how to deal with the papal EMPIRE?

[Marcus Fulvius]

ok... on my latest campaign ive run into something ive never encountered before...

a papal empire. by that, i mean that the pope is now in charge of one of the largest and strongest empires this time round. HRE and milan tried to take out rome fairly early... and for whatever reason (i think the sicilians helped defend the initial attack on the pope), rome survived the first attacks, then countered... and pretty soon the pope had conquered all of milan and around 2/3 of HRE.

now though, it seems the pope is enjoying his not-so-little empire and is looking to expand... namely in my direction

ok. now me... playing as the french for a change (usually im the english). ive got control of all of southern italy (having kicked sicily out... they're a non-issue now, confined to one of the islands only since the moors took all of western and central africa), all of france and a few territories that the HRE usually controls near the alps (except caen and bruge... i decided to be nice to the english and use them as a buffer between me an the scots, who are actually fairly strong since they control a good portion of scandinavia now), and i control portugal.

basically the world is split between the catholics who support the pope, or just let the pope bend em over... and the muslims (the moors and egypt are the 2nd and 3rd most powerful nations besides rome... im 4th, 1st in terms of land and army, my economy is a little weak though)... i obviously cant let the pope start annexing my lands, but if i fight back, im gonna basically be the lone wolf, against both the catholic world and the muslims.

so... how exactly do i deal with this threat without having crusades declared on me every 5 seconds?

oh, and in case it matters, this is SS 5.1 kingdoms on h/vh and its now turn 63.... so im just barely getting the point where i can recruit chivalrics and the like.

[Wheem]

If you stay in the Pope's good graces, he usually doesn't seem terribly aggressive to me. If you're already at war, though, try to fight and kill the Pope himself (an assassin may work, but you'd probably need a very high skill level).

If you can get him replaced with someone more friendly towards you, then you could probably keep him peaceful and expand somewhere else (attacking a Muslim faction may very well make him like you more).

If you do end up in a long war against the Papacy, try and take out Italy first; some of the cities there would probably go a long way to helping with your financial troubles.

[Marcus Fulvius]

well, the problem is he's already at war with me... launched an attack against bern.

getting him replaced will be tough... its almost like the ai is cheating... most of the college of cardinals is composed of papal priests. not only that, all the crusades he declares are against the countries he's trying to take over. maybe if he takes a minute between crusades i can try to get one declared against the moors, since theyll be the easiest for me to reach (just not sure how my rep with the pope is now, since he declared war on me).

im fairly sure i can take out the pope himself, just not sure at all if i can get my own man in to take his place.

taking out the italian provinces shouldnt be an issue either, since i control all of southern italy and the western approaches to it... but since you can never completly eliminate the pope, i dont want him declaring crusades on me non-stop after i do take it over.

[Seb]

I think your best option is to force a peace with him. Since you're at war anyway, why not try and take Roma to give it back to him and see what happens?

[Teastain]

beat him like any faction

annoying little man in white

[Fishrudder]

I'd do what Seb said, conquer Rome and then trade it for peace..

See what happens...

[schmidy]

Oh wow!! that has I have never had that happen to me! A papal empire, but I agree with two things 1) try to assasinate the pope, but the problem is that it will still be as strong and spread out.
2) Try and conquer Rome and give it back to make peace but only if Rome can be easily taken without spending a ton of resources such as mone and men.
You could try to find some weaker states within the papal empire and expand through that or try and ally yourself with several other states that hate the empire and ask for help!!
Just remember to keep your bordering states strong with defences and try to take good tactical victories which might lead to more!!

[Ambiorix_thijs]

can you take a screen with toggle_fow and post it here. I am interested to see the campaign map.