What is the penalty for Excommunication ?

[Periklis]

In my current campaign (my first as a Catholic England) I get attacked by France continuously. The pope on the other hand likes France more than me (France has 2 crosses more than me). Almost every time the France is the attacker (except the naval ones) but instead of getting crosses for being a good catholic not attacking the French I loose ones. It is a matter of turns before the Pope aks of me for the second time to stop killing fellow Catholics. This time I will not listen to him (I am ready to lunch a triple attack to take Paris, Rennes and a castles next to Paris (I do not remember the name). I will probably will be excommunicated thought and I am wondering what the penalty will be. I forgot to mention that I am on my way to take Antioch with a crusade army. If I get excommunicated will I be able to finish the crusade or the soldiers will desert?

If those questions are already covered in another topic I am truly sorry but I could not locate any info about the subject yet in the forums

[sapi]

You suffer a 20% public order drop on cities, 5% in castles, you can be the target of crusades, Catholics have no penalty for attacking you (not sure if your relations automatically drop) and all your current crusade armies will disband

[Ciaran]

I´ve so far been able to avoid excommunication (as the HRE, no less), but as far as I know, you might get problems with population unrest, disloyal generals and you can be targeted by Crusades.
What happens to your still underway Crusade I have no idea. Make a savegame, try it out and report the results. We´re always eager for knowledge ;)

[sapi]

@ciaran - i suggest you just bite the bullet and get excommunicated with the hre.

You can't afford to stuff around (imo) placating the pope when you're surrounded on all sides.

Wipe out france, venice, milan, poland and hungury (england if you're in a bad mood) then deal with your papal rep.

And, irony of ironies, i got reconciled at one stage, as my faction leader fell in battle....against the papacy

[Carl]

My advice, simply stop attackin the French at all, do that and then park an army right next to a french one. Make it a single peasent then fight the battle, the french will take a rep hit but you won't. If the french attack you then you imidietlly counter attack you will BOTH suffer a rep hit, and if the French have/are doing somthing for the pope then they will take a smaller hit, but so long as it's only the french attacking you will get no hit.

[JCoyote]

Carl has a good plan, BUT make sure the army for them to attack is on your land.

You take no pope hits for attacking armies on your own land. Even when the pope asks you to cease hostilities, their armies that are on your land are still fair game.

You only get excommunicated because you take the fight onto their territory.

[Kraggenmor]

Since excommunication can be reconciled by the death of either your faction leader, or his popeyness, the when either of those characters gets up around 59 or 60 years old; it's an ideal time to go on a rampage through your neighboring Catholics.