View Full Version : Priests...
Playing as spain, I sure have seen quite a few weird things with my priests...
My biggest problem was having one little two piety imam camped outside of Leon. Even with two cardinals and a cardinal hopeful, with a combined piety of around twenty one, the imam was gaining ground every turn and converting at about a 1% per turn ratio.
So what's the deal? Shouldn't a priest with 4 piety counter an imam with two piety, and then the two cardinals go to work on everyone else?
I was wondering how the game mechanics work with this. I sure can't find anything more frustrating than having an Abbey in Leon with half of my college of cardinals and a hopeful getting whipped by one adventurous little imam.
I can't find any concrete information, but observation tells me the system has changed since BI. In BI, each church had a conversion rate of 5% per level of the structure. Each character who followed the religion was a base 5% conversion rate, plus assorted traits and ancillaries could add to it. Each neighboring province gave a 5% conversion rate towards whatever religion that province followed. It would add up the conversion rates toward all religions, and the highest would increase by the difference. So, if 50% of the population followed Christianity and 50% were pagan, but the conversion rates were 35% Christian and 5% pagan, then after the turn it would be 80/20 Christian/Pagan. There were no priests in BI.
My suspicion is that a priest gives a 5% conversion rate per point of piety, and that the conversion rates of the local church adds to that of the priests in the province. However, what I think it does is converts only that percentage of the people who follow other religions, rather that doing a swing towards the higher conversion rate. Like you, I've seen the single low-piety foreign priest maintain and even increase a small amount of following of the foreign religion, when I have 4 priests in the region with piety 5-10 and a 20% conversion rate from the church! (Huge orthodox cathedral 10%, doubled for Master Ikoner's Studio). So, what I think happens looks like this hypothetical situation: a province has a total population of 30,000 people, with 80% following Christianity and 20% following Islam. That works out to 24,000 Christians and 6,000 Muslims. The settlement is Christian, with a church that gives 5% conversion rate. Also in the settlement are priests with a total piety of 15, giving 75% conversion rate. Each turn, they will convert 80% of the non-Christian residents to Christianity, and given the hypothetical example they'll bring in 4800 of the Muslims on this turn. The 4 piety Imam sitting there will convert 20% of the Christians to Islam, which brings in 4800 Christians to the Muslim ranks. Net result: 24,000 Christians and 6,000 Muslims at the end of the turn, for a total swing of zero.
Conclusion: you have to drive out all foreign priests in order to get and maintain 100% following of your own religion. It's impossible to totally overpower any priest that comes in strictly by preaching alone.
Bearclaw
12-24-2006, 20:59
You're right, that doesn't really make any sense. I had previously assumed that each point of piety gave a priest/cardinal +0.5% conversion per turn or something like that, in which case the imam would only slow down the rate of conversion to Catholicism. However, based on your situation, it seems that the game mechanics take the current populations into account. For example, if we assume that each point of piety really is +0.5% of conversion, then you have approximately 10% per turn against his 1%. But priests can't convert Catholics, can they? Say your province is 90% catholic and 10% Muslim with 10,000 total citizens. Your agents are converting 10% of 1,000 Muslims in the region, or 100 per turn. The imam is converting 1% of 9,000 Catholics in the region, or 90 per turn. Thus the single Imam could be having a much larger effect per point of piety than your Cardinals are.
Still, I can't make the math show the Imam converting more people per turn. Unless...
If there aren't ANY Muslims in the region, and it's 90% Catholic and 10% pagan/heretic...your agents are still converting 10% of 1,000 non-Christians, but the Imam is converting 1% of 10,000 non-Muslims, or 100 converts each. If you change the total population sizes, you could come out with the Imam converting more people per turn.
This model must be pretty close to what the game actually uses. In which case there's nothing your Cardinals can do for now, unless you wanted to invest even more conversion-bonus buildings/agents in the region. Rest assured that every soul the Imam converts is one more your agents can target the next turn, giving you a larger pool to preach to, and at some point, the population of non-Christians will become large enough that you reach an equilibrium, with an equal number of converts on each side.
Or, you could kill him.
Bearclaw
12-24-2006, 21:09
Darn, Quillan posted in before me. We can still call it the BC-Quillan Conversion Model.
That makes sense, but seems a bit broken to me. Bear in mind I'm not the kind of guy who actively seeks out mistakes in the game, so I'm not just ranting here.
You'd think that the power spent on not converting the already catholic population should go towards galvanizing the catholics there, and making them more resistant to conversion.
It seems like the system is effective at a fifty fifty balance, but move away from that and you have a really ridiculous system.
No biggie. I think the priests give more than a half percent, but the 5 percent per point is probably high, now that I think about it. I've made a number of what I call "papal hit squads" in this Venetian campaign. I create 4 bishops from Florence, which has a Theologians Guild HQ and a cathedral in it. The worst I can theoretically create is a base 1 piety with +1 for Orthodox Training and +2 for Theologians Guild Journeyman. In practice, between base starting skill, bonus skills, and retinue they come out with between 5 and 7 piety, so call it average 6. I put 4 of them on a ship and set them all down simultaneously in something like Tunis, which has a 0% Catholic population. One turn later, it's around 18%. If they each did 5% they'd convert the entire population. If they each did 1% they'd it would be 24% (I have seen that but only when they were all 9-10 piety). If they were each 0.5% it would only be 12%. So it might be a case of 1% per point of the highest +1% per helper or something similar. I don't know.
What I've determined is that conversion rates are somewhat more complicated than any straight percentage system...
What happens is that if you send a priest into a province... He will convert by leaps and bounds... at first. If you send a catholic priest into a 0% catholic province, he can probably convert 10% in one turn (Assuming there's no enemy priests to counteract him). But next turn will be only 7 or 8%... and the turn after that only 5%...
Basically it's super super easy to get that first 25% or so... and a pain in the fricking hindquarters to get the last 5-10%. Your conversion rate slows to a crawl when you are working on that last few percent... So basically if you're at 95%, it doesn't matter how many priests you throw at the territory, one enemy priest will be able to keep you from getting 100%.
Doesn't really matter anyhow. The impact on happiness for the last few percentage points is minimal. I'm happy to move on once the land is 50-60% my religion if I'm conquering. If consolidating, I get the percentage to at least 80%.
clairvaux
12-25-2006, 01:29
Just go assassinate the holy man.
No biggie. I think the priests give more than a half percent, but the 5 percent per point is probably high, now that I think about it. I've made a number of what I call "papal hit squads" in this Venetian campaign. I create 4 bishops from Florence, which has a Theologians Guild HQ and a cathedral in it. The worst I can theoretically create is a base 1 piety with +1 for Orthodox Training and +2 for Theologians Guild Journeyman. In practice, between base starting skill, bonus skills, and retinue they come out with between 5 and 7 piety, so call it average 6. I put 4 of them on a ship and set them all down simultaneously in something like Tunis, which has a 0% Catholic population. One turn later, it's around 18%. If they each did 5% they'd convert the entire population. If they each did 1% they'd it would be 24% (I have seen that but only when they were all 9-10 piety). If they were each 0.5% it would only be 12%. So it might be a case of 1% per point of the highest +1% per helper or something similar. I don't know.
Include a few assasins in there, eliminate all religios opposition.
Medieval time!
I've been having a different sort of problem with priests.
For some reason my priests, especially my missionaries in the Holy Land, have been taking to heresy in large numbers. I'm not talking about 1 or 2 piety priests, but like up to 5. There are no other heretics in the province, and they are just sitting around, preaching when suddenly BAM! something clicks in their mind and they suddenly stop bathing and shaving and start blaspheming. It is then quite a pain to take out the newly spawned 5 piety heretic.
Is this a feature? Because it's been happening to me quite a lot.
By the way, i'm using Lusted's mod on a patched version of the game.
yes its a feature, if a province has sufficient enough heresy, then low piety priests have a chace to be converted to a heretic, this can be both good and bad, ie if u want to train up priests to be cardinal hopefuls, the conversion gives u heretics to lv up ur priests. the downside is quite often u can end up with a 5+ piety heretic running around which are a pain in the @#$ to kill :(
Cheers Knoddy
TevashSzat
12-25-2006, 14:39
That happened to me once before, I had a 9 piety priest that was just waiting for the next cardinal to die in order to get promoted when it became heretic. I had to take all 8 of my cardinals and surround it for 4 turns trying to denounce it before it finally die. If i tried any priest, they all had like 5 percent chance of denouncing it.
back when inquisitors were a pain in the arse, it was really a pain to get a pagan magician when you had ninety percent catholic and maybe one or two percent heretic.
It's not necessary for there to be ANY heresy. Any non-cardinal has a chance of going heretic, although I'm pretty sure it's a miniscule chance if there's no heresy present. I have CREATED heretics before; build a priest on my turn and he turns heretic before I get my next turn. That's really frustrating when he comes out with 6 piety from a province that was 100% catholic the turn prior. Then I have to burn him, and station 4 priests in the province for the next 10+ turns to get rid of the heresy.
Braedonnal
12-25-2006, 23:40
Too true, Quillan. I do find that very annoying though I do find priests becoming heretics useful as it can be used as a weapon against your enemies. You just have to station your priests on your enemy's territories and wait for the inevitable heretic pop and then jet.
Rhodes and Nicosia in my current Milan game are 100% heretic and I admit, Nicosia got way out of hand and there are seven heretics prowling the island. Someday I'll need to send the College of Cardinals (as they are all mine, the Papacy is basically a Milaese puppet at this point) over there to take care of things but I'm taking out the Turks atm.
Nicosia got way out of hand and there are seven heretics prowling the island.
Just be glad they can't get off that Island or you'd be having MAJOR hedaches.
I don't use assassins anymore. I simply use my army to kill any spy, merchant, priest, etc. Just surround them with your units, then when they can't retreat, move one last unit in to that spot to kill them. A bit tedious, to be truthful, but 100% kill rate.
What happens is that if you send a priest into a province... He will convert by leaps and bounds... at first. If you send a catholic priest into a 0% catholic province, he can probably convert 10% in one turn (Assuming there's no enemy priests to counteract him). But next turn will be only 7 or 8%... and the turn after that only 5%...I think that model does make sense — people are generally quite reluctant to change their religion. Just remember the Ottoman empire — it did manage to convert some portion of it's Christian population, but it never converted it all.
Meh, you'd think that it didn't work on a simple percentage system so that a single rival priest can match several of yours. You should probably get the ability to burn priests from another religion if the region is predominantly your religion (say 80%+).
Anyhow, welcome to the forums, Rollon.:balloon2:
Heh... The mod I'm creating will have some heretic and pagan factions... So you should be able to burn their priests... But Catholics are actually going to be a small number of factions. There will basically be no Christians outside the Italian and Iberian penninsulae.
Meh, you'd think that it didn't work on a simple percentage system so that a single rival priest can match several of yours. You should probably get the ability to burn priests from another religion if the region is predominantly your religion (say 80%+).
Anyhow, welcome to the forums, Rollon.:balloon2:Thank you, katank, actually it was the first message I ever posted on an English-speaking forum:)
Yeah, I agree, it should be possible to burn rival priests. Right now I'm suffering from catholic cardinals invading my Corduba (playing as Moors) and can do absolutely nothing about it, my army of imams is helpless at the moment. There should at least be some risk of being killed in action while preaching in a totally foreign land, like mane Christian missionaries actually were.
You can simulate that risk by sending your army after the poor fella. Move 8 military units to the squares surrounding the annoying priest. Move a 9th unit onto the square where the priest is. Laugh maniacally as the poor priest dies to your execution squad.
baron_Leo
12-28-2006, 03:47
Hi...I don't really like the rligious system in the game to be honest. And i am always honest:-) My problem is that 10% of not your religion causes very big religious unrest...and in the late game, with very huge cities that can be a major problem. In my portugese game, I really don't know how to solve this...the situation is getting out of control (I think there should be reformation in the game...I think in a situation like this it would make sense - I think I might know what the expansion will be about:-) Russia wiped out Engalnd with priests in my game...he managed to get 4 or 5 cities to rebel...cool. Now he is trying to do it with me. Luckily my frontline regions are castles, so he has a lot to do:-)
Personally, i believe the only way to stay safe is to surround your territories with forts (but that'd be a pain if you were constantally expanding). Still, i might try plugging the straight of gilbrator and the dardanelles to stop the majority of enemies entering in my hre game :P
There is an oddity with piety on governors in this game. The manual says:
Governors with a high Piety rating are better at reducing disorder caused by religious unrest and provide an influence bonus to the public order of the settlement.
Now, the first part of this is true. I had a city suffering from 60% religious unrest when my only priest within 6 provinces went heretic. It took me 5 turns to get the burninators over there, during which time heresy skyrocketed from 0% to 27%. I moved a governor into the city (4 piety) and religious unrest dropped to 20%. However, governors with piety also seem to cause religious unrest if the city doesn't have any. From my observation, if the city has religious unrest lower than 5% times the governor's piety rating, it becomes 5% times the governors piety rating. Take a city that's 100% catholic, drop a 5 piety general in there as governor, and BAM! Instant 25% religious unrest.
That's a result of overflow. It's quite annoying, really. Also, if the city is majority other religion, a high piety dude will do more harm than good.
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