My very soul has been cleft into pieces on this day. January 3rd, 902 AD. First, my Christian faith fractured in twain. I stand in Rome, head of the Roman Rite and now the leader of the Catholic world. My neighbours to the east have chosen to walk a different path, transforming their Greek Rite into a new Orthodoxy followed by the Byzantine Empire.
It’s a brave new world in Crusader Kings 3’s By God Alone expansion, made even tougher to face by the three additional wounds I gained right at the moment of the split. All three of my wives have divorced me, serving their papers within seconds of each other. Taken alongside the betrothal that my fourth wife-to-be broke not too long before the schism, it really stings. Sure, I’m the Pope and thus should be celibately devoting myself to God, but a breakup’s a breakup. It’s not all consecrated bread and wine when you’ve managed to end up on Wikipedia’s list of sexually active popes thanks to an utterly hilarious bug.
To be clear, when I took over the 60-something year old body of Pope Nicolaus back in 867 AD, my immediate goal wasn’t to become one of the foremost shaggers in all of Christendom. I was open to being whatever my faith demanded of me as the great schism that in the real world came to a head in 1054 loomed. I came in as one of the foremost figures in one of said schism’s two factions, the Roman Rite of Chalcedonian Christianity. I spoke Latin and shared the exact same beliefs as my fellow Italians, the English, and a fair few other Kingdoms throughout Europe.
In the east, they spoke Greek and had their own trio of main tenets. To the North, a vast swath of Europe followed a third path, the Carolinginian Rite, and had their own slightly divergent creed. Dotted across the map were other, smaller strains of Christianity, all with their own takes on the same religious framework. We’re all alike, but very much not alike, and we’re competing for the souls of the masses. As a succession of Popes, I campaigned to try and prevent Chalcedonianism from splitting in two. Others worked to drive it apart. The build to the possible schism saw the religious climate go through different stages, with different religious actions and events during each one contributing to what the next will be. Sometimes things are in a state of fragile unity, allowing you to breathe a sigh of relief. Sometimes, it’s time to do some crusading, and so religious military actions become more rewarding. Sometimes it’s time for everyone to get their mass conversion pants on, or reformers are given more favourable terms in which to reject or rearrange bits of the clergy’s established order.
I spent most of my efforts on relentlessly appointing new cardinals and building grand Romanesque cathedrals, as well as going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. It’s not easy to be an outdoorsy Pope, though. Three of the five I played as came to me as wizened old geezers pushing 70, with health starting to fail and mainly book-learning in the skills department. Each Pope, you see, is elected from a trio of top cardinals. So, unlike with typical feudal rulers, the next person up isn’t usually a relatively youthful son or daughter in the same bloodline. It’s one of your weird neighbours with their own take on which religious tenets are best. Thankfully, the third Pope I landed - Caelestinus - came to power as a spry 49-year-old.
It was under his guidance that things began to get weird. My efforts to push Christianity in the direction I desired, a permanent prevention of the schism, didn’t seem to be making too much of an impact. I’d convinced plenty of European rulers who already followed my rite to adopt my schism stance, but despite having a fair swath of Italy submit to papal vassilisation, I lacked the skill in guile or surplus of troops to feel too comfortable trying to manipulate or muscle around my religious opponents. The typical means of acquiring more might that I use when playing feudal rulers, marrying off my family to folks from more powerful nations in return for alliances, wasn’t on offer here. Rulers sharing my rite might opt to join in any wars I started for holy reasons, but their participation in that case isn’t as reliable or locked in.
So, I decided to get radical. I made a bunch of changes to the Roman Rite, spending just enough piety points to make substantial tweaks without going over 100 divergence score and stepping into ‘This is just a whole new religion now’ territory. In came polyamory as a core tenet. Out went the rules about women not being able to become high-ranking clergy. Out went the rules against both men and women committing adultery. Finally, in came a rule that in this rite, we’re all for polygamous marriages rather than monogamous ones. Equality and modern sensibilities were here, even if I stopped short of trying to make witchcraft something celebrated rather than shunned, or working in the human sacrifice tenet I’d learned of from the Scandinavian pagans’ Asatru beliefs. These changes were abrupt, but I had done some prior work to facilitate the smooth adoption of polyamory, hosting an ecumenical council at which I managed to convince my fellow church bigwigs that the polyamory tenet should be taken off the list of ones we actively shunned.
As I set the changes in motion, I feared I was about to be branded a heretic and have my spiritual fulfilment meter dip from all good to serious work needed. Instead, pretty much every other religious rite within Chalcedonianism immediately declared themselves no longer part of it. I wasn’t the lone heretic for straying from the norms so suddenly, they were all heretics for not following my lead. Hey, that works for me, I thought. Though on second thought I wasn’t sure it’d necessarily help in preventing the schism. If anything, I’d likely just sped the split up.
Ah well, there was no time to worry about that, because the game was now telling me off for not having enough spouses. Soon enough, I had that remedied, marrying three different ladies, including the Doge of Venice’s daughter. I wasn’t sure if that was enough commitment to the polyamorous bit, so began seduction and romance schemes against the married queens of both England and Bavaria. Having polyamory as a personal religious tenet helped me out there, as it allows you to have an extra flirtation-based scheme running alongside your usual allowance. So, I was able to keep up my efforts to immerse myself in religious scripture and learning at the same time, not unlike a student swiping through a dating app while somehow still successfully revising for an exam.
Despite not being as skilled at scheming as someone who’s opted for an intrigue lifestyle over learning, I quickly amassed three or so illegitimate kids. Because I’d made adultery acceptable to the Roman Rite, to which both nations whose leading ladies I’d knobbed belonged, neither of their husbands seemed too irked by my actions. This was a good thing, as English queen Ealhswith’s hubby Alfred had earned himself the nickname ‘The Hammer’ by successfully conquering a stretch of of Europe that reached all the way down to my neighbouring duchy of Tuscany. I’d also OK’d same-sex relations in the Roman Rite as part of my changes, but alas, Alfred wasn’t keen letting me get up close and personal with his hammer.
Queen Cecile of Bavaria, on the other hand, was happy to betrothe me to her daughter, scoring me that sweet soldier-heavy alliance I’d craved. Soon, I was properly racking up the offspring, both legitimate and illegitimate. Going in, I hadn’t expected my Pope playthrough to be the one that scored me the CK3 trophy for having ten living children. As it turns out, I was right not to. The warnings that my Papal life had developed some weird bugginess began when my betrothal to Queen Cecile’s daughter was abruptly broken off. The pop-up warned me that having now devoted my life to God, I was forbidden to marry. Shit, I thought, hope my three other wives don’t mind. At first, they didn’t seem to. Under attack from a Tuscan duke and the Greek Rite following Byzantine Empire, the latter of whom I assume had finally tired of my religion-messing shenanigans, I managed to re-betrothe myself just before war broke out, allowing me to lean on Bavaria’s military might despite the fact the betrothal kept getting broken off again not far into each conflict.
Then, after around nine different stages of the Christian situation, the schism hit. The Roman Rite became Catholicism, with me as its head of faith. The Greek Rite morphed into Eastern Orthodoxy. I’d failed to prevent the split. Boom, all of my wives left me. I was rendered unable to arrange any marriages to new ones. The playboy Pope was a player no more, though his changes did result in the world gaining its first female Pope, just one short-lived male successor after his passing. She was also pretty well off thanks to her predecessors’ annexing of vassals, as well as their setting up of holy orders.
Keen to check if my game had definitely bugged out in letting my Pope put it about for a bit, or if I’d just perfectly manipulated CK3’s new religious mechanics to allow a period of procreation, I reached out to Paradox to explain what’d happened. They quickly confirmed that things shouldn’t be working in the way they had, but weren’t able to recreate the bug. So, it looks like one which has already been fixed for the release version of By God Alone. None of you, therefore, may ever get a chance to produce a Pope as randy as mine.
In the interest of trying to get more of a taste of the DLC in bug-free form, I’ve subsequently played a bit of one of Paradox’s pre-set Christian schism-themed scenarios. I picked one about King Rostislav of Great Moravia seeking to set up a Slavic Rite, a new branch of Chalcedonian Christianity which works in the culture of his specific bit of Eastern Europe. A nice little story about letting a pair of brothers head off to Rome to set the wheels in motion ensued, while I sat on my throne deciding how much my personal faith that’d pave the way for this new rite should be influenced by the tenets and practices of existing Christian branches. While I was able to get involved in the wider Church situation by puppeting the top priest in my realm to gain access to some of his ecclesiastical abilities and options, things have played out practically a lot like being a feudal ruler in CK3 typically does, albeit with a stronger focus on personal beliefs being an evolving source of boons and issues.
Sadly, Rostislav perished before the mass conversion of his subjects to the new Slavic Rite could complete, leaving his young princess and replacement regent mainly struggling not to end up annexed by the massive empires amassing at their various borders. I’ve yet to see if the mass adoption of the Slavic Rite will prove any sort of thorn in the side of Emperor Boris of Carpathia, whose army is so large that submitting to vassalisation might end up being Great Moravia’s only hope of avoiding total decimation.
All in all, funky bugginess of my Papal playthrough included, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time with By God Alone thus far. As with most of Crusader Kings 3’s expansions, especially if you opt to buy them standalone, it’s worth bearing in mind your preferred times and places to rule when deciding if it’s worth splashing the cash on. If you’re up for a largely Euro-centric - at least in terms of the central schism storyline - few hundred years of helping shape the world’s religions, it’s certainly worth it. If you don’t get as much of a kick out of deciding what is or isn’t a sin or proving you know more about holy books than the next bloke in a big hat, you might be better off sticking with previous CK3 additions.
For those keen to plop themselves into some Popely shoes, there’s plenty of potential for fresh intrigue and hijinks to sink your teeth into.
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