The Pope being biased

[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