Pope & others afraid of HRE?

Has anyone else experienced this? This is on Hard campaign difficulty.

Early on, I made an alliance with the Papacy and several Catholic factions... then, as always happens, I end up going to war with them eventually. Many of them. In fact I have pretty much expanded in all possible directions- Denmark, Milan, and Hungary are toast, and I've taken about half of France, Poland, and Venice. ~35 territories altogether. The latter three were Papal favorites, 8+ crosses each, as was Denmark- my relationship with the Pope has suffered greatly. Average about 1-2 crosses and Very Poor to Abysmal diplomatic relations. Plus I'm still at war with the surviving factions, the only Catholics who aren't actively trying to kill me are Portugal, England, and Sicily (I think England crushed Scotland).

I try to improve relations with the Pope a little, to at least keep the alliance together, and keep from being excommed. The thing is he won't accept anything I give him. 2k for 10 turns, territories (good ones), big lump sum, even map info. In fact every time I try to give him anything he basically says 'No, but how about I give YOU some free money, wonderful ally who would never ever attack us'- usually about 500 florins or so. This has been going on for quite some time now, at least 20-30 turns. Now other factions, Catholic and non, are doing the same thing sometimes- wanna trade map info? naw, take some free money kplzthx.

What's going on here? Do the AI factions get terrified of a huge military superpower and just try to appease? If so, why do annoying little turds like Poland and Spain keep attacking me when my military/econ/territorial strength is an order of magnitude higher than theirs? Is this prelude to a Papal backstab? Or is he trying to prevent me from doing it to him?

next to the offer button theirs a gift box icon. use that, that will let you gift him stuff, they'll never refuse then exept with the odd province.

Are you clicking the Gift button, or are you clicking the Make Offer button? When you make a Gift (it's a small round button rather than the rectangular one) I've had them rarely turn them down, but never come back with a counteroffer.

General Ripper,
I have the same experience in many of my HRE-campaigns. It´s usually huge sums of tribute for long periods of time or all declare war at me in the very same turn or two. I found that getting your reputation to very trustworthy is easy with HRE, that and the fact that I´m allied with all my heighbours who pays me some 100-2000f/ turn makes me spit out some 8-10 stacks that patrol my borders. I guess they´re terrified.
At some point in this bliss of peace the AI is getting fed up with the situation and sends 2 to all factions against me. Once England, France and Poles declared war on me. Next turn the Danes and Hungarians joined the BBQ, then Milan, Venice and a couple of turns Sicily hit Bologna, phui! It´s Total War m8!

Ugh... how noobish. I think I missed the gift button.

Thanks for the feedback PseRamesses. Just curious about the odd behavior- I didn't recall other factions cowering so much in RTW when I'd start to get a massive empire.