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

[Zanderpants]

TinCow and Zanderpants: what's the going rate to call off the inquisitors then? (how much did you pay and on what campaign difficulty?)

I gave them a lump sum of 5,000, an additional 1,000 for trade rights, and built two cathedrals, and occasionally I'll have a priest burnt (once every 8 turns or so) , but they always have low piety. Now I'm all but one cross from the top. Also, I built a major guild of theology, so my priests come out with half full piety. This coupled with my high standing with the Pope, and some timely cardinal deaths, has practically given me control of the college. I've got 5 priests in the college now.
This was on Very hard.

[The Teacher]

On the inquisitors debate.

The problem I see is that they are a little unpredictable, but would they not be in real life? These characters are meant to burn people that must unhinge them a little if you had to do that for a day job. Think of Hanibal Lector visiting a Art School - we would all know the results but the fun of it would be the unpredictability of it.

In short these guys must be a little mad to do the job so lets keep them unpredictable, adds more of an edge to the game - dont patch them sane !

my 2 c :)

[Eques]

Allright guys, while they dont fix this inquisitor problem i got some sugestions

- First Sugestion
The pope is crazy and he really thinks that your family is satanic, or maybe he just plays to have good relations with you while he is allied with your enemys!!!
In any case, you, as the king, should fight this and adopt the pope as your enemy killing all inquisitors and so on.

- Second Sugestion
You truly believe in the pope, you believe he speaks for God himself and after see your suns burn to ashes you agree with the inquisitors and also believe that your sons and good generals had, indeed, a pact with the Satan! See them all dead is a blessing and you own it to the Pope!

Call it RPGistic style of play if you want... but could be cool huh?

[Debe2233]

A little situation report about Mr FlameHappy...

I took Jeruselem quite easily won the crusade i was happy, the pope was happy, all was good... then a heretic poped up... well no surprised i suppose, i had a few priests around converting the population and Mr FlameHappy seemed to be amuseing himself elsewhere.

My priest went up and quickly got turned into a heretic... damn... ok send another... another heretic, ah...

Now the Holylands have around 9 heretics running around giggleing and generally being a pain in the bottom i had to evacuate Jeruselem because of the problems with unrest they were causeing and headed north to the near inland city (demascus?) decideing to send priests after the heretics... but wait!... Mr FlameHappy is back with a few friends and he's decided the best course of action for dealing with heretics.... is to burn my priests. What a genius.

So now im swamped with heretics and i cant actually do anything about them because the inquisitors seem to be totally ignoreing them and roasting every priest i make as soon as he's finished training (Jeruselem is at 87% herasy) my faction leader has headed off into the far east to escape a roasting, oh well... i have a son ready to go in 2 turns... as long as my leader can survive that long in the desert *sigh*.

[urbancohort]

Started a Milanese campaign last night.

Lo and behold the man with the torch appeared after 4 turns. Killed my faction heir and priest but then after i'd built a church stopped and left me alone for 5 or 6 turns. I was building a big church when he appeared again to try my faction heir. Turn ended and the message popped up found not guilty, fantastic i thought lets crack on .... but no chance next go the man with the torch had another go and this time decided he was guilty and it was bye bye to my faction heir again.

How can someone not be a heretic one go and yet next go he is

[Ciddler]

How can someone not be a heretic one go and yet next go he is

A king commit plenty adultry in 2 years time... For some reason, Inquisitors have not peskered me for atleast 100 years. Maybe because I'm at war with the pope...hmm...

[Spendius]

Now the Holylands have around 9 heretics running around giggleing and generally being a pain in the bottom
(...)
So now im swamped with heretics and i cant actually do anything about them because the inquisitors seem to be totally ignoreing them and roasting every priest i make as soon as he's finished training (Jeruselem is at 87% herasy) my faction leader has headed off into the far east to escape a roasting, oh well... i have a son ready to go in 2 turns... as long as my leader can survive that long in the desert *sigh*.

Please do post a screenshot !That cracks me up !

Girl: Follow the Gourd! The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem!
Follower: The Gourd!
Harry: Hold up the sandal, as He has commanded us!
Arthur: It is a shoe! It is a shoe!
Harry: It's a sandal!
Arthur: No, it isn't!

[Ulstan]

I don't think this problem should be fixed by making assassins stronger: I approve of them being generally weak, or else you could just use a tide of assassins to sweep away all your opponents family members.

It sounds like the inquisitors are being a little too judgemental: probably a bug in their coding. They shouldn't be going after pious people in a kingdom on good relations with the Pope: or if they do, they should be generally found innocent.

It's pretty strange that those ***** come after your generals even if you're excommunicated.

Actually that's when I'd most expect them to come swarming around :p

[LordMorgan]

Due to the fact that the inquisitors are completely out of control I find it unable to play the game unless I am a Muslim Faction. How is that for conversion methods lol. But in all seriousness the Inquistiors have taken the fun out of the game. I have more churches than heaven itself my assassins are useless and the Inquisitors are wreaking more Havoc than the mongols on coke. PLEASE PLEASE CA patch this you guys got a great game here but even in RL too much religion is not healthy. Stop with the Inquisitors running amok please!!!! Beware the INquisition no one is safe I tell you lol.

[Horatius]

You my friends underestimate the effeciency of soft pillows and comfortable chairs.

[ZombieFriedNuts]

Ok that’s three times the name of this thread has been changed but any way I’ve had three more crusades since then (didn’t get close to the target dam England for being so far away) and for some reason the inquisitors don’t seem to be as enthusiastic as they once were they still swarm my land but don’t actually do any thing.
Also you would think they would burn heretics on site but they just seem to ignore them which is a bit odd when they happily burn a cardinal just because they can.

[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.

[Mr Frost]

The idea of an Inquisitor executing a prince of a powerful faction is ahistorical nonsense , let alone the King himself !
There may have been the rare exception in very unusual circumstances , however Kings and Princes led armies of very violent men and generally killed those who threatened them at the earliest convienience .
An inquisitor whom tried to condem and execute a King at the head of his crusading army would have been made a very interesting footnote in history as a madman who made a mistake of biblical proportions :P

Historically the Popes' only real weapon against Kings and Princes was excommunication and diplomacy {playing Nobles off against each other} . Had the various orders of inquisition targeted royals with anything approaching regularity those orders would have been wiped out rather fast and the Papalcy would have lost what influence it had {and soon thereafter its' very existance as Kings of powerful nations decided they were better off without it} .


The inquisition orders targeted "civilians" .
Catholic Preists in even remotely good standing were nearly immune and a full Cardinal was untouchable {only the Pope can really judge them} . For an inquisition to start burning catholic preists would be to defy the Pope and that would have resulted in the inquisitors being stripped of possition and likely , flesh too . A member of the Catholic preisthood had to screw up pretty bad to be fair game for inquisitors .

Inquisitors need serious redesign in the game . I'm thinking of modding them out completely .

[Roy1991]

I don't think this problem should be fixed by making assassins stronger: I approve of them being generally weak, or else you could just use a tide of assassins to sweep away all your opponents family members.

It sounds like the inquisitors are being a little too judgemental: probably a bug in their coding. They shouldn't be going after pious people in a kingdom on good relations with the Pope: or if they do, they should be generally found innocent.



Actually that's when I'd most expect them to come swarming around :p

Hm, I thought the pope doesn't have power anymore over an excommunicated faction, does he?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

He shouldn't, no.

How about this: Put some checks on Inquisitors to stop them dead:

No one in a Crusade.

No one over 8 piety

no one who is king or heir.

I'm sure CA can do that, it would limit them a bit while leaving them a force to be feared.

[Husar]

In my current French campaign I had a lot of generals burned at the start, but since heresy started rising and my relation with the pope got lower down to zero and excommunication, the burnings seem to have stopped or become fewer...

[lars573]

You know whne you all started venting about Inquisitors I had a though. What if the campagin difficulty is what makes Inquisistors so good? Well it seems to pan out. I've had 3 run ins Inquisitors and they all failed to burn my generals and diplomat. Medium difficulty=Inquisition blunted.

[ZombieFriedNuts]

You know whne you all started venting about Inquisitors I had a though. What if the campagin difficulty is what makes Inquisistors so good? Well it seems to pan out. I've had 3 run ins Inquisitors and they all failed to burn my generals and diplomat. Medium difficulty=Inquisition blunted.

Nope I was playing on medium went I went on crusade and got burned

[dainjah]

The main problem I see with Inquisitors is that they don't even seem to follow the best interests of the Pope. I mean, why would the pope want a witch-burning Cardinal burned at the stake?

I'd be willing to bet the way they are coded is to essentially look for the highest % target in visual range and go for it, regardless of anything else. It's ludicrous.

Also, I feel like Inquisitors should only be able to target characters with a Piety rating. It's kind of stupid to have my princess or merchant have 0 chance.

[Zenicetus]

The idea of an Inquisitor executing a prince of a powerful faction is ahistorical nonsense , let alone the King himself !
There may have been the rare exception in very unusual circumstances , however Kings and Princes led armies of very violent men and generally killed those who threatened them at the earliest convienience .
An inquisitor whom tried to condem and execute a King at the head of his crusading army would have been made a very interesting footnote in history as a madman who made a mistake of biblical proportions :P

I agree, this whole "burn the heir" and "burn the general leading a crusade" stuff is silly. This can't be an intentional game design... more likely a bug in the targeting script for the campaign AI.

I don't have the game yet (should arrive next Tues.), but I'm thinking of playing non-Catholic factions to avoid this nonsense until a patch is released.

The inquisition orders targeted "civilians" .
Catholic Preists in even remotely good standing were nearly immune and a full Cardinal was untouchable {only the Pope can really judge them} . For an inquisition to start burning catholic preists would be to defy the Pope and that would have resulted in the inquisitors being stripped of possition and likely , flesh too . A member of the Catholic preisthood had to screw up pretty bad to be fair game for inquisitors .

Well, it did happen when a priest p.o.'d the higher-ups badly enough (look up "Urbain Grandier" on wikipedia), but not often. Maybe the CA devs have been watching too many Ken Russell movies.

[Mahrabals apprentice]

look up "Urbain Grandier" on wikipedia

I looked this up on wikipedia and, as usual, that led me to look up many related topics. I eventually typed in crusades and saw this article on them.

Crusades
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no i will not suck it

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades"

this has happend twice but now crusades takes me to a proper article.

[Rameusb5]

It seems obvious to me that the inquisitors are bugged, and in a big way. GrandInquisitor's (nice name BTW) story proves that without a doubt.

Firstly, they're successful way too often. Secondly, they target individuals they should not be able to (such as spies hidden inside a town).

Part of the problem is that MTW2 only tracks family members. In the old game, any free standing army had a character. Not any more.


I'm not convinced that your standing with the pope will fix this issue. I have near perfect standing (one of my cardinals IS the pope), and one still came along and burned my KING.


The sad part is, a few hours of playtesting should have shown this. How did CA miss this? I can't possibly believe they are behaving as intended.

[Quillan]

I've come to the conclusion that the Inquisition is not bugged, rather we're just misunderstanding the implementation. In history, the Inquisition was formed to root out heresy and witchcraft. In M2TW, the Inquisition is formed for the Pope to get even with people he doesn't like.

I'm now 90 some turns into my Spanish campaign. When I decided to play a catholic faction (I modded the game files and played Byzantium first, no dealings with the Pope there), I read a lot on this forum about the people's problems with Inquisitors and solutions. In those 90-100 turns, I've seen exactly ONE Inquisitor in my lands, and he was just passing through Toulouse on his way to Bordeaux, still held by the (at the time excommunicated) French.

Is this luck? Possibly, but I don't think so. Basically, the solution seems to be keeping your Pope-o-meter higher than anyone else. I've taken the time (and spent the money) to keep mine between 8 and 10. It's always either max, or higher than the next closest. I see a lot of inquisitors in the lands of the factions whose Papal standings are low. Park a diplomat outside Rome. Gift them money every so often. It usually takes me about 500 florins to raise it a point. 1000 florins normally raises 2 points. I have to do this every 10 turns or so, unless something else happens that changes it.

[Rameusb5]

Oh... and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO68fUMWx3g

[Fisherking]

Has anyone noticed how far those jokers can move!!! Caen to Hamburg without breaking a sweat!

I agree they should fix them or take them out all together, but I did try the sure fire Inquisitor killer method and they grown really loud... But that was just after they killed my faction heir, then I moved to kill a rebel stack with an other general...and their was an other one skulking in the brush...so I broke up the stack in all directions with the general in the middle...I'll see if that works because he can't get next to him that I can see.

[Aenlic]

If the game cheats by killing noble family members, which is about as historically inaccurate as it gets, then I cheat by 8 boxing them with cheap militia and sending them to hell. Tit for tat. There is something seriously wrong with the implementation of inquisitors. Trying captains and even generals, I can live with; but burning faction heirs and crusaders armies at the stake is outrageous.

[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.