Catholic / Orthodox

**warwaffle** · 12-30-2006, 00:37

What are the advantages / disadvantages of playing as say Russia or Byzantium, considering they are Orthodox?

**Sir Boo** · 12-30-2006, 00:42

PRO = NO POPE! Basicly no peace preacher capable of making you take certian courses of action by threatening you with excomunication

CONS = Religous problems when invading catholic or muslim lands
CONS = The pope can call a crusade on you as you are not catholic
CONS = Costant spamming of priests to control nasty muslim and catholic priests

These are jsut a few sorry i cant think of more...

**Joshwa** · 12-30-2006, 01:00

Everyone gangs up on you as well!

**sapi** · 12-30-2006, 05:05

Pro = no pope

Con = no pope

As well as the ganging up :P

**Warluster** · 12-30-2006, 09:25

And they cant go on Crusade's and get Crusade features!

**glasket** · 12-30-2006, 09:52

I play as Russia so for me the biggest problem is that I can't go on Crusades and get the special features.
Another annoying problem is the amount of Catholic priests/cardinals I get on my lands causing religious unrest (I have to try and assassinate them all).
I haven't got a crusade called on me yet in my game but I had a Jihad called on my capital Novgorod.

I suppose a con is that you can'y use one of the games features (although many claim that the Pope demands, crusades, elections etc are annoying). It just depends which way you look at it.

On a side note of interest is there a way of changing say the Russian religion to being Catholic and being able to crusade and deal with the pope? I know this is inaccurate as Russia is still orthodox today but it is interesting if this is possible.

**knoddy** · 12-30-2006, 12:30

Originally Posted by Joshwa

Everyone gangs up on you as well!

everyone gangs up on u no matter what faction u are playing, its been like this since Rome. at least in the original medieval if u had an alliance for like 50 - 100 turns it tended to not be broken and u could trust ur allies, in Rome and Medieval 2, alliances are pointless and almost never honoured by the AI.

that said u are right in the regard that playing as non catholic factions, if u get crusaded, it will ruin ur rep with ALL catholic factions. Playing my Moors camp, i got crusaded, the Portugese which i had almost perfect relations with and had been allied to since the start, Did not join and i thought they would stay my allies, then i beat back the first crusade army (milanese) and my relitions dropped to abysmal with every catholic faction and portugal broke my alliacne and joined the crusade :(

Cheers Knoddy

**Aelwyn** · 12-30-2006, 14:19

I'm playing as Russia right now, and yeah it is nice to not constantly be hounded and told who I can and cannot attack. Also it seems to me that other factions that are not Catholic will like you a bit more. I say that because all of the Muslim factions are allied with me, and have yet to even come close to infringing on my lands, while the Catholic factions are much more backstabbing.

Thats just my current campaign though I suppose.