Challenging the Popes Authority

I'm pretty much getting sick of the Pope, he's either telling me to stop the conquest of the French or just giving me grief on anything I do. He always seems to be from an enemy faction too, so I'm always getting bad reputation and threats.

My question is, when would be the good time to rush into Rome and get rid of him, not for good, I know that he just wanders around as a Pope, I just want to have enough power so that when I finally rush into Rome, when I get excommunicated I have enough power to fight back at other Christian nations. How many regions and money will I need to successfully fight back? Should I try and wait till a later age so that I can fight back easily?

I've found that if you can rush into Rome and take out the huge army there as well as the city without having too much problems, your military might should be good enough to shoulder the aftermath as long as you aren't overextending yourself too much.

The bigger problem with excommunication, is the financial damage it causes. Due to lower happiness in your cities, you often need to lower taxes which just destroys your finances. If you are having trouble meeting all of your expenses or alot of your cities are just barely staying happy and still paying high taxes, I would be extremely wary.

Another alternative would be to park a diplomat by Rome. As long as you have enough money, you can keep bribing the Pope until he likes you alot and that way, he won't try to force to stop fighting Christian nations much at all

There's a better way, my friend... a better way.

First, Amass a large empire around your capital, and make sure it's mostly castles and high public order trade buildings. Then, declare a crusade or two and expand into muslim or orthodox lands. Spawn a bunch of priests and get a bunch of cardinals.

Now, drop off a couple invasion armies at Rome. kill the Pope.

Next turn, Papal election. Kill the Pope.

Next turn, Papal election. Kill the Pope.

Next turn, Papal election. Kill the Pope.

Repeat until you have a pope. He will un-excommunicate you. You should have perfect relations with the Pope now. Or repeat until only your faction has any cardinals. Use any excommunicated time to utterly destroy your neighboring states.

When you get re-communicated... declare some crusades and stuff.

Ok thanks guys I'll try that out once I get a fairly big empire.

I usually bribe the Pope untill I have cardinals in the prefeteri. Getting excomed can really hurt your economy. One thing you can do, once you understand how the popes excomunication works, is to use his power against other factions. Try to get them excomunicated instead of you. The same excom rules apply to the AI as well. If the AI is besieging your castles or cities, dont sally. Instead let them be the ones to attack. Slowly their favor with the Pope will drop, and when they finally get excomunicated, send in your armies to take their lands.:charge:

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Originally Posted by Gaiseric

I usually bribe the Pope untill I have cardinals in the prefeteri. Getting excomed can really hurt your economy. One thing you can do, once you understand how the popes excomunication works, is to use his power against other factions. Try to get them excomunicated instead of you. The same excom rules apply to the AI as well. If the AI is besieging your castles or cities, dont sally. Instead let them be the ones to attack. Slowly their favor with the Pope will drop, and when they finally get excomunicated, send in your armies to take their lands.:charge:

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Try not to kill their faction leader if you do this. If not they will be Pardoned. Just try to stay away from him until you have the lands that you want.... *ahem* Like taking their castles and their Money making cities.