Handeling the Pope cheaply

Early on I saw people offering the Pope thousands per turn to gain favor and of course it worked but it does hurt the treasury a bit.

What I have found to work in most instances and more cheaply is to gift him 100 at a time multiple times in a turn. Depending on your faction it will usually cost you one to two hundred per point on the popeomeater and an extra hundred to max out...sometimes he dislikes a faction and you may need to double the amounts. This dislike has nothing to do with the points on the scale though so you may need to play with it to see how he takes it.

I found an exploit where you can do the following, works with any faction but it's particularly handy for the pope

1) offer, as a gift, tribute of 100fl per turn for 5 turns
2) then offer 100fl per turn for 10 turns
3) then 15
4) repeat until refused (usually around 25 turns)
5) next turn, offer 100 fl per turn for 25 turns
6) if accepted, offer 100fl per turn for 26 turns
7) etc etc every turn. watch your relations with that faction soar towards perfect

this way you'll never end up paying anyone more than 100fl per turn, but you can get your relations up easily

a cheap exploit in more ways than one

I usually find a gift of about 500 will get me an improvement, repeat until "perfect"

If I'm short of cash, then gifting your map, or an attack on the rebels (or any other faction) will do the trick.

Often it doesn’t make any difference whether he accepts or refuses, you still get the improvement. Also he often refuses your gift, and then give no improvement, but if you persist and keep making the same offer, suddenly your relations improve.

Edit: Selling the map / attack to the pope, then using the cash to buy favour, can be more cost effective, but on harder levels it is sometimes difficult to sell an attack.

I have found it is more effective to offer 5 gifts of 100 than it is to offer 1 gift of 500 or more. You just repeat until you have given the desired amount. It would seem that the more times you do it per turn the better...also don't forget that you are camping out next to Rome...

Also map info is good if excepted and it is always safe to give the Pope military access but that I save for a time when I drop sharply in one turn...like eliminating a faction and breaking a truce etc.

I think it's unneccessary to offer him any florins.

You can gift the map every turn until he accepts, for a small boost. You can offer to attack any non-ally as a gift, every turn, until he accepts. Just with those two gifts every turn, you can normally maintain perfect relations.

That's as cheap as you get.

I agree that 100 florins per turn for 5, 10, 15, 20... turns is an acceptable alternative. Your total loss per turn will never go above 100, and if he breaks an alliance with you or excommunicates you, I usually cancel even that small amount.

I offer him a tribute 100florins per turn for 20 turns. When it gets down to about 5 turns or less left I change the tribute to 20 turns again. This will keep your ratings high. If you need a quick boost to get back to perfect (lets say you are down one or two spots) just gift him map info and that usually puts you back to perfect.

Fisherking.

It is actually better if the Pope rejects your gift of Map Information. Then you can offer it again, and again, and again... until he accepts.

I've gone from poor to Perfect in one session doing this. He rejected about 50 times before accepting at Perfect.