Okay so something I did really borked up my games. I can't place a monarch when I start a new kingdom, and I get locked up in cas in already existing kingdoms. I didn't add anything new. I think I got myself in trouble using the debug menu too much or running BNW too many times on the same kingdom (creating some kind of inconsistency.) How do experienced modders usually try to get past these kinds of major bork ups?

Revert to an old save. If that doesn't work, and there's a possibility your game files are damaged, reinstall your game and start again.

Your best insurance policy is always to use "save as" to make a backup version of your kingdom every time you try a potentially game-breaking cheat or mod. And even if you DON'T... games can have bugs that break your world without any help from you, so it's not a bad idea to do that anyway

I agree, reinstall might be the best course, especially since they are going to release a new patch, right? and I'd have to retrograde my mods out anyways to install the new patch. You are spot on with the "save as" tip. That's actually how I discovered the game itself was borked. Okay so I'm reinstalling tonight.