Witches and Hertics, Questions?

[Musashi]

but my experience is that by the time you get to the middle-game or so, and are pretty much "number 1", you aren't going to get any more Cardinals no matter what you do.

Completely contrary to my experiences. By the time I'm "number one", the papacy is my puppet and I own the entire college of cardinals.

[Swordsman]

Musashi: Since I probably don't do a very good job of playing the whole Papacy angle, I'm sure a lot of it's me. I did have ONE game where something like you describe happened. However, my usual pattern seems to be:
- get in pretty good shape
- get attacked (usually simultaneously) by a whole bunch of folks who were just my allies-- and who I had "great" relationships with
- aggressively defend myself
- I get excommunicated
- game over a far as having any rational relationship with catholics/papacy-- it's kill or be killed the rest of the way. Even if I get reconciled down the road, I'm still on the sh** list.

Of course, if it bugs me to death I can always play as a non-catholic

Frankly, what I'd REALLY like to be able to do is just get rid of the heretics & witches, and kinda minimize the impact of Priests, etc. I did try a mod once that, once the original Pope died, that was pretty much it-- no more priests, so no more Cardinals, etc. Wasn't great though as it eliminated crusades too.