Creating a religion but avoiding holy wars against you?

[ikko]

I'd like to create a new religion in Ireland but I know the moment I do, the Catholic factions will declare a Holy War against me. I'm too weak to beat them on the field. Does anyone have some tips for how I can avoid this?

[Germaine's Bra]

It's something you just deal with. Size-wise the Catholic or AI in general is dumb-af still with invading in large campaigns like this. You can easily squash and stall it out to white-peace or winning despite them having 25-40% larger force. Sometime you'll get squashed still.

Plan and calculate an upcoming attack. Predict the risk, and affect of a protracted long war (uprising, revolts, rebellions from vassals). It may be better to surrender then retake the land from the new lord who doesn't have all the allies they previously had if you don't use a religious CB.

[garthurbrown]

Build yourself up before you create a new faith and make sure you have strong alliances. You can also do some things to make the other faiths hate you less, like the Pluralism doctrine. And have your leader focus in Learning to get the apostate trait which reduces opinion penalties for other faiths.

[ikko]

I created my new faith and promptly got a holy war declared against me. I didn't build myself up first so I basically just had Ireland and 2000 men to defend against the entire Catholic world.

Hmm yeah, going for a Lifestyle focused campaign with my first ruler was a bad idea. I guess creating your faith is best saved for your 3rd or 4th ruler. Not your first. Next time I'm going for martial focus with my first ruler. Then steward focus. Then learning focus.

[Razorblade]

Just add the "Rite" tenet to your new faith. It'll let you keep the Ecumenism special doctrine, meaning other Ecumenist Christian faiths (e.g. Catholics) will be unable to declare holy wars on you.