Three mysteries... in one game

[Kryndude]

1. how did Lothaire III 'the Shadow' become Jewish?

His wife isn't Jewish

Now we have a crusade on Italy in 918

2. Raised levies > Max Levies... wait what?

3. How did that Anglo-Saxon dude manage to create Kingdom of England?

BTW if I remember it right the upper region of England was vassaized AFTER the creation of English Kingdom.

And even if I'm mistaken about that, he still doesn't control 80% of the territory.

Can anyone give an explanation?

 

[MarsVA]

At least as far as the third question goes, if I am not mistaken you need only 51% of the land to create the kingdom.

 

[FifthMonarchy]

The new education focuses might explain the Jewish Karling - that [ETA] religion or heritage was chosen and a Jewish courtier was his mentor, resulting in religious conversion. I understand you can also be converted by a friend.
For the levies, if he's raised them then given away demesne counties or had his martial score drop (wounded, infirm etc) that would reduce the current max while the old max was still in the field. Similarly the vassal levies might have been higher when raised under foreign threat but lower now that some other offensive war an alliance has dragged him into has led to a 'raised levies' malus. The king may also have lost popularity for other reasons like tyranny.

 

[Kryndude]

The new education focuses might explain the Jewish Karling - that [ETA] religion or heritage was chosen and a Jewish courtier was his mentor, resulting in religious conversion. I understand you can also be converted by a friend.
For the levies, if he's raised them then given away demesne counties or had his martial score drop (wounded, infirm etc) that would reduce the current max while the old max was still in the field. Similarly the vassal levies might have been higher when raised under foreign threat but lower now that some other offensive war an alliance has dragged him into has led to a 'raised levies' malus. The king may also have lost popularity for other reasons like tyranny.

Okay so the last two questions are answered, but I checked it again, and the Jewish king didn't have any friends (that sounds a bit sad) and regarding his age the crusade would've been activated long before if he was educated to believe Jewish.

On second thought he might have just become a king... I'll check this next time I play and post the answer here.

 

[GCRust]

The new education focuses might explain the Jewish Karling - that [ETA] religion or heritage was chosen and a Jewish courtier was his mentor, resulting in religious conversion. I understand you can also be converted by a friend.

Yup. It's also why in my game I'm watching the Abbasids slowly flip to Nestorians. I kind of hope they do.

 

[Thrake]

2. is because levies replenish while levies are raised, so if you don't fight you can potentially end up with twice your amount of levies displayed. It doesn't mean you can raise them twice, just that if all raised ones where to be killed, you could just raise another army right away.

 

[mrinku]

The most likely vector would have been a Jewish friend or mentor. They may no longer be friends, or they may have died (very likely if it was a mentor - that would have been at least 34 years ago). Those things can happen with or without Conclave, although without it the child needs to be Cynical, and the friend event also requires the character to be cynical.. That trait may well have been lost sometime in the last 3-4 decades. There's also an event where a courtier of a different religion can flip a ruler.

He also could have been force converted by a liege sometime in the past. I had the King of Bulgaria somehow turned Jewish, and subsequently a lot of Dukes and Counts followed. Zealous ones won't, so it may be that his current wife is that. She also isn't his first wife, so there is a small chance that a previous one converted him.

And... a chance he was Jewish all along and somehow ended up as heir. No "sympathy for Christianity" trait that I can see.