Pope turned on me

[l3ol3o]

So I'm playing as Venice SS 6.2 M/M. I started by attacking Genova after I took some rebel settlements. The pope calls for a 7 turn ceasefire or I get excommunicated. So I stop attacking them and turn my attention to Sicily which is marching a full stack north into my territory. I attack the stack and send them running and besiege one of their cities a turn or two later. The Pope calls for another seize fire. Now I have 5 turns where I cant attack either faction. I'm not strong enough yet to take on a third faction so I build up my forces. At this time I was allied with the Pope, HRE and the Eastern Romans. I also keep gifting him money. I keep at least 7 crosses at all times, especially during this down time.

The 5 turns end and I finish of Genova and turn my attention towards Sicily. I kick them off the Italian mainland and have 2/3 armies at Sicily trying to finish them off. Again I'm gifting the Pope money and even a territory by Russia. I'm at 9 or 10 crosses for this and I end turn.

The sneaky SOB excommunicates me and besieges 3 cities at once, one of the stacks had 12 units and the other 2 stacks were full. He also had some units back in Rome. Now I saw him building up his forces and thought nothing of it. I quickly rushed my armies back to defend my cities before I was ruined. I was able to destroy the one smaller stack. I started to recruit like crazy to have enough forces to defend myself. The next turn he takes one of my castles and a large city. I try to attack the castle with one stack and get raped. The Swiss guard are beasts. I try it again with 2 stacks and no luck. I finally massed all of my forces, 4 full stacks to fight the bastard off. I took my castle back with heavy casualties. At the same time I start sending my Assassins after the Pope and his family members. I end up killing him twice and we get 2 new Popes. Neither would have peace of reconcile with me. I end up taking my other city back and eye Rome itself. He has a full stack garrisoned inside Rome and about a half a stack outside of it. Again I have to use 4 stacks all at once to get inside with my best units being devastated. At this point the bulk of my army is spear militia because I only have my Fortress and a bunch of cities.

I finally take Rome and kill the rest of his units in Italy. A new Pope emerges from the KoJ, a faction that I have decent relations with still. The Papal states still have the area that I gave them near Russia. I send a diplomat and gift him 30k. I then offer him a ceasefire and 20k more to be reconciled and the bastard turns it down! What should I do?

I want to get back into his good graces. I really like building up priests and getting them to Cardinals but I don't think they can get to Cardinals when your excommunicated. I also want to be able to call crusades. Now I have 3 territories in the Russian area. Caffa, Azaq and Tmutarakan. The Turks are really starting to push and I'm not sure how much longer I can hold this area. During the turns I was fighting the Pope I wasn't building much and right now my Armies in Italy are mainly spear man and other weak units. I was thinking about gifting him these areas so he can fight off the Turks but I'm not sure he will go for that. Is there a secret to getting reconcilled? I really have my eyes set on taking Africa from the Moors and then head into the Iberian Peninsula. After that I want to go crusading east. Anyone have any other experiences like this? I was thinking of leaving him in Rome but if he attacked me when we were allies with 9 crosses, who knows what he would do in the future with all my armies out of Italy.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Your playing late era are'nt you? if so I'm not familiar with that Pope's tendencies...

1. maintain 9 or 10 crosses at all times.
2. Take Rome and don't give it back. Too rich and don't forget the +2 pirty for generals visiting Rome and getting the pilgramage to Rome trait. Put the Pope somewhere where he can only help, not Hurt. In early era I usually stick him in Innesbruck and he meatshields HRE and respects me cuz I'm his only source of cash...
3. Money cures all evils in the early era on M/M.
4. always armour your Italian militia ASAP and get tHe St John's guild for knights and health bonus.
5. Italians factions are always backstabers...Beware.

Frankly this is.....




and you should copy/paste the episode here....

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=323972


It's also alliance backstabbing and you should relay that here....



..."Alliance Back stabs" http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=333721

Best of luck, please let us know how it goes...+Reps for pics....

[Haakon]

The pope does not like peeps who wage war on their catholic brothers. Make sure you are the one being attacked, dont be the attacker.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Ya won't live long as an Italian faction, if you hold steady and true to that...me thinks...{imo}

[toluas]

Ya won't live long as an Italian faction, if you hold steady and true to that...me thinks...{imo}

Apart from Sicily - they can always skip the catholics for the conveniently located northern african muslim holdings...if you consider Sicily an "italian" faction, that is.

[johlos]

it seams that in every campaign i play the pope dislikes venice no mather what

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

it seams that in every campaign i play the pope dislikes venice no mather what

Hmmmm.... SS version and sub-mods please, as well as difficulty settings... If you don't mind...

Apart from Sicily - they can always skip the catholics for the conveniently located northern african muslim holdings...if you consider Sicily an "Italian" faction, that is.

Someone gonna come find you....when I play Sicily and stay out of Italy, Venice and the Byzzies always drop the welcome wagon at Bari. Don't garrison the city next to Rome {Sr. moment, drawing a blank here} and you suddenly become the Papacy's next Inquisition target.

[Haakon]

You may be right about that. I think I have only played an Italian faction once, and that was Genoa.

[l3ol3o]

Ya its late Era, Ill post more to let you know how it goes. Right now I have him way out in the east by Russia, just west of Caffa. When I reconcile, will I gain any rep back from fellow Catholic factions?

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

I thinks that depends on overall behavior... and difficulty settings. Of course with da Papa, money cures all ills and misdeeds....

[Remonster6x]

I have an HRE campaign SS6.2 RR/RC VH/VH where I took over Venice, Genoa, Sicily, Denmark, and Norway only after they attacked me and the Pope was quick (as he always is) to ask for a cease hostilities the turn after I siege one of their towns. After waiting the 5-7 turns each time I was sick of it. I put 3 stacks on my borders with Rome. When Portugal took one of my towns I was again asked to cease hostilities trying to get it back and I said too bad. The Pope excommunicated me and in the same turn I sailed my army to Rome and his only other town and took them both. Lucky for the Pope, he was on a failure of a crusade that I had asked for and never joined so he is lost somewhere in the roman empire. Maybe I'll give him an island someday like Napoleon but for now, my people seem to be fine with a heretic King. I was able to take France and Aragon, after they attacked me, without the pope nagging me. Hungry is still my ally, Poland was taken over by the Russians who are my ally and Scotland took out england so I am waiting for them to attack me. After that war I might look to get reconciled. I guess the moral is, the pope is just annoying and needs to be taken out as soon as you are strong enough. On second thought, I might give the pope a little place in the middle east. That will be fun to watch.

[HolyDevil]

rome is too rich to let it be forgotten , i always try to capture it and then give a settlement to him where i need him, then i give him some cash over some turn, ceasifre, and voila, problem solved xD

[Ichon]

If you are italian faction best have a plan for the Pope right away. Either commit money to him early, only defend until attacking Catholic is excommunicated and have high chivalry kings or call a Crusade somewhere, wait for the factions to join, then attack Pope. You get at least 20 turns to deal with him that way and no immediate reaction from your neighbors who just put a whole stack into a Crusade.

I found a few times that if you let Pope grow too large 3+ cities- the number of battles you need to do to get rid of him makes relations Abysmal and he won't even accept a gift of money let alone a tribute agreement or city for peace. I've even had him turn down a straight up gift of the return of Rome with no peace deal attached.

[l3ol3o]

I ending up using the add_money cheat to get money. I gifted him a ton of money until our relations were good. I then still had to give him 3 Providences East of Caffa area plus 40k but he finally let me back. He is currently from the KoJ which is down to only 2 Providences left so hopefully there will be a new Pope soon. He is acting as a nice buffer to the Turks and other non-catholic regions. He has a ton of money now so hes building up his forces. I tried to get him to attack to Turks by offering him money but it seems no matter how much I offer he wont buy it. Hopefully the Turks will attack him soon enough so they can go to war.

Also, I tried to take some SS's to post in here. Every time I hit "Print Screen" and then paste in paint, its nothing but a black screen. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

[Remonster6x]

I ending up using the add_money cheat to get money. I gifted him a ton of money until our relations were good. I then still had to give him 3 Providences East of Caffa area plus 40k but he finally let me back. He is currently from the KoJ which is down to only 2 Providences left so hopefully there will be a new Pope soon. He is acting as a nice buffer to the Turks and other non-catholic regions. He has a ton of money now so hes building up his forces. I tried to get him to attack to Turks by offering him money but it seems no matter how much I offer he wont buy it. Hopefully the Turks will attack him soon enough so they can go to war.

Next time don't spend all that money. Just send some assassins to take care of your problem.

[HolyDevil]

The pope's AI is set to passive, he RARELY sets on a conquering mission, 98% of the time he's just set to defend, thats why he won't attack any other faction, cathloci or non catholic, but if u give him a territory in the heart of a muslim faction, he's sure to do some damage

[RavenousOne]

Well 13o13o, say your prayers...

[Chyeaaaa111]

Regardless of what Catholic faction I play (unless I'm on the British isles or Scandanavia). I always take Rome ASAP and leave the Pope with no regions at all. Then he is usually extremely willing to accept peace for a small fee (10k) and then for another 20k he will become my ally. And with 500 florins every turn, he usually is not a problem the rest of the campaign (especially when the Pope is from my country).

[Zanze]

The pope early era...is a real jerk. As venice i set out on my happy go lucky way of taking out italy before greece n such. Florence, check. Bari, check. Bologna, check. Milan, check. Oh look, i just gave him Durazzo for perfect relations...check. Suddenly Sicily and Genoa attack me at once, no problem! I'm the defender, check. Oh wait..the pope broke his alliance with me? I didn- oh god papal stacks!

Yeah...3 games in a row this happened. 4th I just made HRE hate me, gift pope durazzo AND iraklion and declared a crusade to frankurt. Took innsbruck to stop any counters, suicided the army and chilled. Sicily attacked again as usual, pope broke alliance with me as usual but still hasn't bumrushed. Genoa is paid off and my only worry is sicily...and the fact sicily is allied with about 60% of the factions ingame now. Great.

Will see how this works out, as usual i got all of italy. France n Denmark are my only pals and it's probably just because i helped em out by crusading HRE. Oh, and i -do- have almost max crosses before the pope decides to excommunicate me.

[gornison]

Pope is sometimes strage... Not so long ago I played Moors (early era SS 6.1 vh/vh). Turn 10 - signed alliance with Pope, from turn 30 I was feeding him cash ( 500 every turn, later 1000 every turn). When my armies crushed Aragorn, Portugal, France, Sicily, Venice, HRE - Pope was still my ally Strange are Pope's paths...