Players will only have to think about three main resources during their Crusader Kings 3 playthrough: Gold, Prestige, and Piety.
Piety represents the level of respect that the clergy of your religion will show you.
Recommended Read: What Are the Best Culture Traditions in CK3?
The more Piety you have, the more money you will get from the clergy. You will also get a lot more opportunities for war than you would think.
Here is exactly what you can do with Piety in Crusader Kings 3 if you have managed to collect more than you would like.
Table of contents
- What is Piety in Crusader Kings 3
- What to Do with Piety in Crusader Kings 3
- Use Piety to Conquer Lands and Excommunicate your Rivals in Crusader Kings 3
- Get Gold and Claims from Head of Faith Using Piety in Crusader Kings 3
- Create a New Faith or Reform Old One Using Piety in Crusader Kings 3
What is Piety in Crusader Kings 3
Piety in CK3 represents the spiritual virtue of your character. Depending on your faith, there are many actions that could be considered pious.
Doing these things, or just having personality traits that make you virtuous, will get you Piety. This resource will increase your relationship with clergy and religious characters.
Most people that follow your religion will respect you more if you have accumulated a lot of Piety and have gained a level of Devotion (stat that keeps track of overall Piety gain).
There are a lot of ways to get Piety in CK3. Sometimes, you can make a lot of Piety just by existing and having good traits.
If you raise your children properly to have good stats and traits, they will most likely make a lot of Piety passively.
You will also get a lot of Piety by fighting followers of other faiths. So, you will have a bunch of Piety just sitting there, waiting to be used.
What can you use this Piety for in CK3? Well, there are a lot of actions that will require it.
What to Do with Piety in Crusader Kings 3
- Use the Holy War Casus Belli.
- Use the Conquest Casus Belli on Same Faith Rulers.
- Excommunicate your Enemies.
- Get Claims from the Head of Faith.
- Get Gold from the Head of Faith.
- Divorce.
- Execute Same Faith Prisoners.
- Reform your Faith or Create a New One.
- Convert to another Faith.
Use Piety to Conquer Lands and Excommunicate your Rivals in Crusader Kings 3
There are two casus bellis that you can only use by paying some Piety in CK3:
- Holy War
- Conquest
The Holy War casus belli is available to faiths that have Holy Wars enabled from tenets. Usually, only Christian and Muslim religions have access to Holy Wars at the start of the game.
How much Piety you actually use to declare the Holy War depends on how much territory you are trying to conquer.
You will also have to use Piety if you use the basic Conquest casus belli on rulers that follow the same faith as you. How much territory you want to conquer from them will decide how much Piety you will pay.
Players can also excommunicate rulers using Piety if they follow a religion with the Communion tenet (such as Catholics) and the Pope likes them more than the possible excommunication target.
When someone gets the Excommunicated trait, they will gain -50% monthly Piety and every ruler following the same faith can declare war to dethrone the excommunicated ruler.
This can be extremely useful if someone from your dynasty is the heir to a kingdom and you want to take the throne faster. Just excommunicate and dethrone the ruler to pass the title on to your children.
Get Gold and Claims from Head of Faith Using Piety in Crusader Kings 3
One of the best things you can do in CK3 if you are a Catholic ruler is to get gold and claims from the Pope using Piety.
By right-clicking on the Pope, you can see the final action with him, “Ask for Gold,” which can get your money for Piety.
The Pope will have a base -40 reluctance of giving you the gold, but you can increase relationships with him to make sure he agrees to the “gift.”
You can also right-click any Catholic ruler to use the “Request Claim” button. Using this action will allow you to ask for a claim on the main title of that ruler in exchange for Piety.
Unfortunately, this option is usually only available for counts and dukes, since, otherwise, you will get a debuff for the request of -1k due to already being a King or Emperor.
Create a New Faith or Reform Old One Using Piety in Crusader Kings 3
One of the last important things you can do with Piety in CK3 is to create or reform faiths.
The costs are incredibly high, but you will have the ability to change the religion to be exactly how you want it to be.
Unfortunately, if you follow an unreformed faith, you will need to reform the religion at one point or another.
So, you will need to collect Piety and check if you have the required amount to reform the faith when you have the necessary Holy Sites.
That’s everything you need to know about what to do with Piety in Crusader Kings 3!
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