what to do with the pope?????

[fester]

I've crushed the papacy but the pope has reamerged in four states, Three of them mine. Is this like any other reamergence or will it keep hapening because its the pope? If so I thought about just leaving the pope one state to go about his holy bussines and I'll deal with him at a later date.

[matteus the inbred]

usually keeps happening, and is likely to get worse as well, ie. he re-emerges with more and better troops every time. it's supposedly VERY difficult to kill off the Pope...!

if you can get away with it, i'd leave him alone in the most easily isolated of his provinces (ie. fewest borders for you guard) and try and make peace.

[elbasto]

It will keep coming, after all it is the pope ;)

In my opinion, the best thing to do is the following:
1. Destroy every single building in Rome (except for the port so that you can trade with the province).
2. Bribe every single army but the one that has the pope on it.
3. Fall back and sue for peace.
4. Kill the pope so that you are no longer excomunicated.

[Vladimir]

Kill him early, don't garrison Rome/Papal States, and don't build troop improvements there. Use the re-emergences to train your heirs and the freedom to conquer to expand your empire. This doesn't work so well in GA but if I'm playing Italy, I popa the Popa.

[Odin]

He will keep reemerging and its a real pain in the A$$ if you dont allow him Rome or the papal states. Since MTW dosent have a feature where you can bribe or control the pope, sometimes you have to kill him, but never eliminate all of his holdings.

Matteus's advice is pretty good, keep him isolated and make peace. Your particular situation looks pretty messy though.... In the future, be a good catholic and obey the holy father will ya

[Uesugi Kenshin]

In my current Italian campaign I decided to go to war with him, but stopped attacking after I took Rome. I left the pope with the Papal States, he attacked twice, but got slaughtered. So eventually we made peace and the problem is solved.

[NodachiSam]

Like others have said, don't bother to kill him off entirely, isolate him and leave him. Usually you should just leave him one province or if you kill him off, raze which ever province you intend him to keep to the ground when he reemerges. If you allow him Rome you'll only have 3 provinces to garrison. If you leave the Papal states you'll need to guard 4. I always find Rome so symbolic though.

[antisocialmunky]

You should play the pope like a game an see how many consequetive pope-backs you can survive.

[m52nickerson]

Let the Pope have rome. Just take the rest of his provences. When he is pinned up in rome, attack. Kill as many men as you can, but let at least a few make it to the castle. Now you can just leave and let the few survivers have Rome. There force will be so small they will not attack for many, many years. It works even better if you can capture the Pope and drain some of there money.

Think of the Pope as a pet

[Keith_the_Great]

yeah he's a pain in the bum!!! the only real way, is having 4, 1000+ armys, 1 in each of the 4 papal state's or most of italy, he normally returns coz of rebellion or low moral with-in these states.

the best bet is to stay on his good side ;)

[Roark]

1. Take and keep anything the Pope owns except for Rome and the Papal States.
2. Invade and sack the Papal States.
3. Withdraw from the Papal States and wait until the Pope retakes it.
4. Take and keep Rome for yourself (as it has a pretty decent income).
5. Leave His Holiness to wallow around in 150 florins per year.
6. Start attacking your real enemies.

[Weebeast]

One time playing as HRE The Pope re-emerged, took over Rome, Papal States and then Naples. I evacuated main two provinces when he re-emerged. Some turns later he invaded Sardinia. Then I sunk his fleet, kicked him off of the mainland (his halberdiers got me good) and captured him in Naples(dug his pocket). I was the biggest catholic at the time so I didn't have fellow catholics to fight. It was kinda pointless cus it was almost 1453 but still quite a fun experience. Somehow Pope will try to take over the world sooner or later. I gotta react quickly.

[Lanemerkel1]

you know what I say? :slips the finger: screw the pope.


chase him off the mainland and into an island somewhere


and blockade his ports too


or as the other guy said, trick him to papal states, take rome, launch an attack on papal states but don't kill everyone, then you have him standing there with an army in ruins and a measily 150 florins (or less if you keep him blockaded) a year and surrounded on all sides, since you didn't kill him he won't come back, he won't get enough money to do anything but stand around and since you destroyed everything there he's going to be spending everything he has getting up the buildings to make an army to defend himself much less go on the offensive again. and since he's not dead he won't come back and when he's alive he just can't pull 3 full stacks out of his hat.


one time when I did that (think I was playing Byzantium or Russia) I thought I was being a little one sided so I left him behind a little gift......an orthodox church

[NodachiSam]

I would love some way to shove him on Corsica or Sardinia. In RTW you could at least gift it to him and kill him elsewhere. Maybe Hibernia, I mean Ireland would be suitable Are there any conceivable strategies for this to work though? I've never seen the Pope with a large fleet in do a sea invasion. You could probably mod it some how for him to have more ships or even for his starting provicne to be in Corsica or Ireland. That defies the point though.

Roark's advice is good however.

[Marquis de Said]

In my vanilla VI installation of the game, I modded the Pope to be able to launch Crusades. It was quite fun, because he launched quite a few. One ended up in Edessa. When the old Pope died and a new one was elected, he ended up in Edessa, because that's where his most powerful general was. I think he eventually got wiped off Italy, so Edessa was his only province.

[NodachiSam]

That's a good idea.

[Weebeast]

It was quite fun, because he launched quite a few. One ended up in Edessa. When the old Pope died and a new one was elected, he ended up in Edessa, because that's where his most powerful general was.

That's because Edessa had more buildings than any other provinces. I don't know why the devs made it like this. I guess a kingdom always makes big city as its capital and a heir gets crowned in the capital city.

A lot of players here had to ransom their King. lol

[phred]

you could always mod the starting positions and give the pope an island.
Malta, Crete, Sardinia or Corsica would work. Then make sure that you conquer everything except the island province like Lanemerkel1 suggests.

[ajaxfetish]

You should play the pope like a game an see how many consequetive pope-backs you can survive.

When you start looking for a new challenge you can try out ASM's suggestion. Put your best army and general in Rome and just wait for his massive army to return. Wash, rinse, and repeat. You'll get some fun big battles handed to you and some excellent high-valor troops, probably along with a general with some fantastic defense virtues (assuming you win each time of course). It's like a repeatable mini-version of waiting for the Mongols in Khazar.

Ajax

[gunslinger]

I like da pope. He make me laugh. Dat's why I keel heem last. . .

[The Darkhorn]

Play GA and you don't have to kill him to win....just use him!!! One of my favorite tactics is to go in and wipe him out, then let the provinces rebel. Inevitably some powerful faction rivaling me in GA points will gobble them up. Let them deal with his legions when they return!!! Let them lose half their best troops fighting him!!

[KrooK]

good option with papacy is not destroying them but make them really weak
papacy reappear and can make your life really hard.
but if they got 1 prowince, weak army and small ammount of money - they aren't dangerous

[NodachiSam]

I like da pope. He make me laugh. Dat's why I keel heem last. . .

Lol.

[Zain]

In my last few posts I've just killed off Rome last. It seems like it's just a hassle to kill him before you try everywhere else.

-ZainDustin