General Questions

[Arkadius]

Silverheart, thank you for your detailed answer

[Silverheart]

Sure thing, man
Just come back if you have any other questions!

[UndrState]

Bump. Always good to have this thread around.

[Kataphractos]

So I'm in a situation where I can't offer peace to any of my enemies.

Little backstory. Hungary stole Vienna from me, I took it back, Pope got angry (at me of course, because Catholic AIs can do no wrong in Pope's eyes), and I get excommunicated. Some time later, a crusade is called on me, and it's the crusade to end all crusades; every Catholic faction in the game signed on to it, something I've never seen happen before (even the Papacy sent a couple armies). I eventually get overwhelmed by the endless waves, but take the city back a few turns later. I then go on a systematic campaign of severely crippling my immediate Catholic neighbors, which went well, and I go to offer peace to them so I can have a few breather turns.

However, an offering for peace does not appear in the diplomacy window (although "become a vassal" is available) for any of the factions. I think it might be because they're all allied with each other, directly or indirectly, which is preventing a peace accord, but I thought that only went as far as preventing you from allying with a faction one of your allies is at war with, so not sure what's going on.

Related to this, but my excommunicated faction leader has since died, and three popes have come and gone, but I'm still excommunicated. This is another thing I've never seen before, as I thought that faction leader dying was auto-reconciling. Is the lack of reconcilliation due to my campaigns against the Catholic factions? Is it a feature specific to the HRE?

And another side note, this is Stainless Steel, so maybe it's a feature specific to that mod, but I've never seen this situation on other Catholic factions.

[RuthlessChubbz]

Not so sure about the inability to organise a ceasefire, but you can train a diplomat to go with hat in hand to the Papal States and request they reverse the excommunication. Usually this requires a large sum of money which is easier to do towards the end of the game. Or you could give them cities so they turn into a standard rampaging faction.

In regards to SS I've just about given up on it. Too many crashes on my computer where I keep fighting the same battles over and over again which are winnable but I lose when I auto resolve. It's not worth the pain so I've started playing Broken Crescent recently which is quite good so far.

[Silverheart]

It kind of depends on your relationship with the other factions.
If you have a terrible reputation and horrible relations with everyone, as well as no papal favor at all, both of your problems may appear - both the lack of a ceasefire option and the inability to become reconciled.
I´m not very familiar with the SS mod, so I don´t know exactly how to counter this.
However, in regular M2, you would have to attack the papacy, while favoring the Theologians guild and recruiting priests en masse, thus ensuring that you´ll get some Cardinals as some of your priests grow in their piety. Then, you would kill the pope, and keep killing all new popes until one of your own cardinals becomes pope and reconciles you.
It eases this strategy to construct churches, abbeys and cathedrals in order to gain papal favor (which you can increase whether you´re excommunicated or not), as well as focusing your field armies against other excommonuicated factions (if there are any), since killing the popes´ enemies will increase your favor with him.
This may or may not work in SS, so I can´t vouch for it, but it seems worth a try.
And as for the other factions, just keep your borders defended while focusing all field armies on conquering and destroying one of them at the time. Eventually you will be so strong that you can start taking them all on.

[Imperial Pudding Head]

That, and start paying small tributes to the papacy to repair your relations with them
The papacy could always use more money

Sounds like your problem is a severe case of warmongering
You'll need a few good diplomats for this, and of course paying tributes increases their skill

Remember your main target is to be reconciled since then you will no longer have to face a crusade and other catholic factions will get penalized for attacking you
Either trough diplomacy or assassination, replacing the pope will always reconcile every catholic faction
Meanwhile keep defend your borders and try to reduce the amount of enemies you have and focus on one instead of all of them
One of HRE's weakness is getting gang-raped

And try to improve your reputation, it will help a lot in diplomacy. Which seems to be your major problem
Try to release prisoner every now and then when you can afford it and always occupy a city if your treasury is fine or the city population is miniscule
And try to be nice to a far-off faction that is currently not being a jerk to you, if it happens to be at war with one of your enemies then give the king/knyaz/sultan/firelord a warm handshake and a tribute both to boost your relations and increase the chance that the faction will be successful against your enemy
Examples would be like Hungary/Venice would likely be at war with the byz, or the Poles probably be at war with Lithuania/Novgorod, or the Leonese with the Moors
Remember the enemy of your enemy is your greatest ally

Also what AI are you using Kataphractos?
You can view them at the setup
There are three of them and will greatly alter the behavior of the AI
If it's Savage then its fine, if it's Lusted it needs a little more effort but still doable, and if its Gracul you're diplomatically screwed
And if that's the state just stick to the tried-and-true formula of pitchforks and torches and raze your enemies to the ground

[Kataphractos]

Yeah I figured giving the pope money was the only way out. Then again I have three armies stationed in the territories surrounding Rome in case the pope decides to be funny, maybe it's time to turn him into a vassal...

[RuthlessChubbz]

And this is why I prefer the Muslim nations...plus horse archers which are my favourite unit in the game.

My previous technique with the pope is to send assassins and keep using them until your cardinal is elected. Of course if your assassin dies and war is declared (and you're not a game loader), then you might be in for a world of hurt.

[Imperial Pudding Head]

I wouldn't recommend attacking the papacy directly as it is a sure-fire way to get a crusade called on your imperial bacon
Especially if you took Rome, in which case they will most likely demand Rome for reconciliation

If you want to "remove" the current pope, do it with assassins, even if it doesn't result in your cardinal being elected, new pope always means new start
(reconciliation of every excommunicated catholic factions)
And if you're not sure on which cardinal to pick vote for the one who seems most likely to win, it would win you some extra favour with the pope should he get elected

[UndrState]

Well, if he does manage to Vasallize the Pope (which I've never done - is it even possible ? ) it'd be hard for them to call Crusade on you, right?

[♔atthias♔]

hello everyone I have a question
in custom battle the archer uints get the weapon bonus but in the campaign not. is this fixable?
greetings atthias

[Jay the Byzantine]

What is the difference between N2TW and Kingdoms? I'm hoping to get one or the other this Christmas. What are the differences? Are they different time period wise? Are there mechanical differences? Which is better?

[AntonisTheGreek]

Kingdoms has 4 campaigns:Americas(Mexico and southern USA),Britannia(British Isles),Crusades(Anatolia,Middle East,Holy Land and Egypt) and Teutonic(Baltic Sea and the lands around it.The expansions have some new features:boiling oil in gates,shadow factions(Britannia only),hero characters with special abilities(Crusades only),religion change(Teutonic only),and more.There are also new factions,new units,hotseat campaign mode,and if you have Kingdoms,you can play some amazing mods made by the community.
You also need to know that you need M2TW upgraded to version 1.3 to play Kingdoms.

[UndrState]

hello everyone I have a question
in custom battle the archer uints get the weapon bonus but in the campaign not. is this fixable?
greetings atthias

Not sure what you mean by "weapon bonus", can you clarify?

[Johnny Bravado]

So I'm in a situation where I can't offer peace to any of my enemies.

Little backstory. Hungary stole Vienna from me, I took it back, Pope got angry (at me of course, because Catholic AIs can do no wrong in Pope's eyes), and I get excommunicated. Some time later, a crusade is called on me, and it's the crusade to end all crusades; every Catholic faction in the game signed on to it, something I've never seen happen before (even the Papacy sent a couple armies). I eventually get overwhelmed by the endless waves, but take the city back a few turns later. I then go on a systematic campaign of severely crippling my immediate Catholic neighbors, which went well, and I go to offer peace to them so I can have a few breather turns.

However, an offering for peace does not appear in the diplomacy window (although "become a vassal" is available) for any of the factions. I think it might be because they're all allied with each other, directly or indirectly, which is preventing a peace accord, but I thought that only went as far as preventing you from allying with a faction one of your allies is at war with, so not sure what's going on.

Related to this, but my excommunicated faction leader has since died, and three popes have come and gone, but I'm still excommunicated. This is another thing I've never seen before, as I thought that faction leader dying was auto-reconciling. Is the lack of reconcilliation due to my campaigns against the Catholic factions? Is it a feature specific to the HRE?

And another side note, this is Stainless Steel, so maybe it's a feature specific to that mod, but I've never seen this situation on other Catholic factions.

I'm pretty sure that's it's a feature in the game where you cannot ask for a ceasefire from any nation that is crusading/jihading against you (possibly to stop now neutral crusading armies from getting confused). Also, you said that the Papal States sent armies against you, which leads me to believe that they are at war with you. Being at war with the Papal States means automatic excommunication until peace is achieved (and then reconciliation following the peace). Of course, you can't make peace with them if they are crusading against you. Both of these things are features in vanilla m2tw.

Basically, your solutions to this current situation are either vassalizing the Papal States, or simply giving up the city to the crusaders and working to make amends from there.

[♔atthias♔]

Not sure what you mean by "weapon bonus", can you clarify?

I mean the melee and cavelry uint attack upgrade given by the swordsmiths guild in vanila MTW2
greetings atthias

[UndrState]

I mean the melee and cavelry uint attack upgrade given by the swordsmiths guild in vanila MTW2
greetings atthias

Well, well, I don't have a game to test this with, but if I'm not mistaken the weapon upgrade in campaign comes from the Swordsmith's guild . Are you sure archers can't get this bonus from the Swordsmith's guild? Regardless of your answer, it also begs the question, if/when you do have the upgrade for archers, does it affect their missile attacks, or just their melee?

Unless someone can answer more definitively, I'm going to try and test this when possible, get you a proper answer.

[♔atthias♔]

Well, well, I don't have a game to test this with, but if I'm not mistaken the weapon upgrade in campaign comes from the Swordsmith's guild . Are you sure archers can't get this bonus from the Swordsmith's guild? Regardless of your answer, it also begs the question, if/when you do have the upgrade for archers, does it affect their missile attacks, or just their melee?

Unless someone can answer more definitively, I'm going to try and test this when possible, get you a proper answer.

many thanks in advance
greetings atthias

[UndrState]

many thanks in advance
greetings atthias

Well, don't thank me just yet. I've found some relevant threads, and it's not looking good ( unless you can mod - don't ask me ) :

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-missile-units

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...missile-troops

The relevant line of code seems to be " WEAPON_MISSILE_MECHANICAL " and I don't think any existing buildings do.