The Pope doesn't like gifts?

While playing the English campaign there was something t hat puzzled me, mabe someone could shed some light on this.

I was allied to The Papal States, our relations were perfect thanks to some one-sided money exchanges. I was having an eye on the HRE, as they broke our alliance some years ago by laying siege to Brugge. I launched an all-out assassination warfare against them sending a team of eight top-notch assassins and six spys into his provinces. After scouting for all members of his family I defoliated their family tree truning the German provinces into Rebel settlements.
I took three of the provinces during the next few turns. As Hungary was growing stronger, me being short on funds as beating back the Mongol Invasion in the Holy Land, I decided to give the three border provinces to the Pope, cementing our alliance and putting some nice buffer states between me and Hungary.

Each time I try to give these provinces to the pope our relations drop from perfect to abmysal and he cancels our alliance in the next turn. Even when I give him all my money from the sacked cities (= 45.000) he still hates me. Why? I just quadrpled his territories and he hates me for it?

Has this something to do with the fact that I killed of the Germans? Or that I give him sacked cities?

Most likely that you sacked them. The Pope doesnt like it when you kill christians, so when you are playing Pope's Pet only Occupy and release prisoners. Or ransom...

Hmmm, but he didn't mind the sacking at all. There were eight turns between sacking and giving the cities to him. He only grows angry when I give them to him.

I'm not really sure what's causing this but my gueses would be:

-A bug whereby when you are on a perfect relationship giving them too much might "overshoot" the scale and turn into abysmal.

-You got units in his territory (moving out of gifted cities) without military access. This causes deterioration in relations.

-You currently have a mission from the pope to stop hostilities or be excommunicated. You may be laying siege somewhere.

-There is a crusade in progress to one of the gifted cities.

-You have attacked a crusading army.

-Someone may have convinced him to attack you.


Thats all I can come up with at the moment, but I hope it helps at all...its best if you can check on all your armies and look at what they are doing or move all troops from the to-be-gifted cities away before gifting them to him. Or you could just end turn and see if it happens even without the gift.

I've noticed that sometimes factions can be offended by gifts if they find them condescending. It's possible that the Pope (AI) is thinking, "Ah, so thou hast given me thy land to remain thy lap-dog? Ye scurrilous, wicked hound! Ye deserve to die a thousand deaths and be exiled to Purgatory - nay, to the fiery bowels of Hell itself! Bah! Bah I say!"

Another, related possibility is that the Pope (AI) is looking at the lands that you've given it and determined that they are, well, poo.

It's also possible that you may have "tripped" the Papal States AI up. I've read from other posts that sometimes when you give the Papacy territories and/or money, they suddenly become much more aggressive and go off and conquer - just like other factions. Perhaps this happened to the Pope (AI), and so now it is looking at its position and determining that it, like almost invariably other AI factions end up doing, will loathe you utterly and attempt to wipe you from the face of the Earth.

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Originally Posted by FactionHeir

-You got units in his territory (moving out of gifted cities) without military access. This causes deterioration in relations.

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Yup, this seems to have been the problem. There was one full-stack-army admiring the landscape near Dijon, which happened to be on future papal territory I completely overlooked. :dizzy2:

Still allied to the pope, three nice buffer states between me and my eastern neighbors and the pope still loves me.

Thanks for the quick help.

I can see some intersting possibilities with buffer states now that you've brought them up :P

Buffer states can be pretty handy. In my HRE game I was stuck in war with the Milanese, who had taken Dijon. After retaking it from them I didn't want to have to garrison it, or to give it to the French or the Pope (after all, I might want it back at some point).

So I gave it to the Poles in exchange for an alliance. No use to them of course, but it kept France off my back until I had finished with Milan.

Big fan of buffer states.

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Originally Posted by Barny Bangs

Has this something to do with the fact that I killed of the Germans?

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That's exactly what I think it is. The Germans must have had a good relationship the the Pope. They must have been paying the Pope off very well. The Pope must like money more than territories.

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Originally Posted by sapi

I can see some intersting possibilities with buffer states now that you've brought them up

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The only problem is that giving provinces to the pope doesn't leave the option of retaking them without any hassle from the Catholic Church (=excommunication). But as I intend to expand southward and into Scandinavia, I erected several buffers and don't have to worry about full stack armies suddenly appearing on my doorstep without invitation.

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Originally Posted by HaroldVonBraver

That's exactly what I think it is. The Germans must have had a good relationship the the Pope. They must have been paying the Pope off very well. The Pope must like money more than territories.

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It seems like the pope couldn't have cared less about the clandestine cleaning operation in Middle Europe and was just annoyed by the fact that my full-stack elite army lingered near his newly acquired fortress. Problem solved, everybody happy (save for the HRE).

the problem was down to lack of military access

buffer states are great. I also like to use the papal gift as a form of punishment.

i.e if say milan declares war on my i wil take milan and donate it to the papacy - milanese then have no chance of getting their city back without getting in deep shit!

I find that the papacy are the most reliable ally as well - as long as you dont get excomunicated they wont declare war on you. thus it is useful to hand over territoires to them that are too distant to be practical for you to keep.
you dont have to bother with the expense of administrating them but the will remain open to you for trade.

for example in my current game as the poles with a capital at constantinople, england is miles away so i have parceled it out between the papacy and the russians (also long term allies).

after the papacy has a few territories they will start to go on crusades etc which is fun.

this same problem just happened to me - and it wasnt down to lack of military access, which i already had.
i gave the pope a city and later that turn looked at my pope-o-meter and it was down to one star.

i had been giving the pope loads of cities so i can only presume that he ended up liking me too much and it reset to 0??

KARTLOS, thats one of my possible hypotheses regarding that issue.
If you like though, do try this out at different turns and using varying amounts of cities and see whether the result is comparable.

Then try the same for another faction with which you got near perfect relations.

That should allow us to determine whether it is an oddity or a bug in the relations system. I would do it myself but as mentioned elsewhere, I need to finish my essay first before I allow myself back at M2TW.

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Originally Posted by FactionHeir

KARTLOS, thats one of my possible hypotheses regarding that issue.
If you like though, do try this out at different turns and using varying amounts of cities and see whether the result is comparable.

Then try the same for another faction with which you got near perfect relations.

That should allow us to determine whether it is an oddity or a bug in the relations system. I would do it myself but as mentioned elsewhere, I need to finish my essay first before I allow myself back at M2TW.

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i didnt worry about it too much - i gave him another city and i was back to full pope love!

unfortunately i didnt save beforehand so i cant go back and test it

As well as buffer states (which are wonderful for allowing you to turn all your attention elsewhere) try to have Crusades launched against your enemies. I do it all the time, though I have maintained "perfect" relations with the Pope.

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Originally Posted by pleasy

As well as buffer states (which are wonderful for allowing you to turn all your attention elsewhere) try to have Crusades launched against your enemies. I do it all the time, though I have maintained "perfect" relations with the Pope.

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I give 12 years for 100 gold pieces. hehe... then like 6 years then 18 yrs...etc...ect. Then a allie and perfect relation.