Value of excommunication and alliances?

[EatYerGreens]

So it leaves me wondering... What threat is there of excommunication if other Catholics will only attack if it suits their interest? Also, outside of trade and an implied agreement that you're not likely to attack what value is there in alliances?

If you are excommunicated, it means you are considered as 'fair game' to the other Catholic factions. They stand to make exploitative gains from taking valuable provinces off you and won't incur the penalty of the Pope's wrath as a consequence, hence you become as bad, in their eyes, as the Muslim factions. In the meantime, they can make additional gains from Crusading, whilst you cannot.

Just consider yourself lucky that they don't launch crusades at you, too. Atually, does anyone know if this can smetimes happen, while you're excommed?


What value is there in alliances? I wrote a post in the STW forum, a long while ago, about the various motivations for alliances. If I can find it again, I'll try and stick a link to it in this thread.

In brief, it ranged from: big guy wants no trouble from little guy whilst he's busy someplace else clobbering his biggest threat, to little guy not wanting any trouble from the big guy to play for time while he beavers away on teching up to the uber-weapons that he plans to use to clobber ALL the big guys with...


Lastly, I can't help thinking how many of the game features people comment upon as being almost unnecessary to win the domination game but, as far as I can gather, become near-essential in the GA campaigns (eg fancy buildings which add prestige, maybe give bonuses but don't actually produce troops). I'm wondering if the alliance concept is just another one of those?

By implication, if you're ultimately planning to dominate the entire map, the last thing you need is alliances which you will have to break, treacherously, in the long run. You said as much in your closing para.

[Martok]

Just consider yourself lucky that they don't launch crusades at you, too. Atually, does anyone know if this can smetimes happen, while you're excommed?

Oh yeah, you'd better believe they do! While it's happened to me numerous times, one of the best examples that sticks out in my mind is a French campaign I was playing just a few weeks ago. After several years of bloody fighting (for which I was ex-commed before 1100), I'd finally finished taking England's three Continental provinces (Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine), and was working on consolidating my gains.

I'd barely begun my rebuilding efforts, however, when suddenly I received a message saying the Germans had launched a Crusade against Flanders! As it was far and away my richest province at the time, I had made sure to station a halfway decent-sized garrison there (around 500 men), so I wasn't too worried at the time. Imagine then, the unpleasant shock I received a few turns later when the Germans showed up with an army of nearly 2000 troops.

So yes, Crusades can (and are) launched against you if you're excomunnicated......

[Ironside]

Just consider yourself lucky that they don't launch crusades at you, too. Atually, does anyone know if this can smetimes happen, while you're excommed?

It happens. Weirdest relocation was when the HRE took the British isles with a crusade (and lost thier homelands), but the British still thrived in Russia.

Don't remember if I've gotten a crusade against myself as a catholic, but I often "cheat" with the warnings and rarely get excommunicated.

[EatYerGreens]

@ Martok & Ironside,

thanks for the warning, chaps.

Just wish I'd spotted those typos and edited them before you both quoted them...

As much as I blather on about this game, much of what I say is based on the experience with Shogun which is still applicable. I think I campaigned each and every faction in that to total victory but obsession-switching meant that took a few years to achieve, not to mention 'give-up and restart' syndrome.

For various reasons, not least hard drive failures, I've started MTW campaigns several times but I think only one of those got as far as transitioning from Early to High (English) before it got stuck in a repeating crash (Spanish went weird and grabbed Friesland from rebels, by sea, then go mad trying to match my Flanders garrison, which I increase to keep it safe, until they've shipped a big chunk of their homeland army, 5 or 6 stacks plus their king into before attacking a ship to cripple my very healthy trade income, then invading Flanders. I re-fight and win the battle - over an hour each time - then before the save-point, there are about 8 Spanish ships I sink in revenge attacks before the CTD recurs) so my MTW first-hand experience is somewhat limited and I'm happy to learn whatever I can glean from here.

Speaking of restarting.... My Byz-Expert campaign has just had all its gamesaves bundled into a zip folder for a future time when I think I'm good enough to handle the situation it got into. The HRE broke with its tradition of crusading to Khazar (this time the Khazars have taken several territories and are the most developed I've ever seen a rebel group get to, even building ports and improving land, so are not as soft a target as usual) and decided to crusade me in Constantinople, instead. Cheers, fellas. The Catholic/Orthodox schizm makes me more of an anathema than the Muslims I was half expecting you to help me out with? Okayyyy, I geddit. That or the 'we are the true heirs to the Roman Empire' thing is the HRE's main beef with the Byz, I reckon.

Anyway, 2000 of them have just creamed me in Bulgaria, thanks to a mysterious cheat, whereby the Hungarians they were supposed to be at war with let their crusade pass through Hungary, without the Hungarians losing possession of the land, picking up several units of Szekelys and jobaggys on the way and then attack via the only border crossing which doesn't generate a river battle, which my garrison was specifically tailored to cope with... I don't think they even needed to roll on their reinforcements. My Kat prince was evidently not up to jedi standards and got killed thanks to me thinking they're uber units and can look after themselves, so I was attending to action elsewhere. Possibly one of the Szeleky's he was sent to attack shot him - so much for the armour plating then.

Meanwhile, the Eggies take the opportunity to seize Edessa that year and I was stupid and frustrated enough to autocalc it. I killed a few hundred more than they did but they used maybe 3 stacks so won it. Even after the reduction in troop numbers from two big lots of casualties, the lost income means I'm left scraping a living (two-digit profits), a 40% farms development attempt would take a full half of the puny treasury pot (I think six factions were at war with me by 1138) and the HRE has 1000+ crusaders ready to march on the capital. A further 1000-odd florins per turn of negative cashflow, when that falls, gives me maybe two turns before I have to disband almost all my remaining army, or fling them into last-ditch combat to wontonly slaughter them off. I think loyalty of my ex-royal generals was down to two shields or less before this particular year, so CW is also on the cards.

Outside of this crusade, the HRE have umpteen stacks in their numerous territories, yet the game still has the temerity to lie to me about having the largest military force, even after these battles were over. All in the wrong place (eastern front), if true. Reports of highest annual income when I was near-broke were galling enough but this took the biscuit.

So I think I over-reached myself on Expert and have restarted back on Normal again, making this my third go at the Byz but first as Byz in the VI style. I think I prefer building stuff and money-making to all that battling... so my prospects of winning aren't great but I don't care, I'll enjoy just seeing how well I can do, through the ages.

I do tend towards under-confidence and thus over-garrisoning, leaving my treasury permanently the wrong side of 5000 florins, so I rarely got to crusade as the English. I've read dire warnings here about not letting these fail though this has happened to me at least once, without any obvious ill effects, maybe since the king had high influence rating anyway.

Other than Byz and English, the only other faction I've attempted was Almos. That was doing rather well until it too developed a recurrent fault on the campaign map and I wiped all the saves, partly out of frustration but mostly so I could get VI installed at long last and start all over again...

[DensterNY]

Actually reading another ongoing thread indirectly answered my question and that is... Civil War.

Getting excommunicated not only puts a neat bullseye sign on your chest but it also reduces your influence substantially as most Catholic nations cancel their alliances with you. Your reduced influence and prestige may lead some generals or upstart Princes to have thoughts of ruling themselves. Suddenly my thousand men stacks of armies that have been expanding and defending the empire don't seem so assuring.

Damn, I love this game so many different dynamics involved... It not only requires you to understand the Art of War but also Machiavellan principles of political intrigue. Since I cannot just attack my neighbors with impunity I am going to have to resort to encouraging revolts, bribery and tempting them to attack my rich, underdefended provinces so that they'll get ex-commed and I can attack or launch a crusade against them...

[dgfred]

Nice post Denster , the prestige and influence part is a big problem.

[Roark]

@ Advosan: That's a pretty sound summary, but I've seen some phenomenal examples of exceptions to the rule.

As the English, for example, I had an early stoush with the French (basically just taking Flanders). Afterwards, we had a brief ceasfire period before becoming allies. They were almost sycophantic to me throughout the whole Early period, and remained my staunchest allies, even after we both became powerful forces in the world at large. Even the pop-up messages became more "friendly"... It was weird.

[Babij]

Even the pop-up messages became more "friendly"... It was weird.

Yep, that happens depending on various conditions. You can check the text in the game folder.

[Roark]

Yeah...

"We remain your staunchest allies, even though you've been undergarrisoning your provinces on our common borders, egging us into conflicts, and killing our agents and princesses at the dinner table. Can we have a kiss and a cuddle now?"