Help with Portugal

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

I'm kinda new to the game, i'm playing a vanilla game, and I need some help with portugal

* My situation: Pretty much top three in every category, except for finance, (which is Pope and HRE and some unknown)
* 12 settlements (Iberian Peninsula plus Marseilles, Marrakesh, Timbuktu, and Algiers); Valencia, Algiers, Toledo are castles; everthing else, some level of city
* spain and moors eliminated; I had Jerusalem, Gaza, Bordeaux and Toulouse. I lost Bordeaux because I wasn't paying attention, and lost Toulouse to the fifth wave of French and Milanese armies of 1000 soldiers each (Toulouse had an amazing garrison, and they lasted a long time; the general had full command there, and all the soldiers had full experience)

But back to my point: My standing with the pope is horrible, even though I have went on multiple crusades, and I want Bordeaux and Toulouse back. Pope is threatening excommunication. Should I get my castles back, or should I try to get good with the pope again? Or should I expand towards Egypt? Any other options?

I await your reply, and thanks for the help.

[crzyrndm]

Bribe the pope with a large donation initially to jump start your papal favor(~20,000(in 5,000 lots so you don't overrun full favour) as a gift will definetely go a long way, but a smaller single donation will still help if you can't afford so much), and gift him about 500 florins/turn for 20 turns to keep the favour up(he won't accept longer so don't try, just leave a diplomat at Rome). First priority on any catholic campaign should be to send your diplomat to rome and offer 200/turn as a gift and keep it up the whole game, boosting to 500/ turn once you can afford it, then you will never be in the dogbox with the Pope!!

If your papal standing is high enough you can ignore his cease hostilities orders for a long time. Capture Toulouse or bordeaux as soon as your papal favour reaches 8+(you can definetely ignore cease hostilities at that much) wait and repeat with the other castle

[Cheator]

Or just tell him to bugger off, take your castles and send your assassins to take care of the old geezer (or just go and take Rome - when he's dead, you'll be reconciled, you'll get truce with him and, if you're lucky and the new Pope is one of yours or your allies', you'll get better relations with him)

[13lackGu4rd]

as said, either make friends with the pope by either giving him a large donation or giving him a province(no matter how remote). giving him land should automatically bring you to full favor so that's the easiest way, but the problem is that you won't be able to get that land back from him as it'll completely destroy your relations with him if you do and make you very untrustworthy. or just ignore him, get excommunicated and eventually assassinate the Pope to get reconciled. it depends on if you're having trouble handling all the other catholic factions around you, as they'll be much more inclined to attack/backstab you once you get excommunicated, or if you just like role playing as the good Christian. if you don't have issues with either than just ignore the Pope, and diplomacy altogether while you're at it, and just slash and burn everyone.

[crzyrndm]

The problem with completely ignoring him though is the 30%(IIRC) penalty to public order for being excommunicated in all towns across your empire, which can really upset that careful balance between income and order. Long term, for a larger empire it is better to pay the Pope off, than to ignore him completely.

[13lackGu4rd]

The problem with completely ignoring him though is the 30%(IIRC) penalty to public order for being excommunicated in all towns across your empire, which can really upset that careful balance between income and order. Long term, for a larger empire it is better to pay the Pope off, than to ignore him completely.

considering that for the long term it's better to run with low taxes rather than high taxes the public order penalty shouldn't be that major unless conquering large cities of opposing religions without priest conversion before hands, something which you shouldn't do in the first place...

[crzyrndm]

considering that for the long term it's better to run with low taxes rather than high taxes the public order penalty shouldn't be that major unless conquering large cities of opposing religions without priest conversion before hands, something which you shouldn't do in the first place...

While you might earn more/turn with low taxes, with high taxes you have more money to build income/growth/health improving buildings like town halls/farms/markets, and allow larger armies for faster expansion. So unless you are trying to reach the next level of city, the highest taxes are actually better because you only lose 1.5% growth/turn, but gain alot in taxes by running very high taxes faction wide(except were you are racing to the next level of city). The advantage's of using low constantly are only felt very late in the game and are normally far outweighed by the early->middle advantages of running constant high taxes. Therefore the PO penalty can cause a massive decrease in income due to need to decrease taxes to keep towns from revolting, so it is actually a factor.

[13lackGu4rd]

While you might earn more/turn with low taxes, with high taxes you have more money to build income/growth/health improving buildings like town halls/farms/markets, and allow larger armies for faster expansion. So unless you are trying to reach the next level of city, the highest taxes are actually better because you only lose 1.5% growth/turn, but gain alot in taxes by running very high taxes faction wide(except were you are racing to the next level of city). The advantage's of using low constantly are only felt very late in the game and are normally far outweighed by the early->middle advantages of running constant high taxes. Therefore the PO penalty can cause a massive decrease in income due to need to decrease taxes to keep towns from revolting, so it is actually a factor.

don't know about you but after the first 5-10 turns of any campaign I stop having money problems to justify running higher taxes than low all around(switching to very high on the last turn of construction if governor is present, for traits). unless you love stacks of spear militias I find the limiting factor generally to be the recruitment pool rather than money. as far as buildings go, I build whatever I need and have no problems affording it, and I generally focus on economy buildings and farms(should also be considered an economy building Imho) first.

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

thanks for the help

[crzyrndm]

Not spear militia armies, the most elite I can recruit(19 varangian guard followed by 19 byz guard makes for epic kill rates, I might even include a stack of archontopulai just for fun)

And I try to keep every settlement in constriction the whole game, which I can do and more with V high taxes(I normally have armour factories in all my castles just to clear the window and have nothing more to build even if they don't actually do anything). Anyway, this is probably completely irrelevant as once you get past 10 provinces you shouldn't be able to maintain losing money on any tax rate no matter how much you build, so economic management isn't really needed after the early period of expansion.

[KnightOfPortugal]

Did you convert the population in North Africa yet? Send some priests over there, and your standing with the pope will get a nice boost. Also, since you got Timbuktu, send an army to take arguin and exploit the fancy resources you can find down there. Another tip is cutting costs. Spear militia and XBow militia should be enough for most garrisons. In fact, Portugal's defence relies on your mobile Jinetes-based armies instead of immobile garrisons. Two-three spear militias and two-three xbow militias will do fine for most garrisons.

Now, with the pope, as I said convert the population in Africa with your priests. If the enemy invades your lands with their armies, try to bait them so they attack your mobile armies. That way, the pope can see no reason in excommunicating you, since you weren't the aggressor. Only attack them if really necessary.

[the new username]

dude the pope is maybe from an enemy faction of yours, u have to take him out or just wait until a new pope is elected. but be careful when sending ur assasin, if he isnt skilled he will probably fail. if u have an very very bad relationship with the pope u are going to be a crusade target, and then is all catholics against u. but exists an way of taking adavantage of the situation. they will spend everything on the crusade army, leaving their lands free. if sicily joins the crusade, u raise an army and attack them where they are vunerable, conquer them as quicker u can and the crusade army doesnt reach ur lands. this is good cause u have an motive to conquer them and u dont need to declare war on them, and ur reputation doesnt decrease