Building a Catholic Coalition - Diplomacy on Steroids

Hello everyone. I've been reading these forums for a few days and got some great information. I'm writting a monster guide on How to Survive the Mongolian Invasion, which is my new challenge that I've issued to myself. I have a strategy that works but it takes some big guns (literally) to pull it off.

But I figured that I could contribute one of the chapters that I have already written on building "Coalition," which is a meaningful alliance supported by joint attacks on a common enemy. The purpose of the Coalition I'm building is basically to wipe out the Mongols before they get a foothold in the Middle East.

Getting a Coalition to attack Catholic neighbors is nearly impossible (they have to be supremely powerful, excommunicated, have Abysmal relations with all of your allies, the Pope has to be willing to launch a crusade against them, and you have to be be on good enough standing with the Pope to successfully request a crusade against them), so for this chapter will remain true to the spirit of my "Beat the Mongols" campaign.

A major part to making this Coalition work is unleashing the "Mega Pope," which I will describe in my full guide. Basically the Pope goes from being a quiet mission assigner in Rome into an ass-kicking land-grabbing Crusader (yes, the Pope HIMSELF leads Crusades if you do this right), thus raising the Papal State's Power rating from "Weak" to "Supreme" after a handful of turns.

2.2 Building a Coalition
This is hands-down your best arsenal against the Mongols. The synergy of a Catholic Coalition will be powerful enough to wear down the Mongols. In addition, it also keeps your border safer than any garrison can (although you still need to keep strong ones near your borders, the Milanese are jerks).

Step 1. Become the Pope's Boyscout. - This is a well known and documented tactic. Earn the Pope's favor; he may issue threats of Excommunication against nations that attack you :whip: , which means bye-bye trade, and Christian friends for those nations. WHATEVER YOU DO, never piss off the Pope. I generally recommend leaving Rome alone - A lot of people like taking it and having the Pope relocate. This may come back to bite you in the ass in a major way after you unleash the Mega Pope, which I describe later, so take Rome at your own risk.

Step 2. Decide which nations are going to die, and which are going to live.

As Venice, I decided that Milan and Sicily needed to die. Siciliy especially, since it has nowhere to go but through my lands. You may make similiar decisions about your neighbors, but here's what I decided to do.

1. These Nations Die: Sicily, Milan
2. These Nations Can do Whatever: Spanish, Portugese, English, Scottish, French, Denmark
3. These Nations will be my Allies: HRE, Hungary, Poland, Papal States (Mega Pope)

Your primary focus when you are initially expanding should be capturing Rebel settlements (only helps your standing) and BUYING territories when possible. At turn 1 I always buy Bologna from HRE in exchange for trade rights, tribute of 1850 for two turns, which I make back within a turn from having trade income for Bologna.

Always treat your allies well, gift them some money, grant them trade rights, and never, NEVER, backstab them. If you backstab one of your allies, you're reputation as being "reliable" will plummet to hell and will probably never recover. The Christian nations that you don't care about, if they don't end up getting allied with you from some sort of weird Papal alliance package (happened to me with Portugese and French and English), will eventually kill off your Christian allies, ruin their papal standing, and will be slim pickings for you later.

Here are the two diplomatic traits that you need:

1. Establish your faction as being "Very Reliable/Trustworthy"

2. Establish your faction's strength as being "Supreme"

Think of yourself as a benign emperor and a servant to the Papacy. You want your allies to love you for your kindness but tremble at the thought of fighting you. Being the Keystone to a Papal States-Catholic Nations Coalition brings about some awesome benefits:

1. If any nation attacks you, the forces of their inter-tangled alliances, the Pope, and your superior strength as a faction and the strength of your allies will quickly force them to ask for a Ceasfire, even if they take a terrority. Often when they ask for a ceasfire, you can demand a settlement in exchange, which I do everytime. Even in the same turn with that diplomat you can make a new offer to grant them trade rights and a tiny amount of tribute for another terrority, particularly if it's a terroritory of little value to them. So bam. Right there you've got new trade you didn't have before, one or two new terroritories, and an end to a war. Sounds like pretty good impetus for being a honest, trusting, strong nation.

2. Standard Good Papal Standing Benefits

3. When Crusades are called, the likelihood of it being answered by strong Christian nations is much higher. This is called "Coalition" building. Basically you're going call in the calvary to help wear down the mongols once the invasion starts.

Step 3. Maintain those relations.
Pretty simple, just don't backstab, throw some money their way, and be a nice guy.

Step 4. Through the use of Crusade Requests, use your Coalition to wear down the Mongols with Meatwaves. This is the most effective way of getting you and your allies to attack a common enemy, and it wears down the Mongols, which you WILL need help doing.

Nice little guide. I think Crusades are a very effective strategy to defeat the Mongols.

If I may add a little suggestion: You should try to maintain a certain balance between your allies and/or choose allies that won't attack each other because otherwise you'll be forced to break an alliance which results in a bad rep hit.
Furthermore, on vh you often won't get very reliable because the negative normalisation is just too big.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by alpaca

Nice little guide. I think Crusades are a very effective strategy to defeat the Mongols.

If I may add a little suggestion: You should try to maintain a certain balance between your allies and/or choose allies that won't attack each other because otherwise you'll be forced to break an alliance which results in a bad rep hit.
Furthermore, on vh you often won't get very reliable because the negative normalisation is just too big.

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Good suggestion! I haven't tried this on VH yet (Mongols are hard enough on hard!), and I don't know about the normalization.

As for balancing your allies, yes, forgot to mention that. Allying with the Pope is a must, but I prefer to ally with factions that are probably not going to come into contact with each other, or are allied together already (for instance, Poland and Hungary, had both been double teaming Denmark and the Byzantines). That's what made Egypt (a nation that I had originally crusaded against) so valueable as an ally against the Byzantines and Mongols during my most recent stretch. They never bothered any of my other allies, but they provided a ton of trade income and helped defend some of my settlements in the initial Mongol raids.

Eventually the Pope's diplomatic influence will be what constrains the Catholic nations from doing too much fighting with each other; if you have crusades going constantly to the Middle East or to Greece, that ties up at least one army's worth of military resources on fighting foreign enemies rather than each other, and in addition it gets your allies invested in the Middle East.

Getting your allies to tie up resources down there, especially the Pope, is a key part in unleashing the mega pope. I gave the Pope the fortress of Alleppo which was later sacked by the Mongols. Ultimately, this assualt on a papal terroritory is what incurred the Wrath of Mega Pope. When the Papal States' interest goes to "Military" or "War," it makes it very easy to launch a crusade against any terroritory owned by the faction who attacked the Pope. But in addition, the Pope will begin openly waging war against excommunicated factions or factions belonging to other religions. Out of nowhere, unprovoked, I watched the Pope capture a handful of Moorish expansions, which was a shame because I had eyed those for invasion, but it happens.

Anyways, Catholic nations are much more wary of a War mongering Pope, and his allies. Basically the Pope's leverage and the use of Crusades will help drive Catholic nations to attack foreigners, rather than each other, especially if Catholic nations begin allocating assets to those areas, or expanding in the Middle East.

Gifting his pointy hattedness territory can be very useful in a game like this. It does three things for you; 1) Increases your standings with the Pope, 2) Increases the Papal army due to increased resources and 3) if done correctly will prevent your allies from attacking each other. As an example, if you get Bologna from the HRE and give it to the Pope, Sicily can't expand north without getting into a war with the Pope, something they tend to avoid. By creating buffer zones between allies with papal lands you can keep your allies concentrated on killing Mongols and not each other.

to the OP - I like your style

This is the way I play diplomacy and I find it very effective, and even realistic

I have to challenge the conventional wisdom that this won't work on VH - I always play on VH and my reputation is almost always reliable, and my alliances hold as long as I pay enough attention

I'd also like to add that once you are a well off nation you can probably buy rome from the pope for 100-200k florins, if it is one of the targets you need to own to win the game.