Troublesome heretics

Heya!

I am currently playing as Aragon in SS6.4, for the first serious campaign. Gracul AI, BGR II, Real Recruitment and Longer Assimilation are the current settings. I am already out of the danger, as I control all of Iberia, Southern France and Northern Africa west of Tunis.

The heretics are troublesome. They are not too numerous, but every single one is dangerous, as they are clearly buffed from the vanilla. So far, every bishop sent (~10 so far of varying skill) to have them executed, turn into other heretics, and tend to be heavily buffed in the process, making situation all the worse. Despite always having somewhere around 25 % chance of succesful trial & execution, they have failed and abandoned the true faith. I have been forced to resort to the 'Agent Squashing' exploit, as I don't want to keep a huge garrison waiting for the heretic + new followers (former bishops) to die of old age.

I could train assassins, of course. But they are not consistent in their success, and they are questionable in their usefullness in the long term. Thus I don't want to rely on them alone.

How do you suggest the heretic problem should be approached, as there are no easy heretics for training better heretic-hunting bishops?

P.S. There is a Leonese priest and a merchant in my areas, despite killing the Leon long ago. What's going on?

Update: The first successful burning of a heretic! Proving I've just had bad luck so far. But the heretics will resurface again, sooner or later, and I doubt I will always be lucky.

I've come to the conclusion that I am forced to hire assassins, the situation is simply unbearable. Also, using bishops is not a viable tactic, not by a mile. Even my best bishops have ~25% chance of having the heretics killed. Which means I get, on average, 3 new heretics for every one burned, even though the result has so far been even worse than that. Bishops can not even be trained to be better at the job, because the smallest piety with a heretic so far has been 7. Not a single bishop has failed at burning a heretic without turning into one.

I wouldn't like using massed assassins, because after their targets are killed, they are far from the next viable target. Also, brothels and inns required are low on my construction priority. However, the situation demands adaptation.

I don't want to complain, because I'm loving this mod. However, I'm thinking the heretics had perhaps been buffed a little bit too much.
EDIT: Unless the seriousness of the heretic problem is tied to the difficulty setting, as I play on VH / VH.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Samittaja

I've come to the conclusion that I am forced to hire assassins, the situation is simply unbearable. Also, using bishops is not a viable tactic, not by a mile. Even my best bishops have ~25% chance of having the heretics killed. Which means I get, on average, 3 new heretics for every one burned, even though the result has so far been even worse than that. Bishops can not even be trained to be better at the job, because the smallest piety with a heretic so far has been 7. Not a single bishop has failed at burning a heretic without turning into one.

I wouldn't like using massed assassins, because after their targets are killed, they are far from the next viable target. Also, brothels and inns required are low on my construction priority. However, the situation demands adaptation.

I don't want to complain, because I'm loving this mod. However, I'm thinking the heretics had perhaps been buffed a little bit too much.
EDIT: Unless the seriousness of the heretic problem is tied to the difficulty setting, as I play on VH / VH.

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Spam assasins and get Master Assasins guild so that they have decent skill level when recruited. Then spam them on heretics, replenish ones that you lose, ones that survive will quickly get their skill level improved making dealing with heretics much easier, I get around 50% with a good Assasin.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Samittaja

I've come to the conclusion that I am forced to hire assassins, the situation is simply unbearable. Also, using bishops is not a viable tactic, not by a mile. Even my best bishops have ~25% chance of having the heretics killed. Which means I get, on average, 3 new heretics for every one burned, even though the result has so far been even worse than that. Bishops can not even be trained to be better at the job, because the smallest piety with a heretic so far has been 7. Not a single bishop has failed at burning a heretic without turning into one.

I wouldn't like using massed assassins, because after their targets are killed, they are far from the next viable target. Also, brothels and inns required are low on my construction priority. However, the situation demands adaptation.

I don't want to complain, because I'm loving this mod. However, I'm thinking the heretics had perhaps been buffed a little bit too much.
EDIT: Unless the seriousness of the heretic problem is tied to the difficulty setting, as I play on VH / VH.

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As the other poster mentioned, use assassins...

Typically I will pick one medium sized city as my "hub" for spies and assassins... Ramp up the brothels and inns there, and do all your recruiting from a single province... it will increase your chances for getting an assassin guild etc...

Also... many times, the AI will build some of that stuff for you... So, if you captured a decent city with that stuff already built... no harm in putting it to good use...

That said, even maxed out cardinals can have problems with heretics... If you really want to do it with bishops and priests and whatnot, save your game a LOT... I don't mind losing a couple guys here and there, but once a heretic has somehow managed to kill like 4 priests and an assassin or two... I re-load... I know, it's not the coolest thing ever, but at that point, it's just silly...

regular heretics aren't bad, but the 'prophets' are.

If i don't have a cardinal handy i use assassins or the unit trick. If you surround all the places around the heretic with a unit then move another unit into the heretic square he dies. Its cheap...but well so are prophets imo. Regular heretics i use priests. Key is to find/use the preists with the orthodox trait line or those who have already killed heretics so that they have buffs to not turn heretic themseleves. Never use a open-minded/unorthodox trait preist