What's Up with Excommunications in SS6.1 ??

[MaKoS]

Hi guys,

as per the title above, what's going on with the excommunications by the Pope in SS6.1? It seems that the only one affected is my faction and nobody else.

I play as the French and i am currently around turn 30-35. Since turn 3 I have been attacked (in Bruge) by Scotland, England and Ireland...at least 5 times by each faction!! I let them siege the city and attack. They have always been stopped by the defenders, though.

My line of though was that they would be excommunicated after a certain number of attacks against a fellow Christian (Catholic), but it was not the case. I got frustrated and as a good Frenchman I decided to invade Ireland and England, to do some preempive attacks.You can guess what happened. After four routing battles (2 against the English and two against the Irish, where i plundered two irish cities) I got the mission beware of excommunication...??

Are there double standards in how the papacy "sees" the different factions???

I wait your experiences on the subject or if you can shed some light in the internal workings of the Papacy.

[Tetsu]

It seems to me just double standards in how the pope sees PLAYER factions. As france, the pope hates me for fighting field battles against enemies in MY territory. The same deal for playing as England or Venice.
I ignored his excommunication threat, I refuse to give up when I've got a huge advantage that if I press immediately, I'll secure an entire front. Giving into his demands gives your enemy more time to reinforce.

[MaKoS]

Yeah, that's what usually happens.

The Papacy intervenes in a conflict, only if i am the aggressor, if i am in the defending side i am ignored completely and when i try to comply, the aggressor faction only finds time to recuparate and resume its offensive!

Adding insult to injury, my relation with the papacy suffers significantly compared to the aggressor factions, even if i stop the attacks.

All Catholic factions should have the same basic treatment from the Papacy. Otherwise is something which, for me, "disrupts" the reality and gameplay factor of the game.

[sbroadbent]

I've had slightly different experience with papal threats. There might be a perceived bias in how the Pope treats you as opposed to the other AI factions.

In a 6.1 Norway campaign, I rushed down to Arhus on turn 2 or 3, and with my spy had grabbed the Danes capital in one turn. The following turn I attacked and defeated a Danish field army. The next turn, the Pope demands that I stop. I had been preparing to march on Hamburg (which the Danes had grabbed), when I decided to instead sent my forces over to rebel Skara. The Danes followed up by blockading the port of Arhus, which got themselves excomm'd... so they had to have gotten the same warning I did from my attack on their forces

The end result was the green light to grab Roskilde and Lund from the Danes

As it was fairly early in the campaign, I'm not sure exactly what the papal meter was at, though I was surprised that the pope excomm'd the Danes fairly quickly.

Other than that, having played several 6.1 games, I have in fact found that the Pope was quite busy excomm'ing the AI in a couple of those games. It almost felt too easy to go after the excomm'd factions..

Even in my 6.2 game, there was at least 4 factions excomm'd until relatively recently.

[JorisofHolland]

The pope demands ceasfire after a settlement has switched owner between two catholic factions, for both sides. So the answer is: they don't get excommunicated because they don't take anything.

[dipperq]

Pop loves $, so use it to your advantage. Bribe him to keep good relationship while attacking any Catholic faction, even in ur own territory.

It's about $1000-2000 per attack.


Place some arch Militia on border to lure your enemy. After several times, Your enemy is excommunicated, then Crusade! Free Army, and Free upkeep for your entire army for 1 turn before crusade target fell . It's well worth the bribe investment.

[Saint_of_Battle]

I know for sure that everytime i fight against a faction, <if i get an threat of excomm> message, the enemy gets one also... Right then switch to defensive.. If they attack, they get excomm and then its game over for them..

Im playing 6.2, i dunno if this changes anything

@ makos: kali tixi file))

[MaKoS]

@JorisofHolland: Ok, I could live with that if it was the case for my faction also, something which is not. I get a warning even if i attack one of the aggressors, not mentioning capturing one of their cities. Making any thought of premtive attacks futile.

@Tetsu: I think one way to go round the excommunication thing is to be able to commence a full scale war against an enemy faction and try to resolve the conflict in the less possible turns. The optimum would be a multiple front war against a single faction, so that u hit hard and u finish the job in a couple of turns.

I am not a noob in TW series but it seems in SS6.1 that the bias of the Papacy has been upscaled, I cannot explain it otherwise. Cause I had never seen such a tolerant Papacy against AI factions before in plain vanillia MTWII or SS6.0. Of course it may be just me

@Saint_of_Battle: Eyxaristw file!!

[Abyrvalg]

Actually, Pope could be very useful.
In my current HRE campaign I allied with him asap. Then, after seizing Milan I noticed Papal's general standing beside large Venice army. I send some useless unit to trick the war between Pope and Venice.
Of course our arses were kicked in that battle but Venice was excommed immediately after battle, and still is excommed despite few dead Doges, for about 60 turns already.
I pushed Venice east, while they in turn pushed Hungarians (who are my ally) to east too.
Now I have Zagreb and Belgrade and half of former Hungarian settlements, and I'm still ally with Hungarians who are very grateful to me for beating venetians
And Venice is reduced to one castle on Rodos. But I now think that they outlived they usefulness and I'm going to finish them off.

[gluteus maximus aurelius]

Well, I've found in the past that if enemies repeatedly attack you and your ports etc they will eventually get excomm'd, however in my current France campaign, with perfect relations with the Pope, the Spaniards besiege one of my settlements, I send over an army to attack them from the rear and win the battle etc, then the next turn the pope tells me to stop fighting the spanish! Despite only defending my territory. Needless to say I ignored him and slaughtered those dirty spaniards anyway

[JorisofHolland]

ARGH! IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU ATTACK, IF YOU ATTACK YOUR PAPAL FAVOR WILL GO DOWN AND YOU MIGHT GET THIS MISSION. IF YOUR STANDING IS HIGH ENOUGH, YOU'LL GET A "LOWERED REPUTATION" PENALTY INSTEAD OF EXCOMMUNICATION.
Now, that has to be said

[gdo0d6]

ARGH! IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU ATTACK, IF YOU ATTACK YOUR PAPAL FAVOR WILL GO DOWN AND YOU MIGHT GET THIS MISSION. IF YOUR STANDING IS HIGH ENOUGH, YOU'LL GET A "LOWERED REPUTATION" PENALTY INSTEAD OF EXCOMMUNICATION.
Now, that has to be said

Ha! I'm playing 6.2 RR/RC on Hard/Hard with England and all I have to do is give the pope 700 florins a turn as tribute in order for his threats to mean nothing. I have already failed the "Cease hostilities" mission 3 times yet I'm one cross away from perfect Papal standing while having perfect diplomatic relations with the Papal States.

[gluteus maximus aurelius]

More often than not I keep a diplomat next to Rome, so when I get excomm'd I just buy back his forgiveness. It's a shame, I'd rather keep the money, but he INSISTS on being so unreasonable. I should like to take a pointy stick to his liver



P.S. It's the Pope on the left and me on the right.

[MaKoS]

My policy is also to have a diplomat next to Rome for those timely cash injections to the church, just in case.

Since yesterday i had a couple more turns. I think i reached turn 40, and the opinion of the papacy towards the franks is at least wanting...I had a chance to redeem myself by taking part in a Crusade against the HRE, but i chose not to, since they have been really peacefull towards me. My really concern is England which has extended dangerously on the Brit. isles and on the continent. I think a showtime with them will be inevitable.

Because, of the over friendliness of the Papacy towards the Brits, I have adopted the blietzkrieg approach. I will not give the time to the Papacy to react against me when i enter in hostilities with the English. I ll try a four prong attack, taking key settlements in one stroke (London, Nottingham etc)...I just need time to organize my armies...

[gluteus maximus aurelius]

Make sure you bring catapults or trebuchets

[JorisofHolland]

Or bombards, grand bombards, cannons or other artillery that's gunpowdered.

[gluteus maximus aurelius]

At turn 40? Unless he's got some chinese scientists hidden away somewhere I think he'll have to do with the crappy old stone-throwers

[MaKoS]

I think I prefer the things that go BOOOOM !!