Stupid Pope! (not the real Pope)

[Moop]

In MTW, I am continually frustrated by the Pope. He excommunicates like a man choosing his woman in a whorehouse. (no offense to the Pope, Catholics, or anyone at this board, but I needed a good similie) I invaded France as England, only to be excommunicated and the stupid Spanish call a crusade on Wessex. There was a real 100 Years War, and the last time I checked, the Pope did not excommunicate (it should be an interdict if it is on a monarch and his lands)England. Sure, I can destroy the crusade, but my army will be severely weakened; the crusade has over 1000 men.

[lancer63]

If you attack a fellow cath. faction you are most likely to get a warning from his Hollyness asking you to cease and desist your agression against your brothers. You get 2 years to stop the war or you'll be x-commed and the Pope will ask other Catholic factions to crusade against your sorry carcass. Oh and btw. The French are the Pope's pretty boys. You can't so much as look agrily at them when a cardinal is dispatched with a holy warning and reprimand.
Wait till your king or the Pope (whoever kicks the bucket first) dies and the excommunion will be over.
One of the things I love about MTW is that while it's a historically oriented game, it's not a historical recreation program. That way you never have a battle repeat in the campaing mode. That way even Richard Lionheart and the great Saldin would have to learn the ropes of the game in order to succeed here.
That's why I love this game, its uniqueness.

[kiwitt]

Quote[/b] (lancer63 @ Feb. 25 2004,15:30)]... One of the things I love about MTW is that while it's a historically oriented game, it's not a historical recreation program. That way you never have a battle repeat in the campaing mode. ...
That's why I love this game, its uniqueness.

I couldn't agree more. The replayability of MTW is way in excess of any other game I have ever played.

RE: the Pope, try assassinating him. However, you may want an experienced assasin (i.e. with high valor) as his guards are pretty good.

[Moop]

[QUOTE=[b]Quote[/b] (kiwitt @ Feb. 25 2004,15:38)][quote=lancer63,Feb. 25 2004,15:30played.

RE: the Pope, try assassinating him.[/QUOTE]
I'm off to try that right now.

[katank]

it will stop further crusades but to actually kill the spanish crusade in progress, it's easier to hide in the castles so it passes on.

Try to hit the originating province. If you raze the chapterhouse, the crusade is gone. THis is far easier if you have a navy as the AI never guards the provinces behind the frontlines too well.

[motorhead]

Pope only gets involved when the conflict has one faction that is twice the size of the other. The smaller faction can even be the aggressor, but it is the larger faction that will be in danger of excomm. This is why the HRE seems to always be on the pope's bad side, they start the each period with a large number of provs, often putting them over the 2X threshold.

An example:

1) French (4 provs) invades English (12 provs) held Brittany. Say the french win and are besieging the castle. As far as the pope is concerned Brittany is now french, and the english are squatters in the castle. If you right-click on the prov it shows a french flag now. If the English send in a rescue force to recapture Brittany they will receive a warning because the English now have 11 provs to the French 5 (i.e. english are still 2X the size of the french).

- note that once you reach the 10 year non-aggression part of the warning, you can't even attack french ships w/o triggering excomm.

So how do you deal with excomm?
- assasinate pope, all excomms disappear with election of new pope
- hope your leader dies off. excomms only apply to your current ruler
- pope tracks only one warning per faction. Attack another faction you're twice as big as, get the warning, then you're free to attack a different faction, even if you're 2x their size and won't get excomm'd.
- Attack swiftly. Overwhelm a small faction in 2 turns. Invade every one of their provs on turn 1, assault their castles on turn 2.

[Red Yak]

Quote[/b] ]This is why the HRE seems to always be on the pope's bad side, they start the each period with a large number of provs, often putting them over the 2X threshold.

Thanks motorhead

That explains why i have so many problems with the Pope when playing the HRE. I keep getting excommunicated for French, Danish, or Italian aggression even when I'm doing the Pope a favour and giving an Islamic nation a beating with a crusade.

[Moop]

Quote[/b] (motorhead @ Feb. 25 2004,22:01)]Pope only gets involved when the conflict has one faction that is twice the size of the other.

I'm pretty sure I didn't have twice as many provinces as the French and they didn't have twice as many provinces as me.

[The Tuffen]

The pope is annoying, I now make sure that I have a chain of fleets to the pope's provinces so that if I do get excommed I can go and kill him off before he asks for crusades against me.

[motorhead]

Quote[/b] (Moop @ Feb. 26 2004,20:45)]

Quote[/b] (motorhead @ Feb. 25 2004,22:01)]Pope only gets involved when the conflict has one faction that is twice the size of the other.

I'm pretty sure I didn't have twice as many provinces as the French and they didn't have twice as many provinces as me.

You forced me to go to the archives

Quote[/b] ]eat cold steel
Programmer
Group: CA
Posts: 312
Joined: Aug. 2002
CA, UK Posted: April 23 2003,04:13
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The rules for excomunication is quite simple. If a faction with twice the number of regions attacks, he gets a warning. Any aggressive action before the warning runs out leads to excomunication. Sally out of a besieged castle is not aggressive (since the patch) but retaking lost a region does count as aggressive. Attacking the papist is automatic excomunication. Blocking a crusade in conquest mode is automatic excomunication, in glorious goals mode it depends on if the crusade's object is a goal or not.

Being friendly with the pope has no effect on the rules. But he will send you cash if he has any spare.

[Ashen]

worry not about your similies. I once likened him to Syphillis

[Moop]

Quote[/b] (Ashen @ Feb. 27 2004,13:04)]worry not about your similies. I once likened him to Syphillis

Anyways, I killed the Pope and also reduced several factions to rebels, including my arch nemesis France.

[tehNellie]

Well that clears it up for me, it was starting to do my nut in. Some toerag sinks all my trade routes and nicks a province, I retaliate and the pope gets all shirty.

Next time whatever province he is sat in gets added to the list

And how on earth do you get a level 7 assassin? I gave up using them, the rate of attrition and time spent just getting them to be able to hack down a general on anything approaching a regular is more than I can stand, especially once emissaries start to run thin on the ground.

[Gregoshi]

Greetings tehNellie and welcome to the Entrance Hall.

I have similar questions about assassins. I don't think I've ever groomed one higher than 3 or 4 and then they fall victim to capture. And unless you give them target practice against your own people (cheesy unless you are roleplaying a paranoid king), you do run out of high success targets.

[tehNellie]

Quote[/b] ]Greetings tehNellie and welcome to the Entrance Hall.

Thanks, nice forums ;)

Biggest problem I find with low level assassins is the tendency for their target to wander back into hostile territory meaning they get intercepted and killed frequently, not that this doesnt also happen with mid level (never got higher than a level 5 assassin) guys as well who seem to lose 95% chances much more than that figure.

I was contemplating using a big, otherwise useless territory like Ireland as a training ground for assassins etc. whilst hopefully getting shot of generals with undesirable stats. Having started a new game I am paying a lot more attention than I have done previously to this aspect of the game and naturally now have a few queries:


Kings/Generals.

1) I can see that stamping all over the map improves my influence, but why does it seemingly drop for no reason I can discern (no territories lost, kings not died in between rounds)?

2) Piety, what increases/decreases this? (and in an effort to make this vaguely on topic) does This stat as King have any bearing on how the Pope or other Kings deal with you? I always build churches/cathedrals in every province to keep the masses (and troops produced?) happy but often have kings with 0-3 piety, rarely higher. I do concede that I rarely bother with crusades, they get mashed too often and unlike the computer I always get diverted into quiet provinces.

3)Assuming that a High command, high acumen general is best as a steward, does income suffer when the general goes a travelling or just loyalty?

Bishops/cardinals/princesses
How do they gain valour? I often see opposing bishops with high valour, but never my own.

Inquisitors
Is there any benefit to having them start inquisitions in your own territories to weed out potential uprisings or are they more likely to cause them by upsetting the faithful masses?

[yonderboy]

There is a lot to re: to in this lovely lil thread

First of all, I need to re: to the 100-years-War analogy. Yes, you can have a 100-year-long war without excommunication. It's not a long, lovely, glorious war, instead it's just a long series of hit-and-run tactics followed by a LOT of waiting and rebuilding. Capture a territory, lay waste to all of the buildings (and get $$ in the process), and pull out the next year. That way you can appease the Pope by pretending to come to your pacifistic senses. In that 10 year interlude, build up your stuff while the Frenchies just rebuild to what they were when you first attacked. Rinse-and-repeat.

EVENTUALLY you'll have find yourself in the much-desired state of being obviously better off than the Frenchies. Most likely, this series of hit&run battles won't last nearly long enough to be a 100-year-War redux, but you never know. Hopefully you'll anger the Frenchies enough that THEY attack you and get excommunicated. Then France is your playground for the taking Enjoy.

As for assassin valour-building, it IS tough. It's easiest at the beginning (magically that just happens to be the time when no one has the infrastructure to build assassins...). Your assassins' targets should always first be emmissaries. Knock off a few of your own if there's nothing good out there. You can usually end up w/ a 3- or 4-valour assassin running around w/ another one training up just in time for when your best assassin croaks. The AI has a tendency to harbor a dozen or so agents in a single province. Often, for some reason, this tends to be in Spain or southern France. If there's no border forts, then consider this your training grounds. And above all - kill any agent inside YOUR territory

I usually end up having at least 1 religious agent (followed, eventually, by at least 1 spy) in EVERY territory on the map, so that way I have access to info about every province. The AI doesn't seem too terribly concerned, most of the time, with knocking off my bishops/priests/alims...

Here's some more:


1) I can see that stamping all over the map improves my influence, but why does it seemingly drop for no reason I can discern (no territories lost, kings not died in between rounds)?
-The loyalty of your generals may have fallen for one reason or another. Your king may be away from home and cut off from the kingdom. If this happens, then you'll make a LOT of people upset due lagging economy... this might do it.
-One thing I'm CERTAIN lowers your economy is breaking of treaties. Not 100% sure though, so correct me if I'm wrong guys

2) Piety, what increases/decreases this?
-Don't have a clue. Wish I knew. Anyone else?

3)Assuming that a High command, high acumen general is best as a steward, does income suffer when the general goes a travelling or just loyalty?
-I've always kept my generals at home. In fact... I often use my generals' units to as reinforce (merging partial units) those the suffer in combat. It's quite common for me to have a governor w/ 0 stars, 4 acumen, and commanding 1 peasant (and another unit to have my 100-man minimum of course) in a lot of my places. For me this has worked out ideally. Occassionally though, especially later on in the game, I'll be cranking out generals w/ 3-4 stars, so I usually end up w/ a few provinces w/ great generals as well as great governors. Anywayz, specific info on this would be great as well.

Bishops/cardinals/princesses How do they gain valour?
-Princessess can gain valour? Actually, I think I've seen it a time or two... It's from successfully negotiating an alliance w/ a faction that has no unmarried heirs. As for the clergy... all I can think of is surviving assassination attempts. Altho... I think they can make alliances too... or something...

Inquisitors: Is there any benefit to having them start inquisitions in your own territories to weed out potential uprisings or are they more likely to cause them by upsetting the faithful masses?
-Actually yes. I think. I tend not to play the Catholic factions often cuz I despise that stupid Pope, but whatever... Basically, keep the Inquisitor in your territory for a few turns, and it'll raise your zeal lvl. This, of course, makes it dandy for Crusades to pass thru. If you have a small garrison in a territory w/ high-zeal, you may want to have the Crusade sit an grow for a few years. Other than that, I can't see any use for Inquisitors in your territories. Maybe keeping them there for a long time will reduce zeal, which might be useful? Not sure.

Whew I think that's it for now. Anywayz, I'll head back here cuz there's a lot of good info in this thread so far

[phyrrus]

1) I can see that stamping all over the map improves my influence, but why does it seemingly drop for no reason I can discern (no territories lost, kings not died in between rounds)?
-The loyalty of your generals may have fallen for one reason or another. Your king may be away from home and cut off from the kingdom. If this happens, then you'll make a LOT of people upset due lagging economy... this might do it.
-One thing I'm CERTAIN lowers your economy is breaking of treaties. Not 100% sure though, so correct me if I'm wrong guys


hei there thanks for raising this question,
in almost all the MTW game i play I always watched my Kings' influences and do many tests.
Influece drop due to many reasons: the primary king that does have high influences (Max 9)doesnt mean you have high influence next to throne prince. mostly i say is about 4-5 influences.(most) so over time the influence increase if you stamp many priests or ambassadors. but not much. My fav was Successful (one) crusade or one Jihad increase 2 crowns (influence) for the king but a lost crusades the other way round. So that doesnt mean you increase loyalties of generals sky high. Only if you lead your King to successful battle will push up influence. One win battle one influence. Vice and virtues : like magnificent builder for the king will helps to increase loyalty of all generals. Please remember if your king has 3-4 crowns(influence, most of the time) and sit around, you have low loyalty young princes and army produce on that king period will be much lower (some even no loyalty, check it out). Governor loyalty still remain but some of their army for those build before the King were being lower. slowly this army will rebel. so i charge my king to winning war will help increase loyalty a lot.