I made the POPE a power in Europe

[guvidus]

I was playing Russia campaing and i decided to use a special tactic for succes. First of all i decided to expand fast to the west, along the Baltic Sea to improve my finances, leaving the landlocked provinces to the rebels. As soon as i took Thorn, i was atacked by the Poles...so i thought to neutralise any future catholic agresion. How?......Well i eliminated the Poles&Hungarians after some heavy fighting, and gave all their provices(8 in total) to the Pope in exchange for aliance, trade rights and military acces. Everything was OK, he was very happy, and right after this a have marched S-E from Thorn to the Black Sea, taking 2 settlements in the process, and VOILA - between my lands and the catholics i had a nearly full barrier of papal lands, with just a tiny border with the rebels north near Thorn.
So far so good, i figured - no catholic country will atack me now and no crusade will be called against me. The mongols have poped up, sa i turned my atention East, taking Moscow and Smolensk, moving my military East, in the case they will come north of the Black Sea. They didnt appear, but i continued to develop my cities and economy (merchant guild HQ in Novgorod hehe), hoping they will go south and keep the Turks and Egyptiens ocupied until the Tims and the crusades will turn that region into a blood bath.
Nothing dangerous semed to happend , so i got lazy, not reading the diplomacy msgs anymore, just building and sending merchants to the best spots to get lot of gold.
But....after a while, something strange happened in Europe. Venice got eliminated, and HRE soon after. Hmmm. I took my diplomat from the sicilian capital up to Rome to my dear friend the Pope to exchange maps and see how central Europe looks like that days (i was too lazy to build a proper network of spies - just watch towers on borders) and SURPRISE - Rome was a rebel town. Go further up, get to Venice, and guess what, it was owned by the Pope. Quick exchange the maps, with a 10.000 gold donation from my part and what i see? the Papal States are the largest country in the world, bordering with the Byz in the Balkans, with me in East, Milan&Sicily their middle South, Danes in the North and French in the West.
WTF??? Trying to secure my western flank so i can fight the mongols undisturbed, i created a monster state in Europe with around 20-25 provinces.
I want to know if will he continue his expansion, and if he will, in what direction, bcs right now i really dont have a chance to stop him with my thin forces in the west and no capable general, since the good ones are in Siberia with the brunt of my army waiting for the mongols who aparently are smoking marijuana or something for 30 turns now.
Please give me an advice for this situation.

P.S. - can the Pope "crusade"?

[zerathule]

You've unleashed a monster ...
There are a few posts on that matter here and there, but usually, as soon as the pope gets a second settlement, especially in europe, he becomes power hungry and conquers the world.
Any Catholic that opposes him will be excomuniated, and he'll crusade them and bring them down.
If you fight the pope, you'll be the target of waves and waves of crusades.
You're toasted ^^
But that might prove the greatest challenge you had, because the pope will only stop once you've take all his lands and destroyed all catholic factions.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Yes he can crusade.

[SadCat]

The Pope will normally not break alliance. So you should be good till he runs out of other lands to take. SadCat

[Jason X]

The Pope will normally not break alliance.

i've never had him break an alliance when playing a catholic faction, but he's unilaterally opened up a second front on me just as that second wave of mongol stacks appeared (playing egypt, my rep is very reliable) and we had an alliance since early game.

since the OP is playing russia, he might want to be a bit wary (just a guess though, i don't know exactly how religion affects the break alliance code ;o)

[Goaswerfraiejen]

I love creating Papal borders, but unfortunately I've yet to manage to create much of a monster. I wonder if it's perhaps because I'm not giving him neighbouring territories all that often. It's still early in my current game (as Spain), however, and he's taken Bologna - - so maybe there's hope.


But yeah. The Pope can crusade, and he does break alliances once in a while. He's also got some scary troops.

[TevashSzat]

Ah, the good old pope.

If I remember correctly, he was much worse before the patches as he could easily conquer half of Europe by himself. Anyone that he doesn't like, he just excommunicates.