

I have experienced something similar, but not quite the same. In my case, it was that bishops would become heretics and immediately have their bishopric usurped. No liege input, since I was their only liege.

 

[DPS]

I believe that this is a bug introduced in 3.01. I didn't see it in a couple of 3.0 games I started before the patch.

 

[Ciniod]

Hmm just got it too, I'm Reformed African and my vassal is apparently Miaphysite and tried to make one of their bishops Miaphysite aswell. But I'm still unsure about it happening upon reformation, since I do have old African bishops. Though it might be that is due to them being vassals of vassals of vassals. Rather than vassals of vassals.

 

[Zoomun]

That might explain what happened when I had a weird loop with bishops being replaced every week

 

[marceror]

That might explain what happened when I had a weird loop with bishops being replaced every week

It seems to happen when a count or higher is not following what the game tracks as the "valid religion" for a realm. Like in my case only Iconoclast bishops are allowed, so a catholic count with high diplomacy convinces his bishop to change his religion to catholic. As soon as he does, the newly catholic bishop's title is instantly usurped by a newly created Iconoclast bishop. Okay fine, except that count is going to ask that new bishop to change religions, and the process will continue until circumstances change in some way to prevent it. I eventually managed to get the count to change to Iconoclast, and that prevented the issue.

It's super annoying!

 

[Woifee]

I think I had that with an iqta baronie vassal. Was sad since he had 3k gold when I landed him.

 

[Mackus]

The question is: is this mechanic hardcoded, or is there some event that triggers when theocracy converts that causes usurpation?
I've looked through files, but found no evidence of any event causing usurpation.

 

[Vadim.Mikhnevych]

I've just encountered the same issue.
My ruler is a Miaphysite duke in Byz empire. I converted the population (and counts) of my four counties to Miaphysite, but among them only two bishoprics are Miaphysite (one in my county, another in vassal's). And asking an Ortodox bishop (in my another county) to convert results in a brand new Orthodox bishop usurping the title.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

It's seen this too - but it seems to happen whenever someone converts to a religion that isn't dominant, I think. Having said that - as Byzantine Emperor I think I've seen Catholics go Orthodox and get replaced by new Orthodox. Had an Orthodox Churchman with a cardinal's hat once - pretty sure that can only happen if he gets uplanded before he switches hats.

 

[redtide]

The question is: is this mechanic hardcoded, or is there some event that triggers when theocracy converts that causes usurpation?
I've looked through files, but found no evidence of any event causing usurpation.

Has this behavior been changed yet? I'm playing an old game on v 3.1.0, and it's super annoying. I've been looking through the game files to make a fix, but I haven't found where this happens.

 

[aswitz87]

This happens whenever a bishop (or other religious landed character) changes religion. In most cases their usurper matches the top liege.
Sometimes you can get around this by revoking the title and giving it to someone of your choice, but I’ve found mixed results to that.

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

This happens whenever a bishop (or other religious landed character) changes religion. In most cases their usurper matches the top liege.
Sometimes you can get around this by revoking the title and giving it to someone of your choice, but I’ve found mixed results to that.

Wasn't always like this. Used to be it just generates the same religion bishop upon the death of the current one. Now the new guy outright usurps, which punts the bishop into someone else's court. Along with all his money

I believe this started after Holy Fury was introduced.

 

[redtide]

Wasn't always like this. Used to be it just generates the same religion bishop upon the death of the current one. Now the new guy outright usurps, which punts the bishop into someone else's court. Along with all his money

I believe this started after Holy Fury was introduced.

Any idea where this is happening in the game files? My guess is that it's using the "create_random_priest = { ... }" and the "usurp_title" (or some variation thereof) commands, but I can't track it down. I thought that an event might be called via the "on_character_convert_religion = { ... }" block (since you can trigger it by changing a temple holder's religion via the console).

This happens whenever a bishop (or other religious landed character) changes religion. In most cases their usurper matches the top liege.
Sometimes you can get around this by revoking the title and giving it to someone of your choice, but I’ve found mixed results to that.

Playing as a Greek Hellenic emperor, my Miaphysite vassal king of Jerusalem keeps getting his priests/bishops replaced with Hellenic priests, but I'm even having Hellenic priests of non-Greek culture getting usurped by Greek Hellenic priests.

 

[Lewa263]

HIP hasn't fixed it, so I'm going to guess that it is hardcoded. They've fixed pretty much everything they can in that mod.

 

[redtide]

HIP hasn't fixed it, so I'm going to guess that it is hardcoded. They've fixed pretty much everything they can in that mod.

Oof, that's rough. I hope they don't leave it in this state.