goals for the papacy

[Peasant Phill]

Pope Giovanni the drooler is dead, all hail pope Giovanni I. At last in the autumn of his life he is finally taken serious, even respected by the leaders of this earth. He is so respected ,I dare to say, that the following popes will all chose Giovanni as their name.
How do you ask? How is it possible that some cleric that was more interested in fabric softener and all the nuances of the colour yellow than politics can force the leaders of the known world to keep him in mind when plotting their next move? Well the answer is this,my friends, his armies have helped to reshaped the surface of the world.

Nothing better to start a post then to use a little drama.
But I wasn't lying, Giovanni went from 3 crowns to 6 or 7 crowns.Here's the story:

Their brother (the Khalif of the Almoravids) attacked them, the year the bribed princes in Valencia would turn towards the light. He could live with the fact that they wanted some lands for their own but that they had forsaken the way of the Prophet for some petty florins was in his eyes a mortal sin. The Khalif split his army in half with one half defending Murcia and the other, lead by him, undertaking an expedition to punish the infidels.
By splitting up his forces he ended the almo reign in Spain (you bad poet you). The Spanish flooded them in Murcia and the Khalif was beaten in a ferocious bridge battle in Valencia. He even got captured together with the rest of his noblemen. This resulted in a huge ransom of the amount of 12250 florins for the papacy. It also meant the end of the Almoravids as they were now bankrupt and unable to withstand the Spanish marching up the North of Africa.
The papal foreign troops (called the PFT's in papal military slang) left Valencia
the first moment possible and left it some catholic rebels.

In the Baltic, the catholic nations were still fighting for survival against those foulharted orthodox. If Giovanni I had something to do with it he would stick the shism ( censured). Even the Danes got involved in this terrible conflict.

The good news is that the West strikes back. France has undertaken a successful crusade towards Lithuania and the an English crusade is running ramped through Georgia and Armenia.
The Serbs were thrown back by the papal forces in Venice when they were besieging the Genoese. This resulted in a major naval war between the papal fleet and the Serbs. A Genoese crusade further whittret the Serbs down and may turn the tide on this front.


The power of the HRE is finally broken and a civil war has erupted with the reappearance ( at least for one turn) of the Venetians as a result.

The superpowers Spain and England have started to war each other in spite of the pleads of Giovanni. He was forced to chose the side of the Spanish.

And in a final not the Byzantines are allmost done for as Egyptians have taken Greece and seemingly won't stop there.

[NodachiSam]

I remember one person playing the papacy whose goal was to make 95% of the map catholic.

[Barbarossa1221]

THIS is the coolest story of a campaign ever!
I cant wait to hear what happens next.
Have you got any inquistors roaming the earth yet? A few of those guys in a muslim or orthodox province can cause a lot of problems and they raise the zeal of the catholics which is good for crusading armies!

I hope the glorious papacy will shine forever and unite Europe!