Excommunicated with high piety?

[unmerged(15337)]

Loading up my current game, my king has 439 piety and the pope has 398 prestige. Yet I get excommunicated, the pope dropping to 32 prestige. How is that possible?

Edit: Oh this is rich. The papal controller is a schizophrenic kinslaying count in my own kingdom whose piety is only about half that of my king. How on Earth are these guys chosen?

 

[Jasonkp]

I know loading up a save game can screw up the papal controller, having a vassal with not much piety become papal controller, while your king has a ton of piety, is not uncommon. Excommunication happens whenever the papal controller has a claim on or a rivalry with a leader, or whenever the pope shares a border with a human. Hopefully CK2 has a much more fleshed out and comprehensible system of excommunication.

 

[unmerged(15337)]

But I thought you could only get excommunicated if the pope's prestige is greater than your piety. I know with an earlier ruler who was papal controller for a long time, I could NOT excommunicate an intended target for exactly this reason.

For CK2, I agree and hope they have worked out better mechanics and most of all a way, in principle, for diplomatic means or "aggressive negotiations" in order to lift the excommunication.

Edit: Experimenting with 10 reloads from my save, the same papal controller is chosen every time. It's certainly not random. The game engine really wants that schizophrenic kinslayer with 245 piety. It looks like the only way I can rescue my game is to make another bishopric right on reload -- I have one day before otherwise certain excommunication.

 

[Alfredian]

How bad would the excommunication be? Is it something you can cope with untill you get an event to cancel it out?

 

[unmerged(15337)]

How bad would the excommunication be? Is it something you can cope with untill you get an event to cancel it out?

At worst, a full generation of massive disloyalty problems throughout my court and my vassals. I was determined to avoid that if it was reasonably possible to do so. I was particularly irritated because I was protected against excommunication -- or so I thought. I still don't understand how the papal controller was able to excommunicate me when my piety was greater than the pope's prestige.

 

[Alfredian]

Do you have any territory that borders the Pope's domains, or anything else that is likely to trigger the Pope to act agressively?

 

[unmerged(15337)]

I do border (actually surround) one of the Pope's provinces. As for something "likely to trigger the Pope to act aggressively" I don't know just what these triggers are. Truthfully, in my game the Popes are not acting aggressively at all. It's been 40 years since the last crusade ended and they have pretty much just sat on their butts all that time.