Pope opinion modifiers

[CeeBod]

I'm getting a little tired of having my characters excommunicated so often, and it strikes me that one of the biggest issues (obviously besides the fact that excommunication was supposed to be a punishment for a serious transgression, not just because the pope doesn't think you're awesome!) is that there are so few ways to affect the opinion modifiers.

I've had court chamberlains with awesome learning scores parked in Rome so often that the "in Rome" modifier for papal elections has resulted in 3 of the last 4 popes actually being selected from my own court chamberlains, and the current Preferatus is my current court chamberlain, but I very rarely get the +20 opinion event firing. I always make sure there is at least 10 gold in the campaign fund for the next cardinal / next pope as it can make a huge difference to their opinions, but it's time limited. I have several hospitals with soup kitchens and churches (which only affect my vassal's opinion, not the pope), I almost always gift money to the pope as soon as he's elected for a nice big (but temporary) opinion bonus, and I just contributed around a thousand gold when the pope called a crusade, and I was the first to accept the call. A couple of months later, the opinion bonus I got for gifting a huge sum of gold to the pope as soon as he was elected expired, dropping the pope's opinion of me to -2. The only negatives being for 'uncouth', 'both ambitious' and 'Adept' (Hermetic Soc) - the last one being notable for having the same description (-10 Temple VASSAL opinion) as all the positive Temple vassal opinion modifiers I have that don't affect the pope's opinion. Of course, as soon the pope's opinion dropped I was instantly excommunicated, again. (Did I seriously just get excommunicated for having bad grooming habits?)

My previous character was excommed 5 times, which should surely be some kind of record. The current king of Galicia, who owns a few counties in Ireland that I want, has been excommed 3 times, he inherited after his father was beaten in an excommunication war, and his father also inherited after an excom war. Also a quick search of characters with the excommunicated trait pulls up a list of 58 characters in my game right now - this is waaaay out of hand here.

I know that you can also get positives for high piety (but my piety of over 2,500 only gives me a +10 to offset being in the Hermetic Society, so it doesn't make much difference), for having the Theology focus, going on a crusade, and going on a pilgrimage, but in my game the pope has just called a crusade for the first time in 1145, so it's not exactly a common event, and it feels wrong to have to devote years to being theology focused just to avoid being excommunicated for nothing yet again. Is there anything else I can do that I'm not already considering?

 

[Rydelfox]

I think excommunication is less about the Pope's opinion, and more about other factors in accepting the excommunication request. So, things like Free Investiture, kinslayer, self-crowned, and having traits opposed to the Pope make you more likely to get excommunicated. Also, see if you have a rival the Pope is likely to listen to, like one related to the Pope, descended from a Saint, or the liege of lots of Cardinals.

 

[maky55]

I think excommunication is less about the Pope's opinion, and more about other factors in accepting the excommunication request. So, things like Free Investiture, kinslayer, self-crowned, and having traits opposed to the Pope make you more likely to get excommunicated. Also, see if you have a rival the Pope is likely to listen to, like one related to the Pope, descended from a Saint, or the liege of lots of Cardinals.

I've had a pope excommunicate me, so I use the option to repent, and then literally as soon as I do what he wants (usually money or prestige loss) he excommunicates me again, like straight after, and I can't repent because I've already done it. I think they should add a timer so that a character (or AI) can't be excommunicated if they've already been excommunicated in the past 6 months, or a year. Because it's annoying to have no way of removing it after you've already took a hit.

 

[Rydelfox]

There is a timer - the Pope having the "Repented Sins" opinion gives -1000 reasons. Was it the same Pope? Since it's an opinion, that protection will be lost when the current Pope dies. If it is the same Pope, it sounds like either the duration is too short or the opinion isn't being applied. Next time you repent, check if the Pope has that opinion towards you, and for how long. If he doesn't, that sounds like a bug and should be reported on the bug forum. Same if the opinion is ridiculously short.

I've only done a couple Catholic games recently, and the only time I got excommunicated was cleared by dying, so I haven't checked the opinion myself.

 

[CeeBod]

I think excommunication is less about the Pope's opinion, and more about other factors in accepting the excommunication request. So, things like Free Investiture, kinslayer, self-crowned, and having traits opposed to the Pope make you more likely to get excommunicated. Also, see if you have a rival the Pope is likely to listen to, like one related to the Pope, descended from a Saint, or the liege of lots of Cardinals.

Don't all of the things you mentioned give a negative opinion modifier to the pope though? The first king I had that was excommunicated multiple times did have free investiture, which was the main reason that the pope had a very low opinion of him, but I haven't had any of those other traits on characters that got excommed left, right and centre since then. My current character has been excommed far less frequently than any since I became an Emperor (ONLY once so far, which actually feel like an achievement!), and the main difference is that I've gifted each of the last few popes as soon as they get elected, to keep them sweet on me.

Oh and talking of keeping the pope sweet, I just discovered that as my current character is female, then one of the few positive modifiers that does apply to the pope is the +10 bonus to attraction you get for rejecting sexual advances, so he doesn't care that I have a seamless robe of Jesus, he doesn't care about my contributions to the church in my realm, he doesn't care about my contribution to the recent crusade, he doesn't care about my support to various cardinal elections, but he does like me more because I didn't sleep with a random courtier..... yeah that makes sense!

 

[Castimirr]

Yeah, it's really bugged right now. They tried to fix it some in the last hot-fix, but it still needs work. It's been one of the things encouraging me to play pagans at the moment rather than go try out the new Catholic mechanics.

 

[maky55]

There is a timer - the Pope having the "Repented Sins" opinion gives -1000 reasons. Was it the same Pope? Since it's an opinion, that protection will be lost when the current Pope dies. If it is the same Pope, it sounds like either the duration is too short or the opinion isn't being applied. Next time you repent, check if the Pope has that opinion towards you, and for how long. If he doesn't, that sounds like a bug and should be reported on the bug forum. Same if the opinion is ridiculously short.

I've only done a couple Catholic games recently, and the only time I got excommunicated was cleared by dying, so I haven't checked the opinion myself.

If the opinion is applied as soon as the pope excommunicates me, then it is possible, but if it is applied after I repent and accept his demand then it's not possible. I don't even have to unpause the game and I'll be excommunicated again. Next time It happens I'll check if this is the case

 

[WJS]

Sometimes, I find the best solution is to just simply accept the excommunication and be a blackguard for a while.

Now, the most recent time I had to deal with excommunications, I was a rather unrepentant Satanist, and quite gleefully butchered souls and schemed maniacally throughout my life. These schemes eventually let me get the excommunication lifted, and not applied again. Irony of ironies, I baptized my son in the name of the devil, named him Draco, and he inherited the hunchback I had grown, but then I died, played as Draco, and he went on to join the Benedictines, was the holiest of men, and was eventually canonized. Draco never suffered an excommunication once.

 

[Rydelfox]

Don't all of the things you mentioned give a negative opinion modifier to the pope though? The first king I had that was excommunicated multiple times did have free investiture, which was the main reason that the pope had a very low opinion of him, but I haven't had any of those other traits on characters that got excommed left, right and centre since then. My current character has been excommed far less frequently than any since I became an Emperor (ONLY once so far, which actually feel like an achievement!), and the main difference is that I've gifted each of the last few popes as soon as they get elected, to keep them sweet on me.

Oh and talking of keeping the pope sweet, I just discovered that as my current character is female, then one of the few positive modifiers that does apply to the pope is the +10 bonus to attraction you get for rejecting sexual advances, so he doesn't care that I have a seamless robe of Jesus, he doesn't care about my contributions to the church in my realm, he doesn't care about my contribution to the recent crusade, he doesn't care about my support to various cardinal elections, but he does like me more because I didn't sleep with a random courtier..... yeah that makes sense!

The full list of the things the pope considers for excommunication is in common/scripted_score_values/01_scripted_score_values_papal_ai_behavior.txt under ask_for_excommunication_chance. ROOT is the character asking to have you excommunicated (which could be the pope himself, but usually isn't), FROM is the Pope, and FROMFROM is the character being excommunicated.
While some of those do give a negative opinion, the effect they have on excommunication is separate from that. Some won't - for example, greedy doesn't give an opinion change with the Pope but gives him +5 reasons to excommunicate you unless he's also greedy or a wicked priest.
The Pope's opinion of you does play a role, as you get a bonus or penalty equal to half his opinion of you

One possible trick though: Usually excommunication requests come from other characters asking the pope to excommunicate people they don't like. The Pope will almost never accept these requests from excommunicated characters. So, try beating them to the punch and get the Pope to excommunicate your rivals and claimants.

If the opinion is applied as soon as the pope excommunicates me, then it is possible, but if it is applied after I repent and accept his demand then it's not possible. I don't even have to unpause the game and I'll be excommunicated again. Next time It happens I'll check if this is the case

It should be when you repent your sins and give -1000 reasons on excommunication. Checking events, it looks like some situations should give this modifier for 10 years, and others for 20. When that happen, check the Pope's opinion of you and see if it mentions the repented sins modifier. Put in a bug report.

However, it shouldn't be possible to get excommunicated while the game is paused outside of special events that would excommunicate you (which wouldn't care about the opinion) or in multiplayer, in which case another player has been trying to get you excommunicated. Otherwise, AI characters can't take decisions while the game is paused.

 

[junassa]

I've played maybe 2 hrs as Catholic since HF dropped, but it sounds like excomms are ridiculous. Does sway work well with the Pope?