When do you decide to take out the pope or hold him for ransom

[Deus ret.]

Thanks to some good advice in the Naples thread, I've come to live quite well with the excomms: As soon as I control Italy (with the exception of the Papal States or some other lone reservoir province for the Pope to starve in) the problem is basically history. I simply keep a high-level assassin in a border province, wage war against whoever I want or defend myself offensively and if I get excommed....well, since the Pope usually has a very low command rating, it's no big fuss: Pope dead, excomm void. Rinse and repeat. As long as he still owns a province his successor will come back next turn. Just take care that the his income is more or less eaten up by his remaining troops to prevent the construction of border forts, clearly the achilles heel of this plan.

To answer your other question: I don't know whether the Pope can be ransomed.... would be interesting to find out, though.

[Sensei Warrior]

I believe I ransomed a Pope or two while I was playing the Italians a very long time ago. Although I might be mistaken, but I clearly remember capturing him a number of times. I played the game with the intention of seeing how long I could put down his re-emergences.

As an aside, I lost one of the re-emergences, and the Pope decided to roll right over Europe. My Italian lands were conquered and I was sent to the Holy lands which I controlled. Eventually, the Pope got the better of me, and I believed united the world under the Papal Banner.

[gaijinalways]

Thanx King Kurt, I read the Naples thread. I feel justified that I last night razed Rome and have invaded the Papal states. The Pope is in the castle now, waiting for my next assault. I have seen a bit of a drain in the coffers as I have 2 mercernary armies (rather than 1 in the previous version of this campaign) to support, but the Aragonese and the Spanish are 'loving' are encounters. Th Spanish seem to be moving some stacks towards me, though they did tentaively offer a cease fire, which I turned down as I plan to raze a few more of their provinces (the last razing filled my coffers , not as high as when I alternatively had attacked the Hungarians and the Polish, but still not bad).

I was a bit surprised to see the Sicilians seem to have expired as the Byz have moved into the areas south of the pope. They could be 'helpful' after I weaken the Pope more with ransom or death in the future. I might hire more mercs to bring to bear to take Milan or Provance (to connect Venice to my empire). Also might still strike out at the Hungarians and the Polish if I haven't decided to build up my fleets by then. Of course my troops ravaging the Spanish may also reunite with my Pope ridding army, which is a bit depleted now after taking casualties and leaving some troops behind to defend Venice until I build up reinforcements.

As to assasinating the Pope, I don't even have assasins yet, so that would have to wait. I think after he comes back, I will settle down and be peaceful again.

[ajaxfetish]

If you feel the urge to fight the pope, catch him if you can. He'll always pay his ransom if he has a province to be returned to (unlike other factions who may not if they have an heir), and is worth big money, plus he's such a poor general it's easy to defeat him again. He will return if his faction is eliminated, but your excom will be ended, nobody will be able to start those annoying crusades to traverse your lands, and if you abandon Italy afterwards then when he comes back it's somebody else's problem. Also, fighting his ever more powerful reemergence armies can be a good challenge if you're getting bored.

If you'd rather not deal with the complications of papal reemergence, then as stated there are plenty of other ways to deal with the pope, such as assassination (or even inquisition if you've got a great inquisitor and the Pope's a heathen himself), using warnings to your advantage, or waiting for Pope or king to die.

Ajax

[naut]

If you feel the urge to fight the pope, catch him if you can. He'll always pay his ransom if he has a province to be returned to (unlike other factions who may not if they have an heir), and is worth big money, plus he's such a poor general it's easy to defeat him again. He will return if his faction is eliminated, but your excom will be ended, nobody will be able to start those annoying crusades to traverse your lands, and if you abandon Italy afterwards then when he comes back it's somebody else's problem. Also, fighting his ever more powerful reemergence armies can be a good challenge if you're getting bored.

If you'd rather not deal with the complications of papal reemergence, then as stated there are plenty of other ways to deal with the pope, such as assassination (or even inquisition if you've got a great inquisitor and the Pope's a heathen himself), using warnings to your advantage, or waiting for Pope or king to die.

Agreed.

[Ciaran]

Ah, the pope. I´m currently having a blast fighting him, he´s one of the three superpowers in my current game as the Castille-Leonese. The others are me (obviously) and the Crusader Kingdom. The HRE, Sweden, England, Poland and Scottland still exist, but barely so.
I can´t remember ever having seen the pope expand like this, he´s got all of Italy, a good part of Germany and the whole of Poland (the Polish have moved to France). Of course, that makes dealing with him more difficult than usual, you can´t kill off Papacy by killing the pope often enough, in that respect he´s the same as the HRE, you have to conquer all of his provinces. And so I shall

[gaijinalways]

Ah, I ran into troubles (see my English strategy thread) with my 3 merc armies running wild (on my bank account) and the problem with loyalty dropping in Wales and Mercia after being excommed. I'm wondering, does stopping a crusade automatically get you excommed (repeat q in another thread)?


Anyway, if you can catch him the money is good, though he is a slippery customer.

[Csargo]

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To answer your other question: I don't know whether the Pope can be ransomed.... would be interesting to find out, though.

I'm sure he can be ransomed but you have to catch him first.


Run little Pope run.