Quote Originally Posted by EightDeer
Any help would be much appreciated, and please forgive any n00bish questions that may follow.

1. Why are my provinces losing Zeal? It only happens in former Catholic, Muslim and Pagan provinces that are at 99-100% Orthodox. They just drop to 0%, or 10% in the case of high-zeal Catholic provinces.
Zeal can fluctuate, though I believe Zeal is only important for Catholic factions (though it may also apply to muslims for their Jihads). I don't know alot about Zeal other than the fact that it is good for crusades, and improves inquisitors chance of success. I do know that having troops in a high zeal province when a crusade walks through can ruin your forces. You lose 1% of your troops for every 2% of province zeal.

I do believe that the Orthodox religion does dramatically reduce zeal, as it takes a strong catholic presence for inquisitors to start increasing province zeal. In one game I tried sending my inquisitors to the byzantines to try to burn some population. Burning population gives an immediate drop in province happiness and also apparently reduces farm income. It required lots of catholic bishops to boost the catholic religion % before zeal started to increase to a point where the inquisitors even had any effect.

2. How many times must a Crusade be beaten before it dissolves?
For as long as the troops stick around, until the crusade reaches it's target, the faction gets eliminated, or the province that trained the crusade marker gets invaded.

3. Often the provincial governors will develop some sort of corruption related vice (Outlaw, Connoiseur, Administratively Greedy etc.) only to lose it in a year or two. Is this supposed to happen? Are the effects permanent even if they stop showing up on the report parchment?

Thanks in advance.
Some VnV's overwrite previous ones. Each VnV is part of a line of related ones with greater penalties or bonuses. It's also possible for VnV's to be completely overwritten by one that may not seem related. I presume that the only effects would be for those that the general currently has on his scroll, though it depends on which order the VnV's are received. It's possible for a character to become a God Fearing Atheist. Depending on which came first, the character's Piety score could vary.