Excommunication (M2TW)

Definition

In the real world Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community. The word literally means out of communion, or no longer in communion. In some churches, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group. Censures and sanctions sometimes follow excommunication; these include banishment, shunning, and shaming, depending on the group's religion or religious community.

Excommunication in Medieval 2: Total War

In the game Medieval 2: Total War, Catholic factions may be threatened by excommunication by the Pope - the head of the Catholic faith. This is usually caused by waging war against other (non-excommunicated) catholic factions. The Pope will give the player a warning not to attack the other Catholic nation for a number of turns or else face imminent excommunication, thus providing an opportunity to avoid it. However, it may not always be in the players best interests to obey the Pope since giving in to his demands - usually by ceasing hostilities with a particular Catholic faction - may rob the player of his initiative and ultimately waste a great deal of resources that have already been committed to a war.

Regardless, should a player become excommunicated for whatever reason, his popularity in friendly Catholic settlements with suffer as a result until reconciliation occurs. It is also possible for a Crusade to be called on the lands of an excommunicated faction, and Catholic faction can attack an Excommunicated faction with no penalty.

All settlements will receive a public order penalty while excommunicated. The size of this penalty decreases as the level of Catholicism in the settlement decreases. This effectively acts as a partial disincentive to keep religious levels high because some of the penalty associated with religious unrest will be offset by a reduction in the excommunication penalty. However, it is still better to keep Catholicism as high as possible.

One could bribe the States for reconciliation; however, this is usually prohibitively expensive. Many players may find the penalties relatively minor and easily ignored.

Excommunication will reset automatically upon Pope or Faction Leader death, unless the faction is at at war with the Papal States. If a new Pope is from a faction at War with the Papal States (and thus Excommunicated), the war ends and the faction is Reconciled. This means that if a player is strong enough to attack the Pope and has enough Cardinals to choose the next Pope, he can just kill the Pope and install a new one whenever the Pope give him any trouble.

If you play the Papal States, you cannot act as the pope and ad-hoc offer excommunication, but declaring war on a Catholic state instantly excommunicates them, and the offer of reconciliation is an incredibly powerful diplomacy tool.

Overhaul mods have been known to make more stringent penalties for excommunication and add in traits around the effect as well, most notably Stainless Steel.

There is no equivalent of excommunication in the Islam or Orthodox religions in Medieval 2: Total War, as these faiths have no international head like the Pope.