When Crusader Kings 3: By God Alone comes out, I'm going to turn the Roman Catholic Church into a polyamorous love nest

Three's company

Being a pope is a stressful job. That's true today, but imagine heading up the Roman Catholic Church in the 11th century. Back then, the leader of the Catholic Church didn't have access to a bubble car or a social media team. The good news is, when Crusader Kings 3's next expansion, By God Alone, launches at the end of September, I know how to help my pope relax after a long day: polyamory.

By God Alone lets you take control of theocratic realms in Crusader Kings 3, for the first time letting you have complete control of the Catholic Church. Well, as complete as your control can be of any group in Paradox's grand strategy game. At a hands-off demo session at Gamescom, I saw exactly how all these ecumenical matters worked.

As leader of the church – usually a role you will have risen to by climbing the ranks as a prince bishop to archbishop and then gained the support of the cardinal's to elect you after the last pope popped his clogs – you have control over the tenets of the religion. What's accepted, what's ignored, and what's forbidden. Though, you can also embrace personal tenets separate to what is authorised by the church. These give boosts to your leader, such as increasing their learning speed, or giving them more tools to manipulate other characters. Or, as discussed, they can be a method of relieving stress.

Now, by default, the Catholic Church frowns on polyamory. So, if you select it as a personal tenet for your pope, they will need to keep it secret. And, as it diverges from what is authorised, it will also lower your leader's spiritual fulfillment. This scale can be positive or negative, and it climbs and falls based on how the church would perceive your behaviour - whether it's discovered or not. This is an internal moral compass. Murder an upstart cardinal and you'll see your faith falter. Being a faithless pope isn't exactly bad, but you receive a different set of buffs and tools than a pious leader.

I say by default because if you want the destressing benefits of polyamory without the judgement, then you can always move to make it an accepted part of church doctrine. As is your right as God's representative on Earth. Push this change through an Ecumenical Council and it may be adopted across the archedioceses of the church, the sub regions that now crosscross the Crusader Kings 3 map. There may be a great many archbishops who were poised and ready to take a lover or two.

However, each archdiocese is run by its own archbishop and they can choose to reject this change, upping their divergence score. The more a faction diverges from your rulings the greater chance it has to cause you headaches down the line by rallying opposition to your leadership. So, rather than give them the chance to reject you, you could instead declare their order heretical, starting a holy war on the would-be rebels.

As pope, you don't have armies of your own, but you do have a continent of monarchs looking to gain your favour. An upwardly mobile king may choose freely to take up your cause or, with a bit of bribery, you may be able to convince them to put down the upstarts. If your supporter wins their war, then the region will adopt your modified Catholicism wholeheartedly, making your papal seat a little safer.

In addition to hooks, By God Alone also introduces the puppet system. Offer a secular leader a stong enough inducement and you can turn them into your puppet, giving you direct control over their actions. So if you can't entice a monarch into joining your holy war, you can order your puppet to do so.

However, as pope, you also face other threats. You're not a monarch with dynastic succession. So to ensure some other priest doesn't rock up and undo your doctrinal changes, you'll need to make sure your pick is lined up to win the vote at the next conclave. You could leave things to chance, but it's much better to rig the vote.

Ahead of a succession vote, you can see the most likely candidates and their intentions for what they would change if they became the next pope. You can also see which ways different cardinals plan to vote. Now, you can put pressure on cardinals to change their vote see the light with offers of new positions or by calling in favours. But a more to the point approach would be stripping the opposition of their cardinalships.

With all these holy wars behind you, and a pro-polyamory successor of your choice lined up to take over in the untimely event of your pope's death, surely you can finally sit back and enjoy a stress free time at the head of the Roman Catholic Church. It's not like one of those thwarted rebel archbishops, stripped cardinals, or prudish monogamous monarchs will come out of the woodwork in the years ahead…

Travel and accommodation to Gamescom was provided by the conference organisers.