Re: OOC thread
Heh, looks like I picked a good time to check ULMF once more before bed.
It should be noted, ITL people were so appalled that they formed a mob and captured the new pope, and then strangled him in prison. In my game however the new Pope quickly got up to 100% religious authority, compared to ~40 for the old pope. This was actually *bad* for me, as I quickly expanded to cover about 60% of Ireland by "liberating" my fellow Irish tribes from Cathar rebels. Not only did this put a stop to that, but because everyone hated the old Pope my Bishops were paying me taxes, but now they like the new Pope so they pay him the taxes, cutting my income in half.
In other news, my new heir was slowwitted as well, but actually had decent stats when he turned adult, but died at age 18 without children due to illness. I had a spare, thankfully, who is also decent. However, I picked a reaaaaaly bad time to go from tribal to feudal. Was left sitting with exactly 0 army right when a Viking Adventurer wanted to swipe one of my two Duchies. Even marriage alliance with France didn't help, though to be fair they were busy fending off uber-Saxony (has a bit of Poland and also all of Denmark).
As for Empires, you can found your own that's not the HRE. If you've formed a kingdom level title, click the "de jure" checkbox and on the bar near the top you should see the crest of the empire that kingdom de jure belongs to, and clicking on that will take you to a screen where you can possibly form it if you meet the conditions. Also, if you hold three Kingdoms, you can create a custom Empire (like how holding 3 duchies you can form a custom Kingdom).