"Head for the Hills" Inquisitors and Merchants!

[Razor1952]

My first game english turn 50 m/m. ~24 provinces France/Denmark laid waste, +7 & number 2 bestboy with Pope. Maxed churches etc where possible.

In th last 10 turns , have lost to Inquisitors,
Faction heir who started crusade and all his troops who immediately deserted.
4 kings
Numerous Heirs and Generals
My +7 pious Cardinal(at the 2nd attempt)
My +5 Merchant( hey they don't even have piety)!
My king hiding in ambush
Numerous priests.They are particular good fodder for theses guys.

So I can see no other strategy but to Head for the Hills of England -where the flameburners don't seem to go.

Heresy was up to about 10% max but quickly was put under control, but the Inquisitorial genie was out of the box by then. Nothing, assassins or anything else seemd to help.

Advice would be good .......Thanks Guys

[Quillan]

Your target number on the Pope-o-meter is 10. Try to keep it there. 9 is ok, providing nobody else is as high or higher. At 8, bring it back up. There are a few ways. Building churches raises it, but how much depends on the size of the church. The only big jumps are cathedrals and huge cathedrals, which seem to give you a full point on the scale. Getting a priest into the College of Cardinals raises it, which is hard to do as England but possible. Completing a crusade raises it, not something you can do every turn of course, but possible. However, the best way is to park a diplomat near Rome and hand over the payola every so often.

You want Catholic high and heresy low in every province, so you need a lot of priests. Build a cathedral as soon as you can, and train all your priests there. If you can build a Theologians Guild there, do so. The guild will give the Orthodox Instruction trait to all priests trained there, which is good for +1 piety. The cathedral will make all priests trained there Bishops, good for another +1 piety. It may be a bug, but in my spanish game when I upgraded the cathedral in Leon to a huge cathedral, I LOST the +1 piety on new priests. I was expecting to build ArchBishops, but no dice. I didn't even get the Bishop trait any longer. Whenever heresy pops up, move quickly to quash it. Dump several priests into the province until it goes down.

This is what I've been doing in my spanish campaign. I'm 110 turns or so into it now, and I've yet to have any characters so much as targeted by an inquisitor. Only once have I seen an inquisitor doing anything in my lands other than passing through. Last night one stopped near Toulouse for 3-4 turns, but I had a family member in the castle, two cardinals and a bishop in the province (heretics keep wandering in from Marseilles and getting executed) and another general leading an army in the region, but no attempt to denounce any of them. It costs money to stay on the good side of the Pope, and I spend it gladly. Of course, having 11 out of 13 members of the College of Cardinals doesn't hurt.

[Werner]

Um, don't play as the English?

Seriously. In my campaign by turn 100 England has been excommunicated by the Pope 7 or 8 times atleast, far more than any other nation. At one time I received a mission from the Pope to break relations with them because they are "an evil that needs to be disposed of...". As the HRE I just keep my standing with the Pope at +9 or +10 at all times, although I was excommunicated once and never received one Inquisitor. I was only bothered once and he took out two generals in two turns but my standing was +7, so go figure? He left after that and went to bug someone else. I think England is predisposed to having problems with the Inquisitors.

[CaptainSolo]

I dont agree with that Werner.In my English campaigns i have always been one of the blue eyed boys.I always want to create a pious god fairing nation and so build churches and priests in all my settlements from the word go.The first Theologists guild offer for London has always come pretty quickly and i always work toward 100% catholic in all my provinces.
In the last two long campaigns as the English i have lost maybe one diplomat and a princess to Inquisitors and they weren't in my territory.

In all of my campaigns the usual suspects crop up time and time again for excommunication : Venice - HRE - Sicily - Milan.

The blue eyed boys have always been the English - Poland - Portugal - Hungary.

[KARTLOS]

just keep your family + general away from the inquisitors, there really isnt anything you can do about them.

[Excalibur Bane]

Keep an eye on your piety of any valuable people, four or more usually manages to save them from getting burned I've found. Everyone else? Throw them on a boat and wait for the Inquistor to get bored and leave.

[geala]

I don't know wether inquisition has something to do with your standing to the pope. In my HRE campaign (H/H) I gave nothing to the old bast... in Rome. I never cared about my crosses in the pope-o-meter. Most time not even one cross was present. Never build bigger churches. Recruited only a few priests. Sometimes I had inquisition, sometimes not. Than oddly 3 of my 3 priests were elected cardinals and became pope one after another. I cannot explain this (was during my journey to the west, so I had other interests). Maybe because I was the superpower in Europe and everyone wanted to lick my feet? Can't imagine.

But: although my standing with the pope greatly increased to the top of the list inquisition did not change. Sometimes it was there, sometimes not. I killed every guy with a black hat every time he put a foot in my country as soon as possible, using assassins or surrounding. I still lost some generals but the ratio was ok.

[Lochar]

maybe because I am at default but at turn 115 and it was first time seeing an inquistor but it was on another factions lands. The one priest I had nearby with only 4-5 piety was tried but won out.

I was excommunicated once, and that was more a bug than anything. I am not sure what my current pope standing is but I have a diplomat parked by rome for bribes.

I have conquered the Scots, have push the French south and Denmark East.

I only have about 6 priests cardinals floating about but anytime another faction priest shows up I slap mine down to keep down religous unrest.

I dont know how your heresy climbs as mine is mayb 2% but I do build the first 2 tiers of churches in every city, only a few have abbeys.

I cant seem to get control of the college but then I havent been trying so much, with all my spies and assasins and troops my costs are running up.

I still need another 10 provinces and control of jerusalem to win and under the 100 turn deadline.

Once I get my provinces goal I suppose will try to have the pope declare a crusade and send my elite troops maxxed out on upgrades and go for broke.

But honestly I have yet to see an inquistor on my doorsteps.

[Sir SillyDuck]

It must be some build in mechanism that delivers a challenge to supremacy at the later stages. I mean, they can be annoying in the beginning too, but they seem deadly in the later stages of the campaign..

[Rameusb5]

. However, the best way is to park a diplomat near Rome and hand over the payola every so often.

I did this and after my first "gift" of 1000 bucks an inquisitor popped out of Rome and burned me at the stake.

"You call that a bribe!?! How dare you! Burn him! Burn the witch!"


The ONLY way to deal with inquisitors in this game is to box them in with a peasant army and then squash them.

[Werner]

I don't think there is any rhyme or reason to Inquisitors, but this doesn't change the fact that England in my campaign has constantly been the one to get excommunicated.

In Repy to #4
The AI plays alot differently than a human player would. I still think England is predisposed to poor standings with the Pope and I'll bet if a human player never cared much for piety, not building churches or priests, that he would still be the first to get excommunicated even if several other nations were doing the same.

[Doug-Thompson]

Play Muslim factions.

[Dayve]

This whole system is broken anyway... The pope-o-meter drops gradually, even if you're not at war with any catholic factions or doing anything aggressive to other catholic factions... I'm playing as England... I'm on turn 25, i had the pope-o-meter at 8, now it's dropped to 4 in less than 10 turns, and all i've done is conquer Wales and York. I've made alliances with France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Germany, Venice, Milan and Poland, and haven't yet been at war with any faction other than rebels.

It's .... Pope-o-meter is broke.

[CaptainSolo]

I don't think it's broken,there will be many factors at work behind your rating,many of which will be invisible to us.Even if it does drop slightly over time as i'll grant it seems to do i dont mind that at all.Keeping piety and favour high with Rome high is just another factor to be managed as far as i'm concerned.

I'm also starting to wonder if your rating is affected by things like making alliances with ill favoured factions or not building religious buildings when they become available.I noticed in my large cities where cathedrals were available to build for a long period of time my rating began to fall only to rise again quickly when i did eventually build them.
Also,taking provinces with low levels of Catholic support seem to have an effect,maybe it is factored into some equation of Catholicism across all of your territories.

I'm just throwing ideas around here but i constantly see things being branded as 'broken' in this game when we dont fully understand the mechanics behind them.

[Rameusb5]

I'm also starting to wonder if your rating is affected by things like making alliances with ill favoured factions or not building religious buildings when they become available.

My Pope-o-meter went down by half when I allied with the Moors. That's what I get for being a nice guy.

I'm now waiting for him to send the Deadly Viper Inquisition Squad after me...

[Dayve]

I don't think it's broken,there will be many factors at work behind your rating,many of which will be invisible to us.Even if it does drop slightly over time as i'll grant it seems to do i dont mind that at all.Keeping piety and favour high with Rome high is just another factor to be managed as far as i'm concerned.

I'm also starting to wonder if your rating is affected by things like making alliances with ill favoured factions or not building religious buildings when they become available.I noticed in my large cities where cathedrals were available to build for a long period of time my rating began to fall only to rise again quickly when i did eventually build them.
Also,taking provinces with low levels of Catholic support seem to have an effect,maybe it is factored into some equation of Catholicism across all of your territories.

I'm just throwing ideas around here but i constantly see things being branded as 'broken' in this game when we dont fully understand the mechanics behind them.

Perhaps if CA gave us the information required to understand the mechanics we wouldn't have to brand something as a bug.

[A.Saturnus]

Perhaps if CA gave us the information required to understand the mechanics the game wouldn't be fun anymore.
I think there's a certain amount of randomness in it, but also a lot of factors you may not have paid attention too.
But after all, how is it written? "God's ways are unfathomable"

[CaptainSolo]

Perhaps if CA gave us the information required to understand the mechanics we wouldn't have to brand something as a bug.

Thats my point Dayve,things like this are called bugs on no stronger evidence than it dosent work how they envisaged,or would like it to.

Once you break the whole thing down to a simple matter of mathematics then the whole thing loses it's magic in my opinion.It would all become too formula for my liking,satisfying value x yields a result of y.That may well be how it all works but i dont want to see that or even disect the game to that degree.
If the Popes opinion of me drops i prefer to think of it being due to his personality or disaproval of my actions.I dont want to spoil the game wondering what piece of software is making it do that.I only know that it does and i react within the realms of the game to counter or improve it.

Just my 2p

[CrownOfSwords]

Make an alliance with the Pope, offer money if you have to. If you keep him happy in your alliance you shouldn't have too many problems. Then again I should practice what I preach I took some revenge on France for exterminating one of my cities and conquered 4 of their cities/castles and got excommunicated woooo. Heres a first I control Jerusalem as England and now everyone is Crusading to get it from me more Longbow fodder.