Your closest call...

[elbasto]

Two unmounted lancers (chivalric footknights) with +3 weapon and +4 armor defended Rome's Citadel+Barbician+Demi Culevin Towers against the invasion forces of the re emergering Pope (beeing the Late era, the four stacks were made of fairly modern units).

From the initial 80 knights only 54 survived and even though the Papist forces withrew to the outskirts of Rome, the casualties he sustained during the assault were so high that this allowed the Spainyard army to lift the siege.

Afterwards a puppet pope sat on the pappist throne.




I don't have the total number of enemy casualties as the kills from the castle defenses weren't counted at the end screen. My men alone killed 600 men (I was playing with medium units size mind you) but from the four full stacks the Pope had before the battle, he was left with less than one and a half.

This conviced me on changing the approach I had with the Pope (isolating him in the Papal States or Rome). If one of the usually two provinces attacked could be defended, leaving 2 chivalric footknights with upgrades in a stronghold would force the Pope to attack and the worst case scenario would be a Papist Phyrric victory that should allow the player to retake Rome rather fast.
I've started building a Fortess, I'd lilke to see siege cannons in action.