The Pope and Excommunication

[accurax]

Hi guys..

I've been searching around for ages, and I cant find any tips on this.

I love to play as england, but the problem is that I cant actually have "Total War" because the pope gets irritated when i attack the french and threatens to excommunicate me.

Now.... Historically, England and france have been whooping each other for 1000's of years... and i find it totally silly that i cant pursue a war with them.

This whoe "dont attack a catholic faction" thing seems wholey inaccurate to me.

Id really like some advice on how to play this game without worrying about the pope.

Also .... inquisitors ... ive manged to keep them out of my own lands by building loads of priests .... but they sometimes cross my borders and kill all my generals anyway.

This again is quite frankly very annoying.

I really need help witht hsi concept guys... please, can anyone help?

[FactionHeir]

Quite certain some of this is in the FAQ. If not, bribe the pope to like you and get some piety for your generals and convert more people in your lands to catholicism

[mrpants]

My method to resolve this issue is to send a diplomat to outside Rome. Then basically bung money to the Pope as a gift, give map information as a gift as well.

Everytime I took a city I gave a few thousand florins to the Pope and basically kept my relations at excellent.

The effect was that although he told me not to kill the French he never excommunicated me. Also most of my priests got made cardinals so I could control the elections.

[accurax]

hmmmm ... ok .... the other problem i have is money ...... how do i keep it coming in at a rate that will both allow me to pay off the pope... and maintain my army... and advance ?

ps... sorry if this is in the faq.... i was just getting real frustrated... thankyou for you help guys

[Jambo]

Or just get excommunicated? The effects of being excommunicated aren't that bad and if your faction leader dies or the pope dies, then it's back to normal again.

[accurax]

oooo ... i thought excommunication was bad... really bad, I had images of every other nation all attacking me at once.

[hisn00bness]

Q: What are the effects of excommunication?

A: Your settlements suffer a 20% unrest penalty. And you become a potential target for Catholics to crusade against.

Don't whish to be impolite; but people who cannot be bothered to do a 10 second search in a faq tick me off.