Let's say that someone wants to play as a Christian ruler for a decent period of time. Their options are Catholicism, Orthodox, and the various smaller Christian religions, which I will lump into one category for the purposes of this post. Let's look at each one of these categories and discuss the problems with each.
Catholicism
For Catholics, the early start dates are rather unstable. Moral authority tends to collapse quickly for various reasons and heresy runs rampant. This is partly due to Charlemagne being vastly over his vassal limit after inheriting Middle Francia, which makes his military a lot smaller than his neighbors' armies. This means he is at risk of invasion from the Ummayads. Another reason is because of Viking raids which murder Catholic MA. I don't really know what to do to fix those start dates - maybe give Charlemagne a special attribute which gives him a vastly increased vassal limit. Other than that, there isn't much which can be done.
In the High Middle Ages start date, the problem can be summarized as The HRE Problem. The Holy Roman Emperor often gets excommunicated by the Pope for holding lands the Pope wants in Central Italy, which means they set up an antipope. This in itself isn't really a problem - Catholic MA can still recover. The issue is that when there is an antipope, the Pope will not crown anyone until they depose the antipope. The HRE has the largest army in that start date, so Catholic rulers are desperately trying in vain to depose the antipope so they can be crowned. This issue can be solved by playing *in* the HRE and changing the investiture law/pushing the antipope's claim, but if one wants to play outside the HRE, maybe play as Poland or France, it becomes a project just to get a coronation. Because of the way war works in CKII, even joining a war to depose the antipope with another ruler doing the same thing rarely helps. There are a number of potential solutions to this particular issue:
Orthodox
Orthodox Christianity, aside from being more bland than Catholicism, is essentially tied to the ERE. The ERE is constantly in civil war, which makes the faith's position precarious to say the least. It would help a lot if the ERE had a different succession mechanic than its current elective succession, or had the option to reform the empire. At the very least, making the "mend the great schism" decision an event which triggers when the Pentarchy is restored by any number of Orthodox rulers instead of something only the ERE could do would go a long way towards making more accessible to players wanting to play as an Orthodox Christian outside the ERE.
Others
The other Christian religions are not only in precarious positions in most start dates, they are also bland and not very much fun to play. They might be interesting for advanced players looking for a challenge, but for most players, most of these religions are unlikely to be much fun.
Catholicism
For Catholics, the early start dates are rather unstable. Moral authority tends to collapse quickly for various reasons and heresy runs rampant. This is partly due to Charlemagne being vastly over his vassal limit after inheriting Middle Francia, which makes his military a lot smaller than his neighbors' armies. This means he is at risk of invasion from the Ummayads. Another reason is because of Viking raids which murder Catholic MA. I don't really know what to do to fix those start dates - maybe give Charlemagne a special attribute which gives him a vastly increased vassal limit. Other than that, there isn't much which can be done.
In the High Middle Ages start date, the problem can be summarized as The HRE Problem. The Holy Roman Emperor often gets excommunicated by the Pope for holding lands the Pope wants in Central Italy, which means they set up an antipope. This in itself isn't really a problem - Catholic MA can still recover. The issue is that when there is an antipope, the Pope will not crown anyone until they depose the antipope. The HRE has the largest army in that start date, so Catholic rulers are desperately trying in vain to depose the antipope so they can be crowned. This issue can be solved by playing *in* the HRE and changing the investiture law/pushing the antipope's claim, but if one wants to play outside the HRE, maybe play as Poland or France, it becomes a project just to get a coronation. Because of the way war works in CKII, even joining a war to depose the antipope with another ruler doing the same thing rarely helps. There are a number of potential solutions to this particular issue:
- Rebalance other nearby Christian realms to be able to defeat the HRE (Wouldn't be my preference, but that is an option.)
- Make AI emperors more likely to push their antipope's claim (Would run into the problem of a powerful AI controlling the religious head, but it would mean Catholic rulers could still get crowned)
- Make AI vassals more likely to join Install Antiking/Overthrow Ruler factions
- Make Zealous rulers more likely to support Papal Investiture and accepting Papal demands
- Make the Pope less trigger happy with excommunications (should probably be done regardless)
- Start the HRE with Papal Investiture (May be ahistorical, but imo would be worth it to make the game fun to play)
Orthodox
Orthodox Christianity, aside from being more bland than Catholicism, is essentially tied to the ERE. The ERE is constantly in civil war, which makes the faith's position precarious to say the least. It would help a lot if the ERE had a different succession mechanic than its current elective succession, or had the option to reform the empire. At the very least, making the "mend the great schism" decision an event which triggers when the Pentarchy is restored by any number of Orthodox rulers instead of something only the ERE could do would go a long way towards making more accessible to players wanting to play as an Orthodox Christian outside the ERE.
Others
The other Christian religions are not only in precarious positions in most start dates, they are also bland and not very much fun to play. They might be interesting for advanced players looking for a challenge, but for most players, most of these religions are unlikely to be much fun.
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