Faction leader got denounced again, sigh.

[ByzantineKnight]

1000000 for one...

lol

[Foz]

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

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

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

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

Concerning the inquisitor behavior, the AI presumably evaluates the success rates, and probably has some minimum acceptable chance it likes to stick to. Thus since higher piety generals are more difficult to denounce, they're probably overlooked more often.

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

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

    Level General_Religion
        Description General_Religion_desc
        EffectsDescription General_Religion_effects_desc
        Threshold  1 

        Effect Piety  3

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

After that, these traits apply:

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

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

[KHPike]

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

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

[FunkyDexter]

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

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

[Whacker]

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

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

Cheers
Whacker

[Drunkin General]

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

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

[grapedog]

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

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

[froglegs]

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

[JCoyote]

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

They can... they just have to surround them first before an "unfortunate accident during military practice maneuvers" can happen.

[HoreTore]

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

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

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

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

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

[holycow]

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

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

[HoreTore]

Our prime weapon is SURPRISE!

Oh, and fear...

[sbroadbent]

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, with that said, Cardinals can be targetted.

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

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

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

[Foz]

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

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

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

[Whacker]

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

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

[Lord of the Isles]

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

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

me too.