Why can't I excommunicate?

[bitparity]

So I'm the papal controller. And when I bring up the options, I do have the option to excommunicate, and I have high piety and money and prestige and all that crap. So say I want to excommunicate the duchy of gwynned, i click excommunicate, it shows the cost, i click on it and then nothing happens.

What's going on here? why can't i excommunicate?

 

[Epaminondas]

You excommunicate, bit, but it's the pope who pays the prestige cost. If he doesn't have the necessary points what you have is a failure to excommunicate (sorry, sometimes I just can't help myself).

If you hover over the ruler in the excommunication box you'll get a message telling you how many prestige points it will take to excommunicate that ruler and how many the pope presently has. Got stuck on that myself for ages.

 

[unmerged(124674)]

Sadly, since popes tend to be older and change frequently, the pope rarely has the presitige nessesary to really go on an excommunication spree (at least in my games).

 

[pdubz]

If you have high prestige, you can improve his by arranging marriages with members of his court. You can also try allying with him and helping him beat up his neighbours