Controlling the Papacy

[Kalibos]

I'm sure a lot of people do this, but I can't be bothered searching the forums for it.

I hear many people say they have trouble with the pope because of catholic/catholic conquest. Some people just get excommunicated (which if you're willing to accept that stupid disorder bonus is fantastic) and some are the pope's prison fish, but I find the most effective (relatively cheap) way is to get the college of cardinals filled up with your men and form an alliance with the papal states right off the bat.

As long as you give the pope the occasional gift of florins (about 3000 every fifteen turns or so) he seems to love you, and therefore won't be too pissed when you attack other catholics. Your favor will still go down over time, but if the enemy retaliates they tend to suffer the pope's wrath more than you do, because the pope favors you. He's a bit of a sucker for coin; I bought half the Italian peninsula and half of north Africa for a mere 50,000 florins, leaving him to sit in Rome.

Eventually, if you have enough cardinals, every time the pope dies your faction will be up for election, and your vote is the only one that counts. It's basically a very corrupt group relative to the idea of the papacy, but it works. It requires only that you always have the maximum agent limit for priests. You should have this anyway, as heresy sucks.

[Drox]

True enough but I think most peoples gripe with the controlling the papacy is that its a lot of effort for very little gain for the most part. It does not let you have any new diplomacy options or anything. Controlling the Papacy basically is the same as having high favor with pope even when your not in control.

[Kallum]

welcome to the forums kalibos

[Hardrada992]

I disagree that it takes "alot of effort." Really all it requires is having lots of preists running around, and building theologians guilds whenever you can. This is really pretty easy and I have found that by doing this you dont even have to bribe the pope or anything like that- once you get one of your cardinals elected the papacy will love you and you can basically do whatever you want, and you have a lot of favor points to work with, and even if you wear them down to near excommunication there will always be another pope and it will most likely be one from your nation. I just try to attack other nations who are excommunicated or have very low favor (1-4 points). this way the pope never really gets pissed.

[Silent Assassin]

First of all Welcome to the Board kalibos

Second. The Papal State IMO is easy to control, I usually ally myself to them giving them my map informations, here is what you can do with them

1- Use tehm as a shield against a common foe, you can give them cities that you border with a enemy to help you protect your border.

2- The one that I do most commonly is that I wait that a catholic factions get's excommunated, due to the fact that I have a great relationship with them a call a cruade on them and that the way I can destroy them

[Silent Assassin]

http://img267.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ssanw1.jpg

Lol.. Nice to see


I was about to lose Antioch to the Turks so i gave it to the Papal States...
-100 turns later-

Looks like the Papal States conquered the Middle East , managing to hold Jihad on Jerusalem and fighting off the Mongols while crusading on Edessa

That is what I mean

[The Armchair General]

Very nice, Rebel.

I would guess you were the HRE in that?

[Silent Assassin]

Very nice, Rebel.

I would guess you were the HRE in that?

Yes exactly, I do this sometimes to hepl have a break when I have wars on multiple fronts

[The Noble Lord]

Just be careful with the Pope, its the old arch-conspirator you gonna be dealing with.

[Silent Assassin]

Just be careful with the Pope, its the old arch-conspirator you gonna be dealing with.

I had no problems with him from when the game came out so I don't think that it will change now

[Lancea Quantum]

What happens if you attack the Papacy and destroy them?

[Kalibos]

You can't destroy them. Even if you take all their territories and kill the Pope, the new ones will be spawned endlessly in different regions.

[The Noble Lord]

What happens if you attack the Papacy and destroy them?

Pope will just move to another city, you can't really destroy the Papal States.

[paynes]

In my current campaign I had built up the college of cardinals to have about 6-7 of my cardinals in there. So I assassinate the pope and Rome is left deserted. I declare war on them and my peasant archers make Rome fall!

But of course the new Pope is English ... and the Papal seat is now in Inverness after giving them the city. Now I can keep my eye on the pope and if for whatever reason my rep drops, off pops Mr Assassin to shove a snake in his bed and we will have another English pope!

Oh, and I control Italy now and all of it's lovely cash benefits!!

[The Noble Lord]

How long did it take you to build your own College of Cardinals??

[Erunion Telcontar]

Much to my chagrin, in one of my early Milan campaigns, I found out that the papacy is, in fact, immortal.
Of course, if you had a complicated net of assassins, and killed every single catholic priest in the world, then destroyed the papacy in the same turn, you might just manage it as their would be no priests to turn into Popes...

[Freddie]

Much to my chagrin, in one of my early Milan campaigns, I found out that the papacy is, in fact, immortal.
Of course, if you had a complicated net of assassins, and killed every single catholic priest in the world, then destroyed the papacy in the same turn, you might just manage it as their would be no priests to turn into Popes...

That wouldn't work, the AI would still spawn a pope the very next turn.

On a game I was playing early this year I managed to capture the pope in battle. I normally kill all of my prisoners but on this occasion the ransom for the pope was 10K which was to good to be turn down. However to my surprise the Papal States was broke and couldn't afford the ransom and the poor guy ended up dead.

[Silent Assassin]

I think the only way to kill the Pope never tried but you need to play as a non Catholic fcation and control the world, if there is no more catholic factions he shouldn't be able the re-spawn

[Basil the Great]

Cool I didn't know that!!!

[The Noble Lord]

Play as Orthodox or Muslim factions then.