advice on inquisitors

Hi,

I'm wondering how other people use inquisitors. In a GA game as the French (vi, patched, hard), I spawned a couple of inquisitors and used them to devastating effect against the English - burned all their good generals as they were gearing up to attack me. Thing is, now I have these high-valor inquisitors that just keep causing trouble - if I forget to move them every turn I end up with inquisitions. In fact, I spawned a third inquisitor in a province with very high zeal (Rome) and an inquisition started the turn he arrived - didn't even have a chance to move him!

So... what do you do with your inquisitors when you wish for them to just settle down and stop causing trouble? I tried leaving them in Spain - they don't seem to ever get an inquisition running and none of the Spanish generals seem very susceptible to them there, but the Spanish are very aggressive in this game and every few years they attack me unprovoked. (I keep driving them back - now they are stuck in Morocco.) I've debated about sending them to the Hungarians or the Italians, but I don't think that will help my GA game - it keeps turning into a game of conquest even though I have been trying to avoid that. Do I need to assassinate them myself, or can I just send them off someplace quiet to contemplate?

Many thanks,

Procrustes

well, for one thing, you can send them into a Muslim province ;)
they won't do anything but convert people.
But anyway, what's the problem with leaving them in other Catholics' provinces ? yeah, they'll go out of control and mess zeal and eventually some loyalty. So ? Why does it bother you ?
As a rule of thumb, inquisitors are much less succesful at burning people at the stake when bishops or cardinals are in the same province with them.
So you can:
- send them off to muslim provinces (or orthodox ones)
- send them to enemy provinces and leave them there
- keep them in your own provinces with some bishops/cardinals; you'll get high zeal w/out the trouble they usually cause.
- kill'em off ;)

Many thanks, good advice. I need to spawn a lot more bishops - I expanded faster than I meant to and haven't got enough agents to cover myself right now.

One question, though - regarding just letting them burn folks in other (probably allied) Catholic provinces - doesn't that just piss off the other factions? I mean, when I start assassinating foreign ambassadors it seems that sooner or later I end up in a war. (My imagination?) If I was playing world domination I wouldn't care, but I'm trying to fulfill my GA goals and make a lot of money instead - more of a challenge.

P.

you're very welcome.
another piece of advice, if I may: many people (myself included) use bishops (if catholic), priests (if orthodox) or alims (if muslim) as agents throughout the world. There are several reasons for this:
- you see what is going on throughout the world. It is useful to see who's powerful and who's weak, who is fighting where, and how developed provinces are, not to mention exact knowledge of your (pontentially, and unavoidably) enemies' armies. Besides, it's fun ! ~:)
- they can propose ceasefires/alliances just as well as emissaries.
- religious agents are very very very rarely killed or even attacked. Unlike emissaries. So you drop them there, and you don't have to worry about them till the end of the game. The AI very rarely bothers to try to assassinate a religious agents. The only notable exception to this are Inquisitors/Grand Inquisitors, but by the time they are good enough to bother the AI, they are usually also good enough to successfully survive any assassination attempts. Esp. GI, who are virtually immortal (w/ a few stars).

No, killing enemy agents in your provinces doesn't get you to a war with them.
Your inquisitors burning their peasants doesn't get you into a state of war with them, either. More likely, they'll try to assassinate those inquisitors, but that's it ;) Let'em try ~D

Btw, if you like using inquisitors, you should definitely try Grand Inquisitors trained in Castille (+1 valour bonus). After 2-3 high-ranked kills, they are unstoppable, and can virtually kill anything !
You can clear out dynasties with a snap of your fingers :devilish:

Why recruit Inquisitors, when you can instead recruit GRAND inquisitors and burn the pope at the stakes for excommunicating you :evilgrin: extremly fun :evilgrin:

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Why recruit Inquisitors, when you can instead recruit GRAND inquisitors and burn the pope at the stakes for excommunicating you extremly fun

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~:dizzy: ~:dizzy: ~:dizzy:

Wait... You can do that??? I've tried with high ranking inquisitors (not Grand) but couldn't... But none of my Grand Inquisitors ever had enough stars to do it. It wouldn't make sense anyway. Inquisitors operated on the orders of the Church, right? So why would they go after the pope? Oh well, MTW isn't perfect .

Oh well. Rome won't have inquisitors. Cheers ~:cheers: !

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

~:dizzy: ~:dizzy: ~:dizzy:

Wait... You can do that??? I've tried with high ranking inquisitors (not Grand) but couldn't... But none of my Grand Inquisitors ever had enough stars to do it. It wouldn't make sense anyway. Inquisitors operated on the orders of the Church, right? So why would they go after the pope? Oh well, MTW isn't perfect .

Oh well. Rome won't have inquisitors. Cheers ~:cheers: !

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Ive burned the Pope at the stakes numerous times, but you often need a six-seven honour Grand Inquisitor to succeed :evilgrin:

hey, it can be fun ! ;)
and the success depends on the target's valour and piety; so if we're talking a really heretic low-valour (1, 2) pope, even a 3-4 star GI can handle him easily ! Kings are tougher, imo.

Oh. Usually the popes in my game are fairly pious, about 4-5 piety. And I never took the time to level up a GRAND inquisitor. Takes too long and a plain inquisitor (which for me at least levels up more quickly) can do the job that needs doing 75% of the time. Oh well. ~:wacko:

Thanks for the info!

you're welcome.
You're right, it does take a looong time to get GI's, but, boy, when you do get them, they rock !
I've had 4 and 5 stars regular inq. who couldn't do the job, and fresh GI's went through it like a breeze...btw, normal inqs pretty much reach their limits around 5 stars (I've yet to see one get to 6 stars). And they have a really hard time on royalty.
But GI's, nothing except holy jedi's can stand in their way ~D
It's well worth the waiting, trust me. I ignored all my inqs after I got my first GI...

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

~:dizzy: ~:dizzy: ~:dizzy:

Wait... You can do that??? I've tried with high ranking inquisitors (not Grand) but couldn't... But none of my Grand Inquisitors ever had enough stars to do it. It wouldn't make sense anyway. Inquisitors operated on the orders of the Church, right? So why would they go after the pope? Oh well, MTW isn't perfect .

Oh well. Rome won't have inquisitors. Cheers ~:cheers: !

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No there have been a few 'false' popes. In fact there have been times with 3 popes running around, a female pope, inheritated popes (like princes) etc.

Whenever the 'false' pope lost to the 'real' pope the 'false' popes where then quite vunerable.

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Originally Posted by Blodrast

No, killing enemy agents in your provinces doesn't get you to a war with them.
Your inquisitors burning their peasants doesn't get you into a state of war with them, either. More likely, they'll try to assassinate those inquisitors, but that's it ;) Let'em try ~D

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Broadly correct, but I do think that the AI is less likely to accept alliances/ceasefires when you have a lot of agents (spies, assassins, I am not sure about religious agents) in his provinces. But then, the diplomatic AI has baffled many a MTW player with its sheer randomness.

I find even basic Grand Inquisitors with no valour more effective than Inquisitors with 4 or 5 valour. They're so devastating. I've wiped out entire factions with these babies although these days I rarely can be bothered doing that.

When I find my Inquisitors burning populations in Catholic provinces, resulting in zeal going down, and if it's in the early period when I want to crusade, all I do is pick the Inquisitors up and put them back down again. This automatically halts the inquisition and they get back to whipping up zeal again.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

Broadly correct, but I do think that the AI is less likely to accept alliances/ceasefires when you have a lot of agents (spies, assassins, I am not sure about religious agents) in his provinces. But then, the diplomatic AI has baffled many a MTW player with its sheer randomness.

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You may be right, Ludens.
Unfortunately, it is kinda hard to test (not in the least because of the randomness in "diplomacy"), and I usually flood the map with bishops/alims just to see what's going on.
But I must say that I've also got the same impression, that the AI is more reluctant to accept any kind of offer from me...but again, that usually happens no matter how agent-aggressive I am.
It happens in my Turk campaign, as well, where I only have alims.
Oh well, I guess the degree of randomness may be too big to be able to draw any solid conclusions.

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Originally Posted by Blodrast

Oh well, I guess the degree of randomness may be too big to be able to draw any solid conclusions.

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I couldn't agree more :grins sourly:.

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Originally Posted by Despot of the English

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When I find my Inquisitors burning populations in Catholic provinces, resulting in zeal going down, and if it's in the early period when I want to crusade, all I do is pick the Inquisitors up and put them back down again. This automatically halts the inquisition and they get back to whipping up zeal again.

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Good trick - thanks!

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Originally Posted by Ludens

Broadly correct, but I do think that the AI is less likely to accept alliances/ceasefires when you have a lot of agents (spies, assassins, I am not sure about religious agents) in his provinces. But then, the diplomatic AI has baffled many a MTW player with its sheer randomness.

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Interesting observation - thanks. I have noticed that it gets harder to form alliances/get princesses/etc. the more agents I have, but that also means that it is later in the game and I'm more powerful than I was before - so I always thought it was just the AI compensating for my dominance. Curious - will have to try a game w/ few agents.

I thought I read somewhere that emmissaries will lower the loyalty of any foreign provences they sit in - is that true? It's part of the reason I'm always tempted to assassinate them when they show up in mine. (I know that spies can do the same to some extent, but they are also quite hard to sneak past borders. If you can, though - it is worth it. if they sit tight they will try to let you know if you are about to be attacked. I'm playing the patched edition w/ VI, btw.)

I like to send agents everywhere so that I can see what is "going on in the world". I especially like to know where all the other faction leaders are hanging out, and I try to keep an agent with them in case I need a quick cease fire or alliance. I've sometimes felt that religious agents are better at getting those things than emissaries, but I have no proof. I have found that my religious agents almost never get assassinated (though the Egyptians have knocked off a couple of my French bishops recently - grrrr!). The only (minor) drawbacks to them is that they can't propose marriages or bribe anyone.

Thanks to everyone who has responded to this thread - lots of good advice to mull over!

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Originally Posted by Procrustes

I thought I read somewhere that emmissaries will lower the loyalty of any foreign provences they sit in - is that true? It's part of the reason I'm always tempted to assassinate them when they show up in mine. (I know that spies can do the same to some extent, but they are also quite hard to sneak past borders. If you can, though - it is worth it. if they sit tight they will try to let you know if you are about to be attacked. I'm playing the patched edition w/ VI, btw.)

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Nope. They don't. Spies do. Probably at the rate of 40% + spy_valour * 20%.

And yes, religious agents are very rarely assassinated (inq. excepted), as opposed to emissaries, so they are better suited for exploring the map.

This is what I do when I have an inquisitor problem. I usually have a very good assasin to kill the inquisitor if he gets out of control, or just send the inquisitor to a non-catholic province and start causing problems over there.
:knight: :duel: :barrel:

I don't understand why the religious agents are never assassinated, they are the first agent I go for to train up my assassins (especially if they are converting my Catholic/Orthodox/Muslim etc. people to something else).

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Originally Posted by eadeater

I don't understand why the religious agents are never assassinated, they are the first agent I go for to train up my assassins (especially if they are converting my Catholic/Orthodox/Muslim etc. people to something else).

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Because they are liked to much in some provinces, and they have many spies too. ~:pimp:

Another good trick to stopping your inquisitors from flaming, is to get them to target a unit of peasants you own.

Busy inquisitors keep the zeal high and don't cause problems (useful if your empire is far too big).

Also train all inquisitors in Castile for a +2 Valour bonus for vanilla and Grand Inquisitors. (Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition! ~;) )

Mass-targeting grand inquisitors is a great tactic, certain to turn anyone into an atheist in practically one turn!

hey Lonewarrior,

Good call bump him off, I like that because I don't trust those guys...

Lord DeVeau

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Originally Posted by Lord DeVeau

hey Lonewarrior,

Good call bump him off, I like that because I don't trust those guys...

Lord DeVeau

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Nice to meet you too and thank you Lord DeVeau, I hope to see you in MTW multi.
:knight:

keep trying people for heresy and the province's zeal will go up but no inquisitions.

this is how you can boost zeal of a province without disatrous results.

as for spanish, if you can't fry their generals, just park the inqs in the provinces.

people will die as the inquisition spirals out of control and this reduces the agricultural income which is what powers the Spanish economy in many cases.

play havoc with rival factions using inqs.

I've once had a Europe as the French in which no catholic other than me had more than a 0* general and half of the factions were eliminated and grey.