eh, why are people hysterical about Inquisiters?

[gardibolt]

I'm not hysterical about Inquisitors, but they do make the game even at M/M a lot more challenging. I'm at turn 53 and am down to 3 generals, the rest of the lot having been torched. One of the living actually successfully led a crusade and has a 7 piety, and a second is hidden safely away in Ireland for the moment (though some heretics have sprung up in Scotland and corrupted several priests so that may change soon). The third is new and will likely die next turn. I get constant adoptions and Men of the Hour, none of whom survive more than a turn or two. Playing the game without many generals is hard, but it's doable (though seiges against cities that have 3 or 4 generals at the head of a full stack are pretty tough). My relations with the papacy are perfect, but the Inquisitors are left over from when the pope sent them against France. When I conquered France at the Pope's direction in the crusade, I inherited the Inquisition from them.

The irritating thing is that they ignore the heretics and witches and family members of excommunicated factions and go straight for my characters. Hard to do much roleplaying when you only survive a turn.

Assassins are useless; they can't even kill rebel captains in this game much less a Papal Assassin.

[Headlocked]

hmm i kinda opened a can of worms there!

for the record- not mocking anyones playing ability; i simply followed what the game suggests and honestly have had no problems, ever. Was constantly waiting for a deluge of "Carrie"-style Inquies, but never happened.

When I was Milan things got a bit busy with the Inquis,but they never treied a crusader or king, or heir. Or slaughtered my priests.

Could be this is all statistical blind chance- im just the lucky bugger who got the one copy of the game that *actually works*! lol

reading through the posts, everyone says they paid special attention to priests and stuff said they had a) no problems or b)flamerville.
So, Im guessing there is maybe more to it that simple piety- they are agents of the Pope, who is a Political AND religious figure, as in real life.

Maybe CA can clarify this a bit? i.e., just how much impact does the pope's political relations have on Inqui's activity, &focus?

The CA documentation is always limited, this one is almost a carbon copy of the RTW; which is daft, considering how much fuss they made about the greater depth and intricacy to M2.
I.e. the manual should have explained the vaguer concepts and rules that are *under the hood* so to speak.


Glad for the feedback, although its making me paranoid now:) And i've probably jinxed myself now!


Cheers,
HDD

[Lucidus]

So, Im guessing there is maybe more to it that simple piety- they are agents of the Pope, who is a Political AND religious figure, as in real life.

In the game mechanics,yes.

In real life,they were instruments of the Crown (e.g.Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition) more then an instrument of the Pope.ALL the Spanish Inquisition rules were made by Fernando II.(and Torquemada obeyed the rules)

I never had a problem in my games with the Inquisitors...but the true is...they are unrealistic.I know,this is only a game..*sighs*

[Zenicetus]

I think this is what irks people the most : losing crusaders, the holiest of the holy warriors, sanctified by the Pope himself, so religious they left their own lands and duties behind to spread the faith as best they can, killed by inquis because they were "not pious 'nuff, guv".

That's a serious flaw, yes, but it's equally flawed that they target faction leaders and faction heirs. I'm not a huge stickler for historical accuracy in a game like this unless something just leaps out at me as being wrong. And that's very, very wrong. It just didn't happen. It hardly ever happened to priests either, but powerful faction leaders are the more glaring off-limits target.

Luckily we do have the "surround and drop" method of killing an upstart Inquisitor who tries it, which realistically represents what would have happened (the King's bodyguard takes care of the problem). But it shouldn't be necessary in the first place.

It would have been more realistic to have Inquisitors stand next to your settlement and burn commoners, acting as a drain on population growth or causing unrest, instead of targeting the characters on the campaign map. You'd still have an incentive to keep your religion percentage high, remove heretics, etc. But we wouldn't have these ridiculous scenarios where Inquisitors act as "random WMD" assassins against various high-level targets. We already have the assassin agent type in the game.

[Tuidjy]

Let me add my voice to this. I hate inquisitors are they are now. It makes
no sense that a powerful empire would have no viable option for dealing
with roaming inquisitors that interdict huge territories.

It is not as if I cannot play and win the games on VHVH because of them. It
is just that I dislike the situations that develop. In my present game, a
very pious inquisitor wandered in from Portugal, and is camping Toulouse,
which used to be my infantry producing fortress. Yes, I know that I could
box him in and bump him off the map, or that I can get around the
'no recruiting without a general' restriction. I just would like to have a
reasonable, in game way, of dealing with him.

[gardibolt]

The tricky part of winning this game is going to be avoiding my faction being wiped out by Inquisitors. Since they are certainly relentless and seem to be totally random (I've been keeping heresy under control, building priests and churches like mad and staying at perfect relations with the pope---who was one of my cardinals in the first place ) it is a disenchanting element to say the least. If my former crusader (now the king) gets killed in battle or by an assassin or dies of old age before I manage to finish the game, I probably will lose in exactly that manner, though. It would be nice to have the option to bribe the Inquisitors to go attack someone else....The Danes and Spanish are both excommunicated but the Inquisition doesn't seem to have any interest in them at all (just like the heretics and witches)--only my people. And this is on M/M, remember.

I've tried running away, but there are so many Inquisitors on the map that getting away from one puts you within striking range of another. I have managed to save a bunch of priests for the moment by shipping them to North Africa, though, and their piety is going through the roof. Too bad they can't turn Inquisitors the way heretics can turn priests. But a few more turns and they may be safe to bring back to France. That doesn't help with the family members, though.

I finally got a Theologians' Guild just before I stopped for the night, so I will try shipping all new family members there ASAP to see if I can't get a quick piety boost before they're reduced to ashes like usual.

[Mr Frost]

...I finally got a Theologians' Guild just before I stopped for the night, so I will try shipping all new family members there ASAP to see if I can't get a quick piety boost before they're reduced to ashes like usual.

Theologians Guild does raise piety , but it is relatively slow given your senario .
I would suggest teleporting and Inquisitors near that city to that spot of land surrounded by uncrossable terrain in North Africa . They seem to despawn soon after , so you can imagine they starved to death in a state of utter bewilderment .

[Tuidjy]

There is a way of dealing with inquisitors that is technically cheating, but that
can save your enjoyment of the game. Like all agents, inquisitors are unable
to walk through an army. Thus, you can block an inquisitor path to your
general with some troops, or you can completely box the offender in, and even
bump him off the map by moving an unit on top.

You could justify it by pretending that your king finally got tired of the
persecution, and sent the army to deal with it. I think that I am going to
make a rule for myself - any unit on a crusade or back from a crusade is
allowed to block and kill inquisitors.

[KristianSax]

There is a way of dealing with inquisitors that is technically cheating, but that
can save your enjoyment of the game. Like all agents, inquisitors are unable
to walk through an army. Thus, you can block an inquisitor path to your
general with some troops, or you can completely box the offender in, and even
bump him off the map by moving an unit on top.

Well this does not seem to be a worthy solution for those who are having problems with the inquisitors. I think that would ruin the fun of the game even more if you have to put your steam into bumping inquisitors around. Also there is the chance that your lonely troops will turn rebel and consequently walk away in search of better grasslands.

[Kobal2fr]

That's a serious flaw, yes, but it's equally flawed that they target faction leaders and faction heirs. I'm not a huge stickler for historical accuracy in a game like this unless something just leaps out at me as being wrong. And that's very, very wrong. It just didn't happen. It hardly ever happened to priests either, but powerful faction leaders are the more glaring off-limits target.

Well, yes and no. I mean, sure, historically most peeps the Inquisition (Spanish or otherwise) ever burned at the stake was the wee folk, but there has been exceptions to this rule. Joan the Schizophrenic springs to mind there. In-game, she would have been a 10 Piety general .

Think about it this way, if in-game they weren't any real danger to you and your faction, why would anyone care for the pope ? Excom is somewhat bad, but in and of itself it's not enough to materialize the healthy dose of respect for the Church's power most Christian leaders had back then.

Since you cannot code-in the real life intricacies of the Popes' political manoeuvering, his spy network (even to this day, the Vatican is considered to have the most efficient information network in the world, and they don't have spy-satellites ) and advisor network (many, many kings have had cardinals and priests as their advisors, guess who fed them their lines ?) etc..., and cannot code the Papal States faction to have spies and assassins all across Christendom either, over-important spawning-out-of-thin air Inquis are a decent substitute IMHO.

I agree that the randomness is bonkers and annoying (perhaps CA coded it in to represent real-life Inquis who went wayyy overzealous, like those who were sent to try the Albigensians, and in effect tried any and everyone out there ?), and I agree that Crusade leaders should be no-nos, but the principle of Inquis as the Papacy's better-than-assassins enforcers makes sense from a gamey PoV, I think.
If you piss the Pope off so bad he sends Inquis roaming about, the fact that they can bump off the king doesn't bother me that much. It's the fact that they do so when you do not piss off the Pope that is the problem.

@dopp : sorry, didn't mean to stigmatize you or anything, highlighting your name was just a way to give you more credit and emphasize that it was your work, not mine. Politeness, not finger-pointing .

[Carl]

Well, yes and no. I mean, sure, historically most peeps the Inquisition (Spanish or otherwise) ever burned at the stake was the wee folk, but there has been exceptions to this rule. Joan the Schizophrenic springs to mind there. In-game, she would have been a 10 Piety general .

I presume your talking about Joan of Arc? My understanding here was that it was actually the English rather than the pope that where behind it. They knew that the morale boost she was giving the french was proving decisive in them winning. Of course when they killed her it only inflamed the french more. So it kind of backfiered.

In the end however they decided they needed her out of the way.

Finnially, be careful with the anti- religion comments, you'll bring a lot of angry people down on your head if your not careful. We don't want a flame war here. Religion vs. anti-religion debates are probably the worst flame war in exsisitance.

[Kobal2fr]

Yes, that was of course Joan of Arc I was talking about, and yes, I know it is a special case and was both the English and the French's (I understand she had become a bit of a nuisance to the French king as well - people respected her more than him after all, and she was turning into something of a loose canon waging her own private war) doing more than it had to do with the Pope's will (actually, in her case the Pope actively denounced the burning through retrial - but it was a posthumous retrial ), but then again when an Inqui roams into your lands and kills one of your generals, you can also make-believe it was at your neighbour's request/insistance.

The point I was trying to make was that important figures were not always safe from the Inquisition out of their importance. They were mostly not burnt though, I'll admit, but that is just Inquisition cliché and myth when inquisitors really never were that flame-happy.

I'm not sure I was being anti-religious, I read my post again and the only questionnable thing was calling Joan schizophrenic, but that was merely a joke playing on the game's leader naming system, and meant to be taken as such I assure you. Wether she in reality was a very clever girl, a very mad girl or God's conduit we can of course never know, can we ?

[Carl]

I'm not sure I was being anti-religious, I read my post again and the only questionnable thing was calling Joan schizophrenic, but that was merely a joke playing on the game's leader naming system, and meant to be taken as such I assure you. Wether she in reality was a very clever girl, a very mad girl or God's conduit we can of course never know, can we ?

Fair enough, I didn't realise that you where having a go (a Smiley would have helped, is my fav in these situations, I use it in the place of MSN's :p smiley).

I got a bit overzealous, :smash, mainly because, (regardless of what she was or was not), I respect her as one of the few people to deliver us English with a well deserved kicking, and we bloody well deserved it too TBH.

(It annoys me when my fellow Englishmen go on about this great British empire without actually stopping to realise just how like Hitler we could be on occasion).

Yes, that was of course Joan of Arc I was talking about, and yes, I know it is a special case and was both the English and the French's (I understand she had become a bit of a nuisance to the French king as well - people respected her more than him after all, and she was turning into something of a loose canon waging her own private war) doing more than it had to do with the Pope's will (actually, in her case the Pope actively denounced the burning through retrial - but it was a posthumous retrial ), but then again when an Inqui roams into your lands and kills one of your generals, you can also make-believe it was at your neighbour's request/insistance.

True enough I guess. My point was merely that in general these incidents of important people being killed where more to do with the enemy than with someone walking into their kingdom and burning them. They tended to have to be outside the protection of their homeland for it to happen.

Talking of the retrial, wasn't she made a saint following that? (I'm trusting AoEII here so it's worth checking).

If that’s true then she's the only Saint I’m aware of that actually turns up in the game, (she's a possible retinue member, if you want to know how to get her I can list the conditions).

Sorry again for the Anti-religious comment, i missed your meaning totally.

[dopp]

It seems (from looking at the code) that Inquisitors are just Papal assassins. Relations with the Pope don't matter, only piety does. Maybe what should be done is add a trigger that fires when your cardinal becomes pope, giving your king bonus piety ("friend of his holiness" trait or something). Problem is, inquisitors are usually at max piety due to previous successful burnings, and the base chance is 1 out of 3, so it's still very likely you burn.

[Kobal2fr]

Talking of the retrial, wasn't she made a saint following that? (I'm trusting AoEII here so it's worth checking).

If that’s true then she's the only Saint I’m aware of that actually turns up in the game, (she's a possible retinue member, if you want to know how to get her I can list the conditions).

Not really. She was declared innocent and a martyr a few years after her death (and her late judge branded with heresy), but was only canonized in the early 20th century (beatified a few years before IIRC). Better late than never, heh ?

But we're veering dangerously off-topic .

My point is : yes, M2's Inquis are far more powerfull than they ever were, but that has a point from a gaming PoV, and taking into account the dev's wish to make the Pope more important this time around.

MTW's faction-based inquisitors going on rampages on populations and killing the occasional general were much closer to history (and again could be erm... shall we say a-historical, at times. Remember how many "my inquisitor burned the pope !" threads there were back then ? ), but MTW's papacy was something of an easily dismissed joke wasn't it ?

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

merchants, diplomats and princesses also have piety ratings but they are hidden.

[Carl]

Not really. She was declared innocent and a martyr a few years after her death (and her late judge branded with heresy), but was only canonized in the early 20th century (beatified a few years before IIRC). Better late than never, heh ?

Well AoEII is fairly recent so it would take the early 20th century into account. It merely stated that she was made a saint after her death, it never said when. So it was kind of correct, just could have been put better. (As to the Judge, I should hope he was branded with heresy).

Also, defiantly better late than never, especially when you consider what would likely have happened if England had won the Hundred Years war. The social morality effects, (indirect effects BTW), can still be felt today.

Agreed, where going a bit off-topic, just thought I’d run it by someone while I had the chance.

My point is : yes, M2's Inquis are far more powerful than they ever were, but that has a point from a gaming PoV, and taking into account the dev's wish to make the Pope more important this time around.

Indeed, it's only really a problem when they're wiping factions out.

[dopp]

The French king with 10 command stars was approaching Toulouse when an inquisitor happened by and casually picked him off in passing. Since I can't fix the ReligionStarter bug for characters not of my faction, he had zero piety burned rather easily. The army then went rebel.

[Zenicetus]

The French king with 10 command stars was approaching Toulouse when an inquisitor happened by and casually picked him off in passing. Since I can't fix the ReligionStarter bug for characters not of my faction, he had zero piety burned rather easily. The army then went rebel.

Ugh.... see, that's why it's not just a question of "play the game as intended, and you won't have problems." When it affects the large-scale strategy side of the game to that degree, even for the AI factions, it's just broken.

[Koval]

I recently decided to start a French campaign, and within the first dozen or so turns three Inquisitors waltzed in and camped themselves between my biggest cities burning my priests and generals. There was nothing i could do, as their piety was quite high, and when the HRE invaded, i couldn't send any of my generals to lead my armies, as they were in my Western cities, and moving them would mean crossing Inquisitor country, which would result in an almost certain burning.
Oh, and not too long ago I had a dream in which i was being chased by an Inquisitor, and as i walked i had a big green arrow in front of me. Should i consult a psychiatrist?

[Daveybaby]

I do feel that you should be able to defy the inquisitors - basically they should be asking you for permission to try that character. If you refuse, you take a large hit to your standing with the pope, with a significant chance of excommunication.

[Kobal2fr]

The French king with 10 command stars was approaching Toulouse when an inquisitor happened by and casually picked him off in passing. Since I can't fix the ReligionStarter bug for characters not of my faction, he had zero piety burned rather easily. The army then went rebel.

Can't you give traits to characters using their name instead of through select+"this" ?

[dopp]

I wasn't playing French, I was Spain (as usual). You can only give_trait this to those of your own faction.

Same campaign, 30 turns later. France has suffered from a fatal overdose of inquisitors. Milan is next and falling fast. My huge cathedral in Valencia with the theologians' guild HQ churns out heretics every other time I try to train a priest (so much for orthodox training). I sense dark times ahead for Spain...

Inquisitors are rabble-rousers. Unless you have a modern police force (unlikely), even the king himself must fear an angry mob. So I don't think it's completely impossible for a king to be burned at the stake (but quite unlikely).

Hey, at least they can't burn the pope any more. That was hilarious.

Btw, can anyone tell me what the capital of Spain should be at this time (or chief city really, since the capital was wherever the royal court happened to be that week)? I thought Corduba or Toledo would be nice, but maybe it's Leon.

[gardibolt]

Following up, I conveniently had three sons come of age in my game in one turn. I sent them towards Rheims, where my Theologian's guild is, but the Inquisitor picked off one of them on the way. We'll see whether it gives them any shelter; if not, I saved the game and can just move them the hell away from him (enemy lands look pretty safe--no Inquisitors there, even though they were excommunicated).

[Kraxis]

The French king with 10 command stars was approaching Toulouse when an inquisitor happened by and casually picked him off in passing. Since I can't fix the ReligionStarter bug for characters not of my faction, he had zero piety burned rather easily. The army then went rebel.

Aww.... That was a shame.

How often do we really see generals of his capacity among the AI factions? A real shame!

I agree that the king and perhaps the heir should get a trait like that 'Friend of his Holiness' (+5 Piety would be fitting) when one of their faction is Pope (can be removed with botched assassination). That should help them directly, meanwhile crusading generals should be absolutely immune.

[Bulawayo]

hmm i kinda opened a can of worms there!

for the record- not mocking anyones playing ability; i simply followed what the game suggests and honestly have had no problems, ever. Was constantly waiting for a deluge of "Carrie"-style Inquies, but never happened.

When I was Milan things got a bit busy with the Inquis,but they never treied a crusader or king, or heir. Or slaughtered my priests.

Could be this is all statistical blind chance- im just the lucky bugger who got the one copy of the game that *actually works*! lol

reading through the posts, everyone says they paid special attention to priests and stuff said they had a) no problems or b)flamerville.
So, Im guessing there is maybe more to it that simple piety- they are agents of the Pope, who is a Political AND religious figure, as in real life.

Maybe CA can clarify this a bit? i.e., just how much impact does the pope's political relations have on Inqui's activity, &focus?

The CA documentation is always limited, this one is almost a carbon copy of the RTW; which is daft, considering how much fuss they made about the greater depth and intricacy to M2.
I.e. the manual should have explained the vaguer concepts and rules that are *under the hood* so to speak.


Glad for the feedback, although its making me paranoid now:) And i've probably jinxed myself now!


Cheers,
HDD

I haven't had any problems neither. In one game I had a Danish family member burned, and I have played plenty of different campaigns. I can imagine as quoted in bold that it can have an impact on the zeal of the inquisitors, but also the personality of the pope himself. As hinted somewhere in the manual the traits of the cardinal being elected to Pope will determine his personality. E.g., a cardinal that during his career has burned a lot of witches and heretics could go mad as Pope and let burn everything his agents see. Just my theory..

[dopp]

Inquisitors are just assassins that randomly spawn in territories with some heresy and kill everything they come across. They have a high base chance of killing (35%) and spies do not seem to affect them.

Part of the reason why you do not see any good AI generals is tied to the "Hotbeds of Sin and Corruption" effect I was harping on earlier. The drunkard, effete and adulterer lines are particularly damaging to command stars. I tweaked the triggers for my game and now the AI produces good, upstanding characters with minimal issues in the 5-7 command star range. The only problem is that they never use them in battle, all my famous victories are against captains or stacks that have gone rebel for lack of proper leadership...

[gardibolt]

As hinted somewhere in the manual the traits of the cardinal being elected to Pope will determine his personality. E.g., a cardinal that during his career has burned a lot of witches and heretics could go mad as Pope and let burn everything his agents see. Just my theory..

I hadn't thought of that, but my cardinal who is now pope did have the trait "Enemy of Heretics" when he ascended to the Papal Hat.

[Bulawayo]

I hadn't thought of that, but my cardinal who is now pope did have the trait "Enemy of Heretics" when he ascended to the Papal Hat.

Well, that was one more proof for my theory

I tried to find the phrase about the Popes personality in the manual, but I didn't manage. Anyway it sounds like a nice idea of having different personalities on different popes, e.g. having such a madman on the throne that you really have to kill him, or have your own family members killed.

In a Venetian campaign I chose by mistake a cardinal from the Papal states for Pope. He was a 28 year old rookie without any traits except for a starting one. And nothing much happened with him, didn't see any inquisitors at all.

I really don't know, but it would be nice getting some information from CA

[Kobal2fr]

I haven't had any problems neither. In one game I had a Danish family member burned, and I have played plenty of different campaigns. I can imagine as quoted in bold that it can have an impact on the zeal of the inquisitors, but also the personality of the pope himself. As hinted somewhere in the manual the traits of the cardinal being elected to Pope will determine his personality. E.g., a cardinal that during his career has burned a lot of witches and heretics could go mad as Pope and let burn everything his agents see. Just my theory..

I don't know wether Purity/Violence of the Pope impacts the spawning of inquisitors or their behavior, but it does affect their starting skill for certain.

When an Inqui is spawned, a check is made. If the Pope has >0 Violence and/or >0 Purity (bugged, should be <0 of course), then the inqui will be spawned with Unfair (+1 Piety) trait, Unjust_and_Unfair (+2 Piety) if the Pope has both.

If the Pope has <0 violence or <0 purity (same bug here, should obviously be >0), the the inqui will be spawned with the Just (-1 Piety). If he has both, Fair_and_Just (-2 Piety)

Also, did you know that inquis have 10% chance EACH TURN to gain +1 Piety through the GrowingConviction trait ? Yeah, me neither. Got rid of that trigger . Inquis already spawn with 2/4/6 piety, gain ancillaries like crazy and almost never fail, the last thing they need is free xp .