Witches! Witches Everywhere!

[Kalanar]

Doing a Byzantine run - and I can't weed out witches in the empire. I went out and imprisoned and executed all known witches, and within 5 years, there were 20 more. I'd say 10-20 percent of nobles are witches, and my heir is a witch somehow, as well as other extended family members. What the heck is happening? Is this just a fluke? Anyone else having this problem?

Also, I've received about 5 "become a witch" events, none of which are tied to a specific character inviting me.

[PDX-Trinexx]

Sounds like you've got a pretty hefty witch coven (possibly multiple covens) operating in your realm.

If you're determined to stamp them out, take note of which houses the witches belong to. Houses with a large number of witches likely host a coven, in which case you can either set your spymaster up to find secrets and out them individually, or go full tyrant and preemptively lock all of them up.

[Emperor2000]

Originally posted by PDX-Trinexx:

Sounds like you've got a pretty hefty witch coven (possibly multiple covens) operating in your realm.

If you're determined to stamp them out, take note of which houses the witches belong to. Houses with a large number of witches likely host a coven, in which case you can either set your spymaster up to find secrets and out them individually, or go full tyrant and preemptively lock all of them up.

Can you please make the AI react on player actions, like if players punish every witch in their realm, the AI has no longer a strong preference to become a witch, because they know, they will get imprisoned or executed.

It is the same with adultery, they are to happy to do it and it gives to easy imprisonment reasons or title revocations reasons.

[PDX-Trinexx]

Originally posted by Emperor2000:

Originally posted by PDX-Trinexx:

Sounds like you've got a pretty hefty witch coven (possibly multiple covens) operating in your realm.

If you're determined to stamp them out, take note of which houses the witches belong to. Houses with a large number of witches likely host a coven, in which case you can either set your spymaster up to find secrets and out them individually, or go full tyrant and preemptively lock all of them up.

Can you please make the AI react on player actions, like if players punish every witch in their realm, the AI has no longer a strong preference to become a witch, because they know, they will get imprisoned or executed.

It is the same with adultery, they are to happy to do it and it gives to easy imprisonment reasons or title revocations reasons.

I can't promise any specific changes of course, but I can definitely pass the suggestion along!

[Kalanar]

Thank you for the response, Trinexx!

I'd say there is probably a good chance that one of the children of my first character in this run became a witch, and tainted my house. You're probably right about multiple covens. In this play through, I think I have resolved to take a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," mentality and just form my own coven.

[Killahz]

Witch hunting wouldn't be so bad and annoying to eradicate from your dynasty if you didn't lose 100 piety per execution lol. I mean shouldn't we gain piety?? I'm killing my own family members here for the faith.

[dwarfpcfan]

If I were you I'd just convert to witchcraft and take advantage of the sweet bonuses

[Kalanar]

Originally posted by Killahz:

Witch hunting wouldn't be so bad and annoying to eradicate from your dynasty if you didn't lose 100 piety per execution lol. I mean shouldn't we gain piety?? I'm killing my own family members here for the faith.

Agreed. if anything - you should gain piety!

[Sputnik]

Originally posted by Emperor2000:

Originally posted by PDX-Trinexx:

Sounds like you've got a pretty hefty witch coven (possibly multiple covens) operating in your realm.

If you're determined to stamp them out, take note of which houses the witches belong to. Houses with a large number of witches likely host a coven, in which case you can either set your spymaster up to find secrets and out them individually, or go full tyrant and preemptively lock all of them up.

Can you please make the AI react on player actions, like if players punish every witch in their realm, the AI has no longer a strong preference to become a witch, because they know, they will get imprisoned or executed.

It is the same with adultery, they are to happy to do it and it gives to easy imprisonment reasons or title revocations reasons.

I'm not sure human nature always works that way. After all, policies of eradication were employed against Christianity, who responded by embracing opportunities for martyrdom.

[Bordric]

Don't remember having a witch invasion, sounds fun. But did have a couple dukes show up naked and was like "bro..."

[vortex_13]

Originally posted by Emperor2000:

Originally posted by PDX-Trinexx:

Sounds like you've got a pretty hefty witch coven (possibly multiple covens) operating in your realm.

If you're determined to stamp them out, take note of which houses the witches belong to. Houses with a large number of witches likely host a coven, in which case you can either set your spymaster up to find secrets and out them individually, or go full tyrant and preemptively lock all of them up.

Can you please make the AI react on player actions, like if players punish every witch in their realm, the AI has no longer a strong preference to become a witch, because they know, they will get imprisoned or executed.

It is the same with adultery, they are to happy to do it and it gives to easy imprisonment reasons or title revocations reasons.

Wouldn't be more likely that they'd just try to kill the guy hunting them?

[Jx]

Why are there so many Drunkards in the game ?

[Kalanar]

Originally posted by Jx:

Why are there so many Drunkards in the game ?

Probably because of a witch's curse.

[SirChaos77]

Originally posted by Killahz:

Witch hunting wouldn't be so bad and annoying to eradicate from your dynasty if you didn't lose 100 piety per execution lol. I mean shouldn't we gain piety?? I'm killing my own family members here for the faith.

Can´t you just move them to the dungeon and let them rot there? Between the health penalty and the illness risk, they won´t last very long there unless they were very healthy to begin with.

[Sputnik]

Thinking some more on the OP's desire for Witch Hunts.

Although these were unknown until at least 1400, I think maybe why not still give your Spymaster some low-key means of rooting out a coven. Not your Bishop, because the Church largely denied the existence of non-Christian magic/miracles and therefore witches until the Counter Reformation (begun mid 1500's)

But since oppression is never a cure-all, there ought be some kickback or resistance. I'm thinking of retaliatory poisonings and assassinations, functional curses cast from the pyre. etc.

So let's have the 'Witchy Poo' DLC!

[Kalanar]

UPDATE: I decided to just become a witch and started to convert family members. About 1/5 of the family I reached out to, were already witches! I wish I knew how to look in the game log and see how quickly it spread through my family tree before I started converting people.

It would be really interesting to have an event chain where you play detective and unravel the web of lies and deceit that surround a powerful coven so you can root them out, once and for all!