reduced catholic holy orders

[mutantmuppet]

i very rarely play as catholic and while I don't mind the fact it means I will constantly get the pop calling for a crusade against me cos I'm the player despite easier targets I do object to the fact that they seem to be able to constantly generate 30+ holy orders to ensure now matter how small or large the populace of catholic counties there are it always enables the crusade to call on 2-3 x my army.

in my current run through they have 300 counties of faith but can call on 400k troops because they have so many holy orders and its just getting ridiculous.

sadly there does not seem to be a mod that limits the number of holy orders that can be created and I don't want to convert and become catholic.

the only option I see is to tweak the faith rules in game at the start and prevent all holy wars which detracts from the game - it is after all crusader kings

I've beaten back two crusades already - again both were over double my size but I really don't fancy a stand up drag them out fight over multiple years which is what it will likely take against that many troops - not too mention they don't turn up until like a year plus after the start date of the crusade in the hope your allies has taken enough attrition to be of no use when they do arrive.

Anyway just a vent and a hopeful request that we see some sort of cap put on this stupidity and 'cheat' just so the AI can attack your empire.

(and no I can't just release the target area and vassal as they are de jure to me otherwise I'd have thrown them to the wolves just to avoid the boredom of a pointless war. If I was closer to the end game I might just let them take it but still have 200 years to go and really want to get through an entire run as unreformed astaru lol)

[Deusmodeus]

They start with a few pre-generated ones

however, AI can create new orders as the game goes on regardless of faith.

if your seeing a ton of holy orders for a small faith, its likely that you did not revoke/kick out the order from land you took.

also pope spams Mercs during crusades. this will be limited with a cap later this year

[mutantmuppet]

thanks but knew all that as my rant noted my last few games its the catholic holy orders that have gotten out of control. most other religions don't have any or only have 1 or two. In this run and the last two I have done the catholics have had stupid numbers of holy orders up and running at any one time by the time I have an empire.

Not sure if it is just happening for my last few runs but my rant is about the fact that the moment you are non catholic and of a size the HRE or Byzantine cannot out number you it seems to spam catholic holy orders - in my current run and the third crusade against me they have in excess of 30 holy orders to boost their army size to over 400k

I did not mention other faiths or it being an issue with them as its never been it just seems to be always the catholics spamming holy orders so the AI can crusade against you.

what makes it more annoying is the few times i have played catholic it no longer spams the number of holy orders so you are never in the position I am facing of having 2+ x the enemy troops (though the way crusades work you would still have a major chance of losing lol)

[Deusmodeus]

Part of the issue is that catholics also start in a position where they can create Holy Orders more easily then some other faiths.
All they need is to be a King with 500 gold and 1000 piety, and an optional positive opinion with HoF.

Given the catholics have Northern Spain, England, France, Germany, Italy, and a few kings in-between, plus a few pagans-kings who will convert, they sit in a strong position to form orders.
Not to mention that orders don't always carry over to the next heir, which lets them take the decision again.

Outside of the Orthodox and Muslims, other faiths don't often have a cluster of kings, as they usually are multiple dukedoms or try to unify their regions under one throne.

[VBigB]

I usually either play far enough away from Catholic territory that Crusades against me arem't really an issue or I'm conquering Catholic territory and revoking catholic holy order leases as I go. I can't say I've ever had crusades to the degree that you are (although I mostly start in 867),

I will say they really need to add a quality of life filter on that revoke holy order lease screen so that you can filter for holy orders not of you faith. And while I'm taking about quaility of life I really wish they had a search bar when you re-direct a great holy war...

[Deusmodeus]

Originally posted by VBigB:

I will say they really need to add a quality of life filter on that revoke holy order lease screen so that you can filter for holy orders not of you faith.

heavily agreed. I've stopped relying on the decision menu. Instead I'll click on the Order's holdings and if it snaps to my lands, I revoke it through the Holding UI instead

[mutantmuppet]

lets hope there are some tweaks to catholic holy orders and some of the above requests with the new focus on that religion coming in september.

Start in 867 as well and have been just trying to build up and hold scandanavian which is unfortunately close to the ever expanding HRE and more so when my vassals decide to expand my borders for me - tend to keep authority at level 3 as 4 often tips over too many vassals in to problem ones lol

found a mod that blocks crusades so may just start again and use that as there are a couple of new mods I want to try I've been waiting to upload once this run finishes. No real new goals in place currently so while I'd like to have gotten to the end date not sure I'll bother now though might try the war and see how it goes and if it starts to drag on and get in the way of things do a new start then

[vortex_13]

I've never seen the AI make more than a couple Holy Orders. Sounds like they're just hiring Merceneries.

[mutantmuppet]

nope I checked before ranting last counts was 32 holy Orders each with between 4-6k troops making up nearly half the 400k the pope was able to call against me. As I noted before its not the first time this has happened in game to me on a run

if its not happened to you as a non catholic empire lucky you enjoy the moment while you can lol

of course the AI being the AI then did its other favourite tactic when you are in a holy war and three kingdoms pledged troops to it and then declared war for parts of my empire that were on the opposite side of my empire to the holy war.