Excommunication, Crusades, and Papal Affairs

[Double A]

OK, I got a few questions about Excommunication, Crusades, and Papal Affairs.

Excommunication - so, I know how YOU can get excommunicated, but how do you get other factions excommunicated? And how do they get reconciled, if at all?

Crusades - If a Crusade is on an island, is no AI faction around to join it? And what will the AI actually do if they get the settlement before the player?

Papal Affairs - So, is excommunication influenced by your rating with the Pope, or the faction of the Pope? Or is it both? And ditto with reconciliation.


And a misc. question: What difficulty, with Vanilla, does the AI have more than half-stack armies, general + 1 unit armies, and full-stack crusading armies, plus leaves their cities DEFENDED, while diplomacy is actually still a word used?

Thanks for your time in advance.

[Wheelchair]

Excommunication - so, I know how YOU can get excommunicated, but how do you get other factions excommunicated? And how do they get reconciled, if at all?

It's about all the same, I doubt the pope gives them missions however. An AI's faction's rep with the pope goes down if he declares war on another christian faction; it goes up if you declare war on a Muslim faction. All the mechanics work around the same Principles. A AI faction will be reconciled USUALLY when theirs a new pope, OR 100% their faction leader dies and a new man takes the throne.

Crusades - If a Crusade is on an island, is no AI faction around to join it? And what will the AI actually do if they get the settlement before the player?

The AI does not need to be near the island to join the crusade. AI does infact travel across water, just not often; they would most likely go to the island. In previous campaigns I almost always get the the target first, because AI takes land and I take the highseas.

What difficulty, with Vanilla, does the AI have more than half-stack armies, general + 1 unit armies, and full-stack crusading armies, plus leaves their cities DEFENDED, while diplomacy is actually still a word used?

Hard.

In my experience, anything below hard is an insult to yourself. Hard is the most realistic setting I find, where the AI uses diplomacy as best as it can (not very well -_-) Very Hard is VERY unrealistic, seeing as all factions are like "Mmm I smell human", and yeah...

I hope I helped!

-Wheelchair

[Double A]

Yeah, that was really helpful!

But what I meant to ask (for excomm.) is how do you provoke the AI enough into attacking you so your ally the Pope can make them suffer, and then you call a crusade on their capital/best city/citadel?

And another 2 things for Crusades: Can I block off a crusading army from, say, Milian from all sides and then they desert?

And does a settlement have to have a small Catholic population or does it just to be Important and Excom., Orthodox, or Muslim?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

But what I meant to ask (for excomm.) is how do you provoke the AI enough into attacking you so your ally the Pope can make them suffer, and then you call a crusade on their capital/best city/citadel??

You can provoke the AI to atack you by sending a small army (a unit of peasants) to your border. Keep the army inside your border and the AI usually can't resist to attack.

And another 2 things for Crusades: Can I block off a crusading army from, say, Milian from all sides and then they desert?

AI crusading armies don't desert

[jsktrogdor]

as far as provoking an attack, you need to drop your rep with them and then give them a target. So empty a settlement on the border so theres only like 1 unit in it. theres tons of ways to drop rep with them, like moving your units through their territory without military acess.

[Musthavename]

The AI will be excommunicated for attacking other Catholic factions repeatedly. With your missions, at high relations, the Pope will only threaten to lower them, but at lower relations (approx 4-5 crosses or less) the Pope will threaten excommunication, causing relations to drop to 0-1 crosses and everything else that goes with it, such as disorder.

Best way to provoke the AI into attacking you is to leave a city on the border with a low garrison, but either hide a defencive force or make sure you have a force in another province that can get there in one turn. Then, take one single army and every turn criss-cross the border repeatedly. It'll annoy them to such an extent they will usually attack.

[The Noble Lord]

Play Orthodox and Muslim factions and you wont have that problem
of excommunications, crusades, Papal intrigues.

[Sparkshot]

Play Orthodox and Muslim factions and you wont have that problem
of excommunications, crusades, Papal intrigues.

Playing as an Orthodox faction means you don't have the advantages of excommunications, crusades, or Papal intrigues . It's a double edged sword. I would rather run the risk of being excommunicated and having a crusade called on myelf in order to have the option of calling crusades on others. It's better than having nothing at all. Muslim factions at least can call jihads, but they don't have the advantage of massive enrollment. So if you request a jihad to simply stop that advancement of a paticular factions, it usually wont work.

[The Noble Lord]

It is double-edged sword. Depends what you like, some people like the fact where they can call a Crusade on others and deal with the Pope and such, while others like the simplicity of being able to do it on your own without the Pope and his excommunications. Depends from person to person.


CHEERS

[Old Geezer]

I have found that to provoke an AI catholic faction to attack me the best things to do without leaving a border city vulnerable, is to place some weak naval units around for the targeted faction to pick on and to send many units into its countryside to block movement. You can send a huge stack with artillery in just to make it believe you will attack. Now although it can attack you when you are in its territory without Papal censure the stupid AI will then also attack you at sea or blockade and will attack you puny units just over the border. It helps if you can get your relations with the target faction lowered, I think, but is not a prerequisite. It is much more difficult to provoke an ally, but can be done with patience. I suspect that destroying a lot of the target factions buildings may have an effect as does sending spies into its cities and just to hang around where it can be sure to see them. This process of annoying the enemy into excommunication can take some time as the AI faction's rep may not be enough to lower it into excommunication until you have gone through several cycles of Papal warnings. The higher your rep and the lower the AI's the easier this is to do. If the AI faction has an alliance with the Pope it may take a little longer. One good sign that the AI is about to attack you is when you see a stack with siege equipment heading into you lands. When that happens put a sucker army out to entice it. Sometimes the AI is stupid enough to attack the sucker unit and then besiege a city the next turn which should result in a Papal warning. If that happens be sure to put sucker ships out for the AI to attack

[Double A]

@Old Geezer: So its true, with age comes wisdom. Thanks

@Everyone else: Yeah, you helped too

and @ jsktrogdor: So the AI will get mad at you for moving your Crusading stack through their lands to attack Muslims, but they don't think it's unkind to camp their unit of peasants on the most important bridge in your Empire?

[jsktrogdor]

and @ jsktrogdor: So the AI will get mad at you for moving your Crusading stack through their lands to attack Muslims, but they don't think it's unkind to camp their unit of peasants on the most important bridge in your Empire?

Crusades work on their own rules, as far as im aware there is no penalty for moving a crusade through other territories.

If an AI faction has moved an army into your territory your rep with them will drop. Its a bit lame because maybe you dont care so much, but everytime that unit of peasants crosses your border your rep with them will drop.

[Double A]

But I get tired of them moving through MY LAND that took 50ish tuns to get to what it is now. I want to punish them for it! (Without getting bad rep with every other nation... and the Pope. And no I will not play as an orthodox faction!)

[panurge]

Sometimes you just need to send an army near them and they go away

[The Noble Lord]

And no I will not play as an orthodox faction!)

Why not?? You don't have a Pope to deal with it .

[Double A]

1. I'm not orthodox (like the trait!)

2. Me wants crusades. Me no wants to be target of crusades.