Papal rating lowered unexplicably

**DennisRoos** · October 19, 2011, 10:14 AM

I'm playing a late era Crusader States game, and I'm doing pretty well. I've destroyed all Islamic factions and I attack any excommunicated Catholic nations. I own some big chunks of Europe now and I've never done anything to piss off the pope. But lately I've noticed that almost every two-three turns or so I lose a papal cross. I am not at war with anyone, I'm only allied with Catholic factions, nobody's excommunicated and there is no crusade. The pope is a crusader as well as most of the College of Cardinals. So I don´t understand why he starts hating me. Does the amount of heretics in your lands influence this?

Also, as a side question, in what year does the Black Death appear? And when do the Timurids invade?

**Black_ice_Spain** · October 19, 2011, 10:34 AM

go with a diplomat and pay him each few turns D:

Check that you are not allied with some enemy of him/his allies? (maybe?).

Amount of heretics i dont know, but i bet it could be, they decrease catolicism in your cities i think.

I always have a priest @ each town, so i control pope voting

**oxxid** · October 19, 2011, 12:05 PM

Also if you have to break an alliance because 2 of your allies (whichever religion they have) decide to go to war against each others, wich can often happen if you like to ally yourself to everyone, it lowers the pope rating by 1 cross each time.

For the other questions, look descr_events.txt in world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign and you'll have all the events dates.

**kevindrosario** · October 19, 2011, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by oxxid

Also if you have to break an alliance because 2 of your allies (whichever religion they have) decide to go to war against each others, wich can often happen if you like to ally yourself to everyone, it lowers the pope rating by 1 cross each time.

Where did you find this information? I can only find this one trigger about breaking alliances in this situation, which wouldn't reduce your Papal standing by a full cross.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Kaidonni** · October 19, 2011, 02:46 PM

Originally Posted by kevindrosario

Where did you find this information? I can only find this one trigger about breaking alliances in this situation, which wouldn't reduce your Papal standing by a full cross.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Well, I can say that it has happened to me on two occasions. Two Catholic nations went to war, I backed one of them, then my Papal standing declined. I had done absolutely nothing else to cause it to decline. This was way before I attacked any other Catholic or failed a mission from the Pope. I'd wondered why it declined, then the second time the prompt to back an attacker or defender came around, and my standing declined further, I realised...

**kevindrosario** · October 19, 2011, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by Kaidonni

Well, I can say that it has happened to me on two occasions. Two Catholic nations went to war, I backed one of them, then my Papal standing declined. I had done absolutely nothing else to cause it to decline. This was way before I attacked any other Catholic or failed a mission from the Pope. I'd wondered why it declined, then the second time the prompt to back an attacker or defender came around, and my standing declined further, I realised...

That doesn't necessarily mean that it goes down by one full cross. It could just be that you were near a demotion both times anyway.

**oxxid** · October 20, 2011, 04:08 AM

Originally Posted by kevindrosario

Where did you find this information? I can only find this one trigger about breaking alliances in this situation, which wouldn't reduce your Papal standing by a full cross.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Well, I experienced it many times just like Kaidonni, and in fact in a game where I had made alliances with almost all the factions (I wanted to achieve a full state of peace

) and was 9/10 with the pope, in a few turns it went down to 3/10 because of multi alliance breaking.

**kevindrosario** · October 19, 2011, 03:56 PM

Papal relations (and any relations for that matter) are based on a decimal scale. It's not just integers of 1-10. the number includes decimals up to at least the hundredths place. So, like I said, maybe it went down when you broke off an alliance, but perhaps it was near the point of demotion in relations anyway.

Edit: A screenshot wouldn't do anything since it doesn't show the decimal value of relations in-game. It just shows the crosses.

**Duck of Death** · October 20, 2011, 08:49 AM

With multi-alliances, Id be think it through before commiting if you dont want Pope relations to suffer.
If you ally with both England and France (for example), you know odds are you are going to have to break one of them pretty soon cause those two like to fight eachother.

I would only ally with one of them. Your favorite, or also check diplomacy and see which one the Pope favors more and go with that one.

If I was England, I usually would only ally myself with the Pope (and maybe a vassal in Scotland) in the early part of the campaign. I might ally with Crusader States when I inevitably head over there on crusade since the Pope never hates them and Ive never seen a Catholic state declare war on them.

Basicly treat alliances as an important decision rather then blindly grabing every one you can early on and you are less likely to have to break many (or any) until much later in the game

**Kaidonni** · October 20, 2011, 09:18 AM

In my case, I love the decline in relations with the Pope. I'm playing as Sicily in the early era, and feel it is great roleplay to be hated by the Pope. It is certainly historically accurate.

**Duck of Death** · October 20, 2011, 03:24 PM

Originally Posted by Kaidonni

In my case, I love the decline in relations with the Pope. I'm playing as Sicily in the early era, and feel it is great roleplay to be hated by the Pope. It is certainly historically accurate.

Guess its no love lost when you march on Rome then eh? hehe

**Dwarven Berserker** · October 21, 2011, 12:01 PM

if you want to be completely lame you can get loved by the pope this way:
1: wait for crusade to be called
2: make crusading army
3: click "join crusade" and then "abandon crusade", then "join crusade" again and repeat this as often as you like.
4: get full papal standing, perfect ralations with all not-excommunicated catholic factions and crusading general gets "saintly in rule".
5: ????
6: Profit!

it worked for me

**popovic** · October 22, 2011, 06:16 AM

Originally Posted by Dwarven Berserker

if you want to be completely lame you can get loved by the pope this way:
1: wait for crusade to be called
2: make crusading army
3: click "join crusade" and then "abandon crusade", then "join crusade" again and repeat this as often as you like.
4: get full papal standing, perfect ralations with all not-excommunicated catholic factions and crusading general gets "saintly in rule".
5: ????
6: Profit!

it worked for me

Does that really works? It sounds like a horrible exploit, and grievous overlook by the game designers.

**Dwarven Berserker** · October 22, 2011, 06:38 AM

Originally Posted by popovic

Does that really works? It sounds like a horrible exploit, and grievous overlook by the game designers.

well i was playing with the norwegians, and a crusade was called on lithuania, and i wanted to take their city, but a venitian army was aready besieging it. First i sent my diplomat to ask them for an alliance so ik could siege as well (and hopefully take the city) but they didn't agree.

So then i wanted to attack them, but you can't attack crusading armies, so i tried to "abandon crusade" to see if i could attack them if your army isn't on a crusade, but it didn't work. So then i just joined the crusade again... and i noticed a message "ralations improved" coming up

So i kept pressing join/abandon crusade over and over again and i got those results

**DennisRoos** · October 22, 2011, 06:40 AM

Originally Posted by Dwarven Berserker

if you want to be completely lame you can get loved by the pope this way:
1: wait for crusade to be called
2: make crusading army
3: click "join crusade" and then "abandon crusade", then "join crusade" again and repeat this as often as you like.
4: get full papal standing, perfect ralations with all not-excommunicated catholic factions and crusading general gets "saintly in rule".
5: ????
6: Profit!

it worked for me

This does not work. The only part of this strategy that works is that your generals get good chivalric traits. I've done this in my one of my SS 6.4 games, where I did this with over 10 generals to get good chivalry (I needed to grow my cities). They got the traits, but my papal relations stayed at 8/10 and my relations with other Catholics stayed the same. Maybe it's different in the vanilla game, but not in SS 6.4.

**Dwarven Berserker** · October 22, 2011, 08:58 AM

Originally Posted by DennisRoos

This does not work. The only part of this strategy that works is that your generals get good chivalric traits. I've done this in my one of my SS 6.4 games, where I did this with over 10 generals to get good chivalry (I needed to grow my cities). They got the traits, but my papal relations stayed at 8/10 and my relations with other Catholics stayed the same. Maybe it's different in the vanilla game, but not in SS 6.4.

Wrong

I tested it in vanilla, and it does not work there, as the chivalry traits get cancelled as you abandon crusade. In SS 6.4 the traits don't get cancelled for some reason.

Aslo, it seems your crusading army has to stand in the region of the crusade target, otherwise your relations will not improve.
Lastly, to improve your papal standing, you have to send your faction leader of faction heir on crusade. (not sure if they need to be in crusade target region) Normal family members don't seem to give these bonussus.

**oxxid** · October 22, 2011, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by Dwarven Berserker

Wrong

I tested it in vanilla, and it does not work there, as the chivalry traits get cancelled as you abandon crusade. In SS 6.4 the traits don't get cancelled for some reason.

Aslo, it seems your crusading army has to stand in the region of the crusade target, otherwise your relations will not improve.
Lastly, to improve your papal standing, you have to send your faction leader of faction heir on crusade. (not sure if they need to be in crusade target region) Normal family members don't seem to give these bonussus.

Has anyone checked if it worked with a Jihad ? (Not Papal standing

, but chivalry points)

**Dwarven Berserker** · October 22, 2011, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by oxxid

Has anyone checked if it worked with a Jihad ? (Not Papal standing

, but chivalry points)

Good one!

I'm gonna check it soon!

**Dwarven Berserker** · October 22, 2011, 02:28 PM

I tested if it worked with a jihad, but it appears not

Even the "saintly ruler" thingy didn't work, my faction leader just gets stripped of those traits when you abandon the jihad. As it should be, though.
Relations also stay the same.