Besieged but pope warns me not to attack

[Cazbol]

A question on game mechanics.

I'm playing the English and have been suffering an endless stream of Milanese armies and agents, as seems to be the rule.

- I have only attacked Milanese armies on my territory. The overwhelming majority of these attacks have been to lift sieges off my settlements.
- I have never sent an army on Milanese held territory.
- My standing with the pope is 7.
- Milan's standing with the pope is 4.
- I voted for the current pope.
- Milan voted against the current pope.
- I'm not at war with any other Catholic factions and haven't been for a very long time.

On my last turn I destroyed a Milanese army that was just outside my city of Bruges. The army had been on my territory heading for Bruges, with a bigger Milanese army following behind it. Immediately after I finish my turn, the larger Milanese army reaches Bruges and besieges it. On the same turn the pope sends me a Cease and Desist warning, ordering me not to attack Milan for 7 turns. Bruges can only hold out for 6 turns.

The questions:
Are the pope's orders sent to both warring parties?
Is Milan likely to lift the siege next turn if I don't attack them immediately?
Will my sallying out to lift the siege count as a violation of the papal order?

[Quillan]

You can attack any Milanese army in your territory freely, besieging you or not. You can attack any Milanese fleet that is blockading one of your ports freely. Other than that, attacking them will result in either loss of papal standing or excommunication. My recommendation would be to park another army adjacent to the besieged city and wait. Usually such messages go towards both parties, so if he assaults the city Milan will probably be excommunicated, making them fair game.

[Bijo]

Way I see it is very simple: the Pope needs to keep his control over Catholic factions. If you keep them small, keep rivalry amongst them, and hopefully one will not dominate the other, you can better ensure your control. Simple: divide and rule. If one gets more powerful, he will possibly start to threaten the papacy, or at least the Pope FEELS threatened. But anybody, feel free to correct that :P

[Malkut]

You're actually allowed to fight in defense of your lands and people. His Holiness orders these things with the hope that you'll both set across your borders and cool off before peace talks, not to punish you for fighting a war in the first place. If Milan is ravaging your lands, then that's not what he had in mind.

If nothing else, get a diplomat down to Rome to generously gift the Papal States with cash every time your relations go down. If you fund him, you can survive an occasional flaunting of the pope's authority.

I find your situation kind of odd, actually, because I've only ever played as the English, and in every one of my campaigns, Milan ends up excommunicated long before they become a problem for me. In fact, I've twice beaten them with crusader armies.

[katank]

Sally out and crush them. It's also no violation to walk armies around in their lands, taunting them to attack. I usually spend the time positioning armies and spies. The exact turn the cool off period is over, I usually grab 3 or 4 settlements.

A tribute of 500 for 3 turns or so to the pope is usually enough to get your relations back up. At or near perfect, I only get relations may drop significantly warnings and not excomm warnings most of the time.

[Carl]

I have perfect relations, but if I atack I allways get an excom warning.

[Skott]

If you got the manpower in the city/fortress let them initiate the siege assault and crush them on the walls and/or streets as the defender. If you dont have the manpower try and get reinforcements up next to besieged city/fortress. Alot of times the enemy will back off. Sometimes they wont.

And that notion that you can attack anyone on your own territory free of penalty from the Pope is wrong. He can and will excommunicate if you are the attacker even on your own territory. I've seen it in my games. I dont think its right but I didnt design the game and make the rules. The trick is to get the enemy be the attacker and *you* be the defender. If you are the defender then you dont have to worry about excommunication. At least I havent seen it yet. Ratings might go down but no excommunication anyway.

[katank]

@ Carl, you have to look at the mission details. Under penalty, it will say ratings drop significantly or excomm. When you order an attack, in both cases they'll warn that you'd be excommed when in fact that only occurrs in the latter case.