Inquisitors - problems & solutions (was Crusading when I meet inquisitor)

[GrandInquisitor]

I really get a kick out of Inquisitors (my favorite weapon in the first Medieval), but these guys really don't seem to have much direction. I had a Cardinal, young and vibrant as they go, who was just one mark away from maxed piety. He had traits about combating heresy. He was the Man, who'd done away with multiple heretics and witches. The Pope adored me for building churches, combating heathens, blah blah blah.

An Inquisitor ravaging France for heresy and near-excommunication comes along and kills this perfect Cardinal...

It's the ONLY time I've had someone tried by an Inquisitor...a Cardinal of the utmost standing, with one mark short of max piety, all these positive traits...and an Inquisitor kills him with NO provocation on the FIRST TRY.

The Inquisition would have burned me for a fraction of the things I yelled after I saw that.

[Oaty]

Heres a dirty little trick if your at war with another catholic faction. Go find a measly stack capture prisoners then set them free, next send in some pope-fodder units, let them get crushed and captured then pay for there ransom. Anyways I was mad at the Frenchies for getting me in trouble for selling them back thier men so I got my sweet revenge. Then the HRE comes along (allied to the Frenchies) and asks if I'd like an alliance, Haha Now you have to accept the ceasefire...... I know I know not historical at all someone surrendering to the French but it's just a game.

Really I don't know if it's the ransoming (or executing for those sickos) that angers the pope or the Catholic faction that is winning most of the battles, but I will say the message from the pope came after the ransom and not after the battle. So I put 2 and 2 together and made French Fries - inquistor style.

Would'nt frying a crusade defy the pope. After all he granted and blessed the crusade, and wasnt a crusade without the popes permission.

Also at this time was it really about religion? IMO it was more about power and abuse of the church. Then again Greasing the popes palms gives him power.

[John Carter]

A rather interesting happening occured to me, playing as Spain-

King Alfonzo was burned as a heretic, despite the fact that-

The Pope was Spanish and had been for several turns.

Spain had no less than three Cardinals in the College of Cardinals.

The King was not excommunicated, had no pagan magicians or whatnot.

That just struck me as very odd, unless of course the AI is very very clever and was playing out a subplot where the Spanish Pope had bad previous blood with the King and offed him.

Besides that, though, should Inquisitors be able to burn kings? No historical precedent of which I am aware.

[Kraxis]

Well... low Piety = burn... Regardless of other things.

However, a lot of people seem to share the idea that Inquisitors are a bit too 'effective'.

Personally I have lost two HRE Emperors within a few turns of each other. One was in fact leading a Crusade. Obviously that sent me reeling in an attempt to send a general out to the Crusade in time. I managed it... But had the Emperor just managed to move a little bit further.

[Burns]

The inquisitor is simply not historically accurate to any degree. I do not recall a single example where a king was executed by the Inquisition. And why? The Inquisition relied on the secular authority (thats the king) to function!

To make the Inquisition more realistic a few things need to happen. Inquisitors should only be able to change the heresy rating in a province. Priests should boost piety but not alter heresy to make things interesting. Furthermore Inquisition must be introduced to provinces. Inqusition should ask for permission to actually do its work. Rejecting this would hurt faction-papal rating. Furthermore, Inquisito should be able to target characters. Non-family members or heirs should allow option to execute character since only secular authority could enact punishment. Now for family, heirs and king it should be more interesting. Inqusitio cannot kill king, it just couldnt happen. Now if king has low piety or magiician or what not then the only thing that could really happen is that he'd be pronounced a heretic himself. Think excommunication. That at least can be disputed with arms! I think that would be a very effective, and accurate attempt at fixing the Inquisitio.

[shifty157]

Yeah ive seen several kings (both my own and the AI's) taken out by inquisitors.

[Kraxis]

While more historical, it would make the Inquisitors rather redundant and considerably less than ideally scary. You effectively control what is going on.

Right now they are too scary. They just need a good kick to the successrate and it will be fine.

If Priests do not clean up Herecy, then there is basically no need to produce them. If nobody produces them, then where do the Popes and Cardinals come from? In the end Hungary, Spain and Poland would totally dominate the College of Cardinals as they are the only factions with easy access to enough non-catholics (Potugal as well, but with too few provices they can't make much of an impact).

However, I would like to see the return of inquisitions that got out of control. With the inquisitor (technically he represents an entire group) cleasing the population with mighty fires. That was part of MTW when you had cleaned up the herecy in the province.
Now however it could be the result if the Inquisitor fails too many times in individual inquisitions (which is what I hope for).