Assassins, Inquisitors, and Popes - Oh My

[Captain Pugwash]

Theoretically the Inquisitors come along to kill all heretics and only then do they start looking at your faction for blasphemy. In practise though, they show up quite randomly and will happily burn your King whilst a group of heretics and witches have an orgy nearby.
I have found however that with a good Papal standing, the Inquisitors leave me alone. But I know others have had experiences which contradict that.

Yep. happening now. 8* heretic surrounded by three bishops equal rating but cannot fry him. Inq nearby doing nothing but trailing my gen who 3-4 piety but you know whose going to get it. Its annoying because the region is 100% catholic. Will have to resort to boxing and stamping to get rid of him. It a wish list for the improvements that this should not happen

[SadCat]

Inquisitors pop in related to the level of heresy in the province I think. You have about 5-10 turns to get above 85% or they start teleporting in. Once there they do not leave to fast. I find it takes longer for them to show up if the pope likes me. The few I see now come in from next door province and tend to wander back out. SadCat

[vonsch]

In my experience it's safe to attack an enemy who's on your land even if under the papal ban. It's not safe to do naval attacks, though, as no sea is your land. But I do tend to have very high relations with the pope, so this may only be true at 8+ crosses.

So if Paris is besieged, you should be able to sally, or hit the besieger with another army. What you can't do is step off your own land and attack someone. You can step off your own land, but you cannot attack someone the pope has banned you from attacking without a risk of excom. It can be useful to send a one unit sacrifice army to stand next to a banned enemy city to dare him to attack it .

[Philbert]

A good trick is to have a priest accompany your general. The Inquisitor will target your priest first, giving your general an extra turn to get the h.. (can't say that with an inquisitor present) away.

[Quickening]

A good trick is to have a priest accompany your general. The Inquisitor will target your priest first, giving your general an extra turn to get the h.. (can't say that with an inquisitor present) away.

Haha! Yeah I remember that happening one time. I put a good priest with one of my Generals who was the least pious man in my Empire. An Inquisitor comes along and I think, "Oh shit, here we go". Then during the course of the Papal States turn I saw him kill someone. I assumed it was my totally unpious General but no, it was the poor pious priest who was accompanying him

You got the wrong guy Pope boy.

[Darkgreen]

Nifty idea, thanks.

As an update, things are going much better. I’ve decided to ignore the French assassins and just add a couple more spies. I boxed in the inquisitor and got rid of him.
I’ve taken a couple more French settlements and managed to convince the pope to call a crusade on Marseilles, though right before my full crusading army of cavalry, mortars, and culverins arrived the pope died and the new pope decided to call of the crusade- doh! So now that army is just hanging out on a hill outside of Marseilles waiting until I can manage another crusade to be called against Marseilles or until I get bored and I just try to rush the last 3-4 French settlements.
Denmark decided to attack me, five times now, but they only do so at Antwerp, and my 5 mortars there often cause their army of mostly heavy infantry (6-7 units) to retreat before I even release my cavalry on them.

[DukeKent]

Papal standing: Use a diplomat to gift him 50 gold per turn for 20+ turns.
Just obey his edicts, then when the edicts expire blitz the enemy in one turn. You will need siege equipment to do this. Prepare for the next acquision while you wait out the next edict to expire. You can attack any army in your land, or blockading your ports without fear of being excommunicated irregardless. Rinse and repeat.

Inquisitors: Someone who is clueless about history, power, and reality dreamed up inquisitors. Can't believe that this fantasy ever made it into the game. Use the 9 unit box described above , or teleport him out like he teleported in -
move_character "John de_Joe" 252,187

Assassins: Pretty worthless as assassins in vanilla unless you save before each mission first. In vanilla I only used them to protect high value generals, and to keep a disloyal general from rebelling (a stack never rebels with an assassin in the stack). Get one of the vnv fixers to correct this problem and many other problems in vanilla with the vnvs'.

Diplomacy: On VH diplomacy is borked: The only way to keep allies is to bribe them continually. I prefer to kick their butt instead of giving them money to tech up, or use on armies against me later. This is total war, and it is usually gang up on the human faction in this game on VH. No logical reasoning to it (like survival of the AI faction). I am usually at war with most of AI factions all of the time. As long as you can kick their butt in the battles it is not a problem. Keeps the game interesting
*Note: Marriage alliances usually last for the lifetime of the Princess/Prince, but no guarantee here either. Some factions appear to never be trustworthy (Portugual and Milan for instance).