Faction leader got denounced again, sigh.

[Nerdfish]

How does that work, really? If a king decides that he won’t be executed, he won’t. Burning faction leader on a stake is just absurd. Seriously, if a king decides that everyone in the capital will be put to the sword, he can to just that, no one could touch him.

Inquisitors should have ZERO power against a denounced faction because said faction won’t give a damn about what he says. If he tries to stage a trail, everyone involved will get launched from a trebuchet. At least in Rome TW, you can invade Rome and set the senate on fire. This time, the papal state is invulnerable, that’s just dumb.

We really should add an option to use that inquisitor as trebuchet ammunitions. Having am army greater then the entire Europe combined HAS to have SOME perks. Sending hordes of assassins after inquisitors who really should be powerless is just not fun. Maybe I should just cheat and remove papal state from the game. This is a total war game, not a game where I can’t attack a certain faction because some retards in Rome says I can’t.

Someone mentioned surrounding a inquisitor with military unit and move one onto him to kill him – how many do you need?

Oh, by the way, can I play the Mongols so I can crush that idiot underfoot?

[sapi]

Two points.

1) If you get excommunicated quickly enough (from good to gone in a few turns) the pope won't have time to deploy inquisitors, so you'll be safe

2) If you're desparate, put your generals on ships, where the inquisitors can't touch them

For the military units strategy, you need nine units (8 to surround it and one to perform the kill).

Trap one on a bridge and 3 will do :laugh4:

[R'as al Ghul]

This is a total war game, not a game where I can’t attack a certain faction because some retards in Rome says I can’t.

Well, it's not that you can't attack a certain faction. You just have to deal with the consequences. Acting against the Pope's liking will just give you Total War a bit faster. Try to see it that way.

[Sapper]

I think you underestimate the power of the Church during this period. You are right about the "temporal" power of a king/faction leader. However, the power of the Church rested on individual's beliefs, and most importantly their fears, about the afterlife.
I actually think that it is entirely possible to envisage a situation where the soldiers of a faction, including generals and even family members, would fear excommunication and an extremely unpleasant eternity spent in hell as their afterlife more than their king in this life. These guys really believed and that made inquisitors very very scary people!!
If those operating the trebuchet refuse to use the inquisitor as ammo is the king going to do it himself? I don't think so.
My advice is - don't underestimate the power of the Church or the Pope, there hold on the people of a catholic faction is very strong and direct, by-passing the faction leadership.

[JCoyote]

Well, I'm not sure how well it would have worked to perform an Inquisition on a royal. And in all honesty, not everyone on Catholic was quaking in their boots about what the Pope's actions would do to their afterlife. Especially amongst the upper classes like generals, etc. Amongst the peasantry, there was a bigger problem though.

HOWEVER... that does not mean that other nobles and royals wouldn't have a vested interest in seeing the king get flambed. Despite being king, there could easily be enough self interest for many parties in a nation to support an inquisitor making a move on the throne. If they think there is a good chance of getting away with it and having the support of the commoners, there would be nobles and council members aplenty that would try to make sure it happened.

[gardibolt]

My entire family was being slaughtered by Inquisitors thanks to my crusading against heretic France; once I took over the French territories I inherited their Inquisitors. I was down to three family members when I finally said Enough and did the Box-of-8 trick. I killed two Inquisitors this way, which cause the others to wander off, never to be seen again.:skull:

[Foz]

Anyone know if Cardinals can be burned by inquisitors? I haven't had it happen yet, but then again my cardinals are typically preaching to muslims (b/c they got to be cardinals from doing that, and I'm too lazy to bring them back :smile:), not near inquisitor-polluted Europe.

[Derfasciti]

I too find it very absurd that a king, or a royal family member in general would be led by the inquistor to the stake. I think the inquisitors should have some power, like preaching against the "evil" king, lowering happiness and upsetting the populace, perhaps provoking riots and rarely general revolts. Perhaps they could put some of your lower units to the fire, weak priests and diplomats, etc. But a family member? I don't see it happening.

[TevashSzat]

I am pretty sure that the inquisition has never killed any major royal family member during its time. It was more just for the common people that might turn to heresy

[Derfasciti]

I'd like to cite an event that just happened literally a minute ago in my French campaign. I have a family member of mine join a crusade ready to embark from Marseille and head to jerusalem. But the pope in his infinite stupidity decided he wasn't pious enough and had him killed. Now my crusader army will desert because I have no general to take over for it nearby. Now, granted as I recall he had no outstanding piety. But then again, he had no outstanding dread or anything of that nature. I don't think he fought a battle in his life.

Apparently CA never factored in logic in any Papal decisions.:furious3:

[zero-fill]

I agree that Inquisitors are still way overpowered. Anybody who has played as the Papal States has seen the insanely high success chance of roasting basically anybody they want. Hopefully an adjustment is in order for the next patch.

[Razor1952]

I agree that Inquisitors are still way overpowered. Anybody who has played as the Papal States has seen the insanely high success chance of roasting basically anybody they want. Hopefully an adjustment is in order for the next patch.

I can't agree, if you curry favour with the pope and keep down heresy then you will have no problems with inquisitors. Or you can just moove any vulnerable unit/general out of harms way. Or you you can use the surround inquisitor, "there he is, now there he isn't " trick. There are multiple strategies to deal with them so there is no problem.

[Derfasciti]

I can't agree, if you curry favour with the pope and keep down heresy then you will have no problems with inquisitors. Or you can just moove any vulnerable unit/general out of harms way. Or you you can use the surround inquisitor, "there he is, now there he isn't " trick. There are multiple strategies to deal with them so there is no problem.


So we should use some trick to defeat the inquisitors instead of asking for a legitimate re-balance of them?

[zero-fill]

I can't agree, if you curry favour with the pope and keep down heresy then you will have no problems with inquisitors. Or you can just moove any vulnerable unit/general out of harms way. Or you you can use the surround inquisitor, "there he is, now there he isn't " trick. There are multiple strategies to deal with them so there is no problem.
That's more of an exploit than a strategy. I would prefer they actually fix the imbalance rather than force players to find loopholes to stop them. I'm not opposed to the existence of inquisitors in the game, just their power. It's an imbalance in the game and in no way realistic.

[Nerdfish]

We really need the "launch burning inquisitor corpse" ability for the trebuchet, that'd make the game immensely more satisfying.

[Philbert]

It is just not true that a good standing with the pope protects you from inquisitioners.

What is the basis of this trick with 8 units? Does that make it easier to assassinate him?

What might be a good solution for this is if your cardinals would have a chance of defending against inquisitioners with an attack like 'challenge authority' or 'unmask as a fraud'. The outcome of this would be dependant on the quality of both characters, so it would be an extra incentive to get cardinals (for which a good standing with the pope is necessary) and to get them superpious.

[zstajerski]

Muahahahahahahahahahha
Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
it works I just killed a inquisitor with military units,
1 surround him
2 put the last unit on him and he dies :smash:

edit:
and yes it is true, a good satnding with the pope protects from inquisitors, so that when they eaven show up they mostly fail to burn your fam members (specially when tehy have siome pity)

[gardibolt]

Good standing with the pope makes it less likely that inquisitors will be sent after you, but you need to be aware that conquering an area where there are already inquisitors means you are fair game.:clown:

[Kagemusha]

CA should have made a little tweak which would have been also historically correct. As in Inquisition trials.Once the suspect had been found guilty he/she was handed to the local officials for execution. The inquisitor didnt manage the execution itself.
There should be a button that if someone is found guilty of herecy in your domain the player should be able to accept or reject the execution of the sayed heretic. If the player would reject it would drop your your Papal reputation/get you excommunicated in the worst scenario. But it would also stop this kind of Royalty getting burnt in the stake,or atleast player could make a choice if the old heretic of a Prince or etc. should be torched or not.

[PseRamesses]

I don´t have a problem with inquisitors. They´re actually helping me! How? Well, if they kill off bad generals I´ll eventually be offered a new one, preferably better. If they kill a priest, agent or merchant I get to train another in its stead which will raise the level of my agents and gets me guilds quicker. Inquisitors is a bliss! Period.
One flaw though. They aim random targets and the likelyhood of succeeding in excommunicating a person is calculated in percentage. One time, 2nd or 3rd, turn as the HRE and inquisitor burned my king in Bologna. Heinrich was actually a very pious guy with like 4 rating but the slim chance of actually kill him fell through. Its a lottery - which it shouldn´t be. If a character has 2 pious rating or more the inquisitors shouldn´t target them IMHO.

[KHPike]

Well, Inquisitors are fussy people. They're supposed to find the smallest of errors in your generals piety and then blow them up into the biggest of sins, so it's only sensible that they sometimes suspect the pious of some transgression.

[kublikhan3]

and yes it is true, a good standing with the pope protects from inquisitors, so that when they eaven show up they mostly fail to burn your fam members (specially when tehy have siome pity)

It is not true. I had very high relations with the Pope but one of my cities had some minor heresy in it. Before I could bring it down with churches and priests and inquisitor showed up and started burning my priests.

Good standing with the Pope = Pope wishing you a happy afterlife as he toasts marshmellows on your burning body.

[sapi]

and yes it is true, a good standing with the pope protects from inquisitors, so that when they eaven show up they mostly fail to burn your fam members (specially when tehy have siome pity)

That'd be fine....if the starting piety trigger worked properly.

It doesn't; generals die.

[Foz]

That'd be fine....if the starting piety trigger worked properly.

It doesn't; generals die.
I imagine a lot of us fixed that with modding quite a while ago, as it's well documented and infinitely easy to do. Any VnV fixer already has it in probably. Get with the program Sapi! :dizzy2:

It's not all that amazing though, even with it characters still die pretty friggin easily... I've had it fixed for a while now, and still if the inquisitors want family members dead, they pretty much die.

[Moah]

I'm Playing Scotland post-patch and with Carl's combined fix and...I haven't seen one single solitary teeny tiny inquisitor.

Last game with France (pre-patch) I was crawling in them but this time - nothing. Not one. Not in conquered lands either - I've taken france, iberia, East to Kiev and nothing. Has something in Carl's fix modded them out?

(VH/Vh btw, and allied with pope with constantly good relations since turn 5 or so)

[Carl]

Has something in Carl's fix modded them out?

Not that I know of, however I can't garuntee i didn't accidently change somthing. I have seen them around, but not on any big scale ushually.

[Da_Funkey_Gibbon]

I think you underestimate the power of the Church during this period. You are right about the "temporal" power of a king/faction leader. However, the power of the Church rested on individual's beliefs, and most importantly their fears, about the afterlife.
I actually think that it is entirely possible to envisage a situation where the soldiers of a faction, including generals and even family members, would fear excommunication and an extremely unpleasant eternity spent in hell as their afterlife more than their king in this life. These guys really believed and that made inquisitors very very scary people!!
If those operating the trebuchet refuse to use the inquisitor as ammo is the king going to do it himself? I don't think so.
My advice is - don't underestimate the power of the Church or the Pope, there hold on the people of a catholic faction is very strong and direct, by-passing the faction leadership.

Not even slightly. The inquisitions were never nearly as powerful as they are being presented in the game. The idea of any nobles being burned at the stake against a faction leader's wishes is absurd, let alone the faction leader himself. Inquisitions in the medieval period, were rare, directed, restrained and didn't even have the authority to kill anyone. Only secular authorities had that authority, so if a faction leader was burnt for heresy, he would have had to have signed his own death warrent. And Inquisitons was never set up in Germany, England, Scotland or Scandinavia at all!

Papal blessings for a war were often sought by medieval warlords (William the Conqueror's invasion of England had papal blessing, for example.) but the idea that the wars of Europe were defined by who was in or out of the pope's favor is simply ludicrous. Not to deny the Papacy had a great deal of power in the medieval period - but it was a far more subtle kind of power than a computer game can actually display.

As for myself, those inquisitors are REALLY annyoing, but they seem to be leaving me alone at the moment.

[KHPike]

I second that. Though the Pope has ordered wars before eg. the Bohemian Wars he wasn't that powerful.

But anyway, Total War is a game, where the course of history is supposed to be different eg. the Turks conquering England for example, so it doesn't really bother me that the Inquistion can go anywhere. What still bothers me is their overt potency to kill key family members.

I've noted one thing about their behavior. Inquisitors will usually not attempt a denouncement if one's piety is above 2. To them it seems it's not worth the effort lol. However I think higher level inquisitors will still try to burn them.

I'd like to follow up with something newbish: I've noticed also that all my family members start with very low piety. I've tried building church buildings but it's not raising it. So how do I raise piety?

[ByzantineKnight]

You could just give inquisitors $$$$ upkeep, the pope wont build half as many...

[KHPike]

You could just give inquisitors $$$$ upkeep, the pope wont build half as many...

1000000 for one...:laugh4:

[ByzantineKnight]

1000000 for one...:laugh4:

lol

[Foz]

I second that. Though the Pope has ordered wars before eg. the Bohemian Wars he wasn't that powerful.

But anyway, Total War is a game, where the course of history is supposed to be different eg. the Turks conquering England for example, so it doesn't really bother me that the Inquistion can go anywhere. What still bothers me is their overt potency to kill key family members.

I've noted one thing about their behavior. Inquisitors will usually not attempt a denouncement if one's piety is above 2. To them it seems it's not worth the effort lol. However I think higher level inquisitors will still try to burn them.

I'd like to follow up with something newbish: I've noticed also that all my family members start with very low piety. I've tried building church buildings but it's not raising it. So how do I raise piety?
Concerning the inquisitor behavior, the AI presumably evaluates the success rates, and probably has some minimum acceptable chance it likes to stick to. Thus since higher piety generals are more difficult to denounce, they're probably overlooked more often.

As for piety, first fix your religion starter if you haven't already. Should look like this:

;------------------------------------------
Trait ReligionStarter
Characters family
Hidden

Level General_Religion
Description General_Religion_desc
EffectsDescription General_Religion_effects_desc
Threshold 1

Effect Piety 3
It used to read "Characters general" which I'm told is the label for those dime-a-dozen captains that lead in the absence of generals. Generals are "family" even if adopted, not "general." Don't ask. Anyway, that'll start up family members with 3 base piety instead of ZERO.

After that, these traits apply:

PublicFaith - Breaks at 1/2/4/8 giving +1/+2/+3/+4 piety. One way is to have a general sitting in a settlement not moving. Base rate 2% 1pt. w/ church or higher = 5% 1pt, cathedral or higher = another 5% 1pt. This is duplicated for the equivalent level church buildings for all religions. Islamic generals get 1 point automatically, and you get better chances at coming of age if higher level church buildings exist in the faction.
TouchedByTheGods - Just random birth. Self perpetuates.
ForcedReligious - From disasters, assassination attempts, and denouncements against the general.
CrusaderHistory - From crusading, duh :clown:
JihadHistory - Likewise, Jihads.
AdoredByPope - For doing pope missions, apparently. I don't think I've ever seen it.
ReligiousActivity - This one is awesome. It breaks 1/4/8/16, Piety +1/+2/+3/+4 with the top two giving chivalry too. Train a priest = 100% 1pt. Complete any church building = 100% 1pt. Extra point for abbey or higher, and a 3rd for huge cathedral. Same goes for all religions similarly.

So public faith is pretty common, and you can influence that some by making sure you have big religion buildings built. The only other thing to really do is train priests and build churches, unless you feel like shipping your guys off for crusades/jihads.

[KHPike]

Thanks a lot. That helped! Now they don't throw books at my people so often, though they occassionally kill a priest or two.

Can an Inquisitor be turned into a heretic like a priest?

[FunkyDexter]

Just a thought but, while I don't think a King was ever executed by an inquisitor, the head of the templars was and he was as powerful (if not more so) than many minor kings at the time.

While it's unlikely that a King would be executed I don't think it would be impossible.

[Whacker]

Guys guys guys (and gals?)... You're trying to apply logic to a Total War game here. /sarcasm

This type of malarky is the reason I shelved the game about a month ago after the first patch. Personally, I think the way inquisitors are implemented in M2 is awful, M1 did it right in my opinion. While the church and religion did have a very powerful hold on the general populace in the middle ages, so did the secular ruling classes. Clergy and church did hold property and whatnaught, but they also very much so answered to their liege lords. Hell, it was most often the lord who appointed replacement bishops to vacant sees (with the pope's approval of course) for the longest time. Further, the Pope's power waxed and waned over time, kings would often be just as inclined to pay lip service as to actually submitting to the church's will. All this is one of the reasons that I so much enjoyed having my OWN inquisitors in M1. They took a lot of effort to get, but if used right were downright master BBQers and rabblerousers in enemy territory. Having them run around burning any named character they so please like they do now isn't my idea of fun. My experiences do not always coincide with what others report, about maintaining good relations with the pope to keep your land clear, I've still lost characters in my own lands as well as one's I've conquered. And for what it's worth, the "box of 8" trick is really really lame, but seeing how I still couldn't get my assassins to do anything worthwhile, was about the only manner of defense I had. That and the boat trick. Here's to hoping that they'll be rebalanced or significantly re-thought out by CA in future patches, which is what I'm waiting for.

Cheers
Whacker

[Drunkin General]

I think this like a lot of things in this game was just badly implemented due to a lack of beta testing. I agree that inquisitors are overpowered although I have had no real problems with them thanks to that lovely surrounding exploit.
I think every King & Prince should have a trait that makes them immune to the inquisition, Generals in a crusade should be immune as well, I also think that piety alone is not enough reason to burn generals. Loyalty, command & chiv/dread should also be a factor. Tbh the inquisition didn't really kick off till much later in the game. The templars where only found guilty because the french king wanted their land/money & with the loss of the levant their old roll ceased to exist. They where also becoming too powerful & would have have become a threat to France & where already dabbaling in state affairs.

Imo MTW1 inquisitors where a joke, way to overpowered & in the hands of the player. I remember playing a campaign where I wiped out all factions including the papacy with 1 grand inquisitor. I think the game would be better without them since its the AI that is on the recieving end of inquisitors most of the time & they can't deal with them at all. I find them like most of the strategic pieces in the game a waste of space that add very little to the gameply of the game which is supposed to be about battles not endless micromanagment of pointless strategic pieces.

[grapedog]

I had this issue, playing as england this morning. Though I was excom'd at the time, a single inquisitor hung around Caer(the one just south of london across the channel) and killed any priest going through the area that was mine, and any governer in the 5 surrounding provinces. All told in about 20 turns he killed 3 priests and 4 fation heirs.

I was really really annoyed with how that played out, and how my heir's guard couldn't accidentally trample him with their horses or something.

[froglegs]

It is my experience that a priest stacked with a general keeps the inquisitor from striking. Anybody else found this to be true too?

[JCoyote]

I was really really annoyed with how that played out, and how my heir's guard couldn't accidentally trample him with their horses or something.
They can... they just have to surround them first before an "unfortunate accident during military practice maneuvers" can happen.

[HoreTore]

Inquisitors should have ZERO power against a denounced faction because said faction won’t give a damn about what he says. If he tries to stage a trail, everyone involved will get launched from a trebuchet.

Remember that the inquisition managed to burn the entire knights templar, including their grand master. And the grand master had at least as much authority as a king.

What you are forgetting, is that it isn't one inquisitor runnind the trial. ALL of your enemies, including foreign kings, nobles and high clergy as well as your enemies within, nobles and members of your family who will gain more power with you burnt at the stake, are aiding in the trial. Inquisitions were never a question of piety, it was a question of politics and power.

BtW, are you playing with the patch? After the patch, I've never ever seen the inquisitors killing someone important. A priest here, a merchant there, sometimes the odd weak general, but no more than that...

Oh, and it's only the faction leader who is denounced. The entire faction, including the king, would REALLY care about what the inquisitor and pope says... That you are excommed does not mean that you stop caring about the pointy-hatted one.

[holycow]

One important fact, this is just a game and it's kinda funny how people keep comparing it to history. Just how accurate can MTW2 be and if it were, how much fun would it be? If you're not having fun playing, go do something else.

However, some historical perspective, Inquistions were very real and very scary - I blame Monty Python for making it funny. Thinking it'll be great to mod the inquisitors in red and shout "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" as they attack.

[HoreTore]

Our prime weapon is SURPRISE!

Oh, and fear...

[sbroadbent]

Anyone know if Cardinals can be burned by inquisitors? I haven't had it happen yet, but then again my cardinals are typically preaching to muslims (b/c they got to be cardinals from doing that, and I'm too lazy to bring them back :smile:), not near inquisitor-polluted Europe.

I can confirm that inquisitors can toast cardinals, but their chance of success is very low. In my case, my cardinal had atleast 6 Piety. Yea, he was fairly new to the college, but he had managed to burn some heretics himself (one heretic was one of my previous priest who became heretic on a failed attempt).

I had just taken Ajuccio (which unfortunately only had a 70% catholic rating). I went to work getting it up, but the Pope eventually decided to land not one but two inquisitors onto the island!

I promptly took my troops from the castle and landed them on the rebel held southern island, which I was preparing to invade... the inquisitors just advanced my time table by a bit...

Back in Ajuccio I had a cardinal that was roaming around spreading the catholic religion and it took a few turns but one of the inquisitors took an interest in him. He survived 3 or 4 attempts, but got taken down on the following try. I didn't want to ship him off to Cagliari yet because I wanted to improve the catholic rating up to 100%. He also survived several attempts, so I figured cardinals must be immune.

I got so annoyed that I shipped over enough troops (troops that I had plans to return to Bern to be retrained as they had suffered heavy losses), and surrounded and eliminated both inquisitors. You have to be very careful to ensure you have them completly surrounded, as several times they slipped away. Fortunately the troops I had brought over had enough movement points to take out both on the same turn.

So, with that said, Cardinals can be targetted.


edit:
and yes it is true, a good satnding with the pope protects from inquisitors, so that when they eaven show up they mostly fail to burn your fam members (specially when tehy have siome pity)

A good standing won't protect you. Avoiding areas with heresy (or atleast speeding up the catholic conversion process is more likely to avoid the inquisitor's eye.

If anything, you can have your family members become sailors until you have a chance to deal with the inquisitors.

[Foz]

Thx for the info about cardinals everyone, good to know.

As for avoiding inquisitors, since you usually get them by grabbing some land that has poor faith, the best thing I've found is to keep God Squads rolling ahead of your invasion forces. Pack together 4 or 5 priests and park them in a bordering enemy province until it is sufficiently converted. Then move them along to your next intended target, and attack the first place they were at. If you intend to move quickly, it helps to have 2 or 3 squads operating on any given front so they can stay sufficiently ahead of your attacks. This has the added benefit of quickly skilling up your priests, and of causing unrest in your enemy's provinces if he's non-catholic. Often times you have at least one front that is already heavily Catholic (and not heretical), so you can focus your military efforts there for a while until the other one(s) can be religiously subdued and thus purged of heresy and presumably inquisitor interest.

Of course this also hinges on being well-informed, so you'll need a decent spy network to stay abreast of the nearby religious situations.

[Whacker]

the best thing I've found is to keep God Squads rolling ahead of your invasion forces. Pack together 4 or 5 priests and park them in a bordering enemy province until it is sufficiently converted. Then move them along to your next intended target, and attack the first place they were at. If you intend to move quickly, it helps to have 2 or 3 squads operating on any given front so they can stay sufficiently ahead of your attacks.

This is an outstanding tactic which I've used before, just be careful about how you execute it. In areas such as the Iberian penninsula and North Africa, it works well because you have a defined corridor with which to advance, as well as it's a very long trek from Rome and the likelyhood of getting inquisitors homing in is very slim, provided you can capture/convert and get province religion and piety up to safe levels (100%:whip:). This doesn't become so easy in mainland europe when advancing against orthodox and pagan held areas, as your new captured lands will tend to draw inquisitors like flies to ... stuff. I've also seen inquisitors overstep catholic land boundaries to go after catholic priests a few squares into non-catholic territory to go after them. The key is to make your god squad a "deep strike" team to keep them out of range of the inquisitors. The upshot is they become vulnerable to assassination attempts if the AI can see them. As to the inquisitors, as lame as it is, I ended up resorting to the "box of 9" trick to kill them before I shelved the game a month or so ago, simply because it was the only real constant effective way of dealing with the problem seeing how assassins have their own issues.

[Lord of the Isles]

Imo MTW1 inquisitors where a joke, way to overpowered & in the hands of the player. I remember playing a campaign where I wiped out all factions including the papacy with 1 grand inquisitor. I think the game would be better without them since its the AI that is on the recieving end of inquisitors most of the time & they can't deal with them at all. I find them like most of the strategic pieces in the game a waste of space that add very little to the gameply of the game which is supposed to be about battles not endless micromanagment of pointless strategic pieces.


I'm normally a critic of "me too" posts but the above is such a wonderful summary of what was wrong with agents in the first three TW games that ...

me too.