Who can I invade?

[jackbush]

I'm playing as England. Am I right that I will get into papal trouble if I capture any other Catholic regions? I would dearly love to take out Scotland, for example, and wouldn't mind starting in on the French. So far I've been completing all of the Council of Noble assignments along with the Papal assignments so I'm held in reasonably good esteem by all. But when do I start really making a move?

[lolIsuck]

If you have more papal favour then the other faction you can give it a shot. I would destroy Scotland first and get a hold of the entire British Isles, you can work on your reputation with the Pope later. The chance France gets excommunicated or conquered by an excommunicated faction is big so you can strike then if you want.

[Drachos]

Every "hostile" action on factions which the Pope favors lowers your no. of crosses, thus reducing your 'good' relations with the Pope, that's the main reason I don't play Catholic factions.

I think they will, look Scotland's crosses, and if the pope excommunicates you, after William the Cnqr dies and Rufus comes to the position of king, or a new pope is elected you are not excommunicated anymore

[_Elysium_]

Send a diplomat to gift regular tribute of 200 Florins per turn for 20 turns. Than attack someone.

The tribute will help keep your relations at a decent level, but excessive sacking/exterminating of captured Catholic regions won't go down well. I was excommunicated 3 times in 4 turns at one point, due to steamrolling through Polish territory and sacking everything I captured, then refusing to cease hostilities.

Sacking reduced my relations to a point where the threats of excommunication were real, as opposed to the "we're not happy you ignored us and wiped out Scotland, but we'll let you off seeing as you give us money" type of response.

Be prepared for Portugal's attempts at expansion.

[King William the Conqueror]

yes. Portugal and Spain will invade Wales. Beware

[NobleNick]

There are at least nine (9) things you can do:

1.) This is a TW game. The 'W' stands for "War." Someone is going to attack someone. In fact, a lot of someones are going to attack someones. Odds are that one of those "someones" out attacking will attack you. When (not if) they do, you can go ape on them without incurring the Pope's wrath (just stop when he tells you to stop).

2.) Check all the Catholic factions, to see who is not held in high regard by the Pope. (Often this will be a Catholic faction who initiated hostilities against another Catholic faction, and this happens all the time.) Attack them.

3.) Do a one-turn blitz: Set up such that you can take a city (or multiple cities) in one turn. You will incur a bit 'o wrath, and the Pope will command you to stop; but when you do, you have the city (cities), and the opposing faction cannot take it (them) back, because of the papal stay. (I loved it when I did a one-turn simultaneous blitz of two important cities of France, incurred a little wrath; but got my cities in one turn, so was able to stop immediately on the Pope's command. Then France retaliated a few turns later, and got ex-communicated; so I got the Pope's help wiping the faction out!)

4.) Do a one-turn blitz which (if successful) destroys the faction. This incurs -NO- papal dissatisfaction, since there is no faction left to complain to the Pope!

5.) Attack a non-catholic faction.

6.) Wait for your favorite target to get excommunicated, then attack.

7.) Join a crusade.

8.) Bribe the Pope every turn with small gifts, and attack whomever you want.

9.) Set up such that you can blitz an objective. Then send out a lone unit near the sucker faction's armies. The faction attacks your unit and takes the papal hit. Then you retaliate (which is perfectly acceptable) and take your objective.

I hope that helps.

[Rex_Romanorum]

NobleNick gave a pretty exhaustive list of ways to sidestep Papal condemnation for your warmongering; I'd just like to add that it pays to get your Cardinal elected Pope, which gives you a MASSIVE boost in Papal favour for a time and will let you work with some amount of impunity against factions your Pope dislikes (namely, factions your nation was at war with prior to his being elected Pope).

[Silent Assassin]

Well Noble Nick gaved you a good boost for what to do but I would like to add another option, some players will say it's not worth it but for me IMO it's one of the best ways to keep a nice relationship with the Pope and other catholic factions:

Vassals Taken from this thread

The whole point of having vassals is to show you military might and that you completely pawned another faction. The major benefit of having a vassal isthat they automatically become you allies, will give you the rest of their money after done building and recruiting and will help in battles.

I struggled with making other factions my vassals until recently and once you get the hang of it its easy, cause I played as England and now have France, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, HRE, Milan, and Hungary as vassals and am working on the Mongols and the Byzantine Empire. For anyone that wants to know how I'll explain (results may vary). As stated up top you need to reduce them to one territory but you done need 5 armies, one will do. Capture their territory in such a way as to either completely enclose in territories owned by you or down one coastal region, I've found coastal regions to be easier but its up to you.

The point is that they can’t be just militarily weak but economically as well so if their enclosed they have no one to trade to and if their coastal region all you have to do is blockade their port and cutting off their trade. Ok after that send in a diplomat (this should take multiple turns) and tell them that you want to be their new master. The first proposal will be rejected outright no matter what you offer, try it again, you probably won't get them to except but rather a not interested message and negotiations will stop.

Continue to ask them to be your vassal and DO NOT stop blockading their port and DON'T let the war end but every now and again siege the city and then lift the siege it and have you diplomat come in and ask again. Usually this method takes about 3 of 4 turns but Hungary held out on me for 9 turns until they gave into my demands. Ok, now to keep those as your vassal just give them gifts. Money or even giving them back one of their old territories does wonders and solidifies your relationship and your control over them, also create a fort in each of their territories and keep it garrisoned at all times just to remind them that your always watching and ready to attack when ever you please. And that is how you create and keep vassals.

Now go and make the other factions your vassals

Reputation is also very important when going for vassals

Having alliances and maintaining them increases your reputation.
Having good relations with a faction increases your reputation.
Having bad relations decreases it.

Having a high chivalry faction leader increases your reputation.
Having a high dread faction leader decreases it (So best to keep your main bloodline as high chivalry generals, and let some other line of the family be the bastard enforcers).

The best thing to do is to make alliances with specific factions in the game ( the one that you know you don't want to go at war with) at the start, so that you have allies far off who you don't share a border with and who won't be tempted to attack you. Give gifts to any ally who your relations decline with IMMEDIATELY in order to keep your relations at so-so or better (Preferably better, because that increases your reputation faster). Pick a couple of factions to be super allies with, and push your relations with them to perfect, and KEEP them there.

Don't attack an ally ever (Ever). Don't attack a non-ally unless they attack you first. In fact, don't retaliate even, only break their forces in your territory (This is good strategy anyway, fighting them on your home territory gives you the advantage because you should be able to choose your battlefields). If you let them keep entering your territory a few times before retaliating and taking one of their territories, you are much less likely to take a reputation hit. See, if another faction has a BAD reputation, you can attack them freely without losing reputation (In fact you seem to gain reputation for attacking them, as long as you're at war with them and THEY started it). So let them attack you a few times before you retaliate, let their reputation fall and fall and then retaliate.

Additionally, the higher your reputation goes, the bigger hit the enemy will take if they attack you. I've seen factions go from mixed to despicable after attacking me just one time, when I had very high reputations.

High reputation does SO many good things for you in this game, it's worth doing the work to maintain it

Here are the Reputation names that your factions can have from the bad to the good

- Despicable

- Deceitful

- Very Untrustworthy

- Untrustworthy

- Dubious

- Mixed

- Reliable

- Very Reliable

- Trustworthy

- Very trustworthy

- Immaculate

More

This came from a private message from a good friend of mine

[PM byNazgul-Killer]I have recently won a campaign with Spain in which I held the Moors and the French as my vassals and helped them in wars (Sent 'expeditions' or random attacks on their enemies and kept big armies at their frontier terfs in a fort), however, I was wondering if there is a way to get a vassal with MORE than 1 region? I find it completely impossible, if you could tell me how, I'd very much like that. I found the usefulness of Vassals, as after I took both of them as my vassals I gave both of them 3 regions (France I gave 4) and I saw my income rapidly grow.
Returning to my question; is it possible to get a vassal with more than 1 region?
Thanks
NK

Reply by me
Do you mind if I post this with my answers in the Great Thread to help others??

Yes it is possible, it's harder and sometimes is easier. It's hard to explain because everything turns around Reputation and relationship with them

For Example: Easy I was the Turks and I was Allied to Egypt on turn one, we were on turn 80 and one of their fleets blocks my ports and this automaticly declares War, the turn after they took it off my port. I have sent them a diplomat to ask them to become my vassals, they had around a couple of regions in Acre, Jerusalem, Gaza, Alexandria and the other one(forget the name). Before offering my demande I had a look at their answer to this request and it was balanced.

So I offered them 100 000 florins and gaved them map Information, they accepted I was like WTF but the reason why it was so easy is that I had a perfect Global Rep and before they attacked me we had outstanding relationship.

Hard: So where it harder is when you are at war for quite some time with that given faction, I have even seen a faction that would die before accepting allegience to me. This all roll around the Rep and Relationship.

Conclusion: If you follow my previous guide and let them one city they become your vassals and then h=just give them back their lands you stoled them this will help alot your Reputation and also you relatioship with them. Giving them back their Capital is more than good for the player.


Hope this answers your question

[Silent Assassin]

DP please delete

[eXistenZ]

the thing about that reputation guide: it says keep your main line chivalrous, and let the other be the bastards. now i can understand this when it comes to battles and prisoners (release vs execute), but if you use assassins a lot (like me), your faction leader will get +5 dread, and you cant counter that

[Silent Assassin]

the thing about that reputation guide: it says keep your main line chivalrous, and let the other be the bastards. now i can understand this when it comes to battles and prisoners (release vs execute), but if you use assassins a lot (like me), your faction leader will get +5 dread, and you cant counter that

Agreed using assassins will give you dread traits but that is your choice so you have to deal with the consequences If I may add I had Dread Leaser and managed to keep my Reputation up but not at the perfect level like I usually have it,

[Symphony]

If I may add I had Dread Leaser and managed to keep my Reputation up but not at the perfect level like I usually have it,

Dread Leaser? Is that like renting a house and trashing it?

(I know what you meant to say )

[Willowran]

in response to the original question...if you're playing as england, give up on the pope. Unless you go for a crazy migration to the east (crusade, maybe?) it is garunteed that the pope will hate you. You will be excommunicated, it is almost a foregone conclusion. Just work around it, excommunication isn't so bad.

[Silent Assassin]

Dread Leaser? Is that like renting a house and trashing it?

(I know what you meant to say )

Lol I meant Dread Leader

in response to the original question...if you're playing as england, give up on the pope. Unless you go for a crazy migration to the east (crusade, maybe?) it is garunteed that the pope will hate you. You will be excommunicated, it is almost a foregone conclusion. Just work around it, excommunication isn't so bad.

Well we all have our ways when it comes to how you play your game but IMO your suggestion isn't fitting for the OP.

[Lord Minotaur]

Take out the Pope. Who needs him?

[Malarkeyy44]

The one turn blitz works wonders. All you need is a small attack force, lets say of 2-3 billman, 2-3 longbowmen, 1 knight, and (here is where it really matters), 2-4 artillery. I do this every time as england. The scots usually leave only a small token force in each city, so I build enough of these small forces per city, and take them off the map in one swoop. Be warned, if you are attacking a castle, make sure to not waste all your atry's ammo on the first wall. Just batter down the gates with 1 or 2 of your artillery, then move inside and take out the inside gate with the other remaining artillery

[Konstantiniyye]

blietzkrieg to Scotland and some rebels place in France and you grow your city
dont care about excommunication it doesnt have effect it just destroy your economy