On the flip side, I had no idea that demanding conversion would almost always make your realm full of secret religion societies. Nobody from other realms care either, even if you just tried to kidnap their children. They only slowly tick up your “suspicion” modifier and give you some corruption, which nobody can do anything about until you cross the suspicion threshold and a good enough chaplain catches you, which is almost never if you are the top liege. I must have failed to grab the kid half a dozen times but nobody seemed to care. For both of these powerful actions, there are pretty much no consequences for failure. I spent the next few years just cleaning things up and revoking titles. So that was how I conquered all of Egypt and Levant. Then a sudden tyranny revolt overthrew his father and now my little puppet was sultan, and he accepted vassalization. I spent the next few years cutting through the line until he was heir. I managed to abduct the 3rd or 4th line to the sultanate of Egypt, and possessed him. So the turning point of my campaign is shortly after I became Basileus and the Abbasids lost to decadence. Despite all the negative corruption and trait events, once you get to level 3, you have a powerful combination of two powers abduct and possess. Since I started as the small count of Thebes, house of Skelros, I needed power and fast. So like everybody and their grandma, I went for a Hellenic SPQR achievement in the Charlemagne start, defensive pacts, supernatural events, and shattered retreat on. TL DR they are horrifyingly OP and absolutely need to be patched.

but they are completely unplayable right now.

Crusader kings 2 societies