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What are the advantages or disadvantages of creating a bishopric rather than just granting a count title?

If you create a bishopric in pagan or Muslim lands, does it help convert them?

one time piety boost depending on the income of the province. It also can never be inherited by someone from outside your realm (counties/duchies can because most have semi-salic inheritance laws). And if the bishop is elected pope, you get all his provinces back for free (no BB) and you can thus grant them out again as either counties or bishoprics.

And I do believe that the chances of religious conversion is greater in a bishopric too.

So yeah, there are some nice advantages to it :)
 
Also, a clerical vassal's loyalty is influenced not only by your prestige, but also by your piety, which is often a good thing.
 
I gained about 600+ piety when I created the Bishopric of Mecca. :rofl: Awesome.
 
Also a bishop doesn't have a demesne-limit, so you can grant him all the titles you want and he won't create vassals himself.

and if you make him an arch-bishop who rules over some of your counts, he won't revoke their titles to give to his offspring :)
 
and if you make him an arch-bishop who rules over some of your counts, he won't revoke their titles to give to his offspring :)

I did observe, however, that archbishops sometimes revoke count titles if their Intrigue is high enough to rule the archbishopric on their own.

Except when you're stuck with an Excommunicated/Heretic ruler for 20 years. ;)
lol

To be fair if that happens, everyone will hate you no matter what.
 
I did observe, however, that archbishops sometimes revoke count titles if their Intrigue is high enough to rule the archbishopric on their own.



To be fair if that happens, everyone will hate you no matter what.

Well bishops don't have a demesne limit :) ... so his Intrigue is always high enough.
 
I did observe, however, that archbishops sometimes revoke count titles if their Intrigue is high enough to rule the archbishopric on their own.

You're probably observing them being DOW'd by their own vassals, and if they win they'll revoke the Count's titles just like a regular Duke would. But he'll then keep that title, never give it out to anyone.
 
Two more questions about this:

1. If your create a bishopric with your ruler's heir as bishop, what happens when he inherits the main title? Does the bishopric revert to an ordinary county?

In my current game, I created a bishop with my bastard son as bishop, and he immediately declared himself my legitimate heir 'based on the strength of his rule' so I now have a bastard bishop as my heir.

What is even more weird is what leads me to the next question.

2. Can bishops switch allegiance randomly with no warning? Less than a year after I created the bishopric, I clicked on the province to see how he was doing, and found that he is no longer my vassal but a vassal of the Seljuk Turks! There was no war, his loyalty was at 100% and rising last time I checked, and there was no announcement of a vassal declaring independence or anything like that.

It's quite strange that even if he was going to change allegiance that he would choose to pledge to the Turks as they are nowhere near - the province is in the middle of Spain, surrounded by Christian rulers, though many of the provinces are still Muslim.
 
1) For the player or AI inheriting a higher level title, yes. The realm remains feudal. For AI inheriting same level AI, or archbishop AI inheriting a count, no. It will remain a bishopric.

2) Normally should not happen, but there are some bugs with peace declarations. If the Turk holds or has inherited the title of the former liege of the province you created the bishopric in, in some circumstances the allegiance can be reset so even though he is your vassal, the title bounces back to a Turk vassal.
 
I guess this means it is theoretically possible for a Muslim to become Papal Controller, which would be an interesting situation..

Is there an easy way to edit the savegame to get him back to being my vassal? Or would he just keep reverting back to the Turks?
 
I guess this means it is theoretically possible for a Muslim to become Papal Controller, which would be an interesting situation..

Is there an easy way to edit the savegame to get him back to being my vassal? Or would he just keep reverting back to the Turks?

In the savegame look for his country tag, and edit the LIEGE setting from SELJ to whatever your tag is.
 
Update: he has now converted to Islam, so not only do we have a Muslim bishop, but he is also still my ruler's primary heir, so I could end up with a Muslim ruler - what would happen then? Would I be considered a religious enemy for all the Christians?
 
Update: he has now converted to Islam, so not only do we have a Muslim bishop, but he is also still my ruler's primary heir, so I could end up with a Muslim ruler - what would happen then? Would I be considered a religious enemy for all the Christians?

Yes

And if you exit the game as a Muslim ruler you will not be able to reload the game, unless you edit the save game.
 
Update: he has now converted to Islam, so not only do we have a Muslim bishop, but he is also still my ruler's primary heir, so I could end up with a Muslim ruler - what would happen then? Would I be considered a religious enemy for all the Christians?


sounds like a potential candidate for F12 die to me.... ;)