eh, why are people hysterical about Inquisiters?

Ive played three campaigns so far, english, milan, and well along on spanish.
All VH/VH, all Full lenght.

Not once,Ever, have I lost a commander of a crusade to an inquistor.

Not once, have I been inundated with Inquistors.
Max 2, ever. That was Milan, and i was at war with 4 catholic factions. And had missed a crusade. And the Pope hated me.

Not Once, ever, have I lost a family member who was more than 2-3 pious.
-ANY member that was burnt was ALWAYS heretical to some degree; i.e with a Pagan Magician, a Heretic trait, or once, memorably, Muslim! (lol)

I HAVE assassinated Inquistors.
They can be tough, but wtf would i want an uber-super-dooper-schwarzenegger of an assasin every time i trained one? Inquisitors are MEANT to be tough, and make you fear them. It was their primary weapon- fear.

So, I fear them, and keep my lands clean of heretics and imams, go on crusades and usually obey the pope. Ergo, no Inqs.

Ive just come from my spanish campaing where an Inq arrived, wandered around for a bit, then left. No problems.
Nice high rating with the pope, no heretics, no magician ancilaries on the nearby family, and my leader was on a crusade.

Therefore, if you follow what the game suggests, and get involved a little in the historical atmosphere, you should have no problems.

Just for laughs, my next campaign Im gonna be a complete heretic, destroying churches etc, allowing heresy, fighting catholics, yadda yadda.
THEN we'll see how many Inqs land on top of me.

I bet itll be tonnes :)

Well, in my current Venetian campaign, I allied with the Papal States on turn 2. I've kept my pope-o-meter between 8 and 10 all the time. I went on the crusade that was called. I built churches in every settlement I had, maxxed out the number of priests I could have, and put them to quashing the heresy that was in the regions at the start. There were two inquisitors in northern Italy early in the game. Mostly they were there because of the Milanese and Holy Roman Empire, but I lost at least 6 priests this game because for no apparent reason they'd just try to denounce someone. They tried both my initial faction leader and heir, both of whom had high piety (4 for the leader and 6 for the heir who'd just come back from a crusade!) but those were both found innocent.

Now, when they finally wandered out of the area, I haven't seen any since. But, as long as they are hanging around, they seem to just pick a random target and try him. 3 of the priests they burned were ON THEIR FIRST TURN AFTER BEING CREATED! There are some questions about the power of inquisitors, and they might be a little too good at doing what they do. My question is about the way they choose their targets. I think it's far far too random.

fair 'nuff.

Well guess it depends on everyones personal experience..

But the ist campaign I did as the english..they took out my faction leader...then later a gereral on a crusade...(which meant everyone deserted)..then a faction heir....and 5 priests..

So...um I didnt like that a whole lot! lol

i lost my scottish crusader heir to an inquisitor =(
he was on frances kingdom yknow, making his way to antioch and all when tragedy struck. an overpious zealot o a inquisitor decided to "try" my crusading heir. well guess what? MY HEIR GOT STAKED! bah, needless to say i re-loaded and made sure to take another route =P

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Originally Posted by Headlocked

Ive played three campaigns so far, english, milan, and well along on spanish.
All VH/VH, all Full lenght.

Not once,Ever, have I lost a commander of a crusade to an inquistor.

Not once, have I been inundated with Inquistors.
Max 2, ever. That was Milan, and i was at war with 4 catholic factions. And had missed a crusade. And the Pope hated me.

Not Once, ever, have I lost a family member who was more than 2-3 pious.
-ANY member that was burnt was ALWAYS heretical to some degree; i.e with a Pagan Magician, a Heretic trait, or once, memorably, Muslim! (lol)

I HAVE assassinated Inquistors.
They can be tough, but wtf would i want an uber-super-dooper-schwarzenegger of an assasin every time i trained one? Inquisitors are MEANT to be tough, and make you fear them. It was their primary weapon- fear.

So, I fear them, and keep my lands clean of heretics and imams, go on crusades and usually obey the pope. Ergo, no Inqs.

Ive just come from my spanish campaing where an Inq arrived, wandered around for a bit, then left. No problems.
Nice high rating with the pope, no heretics, no magician ancilaries on the nearby family, and my leader was on a crusade.

Therefore, if you follow what the game suggests, and get involved a little in the historical atmosphere, you should have no problems.

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everybody else is clearly just making it up and bad at playing at the same time.

obvious really

wonder why nobody noticed that before.

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Originally Posted by Darkmoor_Dragon

everybody else is clearly just making it up and crap at playing at the same time.

obvious really

wonder why nobody noticed that before.

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I noticed! :laugh4:

well, that proves it then.

you take ten moves to get a general to a city then inquisitor pops up and kills him half an inch from destination. Is this supposed to be an improvement in med 2.

Well good for you. I have level 10 assassins trying to assassinate them, but I continuly fail. They killed numerous amount of 4-5 start generals, including my faction heir. I'd be going to invade a region and an inquisiter would pop up and kill my leading general. VERY ANNOYING, especially when it happens 3 times in a row and halts my attack, even though the Pope loves me. So I'd say you are just lucky, they are indeed very annoying.

A real problem is that even when your faction is religiously zealot the family members are never pious at all. I've been playing Venice for 200 turns (modded for 2 turns per year) and I have priests and churches everywhere, 9 Caridnals, the Pope is Venetian and he loves me yet I still lose the odd leader to Inquistors. This seems to be down to that most of my leaders have 1 or 2 piety. This does seem a bit odd considering.

It happens!!! There are several work around usually but once you loose a full stack or a faction leader or 3 you aren't likely to forget it the next dozen or so campaigns after...yah know!

I used to have a problem with the inquisitors, but then i just gave the pope some money, now they just stand there, and kill off muslim commanders, and rebel priests and witches.

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Originally Posted by pleasy

A real problem is that even when your faction is religiously zealot the family members are never pious at all. I've been playing Venice for 200 turns (modded for 2 turns per year) and I have priests and churches everywhere, 9 Caridnals, the Pope is Venetian and he loves me yet I still lose the odd leader to Inquistors. This seems to be down to that most of my leaders have 1 or 2 piety. This does seem a bit odd considering.

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That's because, too date, nobody, including the "inquisitors are underpowered you're just a woeful player" people haven't managed to show exactly what is the determining factor for individual character piety.

And, given the total absence of documentation on that from CA, it is quite probably that the mechanism doesn't, currently, exist or is totally broken.

The other problem is, harder difficulties causes extra problems. And for most of us we want the AI to have an edge, not something that's going to plow through your generals.

I had cardinals fried at the stake and not even 8 peity is safe. perhaps 10 peity may be near immune. That is just plain wrong when it is a cardinal getting fried

I have seen Inquisiters wondering around, but they only once since the MTW2 relesase, killed one of my diplomats. I think they don't bother me, because I always upgrade churces, make enough priests to have >99% catholic and after 50 turns own the pope :)

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Originally Posted by tobigforyou

I used to have a problem with the inquisitors, but then i just gave the pope some money, now they just stand there, and kill off muslim commanders, and rebel priests and witches.

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Do you mean "Christian" generals with the Muslim trait or actual Islamic generals , because if the inquisitors are able to kill non-catholic generals , then they are hella-bugged {if a group of inquisitors tried to enter a non-christian army camp and put the general on trial , the army would simply kill them} .

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Originally Posted by Mr Frost

Do you mean "Christian" generals with the Muslim trait or actual Islamic generals , because if the inquisitors are able to kill non-catholic generals , then they are hella-bugged {if a group of inquisitors tried to enter a non-christian army camp and put the general on trial , the army would simply kill them} .

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Islamic Guard: "Hey! Where are you two going!?!?"
Inquisitor: "We are heading for the general's tent obviously, what else could we be doing?"
Islamic Guard: "You could be spies or assassins, I won't let you in!" *Raises weapon*
Inquisitor: "Please... no need for that." *Waves hand casually in front of himself* "We are merely inquisitors here to try your general for herecy against the Catholic church, nothing to be afraid of."
Islamic Guard: "You are merely inquisitors here to try my general for herecy agianst the Catholic church... Nothing to be afraid of."
Inquisitor: "See... Nothing bad. Oh, by the way..." *Waves hand again* "You didn't see the pile of wood we brought to burn him with.... *mumbles to companion as they walk away towards the tent* This one should be easy... he's a muslim!"

I was annoyed when a flameburner got my best Merchant, a guy who doesn't even have a piety rating, now I've learn to head for the hills anytime I want to preserve someone, a minor inconvenience.

But also following others advice , bribing the pope, killing every heretic quickly and making heresy is low all help to keep the flamers at bay and good strategic game design IMHO.


And if all else fails surround him with troops and pop another unit on top of him and ...poof.. no more flameburner... and yes a bit of a cheat but then getting merchants is not really the go either....

The problem is threefold :

1) Piety for generals is somewhat borked.

All generals should start off with 3 piety, but they don't because (as I understand from what... was it dopp ? I think it was dopp ... said from studying the files) the trigger for starterPiety doesn't work like it should. Apart from that, it's easy to raise piety - build churches, train priests, sit in a town with a big church + theologian guild for a few years, go on crusade, be chivalrous, all of that raises piety over some time.

Now that I know how Pagan Magicians are triggered (ie random chance in any settlement below 90% your_faith), I find it rather easy to wind up with 2-4 piety generals consistently, even without the help of a crusades, and to keep them there too. If starterPiety worked, they would be 5-7 and they'd have very little to fear from the occasional inquisitor, who would probably even raise their piety some more through granting them the Conformist trait line. At 5-7, their piety would also be high enough to be genetically passed down to their sons, making my general pool even MORE Pious over the course of the campaign.

2) Inquisitors exp ultrafast.

Since they randomly attack every turn and rarely ever fail (on account of that piety thing + Pagan Magicians & Astrologers everywhere in you're not carefull), they in turn gain piety almost every turn. Snowball burning effect. A 10 skill, nigh unkillable Inqui is not a rare sight, by a long shot.

3) (and arguably most important) Inquis are fire-and-forget WMDs.

The fact is that once spawned, they WILL blindly attack anyone in their movement range, no matter what his standing with the Pope is, or his personnal stance on witch-burning. Which is theoretically a good, realistic thing - but.

Agreed, they'll only spawn in areas with high, unchecked heresy/witchery, or in the lands of people the pope dislike, so again it's very doable to keep Inquis off your own lands.

Problem being, when your low_piety_cause_it's_borked generals cross the lands of these non-witchburning, pope-unfriendly factions on crusades, ballistic Inquis spawned there will target you too, indifferently (just a passing thought, maybe packing a few priests in crusade stacks might draw fire ? - Inquis seem to have an inordinate fondness for priests).
And of course, in killing the general, they also destroy the whole crusading stack if you haven't been allowing for that sort of thing and sent 4 or 5 generals on that dang crusade in the first place.
I think this is what irks people the most : losing crusaders, the holiest of the holy warriors, sanctified by the Pope himself, so religious they left their own lands and duties behind to spread the faith as best they can, killed by inquis because they were "not pious 'nuff, guv".

Also, if you happen to share a close border with those aforementionned popebashing factions (northern Italy comes to mind, as well as eastern France and northern Germany, all packed with very small regions closely bunched), Inquis'll spawn in their lands, but their movement range will encompass yours too, and they will have no qualms to cross the border and burn your peeps right inside your very cities if they are easier, more flamable targets.
And that's even if you the Pope would marry you.

I do think it is a bit daft that they attack Faction leaders and at all when you're in perfect harmony with the Pope. To have done so would never have been sanctioned by the Church, so it seems a bit daft that it can happen nevertheless.

I'm pretty sure there's only a limited amount of inquisitors around at any one time - there's probably either a hard limit or a financial limit on how many the pope can support.

So, what you have to do is make your lands less likely to attract their attention than other factions. If all of your lands have very low heresy levels, and somebody else's have slightly higher levels, then guess where the inquisitors are gonna go hunting?

I make sure every settlement has at least the 1st level church/chapel and one priest - i ALWAYS have my priests at the maximum agent limit. If a heretic appears then i immediately mob him with priests from the surrounding provinces. And of course i keep the pope buttered up with regular cash payments.

The ONLY people i find are at risk from inquisitors are those agents i have sitting around in far off lands, i.e. mainly diplomats and merchants - and merchants tend to get ignored, i've found. Obviously your generals are at risk when youre invading enemy territory, but you can reduce this risk by scouting out the area with your spies in advance, and using a hit squad of priests to prepare the ground before the attack, and maybe stick around to make sure everything's ok afterwards.

If i follow these rules i find that inquistors are rarely a problem after the early stages of the game, when youre quickly taking a lot of rebel settlements (which tend to have high heresy values) and you havent pumped out enough priests yet to take care of them all at once.

i now follow wise advice of surrounding that poor pokers with militia troops on all sides! this suggestion given on another thread has made me understand how to use the military against pesky but unarmed agents! :D

what can he do against militia? burn them all while they point their sharpy looking things at him...

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what can he do against militia? burn them all while they point their sharpy looking things at him...

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Don't give him ideas:smash:.

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Originally Posted by Headlocked

Not Once, ever, have I lost a family member who was more than 2-3 pious.
-ANY member that was burnt was ALWAYS heretical to some degree; i.e with a Pagan Magician, a Heretic trait, or once, memorably, Muslim! (lol)

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That's my problem, I have yet to see any general with more than 3 piety...
Most generals I got in my french and HRE campaign were between 0 and 2 piety, very seldom 3.:juggle2:

Reading all the opinions regarding inquisitors, I think it rather boils down to the time of day when you installed the game and the start chard being in your favour.

I only had problems with the inquisitors in my first game when I didn't pay attention to religion, priests or relations with the Papal States. Then they were all over me. I also played quite aggressively against other factions and the pope wasn't all that pleased with me. (dif: med; faction: Britons)

Now I try to get the papal states as my allies as soon as possible, give them trinkets and gifts and try to keep 'em happy. I also have all the priests available and keep upgrading the churches. I'm beginning to miss the suspense of seeing an inquisitor. Well, ok I saw one hanging around in Livonia where two of my priests were training, and even though the inquisitor was near them, it didn't even hold a trial. (dif: hard, faction: Scotland).

I also have a VH camp as Spain, the catholicism percentage sucks in my provinces (75-90% with the average of 80%) but my relations with the Papal States are v.good or perfect and no inquisitors.

Then again I've read about players who pay a lot of attention to religion but are still burdened by the inquisitors.

Is it another roll of the dice at the beginning of the campaign which defines whether you have to deal with inquisitors or not?

When too many are around, move_character this x,y to the deep sahara works fine. I only do this when I am following the church line and they are getting too nosey.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

The problem is threefold :

1) Piety for generals is somewhat borked.

All generals should start off with 3 piety, but they don't because (as I understand from what... was it dopp ? I think it was dopp ... said from studying the files) the trigger for starterPiety doesn't work like it should. Apart from that, it's easy to raise piety - build churches, train priests, sit in a town with a big church + theologian guild for a few years, go on crusade, be chivalrous, all of that raises piety over some time.

Now that I know how Pagan Magicians are triggered (ie random chance in any settlement below 90% your_faith), I find it rather easy to wind up with 2-4 piety generals consistently, even without the help of a crusades, and to keep them there too. If starterPiety worked, they would be 5-7 and they'd have very little to fear from the occasional inquisitor, who would probably even raise their piety some more through granting them the Conformist trait line. At 5-7, their piety would also be high enough to be genetically passed down to their sons, making my general pool even MORE Pious over the course of the campaign.

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Erm why does everyone think my sig is funny and have it highlighted in bold? English is not my native language, so cut me some slack here... if it's like obscene or something let me know...

The triggers *should* be working but isn't. One is even called the Birth_Fixed trigger. Still broke is what it is. I have tried adding new triggers, changing the chances, changing the level awarded.. nothing works. All generals should have 3 piety just to start with. Fix this by bringing down the console after selecting the character (move him outside the settlement/boat first) and type "give_trait this ReligionStarter 1" to fix the problem. Let those inquisitors try to burn you now! My king was tried for heresy every turn and is now a living saint from all those failed trials (you get some trait like untouchable faith which gives piety, plus he was a grand crusader to begin with).

Pagan magician is like 5-10% chance every turn you spend in a province which has less than 90% of your religion, which is super-high. I often play Spanish and even my very own starting provinces are like 70% Catholic...

If you crack open the campaign text file you will find that the inquisitor initial success rate is 3 times that of assassins, 35% compared to 12%, plus spies don't seem to stop them. Way overpowered. Two of them killed every general (3, including my heir) in my crusade to take Jerusalem, plus all the accompanying priests (3 bishops and 2 cardinals), instead of the two obvious heretics and one witch wandering around. And the population was 95% muslim, not heretic. Nuts.

@Dopp: the word Dopp is in no way obscene or offensive in English at all. In fact I don't think it's a word at all in English, so don't worry about it, don't ask me why they highlight it, but it's nothing your doing.

At worst it is but a funny sound.

Inquisitors tend to be a problem early on. Then you often have relatively high herecy and/or rebel provinces with lots of pagans ect. You also have few if any churches and religious agents. So if your relations with the Pope is anything but stellar you run a good risk of inquisitors.

Add to that the small provinces and the inquisitors might very well take notice of your lands. And once there they don't seem to leave. It should be possible to lead inquisitors to enemy lands by leaving them a 'breadcrumb' trail of priests.
Now that could be fun in a sense.

And I think we can all agree that when inquisitors wipe out a faction, it is pretty bad.

I'm not hysterical about Inquisitors, but they do make the game even at M/M a lot more challenging. I'm at turn 53 and am down to 3 generals, the rest of the lot having been torched. One of the living actually successfully led a crusade and has a 7 piety, and a second is hidden safely away in Ireland for the moment (though some heretics have sprung up in Scotland and corrupted several priests so that may change soon). The third is new and will likely die next turn. I get constant adoptions and Men of the Hour, none of whom survive more than a turn or two. Playing the game without many generals is hard, but it's doable (though seiges against cities that have 3 or 4 generals at the head of a full stack are pretty tough). My relations with the papacy are perfect, but the Inquisitors are left over from when the pope sent them against France. When I conquered France at the Pope's direction in the crusade, I inherited the Inquisition from them.

The irritating thing is that they ignore the heretics and witches and family members of excommunicated factions and go straight for my characters. Hard to do much roleplaying when you only survive a turn.:wall:

Assassins are useless; they can't even kill rebel captains in this game much less a Papal Assassin.:thumbsdown:

hmm i kinda opened a can of worms there!

for the record- not mocking anyones playing ability; i simply followed what the game suggests and honestly have had no problems, ever. Was constantly waiting for a deluge of "Carrie"-style Inquies, but never happened.

When I was Milan things got a bit busy with the Inquis,but they never treied a crusader or king, or heir. Or slaughtered my priests.

Could be this is all statistical blind chance- im just the lucky bugger who got the one copy of the game that *actually works*! :beam: lol

reading through the posts, everyone says they paid special attention to priests and stuff said they had a) no problems or b)flamerville.
So, Im guessing there is maybe more to it that simple piety- they are agents of the Pope, who is a Political AND religious figure, as in real life.

Maybe CA can clarify this a bit? i.e., just how much impact does the pope's political relations have on Inqui's activity, &focus?

The CA documentation is always limited, this one is almost a carbon copy of the RTW; which is daft, considering how much fuss they made about the greater depth and intricacy to M2.:book:
I.e. the manual should have explained the vaguer concepts and rules that are *under the hood* so to speak.


Glad for the feedback, although its making me paranoid now:) And i've probably jinxed myself now!


Cheers,
HDD

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So, Im guessing there is maybe more to it that simple piety- they are agents of the Pope, who is a Political AND religious figure, as in real life.

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In the game mechanics,yes.

In real life,they were instruments of the Crown (e.g.Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition) more then an instrument of the Pope.ALL the Spanish Inquisition rules were made by Fernando II.(and Torquemada obeyed the rules)

I never had a problem in my games with the Inquisitors...but the true is...they are unrealistic.I know,this is only a game..*sighs*

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

I think this is what irks people the most : losing crusaders, the holiest of the holy warriors, sanctified by the Pope himself, so religious they left their own lands and duties behind to spread the faith as best they can, killed by inquis because they were "not pious 'nuff, guv".

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That's a serious flaw, yes, but it's equally flawed that they target faction leaders and faction heirs. I'm not a huge stickler for historical accuracy in a game like this unless something just leaps out at me as being wrong. And that's very, very wrong. It just didn't happen. It hardly ever happened to priests either, but powerful faction leaders are the more glaring off-limits target.

Luckily we do have the "surround and drop" method of killing an upstart Inquisitor who tries it, which realistically represents what would have happened (the King's bodyguard takes care of the problem). But it shouldn't be necessary in the first place.

It would have been more realistic to have Inquisitors stand next to your settlement and burn commoners, acting as a drain on population growth or causing unrest, instead of targeting the characters on the campaign map. You'd still have an incentive to keep your religion percentage high, remove heretics, etc. But we wouldn't have these ridiculous scenarios where Inquisitors act as "random WMD" assassins against various high-level targets. We already have the assassin agent type in the game.

Let me add my voice to this. I hate inquisitors are they are now. It makes
no sense that a powerful empire would have no viable option for dealing
with roaming inquisitors that interdict huge territories.

It is not as if I cannot play and win the games on VHVH because of them. It
is just that I dislike the situations that develop. In my present game, a
very pious inquisitor wandered in from Portugal, and is camping Toulouse,
which used to be my infantry producing fortress. Yes, I know that I could
box him in and bump him off the map, or that I can get around the
'no recruiting without a general' restriction. I just would like to have a
reasonable, in game way, of dealing with him.

The tricky part of winning this game is going to be avoiding my faction being wiped out by Inquisitors. Since they are certainly relentless and seem to be totally random (I've been keeping heresy under control, building priests and churches like mad and staying at perfect relations with the pope---who was one of my cardinals in the first place:whip: ) it is a disenchanting element to say the least. If my former crusader (now the king) gets killed in battle or by an assassin or dies of old age before I manage to finish the game, I probably will lose in exactly that manner, though. :furious3: It would be nice to have the option to bribe the Inquisitors to go attack someone else....The Danes and Spanish are both excommunicated but the Inquisition doesn't seem to have any interest in them at all (just like the heretics and witches)--only my people. And this is on M/M, remember.

I've tried running away, but there are so many Inquisitors on the map that getting away from one puts you within striking range of another. I have managed to save a bunch of priests for the moment by shipping them to North Africa, though, and their piety is going through the roof. Too bad they can't turn Inquisitors the way heretics can turn priests. But a few more turns and they may be safe to bring back to France. That doesn't help with the family members, though.

I finally got a Theologians' Guild just before I stopped for the night, so I will try shipping all new family members there ASAP to see if I can't get a quick piety boost before they're reduced to ashes like usual.:smash: :smash: :smash:

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Originally Posted by gardibolt

...I finally got a Theologians' Guild just before I stopped for the night, so I will try shipping all new family members there ASAP to see if I can't get a quick piety boost before they're reduced to ashes like usual.:smash: :smash: :smash:

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Theologians Guild does raise piety , but it is relatively slow given your senario .
I would suggest teleporting and Inquisitors near that city to that spot of land surrounded by uncrossable terrain in North Africa . They seem to despawn soon after , so you can imagine they starved to death in a state of utter bewilderment .

There is a way of dealing with inquisitors that is technically cheating, but that
can save your enjoyment of the game. Like all agents, inquisitors are unable
to walk through an army. Thus, you can block an inquisitor path to your
general with some troops, or you can completely box the offender in, and even
bump him off the map by moving an unit on top.

You could justify it by pretending that your king finally got tired of the
persecution, and sent the army to deal with it. I think that I am going to
make a rule for myself - any unit on a crusade or back from a crusade is
allowed to block and kill inquisitors.

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Originally Posted by Tuidjy

There is a way of dealing with inquisitors that is technically cheating, but that
can save your enjoyment of the game. Like all agents, inquisitors are unable
to walk through an army. Thus, you can block an inquisitor path to your
general with some troops, or you can completely box the offender in, and even
bump him off the map by moving an unit on top.

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Well this does not seem to be a worthy solution for those who are having problems with the inquisitors. I think that would ruin the fun of the game even more if you have to put your steam into bumping inquisitors around. Also there is the chance that your lonely troops will turn rebel and consequently walk away in search of better grasslands.

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Originally Posted by Zenicetus

That's a serious flaw, yes, but it's equally flawed that they target faction leaders and faction heirs. I'm not a huge stickler for historical accuracy in a game like this unless something just leaps out at me as being wrong. And that's very, very wrong. It just didn't happen. It hardly ever happened to priests either, but powerful faction leaders are the more glaring off-limits target.

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Well, yes and no. I mean, sure, historically most peeps the Inquisition (Spanish or otherwise) ever burned at the stake was the wee folk, but there has been exceptions to this rule. Joan the Schizophrenic springs to mind there. In-game, she would have been a 10 Piety general :laugh4:.

Think about it this way, if in-game they weren't any real danger to you and your faction, why would anyone care for the pope ? Excom is somewhat bad, but in and of itself it's not enough to materialize the healthy dose of respect for the Church's power most Christian leaders had back then.

Since you cannot code-in the real life intricacies of the Popes' political manoeuvering, his spy network (even to this day, the Vatican is considered to have the most efficient information network in the world, and they don't have spy-satellites :sweatdrop:) and advisor network (many, many kings have had cardinals and priests as their advisors, guess who fed them their lines ?) etc..., and cannot code the Papal States faction to have spies and assassins all across Christendom either, over-important spawning-out-of-thin air Inquis are a decent substitute IMHO.

I agree that the randomness is bonkers and annoying (perhaps CA coded it in to represent real-life Inquis who went wayyy overzealous, like those who were sent to try the Albigensians, and in effect tried any and everyone out there ?), and I agree that Crusade leaders should be no-nos, but the principle of Inquis as the Papacy's better-than-assassins enforcers makes sense from a gamey PoV, I think.
If you piss the Pope off so bad he sends Inquis roaming about, the fact that they can bump off the king doesn't bother me that much. It's the fact that they do so when you do not piss off the Pope that is the problem.

@dopp : sorry, didn't mean to stigmatize you or anything, highlighting your name was just a way to give you more credit and emphasize that it was your work, not mine. Politeness, not finger-pointing :sweatdrop:.

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Well, yes and no. I mean, sure, historically most peeps the Inquisition (Spanish or otherwise) ever burned at the stake was the wee folk, but there has been exceptions to this rule. Joan the Schizophrenic springs to mind there. In-game, she would have been a 10 Piety general .

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I presume your talking about Joan of Arc? My understanding here was that it was actually the English rather than the pope that where behind it. They knew that the morale boost she was giving the french was proving decisive in them winning. Of course when they killed her it only inflamed the french more. So it kind of backfiered.

In the end however they decided they needed her out of the way.

Finnially, be careful with the anti- religion comments, you'll bring a lot of angry people down on your head if your not careful. We don't want a flame war here. Religion vs. anti-religion debates are probably the worst flame war in exsisitance.

Yes, that was of course Joan of Arc I was talking about, and yes, I know it is a special case and was both the English and the French's (I understand she had become a bit of a nuisance to the French king as well - people respected her more than him after all, and she was turning into something of a loose canon waging her own private war) doing more than it had to do with the Pope's will (actually, in her case the Pope actively denounced the burning through retrial - but it was a posthumous retrial :sweatdrop: ), but then again when an Inqui roams into your lands and kills one of your generals, you can also make-believe it was at your neighbour's request/insistance.

The point I was trying to make was that important figures were not always safe from the Inquisition out of their importance. They were mostly not burnt though, I'll admit, but that is just Inquisition cliché and myth when inquisitors really never were that flame-happy.

I'm not sure I was being anti-religious, I read my post again and the only questionnable thing was calling Joan schizophrenic, but that was merely a joke playing on the game's leader naming system, and meant to be taken as such I assure you. Wether she in reality was a very clever girl, a very mad girl or God's conduit we can of course never know, can we ?

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I'm not sure I was being anti-religious, I read my post again and the only questionnable thing was calling Joan schizophrenic, but that was merely a joke playing on the game's leader naming system, and meant to be taken as such I assure you. Wether she in reality was a very clever girl, a very mad girl or God's conduit we can of course never know, can we ?

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Fair enough, I didn't realise that you where having a go (a Smiley would have helped, :smash: is my fav in these situations, I use it in the place of MSN's :p smiley).

I got a bit overzealous, :smash, mainly because, (regardless of what she was or was not), I respect her as one of the few people to deliver us English with a well deserved kicking, and we bloody well deserved it too TBH.

(It annoys me when my fellow Englishmen go on about this great British empire without actually stopping to realise just how like Hitler we could be on occasion).

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Yes, that was of course Joan of Arc I was talking about, and yes, I know it is a special case and was both the English and the French's (I understand she had become a bit of a nuisance to the French king as well - people respected her more than him after all, and she was turning into something of a loose canon waging her own private war) doing more than it had to do with the Pope's will (actually, in her case the Pope actively denounced the burning through retrial - but it was a posthumous retrial ), but then again when an Inqui roams into your lands and kills one of your generals, you can also make-believe it was at your neighbour's request/insistance.

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True enough I guess. My point was merely that in general these incidents of important people being killed where more to do with the enemy than with someone walking into their kingdom and burning them. They tended to have to be outside the protection of their homeland for it to happen.

Talking of the retrial, wasn't she made a saint following that? (I'm trusting AoEII here so it's worth checking).

If that’s true then she's the only Saint I’m aware of that actually turns up in the game, (she's a possible retinue member, if you want to know how to get her I can list the conditions).

Sorry again for the Anti-religious comment, i missed your meaning totally~:(.

It seems (from looking at the code) that Inquisitors are just Papal assassins. Relations with the Pope don't matter, only piety does. Maybe what should be done is add a trigger that fires when your cardinal becomes pope, giving your king bonus piety ("friend of his holiness" trait or something). Problem is, inquisitors are usually at max piety due to previous successful burnings, and the base chance is 1 out of 3, so it's still very likely you burn.

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Originally Posted by Carl

Talking of the retrial, wasn't she made a saint following that? (I'm trusting AoEII here so it's worth checking).

If that’s true then she's the only Saint I’m aware of that actually turns up in the game, (she's a possible retinue member, if you want to know how to get her I can list the conditions).

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Not really. She was declared innocent and a martyr a few years after her death (and her late judge branded with heresy), but was only canonized in the early 20th century (beatified a few years before IIRC). Better late than never, heh ? :laugh4:

But we're veering dangerously off-topic :sweatdrop:.

My point is : yes, M2's Inquis are far more powerfull than they ever were, but that has a point from a gaming PoV, and taking into account the dev's wish to make the Pope more important this time around.

MTW's faction-based inquisitors going on rampages on populations and killing the occasional general were much closer to history (and again could be erm... shall we say a-historical, at times. Remember how many "my inquisitor burned the pope !" threads there were back then ? :smash: ), but MTW's papacy was something of an easily dismissed joke wasn't it ?

merchants, diplomats and princesses also have piety ratings but they are hidden.

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Not really. She was declared innocent and a martyr a few years after her death (and her late judge branded with heresy), but was only canonized in the early 20th century (beatified a few years before IIRC). Better late than never, heh ?

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Well AoEII is fairly recent so it would take the early 20th century into account. It merely stated that she was made a saint after her death, it never said when. So it was kind of correct, just could have been put better. (As to the Judge, I should hope he was branded with heresy).

Also, defiantly better late than never, especially when you consider what would likely have happened if England had won the Hundred Years war. The social morality effects, (indirect effects BTW), can still be felt today.

Agreed, where going a bit off-topic, just thought I’d run it by someone while I had the chance.

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My point is : yes, M2's Inquis are far more powerful than they ever were, but that has a point from a gaming PoV, and taking into account the dev's wish to make the Pope more important this time around.

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Indeed, it's only really a problem when they're wiping factions out:smash:.

The French king with 10 command stars was approaching Toulouse when an inquisitor happened by and casually picked him off in passing. Since I can't fix the ReligionStarter bug for characters not of my faction, he had zero piety burned rather easily. The army then went rebel.

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Originally Posted by dopp

The French king with 10 command stars was approaching Toulouse when an inquisitor happened by and casually picked him off in passing. Since I can't fix the ReligionStarter bug for characters not of my faction, he had zero piety burned rather easily. The army then went rebel.

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Ugh.... see, that's why it's not just a question of "play the game as intended, and you won't have problems." When it affects the large-scale strategy side of the game to that degree, even for the AI factions, it's just broken.

I recently decided to start a French campaign, and within the first dozen or so turns three Inquisitors waltzed in and camped themselves between my biggest cities burning my priests and generals. There was nothing i could do, as their piety was quite high, and when the HRE invaded, i couldn't send any of my generals to lead my armies, as they were in my Western cities, and moving them would mean crossing Inquisitor country, which would result in an almost certain burning.
Oh, and not too long ago I had a dream in which i was being chased by an Inquisitor, and as i walked i had a big green arrow in front of me. Should i consult a psychiatrist?

I do feel that you should be able to defy the inquisitors - basically they should be asking you for permission to try that character. If you refuse, you take a large hit to your standing with the pope, with a significant chance of excommunication.

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Originally Posted by dopp

The French king with 10 command stars was approaching Toulouse when an inquisitor happened by and casually picked him off in passing. Since I can't fix the ReligionStarter bug for characters not of my faction, he had zero piety burned rather easily. The army then went rebel.

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Can't you give traits to characters using their name instead of through select+"this" ?

I wasn't playing French, I was Spain (as usual). You can only give_trait this to those of your own faction.

Same campaign, 30 turns later. France has suffered from a fatal overdose of inquisitors. Milan is next and falling fast. My huge cathedral in Valencia with the theologians' guild HQ churns out heretics every other time I try to train a priest (so much for orthodox training). I sense dark times ahead for Spain...

Inquisitors are rabble-rousers. Unless you have a modern police force (unlikely), even the king himself must fear an angry mob. So I don't think it's completely impossible for a king to be burned at the stake (but quite unlikely).

Hey, at least they can't burn the pope any more. That was hilarious.

Btw, can anyone tell me what the capital of Spain should be at this time (or chief city really, since the capital was wherever the royal court happened to be that week)? I thought Corduba or Toledo would be nice, but maybe it's Leon.

Following up, I conveniently had three sons come of age in my game in one turn. I sent them towards Rheims, where my Theologian's guild is, but the Inquisitor picked off one of them on the way. We'll see whether it gives them any shelter; if not, I saved the game and can just move them the hell away from him (enemy lands look pretty safe--no Inquisitors there, even though they were excommunicated).

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Originally Posted by dopp

The French king with 10 command stars was approaching Toulouse when an inquisitor happened by and casually picked him off in passing. Since I can't fix the ReligionStarter bug for characters not of my faction, he had zero piety burned rather easily. The army then went rebel.

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Aww.... That was a shame.

How often do we really see generals of his capacity among the AI factions? A real shame!

I agree that the king and perhaps the heir should get a trait like that 'Friend of his Holiness' (+5 Piety would be fitting) when one of their faction is Pope (can be removed with botched assassination). That should help them directly, meanwhile crusading generals should be absolutely immune.

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Originally Posted by Headlocked

hmm i kinda opened a can of worms there!

for the record- not mocking anyones playing ability; i simply followed what the game suggests and honestly have had no problems, ever. Was constantly waiting for a deluge of "Carrie"-style Inquies, but never happened.

When I was Milan things got a bit busy with the Inquis,but they never treied a crusader or king, or heir. Or slaughtered my priests.

Could be this is all statistical blind chance- im just the lucky bugger who got the one copy of the game that *actually works*! :beam: lol

reading through the posts, everyone says they paid special attention to priests and stuff said they had a) no problems or b)flamerville.
So, Im guessing there is maybe more to it that simple piety- they are agents of the Pope, who is a Political AND religious figure, as in real life.

Maybe CA can clarify this a bit? i.e., just how much impact does the pope's political relations have on Inqui's activity, &focus?

The CA documentation is always limited, this one is almost a carbon copy of the RTW; which is daft, considering how much fuss they made about the greater depth and intricacy to M2.:book:
I.e. the manual should have explained the vaguer concepts and rules that are *under the hood* so to speak.


Glad for the feedback, although its making me paranoid now:) And i've probably jinxed myself now!


Cheers,
HDD

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I haven't had any problems neither. In one game I had a Danish family member burned, and I have played plenty of different campaigns. I can imagine as quoted in bold that it can have an impact on the zeal of the inquisitors, but also the personality of the pope himself. As hinted somewhere in the manual the traits of the cardinal being elected to Pope will determine his personality. E.g., a cardinal that during his career has burned a lot of witches and heretics could go mad as Pope and let burn everything his agents see. Just my theory..

Inquisitors are just assassins that randomly spawn in territories with some heresy and kill everything they come across. They have a high base chance of killing (35%) and spies do not seem to affect them.

Part of the reason why you do not see any good AI generals is tied to the "Hotbeds of Sin and Corruption" effect I was harping on earlier. The drunkard, effete and adulterer lines are particularly damaging to command stars. I tweaked the triggers for my game and now the AI produces good, upstanding characters with minimal issues in the 5-7 command star range. The only problem is that they never use them in battle, all my famous victories are against captains or stacks that have gone rebel for lack of proper leadership...

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Originally Posted by Bulawayo

As hinted somewhere in the manual the traits of the cardinal being elected to Pope will determine his personality. E.g., a cardinal that during his career has burned a lot of witches and heretics could go mad as Pope and let burn everything his agents see. Just my theory..

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I hadn't thought of that, but my cardinal who is now pope did have the trait "Enemy of Heretics" when he ascended to the Papal Hat.

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Originally Posted by gardibolt

I hadn't thought of that, but my cardinal who is now pope did have the trait "Enemy of Heretics" when he ascended to the Papal Hat.

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Well, that was one more proof for my theory ~;)

I tried to find the phrase about the Popes personality in the manual, but I didn't manage. Anyway it sounds like a nice idea of having different personalities on different popes, e.g. having such a madman on the throne that you really have to kill him, or have your own family members killed.

In a Venetian campaign I chose by mistake a cardinal from the Papal states for Pope. He was a 28 year old rookie without any traits except for a starting one. And nothing much happened with him, didn't see any inquisitors at all.

I really don't know, but it would be nice getting some information from CA :yes:

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Originally Posted by Bulawayo

I haven't had any problems neither. In one game I had a Danish family member burned, and I have played plenty of different campaigns. I can imagine as quoted in bold that it can have an impact on the zeal of the inquisitors, but also the personality of the pope himself. As hinted somewhere in the manual the traits of the cardinal being elected to Pope will determine his personality. E.g., a cardinal that during his career has burned a lot of witches and heretics could go mad as Pope and let burn everything his agents see. Just my theory..

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I don't know wether Purity/Violence of the Pope impacts the spawning of inquisitors or their behavior, but it does affect their starting skill for certain.

When an Inqui is spawned, a check is made. If the Pope has >0 Violence and/or >0 Purity (bugged, should be <0 of course), then the inqui will be spawned with Unfair (+1 Piety) trait, Unjust_and_Unfair (+2 Piety) if the Pope has both.

If the Pope has <0 violence or <0 purity (same bug here, should obviously be >0), the the inqui will be spawned with the Just (-1 Piety). If he has both, Fair_and_Just (-2 Piety)

Also, did you know that inquis have 10% chance EACH TURN to gain +1 Piety through the GrowingConviction trait ? Yeah, me neither. Got rid of that trigger :laugh4:. Inquis already spawn with 2/4/6 piety, gain ancillaries like crazy and almost never fail, the last thing they need is free xp :smash:.

Why do you think that trigger is bugged? I would think if a Pope had a high violence (willingness to use violent means to an end) or purity (concern about the purity of the faith) then he'd be more willing to appoint rabid inquisitors to hunt down the enemies of the faith. Low violence and purity would be the opposite, either a dislike of violent method or more tolerance for religious variance from the orthodox line set down by the Papacy.

Violence is not bugged, Purity is. As it is, a Pure pope will spawn Unfair Inquisitors, while a corrupt pope will spawn Fair Inquis. Which is a bit weird.

EDIT : oh, and Purity is not really concern for the faith, it's really personnal virtue, I think. Integrity. For instance, if a priest gets the choirboy ancil, he gets -1 purity. A corrupt priest also loses Purity, while a priest who disregards the power he could derive from his position has +1 purity. This is what leads me to believe that high Purity means living in a W.W.J.D manner, turning the other cheek, that sort of thing.

I may be wrong of course.

@ dopp& kobal:

could you pm or post the trait files youre talking about and I could verify them on my installation?

very interested...:)

i think what was said about the Pope's traits affecting Inquis rings a bell- certainly I also read that about a cardinals traits coming over when he (or she! :smash:) becomes pope- its right there on the Papal sheet/window.

Would make the most sense, as they are supposed to be agents of the pope, not simply "random" responses to heresy levels.

EDIT: Comments about the Inquis being historically agents of the various crowns, rather than the Pope are also correct- however, they required sanction from the Pope still, and the piety and good relations of the said Spanish royalty gave them a big margin of control. The English kings extremely rarely had that level of control over Inquis.
Please correctme if I am wrong :) :book:

Ive said it before: this game has several layers to everything :yes:

HDD

At a guess, I'd say it's in the export_descr_character_traits.txt file, which are packed. You can use the unpacker to open them up, or you can just download the files. There's a thread over in the mod chat forum that had a link to download them prior to the patch.

Kobal which files has that relation between the Pope and the Inqs?

export_descr_character_traits.txt

Here are the (unmodded) triggers :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

;------------------------------------------
Trigger inquisitorinit4
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = inquisitor
and FactionLeaderAttribute Purity > 0

Affects FairProsecutor 1 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------
Trigger inquisitorinit5
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = inquisitor
and FactionLeaderAttribute Violence > 0

Affects FairProsecutor 1 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------
Trigger inquisitorinit6
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = inquisitor
and FactionLeaderAttribute Purity < 0

Affects UnfairProsecutor 1 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------
Trigger inquisitorinit7
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = inquisitor
and FactionLeaderAttribute Violence < 0

Affects UnfairProsecutor 1 Chance 100

EDIT : and, having said that, I realize I had things upside down. It's Violence, not purity, that is bugged, in that it should trigger Unfair inquis.

I use Land to Conquer Mod, so I rarely see Inquisitors, but if I see one near my general I use the give_trait this AgentPiety cheat on my general. Yes I really hate cheating, I never cheat in any game, but this one is just needed not to go ballistic and kick the s**t out of my computer. To quote Adrian Monk: "It is for the GG. The Greater Good" :-)

export_desc_character_traits.txt:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Trigger inquisitorinit4
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = inquisitor
and FactionLeaderAttribute Purity > 0

Affects FairProsecutor 1 Chance 100

Trigger inquisitorinit5
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = inquisitor
and FactionLeaderAttribute Violence > 0

Affects FairProsecutor 1 Chance 100

Trigger inquisitorinit6
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = inquisitor
and FactionLeaderAttribute Purity < 0

Affects UnfairProsecutor 1 Chance 100


Trigger inquisitorinit7
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = inquisitor
and FactionLeaderAttribute Violence < 0

Affects UnfairProsecutor 1 Chance 100

Fair prosecutor gets -1 and -2 for Piety, while unfair gets +.

Depending on how you look at what "purity" and "violence" means, it can seem odd. A violent and pure pope gets inquisitors starting with -2 piety, while a corrupt and peaceful one has inquisitors at +2 piety.

IMO, I am going to change the violent/peaceful - reverse them. Violent popes should have violent inquisitors. Purity is a bit tricky.. depending on how you interpret it, a pure pope does not want people burned unfairly, so his inquisitors are fair. OR, a pure pope wants every bit of heresey rooted out, so his inquisitors are unfair.

Duh! I wonder how I could have missed that... It seems so logical to be there. And I was just modding back and forth that very file (to get a more balanced, positive and negative, trait system).

Oh, and the Pure Pope is the very christian one. The one who want to treat others well, the one who will just be a Pope for the people ect ect. He will be Jesus reborn so to say. The Impure Pope will be the one who will abuse his position (choir boy anyone?), for money, sex and power. In relating to the inquisitors it would be power, hence he would want them to win as many trials as possible. Them winning = stronger Pope.

Purity is not well defined in the game; it could mean purity as in ideal christianity, which would make for gentle and forgiving Inquisitors, or it could mean purity as in zealous doctrinal cleansing--which would make for vigorously bloodthirsty Inquisitors. Depending on which version CA has in mind, the triggers may be right, or may be backwards. But I don't know that we have any evidence of what their definition of 'purity' is.