Curse the Vatican!

[Longshanks]

I have always been careful with the pope, only attacking non-Catholic factions, or Catholic factions with an ex-commed King, as well as defending myself from the inevitable attacks from other Catholic nations...let them take the papal heat. I took out the some Catholic rebels, but that was done by past kings.

The Vatican actually managed to become a power, a first for me. They controlled all of Italy(except for the islands), Greece, Constantinople, Austria and Nicea. Anyway just when I had a little Empire going(England,Scotland,Wales,Ireland,Aquitane,Anjou,Normany,Brittany,Rhodes,Sicily,Norway,

Sweden,Denmark, and most of the Middle East)the Vatican attacked me without warning and captured Sicily. The survivors of my garrison there were now besieged.

I was even allied with the Vatican, and had never received any warnings from the pope. On the next turn I counterattacked with my King and 800 men from Wessex, and defeated the 1500 strong Vatican force there. I was quickly excommunicated for defending my own territory Screw the pope I said, so I attacked Naples next and captured it.

Now I'm sure a bunch of Crusades will be headed my way, just because I was defending my own territory. I can't believe the pope gave me the shaft Er..on second thought, nevermind.

[Brutal DLX]

Attacking the Pope is a surefire way to get excommunicated. What? Aren't you Christian enough to know that Thou shalt not attack thy Holy Father ?? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
NB. In that case it doesn't matter if you were defending the territory or not. You are dealing with an ambitious Pope directly, not with another Catholic faction. He makes the rules, he can bend them, you know?
Kill him quick or ask for ceasefire after the siege ended.

[castle]

This game makes curse. Who would have thought that one day a cry of the f----ing Pope would come from your usually silent room.

[Obex]

There seems to be a bug in the game, relating to the vatican. The vice perversion causes -4 piety. Shouldnt this be +4? I thought that a preference for young boys was good for your standing in the church.

[Longshanks]

Quote[/b] (Brutal DLX @ Feb. 21 2003,06:09)]Attacking the Pope is a surefire way to get excommunicated. What? Aren't you Christian enough to know that Thou shalt not attack thy Holy Father ?? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
NB. In that case it doesn't matter if you were defending the territory or not. You are dealing with an ambitious Pope directly, not with another Catholic faction. He makes the rules, he can bend them, you know?
Kill him quick or ask for ceasefire after the siege ended.
Luckily the pope ended up dying from an illness right after I took Naples.

The new pope's first action was to send a diplomat to propose a ceasefire.

Whew.

Looks like no crusades will be coming my way, at least for the time being.

[JANOSIK007]

Quote[/b] (Longshanks @ Feb. 21 2003,17:57)]Luckily the pope ended up dying from an illness right after I took Naples.

The new pope's first action was to send a diplomat to propose a ceasefire.

Whew.

Looks like no crusades will be coming my way, at least for the time being.
No crusade?
I'd rather have no Jihad comin' my way. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[ichi]

Longshanks:

Can't trust the Pope? Like you cannot trust the French, Sicilians, and Mongols, one cannot trust the Pope. Just ask the natives of the caribbean or Americas in the 1500s.

But what to do? Of all the provinces that like to revolt (Scotland, Portugal, ?, the Pope seems hard coded to come back, so force is not the best answer.

I keep an Inquisitor in each province controlled by the Pope, dropping extras on the pointy headed guy every now and then, and prioritize Papal agents for assassination.

When I get excommed (routinely) I use the opportunity to wreak havoc on the Italians, Papal States, and Sicilians. As you stated, once the Pope passes on his successor forgives all (usually) and seeks reconciliation, unless you are a major superpower.

When I'm in the Pope's good graces, I focus on heathen/pagan/Muslim types.

Sorry to hear that your faith in the good of the church was shaken. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif At least all he did was assault your front, and not your rear

ichi

[PoLsKa_HuSaRiA]

Is there some way to totally stop the papacy from constantly trying to take back rome??? Im so sick of the pope deciding to invade my territories in the name of God and me not being able to do anything about it for fear of being excomm. BAH Invade him back i say Which i do and then have to commit many an army to prevent the papacy from getting Rome back. Any way to stop his constant attempts to reclaim Rome?

Also, if you set up a puppet pope can you do anything special with him? Like ask other factions to fight go destroy a particular faction that is against God?

[Heraclius]

PoLsKa,

nope. Nothing, and I mean nothing, short of fifty years of occupation with large armies, will stop the Pope from coming back, at least in my experience. He reemerges once every few years with massive armies and high-quality troops. In response to your question about puppet popes: basically when you defeat the pope and place your own on the throne (or whatever they call it in the Vatican) he ceases to exist. All that happens is that no crusades are possible and noone is excommunicated. I was hoping they would modify this for Viking invasion but then I gave it a second thought. If you could conquer the Pope and call for crusades against anyone you wanted the game would be way too easy and everyone's first objective would be to conquer Rome. huzzah to CA for thinking this problem out.

[Jazzman]

That popes a fickle one, as English i've been battling back and forth with the italians for years but neither of us have been excommed, but i attack on rebel german province, not realizing the germans are still in the castle under siege and i get threatened with excom. History, however, will back up this fickleness of the papacy. on several occasions back in med times new pope would take over and the ones previously excommed were now in good graces and the ones they were fighting then excommed. or the pope would excom someone just to get momentum against them to take their lands.
anyway, I have not found that being excommed is so dreadful (although my grandma's prob rolling over in her grave), at least when playing the english. in two campaigns been excommed many times but only remember one crusade being thrown against me and it only lowers your province loyalty a little bit.

[TanDaraDei]

The Pope really got on my nerve by excomming me whenever I took back my provinces. Thus, I always keep my best assassin (7*) as a resident in Rome and whenever I get excommed I decide to put some fresh blood into the old church. Next year 'habemus papam' and excomm is cancelled. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

BTW these old buggers never learn,I guess I had to 'dismiss' some 6 or 7 popes before I finished up France. They just went on with excomms despite the sad fate of their predecessors. That's what I call civil courage http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Snowhobbit]

In one of my games the pope decided to grab some land, he vanquished the Italians pand goes what, hes name was Innocentiuos III or something. Anyway i whiped him out 10 years later because of all those crusades(I was Byzantine)Hehe newer saw him again.

[NewJeffCT]

God, I hate the Vatican, too. I'm sitting there as the English minding my own business, waging war against those heathen Turks after having just taken some provinces from the Byzantines when the bloody Sicilians (who had conquered the Hungarians earlier and had quite a large fleet)decided to sink some of my ships.

My new king is trapped in Constantinople, so I need to get him back home to Wessex. I counterattack and try to sink all his fleet in my way and the Pope warns me. Fine, I back off, but they keep sinking my ships (luckily, I have a bigger fleet&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif and I have to sit there and take it while they are saying no to my emissaries offers for ceasefire.

So, I finally had to counter-attack and get my king home to Wessex to keep the English Isles from rebelling. I immediately get ex-comm'd But, I got my king home, and then decided to wipe out the French in the meantime, as they had only one province left.

[wordsmith]

When playing as a non catholic faction the first thing i do is wipe out the pope and retreat one faction will enevitably take these ungarrisoned provinces and usually just in time for a papal re-emrgance. Now this faction has to fight off a constantly remerging pope or the pope takes it and with his massive army is quickly going into debt and is forced to start an agressive conquest campain on his neighbors, usualy they can fight the pope off but it results in excomunications and general chaos. It also tends to cut down on the number of crusades coming into my lands.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

[A.Saturnus]

Playing the HRE, I`ve always been good friend with the Pope. But the English and Spanish crusade kept on sucking up my troops and even some good generals. Then, the Pope attacked my fleet. I asked for ceasefire and got it. As this happened the third time, I decided it was enough. I invaded Rome and declared myself Pope. Now, a huge force stands in Rome, waiting for a new wanna-be-Pope. And no more crusades for Spanish http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif