Who does the Pope decide to hate?

[mabinight]

So I was allied to the Pope as Milan, and the HRE was allied to the Pope as well. The HRE declares war on me and besieges my cities, and I find that the next turn, the Pope had decided to break his alliance with -me- even though the HRE was the aggressor. In addition, the next turn I see my Papal favor had dropped two notches, down from 7->5.

On another front, Sicily had been attacking me and I had done nothing but defend. The Pope tells me not to fight with Sicily for 7 turns so I choose not to strike back. However, Sicily attacks me some more on my home territory. Sicily doesn't get excomm'ed for breaking the rules even though it was dangling at a Papal favor of 1. Instead, after attacking me the next turn Sicily's papal favor -increases- from 1->2, and my mission to "not attack Sicily" still stands in place.

So one question is, how does the Pope choose who to side with in the case of one of its two allies attacking the other? Also, what makes the Pope mad at non-player controlled factions, since I thought "don't attack" missions are issued to both sides of a war? Cuz I feel like whatever happens, the Pope just hates me. And taking Rome seems very tempting...

[Jean=A=Luc]

Pope hates non-Christians and players.

[Nyarla]

if u want the pope to be your buddy, open your coffers and give the greedy bastard his church tithe. he expects constant bribes otherwise he'll always favor AI factons over your own if a war starts. that holds true to all of the AI u have Alliances with, they love to break em over third factions if u neglegt monetary donations.

[ZarBoneD]

if u want the pope to be your buddy, open your coffers and give the greedy bastard his church tithe. he expects constant Gifts of Money otherwise he'll always favor AI factons over your own if a war starts. that holds true to all of the AI u have Alliances with, they love to break em over third factions if u neglegt monetary donations.

the pope has corrected your statement

[k/t]

Pope hates non-Christians and players.

And Chris Hansen.

[Lazy-Hamish]

build a load of churches, cathedrals and stuff, recruit a load of priests so eventually your guy becomes pope, give the pope a territory, go on crusades, bribes, complete any mission the pope gives you. Usually works for me

[Gogolometro]

Sack the Rome. Things will fix soon after.

[Lazy-Hamish]

if you sack rome, the pope just relocates and everyone hates you, basically outs you in even more trouble

[diez]

participiate and request crusades,gift him money,slaughter muslims etc.
btw england and genoa are always get excommunicated in my campaigns

[mabinight]

Hmm, so I ended up just taking Rome, killing a few Popes...you know~

Now the elected Popes live in the trees outside Rome. I like to imagine it's a cardboard box somewhere. If I end up bribing the next living Pope and ask for ceasefire/reconciliation...will that last, or would the Pope simply say "I will attack you again and auto-excommunicate you!" ? Cuz he loves doing that to me.

[Strategos Lykos]

the twist is, once you got your own men as da Pope, your standing will skyrocket and you can do pretty much anything to abuse the AI. it's kinda fair when he hates you if he wasn't yours...

[Nyarla]

the pope's only there to get on your nerves and after he does that too much getting killed. or to rephrase it, my assassins require one dead pope in order to graduate the assassin school. not that hard with lvl 10 subterfuge after murdering a few rebels but its neccessary to wipe out all those Cardinals before they turn on the children

[recentiy03]

I'm playing as Lithuania in version 6.4 on VH with VeryBadAI...I had alliances with Novgorod, Poland and the Pope. Novgorod sent ships to attack a Polish port and I decided to side with Poland, thus breaking my alliance with Novgorod. Guess what? My relations with the Pope dropped. Apparently siding with the Catholics didn't matter. For the fun of it, I decided to reload and see what would happen if I sided with Novgorod...same thing...my relations with the Pope dropped. Go figure.

[Roboute Guilliman]

I'm playing as Lithuania in version 6.4 on VH with VeryBadAI...I had alliances with Novgorod, Poland and the Pope. Novgorod sent ships to attack a Polish port and I decided to side with Poland, thus breaking my alliance with Novgorod. Guess what? My relations with the Pope dropped. Apparently siding with the Catholics didn't matter. For the fun of it, I decided to reload and see what would happen if I sided with Novgorod...same thing...my relations with the Pope dropped. Go figure.

Well factions who spread paganism aren't regarded as allies or friends to the pope. The thing is the pope will hate you once you start converting the population to any non catholic religion.

Playing as Lithuania you really don't have many allies around you. Best thing is to befriend the cumans and march against Novgorod. Once that is done. Take Rome, pagan warriors on the walls of Rome is always a pleasant sight.

[ihranator]

The pope hates on any who don't give him gifts of money or land. That's the short of it.

[The Sweeper]

Remember to keep a diplomat by Rome to feed greedy ole Pointy Hat as much gold as he needs to keep on sending his robes to the most expensive launderette in Medieval Europe.

If you avoid attacking Christian factions till your relations with the Pope is high enough, you should end up with a relation drop that doesn't equal excommunication. Churchs/cathedrals, priests, high % of Christianity in your regions and lack of heretics will keep your relations ticking over. Voting for the Bishop Preferati that wins the Papal election also gives you a big relation boost as well.

Oh and to answer your original question OP, the Pope decides to hate Muslims and YOU. But you should know this already, TW AI is biased against the player, and with reason.

[mabinight]

Haha, I went through the game files and yeah, it looks like everything is biased against the player. Although, it's still very frustrating to not have attacked any Catholics ever at all, not even sallying out for defense when other Catholics besiege me, then having the Pope attack out of the blue (when your relations with him are bribed to "perfect") for an auto-excommunication and a bunch of pop-up messsages telling me how it was "all my fault."

[ZarBoneD]

The point is to present a "Single Payment" as a gift, then your reputation wont take a hit. If you are dubious, or otherwise untrustworthy, Factions will be more inclined to work together, against you.

There is a option in the lower left with a circular button (it looks like a wrapped gift, or a "present" in you are giving it to the HRE as "Gift" means poison in German lol), that gives the option, "Present this as a Gift" using money, map information, trade right, and alliance all work. Map information can sometimes be a lot more vaulable than money, especially if you have explored large areas of the strat map.

[Lazy]

Pope hates non-Christians and players.

I am still laughing....