The Pope being biased

[HRE-Warrior]

Hey all, I've just started a new campaign as the Milanese as came across a problem that is really bugging me.

I'm only about 15 or so turns in and control my two starting zones, Bern, Florence and the two islands south of me and west of Rome. Anyway, I have trade rights with about every faction around me and have not made an kind of military advances against any empire.

Well, Sicily was not complacent with its land I suppose, so it attacked Venice out of the blue (and I was rooting for Sicily because I received more trade revenue from them). After about two turns of those two at war, Sicily randomly decided to blockade one of my ports.

Being the vengeful King I am, I quickly destroyed their fleet and mobilized and army to send south. However, right after I formed the army the Pope told me to stop attacking Sicily (the only action I too being defense of my own port) or I would be excommunicated. I just thought, "Oh well, the Pope just saved you Sicily."

But just the next turn, a Sicilian general with a formidable army landed on my southern island and starting sieging my settlement as well as their navy launching two simultaneous attacks on mine. So, I send the General that was heading to Sicily to the island to protect it, however, when I take any kind of action I am threatened with excommunication. The best part is, somehow Sicily's rep with the Pope increased (?!?!!?!?) after attacking me (I'm dead int he middle of Pope rep) and it seems the Pope is actually encouraging Sicily to get me to attack them.

Anybody else ever have a problem like this with the Pope? And if so, how did you get around it?

[tigger_on_vrb]

You can attack an enemy army besieging your city/castle or a fleet blockading your port with no chance of excommunication (I have done it atleast 100 times and have never been). You cant do anything else in terms of attacks. Seems fair to me. Sit tight and if they do keep taking pot shots at you they should be excommunicated.

[PBI]

Welcome to the Org, HRE-Warrior.

If the Pope has given you a warning to stop attacking someone, you cannot attack any of their armies in the field without failing the mission. However, if a city of yours is under siege, you can sally to break the siege without failing since this is considered to be self-defence.

I suspect that the Pope is pre-set to hate Milan from the off, in my games Milan is always at war with the Pope within the first 20 turns or so. If Sicily is allied to the Pope then they can get away with murder, plus they are likely making war against the Moors in North Africa whilst fighting you, which makes the Pope happy too. There are many, many threads here about Pope-pleasing if you need tips on how to increase your rep. So long as your rep with the Pope is high enough you can attack fellow Catholics and fail the mission without being excommunicated.

Taking Ajaccio or Caralis is always a poisoned chalice, for some reason the AI loves invading them. It's not unusual to see Milan, Sicily, the Pope, the Moors, Spain and France all squabbling over them at the same time.

[FactionHeir]

Not quite.

Anyway, when you get the huge pop up saying "This will result in excommunication", its only sometimes true.

When under threat of excommunication or otherwise, you are allowed to do the following without consequence (besides losing some relation points with the pope):

- Attack anything that is within one of your own province's borders, including: Attacking an allied/neutral/enemy arms within your borders that is just passing through, raiding or besieging.

- Attack any settlement that does NOT have any defenders.

- I am hazy on this one, but I think you are also allowed to lift any blockades of your own ports.

Anything else is disallowed.

[Lord Fluffy]

Not quite.
- Attack anything that is within one of your own province's borders, including: Attacking an allied/neutral/enemy arms within your borders that is just passing through, raiding or besieging.

.

Wow that's good to know, all this time I've been playing I've refrained from kicking enemy troops out of my land while they burned and pillage the countryside.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I don't think that the Pope is biased to wards Milan. I have seen the other Italian factions excommunicated in most of my games. Tunis is a favorite crusade target of the Pope and usually when controlled by Sicily. The only faction that the Pope really hates is the fourth Italian ( ) faction called the HRE. That is the faction that is usually excommend in my games.

[Anonymous II]

Give Papal States gifts all the time, and you'll be good.

I like to start being agressive towards a faction that attacks me when I have full pope-o-meter. Then it'll take many hostile actions from me before the pope threatens with excommunication. Then I manage to take, say three settlements, and I give one of them to the pope as a gift. Reputation with the pope can for example then go from 3 crosses to full bar.

[Magussen]

You don't have to lift sieges or blockades while under papal warning but I don't know what happens if the siege reaches its conclusion under those circumstances.
You may absolutely attack fleets blockading your ports.

[Anonymous II]

I don't think that the Pope is biased to wards Milan.

Me neither, but Milan seems to be coded to act very agressively and to seek expansion. I would say Milan always gets excommunicated in my games, and usually stays so. No wonder, because they pretty much attack everything that moves or lives.

But again, that's not the Pope being biased, it's just the way the Milan AI behaves... but that don't explain HRE-warrior's problem though...

[PBI]

As I said, the Pope's apparent approval of Sicily's aggression is probably actually caused by Sicily conquering Muslim lands in Africa.

I'm not sure you can get away with maintaining a siege, I've failed a mission before because of it.

[Anonymous II]

I'm not sure you can get away with maintaining a siege, I've failed a mission before because of it.

My experience is that you have to wait out the siege and let the AI initiate the battle. If you choose to assault after a couple of turns of sieging, you'll fail the pope's mission.

[HRE-Warrior]

Thanks for all the tips, advice and responses everyone.

I decided to go on the offensive and had the Pope assassinated immediately. Venice also approached me offering me an alliance as well as their map info for nothing in return. At the elections, luckily Venice was well like by the other Catholic empires and had a Cardinal elected as the new Pope.

Within a handful of turns everything changed drastically. I gained a lot of reputation with the Pope at the election and Sicily (continuing their aggression towards Venice and me) was quickly excommunicated.

I'm going to take this opportunity to eliminate them out of spite.

[PBI]

I decided to go on the offensive and had the Pope assassinated immediately.

That's certainly one solution! The no-nonsense approach to Papal relations!

Good luck squishing the Sicilians. I wouldn't recommend getting too cosy with Venice, they're almost certain to backstab you eventually.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Give Papal States gifts all the time, and you'll be good.

I like to start being agressive towards a faction that attacks me when I have full pope-o-meter. Then it'll take many hostile actions from me before the pope threatens with excommunication. Then I manage to take, say three settlements, and I give one of them to the pope as a gift. Reputation with the pope can for example then go from 3 crosses to full bar.

Never ever gift the pope a settlement. He will go on a rampage and conquer his own little empire. If you don't care your diplomatic reputation simply sack cities and gift money to the guy in white. Usually some 3000 florins is enough to make him happy again. If you can keep your pope o meter at 7 or better 8 crosses or more, you can do anything you want as long as you let the pope give something of the loot

[trickydicky]

Never ever gift the pope a settlement. He will go on a rampage and conquer his own little empire. If you don't care your diplomatic reputation simply sack cities and gift money to the guy in white. Usually some 3000 florins is enough to make him happy again. If you can keep your pope o meter at 7 or better 8 crosses or more, you can do anything you want as long as you let the pope give something of the loot

Sometimes that's true, sometimes not. In my current English campaign I have been building my long term allies the French up, to give me someone decent to fight later on. The problem is they were at war with well everyone. So I wiped the Danes and Milan pretty much off the map to help them.

I then gave the pope Bruge as well as Reims (both previosley held by Milan who were at war with the French) in the hope it would stop the French getting attacked any further, which it did, kind of.

Anyway to cut a long story short, he didn't move at all. In spite of at least 200,000 given as gifts over a 10-20 year period. In fact he ended up getting booted out of both provinces by Portugal, who have now pretty much killed the French off, and now control the whole of Western Europe as well as half of Iberia.

Looks Like I'll be fighting Portugal then

[Eikon the Magistrate]

Never ever gift the pope a settlement. He will go on a rampage and conquer his own little empire.

Strengthening the Papacy is 1 way of securing your borders, the AI controlled factions usually dont attack papal lands. So if you intend on attacking the Moors as Spain for example, your border with Europe can easily be blocked off by doing this and so long as you do not get excommed, the pope will like and protect you.

Also, the Papacy produces some units that are unique in name and appearance at least, which makes for an interesting endgame, if thats what you desire.Give them a castle too so you can see what arrives.

The pope seems to cheat alot...perhaps its a higher kings purse, or tributes it receives idk but obviously not a good way to end the game quickly if thats how you play then giving away anything is not the right way to go.

[Lord Fluffy]

My experience is that you have to wait out the siege and let the AI initiate the battle. If you choose to assault after a couple of turns of sieging, you'll fail the pope's mission.

I had one of those missions last night from the Pope, cease hostility with Hungary or else...Well I forgot that I had a siege going on in Trebizond and I left it for an extra turn. Sure enough I failed the mission.

Oh this is 1.2 with the Pike Fix that I downloaded from here.

[Old Geezer]

The Pope can be a lot of fun. Last night after capturing Rome and winning as the HRE (previously eliminating the Timurids), the Pope's forces attacked Smyrna. They had 1 ram, 1 ladder unit, and 1 tower. The ram broke into the city to meet my 3 spear militia units and a merchant cavalry. I was doing well and thought that I'd win. The Pope had a good mixed force. Unfortunately for me he had some Papal guards. My men were suddenly crushed and routed when hit by them. I did not have a general but I doubt that even a 10 star general would have helped much. None of my men even routed into the city squared and the fight ended at the gate. I wish I'd have had some pikemen their to test them against the Papal Guards. Thier stats are not all that great, but every time I have fought them they are MacDaddy Nasty. Earlier I assaulted Constantiople ran to the center and defended it against a unit of Papal Guards who did me a lot of damage although outnumbered 15 to 1. I once fought a single unit of Papal Guards with several cavalry units. The Guards never got tired enough to slow down; but my horsies did. They didn't seem to mind getting charged from the rear while chasing another of my cavalry units. I think they are the beserkers of M2TW.

Back to on topic - yes, I think that the Pope is biased, but not enough. He was too easy for me to get to be friends with, even though as the HRE I have to capture Rome. Surely he's read the victory conditions.

[Martok]

Yes, I believe the Pope is somewhat biased -- it's usually not a secret who his favorites are. That said, I do appreciate the fact that at least in Medieval 2, his reasons for liking or disliking a faction tend to be both more logical and transparent. One of the frustrating things in the original MTW is that the Pope *always* favors the smaller Catholic factions, and refuses to issue any warnings to them for aggressive behavior. If you're playing a larger Catholic faction (such as the French or HRE), however, you'll receive a Papal warning just for trying to take back territory you lost to a smaller Catholic kingdom!

My point being that yes, the Pope in Medieval 2 still irritates me, but at least he generally behaves in a more sensible manner.

Back to on topic - yes, I think that the Pope is biased, but not enough. He was too easy for me to get to be friends with, even though as the HRE I have to capture Rome. Surely he's read the victory conditions.

[Anonymous II]

I had one of those missions last night from the Pope, cease hostility with Hungary or else...Well I forgot that I had a siege going on in Trebizond and I left it for an extra turn. Sure enough I failed the mission.

Hmh... maybe I was wrong then?

I have patch 1.3, maybe that has something to do with it? I'm not sure... I thought I remembered right here...

[Lord Fluffy]

That could be it, I haven't patched the game yet, still running 1.2 with a mod for the pike fix.