Can't kill the Pope on the battlefield?

[bretwalda]

I was excommunicated and soon after that the Pope attacked me. It took me by surprise but soon I had the upper hand (as the Hungarians). Retook Venice then invaded the Papal States with the intent of killing the Pope and thus ending excommunication. The battle went reasonably well and when it said "The enemy general is captured" I pressed the kill prisoners button (and killing 245 expensive ransom prisoner as well).

However the Pope was not killed... but lived on. So I don't understand:

- Unlike other kings maybe the Pope is not commanding its armies, but someone else does?
- If kings are captured they cannot be slain with captured soldiers?
- I missed something and maybe the Pope left the territory...? (but I dont think so)

Any clues?

[EatYerGreens]

A couple of three things spring to mind...

First of all, the message you mentioned was "the enemy general has been captured", not "the enemy King has been captured", which suggests the army was led by someone other than Popey himself. Did you happen to see the movement of the army piece on the strategic map just prior to the battle? Was it the big one with the faction leader?
I've read a comment elsewhere mentioning a situation where the faction leader's unit was seen to withdraw from the battle map (orderly retreat, as opposed to a rout). The rest of its army benefited from the valour bonus of the general and continued to fight. Those who like to target the enemy general's unit to trigger a mass rout would find this very frustrating. Chances are that the AI Pope is capable of pulling this stunt.

Second, enemy Kings will do one of two things in a battle once the knights in their unit have been killed or routed: - run like the proverbial whipped dog or fight to the death. The more command stars and the higher their unit valour, the more likely it is to be the latter option.

I've only had MTW for a short while and I'm surprised to find some of my Royal Princes have the 'captured' V&V right from the moment they come of age. Absurd as this sounds, it gives them a massive valour boost (just them personally, not the whole RKts unit) so, if mobbed from all sides, they will fight to the death rather than allow themselves to be captured. You may see this particular V&V in enemy generals and Kings and, luckily for me, it has only been AI kings who've bought the farm where I've been involved in a battle....

Thirdly, the Papacy is not a line of inheritance. Like the HRE Emperors, if you do succeed in killing one of them, a new one is elected in their place. Maybe that's what happened.

Excommunications will come to an end, provided the Pape dies of natural causes... or your King predeceases him.

Then again, even given my minimal experience of the game, I've already had one excom which was continued even after the death of one pope because he died in the very same year as I made an attack. This was ironic because I'd planned the move partly on account of the Pope being in his 70's and it was going to be the last chance for a long while, so the timing was really unfortunate. Even the total withdrawal of my force in the following year did nothing for me. The territory was notionally 'mine' that year, the besieged force took it back without a fight but the 'hostilities' were then in an ongoing state. I either neglected to request a ceasefire or just ran out of time in tracking down the enemy leader or his emissaries. It pays to keep your Ems following them from place to place....

Now what I find really galling is where one of the AI factions attacks me first (usually one of my ships, starting a blockade which puts me in negative equity), then the combinations of alliances with the aggressor country means all my supposedly-trusted allies decide to cancel their treaties with ME, rather than them and then, to top it all, the Pope excommunicates my faction, even though we didn't start it.

HTH

[bretwalda]

Actually this thing happened a few days ago, and I was out of town for a while. I do not remember the exact message was given, but I was positive that by killing the prisoners I would kill the Pope as well. I also recall, that it was a 21 piece unit.

But it is quite possible that my memory does not serve me well. I just wondered is it a possibility due to the special nature of the papal forces.

I am sure there was no new pope elected, as I was closely watching the messages and I also remembered the V&V of the present pope.

However that seems to be reasonable that killing the Pope on the field does not end excom - but it would be good to know for sure.

[EatYerGreens]

Hi Bretwalda,

I've been reading around and I'm pretty sure it IS possible to pull off the 'faction eliminated' thing on the Pope's faction, so he definitely CAN be killed (perhaps by dying in a siege, if you can't catch him on the battlefield). The only trouble is this business of Papal remergences coming with HUGE armies, to take back what's theirs...

Received wisdom is that you leave their territories until last. Two successful battles launched simulatneously and, when the seiges are over and done with, you've achieved the win conditions for the game, so there won't be any opportunity for re-emergences.

You still have a point about the 'kill prisoners' button not acting as expected and perhaps, as you suggested, faction leaders cannot be dealt with in this way. I would actually thank the game designers greatly for preventing me from acting in haste and inadvertently killing off a leader who could have gained me oodles of cash in ransom money...

[bretwalda]

OK, I can kill the Pope if I take all of their land and eliminate the faction. But can be killed before taking all their lands? And can I possibly end the war with them of make a peace with the new pope? I would not turn on them at this point of the game, however as I posted, I was attacked by the Pope after I got excom for errrrr "integrating" the Polish...

So basically I want to end the war with them and end my excom, and I thought by killing the Pope in battle I can accomplish both. Was I right?

Hi Bretwalda,

I've been reading around and I'm pretty sure it IS possible to pull off the 'faction eliminated' thing on the Pope's faction, so he definitely CAN be killed (perhaps by dying in a siege, if you can't catch him on the battlefield). The only trouble is this business of Papal remergences coming with HUGE armies, to take back what's theirs...

Received wisdom is that you leave their territories until last. Two successful battles launched simulatneously and, when the seiges are over and done with, you've achieved the win conditions for the game, so there won't be any opportunity for re-emergences.

You still have a point about the 'kill prisoners' button not acting as expected and perhaps, as you suggested, faction leaders cannot be dealt with in this way. I would actually thank the game designers greatly for preventing me from acting in haste and inadvertently killing off a leader who could have gained me oodles of cash in ransom money...

[EatYerGreens]

In no particular order, here's some other observations about the prisoner business

The button can be pressed at any time or even multiple times during a battle (as I did the other day when the Golden Horde were dumb enough to do a castle assault rather than wait for my puny garrison (124 men) to starve).

It can even be pressed AFTER the battle results screen has come up. Strangely though, the prisoner figures get zeroed but the kills listed for the various units did'nt get incremented by a corresponding amount. Or maybe I blinked and missed it.

The battle results can sometimes be misleading. I've had ones where I see a unit listed as being wiped out to the last man but, upon returning to the strategic map, I've got that unit (or the remains of it) back again. That was because I happened to have won the battle.

I had previously thought that, regardless of the result, if you have prisoners at the end of the battle, you get to make some ransom money and, with luck this will pay for any ransom demanded from you, so you can 'exchange prisoners', after a fashion. Hopefully theirs are worth more than yours and you could somehow still profit out of a defeat. Not so. Only the winning side gets to make ransom demands. Having lost, it's taken as read that you've released the prisoners, in order to run from the field - you can't exactly force-march them away with you.
(Things could get seriously interesting if imprisoned enemy units rematerialised on the field - in an inconvenient position to your rear maybe - as soon as the units which originally captured them began to rout or once they've completely exited the field, say).

The point of all this being, you can press the kill prisoners button AFTER the battle results have been shown but this would be a daft thing to do, if you've won, given the ransom possibilities. You wait for the 'ransom refused' message and that deals with the executions, if any are needed. If you've lost the battle, once the results are shown maybe it's too late for pressing the button to take effect. I certainly remember one defeat which had initially gone well and I had 350+ marked on the button. I was so miffed that I thought 'what the heck' and hit the button out of sheer spite. At the time, I didn't think to check the strat map in detail afterwards to see the net result but maybe it explains the size of the post-batle enemy stack being bigger than I thought it ought to be.

Strictly speaking, the battle results shouldn't show numbers of prisoners taken by your various units if you've lost - or they should be shown in a different colour, to indicate that they're of curiosity value only - and maybe the KP button should disapear from the screen just as the results page appears.

I take it that you won the Papal States battle, so the question remains as to whether you pressed the button whilst the battle was still in progress, or after the results page came up?

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Incidentally, he's tough to beat, that Pope. The other night I witnessed the Almos send what looked like 8-10 full stacks into Rome, where the only unit present was the Pope's unit. I expected to see him besieged at the start of the next turn but he was still standing proud and their stacks were back where they started. WTF is going on there? Bad weather on the day? He's hiding in the woods and they couldn't find him, let alone fight him?

I'm pretty sure the AI makes the most of the auto-resolution for battle results, hence its preference for attacking other AI with multiple full stacks, so the way in which 9000:21 can come out as a victory for the Papacy totally eludes me.

[bretwalda]

I am positive that I pressed the KP button mid-battle. Actually the battle went fine all the way. The (I believe) Pope was captured when there was around 240 prisoners and I killed them. Later on I captured a further 350 prisoners as my cavarly was running back and forth on the field. Now I can only think of two possibilities:

a) I missed something and there was no pope on the battlefield at all (or withdrew but there would be an announcement about that)

b) There is something that prohibits the killing of royal as prisoners...

[lugh]

Well option 2 isnt really viable. Ive killed kings and princes' that were captured before when I wanted to weaken the faction (and was financially comfortable). I cant see the Pope being any different. I wont swear to it but I do think Ive killed a captive Pope near the end game before, to avoid making his jedi powers greater with the "captured" v&v.
Was there more than one RK unit on the field? Maybe you didnt notice the Pope slipping away and captured a vanilla RK unit?

On ending the excom by killing the Pope, if you invaded him, the remaining troops if any tend to turn rebel and you are no longer at war nor excommed with the new one. This has happened a few times with me. Youre usually left to besiege some rebels in Rome or wherever, the new pope in the papal states and all is rosy. So the tactic is sound, Id be inclined to put its failure down to one of the little glitches that happens

I had previously thought that, regardless of the result, if you have prisoners at the end of the battle, you get to make some ransom money and, with luck this will pay for any ransom demanded from you, so you can 'exchange prisoners', after a fashion. Hopefully theirs are worth more than yours and you could somehow still profit out of a defeat. Not so. Only the winning side gets to make ransom demands. Having lost, it's taken as read that you've released the prisoners, in order to run from the field - you can't exactly force-march them away with you.

On this, I make a point of killing any prisoners I have if Im being defeated. If theyre able to slap me a round they usually have a big enough army to plunge into my lesser garrisoned inner empire so the less they have left the better.

[Procrustes]

The first time that a general kills any prisoners he gets the “scant mercy” vice that gives him one more dread star. You get it even if you kill only the first prisoner you take, all the prisoners, or if you repeatedly kill prisoners during the battle. The second time that your general kills prisoners during a battle he gets the “no mercy” vice – one more dread star, but now he gets –1 moral. Next comes “merciless” and “blood lover” – increasing dread but decreasing moral. So the more your general does this, the crappier leader he becomes. (His men are pretty unhappy that he keeps offing their prize money.)

I often kill prisoners once if my army is being lead by the future governor of a province I’m taking just to get the dread star, but I hesitate to do it more than that.

If I’m campaigning against a big or tough enemy I’ll use the same general and keep killing prisoners every battle so that I don’t have to keep fighting them. I’ve had to do this a lot against the Golden Horde – they have those damn uber units like Mongol warriors w/ 5 valor and such that I often loose a lot more men than them even when I win. The last thing I want to do is to face the same unit after it has built it’s valor up by killing my men and then gotten the “captured” vice. The problem is that by the time you get done your general is pretty horrid – I’ll use his men to make up a depleted unit if I can, or send him off with some obsolete troops or depleted mercs to die valorously in one last expansionist fight, or just keep him around for the occasional small battle where I don’t need a leader with perfect stats.

I don’t know why the Pope didn’t die with the prisoners. I have a terrible time capturing leaders – they often fight to the death, or run faster than any of my fastest units. (In a recent battle of mine the Kahn fought his way out of three chiv sgts and a jav unit that had him surrounded and then by himself out-ran all my cavalry and horse archers – I won the battle but lost twice as many men.) The only time I’m sure to capture a king is when they flee the field but don’t have a province left to run to. I used to catch them more when I autocalc’d.

Regarding this:

The battle results can sometimes be misleading. I've had ones where I see a unit listed as being wiped out to the last man but, upon returning to the strategic map, I've got that unit (or the remains of it) back again. That was because I happened to have won the battle.

I've noticed this after I've won a battle - I always assumed it was because captured prisoners get returned to me if I win, and they aren't counted in that screen you get at the end of a battle.

[lugh]

Yeah, you really have to stack the odds against royals to make em break, and make sure to have a unit of super fast light cavalry ready to pick him off as he runs. Theeir horses seem to pick up an adrenaline rush as soon as the rout/withdraw begins.

On the vices related to killing prisoner, how do you achieve "99 “Butcher”
“He is famous for the massacre of thousands of prisoners in a single battle. Few can match the horror of this deed. +2 Dread”
It doesnt seem to follow on from scant mercy, merciless, blood lover ones.
Maybe fight a huge battle and capture the suggested thousands?

[Procrustes]

I've never gotten that one myself, but I understand that you need to kill more than 1000 enemy in one battle. I'm not sure if it's just battlefield casualties, executing prisoners, or both. It's not part of the "prisoner_killer" series I mentioned before - it's unto itself.

There is also another series called "rebel_killer" - swift justice, (secret) rough justice, tough justice, (secret) random justice. Again, increasing dread and decreasing moral with each level. You get these by executing the rebel prisoners after a battle (you get that little screen at the end of the year, asking if you want to execute all, release all, or kill the leaders - these vices appear when you start picking "execute all".)

And if you keep releasing rebel prisoners, you get the "merciful" series - occasional mercy, frequent mercy, merciful, and most merciful. Increasing happiness and decreasing dread.

If you have a province that rebels twice, choose "kill all prisoners" once and "release all prisoners" once - that way you get one dread and 10 happiness ponts. I usually release them all the first time, but it's up to you.

[EatYerGreens]

Regarding this:

I've noticed this after I've won a battle - I always assumed it was because captured prisoners get returned to me if I win, and they aren't counted in that screen you get at the end of a battle.

Well, they are counted, after a fashion. They all go in the 'Men Lost' column.

This is, at best, unhelpful. If you have lost, the ransom demand tells you only the numbers involved and the names of any Nobles, not the numbers sorted by troop type. Can you remember if any of them, or the Nobles, were worth getting back? A list of titles held would be far more useful, since I only dish these out to acumen 4 and above and these are thin on the ground in my current campaign.

[EatYerGreens]

I've never gotten that one myself, but I understand that you need to kill more than 1000 enemy in one battle.

As mentioned in that other thread of mine about the Spanish moving to Friesland and attacking me, I managed this but then had the CTD before reaching a save-point. Then I did it again in the repeat effort, followed by another CTD at a different point and yet again in the third repeat. Now you've mentioned this I'm wondering if the acquisition of this particular V&V by my King is linked to the crashing? I'm pretty sure he was already on 9 dread before this battle happened....

[BDC]

Why bother killing him in battle?

Burn him as a heretic! Hahahaha!

[bretwalda]

arghhh, my machine hanged just when I was writing a ***** long post... Anyway, last night I invaded Sicily, killed the Pope (the King is killed...) in battle (sandwiched him between to full Chivalric Sargs and threw javellins on them) I also invaded Naples on the same turn to cut retreat routes... but this pesky pope was only captured!!! And I released him for some eleven thousand florins but he is still alive... damn. I guess I have to kill him with assassins and make peace somehow... I don't understand why doesn't he want to make peace when he is constantly being beaten...

[Ludens]

There is also another series called "rebel_killer" - swift justice, (secret) rough justice, tough justice, (secret) random justice. Again, increasing dread and decreasing moral with each level. You get these by executing the rebel prisoners after a battle (you get that little screen at the end of the year, asking if you want to execute all, release all, or kill the leaders - these vices appear when you start picking "execute all".)

And if you keep releasing rebel prisoners, you get the "merciful" series - occasional mercy, frequent mercy, merciful, and most merciful. Increasing happiness and decreasing dread.

Additional note: they have to be rebels against your rule, not just the generalised 'rebel faction'. Whatever you do against the rebel faction does not matter for these V&V's.

Bretwalda, I don't think your excommunication will be lifted as long as you are at war with the Papacy. You need to make peace AND kill their Pope in that order. If you can wipe them of the map, you automatically have made peace. He will be back though, so better make sure that Rome does not contain any garrison but garrison any other province he owned heavily (if you want to keep them, at least).