Secret Religions getting a little out of control.

[Kiethoo]

Hardly even into my newest game, maybe 200 years in starting at the new start date of Iron Century. Christian Cath ruler and Catholics at 100%. I took over Sicily from the Greeks with Ironoclast. Suddenly theres a huge surge in Secret Orthodox courtiers and rulers in my realm....
I only had a single courtier who was Bogomilist and she still is. I removed all the others once I holy war'd Siciily including the towns and churches in all the counties so I didnt mistakenly miss any of those.

I tried to join but even though I did the little event of reading and becoming a member, I guess because I was in a group already it doesn't switch you anymore. So I left the Benedicts and waited and but haven't gotten another bible left in my room since I left secret religion....
My Priest can hardly keep up...

They really need to add some kinda decision where you go on a witch hunt that causes tyranny or something but massively cuts down on the secret cults.....including the demon worshippers.
I know there already is a random event against the demon worshippers where you can do it. Secret Cults need one too apparently Joining the Cult and bringing it down from the inside seems overly gamey.

[Karlington]

Yeah, it's always like this. :( I play with secret cults off for that reason.

[Kiethoo]

I even tried an extreme solution....I converted to Romuvan during my next heir becoming king.
Removed all titles from everyone even barons,mayors,priests, banished everyone, and even imprisoned my sister and mother cause they were secretly orthodox.
So 3 people right? Me and my imprisoned mom and sis.....
Converted back to Catholic....brought in all new nobility.
15 minutes in....my new Priest starts finding more "old christians" (Orthodox).
Sigh

[Fóka Úr]

Bro, switch that off. Its the zombie plague of CK2. Once I lost a Byz run because of it. I just needed 1000 piety to unify christianity when every vassal flipped slavic pagan. Every single one.

[Karlington]

Originally posted by Generic David:

You can't do anything meaningful about them

[...]

The idea is great, but the execution is absolutely awful.

Amen.

It doesn't matter how skilled your Court Chaplain is, odds are they will propagate faster than he can find them. And if they have successfully managed to prepare a county, there is no way to discover it and no way to undo it.

Ridiculous mechanic.

One way to limit its effect is to never Demand Religious Conversion from anyone. When you do that they are very likely to become secret followers of their old religion. :(

[al_x_ator2411]

It was never as bad for me ever since I installed MnM (perhaps I choose my chaplains more carefully?).

Of course I always follow Karlshammar's last advice. I only murder/revoke or re-educate infidel kids and never ask to convert.

I also try not to have foreign religion people in my court (I only allow the Chinese comander ones).

If you try to create a secret cult yourself (like when trying to restore Hellenism) you'll understand the mechanics better. The idea is to stop the cult while it's still small. After a certain size thing get completely out of control. So whenever you start seeing a lot of people with sympathy traits it's time to get the best possible zealous chaplain.

[Kiethoo]

Id rather not start over only because I've gotten sorta a rare ruler this game... 3rd Heir in got Immortal at age 22...22! He's also a Genius and I'm really on a roll with him, already forged 3 bloodlines additions with him and I'm working on a 4th if another crusade pops up soon.

Is there any way to deal with them if Its Ironman?
Can I cheese it by disabling M&M maybe, loading the save....saving/quiting, turning M&M back on....?

Will it help if I go complete sanitation and just revoke everything, murder my entire court including mother and sister and sadly wife now so it's only me and then repopulate my realm with randos from decision courtiers?

[Kiethoo]

Im almost to the point where I just want the Old Christians to come out and just convert to Orthodox just so the Cult goes away and I can start working on Revocations and Accidents for those I cant revoke from safely....hell I might even just covert myself...and start a COUNTER secret cult for Fracticili and reconvert everyone....

[Karlington]

If you are Catholic a protip is to get a Court Chaplain who is a member of the Dominican Order. This is only vaguely hinted at in-game, but if you delve into the game files you'll see that they get a substantial boost at hunting apostates. :)

[Kiethoo]

Thats good to know. Thanks Karl

[Karlington]

Originally posted by Kiethoo:

Thats good to know. Thanks Karl

No problem. :)

[Bruce Wayne]

Originally posted by Szinesbürü Homár Cigó:

Bro, I really like other dudes and I'm a closet drinker. Its the zombie plague of CK2. Once I lost a Byz run because of it. I just needed 1000 piety to unify christianity when every vassal flipped slavic pagan. Every single one.

That sounds horrible.

[Das Boot]

I just turn secret religion cults off.

I had one Ummyadd campaign where I landed a Tengri Nomad warrior, and he converted the entire country to Tengri. After that I decided to not use that mechanic. I also turned off defensive coalitions after a Charlemange game where the entire Christian world rose up in defense of Pagan Saxony because my aggressive expansion was too high.

[al_x_ator2411]

Disabling MnM won't help at all. Secret Religion are in the base game and not having MnM makes them worse because characters are left with no other societies to join.