I cannot find any faction to fight

[ohbrother]

I played Rome: Total War a lot, and loved it. Yesterday I was on Steam, saw MTW2 and bought it.

But I am having problems. It is very different to RTW (I suspect this is the root of some of my problems). When I started (England) I saw Scotland ready for taking, and began making preparations to invade France. But immediately the Pope told me to stop fighting or I would be excommunicated. Now all of my neighbours are loyal Catholics - how can I expand without becoming everyone's enemy?

Sicilly was excommunicated, so I got an army and sailed, but by the time I reached them they were back in the pope's good books again. Do I have to set sail for the moors/Egypt/etc.?

Is England in a really bad place, with no people you can freely attack? Is there no way to do it without being excommunicated? I am in turn 20-something if it makes a difference.

[john duca]

If you don't want to be excomunicated then atack egypt and the turks..they have rich lands...and i don't think that if you're excomunicated everyone will declare war.....just 10-20 turns without crusades and probably some bad relations with the pope

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

Just ignore the old fool, especially when playing vanilla M2 it wont be all that bad, nobody will call a crusade on London instantly(it might happen but that is highly unlikely). The relations with other factions will be harder to maintain and others might be more tempted to declare war on you, but you can manage a short term excommunication if you know you have enough armies to quickly take out the faction you want to get rid of. Scotland should be a 3 turn cakewalk if you have a decently sized army, after that just give the pope some money, make churches, and recruit priests(tip: giving just money will work best if all you want is to be reconciled as soon as possible).

Making churches and recruiting priests/getting them into the cardinal ranks will let you keep the relations a bit better for longer even if you attack other catholics(im not too sure about this, its just a feeling i have)

[lolIsuck]

Just ignore the old fool, especially when playing vanilla M2 it wont be all that bad, nobody will call a crusade on London instantly(it might happen but that is highly unlikely).

Half the factions can't use navies properly and they seem to completely forget anything about sailing when going on crusade so that's not a problem either.

An alliance with the Pope is good too, give him some money if you can spare it and you're free to destroy any Catholic factions you want.

[john duca]

Hope that you're not a cheater (with passwords) , because if you are , i don't see why you put any question

[ohbrother]

Huh? No, I don't even know about cheat passwords!

People mentioned getting an alliance with the papal states. No one wants to ally with me at the moment (France, my only ally, ended it). Don't even have the option with the HRE. Is giving cash to the papal states a way to work?

Also, someone else mentioned annoying factions with diplomats. How do you do that?

[shikaka]

People mentioned getting an alliance with the papal states. No one wants to ally with me at the moment (France, my only ally, ended it).

An alliance with the Pope is usually only possible in the very beginning of the game.
- do not start a war
- send your FIRST diplomat there for the alliance
- leave the diplomat there and give the pope 100 gold each turn

This way your alliance will last for quite some time.

Don't even have the option with the HRE.

Most likely you are in war with an ally of the HRE.

Also, someone else mentioned annoying factions with diplomats. How do you do that?

Give them crappy counteroffers what they will refuse. If you do this, you worsen relations and they will attack you.

[Sitalkes]

Give the pope 100 florins every turn to keep him happy and try to get the other factions to attack you. The latter is relatively easy, just put a tempting small army/garrison near a proposed enemy's border and use your diplomats to make them angry.

[Highlander of Scotland]

get an alliance with the pope and snap up land quickly. Lay seige to edinburgh when it is lightly defended and snap it up, then when the ilses are taken focus on the moors land plus timbuktu with forts on the gold, then iberia, france and northen europe it is a really good way to go because you can outflank europe from both sides

[Lord Jake]

One thing you can do, especially when dealing with smaller kingdoms, such as Scotland or Demark is to prepare your invasion force ahead of time by including seige weapons in the force itself (ie. ballistas, cats, etc.) so that you can attack, and take the target(s) in a single turn. If you can start a war, and end it in a single turn, you will upset the Pope, but he won't excommunicate you. You will lose favor, but you can always gain that back. Even if you can't eliminate a faction in a single turn because of the number of targets, you can still avoid being excommunicated by taking your intended targets in a single turn, and then not taking anymore until he gets over it. In that case you will most likely get a warning to cease hostilities for a number of turns, but he won't ask you to give back what you have already grabbed up, or at least he never has with me... Once that time period is up, you just move on to some more cities, and do it again... The Pope also doesn't seem to mind if you attack Orthodox factions, so the Russians and Byzantines are potential targets. As you have already figured out, the Islamic ones are never off limits...

[ohbrother]

Thanks for all the advice. It is coming along nicely.

Milan attacked me, got all their cities eventually. Venice was excommunicated for a while, got a few of theirs. At least I have some ports on the Mediterranean now. The pope hates me, but I am not excommunicated.

[Sitalkes]

To make your relations with a faction worse, just get your diplomat to make a very demanding offer like "give me a piece of your territory and I'll give you some map information". Every time you do this the relations will get worse. If you want relations to improve, you should make generous offers over and over again - if their financial situation is average to bad, (e.g "meagre", "bankrupt" etc) offer to sell them three of your territories for 8000 florins or more - they won't agree but will thank you for your very generous offer. The downside of not getting agreement to an offer is it reduces your diplomat's ability, but in these cases it doesn't matter.

There are other ways to annoy a faction without actually going to war such as moving your troops through their lands. Actually, I can't think of any others right now - perhaps somebody else could list them?

Another way to take an enemy city without the pope getting upset would be to use enough spies in the city to cause a revolt (probably using assasins to destroy happiness buildings would help, too) and then march in and take the city while it is a rebel city.

[Vampiresbane]

There are other ways to annoy a faction without actually going to war such as moving your troops through their lands. Actually, I can't think of any others right now - perhaps somebody else could list them?

I list a few under chapter 5 of my diplomacy guide. Chapter 5: Using Diplomacy to Start Wars.

Another way to take an enemy city without the pope getting upset would be to use enough spies in the city to cause a revolt (probably using assassins to destroy happiness buildings would help, too) and then march in and take the city while it is a rebel city.

This works as long as you're on easy or normal. I don't believe it works on Vh (though it might work on Hard). It's still a neat trick.

Another way but requires to be at war with the faction. Keep an eye on your target faction. Sometimes the AI will leave only a general as the garrison. If you can both a nearby assassin and army, you merely assassinate the general and then can just walk your army to the now completely undefended settlement. I've done this a lot versus the Byzantines and Egyptians.