How to beat the superpower Papacy?

[bretwalda]

In my game with the Hungarians (Hard/High/MTWVI) Papacy is getting waaay too big. Now it is extra difficult to counter them because most of the "tools" don't work on them...

They annihilated the Italians, took over Spanish territory when the Spanish king died without a heir, now advancing north to kill the emerged Swiss. HRE is cornered somewhere with two territories and the Papacyg is chipping away England and possibly France.

Basically no Christian power can stand before them because they get excommed and they are doomed then...

You cannot make the Papacy heritage line extict because the new Pope gets elected every time. It is hard to fight them (excom) and you cannot inherit the lands because there are no princesses.

It is true that in GA they can be nice because they kill the others who DO get points but surely my empire is on their killing list...

So what is your expert opinion on handling them...?

[Abokasee]

Thats Easy Ally All The Factions (inculding The Non Cathalick Ones) And If Wanna Ally With Pope Send A Carndanal

[Procrustes]

I think you are just going to have to face them down. Gather your forces and prepare to beat them back into submission. Leave them bankrupt in some lonely devastated province so they don't re-appear with new forces. You'll have a few tough years, but hey - it's total war!

[Quietus]

Pay special attention to their troop producing cities. Basically, take those out.

Just do the same to the other factions.

[Patron]

We'll need an outline of the troops they have ( I assume they reappeared with 10 units of chivalric men at arms and 8 units of chivalric knights or something), what they can produce and their naval power. Also your units, production capabilities and naval power.

I've never dealt witha nation bigger than the Byzantines or Mongols before, but I would assume you should build loads of cheap troops to defend your home, gather your elite regular offensive army with the best general you can get and try to split their civ in half. I also suggest invading every weakly defended province you can find and destroying the military buildings you don't need, for instance if you already have a 3 swordsmith workshops tear down every swordmaker you find in enemy territory. Leave some weak troops behind if you want to use the large fortifications you take in the future, but don't bog down your main army as it rampages through enemy territory. All this assuming that the pope has a lot of territory and some large armies here and there and you have loads of cheap troops deterring an attack.

I think the best combination of troops in the high era for the hungarians would be horse archers, who are your staple peasant killers and harrasers, medium or heavy cavalry, anything with a lance and halberdiers. For large battles march your halberdiers slowly forward, sacrificing horse archers as light cavalry to annoy enemy archers and prevent them from doing any serious damage if you have to. Use your halberdiers to engage enemy infantry or heavy cavalry and do your utmost to flank the enemy with 4 or more units of heavy cavalry.

Just send your units round in a very long loop around the enemy army, or draw them out like this.



Your halberdiers will need that flank by cavalry, it's best to do this even if they are going against peasants. The alternative is using masses of spearmen and relying more on your cavalry to do the killing.

[mfberg]

Attack. Take his lands and devastate them. Excommunication doesn't matter. Make sure to whittle him down to one or two territories. Don't kill him completely.
Your APs are Halbreds, mtd xbows, and crossbows/arbs. Put your horse archers and szekely in first as they are faster firing, and when the HA run out of ammo pull them out and move in the mtd. xbows, when the Szekely and mtd xbows run out of ammo use them as light cavalry. Your reserves should be the rest of your HA, then Szekely, and last the mtd xbows.
Attack directly at the Pope, not one of his flunkies. If he thinks he can't win then you win. If its a fight then you get to kill lots of his troops. As he retreats pillage his property and let it go rebel or back to the pope (except the ones you want to keep of course).

If you can't get up enough troops for that then go spies/assasins. Kill his generals that have happiness v&v's and get his lands to rebel especially the Ex-Spanish/Italian lands so they Spanish and Italians can re-emerge and threaten his flank.

mfberg

[antisocialmunky]

A fun way to go would be to build massive armies of inquisitors and grand inquisitors and burn every decent general they have and as many popes as you can. One would think it would make thier proviences would go rebel. What's more demoralizing that massive bonfire of heretics with weekend pope roasts?

Use their catholicism against them!

Always remember that excomms only last as long as the pope, dead pope = dead excom.

[ichi]

I agree that you have to fight him head on, regardless of the excomm and potential for others to ally against you.

Can you cut the Pope off from the rest of his empire?

I'd try to focus the attack in a manner that allowed me to try to assassinate a few key generals and drive a wedge into the Papal Empire. If you could do that, and gain control of the seas, and send out some spies into the lands that are cut off from the Pope, you might be able to foment revolution in those lands.

I would also raze everything in each province that I took from him, try to push him onto an island or into the British Isles, leave him (as others have said) sitting with a huge army on a small island.

Alternatively keep assassinating him until they elect a strange perverted smuggling chinless outlaw.

ichi

[m52nickerson]

Let them take over the other christan lands, while you fight the orthdox and muslim faction. Just make sure you are allied with them. Then at the end it will be one super power vs another. You won't have to worry about the other chatholics, because they will be gone.

[Martok]

Since when does the Papacy invade people?

Fairly often, actually. I almost never see the Papacy become as big as it has in bretwalda's campaign, but it's a rare game that I don't see His Holiness take at least a province or two (usually from the Italians/Sicilians). I've had a few games, however, where he has was one of the Big Boys on the block.

I recall a game from around Christmas where I was playing as the Spanish. The Vatican had conquered Sicily, Italy, and Hungary, along with most of Germany and the rest of France (I had taken half of the French provinces already). On top of that, he was in the process of pushing his way into Byzantium, Egypt, and the Holy Land as well.

The Pope's expedition to the East was short-lived, however, as I eventually backstabbed him by attacking his holdings in Western Europe while simultaneously launching seaborne invasions of Genoa and Sicily. I had grown concerned with Rome's increasing might, and had decided it was my holy duty to remind the Pope that his influence should remain more in the spiritual domain and less in the temporal.

[Zarax]

If you are worried about excommunication here's a quick tip to avoid rebellions...

Use your inquisitors in each province you have and let them burn the population...
Once the zeal will be low your loyalty hit will be minimal...

[bretwalda]

I am dully flattered by the tons of comments I think it would be not too wise to take the Papacy head on. Unfortunatelly it is the Papacy that burns my people running around with 5 star grand inquisitors... There are misterious assassinations, as well.

The only Christian power now is France that owns most of (present day) France and also most of Africa and some of the Holy Land. There is HRE (3), Poland (1) and Danes (1) territory - no longer significant. England is extinct, I took Scotland, Norway and Sweden meanwhile. These helped my economy with their trade income.

I think I have to undermine Papacy with agents while trying to gain land and income to the expense of the Horde and thus shortening the borders on the long run. I have to try to use inquisitors and grand inqusitors training them on easy targets to get them up on valor. Money is short because I have few trading provinces and the entire map is devastated by the constant warfare: there are few ports remaining and many of the new nations cannot afford to build ports. So even though I have ship in every sea region and all green (so noone I am at war has a ship) it is still not the countless florins pouring in.

I am also considering playing an opportunistic turtle. Point-wise I am not doing bad as neither the Papacy, nor The Horde gets points, so I can actually win by remaining like that till the end of time (1453?) I never seen that winning screen, yet, by the way...

When I get home I hope I can post some pix to support my reply

[Don Corleone]

You need to focus on 2 things: 1) where is the Pope getting his troops from and 2) where is the Pope getting his money from. Treat him like any other enemy.

Trust me, the HRE are not going to attack, they're doing all they can to keep rebellions from fomenting. The Russians and the Byzantines cannot launch a crusade against you. That leaves the Poles. Surely, you can handle 2 enemies (the Poles & the Papacy) at once.

Yes, the French might launch a crusade, but honestly, I don't find crusades to be all that intimidating. French crusades are going to be cavalry heavy. Put some nice pointy sticks on your northwestern border, maybe some polearms if you're that far along and just forget about them.

Now, between destroying troop generation or revenue, I always go for revenue. He's already got enough troops to bankrupt himself if sees a serious disruption in his economic fortures. This means Venice must become yours.

With regards to him sending inquisitors after you, keep a high level assasin CHAINED to each general you intend to keep. When you see the holy roller come flying into your territory with his kindling and matches, assasinate him. If you fail, move your general and leave some loser in charge of your army. Many times, the inquisitor will go after him, starting an inquisition, which will allow you some time to maneuver more assasins his way.

Finally, maybe the Pope has gotten too big for you to fight a conventional war against him, but why not build up a large army and go on a slash and burn conquest? Don't hold anything longer than it takes to storm the castle and burn down all improvements. If his army is really that large, this will bankrupt him, allowing you to continue to get the tech advantage.

[Don Corleone]

An alternate thought... if the Pope isn't giving you a lot of trouble yet, why not eat his scraps for a while? Ride his gravy train while he knocks England & France down some. Keep on his good side and build up a large force of spies & assasins. When you think your ride is up, start assasinating Popes left and right (they're not that hard to kill) and keep spies in places like his territories in Spain & Northern France. It's not that hard to spring a civil war on the AI, as it rarely builds for loyalty & stability.

[bretwalda]

Thank You again for the replies! As I promised I post some pictures about the state of my empire. I am still the ally of the Pope and I have to say his fleet is the ruler of the seas. Right now I would not dare to take him on as any war would put me to debt surely (and that is without any mercenaries serving n my army...)

This is the map of Europe:



I am not faring bad GA wise:




This is the grand inquisitor that roams my countryside (His Holiness has Castile...)




And it is the Pope himself in Denmark...

[Quietus]

Except for Italians who love to port-invade, much of the factions don't do any fancy maneuvers. Just attack them asap, that's the trick.



Bret, always go through North Africa, and protect the coast with ships.

[professorspatula]

Wow, that pope loves his preachers - er, not in the biblical sense of course.

Everytime someone mentions their campaigns, I always find myself thinking, 'How come none of mine ever sound that interesting?'. Super-Pope's indeed - I don't think I've ever got to the stage where the pope has much power at all.

[Martok]

Everytime someone mentions their campaigns, I always find myself thinking, 'How come none of mine ever sound that interesting?'. Super-Pope's indeed - I don't think I've ever got to the stage where the pope has much power at all.

Well the Pope being huge like that is rare, at least in my experience. I've often wondered if it's not a semi-random event--i.e., perhaps the game essentially "rolls" dice when a new campaign is loading to determine if the Vatican will be militarily aggressive.

I've had Medieval for 2 1/2 years now, and I can probably count on one hand the number of games where the Papacy became a superpower. The campaign I mentioned earlier was the last time I've seen Rome get big; it only seems to happen to me maybe twice a year or so.

Even excluding those games, however, the Pope usually does expand at least a little bit. Naples and Tuscany seem to be his 2 favorite targets for acquisition. I have also on occasion seen him take Venice, Genoa, and even Sicily from time to time.

[Matty]

Wow, I've never seen the AI make that many priests. I was going to ask whether the AI ever sends a grand inquisitor out and about, but clearly he does. I have a mysterious assassin killing my princesses - I take it you don't actually see your opponents assassins unless you find and kill them?

[antisocialmunky]

Assassins have an undocced feature that allows them to kill spys and assassins that invade the province he's in. So, you can mass produce them instead unless you want to keep loyalty super high.

Which is a good way to survive excoms, spy spam until your loyalty's high enough to surviv excom.

[Procrustes]

Well, my approach would be a little different than yours. Go for broke. Gather the best stack you can - best general with 15 of the deadliest, most advanced, highest valored units you can find in all your armies. Give them a few extras in a second stack - mostly to use as replacements for casualties (as you hope not to be calling in many reinforcements during battles) and a couple of seige engines to use in the mop-up battle. Now attack the biggest, baddest pope army you can find on your borders. Make it a real conflagaration - fight for all your worth and try to kill and capture as many papists as you can. The pope will likely ransom back his soldiers after you win the first battle or two - after that your chances of earning ransom are slight - so you want to make the first battle cost him in either soldiers or florins. If your nervous and you don't need money then lead with a general that hasn't killed prisoners before and murder everyone after the first battle. (Doing this more than once with the same general will give him moral penalties.)

Next just keep the pressure on. Hammer him where it will hurt each time. Each successive battle that you win will weaken his armies and reduce his influence. By making the first couple of battles cost him he will be less able to mount a counter attack. The other Catholic powers are weak enough that you can survive an excomm. If instead you first attack him where he is weak then it just means that you won't hurt him much, and that he still has a big army somewhere else to attack you with. If you wait too long then he will just grind away at you with assassins and inquisitors, and will eventually attack you at a place and time of his choosing instead of yours.

Just my $0.02 - guess I'm feeling warlike today! (I'm facing a big Papal army in my current game as Novograd. Haven't had a chance to play this week, but this is going to be my strategy.)

Best,

[mfberg]

and I have to say his fleet is the ruler of the seas.

Don't let go of the seas. It is your money supply. If he is your ally get your ships in every sea, and the start stacking ships by his ports.

mfberg

[bretwalda]

Well, I figure the navy of the Papacy is too strong, also the French have gotten as big as my Hungarian Kingdom so I figure it is not the way to crash them head on -- yet.

I managed to get peace with everyone except the Horde so I want to put my paws on the juicy lands of the Mongols. It is easy: my superior forces beat them on every plain of Eastern Europe. So the Papacy grants me 1000 florins four times for being service to the Church and God. Finally I start bribing lands. My aim was to radically shorten my borders by eliminating the eastern ones... But that damn Pope lands in Novgorod and Finland...

At least money started to flow in really good, Khazar is a great money maker, so is Lithuania. I reserved two many feather general for the task. So here is the map of Europe now. Probably want to kill of the Polish and the HRE next and tech up to see if I can beat the rest...

[Patron]

Looks like you have a lot of territory to defend against the papacy...

I would train loads of seargants to garrison in a long line from the Baltic to the Adriatic borderring the papacy, to deter invasion. I would then concentrate on expanding my power elsewhere, before finally building loads of peasants to act as policemen to prevent rebellion, then invade the papacy. The pope will undoubdtedly return somewhere and you will have to seal them in once more, regain control over the remnants of the papacy, kill the pope, withdraw, invade france until he reappears, regain control. Etc Etc..

Do the french look weak in the middle east?

[antisocialmunky]

Spies are better than peasants and don't cost upkeep. They don't get sucked up by crusades(doesn't seem like a problem on that map). They catch assassins and spies(which will be a problem late game). You can port jump them and you can use them to make rebellions(useful for dealing with those french if they decide to get themselves excommed).

It'd cute how the Byzantines still have that tiny little island :-p

[Patron]

Hehe and the Sicilians have Malta.

INVADE RHODES!!

Or better still, get the pope to threaten you with excommunication for invading Sicily, then invade France. He can only "protect" one kingdom at a time. Just send a huge army in to scare the sicilian king to his castle then withdraw after the excommunication threat, you will have 9 years of French slaying freedom, before you have to repeat the invasion of siciliy to get that excommunication threat again.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

In my games everyone just allies with each other and none of them do any fighting. I just chug over faction after faction.

Enough of my problems, take Geogia from the French and do not move east of Constantinople. That secures the east. Now take out Germany and Poland to shorten your borders. Now take a few turns to consolidate and retrain your frontline troops.

Then basically role east, take out Italy and Denmark as you go. It shouldn't be that hard, provided you advance at a steady pace, keep up the presure and don't over stretch. Regarding navies remember, "Hold the seas we must, live if we can." Naval power is everything.

Once the Pope is gone just kill everything else.

[bretwalda]

Things look a little dim. Certainly an on-the-edge game...

It is 1349, deep in the late era now. I believe now every major power including unfortunately me as well is broke.



I am not doing bad GA wise but that would be superficial approach because I am in deep ... problems ;)





Not many things happened:
Scotland is under siege by the French. Luckily there is a loyalist uprising! I took Novgorod (under siege as well) gave up the attack of Russians in Livonia and made peace.





No allies and the most powerfull enemies...




I really don't now how can I win. Maybe I can weather down the Papacy and the French. I wish for a French king without a heir... I can survive a few turns but my armies will dwindle away in the series of battles fought.

[Papewaio]

To beat an enemy like that do the following:

Cut the kingdom in half with a slash and burn conquest. Large army of good troops aimed at underdefended provinces, they retreat, you destroy (sell off) everything in the province.

If you can aim for his income earning and/or troop producing provinces.

Do not stay in a province longer then it takes to ransack it. Essentially you are destroying his ability to fight. No matter how tempting the province is, do not stay in it with the slash and burn army.

However if you can move in a force made for defence to hold onto a very good province (Venice for instance) while the slash and burn moves on then by all means do it.

Do this while maintaining a defensive rapid response army that can counter attack where ever the enemy kingdom sends forces. Essentially you have a thin defending line of provinces with a defensive force in the second layer that can counter attack (keep big defending armies where you can force a nice defensive battle). Keep a very good defensive force in ports that you can land in your lands for a defensive action.

So
1) One slash and burn army, large amount of good troops. It is the size of the army that makes the enemy tiny force retreat so use lots of spearmen and swordsmen. As it is an attacking force go light on the archers, one or two units max, hopefully mobile to force the defenders off the high ground.

2) Keep your borders well defended in depth. You need about one good defending army per 3 border provinces.

3) An elite counter strike force. This is your heavy cavalry and elite foot. It will strike back at where ever your enemy is striking deep into your territory.

4) An optional occupation force for holding the jewels of your enemies provinces. However when in doubt burn it out.

[Budwise]

Wow, that pope loves his preachers - er, not in the biblical sense of course.

Everytime someone mentions their campaigns, I always find myself thinking, 'How come none of mine ever sound that interesting?'. Super-Pope's indeed - I don't think I've ever got to the stage where the pope has much power at all.

I know, EVERY SINGLE Campaign I ever went on was never that exciting. I almost want to have you send me your Save File so I can try it.

What mods, Difficulty Skill, Starting Strategy do you use?