Sacking Rome

[strife1013]

I was wondering who here when they play a faction likes to sack Rome and relocate the Pope? What benefits have you seen or had when doing this? What disadvantages have you had when you do this? Or do you leave Rome as is?

[Resurrection]

Owning Rome is best way how to keep Pope under control. You just need to kill him and all his army inside the Rome. Then occupy/sack it and new Pope will most likely appear somewhere in Lacio region. He will be poor and helpless, so you can lear him how to behave any time you want with just Rome's garisson :-) Although since campaign script gives money to AI in need, Pope might get eventually enough money to recruit mercenary army and try to sieze Rome back though... If you don't like him at all, I described in some other thread how to effectively remove Pope for good in-game.

[Inhuman One]

what happens if you got assasins everywhere to assasinate any emerging cardinals though?

[strife1013]

They keep just popping up every round and sooner or later youll get tired of killing the new pope.

[Roboute Guilliman]

whiping out all the catholic factions help?

[strife1013]

Well I guess if there are no catholic factions than there is no Pope but I havent gotten that far, thats like whiping out the whole map which would take a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG time. I'm determined to do it one of these days.

[DeaDBolT]

Well I guess if there are no catholic factions than there is no Pope but I havent gotten that far, thats like whiping out the whole map which would take a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG time. I'm determined to do it one of these days.

I say the same thing to myself all the time, yet i always seem to get tired of a campaign before it happens. I guess the fun comes of once you're the indisputable most powerful empire on the map.

[strife1013]

Agreed, I once covered like 80 regions as ther Byzantine Empire in SS 5.1
I was suprised I made it that far without starting something new. Its hard to stick out a whole game, guess when an Empire is "too big" its more of a hassle to handle it than it is fun to play.

Anyways back on topic, Im trying to decide if I want to take out Rome, seeing if its worth it. Wonder if I can get a good rep with the Pope again once I take Rome because I like calling crusades.

[Resurrection]

Agreed, I once covered like 80 regions as ther Byzantine Empire in SS 5.1
I was suprised I made it that far without starting something new. Its hard to stick out a whole game, guess when an Empire is "too big" its more of a hassle to handle it than it is fun to play.

Anyways back on topic, Im trying to decide if I want to take out Rome, seeing if its worth it. Wonder if I can get a good rep with the Pope again once I take Rome because I like calling crusades.

Then attack him and force him to be your vassal. Making alliance instantly increase you rep with him and with little money here and there your rep will be at its highest.

[moosey]

playing as genoa i managed to diplomacy my way into getting almost the entire italian peninsular, (bought bologna, sent spies into venice til it rebbelled etc) until only the pope was left, so i gifted him palma and attacked rome, he died but the next pope was one of my cardinals (i had a lot of priest building up their skills in anatolia) and i made peace with him. I was excommed for one turn only.

[strife1013]

Is Constantinople richer than Rome?

[-Aquila-]

yeah I think it is, well the time I got Rome it wasnt gaining that much money comparred to Constantinople.

But that might be becasue Sicily took it only a couple of turns before I took it.

[DeaDBolT]

Is Constantinople richer than Rome?

Way richer then Rome, when i captured Constantinople and Rome in my last campaign( i had all of Italy, North Africa, Hungary and Byzantium ) Rome was one of the least producing city's, a little under 2K while Venice gave me almost 6400 and Constantinople about 4K when i got it.

And how to take Rome whilst keeping your relations good: Send all the spies you can into Rome, thieves guilds really help for this. then it will likely revolt sooner or later with about half a stack of units.
Conquer it and a turn later the Pope will practically beg you to return it to him.
And when your power and relations are like mine( I had an alliance with all factions and when i declared war/made peace most factions joined me regardless and i could always get off with a ceasefire ) you can just ignore him and nothing seems to happen.
Having the Pope, or a lot of Cardinals in your faction also helps savouring your relations with the Papal states a lot when doing this.

Lengthy, but that,s how you conquer Rome( or the whole world for that matter, spies work against everyone )

[RollingWave]

I think the furthest i got in terms of wipping up Catholics is taking out everyone except Poland and Hungary... but hunting those two down in the middle of nowhere is tough.