Inquisitor, Schminquisitor

[CountMRVHS]

I'm doing well with my Early, Expert, GA French campaign (vanilla VI, 2.01). It's just shy of 1250 and I'm winning on points, and allied with the Pope -- usually as a Catholic faction I take it as a point of pride to ally with the holy father, unless I'm the HRE of course.

Although we're not whaling on each other with armies, and have been allied for much of the game, His Popeness has apparently decided to make my life miserable by sending a 6-star Inquisitor through my wealthiest territories and burning generals and governors there. My greatest frustration was when my 8-acumen governor of Flanders (who was no slouch on the Piety, either) was burned at the stake.

There's no stopping this 6-star nightmare (assassins are useless), but that's not really the point of this thread. I was wondering, is there any logic behind the AI's decision of who to go after with their inquisitors? Why does the Pope keep coming after me? Why not go after the uppity Spanish, who are about as big as I am? How do these targets get chosen?

[Papewaio]

My solution is to repay in kind.

Get your own inquistor and send him after... the Pope.

[Roark]

I don't specifically know about the game mechanics behind it, but sometimes it just seems like random vendettas.

I've never gotten victimised to the point where the cream of my commanders have all been slaughtered, because I'm so paranoid about avoiding big-shot Inquisitors who are on the warpath. I will literally micromanage my generals' movement until I can kill the guy with assassins.

Oh, and the tavern "string of buildings" is the first that I upgrade - largely for this reason. I HATE losing guys to Inquisitors.

[caravel]

It appears to be totally random. I've seen AI inquisitors on several occasions targetting their own generals, and very often generals with very good stats!

[OmarPacha]

A six star inquisitor is a bloody beast and the most honourable way is the escape;
he will burn your generals even they've got up to 5-6 level of piety, if he only choose 'em as target.

That's a fact you can test.
[If you manage to train an Inquisitor or Grand Inquisitor (2 stars for a GI should guarantee enough action), you will see that percentage of success depends not only by faith level
but also on V&V of the target.]

The sole counter - action available in game, in my experience, is to train a certain number of assassins and be careful to send them against the inquisitor only when he passes through your provinces; you could try in other provinces too, but not those guarded by border forts.

I usually monitor enemy inquisitors, to see on whose trail they are; if the target chosen is one of my generals, I begin to make him run, just trying to force the inquistor on a path where my killers can act.

Don't expect to have a chance to kill the 6 star beast with less than 10 (at least 2 stars each) assassins.

Cheers

[Empirate]

Another, rather obvious way to get rid of this nightmare is attacking and destroying the Papacy militarily. They will reemerge, but if you left Rome and the Papal States nicely burned (as should be done by any self-respecting christian), they'll be powerless for a while (leave the Italians as buffer if possible). Also, in being destroyed, they will lose all strategic units, including inquisitors. With Rome burned, this means that yonder reliquary that's been giving you so much trouble has been destroyed, too. Having masses of troops to support (the AI never disbands troops) and lands totally bare of infrastructure, the Papacy can't hope to build up anytime soon.

[CountMRVHS]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. Too bad that it seems so random, but I guess I'll just have to think of it as underhanded church politics that's hidden from my understanding.

I have been quite neglecting my Tavern buildings. I only have 2 1st-level taverns built in all my empire; mostly as I've been scraping together money for military/castle upgrades. The assassins will have to be the solution, though, as I'm playing a somewhat "strict" GA game, only conquering lands that are my own goals. I've been allowing myself attacks against other provinces with the sole purpose of destroying armies, though, (if I win, I vacate the province w/out a siege) so if I find myself un-allied to the Pope I suppose I could send an army that way by sea...

[Zild]

It's odd, I've been playing for years and rarely get concerned about Inquisitors. Sure, I've seen a few 'Your general got a wee bit singed' messages, but never really noticed anybody of importance getting killed off before the Inquisitor went to annoy somebody else.

Now that Legendary Geisha's a whole other story!

I've also not made proper use of Inquisitors (tried a few times when I first started but they always seemed to fail). Instead, I found that sending twenty at once into a province was a good way to force a MAJOR rebellion, after which I could just bribe the rebels! (It's such a cheap tactic I stopped doing it long ago...)

[Martok]

It's odd, I've been playing for years and rarely get concerned about Inquisitors. Sure, I've seen a few 'Your general got a wee bit singed' messages, but never really noticed anybody of importance getting killed off before the Inquisitor went to annoy somebody else.

My experiences have been mixed. If the Papacy or the Spanish become powerful (and the Spanish often do in my games), they often send Inquisitors running around my lands, frying anyone who's not already nailed to a cross. Of course, since I often play as the Spanish, this helps alleviate the problem. At other times, I hardly see any of these guys at all throughout the entire game.

I've also not made proper use of Inquisitors (tried a few times when I first started but they always seemed to fail). Instead, I found that sending twenty at once into a province was a good way to force a MAJOR rebellion, after which I could just bribe the rebels! (It's such a cheap tactic I stopped doing it long ago...)

Overusing Inquisitors is pretty cheap, period--especially when you're the Spanish! I discovered that early on when I first started playing the game. I used to have the monastary/requilary in Castille pump out 20-30 of those bad boys. As a result, I could fry pretty much anyone I darn well pleased, no matter who it was I tried for heresy.

Granted, I find it's still useful to have a couple high-valour Grand Inquisitors around to burn the Pope (or your king if he's incompetent), and maybe a handful of regular Inquisitors to take care of troublesome generals, but that's it. Nowadays I don't train more than half a dozen or so.

[CountMRVHS]

Really -- Inquisitors are that good at starting rebellions? With VI, even? I've never tried that. Any tips on how to get that to work? I find it's very hard to start rebellions with spies usually, and the few times I've tried using bishops to convert an orthodox or muslim province it hasn't really worked. I've never added inquisitors to the mix, though; and although it certainly could be overused, I'd like to have an easier way to incite rebellion...

[OmarPacha]

" Nobody was expecting the spanish inquisition" (John Hannah in Sliding Doors, 1998).
So, it is normal, especially in Early, not to have a swarm of assassins ready to strike.

Sometimes I found that placing an emissary in Rome is a helpful move;
among all tech levels built by Pope, if you see a monastery, then become to be worried.
It's only a matter of time, after some turn, the inquisitors will start to process someone.
The more success they have burning one faction's generals, the more they will keep on with same faction (at least I observed this thread).

Sure, reading all posts of this thread, I'm understanding I've had very unlucky campaigns

[rvg]

I'm doing well with my Early, Expert, GA French campaign (vanilla VI, 2.01). It's just shy of 1250 and I'm winning on points, and allied with the Pope -- usually as a Catholic faction I take it as a point of pride to ally with the holy father, unless I'm the HRE of course.

Although we're not whaling on each other with armies, and have been allied for much of the game, His Popeness has apparently decided to make my life miserable by sending a 6-star Inquisitor through my wealthiest territories and burning generals and governors there. My greatest frustration was when my 8-acumen governor of Flanders (who was no slouch on the Piety, either) was burned at the stake.

There's no stopping this 6-star nightmare (assassins are useless), but that's not really the point of this thread. I was wondering, is there any logic behind the AI's decision of who to go after with their inquisitors? Why does the Pope keep coming after me? Why not go after the uppity Spanish, who are about as big as I am? How do these targets get chosen?

Put half a dozen bishops/cardinals into every province you own.... the inquisitor won't be able to do jack.

[Zild]

Really -- Inquisitors are that good at starting rebellions? With VI, even? I've never tried that. Any tips on how to get that to work? I find it's very hard to start rebellions with spies usually, and the few times I've tried using bishops to convert an orthodox or muslim province it hasn't really worked. I've never added inquisitors to the mix, though; and although it certainly could be overused, I'd like to have an easier way to incite rebellion...

Thinking about it, it might have been during my pre-VI days (as I said, it's cheap and I stopped doing it long ago!) but I really couldn't be sure. I think I was sending in somewhere between ten and twenty Inquisitors at the same time to get the desired effect. Not sure what actually caused it, but I do think that sending them all in one go seemed to be mcuh more effective than dribs and drabs.

[Martok]

Put half a dozen bishops/cardinals into every province you own.... the inquisitor won't be able to do jack.

That is about the only real defense against them (aside from assassinating them, of course). Problem is, it takes a *lot* of bishops & cardinals to neutralize the buggers--more than just a half a dozen in my exerpience (especially if it's an Inquisitor with a few stars or a Grand Inquisitor). Cardinals are pretty effective in neutralizing them; but their numbers are limited, due to only being able to train them in whichever province has your lone Cathedral.

I often end up creating a "crack anti-Inquisitor squad" (bonus points for anyone who knows the Monty Python reference ). It's usually composed of 3-4 Cardinals, and about 15-20 Bishops. Their sole task is to follow around any Inqusitor/GI that wanders into my territory, making sure he doesn't get out of hand.