Pope-o-meter interpretation

[Hosakawa Tito]

I tried searching for a definitive answer, but did not really find one.

In my Milan campaign I kicked Venice out of Italy by turn 2. They are still in Ragusa, and still stubbornly at war with me, but without Venice they can't afford more than a peasant army. The real thorn in my side is the HRE in Bologna. We have this amiable relationship in public, and torch each others cities to foment rebellion. After I took the rebel castle at Metz, I gifted it to the Pope. Over the course of 10 turns the HRE crosses on the Pope Meter have declined to zero, but no public announcement has been made by the Pope that the HRE is excommunicated. I moused over the meter and it does not specifically state they are excomm'ed, just that there aren't enough fires in Hell for the HRE. Are they in fact excommunicated or not? If so I would kick them out of Bologna post haste. I would even release the HRE Faction Leader who is holed up there, and prolong the HRE excomm, being that I'm such a good Christian and all.

[Quickening]

If you go into the "Pope-o-Meter" rating bit and hold your mouse cursor over the HRE's rating, the mouse tooltip will tell you whether they are excommunicated or not.
EDIT: Nevermind.

In my experience people with the rating that those HRE have are not excommunicated. The Pope just hates them.

EDIT2: Sorry Im being rubbish today. My very own faction has had the "Not enough fires in hell..." thing to and was not excommunicated at the time. I believe that if a faction is excommunicated, it will specifically say so.

[seneschal.the]

I've seen a faction with 2 crosses that was "taken back into the fold" by the Pope. Quite funny, because in the before turn I had taken two cities and wiped out like 1/2 of the troops. It is likely related to how much beating it takes, because I have seen factions with 5-6 crosses that did not get reconciled until a few turns later when the pope died; and they were very aggressive (Milan slaughtering the French)

Does your Papal approval rating influence how much hit the other nations take if they commence hostile attacks upon you? Or is it just for calling crusades and getting them approved more easily?

[Kraxis]

The crosses does not indicate anything but how the relations are with the Pope.

At one time four factions were excommed (at various times of course) and three of them had plenty crosses. The Danes had at least 6. So I killed them fast, lest they become reconciled and become the new Pope's Pet.

Incidentally you don't even have to lose all your crosses to become excommed, however a lot of crosses does tend to make it more likely that the Pope will just be mad with you.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I tried taking a print screen shot, but if it did work I can't find it. Where in the MTW2 program files are print screens stored? There not in my pictures file either.

[Quickening]

I tried taking a print screen shot, but if it did work I can't find it. Where in the MTW2 program files are print screens stored? There not in my pictures file either.

They are in the "tgas" folder in your Medieval 2 directory. I open them with infranview and save them as jpegs.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Thanks Quickening. Took this old dog a while to learn snag-it, but I got it.

So according to Kraxis, the HRE is not excommunicated.

[Kraxis]

They are not... the line would say so quite specifically.

However, what you could do, if you find that you have enough money, is to provoke a war. March troops onto their lands ect. In time they would get pissed and attack you, and with that rating with teh Pope they would get excommed before you could say 'excommunication'! Or they might withdraw, letting you take their settlements (but beware of the Pope, he might warn you too).

[Hosakawa Tito]

Thanks Kraxis. The HRE was stomping around Metz just before I gifted it to the Pope, I was hoping that would anger the Papacy against them, and it did.
It seems the Papal States are more agressive if they aquire territories outside Rome. I'm considering gifting them Jeruselem after I take it on crusade to see what happens. As Milan I don't need the Holy Lands, just Constantinople, so maybe I can use the Papacy as a buffer zone.

[sapi]

With your rating being so high, you can just declare war on them and rest easy in the knowledge that while your reputation with the pope will fall, they'll be excommunicated and be fair game.

[Kraxis]

You can also create an entire Outremer kingdom for the Pope to manage.

Take Jerusalem, Acre and Antioch and he should stand a good chance of defending himself, with Jerusalem alone he might fall to a few Jihads. This would then tie up the Muslim powers, so that you don't have to worry about them moving up into Europe when you invariably weaken the other catholic factions.

But be sure that you sack the places. That should make up for the income you won't get when you hand them over.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Yes Kraxis, that's what I had in mind, sack the Holy Land for cash & prizes and gift most of it, if not all, to his Holiness as dispensation for my sins against my Catholic neighbors. This is going to be interesting.

[sapi]

Just make sure to do it before the mongols come, to give him time to build up :P

[Kraxis]

Yeah!

Pope vs Mongols... now that should be fun to watch on the sidelines.

"Wha...??? You dare attack His Holiness? ME? CATHOLICS TO ME!!!!!"

[Beelzebub]

I think the only way to get excommed is by failing a cease-and-decist mission from the pope. He can hate someone all he wants, but only when you cross that hard boundry of sieging a catholic city after he's said not to do you get excommed.

So if you want to have the HRE excommed, let them besiege one of your cities.

[knoddy]

As u can see from my screenshot if the faction is excomuted it says so specifically.It is possible for a faction to have 0 crosses and not be excomuted as well as being possible for a faction to have 5 crosses and be excomuted.

https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y70/knoddy/exom.jpg

also i like Kraxis idea, of giving the holy lands to the pope, which i have been doin for the last few years. at first the turks took jerusalam back after i gifted it to the pope, but now he has quite a little empire going on down in the holy lands (he still wont give me florence tho :( and he still isnt really expanding at all, although he is building up the cities and training units.

also in ur situation with germany having such low relations and u having such high, its quite possible the pope will leave things be if u attack, and if not at most u would prolly get a warning and a small relations drop.

Cheers Knoddy

[Hosakawa Tito]

Thanks for the pic confirmation Knoddy. It's going to be fun to watch the Pope deal with the Mongol invasion. hehehe

[KARTLOS]

with your rating compared to theirs, it would be ok for you to attack them. if you say lay seige to bologna, you papal standing will not go down too much, if they retaliate they will be excommed.

[Snoil The Mighty]

Wish I'd have taken a screenshot but yes, the above analysis is accurate. I was excommed with 6 and perhaps even 7 crosses in one campaign-though that save point is long gone so i can't find out exactly- and it was for attacking England as Spain after having won a crusade to York

Apparently his Holiness felt that was enough as England was effectively crippled at that point. So here I was with 6-7 crosses, excommed, fighting England with 4-5 crosses, not excommed. I held off for two turns, gifted map and a tidy 2500 florins, presto, I was at 8 and no longer excommed. Same pope, too. No death of Pope required. Didn't get a peace treaty either, just stopped stomping them for a while. Got a new Spanish bishop in next turn but lost seat among the preferati despite having enough votes to win any election called. So I voted for the oldest candidate possible in the ensuing election and a Spanish pope should be along in a couple years........

[R'as al Ghul]

I tried searching for a definitive answer, but did not really find one.

Over the course of 10 turns the HRE crosses on the Pope Meter have declined to zero, but no public announcement has been made by the Pope that the HRE is excommunicated

If a faction (leader) is excommunicated the pope-o-meter will read:" His Holiness has denounced the leader of this faction, excommunicating him from the catholic faith". Only then is the faction (leader) excommunicated. The number of crosses is of secondary importance.

If the leader dies the faction will be reconciled but it can take longer if the faction has 0 crosses on the pope-o-meter. Even longer when you're at war with the papacy.

R'as

[Daveybaby]

I've been excommed and at perfect relations (10 crosses) with the pope at the same time.

Got excommed (as english), achieved my short term goals (take a significant chunk of the spanish peninsula), then went about trying to get taken back into the fold. Every turn i was trying to give a largish chunk of money to his holiness in return for being reconciled, but every time the answer was no (or rather yes, as long as i gave the pope a ridiculous sum every turn for 10 turns, which is the same as no if the sum in question is a multiple of your total income). So i was just gifting the money instead, and eventually i was at 10 crosses.

Finally managed to get reconciled at 10 crosses for the relatively bargain basement price of about 2500 florins per turn for 4 turns.

(vanilla VH/VH 1.0)

[Hosakawa Tito]

Upon reconciliation between Pope & Faction, whether by death of either leader or successful diplomacy, does the Pope-o-meter crosses get reset to a default amount? In other words is the offenders' slate wiped clean or must the reconciled Faction still have to earn the crosses back ?

If they must still earn the crosses back, then a devious player should be able to goad a Faction on a tight leash to get excommed again.

I must save game and test this.

Thanks for all the thought provoking input.

[R'as al Ghul]

Upon reconciliation between Pope & Faction, whether by death of either leader or successful diplomacy, does the Pope-o-meter crosses get reset to a default amount?

No, I don't think it's resetted. I've noticed that AI controlled factions get their crosses back pretty quickly while being excommunicated. When they get reconciled again they often have about 5 crosses.

[Daveybaby]

Upon reconciliation between Pope & Faction, whether by death of either leader or successful diplomacy, does the Pope-o-meter crosses get reset to a default amount? In other words is the offenders' slate wiped clean or must the reconciled Faction still have to earn the crosses back ?

They will be at the same level they were (or maybe get a +1?) before the reconciliation. They definitely seem to be independent, apart from that youre more likely to get excommunicated for a transgression if your crosses are low, and more likely to get reconciled if your crosses are high.

I havent noticed ANY effect additional on your crosses due to being excommunicated/reconciled, except for the obvious one that your crosses get reset to zero when you get excommunicated.

[Kobal2fr]

There is two effects, one affecting you, the other the AI :

- if you have more pope-o-meter, you can bully those below you on the scale with less papal involvement

- if an AI faction has < 5 Pope-o-meter, it will start considering the papacy as a normal faction in its invasion decisions. Above that, attacking the papacy is a no-no for them.

EDIT : drat, misread what you said. Sorry. Ignore this.

[Hosakawa Tito]

with your rating compared to theirs, it would be ok for you to attack them. if you say lay seige to bologna, you papal standing will not go down too much, if they retaliate they will be excommed.

You nailed that one Kartlos and Sapi. I camped an army just outside Bolognas' walls without attacking for one turn, no reaction from the Pope, my relationship with the HRE dropped from Good to Reasonable. Next turn I laid seige and built rams and seige towers, his Holiness had no comment, relations still perfect. I attacked next turn, kicked the HRE faction leader out of Italy. I released him and did not sack the city. I slipped the Pope a 1000 florins to bump my relations back to perfect. I lost a little trade money by being at war with the HRE, but now he'll have to cross the Alps to attack me, instead of stabbing me in the back from Bologna. My two crusade generals just took Antioch and sacked it for 16000 florins. I'm going to build a church & port, collect a little trade cash for a couple turns while half my forces sack Acre. Then I'll gift Antioch and Acre to the Pope. One general will take a boat ride to rebel Rhodes, take it, build it up for my primary target of Constantinople. The other general will continue along the coast of the Holy Land and sack Jerusalem, Gaza, Alexandria, etc.. as far as he can get. I'll gift what I can to the Pope.

[sapi]

I'd suggest taking nicosa instead of rhodes (especially if your campaign is post-patch), as the byzantines hold it (and you'll be at war with them anyway) so it's a higher level settlement.