Priest/Bishop question

[Omisan]

Do you get advantages from leaving a priest in a city/fortress or with an army? I noticed that the AI sometimes has 3 or 4 priest in one city.

Do you convert a territory faster with more priests on it?

[Agent Smith]

Do you get advantages from leaving a priest in a city/fortress or with an army? I noticed that the AI sometimes has 3 or 4 priest in one city.

Do you convert a territory faster with more priests on it?

Yes and yes. A priest helps convert any territory he is in, whether he is in a fortress/city or not.

If a priest moves with an army, the general can gain ancillaries that effect piety. Also, I believe priests can gain ancillaries by staying in cities with religious buildings.

[Whacker]

Yes and yes. A priest helps convert any territory he is in, whether he is in a fortress/city or not.

Errmmm... That's still being debated hotly on how exactly priest conversions work. I've kept them in cities and not noticed any increase in my faction's religion, but when I move them out into the countryside I've seen increases. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence provided for both possible outcomes, there's a thread over on TWCenter that's got some interesting info on this, sorry don't have the link handy. It'd be nice to have CA tell us exactly how this works...

[HoreTore]

Well, 3-4 priests really is a minimum when you're converting someone. If you're taking over a province with a different religion, you should have almost every priest you can get in that province to convert. It won't take long, and then you can move them to the next province in need of some indoctrination...

[Agent Smith]

Errmmm... That's still being debated hotly on how exactly priest conversions work. I've kept them in cities and not noticed any increase in my faction's religion, but when I move them out into the countryside I've seen increases. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence provided for both possible outcomes, there's a thread over on TWCenter that's got some interesting info on this, sorry don't have the link handy. It'd be nice to have CA tell us exactly how this works...

Thanks for the info. I was unaware of that. I guess I should stop answering questions

I guess it is hard to tell when you have a religious structure already in the settlement as to what effect a garrisoned (sp) priest has.

I'll try to look the thread up over at TWCenter and take a look. Perhaps placing a priest in a city helps them gain ancillaries, but putting them in the countryside helps conversion?

Still, Russia has a good starting situation for testing. Riga and Vilnius are both not very orthodox to start, and if you take the settlement quickly and place your starting bishop in the city, you should be able to see quickly whether or not there is any change.

Or maybe there is a conversion cap based upon the priests location. You just made my brain hurt. It seems like a lot of things don't come easy with this game!

[vonsch]

Conversion seems to scale inversely to existing converts. But more priests means more conversion power. You can convert a large percentage in one turn with 10 priests (or better, cardinals, though it's their rating, not their title, that matters) if there are very few converts in the region. Once you hit 90% you see it's slowed way down even with those same 10.

Also, there's a good line of priest-enhancing traits for converting a large percentage of a region in one turn (I think the magic number is 8% off the top of my head). So it pays to have "god squads." They self-reinforce.

But there is also a line of good traits that comes from preaching to the converted.

And, yes, there are good ancilliaries in the cities with the right buildings. You can usually get them fairly fast.

My impression (not measured) is priests in the cities do not convert population. They also don't seem to become heretics.

[Hollerbach]

Purely anecdotal, but I'm pretty sure I had a priest in a city decide to go heretic and marched himself out of the city into the countryside. I remember because he turned two priest's I sent after him heretic as well and I had to bring in my best cardinal to purify the 3 of them!

So the no going heretic in a city thing I don't think is right. But maybe the chances are reduced?

[HoreTore]

They also don't seem to become heretics.

Sorry, they do. Heretics are currently popping out of Mosul in my turkish campaign. It's going to take a long time converting baghdad....

[Whacker]

@ Agent Smith

I tried looking for you but couldn't find that thread... Didn't look very hard through. It's a good read if you get to it though. Vonsch's post sums it up nicely though, the roving "god squads" can't be beat in terms of conversions.

@ HoreTore

See that's exactly what I'm talking about. You're one of a few that I've read about who said heretics can come from the cities themselves. Most all of the posts I've seen on this subject say that you can't get heretics from agents stationed in cities. Go figure.

[Agent Smith]

Sorry, they do. Heretics are currently popping out of Mosul in my turkish campaign. It's going to take a long time converting baghdad....

I've had the same thing happen to me before. It can happen.

At least we seemingly have a consensus on something...

[vonsch]

Heh, I did say "seem." I haven't seen it happen, but I don't leave them sitting in cities all THAT much, so I knew my data were sparse.

Anyone got a theory on how hereticism originates? I know it breeds itself, but can it appear from a region with pure religion? Or does it take a mix? Or does it actually require some hereticism as seed? Don't think I've ever had it appear anywhere except where there was some little seed, but haven't watched closely so far.

[Quillan]

I have had a priest go heretic before I ever got a chance to move him. I set a city to build a priest, hit End Turn, and watching the rebel turn out pops a heretic. On my turn, no priest there, and the new heretic has a name that matches my faction.

With regard to conversion mechanics, we'd discussed it here once a while back, but I don't think we came up with some definite hard numbers. I don't know the exact percentages, but I am fairly certain that you convert a percentage of the non-believers in a province. So, if your priests and church combine to convert 20%, and the populace is already 80% your religion, you're only going to get another 4% the next turn (20% of 20%). The roaming infidel priest who only converts 5% by himself turns 4% of the populace to his religion (5% of 80%), and the result is a stalemate.

[Whacker]

I have had a priest go heretic before I ever got a chance to move him. I set a city to build a priest, hit End Turn, and watching the rebel turn out pops a heretic. On my turn, no priest there, and the new heretic has a name that matches my faction.

With regard to conversion mechanics, we'd discussed it here once a while back, but I don't think we came up with some definite hard numbers. I don't know the exact percentages, but I am fairly certain that you convert a percentage of the non-believers in a province. So, if your priests and church combine to convert 20%, and the populace is already 80% your religion, you're only going to get another 4% the next turn (20% of 20%). The roaming infidel priest who only converts 5% by himself turns 4% of the populace to his religion (5% of 80%), and the result is a stalemate.

That works, but using that theory it's impossible to get to 100% unless you round up at some point. Again (broken record time) it'd be nice if CA could tell us exactly how this works.

[vonsch]

Well, considering the percentages don't add up to 100 always, there is definitely some rounding in play. And I have seen regions at 100%.

That being the case, there are probably fractionals under 0.5% hidden, and that might mean there is always SOME small percentage of hereticism around to perhaps spawn a heretic.

Heh, The Lowlands seem to be a hotbed of them. My English Cardinal just sailed over and burned two in two turns. Got the first I spotted from London and another popped the next turn. Darn Protestants!

Hmm, Huguenots? Nah, they must have been in France at this point. At least the seminal ones. Calvin popped in 1550. It's only 1106.

[Whacker]

Well, considering the percentages don't add up to 100 always, there is definitely some rounding in play. And I have seen regions at 100%.

Same here, I've had a few regions at 100%.

That being the case, there are probably fractionals under 0.5% hidden, and that might mean there is always SOME small percentage of hereticism around to perhaps spawn a heretic.

I'd honestly be surprised if that were the case. It just seems to me like it'd be a real pain in the arse to store anything beyond the decimal and then run the math on it, THEN do some rounding. Know what I mean? Just be easier to round to a nice easy int then go with that. Also int's take less space to store, 2 bytes vs 8 I think for a float. My brain's rusty, so that might be off.

Heh, The Lowlands seem to be a hotbed of them. My English Cardinal just sailed over and burned two in two turns. Got the first I spotted from London and another popped the next turn. Darn Protestants!

Hmm, Huguenots? Nah, they must have been in France at this point. At least the seminal ones. Calvin popped in 1550. It's only 1106.

Well she turned me into a newt!

Have you had heretics pop up in 100% areas of faith? I'm a bit curious, my data for this is useless, as I had very very few provinces ever hit 100%, and I modded the heretic spawn rate way way down.

[vonsch]

Mostly I see heretics pop when there's at least 10% in a region. Or if a heretic is present that wandered in from somewhere else. Not sure I've noticed one pop where hereticism was < 10%. It may just be much lower odds though.

[Foz]

Just to add to the heretic sightings, I've seen a priest of mine stationed in London city turn heretic. The reason there are few sightings may be that many people play with movement acceleration on, and do not know the exact whereabouts of their priests at any given moment. I usually fall into both of those categories, but in this case I had recently loaded and not had put acceleration on yet, and happened to know where all priests were b/c it was early game. In order to know that it happened from a city, you'd have to:

1. Know for certain that you had a priest or more there, and that one went missing.
2. Rule out him dying from any cause, which as the game progresses I must say I'm not exactly inclined to look at that particular info scroll that tells me who died and why.
3. See the new heretic move out of the city.

That third one is especially tough: if you just notice him in the middle of some woods the next turn, it's usually not obvious at all that he in fact came from the city and got to move already. Anyway, that's my 2 cents on why so few people have been able to report that priests can go heretic while inside a city.

[Carl]

and I modded the heretic spawn rate way way down.

Where is this copntrolled and what do you need to do it. (I think i've found it myself actually, but i want to check i've got the right thing and understand how to mod it right as it dosen't seem to be working as i'd expect).

[HoreTore]

1. Know for certain that you had a priest or more there, and that one went missing.
2. Rule out him dying from any cause, which as the game progresses I must say I'm not exactly inclined to look at that particular info scroll that tells me who died and why.
3. See the new heretic move out of the city.

That third one is especially tough: if you just notice him in the middle of some woods the next turn, it's usually not obvious at all that he in fact came from the city and got to move already. Anyway, that's my 2 cents on why so few people have been able to report that priests can go heretic while inside a city.

This was the early game, and therefore had few priests. I was actually in the process of building up my religious army...

Now, baghdad had a high percentage of heretics, and a heretic roaming about as well. As it also had a lot of people, that meant I had to convert them before I invaded. I built an imam in mosul, and hit end turn. Same thing happened to me as Quillan. Out popped a heretic, and I had no imam. Same thing happened the next turn, but on the third turn I got my priest, who then burned the other two....

So no, being in a settlement does NOT make you immune to heresy.

[Whacker]

Where is this copntrolled and what do you need to do it. (I think i've found it myself actually, but i want to check i've got the right thing and understand how to mod it right as it dosen't seem to be working as i'd expect).

Sorry my friend, I had to uninstall the game last week and haven't reinstalled pending the 1.2 patch. If you found the variable then that's it, I don't have the name/location handy. IIRC it works just like the brigand_spawn_rate variable in that it's a divisor, you ratchet it way up and it decreases the amount of heretics that show up. It's worked great for me so far.

[Carl]

I found a value in the Descr_campaign_DB file, but I though bigger was more offten as theirs a whitch spawn rate near it and I've been trying to get them to spwan more often TBH.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Foz]

Yeah he's right - contrary to any rational thinking, bigger numbers for heretic and witch spawning do in fact lower their rate of showing up, I remember reading this like 5 other times. Still, weird.

[Agent Smith]

Yeah he's right - contrary to any rational thinking, bigger numbers for heretic and witch spawning do in fact lower their rate of showing up, I remember reading this like 5 other times. Still, weird.

Is it possible that there is a heretic/witch cap? If that's the case, the faster they show up, the cap will be reached faster, thus making them not appear at all until some kick the bucket.

[Foz]

If the descr_campaign_db.xml file is being correctly used, then there definitely are caps.

   <religion>
      <max_witches_per_region uint="1"/>
      <max_witches uint="20"/>
      <max_heretics_per_region uint="1"/>
      <max_heretics uint="80"/>

It remains to be seen how or if that has an effect on their rates of showing up though, at least as far as I know.

The values I was talking about having an inverse effect to how you change them were whatever settings Carl has stumbled into in the files, which I've seen mentioned numerous times, mostly because they also include the rebel spawn rates that many players want to modify IIRC (though some of those discussions have been about heretics and witches too). I haven't seen any definite formula that tells us exactly how those settings are applied in the game yet, just the repeated observance that higher is less spawnings, and lower is more. Thus tweaking those entries looks like it may be a play-by-feel proposition. If the equation is simple and the entry is just a denominator as has been suggested then one might reasonably expect that dividing it by X results in the given agent spawning X times more frequently, though again I'm just speculating and there is no evidence at all to that effect.

[gardibolt]

I've verified priests going heretic in cities myself---they retain the same name, so if you know who is where, and a heretic of that name pops up, you can be pretty certain of what happened. Not a lot of "Geoffrey the Pious" popping up in Timbuktu of their own accord, that sort of thing.