Ambassadors are overpowered. Especially since all their work is done in secret.
Even before ambassadors, priest options were ridiculously underpowered.
1) They rely on high follower counts, which can only really be achieved in your own realm where there are no competing religions and where you can get people to build temples
2) Maintaining temples of the right sizes, and shrines, costs thousands and thousands of gold.
3) Even with the massive infrastructure, getting decent follower rates takes forever in terms of time, and countless of the priest's hours in preaching. Many of these spent hours don't actually serve to gain new followers, but simply to replace the ones lost since the priest last came to the region.
4) Most of the actions cost so many followers, that no one in their right mind would sacrifice work which took so long to accomplish.
5) The "stronger" options are so "great" that they have almost no useful uses outside of civil wars. In offensive campaigns, they can only really work in isolated rural regions, because mobile troops,
even your own, will stop you and throw you in the
enemy dungeon. And almost nobody can use these "advanced" options. The oratory skill needs to be high. The priest needs to be an elder. Auto da fes require the region have a large enough temple (unlikely in hostile lands), and claiming the region requires that you don't already hold some kind of lordship.
Yea, Anaris. The priest options are so wonderful, I can't even begin to imagine why, even when all of my characters were priests, I never used them.
They are gimmicky at best. Religion needs more structural mechanics that mean it isn't just a glorified guild anymore. And these need to not be limited to priests.
