Quote Originally Posted by Excalibur Bane
The heavy focus of Religion is detracting from gameplay enjoyment so far. I'm either punished for having too much Piety or having too little. Merchant and diplomats are a good case in point. A town with a lot of religious buildings will produce intolerant traits that make the Merchants or Diplomats nearly useless. "Religiously intolernat" and the like should be removed, or lessened to a great deal, it makes very little sense to punish a player for being too religious. Better yet, make them only apply to different religions instead of a broad reduction to the appropriate skills.
Couldn't agree more. It's one thing to be intolerant regarding another culture, but it shouldn't impact relationships within your own culture.

Quote Originally Posted by Excalibur Bane
AI behaviour is strange, to say the least. As someone above said, never trust the AI to not attack a undefended town. This does seem to be the case. This in and of itself makes a diplomacy simply a useless function if you can't rely on the AI to actually work with you, the "Relations" indicator is even more pointless. If my relations are "Perfect" and he attacks me anyway, what good is it? They have done this many times without reason or provocation. I've gone to a great deal of trouble to avoid doing anything to displease them.
Relation status, while probably not taken into account in the AI realpolitik-driven campaining strategy, is important in diplomacy negotiations. A long-lasting ally will be less reluctant to cut your diplomat's head off at the mere mention of military rights, province exchange/sale, papal votes and the like for example, even more so if you have a trustworthy reputation I believe.

Quote Originally Posted by Excalibur Bane
From what I can tell, they pay little attention to the Pope. Less then 20 turns into the game, Venice and Milan had both been promptly excommunicated for attacking other Cathloic factions. They didn't make an attempt to appease the Pope at all, they simply continued on their rampage against the other factions. Not much point in having the Papacy if the AI doesn't pay any attention to it. Stiffer penalties would be better I think, so they have a reason to try and play with some sense.
There already are penalties for messing with the Pope, as many players complain about : lots of Inquisitors roving around, burning generals and agents. Other factions launching crusades on the poor sods. Maybe the factions defying the pope just feel they can deal with the retaliation, or that the overall profit outweighs the risks involved ? Maybe they'll have no qualms defying a pope who's old and about to die ? I really wouldn't know, so far I haven't seen that many excoms flying around, except for the HRE who starts on the Pope's blacklist anyway.