Pope Help?

[ChaosShade]

Ok i've been playing a game as Sicily and I took over the entire Italian peninsula and nearby islands including the lands held by the Pope, at the time I figured that i'd need to keep a strong garrison in central italy and fight off the pope occationally. But i'm getting a re-emergant pope every few turns and it takes everything I have to keep him from taking anything back. I have no chance of turning my attention outwards to any of the super-empires that have formed and are duking it out because I have smack the pope down all the time.

Question is can I control how often the pope re-emerges at all?

I have extremely high zeal in my provinces so i'm wondering if this is causing it, or perhaps the wealth generated from having ships in every tile and having everybody as an ally? Or is this just something I have no control over?

[spmetla]

The only way to "control" the pope is to let him have the Papal States and just send a small army in there every now and then to keep his army small or to kill him if he's excommunicated you.

I usually let my "King of Rome" put the Pope in his place, with as many Orthodox mercenaries as I can get too. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

The Pope will always reemerge, if you crush him the first time he will come back bigger and stronger the second time. By the fourth time the battle would be as good as pointless as the Pope will annihilate you Best thing is to defeat the Pope once, and force him to retreat to the castle, then abandon the province, making peace and leaving the Pope with a much reduced and ineffective army.

[ChaosShade]

well I defeated that crazy fourth time army and I havnt seen anything for quite a few turns, also put some inquistors in to reduce zeal and see if that will reduce the frequency.

I know he'll always come back but once every two turns or so was silly http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

[katank]

best thing to do is to invade and take Rome then to invade the papal states and leave him sieged in a castle. Withdraw from the province just before he starves.
this way, he will be left with tattered forces and also be neutral with you as you share no borders with him.

the ragtage remnants of UM left will not be enough to form a threat and the papal states is not too rich so he can't really field a new army.

rinse and repeat if necessary to keep him weak and assasinate if excommed but do not eliminate him to not have to deal with reemergence.

If you would like to make the game very challenging, then go eliminate him and try to fight every papal reemergence that come along. Have you noticed how often he comes back with a Muslim army? LOL

[kiwitt]

I invaded Rome just once and held it for a couple of years as the turks. When the Pope returned, I sent "multiple" Jihads (over 20) to it. I noticed I got lots of JHI, JA and JI troops as well as normal troops. Kicked his @#$%$. And got a whole lot of new units to boot. Didn't have to take time to build them.

I now have over 100 JHI, JI and JA. Disbanded all the lessor units and cleaning up the reast of the map with them.

[The Tuffen]

I tend to invade both the papal states and rome, completly kill him off so I'm not excomnmed, then i destroy all the buildings in Rome and then abandon the province. It then rebels normally so the pope then has to fight them when he re-emerges (not that it stops him). That way I'm not excommed, the pope is confined to one province and has a slightly weaker army.

[kawligia]

Quote[/b] (The Tuffen @ Feb. 29 2004,18:35)]I tend to invade both the papal states and rome, completly kill him off so I'm not excomnmed, then i destroy all the buildings in Rome and then abandon the province. It then rebels normally so the pope then has to fight them when he re-emerges (not that it stops him). That way I'm not excommed, the pope is confined to one province and has a slightly weaker army.
I try that but I never get more than a single unit of archers for rebels.

[The Tuffen]

Quote[/b] ]I try that but I never get more than a single unit of archers for rebels.

Yeah i didn't get too many rebels either the last time i did it, but it does weaken him ever so slightly.

[Servius]

with VI the size of rebellion forces has gone WAY down.

[R'as al Ghul]

Quote[/b] ]I tend to invade both the papal states and rome, completly kill him off so I'm not excomnmed, then i destroy all the buildings in Rome and then abandon the province. It then rebels normally so the pope then has to fight them when he re-emerges (not that it stops him). That way I'm not excommed, the pope is confined to one province and has a slightly weaker army.

I try that but I never get more than a single unit of archers for rebels.
Same with me. One unit of Militia sergeants.
The important thing is to destroy all buildings in Rome, as the Pope is more likely to reemerge there, and leave him nothing to build up. Also make sure the provinces rebel before the Pope returns, otherwise you'll be at war with him immediatly.
Can be difficult to bring the Pope back if you need him, though. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Cheers

[kawligia]

What I like to do when I don't own land in italy, is to let it rebel, and let the Italians or Sicilians take it. That way they Pope will fight SOMEBODY and get taken out again.

[Vanya]

GAH

Vanya help youz now...

Just follow these simple steps:

1) Destroy Pope. Leave nothing alive.
2) Raze Rome to the ground. Destroy every building in that province. Leave NOTHING
3) Abandon Rome. Let Pope respawn in Rome alone. By having NO garrison of your own, you assure Pope comes back with lousy army.
4) Go back to #1 and repeat when youz feel Pope is unruly.

GAH

[Mouzafphaerre]

-
Here's what I did:

Leave the pope alone, conquer the world and spare him for the last blow. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
_

[The_Emperor]

Personally I'd rather take and hold Rome (lots of nice buildings) and leave the Pontiff with just the Papal States, then I invade killing off his army... Retreat and re-invade as many times as I like until he is only left with a pathetic force.

From then on he's truly subject to my whim and if he says the slightest thing against me, I either send an assiassin across the border or raid his province with the aim of killing him on the field, then I quickly withdraw.