By God Alone

Release date, price, and what you need

By God Alone came out on 30 Sep 2026. It is a core expansion for Crusader Kings III, made by Paradox Development Studio. The suggested price is 19.99 USD, 16.99 GBP, or 19.99 EUR. You need the base game. Steam lists Windows, macOS, and Linux.

It is also part of Chapter V, the expansion pass sold from 20 Apr 2026 for 43.99 USD. Pass owners received By God Alone on release day. The other expansion in the pass is Silk and Silver, set for 17 Nov 2026. Chapter V lists all four parts.

The expansion shipped beside the free 1.20.0 update, named Crozier. Everyone who updated got part of the faith rework, with or without the expansion. Hotfix 1.20.0.3 followed on 1 Oct 2026. The hub reads its data from 1.20.1.2, the hotfix of 21 Oct 2026. The older faith loop is still on Faith and conversion.

Steam news, By God Alone and 1.20.0 Crozier changelog (30 Sep 2026)

• Chapter V
• Silk and Silver
• Patch 1.19
• Sources

Free in 1.20 Crozier, or paid in By God Alone

The Crozier update gave half of the faith rework to every player. Rites are free. A Rite is a tradition inside a faith, with its own Head of Rite, tenets, and map color. Heresies are free. Personal tenets and spiritual fulfillment are free. So are the excommunication rework, monastic and military orders, and the new holy-site rules.

The expansion holds the Christian Church itself. That means the Christian Church situation and its seven chapters, archdioceses and the Ecclesiastical government, playable theocracies, the College of Cardinals, Papal Bulls, Ecumenical Councils, puppets, saints, the Grand Cathedral, the playable Great Schism, and the 867 bookmark Fathers of the Faithful.

Antipopes sit on both sides. Declaring one and the Challenge Head of Faith war are free. Having your Antipope act as your puppet, pay you gold, or sell you indulgences is paid. Without the expansion, use Faith and conversion and the free tools. With it, the intrigue menu gains a Puppets tab.

Steam news, By God Alone and 1.20.0 Crozier changelog (30 Sep 2026)

• Faith and conversion
• Intrigue and hooks

The Christian Church situation, chapter by chapter

Every Christian ruler of county tier or above takes part in the Christian Church situation. They all share one chapter, one set of modifiers, and one Great Schism bar. The game sorts them into six groups: Main Power, Secondary Powers, and Heretics, each split into clerical and secular. The Main Power is the Christian faith that holds the most counties.

Chapters change through catalysts. Dev diary 4 says a future chapter takes over at 1,000 points. Catalysts come from ordinary play: clerical marriage, simony, murdered prelates, cardinal appointments, holy wars, excommunications, lost or reclaimed holy sites, new Rites, antipopes, heresy outbreaks, and councils. A Pope from the same dynasty three times in a row counts too.

Guide the Christian Church is the deliberate push. It is open once every ten years, and taken as Head of Faith it has four times the effect. Dev diary 4 put it at 75 points for a major piety cost. The faith guide shows that window with its four phase buttons.

An Ecumenical Council is an activity with a 25-year cooldown. Guests split into Innovators and Conservatives, and each debate phase runs one month. Clergy, rulers with a clerical puppet, and the host may vote. A council can change core tenets and rule on doctrines. Since 1.20.1, sways cost up to 2.5 times the base for large changes. Activities and tours covers how you travel to one.

Steam news, By God Alone Dev Diary 4 (23 Jun 2026)

• Faith and conversion
• Activities and tours
• Warfare basics

Playing the Pope or a theocracy

Theocratic and Ecclesiastical rulers are playable now. A Christian prelate uses the Ecclesiastical government. He holds land as an office of the Church, and his titles pass by clerical succession. He keeps a church treasury beside his own gold, fed mostly by local income. Feudal vs clan vs tribal compares the older government types.

If you die without a dynasty member set to inherit, you carry on as the next clergyman in line. Designate Theocratic Heir names your preferred heir. Establish a Dynasty lets a theocrat start one, and Church Authority is the law that opens it. Theocracies can only declare religious wars. Restore Temporal Rule turns a theocracy back into a feudal realm, and Adopt Theocratic Rule goes the other way. Succession crash course covers the dynastic side.

The Pope sits on the central church treasury. He appoints and pays cardinals, calls Ecumenical Councils, excommunicates, approves holy sites, and issues Papal Bulls. The College holds up to 70 cardinals, and Alt+G opens its window. With Royal Court, the Pope starts with the Papal Tiara. The Papacy has its own realm page.

Enact a Bull costs piety and needs enough Church Authority. The bulls permit a tenet, forbid a tenet, declare a Rite heretical, or proclaim the Age of Crusades, which makes Armed Pilgrimages a core tenet and opens Great Holy Wars. The next Pope comes from a shortlist of three: the Pious, the Populist, and the Powerful. A winner from another Rite makes that Rite the mainline, and each new Pope can swap one core tenet.

• The Papacy
• Papal Tiara
• Succession crash course

A secular ruler against the Church

Most players stay secular, and puppets are your levers. A Realm Priest Puppet is your court chaplain. A Clerical Ruler Puppet is a cleric outside your realm. A Secular Ruler Puppet is a ruler forced to do your bidding. A puppet pays for its own actions and takes the blame for refusals. Dev diary 3 named a hook as the plain way to win a chaplain. Intrigue and hooks covers fabricating one.

The cleanest road into the College starts at home. Seat a kinsman as court chaplain, then use Request Cardinalate for Court Chaplain on the Pope. If it is granted, the chaplain leaves your council and becomes your clerical puppet. Increase Papabile Score and Influence College of Cardinals Vote then push your man toward the throne.

Clergy in your realm are also money. Levy the Tithes takes gold from every theocratic and ecclesiastical vassal. Lease contracts set how much leasing clergy pay you and how much they send up to their religious superior. Domain and economy is where that income lands.

Christian faiths start on the Conditional appointment doctrine, so either side can replace clergy without asking. Each replacement pushes the Church toward the Investiture Controversy. That chapter starts a 30-year countdown to the Investiture Council. The Investiture Conflict casus belli forces a participant to vote your way if you win. Henry IV and Matilda of Tuscany stood on opposite sides of that quarrel in history.

• Intrigue and hooks
• Domain and economy
• Holy Roman Empire

The Great Schism, step by step

In 867, East and West still share one faith, Chalcedonianism. It has no Head of Faith. Rome and Constantinople are heads of rite, and the East follows the Greek, Slavic, or Georgian Rite. Basil I holds the Byzantine Empire on the Greek side. The College of Cardinals already exists, and it stays Western.

Schism progress never goes down. It rises when a king of one rite attacks a king of the other, when a holy site changes between them, when a head of rite is murdered or anathematized by the other side, when a council strips a core tenet, and when a king or landed prelate crosses rites. The event The Wound Will Open warns that the threshold is reached. The next Saeculum Obscurum decides.

That chapter unlocks Cause the Great Schism, Prevent the Great Schism, and the Sway Schism Stance interaction. Dev diary 7 says both decisions need a king or above who is Head of Faith or head of rite, or who has puppeted one, plus very high piety, the right holy sites, and seven clerical Main Power rulers on your side. If nobody decides before the chapter ends, the Schism happens anyway. Catholicism takes the West and the Papacy. Orthodoxy takes the East and the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

After the split, Concord is the chapter for mending, by diplomacy or by conquest. Mending gives the mender's dynasty 10,000 renown, which counts on Dynasty renown. In 1066 and 1178 the Schism has already happened, so only mending remains.

• Byzantine Empire
• Dynasty renown
• Historical starts

Rites, heresy, excommunication, and the soul

Every Rite carries a Divergence score against its faith's mainline. Dev diary 2 put potentially heretical territory at 50. A Rite at maximum Divergence branches off as a new faith at once. Heresies break out in faiths with fervor below 40, and the chance rises as fervor falls. The founder of a heresy, or the head of a Rite declared heretical, takes the Heresiarch trait. One who asks to come back can end up a Herald.

Excommunication cost now scales with tier. The Excommunicated trait halves one-off piety gains as well as monthly piety. The letter says who excommunicated you and why, and an important action explains how to lift it. With a clerical puppet, the excommunication request goes out in the puppet's name.

Spiritual fulfillment runs from -100 to +100. It measures how well a character lives by their own beliefs. Piety is what others think of you. Fulfillment is what you think of yourself. Dev diary 1 named seven Christian tiers, from Doomed to In Grace. A sin lowers it, a virtue raises it, and Take Confession lowers stress and raises fulfillment.

Personality decides how hard this is. Zealous gives one extra personal tenet, +25% fulfillment gain, and +100% fulfillment loss. Cynical gives one fewer, -25% gain, and -75% loss. A Theologian helps Study Rite succeed, and a Cleric runs its phases faster. The Monk trait now gains levels. Compare them in the trait calculator.

• Traits
• Trait calculator
• Faith and conversion

Saints, relics, holy sites, and cathedrals

Landed rulers can put a dead ancestor forward for sainthood. In the Christian rites, the Dulia tenet must be Permitted or Core. The ancestor needs at least one virtue and no sin. Since 1.20.1 the base cost is 3,000 piety and 500 gold. Dev diary 7 adds a 25-year cooldown. Extract a Relic takes a relic from a saint buried in your lands.

A faith can now have up to nine holy sites, usually three of them Eminent. Only Eminent sites affect every character of the faith. Each holy site enshrines up to three relics. A holy site with no relic of the right faith gives no benefit at all. Creating a new holy site needs relics of enough quality.

The Grand Cathedral is a Great Project in three tiers: Romanesque, Gothic, and Flamboyant. Several characters can fund it, and every investor is rewarded. The site must be its archdiocese's capital. Dev diary 2 put construction at about thirty in-game years at the default rate. The archbishop gets a cathedral domicile he can build up.

Monastic orders lease temple holdings and push one core tenet. Dev diary 7 opens Found Monastic Order to a landed duke or above who is a theocrat or has a clerical puppet. Bestow a Monastery leases a holding to an order for piety and fulfillment. Christian dynasties also get the Servants of God legacy. Its last perk lets any member take Guide the Christian Church with double the effect. The faith guide shows the Holy Orders map.

• Dynasty renown
• Items and artifacts
• Royal court

Chapter V, patch 1.19, and Silk and Silver

Chapter V has four parts. Symbols of Authority is a clothing pack that unlocks at once. Songs of the Realm is a music pack of thirteen songs. By God Alone is the core expansion. Silk and Silver is the major expansion. Chapter V has the pass in full.

Patch 1.19 Scribe came out on 20 Apr 2026, the day Chapter V went on sale. It added support for Chapter V content and the Symbols of Authority bonus. The faith rework waited for 1.20 Crozier on 30 Sep 2026.

Silk and Silver is set for 17 Nov 2026. It adds merchant and republic governments. Its 1178 bookmark, Guelphs and Ghibellines, puts you between papal and imperial ambitions in northern Italy. The Pope's Crusade-chapter decision, Proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven, creates a Hegemony-tier title. Hegemony explains that tier. EU5 converter covers moving a finished save onward.

• Chapter V
• Patch 1.19
• Silk and Silver
• Hegemony

A first By God Alone campaign

Start in 867 with the bookmark Fathers of the Faithful, dated 1 January 867. Its store image shows Prince-Archbishop Rimbert of Hamburg, Prince-Archbishop Adalwin of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Lupus of Aquileia, Rostislav of Great Moravia, and Boris of Bulgaria. Rostislav is the gentle pick. His seat is rated Easy, and the expansion gives him a story cycle about the Moravian Mission and the birth of the Slavic Rite.

On day one, open the Christian Church window. You start in Fragile Unity. Watch the Great Schism bar on the same window. Get a hook on your court chaplain so he becomes your Realm Priest Puppet. Follow the Moravian Mission. Dev diary 2 says the Slavic Rite starts with Anachoresis, Dulia, and Adaptive as core tenets and lets priests marry. Keep Ludwig the German in view. East Francia is the threat on your border. The first 100 years advice still applies.

The rest of the 867 map plays into the Church. Charles the Bald holds France. Lothaire II is fighting over his marriage, and Demand Divorce now lets others press that kind of case. Louis II of Italy rules beside Rome. Dev diary 4 says that if the Catholic Head of Faith loses the de jure capital of the Papal States during Fragile Unity, Saeculum Obscurum starts at once. Patch 1.20.1 makes Ludwig the Younger the designated heir in 867, so East Francia keeps Mainz and Hamburg.

For a second run, try the Servus Servorum Dei achievement: start as a secular ruler of duke tier or lower, or as a count-tier cleric, and become the Pope. In 1066, Archbishop Guido of Milan has his own achievement for making the Ambrosian Rite the mainline. Keep the Holy Roman Empire page open for either run.

• Rostislav of Great Moravia
• Boris of Bulgaria
• First 100 years
• Beginner start