CCRB RECORD No. 0009
Crusader Kings III
Determination: Explicit — Corruption 3, Blasphemy 2
You can play as the Pope, run simony as a mechanic, and rewrite Christian doctrine from a menu.
Crusader Kings III is a simulation of medieval rule, and it does not exempt the Church. With the By God Alone expansion the papacy becomes a playable seat: the player can hold it, and the systems around it model the period's actual abuses as mechanics — simony, the appointment and deposition of antipopes, the sale of offices, the manufacture and management of scandal. Separately, the game's faith system treats Catholicism as a configurable object: a ruler can found a heresy and set its doctrines and tenets from a list, deciding by menu which acts are sins and which are virtues, then convert or conquer others into it.