What do you do with cardinals?

[Augustus In Command]

I can see no practical purpose for a cardinal other than waiting to (hopefully) be elected as pope.

Does a cardinal increase catholicism in the region in which he's resident?

Is it best just to keep him holed-up in your capital city?

What other cool stuff can he do other than lounge-around all day drinking mead?

[johnhughthom]

Get him out denouncing heretics, or preaching in non-christian lands to get his piety up so he will have a better chance to become Pope.

[Augustus In Command]

Denouncing heretics? By 'heretic' do you mean family members from other factions with low peity?

[johnhughthom]

No, they are characters who go round preaching heretical beliefs. If you see one in your land you need to get rid of him sharpish or you will have an inquisitor at your door soon. And you don't want that. Denouncing heretics gives an excellent boost to piety too
I had a cardinal go from 5 to 9 piety just by denouncing 5 heretics.

[Augustus In Command]

I played over 30 turns and still haven't seen a heretic. The difficulty level I'm playing is H/H.

[dearmad]

They're not as common as I thought they would be... look inlands with lower catholicism in them.

Priests (and spies for that matter) are a little too... um... efficient at their jobs in this game. There's no real challenge to converting and spying on people in the game.

[lawngnome]

They (and witches) tend to be bunched up and come in waves. As Hungary through 60 turns I saw about 1... as France through 60 turns I saw about 6 heretics and 2 witches... oh, and KILL those witches pronto, or they will cast bad spells on your generals.... not really spells, but he gets bad traits if he is near one because his men will take something small (like 'warts') and get afraid of it... lowers battle morale and the whole bit. Kill witches!

[GeneralAsh]

I have had heretics appear in high catholicism lands.

[Ringeck]

I have had heretics appear in high catholicism lands.

It happens, but very, very rarely - usually as a result of them wandering in from elsewhere where you can't see due to the FoW. My current (H/H) capital of Hamburg (I'm the danes) is the seat of catholicism in Europe - it is, at 100% catholicism, holier than the Pope, with the last heretical belief disappearing in AD 1120 or so. That doesn't stop heretics from wandering over from polish (allied; the poles are such nice guys, my only neighbour who haven't stabbed me in the back, probably because I'm keeping big armies at that border and their 100 years war with the Hungarians) Thorn and messing up my wonderfully streamlined (and big, Hamburg is currently the largest city on the map) capital. Hambug has not produced a Heretic for over 150 years.

[crazyj]

I sure do love my full piety Cardinal Jerome the Warmonger...he knows what to do with heretics allright.

[Niles Crane]

Er well... in the case of my Cardinals, three of them became Pope once I had eliminated most of the other Catholic factions.

I assassinated them.

[Medieval Knievel]

Can you have more than one cardinal at the same time?

[Lusted]

Yes, you can have many cardinals. In one game as Venice, Poland has about 8 Cardinals.

[Trajan]

I have so many Cardinals that one of my guys was elected Pope with just their votes alone. The more Cardinals you have, the better. I just keep my guys in all the important cities in case a heretic or witch passes by.

[Pent uP Rage]

Playing England, I had 5 Cardinals at one point and elected one them Pope. I haven't seen any benefits to having my Cardinal as Pope. You lose your best religious character, you don't get any extra access to any new Papal diplomacy options, all the Catholic factions I'm at war with still hate me and I'm still at war with them. No Papal monetary gains, nothing. There might be some underlying affects I'm not aware of, but IMO there's no advantage to having one of your guys elected Pope other than Papal standing.

[ZiRo]

You can't control the papacy. But you can Manipulate it.

I'm kicking ass as the Scots. I won the shot campaign in something like 50 turns. I had the worlds largest faction in 46.

What the world doesn't realise is that I have a hand in the papacy. I have 5 cardinals, I make a tactical choice as to which preferati gets my vote. It isn't always advantageous to have your own pope in power.

If you're warmongering, fighting other catholic factions, elect another catholic pope because you're going to get excommunicated whether its your pope, or the enemies, or a neutral, so it doesn't matter, best not to waste your cardinals.

The key to this tactic follows.

A highly trained assassin. Sit him near Rome. Getting bored of the current Pope? Slit his throat. Elect a Neutral pope and you're away again. You're instantly reconciled, no more crusades, happy days!. If you're coming to the end of hostilities, get one of your cardinals in and suck up to him If not, elect anyone.

I was waring with the French - They had one province left and I hacked the pope down. A French pope came about (due to French 3 and Dane 3 vs my English 4 and Portuguese 1). He existed for 1 turn before he died of suspiciously unnatural causes. Alas, next turn I found myself with a Scottish Pope.

The fact I was responsible for ~90,000 civilian deaths across western Europe, played a fairly critical part to the disappearance of the English, French, and Milanese was forgotten in an instant.

[Trajan]

That sucks that you can't take full advantage of the Pope. You should be able to wage war against the other catholic factions all you want while still keeping a supreme religious standing. Like your faction has the most faith and every other catholic faction you attack are considered heretics and blasphemers.

[Markas]

Priests (and spies for that matter) are a little too... um... efficient at their jobs in this game. There's no real challenge to converting and spying on people in the game.

Bring back the feature from MTW where a spy can sometimes find out when an enemy is about to attack you. A spy in the enemy's capitol or adjacent to a faction leader could be used for this in MTW2... perhaps in the expansion.

[Fenris]

In my spanish campaign I have 9 cardinals and the pope, which I find rather funny.

[issues]

The current Pope in my game started at age 32, luckily he really loves me but I'm waiting for him to kick the bucket as I have 5 cardinals waiting to assume the spot. I've been attacking factions freely for many turns now so it's awesome to have him on your side!