Apulia: What am I doing wrong?

[unmerged(41647)]

I am trying out the suggestion of starting with Apulia, but I am ALWAYS excommunicated by that old bat in Toscano. I'd made a land grab in Sicily after she'd conquered two of the provinces one time, and got excommunicated. OK, I understand her not wanting to share.

Next time, I attack Sicily and she's nowhere NEAR the area, and got excommunicated.
OK, may I wsa growing too fast... (grumble)

Then, the Arab in Sicily attacked MY vassal with no provocation, so I went in and curb-stomped him, and got excommunicated! :wacko:

OK, this is effing rediculous.

SO.

The last time, I just take out Naples, and sit tight. Everything's seemingly cool, then all of a sudden a blood vassal insults me, I respond with the "demand satisfaction", look up, and I'm FREAKING EXCOMMUNICATED.

What in the hell?

Also, is there a setting to give a pop-up window and pause the game when you get excommunicated? I mean, that's sort of a big deal. You'd think someone would mention it to you, instead of finding out by yourself after the fact.

 

[TempestDK]

You are not doing anything wrong ... the AI just likes to excommunicate anyone near them for some reason. It is a bit like if you have a liege, then if your province(s) border any of his, he WILL eventually grab your title (and press the claim on the battlefield).

The only thing you can really do is make sure that you have more piety than the pope has prestige .... that way he can't excommunicate him. If you have available land, you might want to create a bishopric to get a good instant piety boost. Should hopefully keep the pope and Mathilda off your back.

 

[unmerged(183166)]

It could be even worse. For some reason, everyone keeps auto-declining any requests I make. It got so silly, I turned on the 'byzantine' cheat in console, and they were still auto-declining my requests.

Makes absolutely no sense at all.

 

[unmerged(41647)]

Tempest, that's hard to do at the beginning of the game.

Also, once the Pope kicked the bucket (I didn't do it, I swear) I tried bribing the new Pope, then the new PC. Maybe a lump sum is better than 50 here and there, or does buying their good graces even work to get re-communicated?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

I played Apulia dozens of times and I have never had my starting duke excommunicated. So have you done something that has lowered your starting piety/prestige ?

The count of Capua is the one who always gets excommunicated.

Also, once the Pope kicked the bucket (I didn't do it, I swear) I tried bribing the new Pope, then the new PC. Maybe a lump sum is better than 50 here and there, or does buying their good graces even work to get re-communicated?

Sending the Pope of the PC gifts have no effect on lifting the ban.

It could be even worse. For some reason, everyone keeps auto-declining any requests I make. It got so silly, I turned on the 'byzantine' cheat in console, and they were still auto-declining my requests.

Makes absolutely no sense at all.

What requests do you make ?

Alliances offers are always denied by the AI, cause you can only have 1 ally at the same time and the AI usually gets into an alliance very quickly.

Asking someone to become your vassals is also often refused, you must be very prestigious and powerfull to get the offers accepted.

Marriages are usually always accepted, only if you try to marry an heir or daughter of the ruler your marriage-candidate must have some prestige himself first.

Also, your reputation has an effect on your diplomatic success, if you have a bad reputation people will more often decline your offers.

 

[unmerged(183166)]

What requests do you make ?

Alliances offers are always denied by the AI, cause you can only have 1 ally at the same time and the AI usually gets into an alliance very quickly.

Asking someone to become your vassals is also often refused, you must be very prestigious and powerfull to get the offers accepted.

Marriages are usually always accepted, only if you try to marry an heir or daughter of the ruler your marriage-candidate must have some prestige himself first.

Also, your reputation has an effect on your diplomatic success, if you have a bad reputation people will more often decline your offers.

All offers. For example, I was in war with Poland, since they owned Burgos and I did accepted Pope's request to join in its liberation, thinking it was Muslim controlled. Poland wouldn't accept any peace offers at all, even very favorable ones. So I ended up conquering all their lands. They kept giving me peace offers like "We yield these territories to you, x, y and z". I wasn't interested in owning any of their land, but some how, even though they gave me these offers, they would instantly shoot down an offer of me giving them 500 gold in tribute. I had to fully conquer them, till a white-peace was even accepted.

Also, any offers I did, marriage, vassals, peace, any, would instantly keep getting declined (I was at zero or at max, 1 bad boy). Even weirder, I turned on the byzantine cheat (Which makes AI accept all offers) and they still instantly declined any of my requests.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

All offers. For example, I was in war with Poland, since they owned Burgos and I did accepted Pope's request to join in its liberation, thinking it was Muslim controlled. Poland wouldn't accept any peace offers at all, even very favorable ones. So I ended up conquering all their lands. They kept giving me peace offers like "We yield these territories to you, x, y and z". I wasn't interested in owning any of their land, but some how, even though they gave me these offers, they would instantly shoot down an offer of me giving them 500 gold in tribute. I had to fully conquer them, till a white-peace was even accepted.

Also, any offers I did, marriage, vassals, peace, any, would instantly keep getting declined (I was at zero or at max, 1 bad boy). Even weirder, I turned on the byzantine cheat (Which makes AI accept all offers) and they still instantly declined any of my requests.

How can the Pope call for the liberation of Burgos when it is owned by Poland ?

Who are you playing ?

 

[unmerged(183166)]

How can the Pope call for the liberation of Burgos when it is owned by Poland ?

Who are you playing ?

He called for the Liberation of Burgos when it was in Muslim lands, but I got an event which says that he is asking all nations to join the Crusade. It is this event which put me at war with Poland. (CK: DV with DVIP)

I am playing as Ireland, so you can imagine. It was really expensive for me to field an army all the way to Poland.

 

[unmerged(41647)]

I played Apulia dozens of times and I have never had my starting duke excommunicated. So have you done something that has lowered your starting piety/prestige ?

The count of Capua is the one who always gets excommunicated.

I'm playing DV with the beta patch. Since Capua is usually on fairly good terms with me, (above 50%) I've been holding off on taking him out. This is really weird, as I haven't had a single game where the starting Duke of Apulia doesn't get excommunicated. Maybe it's the taking of Naples that is doing it?

 

[Nick B II]

I'm playing DV with the beta patch. Since Capua is usually on fairly good terms with me, (above 50%) I've been holding off on taking him out. This is really weird, as I haven't had a single game where the starting Duke of Apulia doesn't get excommunicated. Maybe it's the taking of Naples that is doing it?

That doesn't matter. The CK AI isn't smart enough to think of that kind of crap. If you are near the PC and he can excom you he will. Period.

The only sure way to prevent it is to make Bishoprics so your piety is high. Which should not be hard to do as Apulia because you've got all that free land to give away in Sicily.

If it's hapening to the AI consistantly it's probably just luck. There's so a lot going on in a game of CK. Lots of unusual things happpen in every game, so it's not surprising when some of those repeat.

@Beskar:
One of three things was happening. Perhaps the AI couldn't accept your offers with Byzantine on. Maybe the chick got married before the AI got around to answering your proposal, or they already had allies. Perhaps you could have forgotten to reload when you changed primary titles. That can have truly bizarre effects. Some are nice (you can't go into debt, and your BB doesn't piss off your vassals), but most of them are just weird. The final option is that you encountered a biug. If it's the last it probably wont come back.

Nick

 

[unmerged(183166)]

@Beskar:
One of three things was happening. Perhaps the AI couldn't accept your offers with Byzantine on. Maybe the chick got married before the AI got around to answering your proposal, or they already had allies. Perhaps you could have forgotten to reload when you changed primary titles. That can have truly bizarre effects. Some are nice (you can't go into debt, and your BB doesn't piss off your vassals), but most of them are just weird. The final option is that you encountered a biug. If it's the last it probably wont come back.

Nick

I ended up having to scrap the save. The bug seemed to be the opposite of Byzantine, and everything was just being rejected, and me putting on 'Byzantine' was because trying to resolve the bug, but it seems even that couldn't resolve it. The only offers the AI accepted was if I completely conquered them, and for example, the one I was fighting against Poland on, I conquered their Spanish lands, and they kept sending me peace offers saying I could have the lands, however, I didn't want the lands due to many factors such as the BB hit, and only wanted white-peace.

Could understand if I was making outrageous requests, but it was a total auto-decline on everything (except the circumstance where I 100% conquered them)