But it obviously wasn't done in the church's best interests, the current state of the church attests to that. If Hireshmont was sincere, then he was short-sighted. He should have listened to the voice of reason and not brought the North into a crusade to save an undeserving city-state.
Time will tell on this. Maybe it wasn't in the church's interests, maybe it was. We'll see. He certainly was sincere. But the idea of Terran as an "undeserving city-state" is a purely subjective and political assessment. Undeserving... by what standards? What possible standard could you be appealing to?
Hence why the church is starting to fail in Niselur. I may be new to the game, but from what my character saw, there was little engagement from SA when she arrived in the realm. On the other hand, King Leopold immediately engaged me in the realm, and any knights that arrived soon after, if the church did that to new characters, maybe things turn out differently and King Leopold's actions in Niselur would be viewed in a different light.
Before and after the crusade conflict I see no priests in Niselur preaching the faith, while my adventurer sees many in Luria Nova, which I think fosters a disconnect between the church and nobles of Niselur. In fact it was not until Leopold made his decision known to nobles of Niselur that regent Mordaunt began to engage the realm, and despite his skill at debating it was too late-loyalties were set.
Under King Leopold's reign nobles seemed to be allowed to speak out, which fostered an independent and blunt attitude amongst the nobles, ill suited to being told what to do by other powers.
This set the stage when Leopold announced that he was being considered for punishment by the elder council for the entire kingdom to be incensed that the King of all things was being told what to do, which hurt the national pride. Any conflicts of loyalty that members of SA in the kingdom of Niselur were shattered when they were punished for speaking out against the crusade(at least that is what they told my character).
Now, maybe the regent Mordaunt would have changed the opinion of nobles in Niselur with his skilled wall-of-text attacks, but then he attacked Phantaria completely disregarding the King's wishes that Niselur not participate in the crusade. This enraged the nobles further(and my character).
You would think that Mordaunt was finished souring people against the the church, but then on trial he proceeded to claim that oaths of fealty to the king meant nothing, and that the laws of the realm did not apply to someone so high up in the church-this caused your "I'm a simple solider(probably people who didn't have as much time to put in the game)" character types who normally wouldn't say anything and care nothing for politics to start speaking out(with some nobles saying that "I normally don't do this but... I'm outraged at the disrespect shown to the king").
Then after the trial, he ignored the judge's orders to apologize and started attacking the king publicly, by then nobles had started to tune him out.
King Leopold seems to have the solid support of Niselurian nobles behind him(unless there is some grand plot that my character is not aware of).
The issue of engagement is a real one. As I see it, most of the most engaged Astroists are on the periphery. Many Astroists in theocratic realms are just kind of along for the ride, while the people who really invest in the faith are out being missionaries (there are exceptions, obviously). Mordaunt should have done more.
But that's not at all a problem of the church overstretching itself or something, or a fundamental lack of appeal of the church. That's a few personality mismatches. Reshuffle the cards for the next hand, and things will shake out differently.
Also, people keep talking about the state of the church: lolwut? We just won a crusade without fighting a battle. We literally just had a practically bloodless victory, added a theocracy, several new converts, and seem to, as best I can tell, have lost absolutely nothing. Oh no, people are angry! So we'll have to play to those peoples' interests in the next round.
I think the idea of this conflict as the great schism in SA is shortsighted and erroneous.
I've always considered that there are probably more political converts than actual coverts. At least when you pitch in all of the coverts that put national priorities over religious ones.
Every time an authority tries to use some muscle, it risks a break. And this is what's happening to SA right now. The elders seemed to naively assume that all faithful would be all too eager to contribute to whatever they decided on. But this crusade, unlike the last one, isn't one that has nothing but positive possible return for all members, without any threats to any of them. This crusade actually goes against the political and national interest of a whole bunch of members of SA. The elders always worked cautiously, only issuing instructions the faithful were all too ready to obey to anyways. It seems to me like they never properly tried to coerce the rest of the "faithful" before now, and this muscle flexing is causing a break in their influence over all of these moderates.
No, we didn't naively assume all the faithful would be eager. We correctly assumed we would win. And behold, we were right. Right as complaint was reaching a fever pitch and proclamations about how the crusade would be expanded as a political tool... peace was signed. Barely a battle was fought and the war was done. The church managed to flex its soft power without even a declaration of war.
Did we expend some political capital? Sure thing. So now we enter a rebuilding phase. Decisions always expend resources. This one maybe a large amount, so we'll have to do some real work to rebuild. But we're rebuilding from a broader, stronger position than previously.
