Ignoring the Pope

[Deerslayer]

I'm early HRE and got warned about the Pope for attacking the Danes so I had to back off. I suspect the consequences are ugly if I ignore his warnings. How do people get around this ball and chain from the Pope? Can I kill the creep?

[Xicote]

You can kill the Pope with an Assasin. It will have to be a good ranking one though. Personally, I never back off and just continue with my land grabs. A few crusades here and there but you *can* hold off. It gets hard though when The French, English and Spanish are on your doorstep with crusades though.

[Brutal DLX]

Hi

I suppose the Danish have just one province in your campaign, i.e. Denmark, right? Then go invade Denmark with a sizable force and attack the castle on the turn after invasion. This will eliminate the Danish faction in just 2 years and you won't get excommunicated.
But don't be so scared about excommunication, especially at an early date. Chances are you won't see any crusades against you, just maybe an attack or two from the French or Hungarians/Poles which should be easy to repell.

[chilling]

It all really depends on how big the rest of the catholic nations are. If they are big you could see a good few large crusades against you eating up your armies. If not just ignore him or send some assassins after him.

Playing mainly as the English I'm usually in trouble with the Pope. Just can't resist France. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Lord of the morning]

Conquering the papal states is a tempting option for the HRe since they are usualy big and bad an thus get excomunicated for just about any attack. Another option however is to attack a nation to get a warning, then pull back after the 2 years warning and then spend the ten yeras under wich you cannot attack the same country, attacking other countries, the pope wont mind since he only seems to be able to remember one warning per country.

[R'as al Ghul]

Hi Deerslayer

I'm a newbie, too and have found out the following:
The Pope is a General as any other Leader.
He can be killed in battle and through assassination.
But: He usually maintains a huge network of spies and
assassins right from the start. So it's difficult to get him
with low rank assassins.
I also read that he keeps returning, even after you conquered his Provinces - you can't kill the idea.
Other Christian factions, of course will then ally with him to earn his good will for their own Conquers - especially your Provinces.
My Advice: Let them Danish be. They may soon be the only Province to trade with. You can easily hold them at bay in their single Province and finsih them off later. As you may have realised, it's pretty difficult to get ships to the med sea in early. So that leaves the Danish and the Russians (as long as they last) to trade with.
I would also try to wait and see. The english get excommunicated every few years - a good chance to start your crusades against them, for free if the Pope supports you.
I once managed, as spanish, to get along with the Pope through about 100 years, and get regularly 10.000 Florins for nuts. What i did was to fight off the muslims (Almos, then Egyt, then Turkey) and keep my border in North Spain. After the English attacked a ship of mine in the street of Gibraltar and later blocked my trade route, i couldn't resist aquitania and....got excommunicated.
Since i owned northern Africa up to Constantinople, it was easy to invade Italy and the Papal states. The Pope went mad and called everybody for crusades. When they arrived i easily fought them back. Several of them attacked every year until they got decimated by time and battle to zero, giving those enemy generals interesting vices http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Well, it's just the time that matters. Sooner or later you have to deal with the old man.
You better be ready.
By the way, Cardinals or simple emmissarys have a better chance to sign a peace with him if they got some stars on them.

Hope this helped

[Jabberwock]

Nah, Ignore the Pope. His bark is usually worse than his bite. You can always pretend those little yellow crosses with a crack in them are the symbol of your new branch of Christianity. Those playing the English could call it the Church of England, and allow themselves 6 wives each. I wonder why no king ever thought of that.... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[ichi]

Why let the thought of burning in hell stop you from wiping out entire cultures?

and, when the Pope dies, all excomms are forgotten. Not sure if this happens every time the Holy Father goes to the grave, but it does happen sometimes.

ichi

[Deerslayer]

Thanks guys All good info.

[Tim]

Or, just build up your economy and wait for the Pope to excommunicate some other nation. Then, you move in.

[Monk]

when it comes to the Pope i have one piece of advice, Ignore the old Fossile Take care of your enemies then whipe out the Spanish (as they are the only ones what will Crusade against you) if you can do this then you will be home free.(in most cases)