Something i dont understand

Ok so playing my scottish campaign on h/m and doin ok, ive got the turns to 0.5 so i can take as much time as i like.

Neway wot i dont understand is, i thought the idea of getting ur cardinal elected to pope, was basically, lots of favour for u, higher chance that u will not get punished for warring other catholics, ur enemies get lower rep and have a increased chance of getting excomuted for lesser things. that sorta thing neway

so i got my pope elected, and lo and behold, despite the fact that i was bogged down in a long war of attrition with france and denmark, and even tho both voted AGAINST my pope, denmark had about 7 crosses on the pope o meter, and amazingly france had 9, 1 more than me and he was my damn pope.

oh well i think, i shrug and get on with killing both the frenchies and the danes, while carefully avoiding excomution. then a few years later my pope dies *tear* and a new danish pope is elected in a landslide victory with only me and the papal states voting for my pope :( hardly to my suprise i come out of the election with 0 crosses, and every little thing i do is scrutinised by the pope of threatened with excomution.

so is this just another thing to make the camp harder on higher difficulties, if i was playing on easy would my enemies be threatened with eternal damnation for there sins!!!! just curious cos it seems odd to me.

also can anyone state wot exactly the benefits of getting your own pope elected are?


Cheers Knoddy

Well, if you are bullying everybody else, even if the Pope was your best friend he can't simply act as if nothing is happening.

Having your own pope is indeed very powerful though, for in my HRE campaign, when I was attacked by the Venetians, Hungarians, Polish, Danish, Milanese, French and English, my Pope effectively excommunicated each one of them in turn, allowing me to eat up their lands and secure them, while I bring my armies to the new guy that my Pope had just excommunicated.

Yep, having your own pope means he will tend to be better disposed towards you, but that doesnt mean you can just do whatever you want and have him ignore it.

I've been threatened with excommunication by my own pope a few times in my Spanish game, but it's never happened, and he certainly excommunicates everyone else a lot more than me. The only catholic nation in this game that hasn't been excommunicated aside from me is Poland, and I'm allied with Poland.

Generally when a new Spanish pope gets elected (I think I currently have 10 cardinals in the college, and have had all 13 before. Unfortunately I own so much of the muslim lands it's getting hard to get piety advancements there.), my relations go up a few points. Since I've taken steps to keep myself between 8-10 on the scale, it maxxes out with a new pope. I don't think it's an automatic max, I think it's just a fairly major improvement. I expect if you were at 3 before, you'd probably end up around 7-8.