Is this...supposed to happen?

[aleh]

Alright, so I'm playing the Anglos in Normal...wiped out the French 20 years after I began the game. Immediately got excommunicated, fortunately, the Pope died 2-3 years afterwards and I went back to normal. Anyway, I was allied with pretty much everyone, save for the Egyptians/Turks. All of a sudden, I get a message of the Germans starting a crusade against me, and I've been 15+ years as a Catholic....And /all/ of my alliances, save for the Danes and someone else, were cancelled.

Anyway, fortunately, I had two mercenary armies led by my princes ready, and I dealt with the Germans, with the nice bonus of having three new provinces to add to my kingdom. BAM! All of a sudden, the Aragonese attack Aquitaine, and after I send some troops in to reinforce that province's garrison, I get a notice from the Pope warning me that unless I cease my agressions against the Aragonese, he'll excomunnicate me. Anyway, the Aragonese win 2 victories, but eventually they're beaten back...After a year or so, they come back, and I send more troops into Aquitaine. BAM! I'm excommunicated.


1. How were the Germans able to start a crusade againt me when I wasn't excommunicated?

2. How the heck was I excommunicated for defending my own province, and the Aragonese weren't?

3. I /love/ MTW, which I got last night.

[antisocialmunky]

I'd get VI if you don't have it, it might just be a MTW bug.

[Eternal Champion]

I'm not sure about your 1st question, but number 2 is easy. Your big and they are small the pope picks on you. You got excommunicated for the counter-attack into Aquitaine.

I send more troops into Aquitaine

Under papal warning you are only allowed to defend yourself. Absolutely no attacks against the party you were warned about. Anyone else is fair game though, except the pope.

[Geezer57]

Alright, so I'm playing the Anglos in Normal...wiped out the French 20 years after I began the game. Immediately got excommunicated, fortunately, the Pope died 2-3 years afterwards and I went back to normal. Anyway, I was allied with pretty much everyone, save for the Egyptians/Turks. All of a sudden, I get a message of the Germans starting a crusade against me, and I've been 15+ years as a Catholic....And /all/ of my alliances, save for the Danes and someone else, were cancelled.

{DELETED FOR BREVITY}

...After a year or so, they come back, and I send more troops into Aquitaine. BAM! I'm excommunicated.


1. How were the Germans able to start a crusade againt me when I wasn't excommunicated?

2. How the heck was I excommunicated for defending my own province, and the Aragonese weren't?

3. I /love/ MTW, which I got last night.

The Germans possibly started their crusade when you first got excommed - it might have bounced around the map for years trying to Hoover-up extra troops, etc. You only get the crusade warning message when the crusade comes within your "sensory range" on the stategic map - if it's in an area you don't have view of, it's not reported to you.

When the Aragonese first attacked you, I'm assuming you retreated your garrison into the stronghold within that province (or abandoned the province). As soon as that happens, they now own the province - when you relieve their siege, you're actually making an "attack" against them in "their" province, which the Pope doesn't like. The only defense you're allowed is with whatever garrison you have in a province - and it'd better be sucessful, because the Pope doesn't allow _any_ counterattacks. So keep your border garrisons strong, or be willing to accept excommunication.

Or you can use the "bait & switch" tactic against the Pope - he only keeps track of one warning at a time. So you can attack a faction you're not really interested in, get the warning, then shortly after attack the faction that's your _real_ target. You have about ten years to finish them off before the Pope bothers you again.

[Martok]

Welcome to MTW, aleh!! Glad you're enjoying the game.

Geezer has the right of it. The HRE probably started a Crusade against you back when you were still excommunicated, and it simply wasn't close enough to your lands for you to be aware of it until now. And no, that is not supposed to happen, and is almost certainly a bug of some kind. Any Crusade against an ex-commed faction automatically disappears should the excommunication end, even if the Crusader army is already heading towards its target province.

Unfortunately, Geezer was also correct in stating that the Pope viewed your efforts to reinforce your garrison in Aquitaine as an "aggressive" action, since Aragon already technically "owned" the province (even if you still held the castle). In MTW, His Holiness is a big believer in the adage, "Possession is nine-tenths of the law".

So if you wish to avoid being ex-communicated, your best bet (as Geezer already pointed out) is to stop any invasions right in its tracks. Failing that, you'll still be okay if you can successfully counter-attack in one turn--a "blitzkrieg" defense, if you will. The pope will still send you a warning, but as long your invader no longer occupies any of your provinces or castles after your counterstrike is complete, you'll be saved from being ex-commed.

[EDIT] Depending on how long your armies trapped in your castles can hold out, you need not attack right away. If they can hold out for even a couple years, that can give you the extra turn or two you need to gather sufficient forces to launch a successful counteroffensive (as opposed to being forced to launch one with armies that haven't yet had time to bring in more reinforcements). In any case, the key to avoiding excommunication is to make sure you counter-attack all your besieged provinces at the same time.

[Budwise]

1. Its a glitch
2. They are a smaller country than you, therefore they don't get excom. Only the larger one gets excom. Stupid pope hates big nations - or big anything. Thats why they are popes, no women ever likes them. Be small and don't be HRE and you don't have to worry about penis envy boy excomming you.
3. Kick ass.

[Ciaran]

I'm not sure about your 1st question, but number 2 is easy. Your big and they are small the pope picks on you. You got excommunicated for the counter-attack into Aquitaine.



Under papal warning you are only allowed to defend yourself. Absolutely no attacks against the party you were warned about. Anyone else is fair game though, except the pope.

Now, this is the single most stupid rule I ever came across. I wage war against one Catholic country and get threatened with xcommunication, but after I got warned, no one care how much countries I attack? Now tell me that makes sense
Of course, it might come pretty handy...

[Martok]

Now, this is the single most stupid rule I ever came across. I wage war against one Catholic country and get threatened with xcommunication, but after I got warned, no one care how much countries I attack? Now tell me that makes sense
Of course, it might come pretty handy...

It is pretty silly that you can get away with that, but I strongly doubt CA did it on purpose. If anything, it was most likely just faulty programming. Whoever did the coding for Medieval, the possibility of a Catholic faction attacking another Catholic faction after receiving a Papal warning probably never occurred to them. (And when you really think about, why would it?) As it is, it was still quite some time before most MTW players became aware of this flaw in the first place, much less actually took advantage of it.