How to get many priests of you faction in the college of cardinals.

[webMaster412160]

First you need to make sure in every city/castle you own is a chapel or church and when you can build a bigger church/chapel build it + the priest you then can recruit.

It will increase your favor with the Pope and when a cardinal dies you need to get lucky but know you have a bigger chance to get one of you priests promoted to cardinal.

[Tankfriend]

I only partly agree with the above - the favour with the Pope is quite important but it's also a good idea to concentrate your priest production unto a single settlement. If you do it that way, it's more likely that that settlement will be offered a Theologian's Guild which offers some major bonuses to any priest recruited there - especially when you get the two upgrades to it. If you've got to a Master Theologian's Guild and have one of the higher tier religious buildings (i.e. abbey/cathedral/grand cathedral) in the same settlement, the priests trained there will have so advanced stats that they're very likely to get nominated for cardinal quite soon - because a priests' stats probably are the most important aspect of them getting chosen for cardinal. I've had a few cases where I was near excommunication but I still got some priests promoted.

[Imperator Romani]

Um, how bout recruiting a good bit of them and ship them to Egypt or another Muslim faction.

Look for heretics.

[PoleCat]

The Theologians Guild is definitely the way to go. All Priests should be recruited in only one city until you get the Guild HQ. This gives a great benefit to your priests globally.

The best way to get Cardinals though is to mass 5-6 Priests together and send them to a non-Catholic territory. Ideally have them stand next to a border between two non-Catholic territories. From turn to turn they will convert the masses and gain Piety dependent upon the rate of change to Catholicism - the faster the change the higher their Piety will rise (this is why you need quite a few together - 1-2 priests don't convert fast enough to gain piety). When one territory becomes too high to convert easily then just have them step across the border into another low Catholic area and begin the process again.

Every game I play I use this trick and I always dominate the Preferati and the Papacy. In my current campaign the Pope is mine and I have 7 voting Cardinals and the top Preferati.

[sherlock]

The Theologians Guild is definitely the way to go. All Priests should be recruited in only one city until you get the Guild HQ. This gives a great benefit to your priests globally.

The best way to get Cardinals though is to mass 5-6 Priests together and send them to a non-Catholic territory. Ideally have them stand next to a border between two non-Catholic territories. From turn to turn they will convert the masses and gain Piety dependent upon the rate of change to Catholicism - the faster the change the higher their Piety will rise (this is why you need quite a few together - 1-2 priests don't convert fast enough to gain piety). When one territory becomes too high to convert easily then just have them step across the border into another low Catholic area and begin the process again.

Every game I play I use this trick and I always dominate the Preferati and the Papacy. In my current campaign the Pope is mine and I have 7 voting Cardinals and the top Preferati.

I used the same tactic in my last England game and worked great. A bunch of priests in Orthodox zones became quicly all cardinals. I won easily a first election with 7 cardinals. In the following ... I had 11 cardinals (although ... they elected the one "utterly corrupt" and "secretly female", my God!)

[Thalassocrat]

If I am closer to the mediterranian I tend to ship a group of 6 to N.Africa and have them slowly walk to Egypt, they stay in a province until the population hits 60% Catholic then move to the next, I only let the priest tour, cardinals I leave behind or if I send in new priest I will pick up the younger cardinals and send them off to a new region with some more junior priest. I noticed that around 5 priest the rate of increase in piety slows down, so while say one dozen could bring the Catholic population to near 90% in five turns the priest's piety doesn't increase as much compared to 4 priest achieving a 35% catholic population in the same amount of time.

If you play Denmark, Hungry or Poland, then E. Europe is your target.

Doing missions I feel lets you accomplish 3 task at once;
1) you get more pious priest
2) intel on the regions
3) render the regions more accepting if you invade

[SavageSmurf]

Just send priests to the closest muslim/orthodox city and you will have max amount within a couple turns.

[Aristarchus]

Just send priests to the closest muslim/orthodox city and you will have max amount within a couple turns.

I agree with this. Simple. I send priests to low-percent Catholic regions and pull them back to home provinces when they become cardinals. Why restrict recruitment to just one city when many cities can get the guild and lead to a master guild?

[Viking Prince]

A first level church is good for each settlement to just help counter the effects of a stray Imam or Orthodox Priest mucking up in your regions. I think you should focus your largest population settlement on the best church available -- just keep upping the levels. Along with Theologians Guild -- this will give the new recruits a plus towards Cardinal. At some point you will simply be recruiting priests with high piety waiting for an appointment to completely dominate the college.

[Goofy]

Should this be a guide? lol, perhaps you should write more than 2 lines with very small amount of information...

[Viking Prince]

Let this run a bit and then an ambitious member can write up a guide. Or whatever guide exists in Rebel's or Nazgul's threads can be edited.

[SturmChurro]

No, all you have got to do to have CARDINALS(not priests). These are some ways
1. Be on good terms with the Pope
2. Send your priest somewhere on the map that is highly not Catholic.
3. Denounce Heritics, and Witches.
4. You can have a theologian guild, but it really mostly just upgrades your priests(forgot what the things are called when you look at priests stats), so yes it helps.
5. Take over a lot of Islam, Orthodox factions and set up chuches in their lands, this also goes with step 2.

[John Doe]

6. Assassinate the competition

[Aristarchus]

6. Assassinate the competition

You know, this raises a whole 'nother issue. After reading a guide on reputation, I've started to have second thoughts about assassinating every foreign assassin, spy, infidel priest, bribing diplomat, and manhunter princess in my territory. The king starts to look foul. I'm tempted to not care a bit. In a recent campaign against the Mongols, I executed nearly all prisoners, because I didn't want their money, I wanted them dead: and my best general and prince-soon-king got reputations as "the merciless" and my faction for the first time got an utterly reprehensible (or whatever) reputation. Well, let the world try to fry me!

On the other hand, I do take special care with raising cardinals. Getting excommunicated and having the whole Catholic world and your own people turn on you is very unpleasant. Once I had to take Rome and kill the pope to get my own candidate elected to get the curse lifted, like right away. Regardless of rules or effects, though, I do have my own story to live with, and killing competitor cardinals (or the pope) just seems wrong. Killing princesses, too, regardless of the game results, seems nasty (unless those b*** are nastier).

[John Doe]

I agree with you Aristarchus, assassinations comes with detrimental side effects. I hardly ever assassinate, but it still had to be mentioned, not only to get cardinals, but also when none of your cardinals is a preferatti. 6 is expeditious but it only works if you have done 1-5 first as you need to have elligeable priests... I should have mentioned it earlier

[SturmChurro]

I also agree, if you assasinate it does make your rep. go down, like if i ever assassinate I only do it if I really need to like if I am being beseiged and now thinking about it I do not even make assassins if I do they just die off.

[Morkonan]

I know this may seem kind of redundant but..

Simply have more priests than the other nations.

As you begin conquering, you'll pick up more cities and castles, reducing the other's ability to generate priests. Eventually, you'll have more priests than many other nations, increasing the likelihood some of your priests will become Cardinals due to simple odds.

It's very easy to get priests experience and they're one of the longest lived units as nothing they do, except countering heretics, is life-threatening. Only Inquisitors, besides a heretic, can affect a Priest and I have yet to see a faction assassinate one. (I suppose they could, though.) So, pump out a new Priest anytime you capture a city/castle, focus one city on building religious improvements (Hopefully, you'll get a Theological College) and eventually other factions won't be able to compete with your 1337 Priest Spam. A hoard of priests advancing in the vanguard of your conquest army into heathen lands reaps lots of priestly rewards and experience. I never go into any area without a few priests that I'm grooming for cardinals/pope candidacy. They're always on the front lines, thumping their crucifixes and yammering at the unwashed heathen masses.

In one game I have going now, every Cardinal is mine and the Pope is in my back pocket... He was a lecherous so-and-so when he was one of my Cardinals.. So, I'm blackmailing him.

*I really like the "side-game" of Priest advancements and trying to get one elected as Pope. It's great fun!

[Snevets]

Somehow I feel a bit wrong being able to singlehandedly direct the conclave as
England. Avignon Papacy... not so much.