Quote Originally Posted by Gilrandir View Post
And you can safely attack any larger or same-size faction?
Yes and no. You can attack a large enough faction without an excomm warning, but if you keep taking provinces, then eventually your target will be small enough for you to get an excomm warning.

BTW a trick you can use on small factions is to capture all provinces in one turn, and storm and capture all castles next turn. If you can pull that off then the Pope has to accept it as a fait accompli.