Cardinals and priests

**pikeman93** · July 10, 2011, 05:15 PM

I'm just wondering - what's the difference between cardinals and priests? Let's say I take over a city, and there's a high degree of religious unrest. Do I need to send a cardinal into that city and/or do I need to build a church, and then recruit a priest?

Thanks.

**John Doe** · July 10, 2011, 05:34 PM

Cardinal will convert a slightly higher % of population per turn, but each cardinal provide you with one vote at the papal election, and having the next pope as your own or you allies makes life easier for a while.

**empr guy** · July 10, 2011, 05:38 PM

cardinals are just good priests that got chosen to be a cardinal and is eligable to become pope one day. And you should build churchs in every settlement you own if you are catholic, otherwise the pope can get angrey at you. And you will have too few cardinals to just use them for a majority of the game unless you are england or something and you never leave europe. And if you do send a whole bunch of priests down to jeruselem and convert the area so the pope loves you and you get more cardinals.

**tudor93** · July 11, 2011, 12:42 AM

the cardinals also can't turn heretic

**Nazgûl Killer** · July 11, 2011, 01:16 AM

Cardinals have no advantage over priests in conversion whatsoever, that's Piety that affects that.

Every priest will convert the population religion percentage to your religion relying on its piety. Just having the priest roam around the city in its province will convert the populace each turn. A priest, however, can be turned into a rebel (Heretic) if he has low piety (Even high-piety ones can turn, but are far less likely), the advantages of the Cardinal over the priest are as such;
1) Gaining a vote in the College of Cardinals (And perhaps a preferati seat) when needed to elect a new Pope
2) A Cardinal cannot turn into a heretic

Simply put, a Cardinal is the chosen priest of your nation.

**Diamond** · July 11, 2011, 01:38 AM

Originally Posted by Nazgûl Killer

Simply put, a Cardinal is the chosen priest of your nation.

That doesn't mean you only have one cardinal per faction - you can have six if you wanted to.

**Nazgûl Killer** · July 11, 2011, 02:16 AM

Originally Posted by Diamond

That doesn't mean you only have one cardinal per faction - you can have six if you wanted to.

You can have thirteen if you wanted to, that's not the point. I assume I could have worded my statement a bit better, but I got the point across.

**Diamond** · July 12, 2011, 07:14 AM

Originally Posted by Nazgûl Killer

You can have thirteen if you wanted to, that's not the point. I assume I could have worded my statement a bit better, but I got the point across.

Sorry if my statement came across wrong - I wasn't correcting you, I was clarifying for the original poster. You know much more about the game than I, I just read all of your guides, great work by the way

**Nazgûl Killer** · July 12, 2011, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by Diamond

Sorry if my statement came across wrong - I wasn't correcting you, I was clarifying for the original poster. You know much more about the game than I, I just read all of your guides, great work by the way

I'm sorry if I came out as offensive in any way, I didn't mean to, this was just one hell of a misunderstanding

. And I doubt I know more of the game than anyone else here. Happy to see my guides helped you, I just shared my two cents there.

**Aeratus** · July 11, 2011, 07:54 AM

Now that we know the difference between priest and cardinal, what's the difference between priest and bishop?

**dannyalex** · July 11, 2011, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by Aeratus

Now that we know the difference between priest and cardinal, what's the difference between priest and bishop?

more piety...

**tudor93** · July 11, 2011, 07:59 AM

bishops look badass

**smthhappy** · July 11, 2011, 12:31 PM

Bishops are recruited from Cathedral or Huge Cathedral and they have a "bishop" trait which gives them more piety

**Nazgûl Killer** · July 11, 2011, 12:34 PM

Bishop is the second tier of a priest, generally it has more piety and is recruited with the "Bishop" trait which gives him one more piety point, as for the main differences between them, I have no idea. I only know that Bishops are recruited with more piety than what priests generally are, but there are exceptions to that (I once had a bishop trained with 3 piety and a priest trained with 7 piety).

**Emperor of The Great Unknown** · July 11, 2011, 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by Nazgûl Killer

Bishop is the second tier of a priest, generally it has more piety and is recruited with the "Bishop" trait which gives him one more piety point, as for the main differences between them, I have no idea. I only know that Bishops are recruited with more piety than what priests generally are, but there are exceptions to that (I once had a bishop trained with 3 piety and a priest trained with 7 piety).

Must have been in a city with the religious guide building (forgot the name). I usually only train priests up to 3 piety.

**Nazgûl Killer** · July 11, 2011, 02:43 PM

My city had the Theologian Guild headquarters, an Abbey and I had recruited around 10 priests from said city before that priest. Said city was also Mecca if I'm not mistaken

I have a theory that recruiting priests from cities with low faction-religion percentage gives them a massive piety boost.

It actually happened quite recently, I could provide a screenshot if Stainless Steel would graciously decide to run.

**crzyrndm** · July 14, 2011, 12:35 AM

Isn't the chance to turn heretic affected more by how unorthodox that priest is. Piety seems to only make them more annoying once they convert.

**Nazgûl Killer** · July 14, 2011, 07:48 AM

I'm pretty sure unorthodoxy has a part to play in that, but I learned from experience that a high-piety priest will likely not become a heretic, it's the low ones that do normally.