Genoa faction

**Epzilon** · March 30, 2010, 01:53 PM

Hello all,

I hope you have the time to help me out a little bit. I recently started playing as Genoa and trying out to figure out what I'm doing wrong. It all starts good, I get control over Milan and Florence and Bern (if I rush up there). I start making money and invest in the proper buildings to earn more money and got pretty much everything under control. The problem is that when Venice declares war on me (by first attacking me) the Pope removes the alliance I got with them, even if my only intention is to defend myself I start losing reputation with the Pope and everything goes to hell from there. How is it possible for Venice to retain their high reputation with the Pope by attacking me first and still be their truthful ally?! It does not make sense!

If I try to retaliate by attacking I get the warning about being excommunicated or the Pope decides to attack me personally as they remain ally with Venice.

What can I do to not get screwed over so early in the game? I do the quests the Pope wants me to. I recruit priests to ship em over to Africa to gain more piety to hopefully one day to become Cardinal.

Edit: Playing as hard in campaign difficulty.

**Gogolometro** · March 30, 2010, 02:07 PM

Bribe pope favor with money. If you are at full favor a excomm wil became only a warning. Give him 300 florins per 5 turns or 5000-10000 once. Will make your favor great. Good thing, now stand away. Wairt to get mesage about papacy staisfaction, you just defend from venisce. Asemble big, really big army. Atack Venice and Ragusa. Aplay the bribe papacy program. Asault Venice and Ragusa. Make them vassal. Happyness!

**Ichon** · March 30, 2010, 02:10 PM

The Pope chooses between 2 allies whichever has the highest favor. So even if you have alliance with Pope if you 7 crosses and Venice has 8 crosses favor then Venice has advantage. It sounds like you did everything possible to win Pope favor except paying him tribute. Pay him tribute and your favor rises faster also if your King is chivalrous it is better.

Normally if you just defend Venice will lose favor with Pope each time it attacks and eventually you will be higher in favor but if you sally out to attack during a siege the Pope counts that as an attack though really you are defending. Since you have so few cities and each one is very valuable it is difficult to be patient in that situation. I'd recommend taking the offensive and ignoring Pope for now. Defeat Venice and you can buy yourself back into Pope's favor.

If Pope joins war against you then you take Rome and kill the current Pope. Rome is a rich city and if Pope has no other cities you can get peace by giving him Adjaccio or some other island and tribute for 20 turns or whatever. You can also kill off your King if you get excommunicated and regain some favor with the Pope that way as well though it is not a good solution if you haven't defeated Venice yet.

**Epzilon** · March 30, 2010, 02:27 PM

Thanks for the tips Gogolometro and Ichon. You are correct, I have not paid any tribute to the Pope yet. Hopefully it would help me to improve my reputation that he choses to remain as my ally when the inevitable war against Venice arrives at my doorstep.

**Grouchio** · March 30, 2010, 02:35 PM

Or you could just tell the pope to go hump his cross, and get strong enough to withstand the pope's wrath. He has no right to control the Kings of Europe! NO RIGHT!!

**Ichon** · March 30, 2010, 08:08 PM

Originally Posted by ♔Sir Naked Emperor♔

Or you could just tell the pope to go hump his cross, and get strong enough to withstand the pope's wrath. He has no right to control the Kings of Europe! NO RIGHT!!

Usually I purposely disobey the Pope just for role playing reasons. Only with the Italian factions and Iberians do I sometimes obey... the Italians because they can easily elect their own Pope and the Iberians because they would want Papal support in Reconquista. I guess maybe KoJ or Crusader States as well though they are so easy I rarely play them. Maybe I'll try a campaign with them soon where I don't go on offensive for at least 20 turns.

**hereagain** · March 30, 2010, 08:25 PM

i like to just sit in my cities so the pope will realize i ain't starting no war

**Old Geezer** · March 30, 2010, 09:38 PM

If the OP is playing 6.2, isn't "hard" strategic difficulty actually ridiculously difficult?

**Ichon** · March 30, 2010, 10:29 PM

Originally Posted by Old Geezer

If the OP is playing 6.2, isn't "hard" strategic difficulty actually ridiculously difficult?

Depends who you ask...

Maybe compared to M/M on vanilla but if you are any kind of total war veteran it might be hard the first few turns but usually gets easy once a solid base is established. Only a few factions in certain era are actually hard enough to make you feel like restarting first time playing them.

**nobody** · March 31, 2010, 04:05 AM

vh/vh 6.2 is easy playing as papal state, pretty easy as England or Scotland. Hardest or impossible got to be kingdom of Jerusalem, negative money after few turns and surrounded by strong hostile factions.

**alwt1991** · March 31, 2010, 05:06 AM

the old papa loves MONEY,god only favours the rich one,hahahaha

**sbroadbent** · April 03, 2010, 08:01 AM

If you know relatively what things to prioritize and where and who to be aggressive against, VH/VH isn't necessarily all that challenging. In most cases for the first 15-20 turns the AI builds up an excessive number of alliances, and then somewhere around turns 15-20, they will finally get around to declaring war. Knowing when this will happen, and that it WILL happen is the first step in dealing with it. Knowing which factions will have a tendency to go after which other factions is the second step in knowing who is likely to attack you.

If you're an Italian, you can't rely on the other Italians to stay at peace. You want to make sure you have sufficient armies to deter them from moving against you.

Late Era Khwarez and HRE tend to be the most difficult scenarios. Khwarez because they have to deal with the Mongols from turn 1, and the HRE because by turn 15 all their Neighbors decide to look at the big black blob in central Europe and want a piece, not to mention they also have problems with generals loyalty.

Although there was a few tenuous moments in my 6.2 Templar game, I didn't find it an overwhelming challenge. There were a few challenging moments, but after reviewing my status and what I had available to repel invasions, it was easy to find the path towards victory.

I don't know if it got changed in 6.2, but I remember in 6.1, I never ever got excommunicated by attacking any army that was sieging a city or in my region. Not to mention attacking any ships blockading my ports. With that said, it may have been Vanilla M2TW I may have been thinking of. I've seen this complaint multiple times, so I assume there must be something in the files that does threaten excomm, even if you're fighting to kick them out of your territory.

**hpsauce13** · April 03, 2010, 04:59 PM

in vanilla as milan i decided to play an 'ultra-chivalrous' campaign, and ended up being excommunicated, and at war with just about everyone. I put this down to trying to grab too much land too far north, and pushing venice back too far (even though they attacked me first). however i regained papal favour by taking on the crusade and setting up a nice little kingdom in the holy land.

It went on to be one of my favourite campaigns in vanilla, completing it to the long requirements