excommunication is retarded...in this game

[PittBull260]

you know what it is, you hate it. The pope warns you, if u attack a faction you'll be excommunicated...but that faction can attack you all they want! yea you can defend against it with no consequences but for example, if you see that factions boats coming to get you, you can't attack it you just gotta wait till they get on your land and invade you! I think it's ridiculous....makes me want to disable excommunication in the game (if i knew how)

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Simply become the popes favorite. He won't excom you if you have 8+ crosses. The other guy is also warned. If he is less favored then you, he will be excommed when he attacks you and then you can attack without pissing his Holiness of.

[Seabourch]

Yes it is annoying and retarded. But you can always can play a non-Catholic, they don't suffer from Popes.

[G. Septimus]

but, the funnest factions in the game are the Catholic & Muslim Factions. So You don't have to be Catholic like the modern ERE/ Byzantium Empire and Russia.

[Khorak]

The problem is often from ignoring how the Pope interacts with the factions and how important his good favour can sometimes be. He's linked to the Papal States faction afterall, so mashing up his allies or making an enormous charitable donation for a new giant hat will work just the same as they do with any other faction. I make it a priority to get up a Theologians Guild and produce pious priests to replace the cardinals I'll have stabbed to death in their sleep. As a Catholic faction you have to accept excommunication or get stuck well into the battle for Papal favour.

When your reputation with the Pope totally sucks you can almost guarantee that any act of aggression against another Catholic faction will result in him demanding you stop the bloodshed against them....problem is that they might have good relations and have a varying but much larger number of turns to attack you before he finally gives them the same mission to cease hostility; and even worse, if they have good relations with the big hatted sod, they can just ignore that mission, and only lose some good favour instead of being excommunicated! On the other side of that equation though, the suicidally aggressive AI will cheerfully hurl itself into excommunication, allowing you to cheerfully walk into their lands to rape houses and burn women (am I getting that correct?).

Failing that, your only recourse is to use the superiority of your soft, squishy brain to prepare for an offensive more effectively, so multiple enemy cities can be taken in a single turn with the help of delicious siege engines. The Pope will then effectively be asking you to consolidate on your conquests and really make sure you've got a firm grip on all you've taken before moving on. Thanks Mister Big Hat, I'll be sure to do that.

[Sevis]

Personally, I love the concept of excommunication. It restricts how much I, playing a Catholic nation, can do, but I know the exact same rules go for everyone else, and with a little planning, a few small favours from the pope can give you just the edge you need. Play on the defensive for a few turns, get your enemy excommunicated, and then call a crusade to their capital. Even if you're not the one to get it, it will generally cripple them - without diplomatic retribution. In my game, for instance, after the Holy Roman Empire (which was just a little better than me, England) got excommunicated I called a crusade to their capital - which the French got. Result - HRE is down from their high seat, they absolutely hate the French, and have given me Hamburg (for a ceasefire) and then Frankfurt (for an alliance). Oh, and I had time to take Metz and Dijon, too. In general, I'd say I'm more on the winning side :)