SOS! I'm Breaking in a Rash of Heretics/Portugal's Hipocracy

[Indy1958]

Dear All:

Greetings from Canada!!! I hope this finds you and yours well. As for me, I could complain...yadda, yadda, yadda.

Is it just me who is having this problem? I'm playing as France and Russia, and I'm finding I'm suddenly breaking out into a rash of heretics, and I just can't get rid of them. As France, I keep sending priests out after them, only to have them fall under the heretics' spell.It's getting a little expensive to keep training priests!! As Russia, I keep sending my assassin after them, but he keeps missing, which isn't saying much for my assassin's ability, which I'm beginning to think is zip. I will also add here that he has a great fear of snakes.

Secondly, with my apologies to those playing as Portugal, I, playing as France, find them to be very hipocritical. Case in point here is that I just signed a couple of agreements with their Princess. No sooner than she leaves us, I'm getting a parchment that says my relations with her country are quickly heading for the porcelain goddess.

What am I doing wrong here? As per usual, any suggestions, wise notions and/or ideas will be gratefully accepted.

Live long and prosper, take care and thank you kindly!!!

Sincerely yours always,

Indy.

[TevashSzat]

Get a cardinal to denounce the heretics since cardinals can't become a heretic even if he fails miserably.

As for relations, are you sure that you are not trespassing on your allies lands and that you have not entered into war with a country that they are allied with or that you are not in an alliance with an enemy of your ally?

[locked_thread]

AI factions attack you because:

- You're Rich, and they want what you have.
- You're Poor, and can't defend yourself.

- You're Powerful, and that threatens them.
- You're Weak, and that presents them an opportunity.

- Your Borders are Undefended, inviting a surprise attack.
- Your Borders are Overdefended, which suggests you are about to attack them.

- You Trespassed one time on their land, which is simply unforgivable.
- While innocently marching 5 armies through your best province, they accidentally bumped into your city.

- You rudely killed their assassin, who was in your capital city trying to kill your faction leader.
- You refused to assassinate their faction leader when they asked you to.

- You allied with nobody, making you vulnerable.
- You allied with everybody, indicating that you're wishy washy.

- You signed a treaty with them, giving them a perfect chance to stab you in the back.
- You refused to sign a treaty with them, which they took as an insult.

- You are an infidel propagating a hostile religion.
- You share their religion, meaning your peoples are invitingly easy for them to subjugate.

- Your lands border theirs, making you their natural rivals.
- Your lands are distant, meaning they can invade you without risk of reprisal.

- You are the pope's favorite, and nobody likes the teacher's pet.
- The pope hates you, making you the obvious faction to attack.

- You are a human (non-AI) faction, which is inexcusable.


If you loot or exterminate a city, it reduces your reputation. Having said that, even if you never do so, you will be attacked relentlessly.

TW diplomacy has never worked and probably never will. I say ignore the diplomats and get to fighting.

[Afro Thunder]

If you're playing on VH, diplomats are only useful for bribing individual units.

[locked_thread]

Now to address the Heresy part of the question... I've had much problems in the past with heretics, but am starting to develop some techniques:

TIP #1: Get 95+% Believers.
- Heretics spawn in direct proportion to the % of population that doesn't share your religion. For example, if 100% of a Turkish province is Muslim, heretics will almost never appear there. Once a heretic spawns, he dramatically increases the amount of heresy in the region, which can spiral to yet more heretics and a severe decrease in population happiness.

TIP #2: Invest in Churches.
- The main reason to construct churches/mosques is to help the population convert and thereby reduce the chance of heresy in the long term. If not for heresy, you might as well build cheaper structures to increase happiness.

TIP #3: Concentrate your Priests.
- Alot of heretics start life as one of your own priests. Even strongly pious priests can fall to the dark side. So I keep my priests in clusters, rather than operating individually. If one of them goes renegade, the rest can pounce before things get out of hand.

TIP #4: Bring priests on Invasions
- Multiple priests have a big impact on local religious beliefs. Also, priests gain piety faster within regions that need to be converted. A swarm of priests can rapidly convert conquered population while gaining piety for themselves, then move into enemy territory to prepare the way for my next invasion. Some of these "missionary" priests evolve into powerful hammers vs heretics.

TIP #5: Use Pious Accusers
- Low grade priests have a pathetic chance against heretics, and a high chance to weaken their own faith. A series of failed attempts can cripple your herd of priests. Never send a boy to do a man's job, even if it means letting the heretic linger a bit longer than you would like.

[Shahed]

Priests above 5 piety are immune to heresy.
How do you get them to 5 piety ? ....

Have a look here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=77089

[Budwise]

Priests above 5 piety are immune to heresy.
How do you get them to 5 piety ? ....

Have a look here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=77089

Thats easy, just send the priest to a non catholic area like early Russia like I do and they will go up fast in the Piety scores.

[Shahed]

That's close but this is better:

1. Build Cathedral.
2. Pump priests.
3. Leave them in YOUR OWN territory >95% Catholic, for at least 4 turns, until they all get Monk ancillary.
5. Hunt heretics on your own turf.
6. Or ship em off.
7. Make sure they enter a low faith province sumltaneously.
8. Leave them in a province and make them convert to >90% catholic (this may get you the UBER missionary trait)

Using this method you can have +10 piety priests as a rule. It's all in teh linkage above.

[steev]

If you send a raw low level priest into a highly heretical area he will sooner or later become a heretic himself. First he will develop "odd habit"s, then become "open-minded", then become extremely unorthodox and finally a heretic. But if he does start going bad you can send him off to a 100% Catholic (or Muslim) area for a while and he'll get back on the straight and narrow. Or if he starts going bad you can send him off deep into enemy territory to go become a heretic there.
Right now I'm playing Egypt, and they seem only to get low piety (highest about level 6), not enough to fry level 4 heretics, so I send a roaming mob of peasant archers to surround and squish.
But if you're catholic and you have no cardinals to fry heretics expect a lot of trouble.

[atheotes]

AI factions attack you because:

- You're Rich, and they want what you have.
- You're Poor, and can't defend yourself.

- You're Powerful, and that threatens them.
- You're Weak, and that presents them an opportunity.

- Your Borders are Undefended, inviting a surprise attack.
- Your Borders are Overdefended, which suggests you are about to attack them.

- You Trespassed one time on their land, which is simply unforgivable.
- While innocently marching 5 armies through your best province, they accidentally bumped into your city.

- You rudely killed their assassin, who was in your capital city trying to kill your faction leader.
- You refused to assassinate their faction leader when they asked you to.

- You allied with nobody, making you vulnerable.
- You allied with everybody, indicating that you're wishy washy.

- You signed a treaty with them, giving them a perfect chance to stab you in the back.
- You refused to sign a treaty with them, which they took as an insult.

- You are an infidel propagating a hostile religion.
- You share their religion, meaning your peoples are invitingly easy for them to subjugate.

- Your lands border theirs, making you their natural rivals.
- Your lands are distant, meaning they can invade you without risk of reprisal.

- You are the pope's favorite, and nobody likes the teacher's pet.
- The pope hates you, making you the obvious faction to attack.

- You are a human (non-AI) faction, which is inexcusable.


If you loot or exterminate a city, it reduces your reputation. Having said that, even if you never do so, you will be attacked relentlessly.

TW diplomacy has never worked and probably never will. I say ignore the diplomats and get to fighting.

So true...LOL

[Indy1958]

Gentlemen:

Good morning from Canada!!! I hope this finds you and yours well. As for me, I could complain...yadda, yadda, yadda.

Thank you kindly for your advice. One question here: Is it possible to get more than ONE cardinal per Catholic faction? 2) Does the Russian Orthodox Church have anything to do with Catholicism? As Russia, I don't have a tab for His Hatness, but he still pissed with me.

What gives?

Live long and prosper, take care and thank you kindly!!!!

Indy.

[Shahed]

1. Yes
2. No

[Indy1958]

Dear Gents:

Good afternoon from Canada!!! I hope this finds you and yours well. As for me, I could complain...yadda, yadda, yadda.

It's good to know that I can still get more than one Cardinal. Question here is: How is this done?

Live long and prosper, take care and thank you kindly!!!!

Sincerely yours always,

Indy.

[sableblack]

hi indy.
first their has to be a vacnat seat in college of cardinals. if it is full you have to wait for them to die.
basically early game i make priests until i can make no more then every time i can make a new one i do. i bring my own territories up to 95% or more of my religion. best way is to keep your priests in the same territory then move to the next when their work is done. once you population is converted move to near neighbours. your peity levels will go up if you do this. when a seat becomes vacant the priest with highest piety in any eligible faction gets it. many players end up with most or all the college staffed with their cardinals.
so just play to keep your population happy (ie all your religion) and cardinals will follow.
when you find a heretic check your chances of killing. less than 60% means you need to try with a differant priest.

[sbroadbent]

It's good to know that I can still get more than one Cardinal. Question here is: How is this done?

The simple answer is to pump out as many priests as possible, and send them into non-catholic lands. As other factions cardinals dies the pope selects new candidates, and if you've been shipping off yours to non-catholic areas it's almost guaranteed that the Pope will pick your guys. I recently had my cardinal crowned as the Pope without an election simply because no other factions had a cardinal.

It's so easy that all you have to do is make sure to move your priests to low catholic areas and then let the game take it's course. If you want to speed up the process, assassins are useful to have...

[SadCat]

"Does the Russian Orthodox Church have anything to do with Catholicism?" Not any more, they moved away from each other over a doctrine disagreement. Last I knew both think the other is a hieratic. SadCat

[gardibolt]

Heretics do have a cascading effect. I just had a problem playing the English M/M, 1.1, with Arhus. One of my priests there went heretical, and he converted the other two priests there when they tried to denounce him. Luckily my Theologians HQ is not too far away and I was able to get some bishops and cardinals up there, but not before I had 5 heretics on my hands, catholicism down from 100% to 40%, and rioting in the streets. Finally back under control but it was nip and tuck there for a while---had the Guild been farther away I would have been in a world of hurt and the Inquisitors would have come a-calling to make it even worse.