How to use holy war as a tool for divide and conquer.
Playing on Hard/Hard
I played an interesting short game as France. I started out with the clear objective of wanting to crush England as soon as possible, and to that end I thought I should rush to claim and fortify my corner of europe, and build friendly relations and trade with all those around me while I prepared for war against England with my flanks secured.
It is an ironic twist of politics that England ended up being the very last non-eastern-european power to fall to my sword, and my ability to leverage religion and the pope was absolutely critical to success.
I started out with quick expansion to grab up all the rebel territories around modern France, and make my first priority building churches and putting a priest in every province, putting off economic development for a bit. This is probably what sets me on the path to becoming an early favorite of the pope, for by the time of the first papal election I have several cardinals and many friends. I not only get my man voted in, but over the next 300 years I win every single papal election by a landslide. I played the game in a state of perpetual perfect relations, but this was also due to other things I'll explain...
I solidify my southern flank with a marriage alliance to spain, but take out the moors myself, so unfortunately give them no room to expand against portugal. Spain will live out the entire game as two provinces totally devoted to me as an ally, never dreaming of backstabbing me, and I never do them wrong either.
Things start to get dicy after milan gets excommunicated, and being a good vassal to the pope I move in to liberate these lands. This appears to cause increased tension all around me among the other powers, who now fear my expansionism. The Germans are becoming increasingly difficult to please, and I eventually end up paying them tribute in an effort to stall a collapse in relations that would lead to an attack (which is sure to come after they are done whipping denmark).
While I have not made war on england yet, they are itching to break out of caen, and have allied to the Germans. This worries me.
Portugal strikes first against my more vulnerable southern holdings and takes a fort.
Then England attacks, taking advantage of the situation, and the Germans break off their alliance with me (which is the point I'm paying the germans just to keep them neutral).
Not able to fight effectively on two fronts, I crush the english in a single epic battle first, drive them off the continent, and then move down to recapture what Portugal took, and wipe them off the map too.
With my good standing with the church, and because I didn't strike first, I was able to get away with this.
But I make peace with england because I'm not ready to wage war across the sea yet, while leaving my border with the Germans unsecure at the cost.
So I will need a longer period to build up before I am comfortable in securing my homeland as well as waging war in england.
At this time I join the first crusade to build favor with the pope, and as a chance for plunder and freedom from upkeep while I buildup my territory.
Everyone just about joins along, including the Germans, and because of this the Germans seem inclined to not want to attack me while I am in the processes of crusading (because I am quite vulnerable with my main army, lead by the king and my best troops, marching across eastern europe towards antioch).
I have no navy, so it's a long trek.
Unfortunately the byzantines are beings and blocking the land-bridge to the middle east with a full stack and a half army, and I don't know how to ask them to move other than to fight them (I'm not sure if them giving me military access would let me go through them, but probably not). So I crush an army nearly twice my size and my holy crusaders continue on, making peace with byzantine easily enough a couple turns later as I have no quarrel with them.
I capture the city, I grab the spear of destiny in the process, and now is where the manipulation of the church for my end really begins.
I come to the conclusion that, since I have no navy and no desire to maintain an imperial pressence across the world (my goal is just to maintain france and kill england), I decide the best thing to do is sack the city, burn down all it's buildings for cash, and then naturally hand over the city to the papal states for management.
This is a eureka moment, for I discover that doing this gives me perfect favor with the pope, allowing me to wipe away any future transgressions against christian states by conquering an heathen or excommunicated land and then gift it to the pope! And being pope territory, it's much less inclined to be attacked by opportunistic christian states. The pope also appears to be granted half a stack of something appearing in the garrison whenever I gift a territory to him, but I never ran a spy in to see what exactly it was. I don't know if this always happens or if it's something unique to the pope.
So I have a wonderful little engine of politics and money making here: I sack a city, pillage it, and gift it to the pope. This generates lots of fast cash to rapidly build up my mainland infrastructure, in addition to ensuring the pope's favor means that none cross me without risking excommunication.
I take several lands and gift them to the pope in the middle east before my army tires out and must disband (My leader died down there somehow, so no filling out the ranks with mercs to keep going).
This is when the Germans strike, after the crusade ends. They get bogged down in my forts though, my inferior forces being able to beat off their castle sieges barely several times while I rapidly train up troops and hire mercs to repel this invasion.
I move on to crush the germans ruthlessly, as they are now excommunicated, and aside from one territory I keep for myself, the rest I gift to the pope (after pillaging them of course) - This creates a papal barrier between me in control of western europe from any future threat of the poles, hungarians, or to a lesser extent the venetians.
The pope is my defender, and I am his. The stage is set for my conquering of Britain now, except...
Before I've completed this destruction of Germania, I get a warning that my defeat is IMMINENT because the venetians have almost reached their victory conditions for territory held and destroying the byzantians (I've already destroyed milan for them earlier).
This forces me to change gears and try to think of a way I can put the breaks on the Venetians without destroying my papal support or breaking off my total destruction of the germans, because I fear I can't switch gears that fast and take on england without crippling the Germans first.
I do so by funneling money into byzantium and Hungary, hoping to stall venetian expansion and destruction of a key state.
Luckily the turks take constantinople, and hold it, buying me time as the venetians appear to be militarily too weak to expand much more than they already have.
A crusade is then called against cairo. Poland and Venice are both active participants along with me as the three of us have the most sway with the pope. I join the crusade for the purpose of pillaging for a surge of funds (pouring some of that into their enemies), and hoping to get to the objective before venice can capture it and dramatically increase their power.
I take the long route along north africa, launching from my provinces in spain, as an opportunity to destroy the moors at my flank. I give these lands to the pope (who now holds what use to be the holy roman empire, a couple provinces in the holy land, and now the western half of north africa). Unfortunately desertion bogs me down before I can get to egyptian territory, but fortunately it was the pope himself and his massive army that captured the city before venice could (he's apparently keeping the muslims quite busy down here with his expanded economy and provincal footholds).
Apparently this greatly angers venice, because not long after the crusade ends venice declares war on the papal states! Such heresy and greed!
As the self appointed protector of the papal states, I move in to action swiftly to crush the execommunicated strip of venetian land in eastern europe, calling a crusade of my own against their province in greece.
I, naturally, give these lands to the pope.
Sicily also attacked at the same time from southern italy, but I moved in to crush them as well, giving that land to the pope as well (after sacking it all for money, of course).
Finally, all my flanks are protected by the papal state, my rival venice is ruined, and poland is busy fighting off a variety of states in the east to care about me. It's time to make plans to move in on england proper.
With the massive amount of funds I had plundered, it proved easy to raise a massive elite army quickly, blockade the ports, and crush all of england in a matter of turns.
The pope did threaten me with excommunication for this aggression, but because of my incredibly relationship the hit I took didn't actually put me below the halfway mark, and I was able to regain perfect relations immediately by gifting the pope another territory I conquered in sicily.
I annexed england for myself.
As a side note, I had tried to avoid the excommunication by provoking england to attack me first, but no matter how many spies and assassins I ruined and murdered with they didn't bite. I was too powerful I suppose, and too friendly with the pope.
Ultimately though it was a wasted effort of time because the issue of excommunication, given my standing with the pope, proved to be inconsequential and easily recitified with a gift.
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Originally Posted by Conquistatore
