Great game, I havent been able to put it down since i got it last week.
RTW with all the bad bits sorted and lots more good stuff added, just as someone else said upthread a bit.
Tronski, I had the same problem with the Inquisitors in my first game, so I got all religous and trained up a preist every opportunity I got, pretty soon they dominate the college of cardinals, and you have a pretty much garunteed English Pope.
This does two things, first, all those priests getting around keep the Heresy levels low to start with and second any time a heretic or witch shows up, you just send a Cardinal after them, they will soon sort out the strife.
If the Inquisitors still show up spreading filthy rumours about your royal family, just make a Cardinal or two travel with each army, the Inquisitors seem to stay away from armies accompanied by a very high ranking member of the Church.
I took Scotland very early in the campaign and have built Edinburgh (sp?) up into a huge city with a huge cathedral and the Theologens Guild built their headquarters there, so every priest I train comes with a 90%+ piety rating...future Popes garunteed.
One big plus about having all these churchmen around is that when you get the Pope to call a Crusade ( a big plus about having a freindly Pope) you can send all your surplus priests and cardinals off on the mission of their lives to convert the heathens around whatever region your crusade is headed to, making it a whole lot easier to capture surrounding settlements.
All up so far I am loving this game, at least as much as the previous games in the Total War series.
You can set it up to do everything for you bar the fighting, or delve into the deepest corner of the game mechanics and see how you can influence the world on a grander scale.
I need a new puter to run it with everything maxed out, but it still looks pretty good on medium settings.
