The Pope and Me

[Maloncanth]

It was 1333 and the first great wars were by and large over. The Spanish king had been knifed multiple times and their empire was rebel as well as in ruins. Most of Germany had been likewise torched. Not particularly wanting a large empire (too much administration), the Vikings had simply torched, pillaged, sworded prisoners, and abandoned provinces. They had their GA points by then so they didn't care.

The Pope, surprisingly enough, had been a very nice man. Much of the demolition of the Spanish forces had occurred when they were rebel (this greatly weakened their revivals since there were no big leftover stacks to rejoin them). The spurts of graphic violence had often occurred when the Pope was an old man, so he'd die of natural causes (honest!) a few turns later, and thus was everyone happy.

During the more difficult phases of the wars variously with Spain, Germany, and Italy, Danish grand inquisitors had moved in to burn their generals, as Spain especially, had tons of high star generals and at often numerical superiority. Trained from birth to burn peasants, these 4-6 star clerics had become very good at what they do. There were at the time, no command stars left in central europe. I'm pretty sure given the chance, they could've lit baby Jesus on fire. In recognition of the Pope having been such a nice man, I decided to try the theory on the next best thing and see if I couldn't keep the old man warm for the rest of his life.

I dragged a 6-star Grand Inquisitor onto the Pope. 0%. High piety Pope. Damn. That means he's immune to Grand Inquisitors, right? Or perhaps, I thought, he was only immune to ten Grand Inquisitors trying to burn him simultaneously! So I painstakingly collected my Grand Inquisitors (most of them were on coastal, ported provinces), and dragged them all onto the Pope and eagerly pressed End Turn.



The Danish king was purportedly so enchanted with the fact that he could burn the Pope for heresy (a devoutly atheist Pope too!) that he kept ordering the pope burned. Every. Turn. And so the squad of grinning Vikings (wearing Grand Inquisitor robes and holding that Grand Inquisitor flag) went trooping into the Papal residence every year at the stroke of midnight on St. Patrick's day and burned the Pope for heresy. Evidently, no matter how high his piety starts off, almost always eventually he gets so sick of you trying to light him on fire that he goes Atheist and that turns anyone into spilled gas.

I say almost always because on my 14th Pope, I found him utterly unburnable for two whole turns. By then, the Spanish had revived again, with some stacks in Genoa oddly enough so I thought up a clever plan. Since I couldn't burn the Pope, I burned the Italian peninsula to the ground and then let the Spanish invade. THen a little later, the Pope revived and he turned to the Spanish and went "What're you doing in my room?!" and started hating on them.

[Dutch_guy]

Nice story Maloncanth !

It's a fact that if you keep on sending inquisitors at the pope he'll turn atheist and consequently gets easier to burn.

It's a handy trick, exploit if you will, and can come in handy at times - as you've obviously found out.

[Csargo]

I never knew you could burn the Pope. I never tried though. Figured he wasn't able to burn I guess not.

[Ciaran]

You can, and it´s the easiest way to get rid of him, provided you´ve got Grand Inquisitors, that is.

"Devoutly Atheist" I like that one. The combination of traits in MTW sometimes produces... interesting results. Nice tactic with the Spaniards, too.

[Weebeast]

I lit a pope once long time ago. I don't know I find him annoying when I'm French or HRE.

[Ciaran]

Yes, considering you´re surrounded by Catholic factions only...
He´s worse with the HRE, though, the French with their access to the Mediterrean can reach Muslim provinces easy enough - provided your ships don´t get sunk in the infamous Naval Incident.