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

**shifty157** · 11-28-2006, 03:19

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

**Kraxis** · 11-28-2006, 03:59

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).

**Kraxis** · 11-28-2006, 05:22

The stories of Mr FlameHappy made me laugh so hard I nearly woke up my girlfriend (and perhaps some neighbours). Same goes for the crazy naval burnings.

Anyway, my own crazy encounter can easily join these for pure "huh?!?!?!" 'ness.

I am still playing the first campaign, HRE (fond memories). And as we know the HRE is pretty bad off with the Pope. And it being my first campaign I have no idea how important churches and priests are. So I move ahead on a loyalty basis for the cities and castles. That means churches and chapels here and there, but not everywhere.

Suddenly I seems to be watching a monochromic screen. There are black and white men with widebrimmed hats everywhere. Especially near Staufen (I had apparently let herecy go a bit wild there 12% or some such, more than enough it seems). Incidentally I had two of my three priests there (the third and my cardinal were actively converting people at Stettin). One turns heretic and one inquisitor burns the other. The other inquisitor scatter and burn what they find here and there. A French general, a couple merchants ect ect.

Just around then the Pope had announced a Crusade to Jerusalem.
He had barely gotten a single mouthful of air before he yanked poor Emperor Heinrich the Chivalrous before him and yelled, "HEINRICH! If you are not on that crusade within 10 turns I will send your poor excuse for a rear end to Hell faster than you can say 'Excommunication'!!!"
In his endless wisdom my empror decided that it was the time for Germany to join the Crusade to Jerusalem. And as such he collected all the mailed knights he could, even the first Teutonic Knights in Germany, and moved south from Hamburg.

In the meantime the inquisitors made realtions between Germany and the west impossible. No diplomat, merchant or whatever managed to get past their wall of fire. I even lost a general who was laying siege to Bern (had to call that off) and a prince who came to salvage that situation. Oddly the heretic walked around safely as other targets went up in flames. Thus the inquisition managed to be kept alive (inquisitors cleaning up heretics, heretic creating new heretics).

I had by then understood the seriousness of the Inquisitors, but counted my interior safe. As soon as I could join the crusade, I did. I quickly hired all the good crusader mercs I could (saved a spot for later better troops I hoped). But Heinrich was out of moves.

The nearest inquisitor finally tried the heretic and obviously failed. That sort of made him look around for easier targets, like a bully that has just been punched in the nose. Someone had to pay. So he moved inland.

Heinrich had to move and did so, ending up near Nürnberg. Then the inquisitor turned the bend in the forest and promptly built a stake of gilded wood for my dear emperor. And that was the end of Emperor Heinrich the Chilvarous (btw the last chivalrous emperor... maybe a reason for that).
I managed to salvage the crusade, but the prince that took over also got tried, and luckily made it (as I had no more generals around to save the troops). He even got a nice little +1 piety trait (Conforming).

To see the inquisitor chase after the emperor now that he was about to get away, especially after failing to kill a heretic was half amusing, half infuriating. It was like he had a mission. Kill Heinrich before his crusade leaves Germany.

Btw I managed to lose another general near Bern to inquisitors (and later I pruned an emperor and his heir outside the walls, but that is another story).

The result of all this made me cheat with some assassins to create the Pope-killer Fritz. Enough was enough...

**AussieGiant** · 11-28-2006, 05:43

I'd always er on the side of simplicity rather than re-do the whole concept as you suggest Burns.

As Kraxis says...lets lower the percentage success rates a tad (understatement) and go from there. A few more concept changes and I think we are good to go.

**Shadow_Wolf33** · 11-28-2006, 06:25

I wish my bribes would succeed HALF as much as the inquisitors do...I mean COME on...all of a sudden no one takes bribes anymore

**Fisherking** · 11-28-2006, 07:23

Have you not noticed that piety has nothing to do with weather or not an inquisitor goes after some one. I have lost several cardinals to the little men with hats. In my first go with the game I used them to improve my assassins or weed out the weak ones. Usually this meant I needed about a dozen to get rid of the little guysBUT THENin the next game one agent was caught and though I was not at the bottom of the pope's list I was immediately excommunicated for trying to kill an inquisitor

I had also mistakenly thought that family members inside cities were safe...but it is plain that they were just humoring me or setting inquisitor ambushes as they just burned the prince. This time I took the 8 step method to revenge and listened to him squeal when he went down.

I don't know how the AI decides who to burn or if everyone is just a target of oppertunity... I can live with it for the time within the game but I think they are way over the top and had just as soon that they were out all together as when they come they never burn the heretics but usually kill everyone else.

**Mailman653** · 11-28-2006, 07:47

They do have a mind of their own indeed, when I was playing my campaign with the Papal States, sometimes Inquisitors would just spawn in certain cities and if I don't move them manually, at the end of the turn the AI moves them for me and sometimes go after people.

And piety does play a role in who can burn, I've spent up to four turns trying to burn cardinals from an enemy faction with little success because their piety was off the roof. Which is of course slightly unfair when it comes to faction heirs, unlike priests who can burn hertics to raise piety, it seems like your heir is stuck with whatever piety he has and the only way to maybe raise it is to join a crusade.

**Rothe** · 11-28-2006, 08:01

I think the inquisition would be rather simple to fix:

- Make piety a less hard trait to come by. Also, a few more default starting piety points would be best, which the generals could then ofcourse lose later if they get some pagan magicians or whatever.

- Copy the priest vs. inquisition defense from MTW1. Basically that means that having a priest in a stack reduces the odds of the inquisition significantly (something like: add half of the priest piety to the generals piety etc.)

- Have some minimum piety rating that makes generals immune to inquisition. This could be something like 5+. It would allow players to pick generals for crusades etc. that are righteuos enough not to get burned for heresy on the way to the holy land :)

- Make king and heir get optional excommunication instead of being burned. That means, if the inquisitor would be successful in burning the king or heir, they get a pop-up that asks if you want to lose the king/heir or get excommed.

- Have idle inquisitors leave faster when the province is deemed "pure". I'd recommend that they disappear instead of moving. Also, have the inquisition kill some citizens when they raise the %-catholics in the province/ reduce the %-heretics. This is a good motive to use priests and not wait for the inquisition to do the work for you.

I would still keep the very basic idea the same as it is now, and not give control to the player for reasons stated by previous posters.

**Grimmy** · 11-28-2006, 08:05

It would give a whoppin lot more motivation to play the college of cardinals game if the control of Inquisitors went over to the player when his man got the Pope job.

**d1ng0d0g** · 11-28-2006, 08:30

For the first time I have actually been troubled badly by inquisitors.

But this wasn't in territory I owned for a very long time, no, it happened in a territory that I recently conquered from the HRE (with the French).

When I quickly checked the state of the province I noticed it had 32% heresy.

Now, when I reloaded a game in which there were inquisitors moving about in a neighbouring province (Anger if I recall correctly) I checked the heresy rating there... and it was really high.

So I tested, and send one of my generals there, and seconds later he got whacked.

I then send a priest there to convert the region as obviously the french weren't doing their duty to God and the Pope.

Eventually the Inquisitor left and I could safely conquer the area. The same happened later with Brugges and Antwerp.

Get rid of heretics before you conquer an area or even move one of your generals in there, but that's just a workaround.

I agree with most of the posters that inquisitors are too powerfull and too annoying.

If it's possible I think that Inquisitors should do the following.

When present in a province they start killing citizens and garissoned.
They massively reduce heresy (as well as convert citizens to the True Faith) and their presence causes unrest.

In this way it should still be hell to have them in your province, as it will increase the chance of riots breaking out which will cause even more damage.

---

Actually while the game is a lot of fun, I would personally love to see a "Realism Mod" appear for this one. More provinces, more factions and a smarter and more loyal AI.

Dingo

**Barny Bangs** · 11-28-2006, 11:42

I wonder about these reports, as I myself only encountered inquisitors during the initial 30 turns. Currently I am in the hundredsomethings turn and I have even caught the whiff of a burning stake for decades. No problem whatsoever with the Inquisition. Am I doing something wrong (or right)?

Pope: My guy since the first pope

Relations: Perfect. If I need to attack a Catholic faction I just pay them something like 1.000 florins and everything is as if it never happened (Ahhh, the healing power of money)

Cardinal college: Save for one Spanish Cardinal, all other seats in the college are mine (insert evil laughter here).

I also tend to keep a regular check on my neighbors, if heresy turns out to be a problem, I lend them my helping hand.

**Casmin** · 11-28-2006, 12:43

Playing as Venice I had high Papal standing for a long time and never saw an inquisitor in my lands. Once my standing with the Pope dropped down to like 4 and inquisitors sprouted all over the place. I thought it had something to do with piety or how strong the Catholic faith is in a province but basically it seems to be a punishment for being on bad terms with the Pope.