Originally Posted by Orion66
Hi all, just wanted to pass on my experience of my first game.
My first mistake was marrying off my princess to the Scot's heir. I was hoping that would give me an in to the Scottish throne through birth. Nothing. So I wasted my princess.
Indeed you did, the only thing you can do with princesses is steal the enemy general and conduct diplomacy. Any low-loyalty general is a prime target for this marriage. Any other use for her is a waste.
On a totally seperate issue: Marriage to another faction for diplomatic reasons? Who does this? They will betray you anyway.
While building chapels and churches to keep the pontiff happy, I expanded my realm on the isles, leaving Scotland alone, since the marriage made us allies. I got control of York, Caernarvon, and Dublin. I also captured Rennes and Bordeaux before the French grabbed them.
I was then gearing up to invade Scotland, updating my armor and producing longbows. I was just about to invade, when the Pope declares a crusade on Antioch.
You do not have to respond to the pope's commands.
Aargh! Well I still think I have the forces to do the crusade and capture Scotland. I gather up an army under Robert in Caen and proceed to march through Europe enroute to Antioch.
From England, the best route is to march almost all the way south with a bit of an eastern tilt, through France, and then take a boat ride to Italy, come ashore, march across, take a boat ride past the greek isles and into Antioch.
Use merc ships, and don't dilly dally. Also, everyone in the crusade stack should actually have joined the crusade. Any non-crusaders slow you down. And if you have artillery, you're just asking for troubles.
One thing I had noticed but had no idea why it was happening, was a French diplomat was staying next to Caen and the animations looked like he was conducting diplomacy, but I received no diplomacy window, so I forgot about it. It wasn't until my crusaders started there march when I found out that diplomat must've been trying to bribe my guys in Caen. The Frogs attacked me in Bordeaux!
The diplomat is offering something, but the diplomacy window doesnt come up. He might be offering a bribe as well. But it's a known bug.
Well, I had Henry there and the French army was really small. The hardest part of that battle was trying to decide which unit of horse I wanted to use to rout them.
Well, after that easy battle, and after chasing another French army out of Caen, I thought I could still do my thing in Scotland. My spy had seen that Edinburgh and Inverness was really weak. So I captured Edinburgh and moved on Inverness.
Now, before I invaded Scotland, I was high in favor with the Pope. The only other nation beside me that went on the crusade was HRE. But after invading Scotland, I was threatened with excommunication!
That's absolutely normal. As the HRE, I conquered the entire map in 28 turns, and was excommunicated three times, and went on two crusades.
Check my sig for more details.
I don't agree with that part. Since capturing Scotland is a victory condition, how can one do that without interference from the Pope.
Simple: You attack Scotland and ignore the Pointy-hatted one.
Then you slay the current Pope. Then you kill your faction leader or elect a new pope from one of YOUR cardinals. Boom. Problem solved.
This was only after one turn of war with the Scots. Mind you, the French have warred with me for three turns and their favor with the Pope was higher than mine.
If their favor is higher to begin with, the Pope will hate YOU for not pressing peace, not the aggressor. If they enter into a seige situation, often times they break the seige at the last minute because they were warned. If you goad them into attacking then, they get excommunicated.
Sometimes it is worth leaving a province undergarrisoned to provoke an attack, and excommunicate the idiots.
Plus, they didn't join the crusade. The player shouldn't be punished more than the AI is.
There is some element of random chance to getting "warned" or "asked" not to attack a faction. If you're warned not to, it says "you will be excommunicated". If you're asked not to, it says "you may be excommunicated". If it says you "may be", then plant one unit on their port, an aggressive action that would otherwise get you excommunicated, but not as aggressive as attacking their cities. Then, you fail the mission, and can attack the city.
Buggy.
Another thing, as far as historical accuracy is concerned, the different nations of Europe had warred back and forth many times without such interference from the Pope.
An historically accurate game would prevent the player from having variety as all events would simply repeat themselves. Also, for gameplay and balance, the Pope is there as a sort of "mediator".
Why is the penalty so harsh in game? Much better would be after several turns of war, or maybe warring against alot of Christian countries should bring the Pope's wrath.
I would tend to agree. But... if I can lay seige to all of France in one turn, and then burn it all down the next... wouldnt that warrant excommunication?
After capturing Edinburgh and Inverness, nothing about my defeating the Scots. What does one need to do to actually defeat a faction.
Every family member must die, or all provinces must be liberated.
Check Ireland, Belgium, and Norway. They sometimes migrate there.
Another thing is my crusading army. After being excommunicated, I got a message that my soldiers were griping about going to slowly to Antioch.
Any faction who is excommunicated is no longer a "Catholic" faction by the Pope's standards, and in the eyes of the people, you are unworthy of being the leader of a HOLY army. All crusaders disband the immediate next turn because of the excommunication, not distance travelled per turn.
I had the army marching to the max distance each turn. I'm guessing the message was triggered by their leige getting excommunicated, but there should've been a different message then.
Perhaps so! Another small error.
Also, the idea of having to march an army from Northwest Europe all the way to the Mideast isn't the best way to answer a call to crusade. I didn't want to use up my fleet to do this. There should be a crusade fleet in Italy, ready to take any crusading army the rest of the way.
There are almost ALWAYS crusader mercs available, in all seas and all regions, unless someone has recently hired them.
On a side note, when the French attacked me at Bordeaux, a French noble led them. After their defeat, I decided to ransom the French. I wanted to keep up Henry's chivalry. What did that French b**t*rd do next turn? Attacked me again with a weaker army. I executed him after that.
I've decided to start a new game now that I have a better understanding of the game's workings. Thanks for reading this long post.
