Value of excommunication and alliances?

[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?"

[Martok]

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?"

Gee Roark, *that* didn't sound bitter at all.....

[Russ Mitchell]

Excommunication is great if used correctly, because it tends to commite the AI of the Cath factions to serious border fights. Which means that if you play a "calculated attrition" game, and are sensitive to which provinces have real strategic value *cough*Silesia*cough*, you can often tempt the opponent to invade, only to have to monkeystomp them with six stacks they didn't think would be available. If you've read your map correctly, you should be able to consolidate and completely pillage some other territory in order to deny reserves to his invasion force (on normal, this is a very reliable way of snapping up his heirs) -- thus setting up the next domino in the chain.

[dgfred]

Excommunication is great if used correctly, because it tends to commite the AI of the Cath factions to serious border fights. Which means that if you play a "calculated attrition" game, and are sensitive to which provinces have real strategic value *cough*Silesia*cough*, you can often tempt the opponent to invade, only to have to monkeystomp them with six stacks they didn't think would be available. If you've read your map correctly, you should be able to consolidate and completely pillage some other territory in order to deny reserves to his invasion force (on normal, this is a very reliable way of snapping up his heirs) -- thus setting up the next domino in the chain.

Very nice strategy here

[DensterNY]

Damn, I love this game so many little gems to offer... Well, I discovered another reason aside from influence and loyalty to avoid excommunication and to keep alliances... and that is Crusades.

I'm mid to late into my English campaign and all of the remaining empires are pretty well developed... and everyone has stacks of defensive armies on their borders so no one wants to start a new war so everyone is stalemated and developing their land and I guess growing armies. The Byzantine Empire dominates the entire eastern side of the map and though I have other nations acting as buffer zones between us I realize I will have to deal with them sooner or later.

So I send forth Bishops and Inquisitors to the Polish and Hungarian lands to jack up zeal for some years... then call forth a Crusade and send it through their lands picking up nearly 2000 of their best troops and march it to the closest Egyptian land which requires my Crusade to go through some Byzantine provinces. They refuse passage and I smash them with my Crusader army which then wins my target Province.

So I accomplished the following things... 1) I got to engage my largest potential enemy without having any border lands to them. 2) I got to strip my neighbors of many valuable troops. 3) I now have a 1500+ army on my enemies front step.... and that's just the first Crusade