Being the Pope

[Gtafanboy]

Extremely easy. Just go into your "campmap" folder then go to "startpos" And pick and era. Then go down about 2/3 of the page then you will see:

SetActiveFaction:: FN_ALMOHAD FT_MAJOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_BYZANTINE FT_MAJOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_EGYPTIAN FT_MAJOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_ENGLISH FT_MAJOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_FRENCH FT_MAJOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_GERMAN_HRE FT_MAJOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_ITALIAN FT_MAJOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_POLISH FT_MAJOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_SPANISH FT_MAJOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_TURKISH FT_MAJOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_DANISH FT_MAJOR

SetActiveFaction:: FN_HUNGARIAN FT_MINOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_NOVGOROD FT_MINOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_PAPIST FT_MINOR
SetActiveFaction:: FN_SICILIAN FT_MINOR

SetActiveFaction:: FN_ARAGONESE FT_MINOR



Just change the "MINOR" to "MAJOR" good post for the new guy

[Weebeast]

I tried this without a mod or whatever. However, you don't have the "pope button" and/or the option to give money. You can't send fellow catholic factions to a crusade.

Maybe it's just me who hasn't discovered something?

[EatYerGreens]

@ Weebeast,

I don't know what you mean by a "pope button". Care to expand on that?

I'm not sure why anyone would want to play as the Pope, other than for the novelty factor. I guess you could 'turtle' indefinitely, watch world events go by and maybe spend time interfering with the fates of other factions by heavy useage of agents and so forth, which has its own appeal.

I don't know if the pope has access to any units which other factions don't, so you might just as well play as the Aragonese or the Danes. Presumably the point is to prove that you can still win the conquest game using a faction with minimal land holdings at the start of the game?

I think I've seen posts which say that running a Glorious Achievements campaign as a faction which wasn't intended to be playable can cause problems, such as crashing the game if you attempt to call up the GA page or, if that does work, it crashes when you click on the icon for your own faction. Basically, it takes more extensive modification to set up proper GA goals for the faction. I'm not sure if that sort of thing is even moddable.

The Pope has special functions within the game, such as dishing out money, calling on Catholic factions to crusade, excommunicating factions who war with other Catholics and so on. Presumably, none of that will work properly when you make the Papacy playable and the end to excommunication, in particular, removes a crucial element in the game whereby a faction becomes fair game for 'good' Catholic factions, if it should become overly aggressive towards its fellows. I see this as a significant change to the game dynamic.

I'd like to know if the edit needs to be reversed when you later decide to play a conventional faction, or if the pope's 'special' functions return to normal, even when the file was left in the edited state.

[lugh]

The Pope is made playable with most of the MTW mods out there, I can haertily recomend MTW XL, by Vikinghorde, you can find links in the MTW mod forum.

@EYG
I've only done it once out of masochism really but I did pretty much what you say. I didn't make any military moves nearly, lots of agents, especially assasins to take other factions out.
There were no stability issues, the XL mod has GA goals for all factions, though most are just the conquest and homelands ones, I think the others are hard coded.
Obviously I couldn't excomm or order crusades when I was playing, but in campaigns where the pope is an AI faction, all these issues work normally, he'll call for Crusades, give out Florins to good conquering Christians etc!

[EatYerGreens]

@EYG
I've only done it once out of masochism really

This raised a smile.

Of late (in Main Hall) I've alluded to masochism in others, after seeing some of the things people say they've done, to make the game tougher. Thinking more deeply though, I guess we're all guilty of it for even playing this game at all. There are much easier ways of filling the time, you have to admit. Like sunning oneself on the beach, say. But I wouldn't have any of that, if I can campaign away to my heart's content.

but I did pretty much what you say. I didn't make any military moves nearly, lots of agents, especially assasins to take other factions out.
There were no stability issues, the XL mod has GA goals for all factions, though most are just the conquest and homelands ones, I think the others are hard coded.
Obviously I couldn't excomm or order crusades when I was playing, but in campaigns where the pope is an AI faction, all these issues work normally, he'll call for Crusades, give out Florins to good conquering Christians etc!

Good to hear that's a thouroughly well-put-together mod and that GA goals can be set by the modder as part of creating a new playable faction.

I think the thread I read, warning of crashes when clicking on the shields was in reference to looking at GA goals for other factions, like Novgorod, when the player was another faction entirely. That WAS because no GA goals had been set, at the time, but the thread was probably from 2003 and this is an issue long since resolved, what with mods being updated frequently. Sorry I even raised this issue and hope this clarifies things for casual readers.

[lugh]

This raised a smile.

Of late (in Main Hall) I've alluded to masochism in others, after seeing some of the things people say they've done, to make the game tougher. Thinking more deeply though, I guess we're all guilty of it for even playing this game at all. There are much easier ways of filling the time, you have to admit. Like sunning oneself on the beach, say. But I wouldn't have any of that, if I can campaign away to my heart's content.

There was a thread a while ago, where everyone listed the things they to challenge themselves, I'll see if I can dig it up, there was all kind of interesting things in it. I think it's kind of inevitable, once you learn the tricks the AI uses, you have to make yourself not exploit them.

Good to hear that's a thouroughly well-put-together mod and that GA goals can be set by the modder as part of creating a new playable faction.

I think the thread I read, warning of crashes when clicking on the shields was in reference to looking at GA goals for other factions, like Novgorod, when the player was another faction entirely. That WAS because no GA goals had been set, at the time, but the thread was probably from 2003 and this is an issue long since resolved, what with mods being updated frequently. Sorry I even raised this issue and hope this clarifies things for casual readers.

Yeah, I've read some of the earlier modding posts in the Archive, it seems there was a fairly steep learning curve when people started off modding stuff.

[Clan MacGregor]

The Pope would only be worth it if you get to have an Excommunicate button.