The rise in our Papal standing is very odd; I have no idea what's been going on. I wonder if there is some kind of save loading bug - e.g. we pay the Pope X amount and get +1 rep, but that +1 accrues each time someone loads up the save until we press end turn? I know some other games that have those kind of bugs. If so, it might be best keeping all the diplomatic stuff until the end of each turn so that we don't upload a save between the diplomacy and the end turn button being pressed. I always thought the sequence was "players act -> Seneschal acts -> turn ends" anyway.

On the crystal ball, if this were a stock market, some folks would be being investigated for front running. Some of us are on the opposite extreme - to a large degree playing this as a forum game without loading up M2TW. Not having an army or settlement, I am not regularly downloading saves and so only know what is going on from what the more active players report in the various threads. I would ask that people bear that in mind when writing those reports or making in character statements. For example, I had no idea we still had two nobles in Wales until the Seneschal balled us out for overlooking them. In fact, I am not sure anyone in the Order knew when their lieutenant was appointed - a post that was supposed to be the deputy in the Company stack - that the avatar was far away (in Wales?!?). Personally, I thought he had been riding with us for the last 10 turns.