Unprompted Papal States Expansion

I have noticed that in some campaigns, the Papal States seem to expand without otherwise being prompted. I am not talking about a situation in which the Papal States have been given territories by other players, either after having lost Rome or not. What I am talking about is the Papal States expanding from Rome on their own without outside influence.

In my current game, the Papal States grabbed Florence almost immediately and then attempted a sea-borne invasion of rebel Ajaccio. They lost the battle there and I took the city before they came back for a second try. They landed with a second army the turn after I captured it, then went away again.

So, I am wondering two things:

1) How many of you have seen the Papal States expand on their own, and how have have they expanded?
2) Is this a bug?

(1) Is just for personal interest, but (2) has me somewhat divided. Historically, I am sure the Pope would have loved to regain personal control over other lands. In this sense, it makes total sense that the Papal States should be allowed to expand wherever they want. However from a game-play perspective, an active Papal States that expands like any other faction can be very, very problematic for any Catholic faction for obvious reasons. Is this something we want in M2TW?

Ive seen them expand to Florence before the patch and then stop
after the patch with the enhanced naval invasions they tend to go ape with expanding


kinda strange behavior considering the
descr_sm_factions.txt
has the papal states as NO on prefers naval invasions

With 1.1 I've seen a stack of Papal troops try go grab rebel settlements up in france (Florence was taken).

And no, I do not want the Papacy to be active, as in building armies and taking over lands. Perhaps they could "request" you return Jerusalem to his excellency, but having an AI faction with the dodgy attack/blockade code for triggering wars lumbering around with insta-ban.. no thanks. Never seen it naval invade, but it does have a little fleet to chase pirates.

Hmmm maybe removing his ability to build boats would curve the pope's enthusiasm ?

Also, the papal_states personnality in descr_strat is "comfortable napoleon". Not sure what comfortable was, but I know napoleon is the codename for "super expansionist AI". Milan, Hungary, the Turks and Denmark all have the same AI denomination, and all are aggressive expansionists in-game. The fact that the Papal_State winning condition is "take 100 settlements" doesn't help either, I'm sure :/

It's frustrating though, as the papacy wasn't broken in 1.0. It's the broken Roman alliance all over again :shame:

EDIT : does it attack christian factions though ? Or merely any free rebel settlement ?

emmm didnt Napolean refer to troop types prefered
not expansionistic

the comfertable refered to building styles


they are attacking rebel, all non catholics ie muslim orthodox AND excommunicated catholics

edit
reading reports of the Pope declaring war on catholic factions without excommuning them
havent seen this yet myself

After Milan was excommunicated, I requested a crusade on their namesake settlement. Guess who attacked and took it before I made it? ~:doh:
That's all I've seen them expand thus far, though.

The Papacy is going crazy after the patch, i played Milan and was playing a defensive game and the Papacy started wars and its armies went through my territories and other wierd stuff..the patch might have fixed some stuff but a lot of stuff are really starting to annoy me now. I am considering going back to 1.0.

try using the diplomacy mod first
it might help a bit

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=72471

When a region "goes rebel" in Italy the Papal States usually try to grab them. And they also go on crusades, which is rather funny.

I thought about something... wouldn't changing all papal invasion triggers in desc_campaign_ai_db.xml to "invade none" change it back to a purely passive and defensive faction ?

In my campaign as Sicily, 30 turns 25 province, I have military access with the pope and the army the pope is in is just wandering around not doing anything. Wierd though since they have passed around 5 rebel armies and haven't attacked.

I had the pope as ally, and when Sicily kept doing the dorky port blockades (which always cost em to sue for peace, so why they did it Ill never know) I parked next to his Holiness' Ships of Peace and got him involved in the war. Sicily was strong but I paid little heed. Then the pope started growing his empire, this is pre-patch, so far. Took Florence, Bolgna, and Venice. And post -patch, that empire is getting to be a world power-fast. So I'm not sure if the patch affected it much as it was already occupying most of Italy when i applied it, but afterwards it sure expanded quickly that is a certainty. Good news is, he cranks out noob merchants routinely, feeding my textileeers like a vending machine :laugh4:

In my French campaign the Papal States conquered Florence and Zaragoza(!). Zaragoza was a rebel province for quite a long time. I didn´t want it because I was busy with the English in the beginning. Later I bought it from the pope for 100.000 Florins.

@Snoil : well, pre-patch, the Papacy could be "jumpstarted" into behaving like any faction, by tricking them into declaring wars like you did, or by giving them territories bordering slave/non-cath/excommed territories, but if the Pope stayed in Rome he didn't budge since all his neighbours were cath (Florence falls rather quickly usually).

The patch (I think) connected all territories with a coast in the AI's "mind", so that in effect the sea is, to it, just a giant border. Hence the pope's newfound expansionism : he's now got rebels and non-cath targets up the wazoo.

What we have to ask ourselves is : do we really want an aggro papacy ? There are definite AI triggers in place so that the Pope will never invade a catholic faction he's not already at war with for some reason (ie either they attacked him, or the player tricked an alliance with him to fire), so that's not really a problem, to answer OP's worry. But the thing is, if the papal_states seizes territories other cath factions want, these factions WILL be more likely to invade him, get excommed, get invaded, cue snowball effect. Even if this behavior does not happen, having an unattackable faction (or rather, harder to attack - if a faction is under 5 crosses on the pope-o-meter, they will have no qualms attacking him if they think they have a shot) on their borders stunts their growth unfairly.

And of course, it's inconvenient for the player that the pope occupies land everywhere, since attacking him is bordering on diplomatic suicide :/