Re-Emerging factions

[Bregil the Bowman]

I have seen the Pope came back and whip seven shades of hell out of everyone. Pushed me all the way back to Poland the one game. Other then the Pope, no faction that has come back has ever done any real damage.

It's the Pope who is proving to be the comeback kid in my current campaign. I'm Spain, championing the Catholic cause. He was having problems with the Sicilians, who had taken Rome, so I weighed in on his side. Unfortunately he made an ill-advised counter attack and got wiped out before I had finished driving the Sicilian king out of Italy.

A couple of turns later he re-emerged with a couple of big stacks - mainly feudal sergeants, urban militia and mounted sergeants, but a couple of knights as well, not a bad mix for early-Early. And he did it in Rome just as I was erecting monuments to the glory of the last Pope... So being a good Catholic I abandoned Rome to His Holiness, expecting kudos and brownie points etc.

Since then he has wasted no opportunity to attack me. I had to keep huge stacks in Naples, as did the Italians in the North, to deter Papal aggression. I didn't realise that you can be at war with the Pope and not get excommunicated because HE's the aggressor. He seems to be rebuilding the armies that I slaughter when he attacks as well. Not for long though, His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain is losing patience...

[Ciaran]

Yes, the pope always comes back to life quite forcefully and unlike other factions it doesn´t matter whether loyalty in Rome is 200% in your favour or not, he´ll come back anyways after some time. And he never seems to be able to keep his fingers from the provinces around after some time of waiting.
He must be pretty wealthy on his comebacks, too, because I reduced Rome to rabble, but a couple of years later he had built up a basic infrastructure, despite having to fund this huge army of his.

[dgfred]

that Pope Bregil.

[m52nickerson]

Best Pope control........Burn Rome to the ground then let him have it back, just to attack the Paple state and raze it. Leave him in Rome with no buildings, and just a few troops. Think of him as a pet, use that 5 star assassin to keep him under control.

[antisocialmunky]

You can always sick him with grand inquisistors for fun. Something about atheist popes burning at the stake is just somewhat amusing.

One in in my big English campaign, the Spanish tried to invade me for some stupid reason so I bashed them out of the Pyrennes, Leon, and Castille and all but the provence(It was some chunk of North Africa - everything from Portugal and Cordoba to Egypt rebelled) the king was in had reemerged with tons and tons of Almohad Urban Militia and Muhawudi Foot Soldiers. I'm sure they had fun down there. The Spanish won everything back only to attack me again and have every one of their provences in North Africa and Cordoba to GO INTO REBELLION which the ALMOHAD PROMPTLY REEMERGED IN and turned all the Muslim rebels to them.

I kinda fell bad for them... but atleast it got rid of all those stupid javelin spam armies that they threw at me. They won though and ended up surrounding the lone Almohad provence.

[Bregil the Bowman]

that Pope Bregil.

Your wish is my command, Sieur.

Lured him into splitting his armies in two, then dealt with them piecemeal. He will utter no more benedictions in this world.

I suppose this means I will get another re-emergence in time, with bigger and better troops. But by this time I should be in a good position to counter. The only real threats in this campaign were the Poles and the Horde, and within a couple of turns both of their kings died without heirs, without any assistance from me. Curious twist of fate... The English faction also dissolved into anarchy, but that was because they didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

Re-emergences are going to be the chief menace from now on, I will let you know if anything interesting comes up (like Gothic Knights and Serpentines).

[antisocialmunky]

You know, if you piss off the pope enough times, he'll go rabid and start killing everyone in Europe with the ultimate goal of turnign the map eggshell white.

[Roark]

I've seen psycho Hitler Pope a couple of times, with his own navy.

I've seen the Swiss totally gut a bloated HRE and irrevocably divide Europe into two with those sweet halberdiers.

I also once saw the French kingdom re-emerge in Flanders, and then the whole blue blob slowly migrated East to Constaninople, with the English prodding them from behind. It looked insane, but the constant destruction of buildings along the way meant that the French slowly teched themselves down into fodder for the Egyptians, whereas the English had kept all of their prior-owned territories. Hard to explain...

[dgfred]

Bregil- 'The English didn't expect the Spanish Inquisitions'