Quote Originally Posted by kamikhaan
It does seem to help. For example, Hungary's starting king has nine piety, if I am remembering right, and Hungary almost always gets a little extra spare change from El Papa. I've had a few games as England where, after a little pruning, I've had strings of uber-kings, with 7-9 piety, dread, command, and acumen. In one such case where I had a king with 8 piety, I actually got 1k florins about 6 turns in a row and 9 turns out of 11 as a whole. Of course, I also did spam cardinals and sent them to every far corner of the medieval world to evanelize the populaces as well, so that might've had something to do with it as well. I always find it funny when the Islamic rulers of Palestine all of a sudden have to deal with revolts from Catholic rebels when they've owned the province for hundreds of years.
My only hesitation with the spreading of the Catholic religion into Arab provinces before I'm ready to take them is exactly that: I'm not ready to take them yet. Now, of course that's the point- You can begin wearing them down with religion before you invade. Still, I don't want to pump up Catholicism or cause a Catholic revolt in those provinces only to see it benefit someone else.

It's a balancing act, like everything else ...