Papal Problems

Hi all, I have a bit of an embarrassing situation. I'm playing as england... I have all the British Isles under my control, all of modern France, some of Germany, some of norther Italy, and I'm mopping up rebellious provinces in Spain. I am currently at war with Denmark, Egypt, Venice, Milan and, god help me, the Papal States. Here's how it happened. I was besieging Milan when I got word from the pope (who was MY pope, gosh darn it) that I had best stop else I would be excommunicated. Well, the siege was almost over, so I decided to finish it up and sin no more. For seven years, at least. Unfortunately, when the Pope says now, he means now, and I was promptly excommunicated by a pope I had raised from when he was just a little priest. Well, I had heard that when the pope dies, all sins are forgiven, so I smashed the roman field army and stormed the Vatican, killing the pope. I was good, I didn't even SACK rome. Sure enough, a new pope is elected... and he doesn't re communicate me. I figure it must only happen sometimes, so, I hunt down the new pope (he's lurking near milan) and send him on to meet his god with a storm of clothyard shafts. New pope is elected... and I'm still not going to heaven. I now think I may have misunderstood, maybe it's when MY faction leader dies that I get re communicated. So I arrange for a rather messy assassination of my own crown prince, and then the king (crown prince was at this point a frothing lunatic). Crown prince doesn't die easily, defeating one field army of 300 men with only his bodyguard, and then mauling a second before a mob of spear men gut his horse. King dies much more quietly as I load him onto a ship and have him charge into battle against a hostile fleet.

Still nothing from the pope. I begin to get a little frantic. I'm fighting a multi front war, have a crusade called against me, I've lost three provinces to rebels and garrisoning the rest is paralyzing my army. I send a diplomat to find him and try to give him rome and about 10000 florins in exchange for a ceasefire. He'll have nothing of it. I GIVE him those things, and toss in dublin for good measure, since it's not terribly useful to me. My prestige goes way up... but god's still not talking to me, and neither is the pope. None of my other enemies will negotiate at all either. Is there any way to get back in touch with god? And any way to quell this rebellion?

You should make sure before you kill off the pope or your faction leader that your papal relations are at least somewhat favorable. The Pope won't reconcile your faction if your relations are still abysmal. Perhaps you should get decent relations with the Papal States first, and then kill your faction leader or assassinate the Pope. I doubt crushing him with your army would do much in favor for the Church.

I don't know any guaranteed way. What I'd recommend is first sending a diplomat to Rome, or whichever province the Papal States currently owns, and give them money. Lots and lots of money. Just use the gift button, and hopefully this will raise your papal standing. With luck, raising your papal standing will allow for a reconciliation. If not, then arranging for another dead faction leader (not heir, just leader) coupled with a higher papal standing might allow for it.

However, in your case, it might be better not to worry about it. Being excommunicated is about a +20% penalty to public order, if I remember correctly. You should be able to overcome that; I can't imagine your cities are so large it's pushing them over the edge, and it's not like you have a huge distance to capitol penalty. Use the opportunity to crush your neighbors, or use hordes of assassins and spies to make all the neighboring provinces revolt. That will keep your far side of the rebellion neighbors busy while you make nice with the Pope.

Unfortunately, no matter whose faction the pope originally was from, he occasionally steps in and tells you to stop. Sometimes the penalty for disobedience is a minor loss of papal standing; sometimes it's outright excommunication. Generally he's a bit more forgiving if you're the top standing faction on the Pope-o-meter, but even then there's a line where he decides enough is enough and out comes the ultimatum.

Your first mistake was getting excommunicated in the first place, especially with your own guy in the Papacy which tends to give you the benfit of the doubt. The second was killing off the Pope or attacking the Papal states. Don't attack the Papacy at any time even when provoked and concentrate on restoring good relations, this will take time and money! However to not get in this spot in the first place, don't get involved with fighting so many Catholic factions at once which will bring down you standing in Papal relations and always give the Papacy both gifts and tribute to maintain good relations, once your in the situation your in, its hard to recover. If you want to expand wait for someone to be the aggressor first, it will also bring you into conflict when you fight back with any allies of the faction. Attack the aggressor first and avoid provacations with his allies. Once you get warnings from the Papacy break off fighting that faction and avoid provacations while you fight with one of his allies until you are warned. If you have been warned for fighting a faction and all of his allies, then move to using agents. Use spies and assasins to forment rebellions and have any army nearby to take advantage of the situation. In this fashion you can keep up expansion without getting excommunicated.

I've noticed in my games that small amounts of tribute over several turns have a bigger impact that a big gift. ie, 200 florins over 3 turns works better than 1000 as a single shot.

Listen u cannot be reconliend while in war with the papal states so dont kill the pope on the battlefield kill him with an assaian but first make cease hostlities agreenment...

Ouch! if you can manage to survive the crusade you should be ok. Just let them take the city don't even try to defend it (unless its your only city left) the pope will reconcile you before your faction is destroyed..... hopefully.

I had similar problems as the turks.

I put my army on a boat and invaded italy in a "what-if" scenario.

I now control all of italy. The pope is a single unit standing outside rome looking pi**ed. I've killed him like 10 times, but a new fellow takes his place every time. That is expected I guess.

What I don't understand is the crusade against Rome. It has been going on for about 30 turns, carried on by at least 8 different popes! If I'm catholic the crusade dies with the pope, but not this time... It also seems, that there is no desertion from a crusade in this event - I had a polish and french crusade standing around for maybe 10 turns in front of the bridge outside Rome - none dared assault my army there. Still no desertion. The poles have been beaten 3-4 times but comes right back with a new full stack of crusader knights and spearmen.

I kinda hoped the pope would be offered a new region somewhere, but that doesn't seem to happen.

i ones had a similar problem only then it was really my fault i was waiting for a chance to destroy the papal states. And when i was allowed to crusade against Florence the pope had given me permission to send a huge army right towards him.

when i had killed the pope in the battlefield and robed him of al of his lands
i found out that the papal states could not be destroyed:furious3:

yet when a new Pope was elected he seemed afraid of me my rep with the pope was becoming great again and he almost never complained of my actions and when he did he seemed to realize that he had little power left.
When he said cease hostilities with this faction, i just happily kept attacking and then he forget what i just did and it didn't even had to cost me money

so i think that the key is not to be the popes slave but let the pope be your slave deprive him of al of his lands and then make friends again

Magraev,

In your case, I'd suggest giving the pope about the worst province you have as a gift. That way you should be able to kill him and have the new one appear in the middle of the desert (or some such place) where he's safely stuck deep behind your lines and easily kept in check.

To be totally evil, get a few cheap units and surround the new Papal capitol so that no one but your diplomats can get close then just buy off the new guy. Hopefully you can arrange it so that no one gets to call a crusade on you because the Pope likes you best.

It would be nice if you can just say to the heck with Christianity and convert to Islam and counter the Pope's crusade with a jihad.

It would be just hilarious seeing jihad and crusade armies fighting each other

Thanks for the suggestion Longarrow - I might just do that.

Now to find a province "worthy" of his holiness... Maybe Rhodes...