MTW - Not Getting Excommunicated

[Sir Garlon]

Hi all!

I've had MTW sitting on my shelf for literally years - could not get it to run. I took it off the shelf and thanks to this forum I solved my tech problems and am playing my first campaign. :)

I'm playing England in the early period (1087). My question is, how can I finish off France without getting excommunicated? I mean, the French won't accept me as their rightful sovreign, that's just not right, surely the Pope can understand the legitimacy of my claim... :)

Exactly what happened is I simultaneously invaded Toulouse and Flanders. I had to lay siege to the castles. While the siege was going on, the Pope asked me to cease hostilities. I figured, there's no way I am going to just pack up and go home when I've got two provinces on their knees. :-) So I stayed and captured both places.

Now I figure I am in hot water with the Pope - is there any way to finish the job without getting excommunicated? Is it just a matter of waiting 10 years, or do I have to do something diplomatic?

Thanks!

Sir Garlon

[phred]

The pope gives you two years to withdraw your troops. If you occupy the province and assault the castle before the the two year limit it up, you'll be OK.
Another way is to attack another Catholic faction. In your case let's say the Danes. You'll get warned by the pope, so you withdraw you troops from Denmark. Now you can attack any other Catholic faction without risking excommunication.

[Ciaran]

Since you´ve got your warning already (but aren´t excommunicated yet) I´d suggest you leave the French alone for ten turns and clobber someone else in the meantime. Since you´ve got the places, they´re officially yours as far as the pope is concerned. Just keep them fortified, so the French don´t try to take them back.
You mentioned diplomacy, so maybe I should say something about that. Now, you see, the pope is a very finicky fellow, one turn he might gift you a thousand florins, the next he can excommunicate you. You can be as good a Christian as they come, building churches, inquisiting Heretics (that´s only an option after the clock hit 1205), doing Crusades, whatever, he´ll always be breathing on your neck whenever you try something funny.
The good news is, he´s also incredibly lazy (or busy or so much caught up in his paperwork - parchment work, I should better say) and can track only one warning at a time, so if you got warned about the French any other Catholic faction is free game for ten years.

[matteus the inbred]

if he does excommunicate you, have him assassinated, as this voids all excommunications (or invade people if your faction leader is very old, as the excommunication ceases when he dies as well). there's a good thread on this somewhere in the Main Hall forum...

[Maeda Toshiie]

You will only get warned when you attack a catholic faction who is less than half the size of your faction. You will get instant excommunication when you refuse passage to a crusade or invade a Papal province (sally out of the castle is considered an invasion and hence will cause excommuncation as well).

Being at war with the Pope is unrelated with being excommunicated (note also that being at war with the Pope also means that you cannot launch crusades).

[marcusbrutus]

If you get a chance to attack and kill off the entire French line in one turn then all the remaining French teritories will become rebels and you will not get excommunicated - however allow one heir to the throne to escape and you will be punished

[BHCWarman88]

If you get a chance to attack and kill off the entire French line in one turn then all the remaining French teritories will become rebels and you will not get excommunicated - however allow one heir to the throne to escape and you will be punished

meh meh. I'll just attack and kill the Pope.no big deal..

[aw89]

It doesn't really matter if you get excommunicated, (On normal anyway) haven't had a crusade launched on me even though I am very hostile towards all my neighbors and have been excommunicated for over 20-30 years in my campaign. the first time with only flander and all of britain and the following somewhere betwixt (Love that word) that and owning nearly all of modern france and a province in the middle east.

[Asmodai]

Rightly said!

Excom isn`t bad thing, if you keep loyality in check in all your provinces. Excom lasts only for 20-40 years (if you help the Pope sending the soul to Almighty) this definitely be rather short excom. Worse than excom is war with Pope, when you want to crusade. If you are in war with Papacy, they forbid you every crusade attempt, even, when you are not excomm(belive me, it is possible, cos i few times was attacked by papal troops and not countered their offensive). The only way to deal is wipe the papacy from the game, and quick withdraw from papal states and rome. Papacy will reapear very quickly and they will be in neutral, and that make the crusading possible.

[Loucipher]

After all that fuss raised about the excommunication, I shall throw my in
The excommunication is, in general, a bad thing. Question: how bad? Answer: it depends. When you have a strong, influential ruler and a well garrisoned kingdom with low zeal factors, then excommunication is merely a nuisance - loyalty of your forces and provinces may suffer a little drop, but it won't be enough to start any rebellions or (worse) a civil war. And should they actually do happen, they shall be weak enough to provide just a practice for some of your lower-ranking officers. This is particularly true for the factions that aren't going to launch Crusades (like Poles and Danes), since excommunication has no effect on them.
However, if your realm is feeble, or if you want to launch Crusades (or fulfill GAs connected with the Holy Land area), things get quite bleak. The biggest threat for the excommunicated is that the remaining Catholic factions are free to rush on you (in every second game I play, the excommunicated tend to have others gang up on them). If your armies cannot stand up to the task of defending your borders, such a gang-up may result in a quick and painful game-over. Keep a close eye on the loyalties, too. The more pious generals and the more zealous provinces you have, the bigger impact an excomm is going to take. The pious generals will turn their back on you almost at an instant, and a wave of religious unrest may roll across your territory. At this point, a civil war is likely. Having all your neighbours knocking on your castle gates plus the disheartened populace at your throat... well, it ain't nice at all. Some brave souls would definitely survive such a dire strait, but it would take a skillful and coldblooded ruler to do so.
Furthermore, while you are excommunicated (or at war with the Papacy), forget about Crusades. The Pope will disband your existing ones and won't let you train new ones. Bearing in mind that almost all early GAs other than Conquest and Homelands are Crusades to the Holy Land area, you are banned from a fine chunk of GA points. Expect other Catholic factions (especially those not bent on eradicating you at the moment) to make good use of your handicap in this regard.
So, what can you do about it? There are several ways.
The first and the easiest: make your ruler die You can use Assassins, Grand Inquisitors (later in the game, though) or just send him on a suicide mission. The excommunication is person-based, not realm-based, so once your not-so-pious fatso kicks the bucket, his heir joins the Church again
The second one, a bit harder (depends on how far your armies can reach at the moment) is to make short work of the Pope. The Papacy is just like the American administration - decisions of previous one not necessarily carry over to the next one (All USA citizens please forgive me this shameless pun ) Once you punish the pesky excuse of a priest for scribbling rubbish parchments , you can say hello to the new Pope, and the Church. If you can't reach him with his armies, use agents (high Valour Assassins work well).
The last, and the most difficult one, is to get rid of the Papacy altogether. Unfortunately, this last option is in no way permanent. You can conquer the Papacy and eliminate it as a faction (which also renders all excommunications null and void), but the Papacy, unlike any other faction, reappears even when you have a 200% Loyalty in Rome and Papal States - and every 20-30 years! If you want to keep them down, conquer Rome and Papal states, raze them to the ground (leaving BF and nothing else) and make skeleton garrisons of peasants. Then put a strong army on hold in Tuscany or Naples (enabling you to strike at will into Rome or Papal States). The Pope will reappear with rabble units (reappearing army composition is based on what you have in the province and what tech buildings are present). On reappearance, enter , blast , then withdraw Wait until another time... lather, rinse, repeat as needed.
The Papacy is by far the most annoying faction present. I hope my prolonged treatise will make it more tolerable to all players
Down with the Pope!
(DISCLAIMER: in MTW only )

[Vlad The Impala]

Attack when the Pope is over sixty years old already, so he'll die a few years after your excommunication.

[Loucipher]

A viable, if somewhat unpredictable, option You never know how long will that old man live... May be just 1 year... but may be 10 years as well And believe me, sometimes these 9 years of difference really count...