New to the game: Cardinal / Priests

**warwaffle** · 12-28-2006, 01:30

I'm new to the Total War series and after fooling around with this game for about an hour, what exactly do Cardinals and Priests do, and how do I use them?

**pevergreen** · 12-28-2006, 01:33

They convert the people in the region.

They can be elected to pope-ness.

Not much else.

**warwaffle** · 12-28-2006, 01:40

How do I use them though? I notice that if I have the Cardinal selected, I can see what percentage of the area is Catholic. Will he convert areas by just standing on it? As for priests, do I just assign them to a city and they get to work?

**knoddy** · 12-28-2006, 01:42

Priests and Cardinals are used to spread the religion of ur faction throughout your empire. Religion plays a much larger role in Medieval 2 then any other Total war game. U must keep ur province at a resonable % of your religion otherwise it causes religious unrest. This means using priests/cardinals to spread the word along with the church/abbey/catherderal series of buildings.u can also use priests/cardinals to spread the word of your religion to enemy provinces which are not catholic in hopes of causing unrest.

They are also used to kill off heretics/witches, if u see a heretic or witch pop up within ur borders use ur cardinal/priest to kill them off, for they spread heresy and if a province gets high heresy, they pope will send inquisitors to root it out and u will end up losing generals/agents.

once a priest reaches 5 piety he can be elected to the colledge of cardinals, assuming there is a vacant seat. once elected he becomes a cardinal. When the pope dies, a new one is elected from the 3 highest piety cardinals in the colledge. each faction with a cardinal gets to vote, if u have 2 cardinals in the colledge u get 2 votes. the winner is the new pope.

It is important to keep good relations with the pope, cos u can be aggressive with other chatholics without reprecussions, get crusades called for targets u want, avoid excomution and avoid the wrath of inquisitors.

with muslim and orthodox factions, priests/imams have the same role as priests, except the pope has no influence on them, also imams with 4 piety can call jihads.

Cheers Knoddy

p.s watch out when killing heretics, priest/imams can be converted by the heretic to heresy, or the witch might kill your priest, cardinals however are immune to heresy. Hope this helps

pps yes cardinals, priests convert the province just by standing in it.

**Grimmy** · 12-28-2006, 10:41

Another use for your priests and such is to send them as advance units to areas you intend to conquer that are of a differing religion. This begins the process of conversion ahead of your invasion so that you do not have so much grief from religious unrest once you occupy that province.

**katank** · 12-28-2006, 15:56

Though their line of sight is rather limited, they can also do a bit of spying/information gathering should you be running low on spies.

**Aedile Rich** · 12-28-2006, 19:48

As their piety increases from successful conversions, they have more chance of being elected to the college of cardinals, which in turn gives you more votes to decide who will become the next pope (usually yourself, if you manage it well enough).

**Aedile Rich** · 12-28-2006, 19:54

Oops. Sorry Knoddy. I missed that part of your post.

**baron_Leo** · 12-29-2006, 01:16

If you have extra priests, who are not needed in any region, you can use them to annoy others with them. Russia does it all the time with me. And it is REALLY annoying. Just send priests to a region with another religion, often it can cause the region to rebel. (only in regions with cities). And that is good for you, isn't it?