POPE and how to deal with him (diplomacy, reputation)

[vincentdelbos]

Hello all,

I love this submod of SS so far, but there is a thing that gives me some trouble. I'm playing as Sicily, captured some cities in South and mid Italy and made a step to Africa. Everything weny well. Had some cardinals, huge cathedral and succeeded in all crusades so far, giving me a solid amount reputation with the pope. I even allied them, fighting a common enemy (Pisae, who attacked Venice).

Then, completely out of the blue, the papal states attacked Naples, breaking the alliance, exing me and my reputation goes rockbottom in the whole of the Christian world...why?

[achilles-91]

Because he can. Just kidding. I guess he has no roam to expand at north cause of pisa and venice. So he decided to go for you. Pope is not that passive in this mod. But lets see what mwy and lifth says about it.

[Zemich]

the pope does the same thing every single campaign. he invades and excommunicates his neighbours, EVEN if they're his allies
he's a fkn dickhead

[vincentdelbos]

the pope does the same thing every single campaign. he invades and excommunicates his neighbours, EVEN if they're his allies
he's a fkn dickhead

I managed the Papal problems, using a simple step plan:
1) stabilized the African front,
2) retreated my elite army led by my 10 star prince to the Italian mainland,
3) destroyed the invading army (200 men),
4) attacked and occupied Rome,
5) murdered the pope,
6) gave them a city in the middle east.

After this, the Christian world loved me again

[Lifthrasir]

During my Sicilian campaign, I basically did the same thing with a bit of luck as when I murdered the Pope, the new Pope elected was Danish and Denmark was my ally
That solved that problem but then, I had to deal with HRE and they were really annoying for a long while.


Also note that historically, Sicily wasn't in good terms with the other Italian factions and HRE. So, that's not too bad actually.

[MWY]

The pope was historically pretty agressive towards the norman invaders in southern italy. I mean the normans were pretty agressive aswell, and the pope was scared about them plundering rome if I'm correct. So it's actually intended for the pope to try and do something about it eventually.

AI-wise, I didn't want a pope that just sits there afk the whole game. So he behaves mostly (a bit less agressive) than the other AI factions. When he's completely surrounded (just like achilles said), he will eventually try to expand somewhere. He will usually prefer excommunicated factions, but otherwise he will just excommunicate them himself.

[Alavaria]

I love this submod of SS so far, but there is a thing that gives me some trouble. I'm playing as Sicily, captured some cities in South and mid Italy and made a step to Africa. Everything weny well. Had some cardinals, huge cathedral and succeeded in all crusades so far, giving me a solid amount reputation with the pope. I even allied them, fighting a common enemy (Pisae, who attacked Venice).

Then, completely out of the blue, the papal states attacked Naples, breaking the alliance, exing me and my reputation goes rockbottom in the whole of the Christian world...why?

Haha, this exact thing happened to me and I remembered this.

I'm thinking to finish clearing Italy (so Venice and Pisa have to go) and then I'll give pope the island west of Italy and drip feed him bits of cash to make him happy.

Pisa was sitting on that little island (which has only a Wooden Castle) so when I took it, they died. Then I gave it to the pope and bing, went up to Perfect and full crosses. Haha.

[Lifthrasir]

Tsss, tsss, bad boy!!! Basically, you've done to the Pope what the English did to Napoleon a few centuries later

[Alavaria]

Nah, if I get the chance I'll probably give pope a bunch of other things far away from me. Although I don't know if SSHIP's person of Papal States is super-overpowered, I suspect not since I just rolled over what he started with

[Lifthrasir]

No, Papal States faction is not overpowered. It's just more active.

[Alavaria]

No, Papal States faction is not overpowered. It's just more active.

Ah, in that case the pope's faction will be a useful blocker of not the non-catholics, but the catholics. He can have all the little small towns and castles I can't be bothered to defend and just stand (with no troops) in between me and say the germans

[Jurand of Cracow]

the pope does the same thing every single campaign. he invades and excommunicates his neighbours, EVEN if they're his allies

4) attacked and occupied Rome, 5) murdered the pope, 6) gave them a city in the middle east. After this, the Christian world loved me again

During my Sicilian campaign, I basically did the same thing with a bit of luck as when I murdered the Pope, the new Pope elected was Danish and Denmark was my ally.

The pope was historically pretty agressive towards the norman invaders in southern italy. I mean the normans were pretty agressive aswell, and the pope was scared about them plundering rome if I'm correct. So it's actually intended for the pope to try and do something about it eventually. AI-wise, I didn't want a pope that just sits there afk the whole game. So he behaves mostly (a bit less agressive) than the other AI factions. When he's completely surrounded (just like achilles said), he will eventually try to expand somewhere. He will usually prefer excommunicated factions, but otherwise he will just excommunicate them himself.

Papal States AI is strange. They had maybe 20 units total across 3 different generals, mostly urban militia and declared on me and excommunicated me. I just easily destroyed all their armies and killed the Pope in battle and was reconciled. Defies all logic why he'd attack me. I keep murdering their generals, plan to destroy all the buildings on Rome so he'll have no economy and won't attack me. Seems to be very aggressive toward AI as well. I declared war on Sicily early game and the Pope just joined in and besieged Napoli, they were at peace before and Sicily wasn't excommunicated.

On the other hand, after the pope finally constantly pulling out ceasefire missions with excommunication threats,

Ah, in that case the pope's faction will be a useful blocker of not the non-catholics, but the catholics. He can have all the little small towns and castles I can't be bothered to defend and just stand (with no troops) in between me and say the germans

From my own experience: the Papal States conquer not only factions in the Italian peninsula, but it’s also deep in the HRE. I havent’ seen a „civil war” in the Papal State, while for many AI factions it’s determental. Furthermore, making peace is difficult unless you gather 10-20 thousands florins, then it’s easy. (well, perhaps it’s not different from the other faction)

My current thoughts about pope and the Papal State:
- it seems to be indeed very aggressive in the wordly affairs, ambarking of conquest of any neighbour he has. The crucial thing is whether he’s got a border with a faction. If yes, then any good relations or high piety suffice from preventing him from attacking. It’s inevitable.
- as a player you can bribe the pope easily, at some poin in game it’s very cheap (comparing to your budget, I don’t think the popes demand adjust to the issue if you’re big and rich or not).
- the introduction of civil war mechanism benefited the Papal State a lot (and also the human player, but it’s a different issue).
- the way to deal with him is to take Rome – then you don’t have borders. It seems that the punishment is not so difficult to hack (not only for Alavaria).
- all in all: it’s very unhistorical.

Changes I’d be happy to see:
- he confines his wordly desires only to Rome or to Italian Peninsula. He is not so aggressive towards factions he’s on good terms with.
- he’s more difficult to bribe, and it scales with the budget of the player.
- the worst thing you can do is to make the conquest of Rome – we need to find such penalties which indeed prevent a Catholic player from taking Rome.
- he may demand special payments for him (like for Crusader States). It also should scale with the size of a player’s budget (or at least of the state treasury). A special tax should levied, like if a Catholic player has more than X settlements.
- I may have also other historical wishes (pope helpful for the factions fighting other religions, pope having positive attitude to the high piety FL etc.).

[Alavaria]

This would make for some amusing "consequences" for things like the Antipope trait (if their faction holds Roma) or perhaps the orthodox Patriarch (if they still have Constantinople and possibly if they have Rome as well)

Fighting the pope is super annoying if you're a catholic faction, I guess it's another strategic advantage to being near Rome, that you can beat him up fast...

[tmodelsk]

........
Changes I’d be happy to see:
- he confines his wordly desires only to Rome or to Italian Peninsula. He is not so aggressive towards factions he’s on good terms with.
- he’s more difficult to bribe, and it scales with the budget of the player.
- the worst thing you can do is to make the conquest of Rome – we need to find such penalties which indeed prevent a Catholic player from taking Rome.
- he may demand special payments for him (like for Crusader States). It also should scale with the size of a player’s budget (or at least of the state treasury). A special tax should levied, like if a Catholic player has more than X settlements.
- I may have also other historical wishes (pope helpful for the factions fighting other religions, pope having positive attitude to the high piety FL etc.).

I personally ~ (more or less) agree with Jurand.
I would add the following :

From the perspective of Catholic Faith (I'm Catholic), there were Good Popes and Bad Popes.

Good Popes where humble servants of God, not looking for their own power and prosperity, following rules of faith.
Good Popes doesn't mean weak Popes, ex.: Saint Pius V acting on politic/diplomacy level greatly contributed to Lepanto victory (1571) over Muslim invasion fleet.
One can say - Lepanto saved the Christian Europe in this period.

Bad Popes where often in the quest of their personal power, very immoral, etc.

My in-game proposition is :
Each pope should be 'good' or 'bad' one (50% - 50%).
Bad ones -> go with current aggressive AI , excommunicating whoever they want, etc.
Good ones -> go with more defensive AI, possibly more contributing (giving money) to weak catholic factions, etc, excommunicating with more common sense .
I think there's script command "link_faction_ai england catholic" , so campaign script can set/change different AI to faction.
so two papal states AI (aggressive and defensive) and when new Pope is elected => papal states are set either aggressive or defensive AI.

[tmodelsk]

About killing the Pope :

Any physical violence against the Pope is charged with excommunication by latae sententiae - by "power or the law itself", no-one needs to proclaim it.
Killing the Pope is very serious thing.

So, in game terms - I think that killing the Pope on the battlefield should cause 'perma' excommunication,
so the murderer king is excommunicated still when the next Pope is chosen. Don't know if it could be done in game engine.
Also - killing the Pope by assassin should cause about (example) ~50% chance of being excommunicated in the next Pope cadence (~50% that your assassin get caught).

[Alavaria]

The real issue is pope can suicide his stack into your army and then suicide himself into your spears.

[stefdim7]

Hi guys.
So playing with the HRE (Germans) at Hard up to the year 1300, I have realized that the Papal States are extremely agressive, they excommunicate by default any faction they attack -so that no Catholic wants to have anything to do with you anymore and at some point a bunch of them attacks you- and you are practically doomed against the pope, unless you are lucky enough to elect one from some remaining ally faction at some point!
And quite naturally, no faction dares attack the pope! He does whatever he wishes unchecked and I have never taken notice of any civil war in the papal states either. Well, that means they will eventually be among the last two still standing after an infinite number of turns no matter what. I think this not at all normal and moreover their everlasting expansion is quite unhistorical. They act like ancient Rome within the Middle Ages!
Any comments on how do the papal states work? Is this what I describe an experience of mine only?

[Belovèse]

This is a known problem we are working on. You could have a go at my diplomacy submod, but it is not polished yet.

Anyway as of now if you want to avoid problems with the pope, take the chivalrous road: expend slowly, release prisoners, do not exterminate cities, avoid having several wars at once. And max out religious buildings everywhere!

[Jurand of Cracow]

@stefdim: can you upload a save from that year 1300? I'm very interested to have a look.
Yes, the Pope is very aggressive - as we warn in one of the initial warning pop-out windows ;-) Thanks a lot for describing it, it's something to be fixed and I believe @Belovese is working on it in his diplomacy tweak.
Have a look at this thread I've moved your post to - the situation hasn't changed since that discussion.

[nvm]

For now what you can try is take over Rome, wait until another Catholic faction gives Pope their city, or even give one to him yourself somewhere he doesn't border you or won't bother you, then try your best to sign peace. Not quite historically realistic, but probably more so than being constantly in a conflict you can't realistically resolve.