Papal States The Best Allies.

[Telal]

Any ally between many factions will always be a bad ally because their interests change too often. The best Allies are the ones most isolated. The AI also likes to offer you an alliance and then move in their units near one of your cities if this happens they will break the alliance and attack you. The Papal States make the best allies (unless your HRE and have to take Rome) because they wont attack you and they keep you in favor with the pope and increase the chance of getting a crusade. Further more other factions are not going to want to upset the Papal States by declaring war against you. If you ally with the Papal States any time an enemy attacks you or takes one of your cities, or defeats one of your armies they will loose favor with the Papal States.

[jsgx3]

Agreed, keep the pope happy and ally him if able, even if you play HRE you can do the same, just leave Rome for last when you are ready to win.

[MattErickson]

Definatley, a common thing to do is give the pope unwanted lands to raise your status with him. Also, for contested territories, hand them over to the pope and enemies with think twice before crossing through papal controlled territories with armies.

[reddog11]

I usually pay the papal states a couple hundred bucks a turn and it seems to keep them happy as can be. even as a muslim faction you never get crusaded (unless its Jerusalum which is inevitable)

[Ged]

Good ol' Popey.

[Nathanial]

In my spanish campaign (LTC 3.1) it seems to be harder to create alliances with the Papal States i think, if not im just being unlucky it took me many florins and map information etc to get in their good books then i used the old give them a settlement plan.

Crusade to Merrakesh! I won it, then give them it also creates a nice buffer between me and the muslims and cutting off Granada from reinforcements.

Niiiice!

[GVP]

The Pope can be really nice. In my early venetian campaing he excommunicated every faction that attacked me.

[Marto]

In my spanish campaign (LTC 3.1) it seems to be harder to create alliances with the Papal States i think, if not im just being unlucky it took me many florins and map information etc to get in their good books then i used the old give them a settlement plan.

Crusade to Merrakesh! I won it, then give them it also creates a nice buffer between me and the muslims and cutting off Granada from reinforcements.

Niiiice!

I too am in the middle of an LTC 3.1 campaign and the Pope is harder to keep happy than in Vanilla or 3.0, but that's all part of the tweaked diplomacy/ faction standings in 3.1.

It's better in my view as the Pope was too easy to manipulate in Vanilla. Offer him an alliance and give him 100 a turn and you're mates for life. Not to mention how easy it was to stack the house of Cardinals in your favour. In reality I bet he was a right pain in the arse - as he is for me now!

PS. I also had a crusade called on me in Marrakesh. I've beaten them all back so far...