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.

[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.