The Pope says stop - what exactly can I do without being excommunicated?

[Bob the Insane]

One point worth noting is that this is a mission... Your mission is to not attack the identified faction... If you fail your standing with the Pope drops and if it drops low enough you will be excommunicated, even if the consequence is risking excommuniation your standing still just drops (a lot) and if you had an very good relationship you might get away with it...

I find that as long as you maintain a very good relationship with the Pope you can pretty much ignore his request and you will only get knocked down to an average relationship...

Now what this thread is about is really what constitues an attack as far as failing the mission is concerned...

IIRC you can sally but you can't attack a besieging force from outside...

Not sure about the others...

It is also worth considering what ships are allowed to do, can you maintain a blockade that started before the Pope's instructions?