Please, for the love of all that is holy, nerf the Pope

**reaper101** · February 24, 2016, 08:00 PM

Playing a H/H campaign as the HRE. I've wiped out and assimilated France, Venice, Hungary, and the Byzantines, assassinated Denmark into rebellion, made vassals of the Sicilians, and had good alliances with Poland and England, and even one with the Papal States. I was fighting a two-front war-one against the Geonese in Spain, one against the Fatimids...well, everywhere. I was doing pretty well- reclaiming territory for Poland from the Fatimids, beating back a Jihad on Constantinople by killing commanders, getting gold chevrons all over my Imperial Army stack, and silvers for most of the rest.
THEN, the Pope excommunicates me, despite me having good reputation with him, and despite the fact I'm beating the tar out of the Geonese who attacked him. Then he attacks Bologna with a MASSIVE stack of Swiss Guard, and within 20 turns, all my alliances are broken (they declared war without...actually doing anything, not even blockading), and I'm forced to divert no fewer than three full stacks from my planned Geonese campaigns to contain him. The Swiss Guard turns any attempts at fighting into a hash because they're so heavily armored even longbows can't kill enough of them, and the fact that they never rout means I have to hunt down every single soldier on the battlefield to win.
What I'm asking here, for 7.0, is that you tone down the Pope's power. Make it so he stops spamming Swiss and Papal Guardsmen, or that those units actually have a sense of self-preservation and run when 200 pikemen come after 5 Guardsmen. Make it so that he can't singlehandedly destroy alliances that last for a century (England) or ones intended to help them that included me HANDING OVER cities that I had just conquered (Poland). Make it so he remains a feature, not a gamebreaker. Because my massive empire, spanning from France to Russia, is currently getting torn apart because the one Pope doesn't like me.

**Grabbin_Megroin** · February 25, 2016, 02:43 AM

get rekt m8

But seriously to get the pope on your side you've got to slip him a few thousand florins every turn so he turns a blind eye to heretical activities. Relations must never be below outstanding in my experience, and the worst he will send you is warnings. Of course the downside to the pope getting fat is more Swiss/Papal Gaurd to have to deal with later, but I usually leave the pope for last anyways so that I can outnumber his armies by at least 2:1 when fighting him. OR I'll take him out early, or when he's weak, as I have in my current campaign.

Pissing the pope off is a serious crime in the game as it was back in the day so I believe it should be challenging, even fatal, to do so. It just makes things more interesting I think, you gotta play sly.

**reaper101** · February 25, 2016, 04:24 AM

I agree that he should be challenging, and fatal to weaker players. What I really don't like is the diplomatic problems. England, which was almost as hated by the Pope as me, and was an ally from game start, declared war on me. There's no logical reason for a faction in the Papal doghouse to do what the guy says, right?
Even if that is historically accurate, at least make the Guard less openly suicidal. Again, watching 100 of your comrades get wrecked by grapeshot and arbaleat fire should break your morale, but these guys will keep coming until my infantry shove a pointy object into them.

EDIT
Well, Mr. Pointy Hay decided to walk a Crusade to Gaza, so I'm filling the remaining papists with arrows and walking down Italy. Just added Rome to the bag. Mr. Pope goes down fighting the Fatimid's (thanks for clearing them out of Asia Minor, buddy) and I elect a new guy who loves me. Hopefully will have alliances functioning again in 10 or so turns. Gonna sacrifice empty North cities to England and Poland for diplomacy, move the troops to Fatimid's, and reduce my fronts from three back down to two. New lands for guys will help them push back Fatimid's in North, so I can focus on South.

**spH3RiCal** · February 25, 2016, 04:46 AM

I think the pope armies are fairly easy to beat as long as you meet them in the field. They are a solid -spear- infantry force with minimal cavalry and archers. All you need is some well armored line infantry and some heavy cavalry. Engage their infantry (keep 1-2 units in reserve at the right and left edge of the battle), hold the line, rout their cavalry and archers with your cavalry, overlap their army with the reserves and keep charging their flanks with your cavalry.

**reaper101** · February 25, 2016, 07:26 AM

Easy to beat? Yes. But the problem is that my casualty rate quickly becomes unacceptable. They tend to carve a path through my Swiss and Landschneckt Pike's easily, ditto for merc Men At Arms or Imperial Foot Knights. Papal Guard is less annoying since they only have short spears, but Swiss turn my cavalry into mincemeat, and I've burned through a lot of my local reserves with ongoing wars. Losing half a cav unit per battle is simply not sustainable. Luckily they're vulnerable to missiles due to spearwall and good positioning on my part. May bring in arbalest militia to replace casualties if I have to...

**BatGoat** · February 25, 2016, 08:04 AM

When your faction leader dies, you should be reconciled. Either you can wait for that eventuality, or give him a suicide mission. But yeah, gifts of gold often grease the right palms. And if you gift the Pope land, he tends to become militant and wants to expand his empire. Have you tried assassinating the Pope?

**reaper101** · February 25, 2016, 10:19 AM

He's on a Crusade, so he outran every decent assassin I had stashed in Italy for that purpose.
Well, my Emperor is very good and high-level while my current heir is a past-sixty bastard son of three Emperor's back (had to burn two quickly to fix a family tree bug). Both are good commanders, buy I'd need to see who became heir if current Kaiser gets nailed....will look into it.

**Dekhatres** · February 25, 2016, 03:02 PM

you can always go the easy way and use ribaults and bridges (ribaults recharge very fast in SS)

**BatGoat** · February 27, 2016, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by reaper101

Easy to beat? Yes. But the problem is that my casualty rate quickly becomes unacceptable. They tend to carve a path through my Swiss and Landschneckt Pike's easily, ditto for merc Men At Arms or Imperial Foot Knights. Papal Guard is less annoying since they only have short spears, but Swiss turn my cavalry into mincemeat, and I've burned through a lot of my local reserves with ongoing wars. Losing half a cav unit per battle is simply not sustainable. Luckily they're vulnerable to missiles due to spearwall and good positioning on my part. May bring in arbalest militia to replace casualties if I have to...

Artillery. Either catapults, trebuchet or any kind of cannon like killing machines. It is effective, and fun to watch, especially when you land a decent fireball right into a McMassive pack of heavy infantry... oh, yeah. Appeals to the sadistic arsonist in us all.

**Schittzo** · February 27, 2016, 04:16 PM

I kind of agree. Especially since the Pope being an aggressive, empire seeking force that scours the globe is pretty unrealistic. If anything there should just be different alternatives to dealing with him, other than give money or excommunication. Or at the very least remove the AI scripts that allow him to have 3000 plus soldiers with only two or so settlements. I know Rome is rich but it's insane he can just field that many men no problem, then again every faction seems able to do this.

**BatGoat** · February 27, 2016, 05:40 PM

I think the lesson here is not to annoy him to the extent whereby he is romper stompering your armies.

**Roma_Victrix** · March 04, 2016, 08:34 AM

Originally Posted by Grabbin_Megroin

get rekt m8

But seriously to get the pope on your side you've got to slip him a few thousand florins every turn so he turns a blind eye to heretical activities. Relations must never be below outstanding in my experience, and the worst he will send you is warnings. Of course the downside to the pope getting fat is more Swiss/Papal Gaurd to have to deal with later, but I usually leave the pope for last anyways so that I can outnumber his armies by at least 2:1 when fighting him. OR I'll take him out early, or when he's weak, as I have in my current campaign.

Pissing the pope off is a serious crime in the game as it was back in the day so I believe it should be challenging, even fatal, to do so. It just makes things more interesting I think, you gotta play sly.

THIS! This a thousand times. You shouldn't just ally with the papacy and make sure you have over-powered priests who will win the candidacy to become the next pope. You should also frequently send them "gifts" of 5, 6, 7000 florins via your diplomats stationed at Rome in Latium. You need to keep the papacy happy, otherwise they will try to tear down any big empire you've spent hundreds of turns building.

Of course, you could also teach the game a lesson and have the papacy learn who's the boss with the biggest balls by doing a little "create_unit" cheat to create 50 FULL STACKS OF NOTHING BUT GOTHIC KNIGHTS (mounted and dismounted), MUSKETEERS, AND LATE HALBERDIERS!!! Sack and occupy Rome, destroy every papal army, and turn every enemy faction into a protectorate within the span of say...8 to 10 turns?

Don't put up with this silliness. You should make the game learn to fear and respect its master, to grovel and apologize at the feet of its betters.

Originally Posted by BatGoat

I think the lesson here is not to annoy him to the extent whereby he is romper stompering your armies.

Russell Crowe approves this statement.

**BatGoat** · March 04, 2016, 09:02 AM

I find a regular tribute of 200 florins for 200 turns more than greases his Papal Palms... as of yet, I haven't had a campaign last beyond those 200 turns, so the wheels might fall off the cart soon thereafter... but yeah...

**primalsplit** · March 04, 2016, 03:53 PM

Just think about it, who has been the political rival to Pope mostly? Obviously German Emperors with great influence and power. Similarly, any big emperor is a direct threat to papacy's theocratic regime. Because in medieval era, Pope is the highest hierarchy; period. It only makes sense he would keep upjumped feudal lords in check. It's all about power and who will share it.

So, if anything; the AI is acting brilliantly on this one and shame on you for not seeing it coming.

**Henry X** · March 10, 2016, 12:23 AM

Playing as an Orthodox Christian faction has been such a liberating experience on the SSHIP.

Fight Moslems and if I do happen to subjugate a couple of Catholic factions, nothing happens except the Pope gets angry at me.