The Pope and his rewards

[wizardrj]

Hi !

Replying to another thread in this forum, I remembered how the Pope sometimes donates cash to your cause.

Thinking more on the subject, and remembering back on old games I couldn´t figure out if this happens purely random, or if there is some structure or logic behind when the pope gives gifts and the amount.

I can recall reciveing money when playing as the Danes, the French, the English and the Spanish. I can´t remember recieving gifts as any other faction
Have I just been unlucky or dosn´t other catolic factions stand to gain ?

Normally you get 1000 florins, but as the Spanish I once recieved 3000, and fairly early in the game at that, ;-) any idea on what influences the amount ?

Does anybody know what determines the allocation of gifts/cash
Is it a high piety leader, special buildings, or what ???

[Brother Mark]

Sucesss against Islamic factions and high zeal? Spain and France are very zealous.
Or maybe sucessful crusading - since the most crusading factions tend to be Spain, France, England. Hungary and Poland can't in vanilla and the HRE usually don't. Italy is normally pissing off the Papacy. Sicily generally don't crusade either (I'm not sure if they can or not).

Hopefully it will be more established in MTW2

[Fulliautomatix]

I never really figured this out, and the various ideas behind it I read on these forums seemed mixed. However, the times I've received the most papal cash was when I played Poland, Hungary or Sicily. I don't think I ever received papal cash when playing France, England, Italy. So who knows.

A couple times the Pope handed me cash when they were getting pasted by the Italians. You would have thought they could have used the cash themselves to fight them off.

[Martok]

The phenomenon is random for the most part....although in my experience the Pope is especially generous to the English, French, and the Spanish most of all. Still, I don't think there's any particular rhyme or reason to who he gives money to and why. I just view it as one of the benefits of playing a Catholic faction.

@Fulliatomatix: You've received money from the Pope as the Polish and Hungarians? I've never heard of that before; in my games, he only gives cash to factions that can Crusade.

[Archayon]

i didn't read anything about the HRE here...

When i first played this game (i mean: in easy), i usually got money with the HRE, and very early on too (like in year 2 or 3 or something) --> i couldn't have done much by that time to please the pope, i think.

(i play vanilla MTW:VI)



Arch

[Ciaran]

I´ve noticed I got his little rewards (by the time I received them they were little, considering my half-a-million+ treasury) pretty frequently when I fought against excommed factions, even more so than when I fought Muslims or other infidels. Building churches, or religious buildings in general, also seems to help, but the exact trigger for the gifts are a mystery - as is most of what the Pope does. He´s just plain weird most of his time.

[Martok]

Building churches, or religious buildings in general, also seems to help, but the exact trigger for the gifts are a mystery - as is most of what the Pope does. He´s just plain weird most of his time.

Yes, he is pretty weird! Personally, however, I think your description of him as "schizophrenic" in the other thread was more accurate. Hearing voices and seeing things would go a long way towards explaining his behavior....

[Derfasciti]

Pardon the post.

[Byzantine Emperor]

How can you have a half a million treasury and be at peace with the Pope?
Killing the Pope usually comes first!

[Ciaran]

Oh, that´s simple, playing as England, building massive fleets and try to heed the Papal warnings and wishes. It´s actually rather seldom that I have to deal with the Pope the hard way, unless, of course, I play a faction who´s territories border the Pope´s.

[Byzantine Emperor]

I usually disregard fleets...

Is that why I can never get any cash?

[Ciaran]

Yes. Unlike in RTW, in MTW you need to secure the sea regions if you want naval trade to occur, you can only trade with those provinces to which an unbroken line of ships exist.
You can make some money on inland trade, but that´s next to nothing compared to the reaps you get from oversea trade, the latter is the real moneymaker in MTW, I would even go as far as to claim that the successful establishing of sea trade is the make-or-break issue. Setting a sea trade network up is long and expesive, but the rewards will surpass all your imaginations. Keep in mind, though that

a) you can only sea-trade with foreign nations
b) you can only trade with those who you are at peace with
c) the fleet of a nation you´re at war with in the same sea region as your ship will blockade that sea region (especially annoying at chokepoints, like the Gibraltar Strait), making sea trade within or through this sea region impossible

[CrossLOPER]

One thing about naval fleets: do not begin building expensive fleets until you have the capability to replace them at a fair pace. This means creating a stable land economy early on. Also, as Ciaran said, fleets will definately become important by the high period. If you do not have a strong navy present in a region by the middle of that era, you will NEVER be able to build a good navy and be very susceptible to attack, not to mention being at risk of having a lagging economy.

Now you wouldn't want any of that now, do you?

[Byzantine Emperor]

wow. I cant believe what I have been doing. I have only ever trained about 10 boats since I got Medieval all those years ago. So naval trade is worth it then, I thought it was a waste of good army-building time. We are getting a little off-topic from the Pope though, aren't we?

Can someone point me to a guide to this naval trading lark? You've already taught me the basics though Ciaran

[Ciaran]

I think there´s an economy guide in the MTW Guides section, but other than that, for a broader and all-encompassing approach I highly recommend Frogbeasteggs MTW Beginner´s Guide.

[Fulliautomatix]

The phenomenon is random for the most part....although in my experience the Pope is especially generous to the English, French, and the Spanish most of all. Still, I don't think there's any particular rhyme or reason to who he gives money to and why. I just view it as one of the benefits of playing a Catholic faction.

@Fulliatomatix: You've received money from the Pope as the Polish and Hungarians? I've never heard of that before; in my games, he only gives cash to factions that can Crusade.

Martok: yes, weird, isn't it, that the Poles and Hungarians received cash, but it's happened to me more than once. However, I remember reading, a couple of years ago, a post on these forums (OK, true confessions, I've been reading these forums for years but never registered) which discussed papal cash and someone else experienced that as well; also, there was speculation that the Papacy is pre-disposed towards the Catholic countries on the edges of Catholicism (in other words, towards those Catholic countries that abut non-Catholic countries) that expand into non-Catholic areas. I noticed that I seemed to receive the papal cash as the Poles when I expanded into pagan modern Russia/Ukraine; and as the Hungarians, when I went after the Byzantines.

Also, this only ever happened in the early period.