Inquisitors - problems & solutions (was Crusading when I meet inquisitor)

[NihilisticCow]

I had an army on a boat heading off to Jerusalem, it strayed to close to the coastline at the end of the turn, an inquistor was there and he burned my faction heir... I wasn't very impressed...

[Oshidashi]

The inquisitors already ruined my first game killing 3 generals and two priests.

Even when my general was on a Cog, positioned at the coast on the nord sea, the inquisitor managed to burn him.

Major spoiler, for the rest, I love the game so far!

[econ21]

I agree inquisitors seem a bit much, but am I the only one who finds humour in these two stories of inquisitors swimming from the shore to burn unsuspecting captains at sea? It reminds me of the crocodile in Peter Pan.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

Agree with everything said here - except someone said a good way of grooming assasins is doing easy sabotage missions. I've done a load, and have never had an assasin's trait go up after a succesful bit of sabotage...

Nor have I, ive done 11 successful sabotage mission in Paris and - nada in terms of assassin going up in level.

Too be honest I dont mind the assassins being weak, its probably better for the game that way.

However what other way is there to counter these uber-inquisitors?


So the combination of over-zealous Inquisitors and weak Assassins generates a rather unfortunate set of problems.

Now if Cardinals or Priests could counter Inquisitors... different ball game.
As it stands now priests just seem to be an easy way for inquisitors to "level up".

Ah well, might just play NWN2 until the patch comes out.

[Scottn72]

Almost every time one of my assassins manages to sabotage a building he gains a rating increase. The problem I have is when they fail at something else a few turns later ther rating decreases again.

If you have a spy in the city your planning to sabotage, the chance of success is quite high if your assassin is level 1-2, about 80% for a church and 60% for other buildings.

Just discovered this tactic last night and it's improving things a little.

[Quillan]

I've not yet got an assassin to a 10 ranking, but I did get one to 9 before he died of old age. Against a diplomat with a 0 rating (must have picked up a bunch of negative traits there) he had a 95% chance. Against a priest with a 4 piety, he had a 33% chance, IIRC. Against a merchant with an 8 finance, it was only something like 15%. Personally, I think it needs to be a little higher.

Also, the ups/downs of the ranking seem a little skewed. I've done one reload after a failed assassination. This was with the aforementioned assassin, before he got as high as he was. At the time, he'd reached the +3 skill mark. I sent him to assassinate a 1 piety priest, he had a 75% chance and failed. He lost ALL of his skill! The entire +3 went away on one failure! Not fair.

[46852]

Almost every time one of my assassins manages to sabotage a building he gains a rating increase. The problem I have is when they fail at something else a few turns later ther rating decreases again.

If you have a spy in the city your planning to sabotage, the chance of success is quite high if your assassin is level 1-2, about 80% for a church and 60% for other buildings.

Just discovered this tactic last night and it's improving things a little.

Yep, that's true, I tested it out again and succesful sabotages definitely raise the agent skill. First skill-up name is "Plotter". But as Scott said, I got more familiar with the "Poor Plotter" and "Silly Schemes" traits

Good point on Scott's post was also that churches have better chances to be sabotaged for some reason, good for training your agents!

[Butcher]

Didn't Cardinals used to prevent Iquisitors from burning all and sundry? Not the case now?

[Quillan]

From what I've read, Cardinals cannot be turned heretic. Also, a priest has to have a high piety to be elected Cardinal in the first place, so they are probably best at denouncing heretics. It's not automatic, though.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

Cardinals can be turned heretical - just happened to one of mine.

Re Assassins: yup higher chances with a spy in there and the base hit for a church is 60% for a newbie.

Thing is I still haven't gotten any rise in skill from destroying them - might be the difficulty levels h/vh (well the Hard bit anyway). Will try with a different assassin - this one may just be a bit thick (lol)

I'm getting a 6% kill chance against an Inquisitor of rank 1 using a level 3 assassin though

I think the hardest job for an assassin is finding somebody they do ahve a reasonable chance of killing to get their first rank... best Ive found is 46% which was a princess with negative protection traits.

Rarer than rocking-horse poo mind you.

[forzazz]

Same thing happened to me when i was heading for the crusade.. so after that i just created some huge armies without generals and destroyed the holy roman empire.. so its safe to say i havent seen any inquisitors as of yet

[Roy1991]

The inquisitors are way over the top.

A single inquisitor just killed 3 of my generals in 3 turns, including Emperor Heinrich the Chivalrous (he had 9 command, 10 chivalry, 5 authority, 3 piety)
I had no assassin in the region, and the towns around there couldn't produce assassins yet.

It's pretty strange that those ***** come after your generals even if you're excommunicated.

[TinCow]

You are not even safe in Britain. I do not know how, but two Inquisitors showed up there recently in my game and started trying to burn one of my Cardinals. Absolutely ridiculous.

It is also rather disappointing that surviving a heresy trial does not increase a character\'s piety, like it did in MTW.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I also find it rather annoying that every single one of my heirs starts with 0 piety. Strange, I was under the impression that medieval nobility were generally a bit religious.

[Barny Bangs]

Hmmm, I am currently in the 60th turn and din't have any Inquisitor problems at all. I have perfect relations with the pope (he's one of my guys ) and I sometimes see Inquisitors roaming the french country-side, but even with my Generals near, he never touched them.

Only during one of my early turns, an Inquisitor tried to burn one of my priests, but he was found worthy.

As with assassins, no problem there at all. I started to produce them quite early, to be able to "Train" on low-level diplomats, princesses and priests. They leveld up quickly (quicker as in RTW). Soon after I got offered the Assassin's Guild and a few turns later I was even able to upgrade it. Currently I have four level 10 murderers, working in "Tag-teams" with spies and priests. (Nothing better than sending two spies in to an Moorish City, burn religious buildings, Town Watches and bars and watch as with rising Catholic population the AI has his hands full with keeping his hinterland from revolt.)

As with Inquisitors vs. Assassins, I think that high-level merchants without the "enemie"-trait are nearly as tough to kill. I never actually tried to kill an Inquistor (no need to) but I found that killing off enemy cardinals (usually with an chance of 20%) worked quite nicely. I assassinated four cardinals, three of the free seats were given to my priests -> my guy got to be pope -> pope-o-meter is at the top and I "Inspire the pope"

[TinCow]

To be fair, I haven't had a single inquisition attempted against me since I paid the Vatican a hefty sum and installed one of my Cardinals in the Vatican.

[Biggus Diccus]

From what I've read, Cardinals cannot be turned heretic. Also, a priest has to have a high piety to be elected Cardinal in the first place, so they are probably best at denouncing heretics. It's not automatic, though.

A heretic can turn your cardinal to heretic, especially if vour cardinal has relatively low piety. I have even had a priest of mine spontaneously turn heretic as well, and there was no heretic around to turn him in the first place. Weird.

Oh, and inquisitors get 'beamed in' wherever they are needed. So no places are safe.

[Zanderpants]

I was having alot of trouble with inquisitors early on in the game due to my low standing with the Pope, and nothing I was doing seemed to help raise my standing with him. So I just tried to stay under the radar, but inquisitors started flooding France and I found a good way of distracting them. I built a ton of priests. The inquisitors seem to put priority on them, as they were burning my priests every turn, but never got to my generals. Later on, I found out that simply giving the Papal States a ton of money raised my standing with the Pope by miles, and his inquisitors stopped coming after me. So distract the inquisitors with your priests, until you can bribe the pope.

On a side note, how many hours straight have you guys been playing? I hopped onto my computer at around 11, started playing, and next thing I knew it was 5:30! I've never had that sorta time-lapse with a game before. Best Total War yet.

[econ21]

TinCow and Zanderpants: what's the going rate to call off the inquisitors then? (how much did you pay and on what campaign difficulty?)

[Debe2233]

You can decide if this story is amuseing or just plain scary. Playing as Milan i had taken the islands to the west of Italy i was quite happy with my position, i had Venice under my control and the pope was quite happy with me.

Then Mr FlameHappy the inquisitor arrives burns two priests and my faction heir before i can run them away, unfortunately thanks to an assasin and a storm outside venice i only had my faction leader left, i decided the only way to survive was to join a crusade to get as far away from Mr FlameHappy as possible, my faction leader jumped onto a boat and swiftly sailed towards the holy lands (im putting the x2 travel modifier down to a desperate need to see the back of a particular individual).

I arrive in the holy land hop off the boat and who do i see standing not a few steps away... its like a scene from a Droopy Dog cartoon another damned inquisitor (well i assume its not Mr FlameHappy but to be honest i wouldnt be surprised)... now im playing as the Turks...

But... what the heck is an inquisitor doing all the way over there, i mean honestly... unless they're just toying with me... kinda scary *whimper*

[maestro]

I hope i can add a couple of useful bits of info here...


Firstly - yes I do think Inquisitors are a pai in the backide. They're impossible to get rid of when they arrive and they kill anything on sight. I find I get about a 1 to 4 or 1 to 5 innocent to guilty ratio of people tried - and I buiold every church building I can and have extremely hgh Catholic percentages in my regions (95%+). I'd love to know how to increase piety cause I can assure you that bulding every church and having priets in every region doesn't do squat for your generals or anybody who's born subsequently.

Secondly - I think one of two things needs to be done. You could either boost assassins / nerf inquisitors - but I personally don't like that idea. I think what would be much better woul be to have fewer of them or at least make the pope have a damn good reason for sending them to your region. I personally think it would be an idea to have "an inquisition". Either an era in which the current (mad) pope sends out loads of inquisitors and everyone gets a kicking or at least a message saying "the pope is not happy and is sending an inquisition [i]because of A,B or C" which gives you time to prepare.

Thirdly - ...and how do you prepare? Easy. I know things should be patched - but as a work-around for the moment, i have a way of dealing with inquisitors. Simply send loads of priests to hover around the inquisitors whilst they are in your lands. Not to preach, or to increase the Catholic faith / piety or anything, no no no, but to be a target. The inquisitors always go after priests first - at least in my experience. I've never had a general tried when there was a priest in the same region - the priest always gets tried first! Remember, though, that if a priest gets found innocent then he probably won't be tried again, so send him off to the far east to preach. And when your priests get burned - which they inevitably will, replace them! And quickly.

Hope this helps

[Biggus Diccus]

Posted in another thread here:

Locking in an inquisitor with eight militia units.

looks like this, and hes not going anywhere.
000
010
000

easy way to get rid of my raving mad english king, with the absense of rebels and scots.

seriously though, the fact that these guys cant move past your stacks might be a sollution to the problem, at least until it gets patched.
a spear militia on a bridge or mountain pass stops the inquisitor, and forces him to turn around. this might help in protecting that atheist super gouvenor.

It seems you can block inquisitors with military stacks, so save up on those depleted units. Useful only in your own territory of course, When you're crusading this isn't much use.

[professorspatula]

You can decide if this story is amuseing or just plain scary. Playing as Milan i had taken the islands to the west of Italy i was quite happy with my position, i had Venice under my control and the pope was quite happy with me.

Then Mr FlameHappy the inquisitor arrives burns two priests and my faction heir before i can run them away, unfortunately thanks to an assasin and a storm outside venice i only had my faction leader left, i decided the only way to survive was to join a crusade to get as far away from Mr FlameHappy as possible, my faction leader jumped onto a boat and swiftly sailed towards the holy lands (im putting the x2 travel modifier down to a desperate need to see the back of a particular individual).

I arrive in the holy land hop off the boat and who do i see standing not a few steps away... its like a scene from a Droopy Dog cartoon another damned inquisitor (well i assume its not Mr FlameHappy but to be honest i wouldnt be surprised)... now im playing as the Turks...

But... what the heck is an inquisitor doing all the way over there, i mean honestly... unless they're just toying with me... kinda scary *whimper*

These stories of popes coming after your family members and heirs and endlessly stalking you is like the plot to some medieval themed slasher/horror movie. Hilarious!

[Spendius]

NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.

[Stolpmeister]

Is it really confirmed that your standing with the pope and the frequence he sends out inquisitors out to you are somehow related? Alot of people here seem surprised by the fact that inquisitors burns their generals crusade, or that inquisitors arrive in their lands even though they have high papal favor. I've always had inquisitors arrive in a steady trickle to heretical regions, regardless of my favor. The mechanics of heresy and inquisitors seems to me to be unrelated to the mechanics of favor, crusading and excommunication. That seems to make out the inquisition as a fairly autonomous institution, established but not controlled by the pope, that goes around burning people regardless of what the rest of the church thinks. Maybe that's intentional? And even historical?

[TinCow]

TinCow and Zanderpants: what\'s the going rate to call off the inquisitors then? (how much did you pay and on what campaign difficulty?)

My relations with the Pope have been rather complex and have certainly been a major factor in how this worked for me, so I will summarize the whole thing.

Playing England on H/VH

I was highly favored by the Pope, whom I had supported in the last election. The French were not liked at all, but not excommunicated. I picked off a few French settlements inbetween excommunication threats, but otherwise obeyed the rules and stayed in the Pope\'s good graces. When the Pope died, the French won the new position and I backed the loser. My standing with the Pope plummeted to 3 and the French nearly maxed out. On top of that, the Pope was only about 30 years old, meaning I was going to have to live with him for a LONG time.

Given that my only reasonable expansion possibilities were against France, I decided to just let myself be excommunicated. I attacked France, got excommunicated, and proceeded to conquer all French territories except one in Iberia. At this point, my cities were massively unhappy, I was being burned by Inquisitors left and right, I missed out on two Crusade calls (fortunately not against me), and I really needed a profitable peace badly. Given that my assassins had no chance at the Pope, I made sure my elderly King accidentally wandered into a large group of Welsh rebels.

I was instantly reconciled, but my standing with the Pope was still a horrid 2 and I was being burned. I sent a diplomat to the Vatican and offered a tribute of 1000 gold per turn for 10 turns. At the time, the Papal States showed Bankrupt in the diplomacy window. They gladly accepted and my standing instantly shot up to maximum. About 3-4 turns later, the Pope died. I had managed to stack the College with 4 English Cardinals (all of whom were promoted while I was excommunicated, interestingly) and the Pope became English.

Since the Papal States donation and the English Pope both occurred so close to one another, it is impossible for me to say how much of an effect the donation had on its own. As I said, I have not had a single trial for heresy since the donation, but it is likely a combination of the money and the English Pope. Also keep in mind, the massive standing jump I got probably had something to do with the Bankrupt status of the Papal States. I suspect that if they had been wealthy, I would not have risen quite as much.

[econ21]

... I sent a diplomat to the Vatican and offered a tribute of 1000 gold per turn for 10 turns...

Say no more - the cheque's in the post to the Vatican already.

Thanks for the rundown, TinCow.

[Djurre]

Could someone confirm my method? does it work for others?

[Saxit]

I had a spy in a neutral city (Berns) and an Inquisitor moves there and kills him..
They shouldn't be able to see spies and assassins at all imho (I had an assassin turned heretic on me as well by an inquisitor) :(

[Doug-Thompson]

And people wonder why I play Muslims.