Oh noes!

[Megas Methuselah]

Well, whenever a pope is voted into office, chances are he's an old man with a foot in the grave, ready to die in a few turns or so. These short reigns always guarantee that the Papal States basically stay out of political affairs. If a faction is suddenly excommunicated, they'll immediately be brought back into the fold as soon as the old Pope dies, which as I previously said, is only a few turns. That's how it's been for my entire Scottish campaign of 480 turns so far.

Well, at this most recent Papal election, I had my Scottish Cardinal voted in as Pope. I was sort of happy, sort of not-caring, until I happened to notice he's only 28 years old...

A 28-year-old Pope! Now, this was a few days ago, and he's in his 40's now. Basically, the HRE fell apart after being excommunicated, and the Danes took over much of their territory, only to fall apart themselves under pressure from the Poles, Russians, and excommunication. The Poles, in turn, fell apart under Russian pressure, having spent their armies against the Danes. Now the Russians are the current eastern powerhouse, fighting a successful war against the Turks in the Armenia area and the Hungarians in the Balkans, with the Poles as their vassals.



Moreover, Spain was sandwiched between France, Byzatines, Moors, and Portugal. Spain was excommunicated for attacking France and taking French territories in the Iberian Peninsula. The Byzantines then took those formerly-French Spanish provinces. Portugal then took the rest of the Spanish main provinces (Toledo and Leon) and wiped the Spanish off the face of the earth. They then drove the Moors out of Iberia and, now a new superpower, are busy driving the Byzantines out, too.

All because of one pope's excommunications and crusades against Catholic factions.

This pope won't die for another 30 or so years. I'm thinking of just sending an assasin to the Papal capital at Marseille (Venice took Rome b/c they were excommunicated ) and simply get rid of him. A young Scottish war-mungerer has no right to be pope, not if he's just going to upset the delicate balance of powers like this for his own perverse amusements. But I think it's too late now. The damage is done.

[Fisherking]

I don’t know how well most people have studied the religious part of the game but this seems typical to me.
The Orthodox and Muslims use their clerics aggressively and usually will foul up the Catholic factions sooner than the reverse.

I have often sent clerics to aid allies in maintaining their lands, as they are incapable of doing it themselves. The Pope is usually his own worst enemy in crusading against his own factions and I try to direct the crusades away from that if I can recommend where to go, whether I join or not.

If you don’t want to see your religion crumble you will have to take it on your self.

[Megas Methuselah]

If you don’t want to see your religion crumble you will have to take it on your self.

Sort of like the "World Police," eh?

This will be a long and bloody struggle. Maybe I should just buy all the wartorn cities and gift them to their proper owners, at the same time making alliances with everyone in an effort to spread peace. It might work, despite the expense.

[Old Geezer]

Give settlements that you do not really need to the Pope after selling off all improvements, of course. If and when you recapture a city which you have given away you will take a reptutation hit but should not have any other adverse problem, such as a drop in the Pope's favor. If you play on VH it should make very little difference unless you are trying to play as mister nice guy in foreign relations which I have found to be impossible at V/H. I love exploiting crusades. It's better than electing your man as Pope.