If you are Sicily -- Ally with Pope?

[Viking Prince]

I have started a Sicilian Campaign (turn 50 now). I allied with the pope early and that seems to limit other useful alliances. The Moors are toast in a three way divide with Portugal and Spain. I seem to have a forever on and off war with Portugal. Spain has the same with Milan.

If I put too much strength against Portugal, then an Italian faction (Milan, Venice, HRE) moves in on the islands. I hate taking land back.

It looks like I am juggling and not moving forward. At some point I will not be strong enough to hold off the Italian factions. The other three Italian factions have been playing nice with each other.

Probably a bit slow, but I now have St John's and pikemen deployed. Good relations with the Sicilian popes does not stop the cease orders.

Any specific ideas to break up the freindly Italian factions?

[RollingWave]

I think your issue is being too conservative, my suggestion of a few things you could do..

1. control the pope! since you have a great part of the ex-moorish land, you should have a fertile field for mass conversion to catholic, do it, and sooner you'll have super high piety priests turning into cardinals. thus giving you a strong chance to elect you or your most favorable ally faction Cardinal to the Papacy.

2. let them attack! your goal is to get one of the other italian factions excommunicated. you could wait forever until something happen, or you could force the issue a little by opening up a planned weakness to let them attack and intentionally lower your relationship without actually breaking your alliance ( like sending a small stack of usless garbage into their land, do nothing just stand there and create devastation around their city, they'll attack that stack soon enough.) keep it up until they attack you, once the Pope give the cease hostility mission pull the same trick again, all the while keep the Pope Happy with bribes or something, sooner or later you'll get there

3. Cruades: if your all fussy about fighting with fellow Catholics, then fight non-catholics. again controlling the pope is helpful here as you can ask for the crusade when your ready. winning Crusades and having lots of conversions usually shoot you through the rooth in the Pope's eye.

This game is setup so that once you get stronger people are going to attack you anyway, it's normal, if your worried about European politics and excommunications you can play it to your favor by some of these tricks above. you'll need to do it anyway.

Of course, for some REAL fun. sack Rome get Excommunicated! kill EVERYONE!

[Viking Prince]

1. control the pope!

Yep. As per OP ever since the first pope died with four cardinals and a bit of cash gifting.

2. let them attack! your goal is to get one of the other italian factions excommunicated. you could wait forever until something happen, or you could force the issue a little by opening up a planned weakness to let them attack

Tried a bit of weirdness. Since Milan kept attacking Ajaccio, I simply gifted it to the pope. A few turns later Milan did not disappoint! They took the island from the pope and ended up at war with Venice and the Pope. I "helped" out by retaking the island with some nice improvements. If Venice is helpful on smashing Milan, perhaps I can then bag Genoa.

Of course, for some REAL fun. sack Rome get Excommunicated! kill EVERYONE!

Nope -- not role playing the masked man this time. I have built churchs to the max and have the Theologians Guild.

Also, Lisbon is about to fall into my hands. On way or another Portugal and Sicily will be at peace.

[Falcone]

Of course, for some REAL fun. sack Rome get Excommunicated! kill EVERYONE!

Hmm... If I capture Rome, the Papal States will be defeat?!:hmmm:

[Nakharar]

If i was you i would advance into Northern Italy i would get some cardinals and make sure you control the vote. Try and call a ceasefire with Portugal

2) Do a naval invasion to Northern Iberia and land to Southern Iberia take all of Portugal and then Spain well try to. Use those Hospitallers against the Italian factions the pope probably hates them so when the pope calls you to ceasefire with them put soldiers into their land and get them excommunicated then call a crusade against them thats how i finished France with it get a crusade get 2 characters on it get loads of mercenaries and then when the crusade is over you will have powerful crusader units like the Cross Crusader Knights Crusader Seargents

[Sher Khan]

Moved to Battle Planning.

[Viking Prince]

The pope just relocates -- just like any AI when losing the capital. The difference is that the pope does not need to actually posess the settlement The pope and the church will always remain a factor in the game.

[Falcone]

In a rebel region?

[Strom]

When I played as Sicily I allied with the pope, the other Italian factions attacked me pretty quickly one after the other and in each case the pope gave a cease and desist letter which I obeyed, then the attacking faction broke it the next turn, getting themselves excommunicated.

The islands seemed to draw enemies like flies though. I almost always had someone attacking them, or at least landing troops on them.

[stormbringer951]

The pope appears beside Rome with a stack of varying size. Gift him a little piece of land (the island?) and then kill him. The new one will appear in the small town. Of course, I don't suggest fighting the Pope. Be machiavellian and use him to excommunicate the northern city states!

[zind]

You should attack the pope, not ally with him, makes the game more fun and more difficult.

[Viking Prince]

The thread rises from the dead.

But here is my latest answer to the question on whether you should or should not align with the Pope.

This is without mods and on VH/VH.

When you play France, you will find the Sicilians show up on your doorstep in Marseilles pretty much as soon as possible. Why is this? Marseilles is a great city with wonderful potential for profit. When playing Sicily, why do the same strategy? It seems good to me. Sicily will quickly run out of cash (I think the AI gets scripted additions, though I am not certain). So here is what you should try:

Send the good princess up with the Adriatic fleet to make nice with Venice and HRE. Trade and alliances and you get florins -- florins to stave off the bankruptcy of Sicily. Train a diplomat to do the same with Rome and Milan. Yes, the Pope will be happy to hand you florins.

Build the ballista facility and the archery levels in Pamplona and tech up Naples. You want everything including the levels of armory available.

Keep your army in Naples in Naples. Combine your forces in and near Pamplona (leaving a general as garrison) using your Central Med fleet to invade Marseilles and then move the fleet to blockade Toulouse. Make certain you have your Italian alliances in place first.

Use your Adriatic fleet upon returning from Venice to move an army to take Durrazo (hopefully for 2500 florins). Do not waste time though. You need to be in possession of the castle for the next step.

After you take Marseilles (by occupation -- remember these are good Catholics), a French diplomat should arrive in Northern Italy. I think you should find the French will now be happy for a ceasefire. You will find that they are also willing to throw in Toulouse. Be certain to include a ten period tribute of 200fl, 1000 fl cash and trade. You want the French to be happy so that you will be able to ally with them later. Oh yes, make certain that you also include Durazzo in the trade/ceasefire as well. Nothing like that worthless castle in French hands to tie them into several future wars that you will be able to come to their aid in.

This will result in a duplicate of your starting potential on the Riviera which is very good population base. Now sit and tech up waiting for the eventual conflict in Northern Italy. The perfect storm would be war between Venice and Milan where you can side with Milan. And then when Milan launches into France, you will side with France to complete the conquest of Northern Italy.

If you are truly lucky, the Pope will gift you 500fl while you are at war with France.

[Romanichine]

The thread rises from the dead.

But here is my latest answer to the question on whether you should or should not align with the Pope.

This is without mods and on VH/VH.

When you play France, you will find the Sicilians show up on your doorstep in Marseilles pretty much as soon as possible. Why is this? Marseilles is a great city with wonderful potential for profit. When playing Sicily, why do the same strategy? It seems good to me. Sicily will quickly run out of cash (I think the AI gets scripted additions, though I am not certain). So here is what you should try:

Send the good princess up with the Adriatic fleet to make nice with Venice and HRE. Trade and alliances and you get florins -- florins to stave off the bankruptcy of Sicily. Train a diplomat to do the same with Rome and Milan. Yes, the Pope will be happy to hand you florins.

Build the ballista facility and the archery levels in Pamplona and tech up Naples. You want everything including the levels of armory available.

Keep your army in Naples in Naples. Combine your forces in and near Pamplona (leaving a general as garrison) using your Central Med fleet to invade Marseilles and then move the fleet to blockade Toulouse. Make certain you have your Italian alliances in place first.

Use your Adriatic fleet upon returning from Venice to move an army to take Durrazo (hopefully for 2500 florins). Do not waste time though. You need to be in possession of the castle for the next step.

After you take Marseilles (by occupation -- remember these are good Catholics), a French diplomat should arrive in Northern Italy. I think you should find the French will now be happy for a ceasefire. You will find that they are also willing to throw in Toulouse. Be certain to include a ten period tribute of 200fl, 1000 fl cash and trade. You want the French to be happy so that you will be able to ally with them later. Oh yes, make certain that you also include Durazzo in the trade/ceasefire as well. Nothing like that worthless castle in French hands to tie them into several future wars that you will be able to come to their aid in.

This will result in a duplicate of your starting potential on the Riviera which is very good population base. Now sit and tech up waiting for the eventual conflict in Northern Italy. The perfect storm would be war between Venice and Milan where you can side with Milan. And then when Milan launches into France, you will side with France to complete the conquest of Northern Italy.

If you are truly lucky, the Pope will gift you 500fl while you are at war with France.

It's interesting how you propose to turn out a bad starting plan by the AI into a good position by manipulating France. Durazzo will spark tensions between France and Venice/Byzantium (which we don't see very often).

However, at the end of your scenario, you end up with two unconnected regions, Toulouse/Marseilles & your starting cities, with more issues than you'd want. You'll need a bigger navy. Marseilles/Toulouse can be hard to reinforce. You will now have a border with Spain/Portugal or both.

Who knows what happen next? Hopefully Milan wars Venice, but hey, now that you got borders with Spain, France and Milan, you could very well be the target, and although we all know any good player can beat this AI anytime anywhere, your position could be more enviable.

Since your proposition is to work with the AI opening of grabbing Marseilles, I can't change that, but I believe trading it to HRE for Bologna would be a better move. Bologna is bigger/richer than Marseilles and is connected to your starting area. Florence is now an attractive target and what you do with Durazzo is up to you. Allying with France is less interesting, but you can go with HRE instead.

If you really want to keep Marseilles, and stick with the AI's plan, then maybe you can trade Durazzo for Bologna.

I just think that Toulouse is too far to be Sicily's 4th territory, Marseilles 3rd is odd enough as it is.

Anyway... What happens with Bologna in your scenario? Sooner or later you'll have to do something about it.

--
roman

P.S: It's strange that you start your post by asking if Sicily should ally with the Pope and then you lay down a strategy to grab Marseilles first. I'm not sure what your intention was. I'm guessing you did not answer yes to your question because the Pope might give you 500 florins during your war against France .

[arun]

Build the ballista facility and the archery levels in Pamplona and tech up Naples. You want everything including the levels of armory available.

Sorry for nit-picking, but you mean Palermo, right? Pamplona is in Iberia and belongs to Portugal in the beginning. BTW, I love the way you lay out your logical thought process in your guides

[Viking Prince]

Sorry for nit-picking, but you mean Palermo, right? Pamplona is in Iberia and belongs to Portugal in the beginning. BTW, I love the way you lay out your logical thought process in your guides

you are quite right

[Stolet]

Hm I went for Florence first in my Sicily campaign. Milan attacked me few turns later, they got excommunicated (I was allied with the Pope), I took Milan and Genoa, and had no problems with cash from there on. Taking Cagliari and Ajaccio early on is pretty much a waste of time if you ask me. Usually Sicily will get some missions to capture those two settlements, but then if you capture say Cagliari, in a few turns you'll see the Moors, Milan, Portugal, Spain and Venice disembarking every damn turn, you'll have to get a bunch of heroic victories, while your economy slowly dies. Going north first works great, just take Florence and watch how the greedy Milanese jump in.

[Viking Prince]

My point is that the general strategy of the AI is not that bad. Implementation is another story though. Marseilles is a very workable first stage in the campaign by Sicily.

[Viking Prince]

Thre thread was started in May 2008. I just tacked this on a few days ago to the same thread since it seemed somewhat related.

[Turtle Hammer]

I've been in a similar situation with Sicily. I found making florence my first port of call, then using mercenaries to butch my army to the point where it could take Genoa made me sufficient cash. Milan has often expanded a little by then, but sometimes you catch them napping, and having two settlements that close and their armies probably on the way to Dijon or Metz means you can knock them out without a protracted reputation damaging war.