How will the papacy be represented?

[xzyx]

I wished to attend to a horrible error that most games make (yes even vanilla MTW).

Will the papacy be represented as a "neutral" sort of state, with no engaging on the ongoing wars on italy?

I mean, from what I concluded after reading "The Art of war" and "The Prince! (both from Maquiavel), the pope was not only a religious leader, responsible for mantaining rome. He also had to mantain the complex balance beetween the most powerfull familys on the city in order to rule, and he also waged war on his neighbours several times, being defeated at some and victorious at others. He had an army and generals under his command (not sure if was exactly the pope or one of his generals who went to the fight). Rome was like most city-states in Italy. If you need more than my word, you can read those books or look for Pope Alexander VI and his son, Cesar Borgia.

Maybe it's possible to represent such thing by making an actually "playable" papal states? I mean not automatically excomungating anyone who fights anything belonging to the papal states (so it doesn't get too easy), or other stuff I couldn't thin right now that would make it too easy.

[Azim]

We are currently considering several different ways to represent the Papacy, but every possibility we are considering would be a pretty drastic change from vanilla MTW. Firt, we are aiming to remove the highly unrealistic Papal elections. The player should not be able to in effect name the Pope. Second, as you said, we will remove the Papacy as a military power. The Catholic nations can gurd the Papal States rather than the Pope himself. It is highly unlikely that the Papal States will be playable, though.

[Hengest]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=209325

[Philippon]

Xzyx: I mean, from what I concluded after reading "The Art of war" and "The Prince! (both from Maquiavel), the pope was not only a religious leader, responsible for mantaining rome. He also had to mantain the complex balance beetween the most powerfull familys on the city in order to rule, and he also waged war on his neighbours several times, being defeated at some and victorious at others. He had an army and generals under his command (not sure if was exactly the pope or one of his generals who went to the fight). Rome was like most city-states in Italy. If you need more than my word, you can read those books or look for Pope Alexander VI and his son, Cesar Borgia.

Me: One must take Machievelli with a select grain of salt since he was arguing that the ends justified the means and that is the whole of his argument for The Prince.

But yes, the Pope did wage more than a few wars at specific times. Not as often as the other states, and not to expand the Papal States. The chief reason was to assert control either over his own state or defend it against those who would incorporate it into their own empire.

This was the chief reason why the most warlike of the Popes, Julius II just prior to the Reformation, fought. He was getting the French and Germans out of Italy so he might be able to reform the church without fear of the French Kings or German Emperors trying to once again secure the Papacy as they had in the past.

Out side of those wars, the only other real example of warfare we have is the earlier Popes fighting to keep the Normans out of the Papal States just prior to the Crusades, something which they decided to stop doing once the Germans once again began to cause trouble, trying to take Rome for themselves. The Normans were more than happy to provide 'sanctuary' to the Popes once the Popes agreed to allow them territories which had, up to that point, belonged to the Papacy but had been taken by the Normans in their 'consolidation' of their Kingdom in Sicily.

Given that Bohemond of the First Crusade Fame had much to do the Norman mischief in Italy, and given that he would go on the First Crusade, one has deep sympathy with Anna Comnenus's observations about Byzantine suspicions about Urban's actual motives for preaching the Crusade.

[Nikephorus16]

The Pope was always very involved in life in the Catholic world. While not always declaring war on countries he usually dictated what they did and his word carried great influence. Therefore I believe that the pope should be like a big dipolamat of sorts, dealing with the proplems that Catholic countries are facing with out directly interferring.

[Marcos182]

i'd like to play as the papal states, cool colors, and i'd slaughter everyone!!! hehe just kidding i guess that wouldn't be very papally

[SaberHRE]

The influence of Papacy is largely debatable. At its height, the Papacy was the dictator of Catholic Europe. At other times popes were nothing more than puppets at the hands of strong Catholic monarchs. The position of the Popes was largely dependable on strength of the Holy Roman Emperor. When the Papal state was formed, the HR Emperor's task was to defend the Pope. Thus, Papacy and HRE had a hate-love complex relationship, each being dependable on the other. Thus when the Popes decided to weaken the Emperors' strength, ironically they were sealing their own doom. So when Philip IV kidnapped the pope, there was no one to defend him...