how do you make the pope like you?

**axle** · November 28, 2006, 03:43 PM

it seems that whatever i do the pope always hates me. I do all of his missions and go on crusades but then ruin it all by attacking christians, is there any way to make him let me expand into christian land?

**jimbob** · November 28, 2006, 04:19 PM

Not reeeally. I guess the best way is to tempt catholics into declaring war on you, and then hopefully they'll get excommunicated. When they're excommunicated, then the pope doesn't care what you do to them.

**Spiff** · November 28, 2006, 04:27 PM

You just have to be in less of a rush. If he threatens you, best to just wait it out if you don't want any consequences. I figure if you keep relations good by also giving him money he's less likely to hate you.

**Lavastein** · November 28, 2006, 04:30 PM

Originally Posted by axle

it seems that whatever i do the pope always hates me. I do all of his missions and go on crusades but then ruin it all by attacking christians, is there any way to make him let me expand into christian land?

the step is to build churches as i did and priests. Then blitz your enemy and by the time hes complaining youll have your cities.

**Farnan** · November 28, 2006, 04:31 PM

or 8 out of the 13 cardinals can be yours and the pope can just be your puppet, excommunicating anyone that even looks at you weird, so you can launch a crusade against them...

**Darkiemond** · November 28, 2006, 04:56 PM

Pope rating for you goes up when you build cathedral or huge cathedral so I usually have one ready to be built before I know i am gonna do something naughty. Then after my pope rating goes down I make sure to build a cathedral to bring the rating up again.
Also, it says that in a manual, but just in case i will mention: when Papal elections come around and if you have a cardinal and vote for someone who doesn't become a Pope, your rating falls (so much for the freedom of vote)

In general it doesn't even matter much what your Papal rating is unless you get excommunicated or need a crusade. And as far as excommunication goes I always have a lev 10 assassin eyeing Pope. (may be it's just me, but i take excommunication very personally

**Antagonist** · November 28, 2006, 05:09 PM

Another thing which worked surprisingly well for me is to throw money at him. I've spent the vast majority of my HRE campaign excommunitcated, have killed 5 or 6 Popes in battle and survived a Crusade against Rome. Recently however I managed to eliminate 3 Catholic factions (England, Poland and Hungary) within the space of a couple of turns, which coupled with a few judicious assassinations gave the Papacy to one of my cardinals who promptly reconciled me like a good little puppet, but he still didn't like me that much. So I opportunistically sent a diplomat to see him (he's camped by the Tiber with only his bodyguard for company, poor fellow) and gave him 10,000 florins or so and lo and behold, I had max approval. Not sure how that translates into other circumstances though.

Antagonist

**Sylesia** · November 28, 2006, 05:12 PM

Two things. First is a statement. I agree with Darkie, the best way to deal with really low ratings or excommunications is simply to kill the pope and get a new one elected, problem solved. Second, you can excommunicate someone? How?

**Darkiemond** · November 29, 2006, 10:19 AM

I don't think you can excommunicate someone at will.

But I noticed that as long as I have my Pope in the office (and of course we are in good ralations) and the war breaks out between me and some other catholic faction Pope will usually excommunicate that other faction.

**Machinator** · November 29, 2006, 01:03 PM

Simple. Give him money. Watch your Pope standing rise! Attack Catholic factions with impunity!

God, its great to be rich.

You don't even need many churches - just keep tributing him when needed. It's so easy it's silly, because Papal States is usually bankrupt.

**Wurfspiess** · November 29, 2006, 01:06 PM

Building churches and espeacialy chathedrals helps also
you cant excomunicate someone directly but iam under the impression if the holy father likes you he excomunicates your enemys

**Furin** · November 29, 2006, 07:18 PM

Move Diplomat next to Rome, open diplomacy dialogue, pay 500 florins for x times within the same diplomacy action, get alliance, gift map info, gift military access. All within the first 10-15 turns of the campaign. Regift 500 florins for 1 cross of papal favour whenever needed. Gift 300 florins for 20 turns if you have the money. Finished. (<- yeah i know that´s sploit

)

For a less cheesy approach build churches, let other christian factions attack you until they become excommunicated and dont fight back (even breaking a siege will let you loose papal favour so regift it up to perfect). Successful crusades. Letting Rome rebel and then give it back to Santa Clause, and so on and so forth.

**CynicalMagician** · November 29, 2006, 07:32 PM

Gifting money is for suckers. Why give the pope money when you can use that cash for more units?

Instead, go on crusades, sack cities and gut them of buildings. Then gift the city to the pope. Even the smallest, worst settlement will be worth 4 or 5 popescore, and heavily populated settlements will be worth 8-9 popescore.

Once I got excommunicated because I ignored the pope's mission to stop fighting the Portuguese. I had their last city under siege and could take it the turn I got this ceasefire request. I had 9 popescore so I decided to take the settlement anyway and reconcile afterwards. Sure enough, I get excommunicated. The same turn I gave the settlement to the pope and I went from excommunicated with 1 popescore to reconciled with 8 popescore.

The moral: gift the pope cities you don't want. If you don't have any extra cities, crusade.

If you want more details, check out this post here: more details here

**Polski_orzel** · November 29, 2006, 08:03 PM

Just give tribute to Papacy. 100florins per turn. And he will love you.

**WILHELM_II** · November 30, 2006, 01:45 PM

<sigh> you are not the Pope's lapdog! You're soon-te-be ruler of the world! Act like one. Dont listen to the pope, just install one. Capture Rome, keep killing popes that spawn next to it until the college of cardinals is empty (there are other ways of killing him, apart from assassinating) and spam some priests from Rome. Soon enough the college of cardinals will be filled with cardinals from your great nation. If the pope gets angry again, kill him at will, and since the new pope will be form your country, you will have decent papal favor. Build lots of churches in lots of towns, kill a heretic now and then. If you, for instance, need to get Jersualem to win the campaign, commission a crusade for even more papal favor. Basically, until you start installing your own Popes and won Rome, you can pretty much do anything. Especially on VH/VH it won't make much of a difference since you will be backstabbed constantly anyway.

**WILHELM_II** · November 30, 2006, 01:47 PM

<sigh> you are not the Pope's lapdog! You're soon-te-be ruler of the world! Act like one. Dont listen to the pope, just install one. Capture Rome, keep killing popes that spawn next to it until the college of cardinals is empty (there are other ways of killing him, apart from assassinating) and spam some priests from Rome. Soon enough the college of cardinals will be filled with cardinals from your great nation. If the pope gets angry again, kill him at will, and since the new pope will be form your country, you will have decent papal favor. Build lots of churches in lots of towns, kill a heretic now and then. If you, for instance, need to get Jersualem to win the campaign, commission a crusade for even more papal favor. Basically, until you start installing your own Popes and won Rome, you can pretty much do anything. Especially on VH/VH it won't make much of a difference since you will be backstabbed constantly anyway.