Damn the medieval popes

[Martok]

A number of players have said that after defeating several Papal re-emergences (no exact number has been given), he simply stops reappearing after a while. Whether this has anything to do with the Pope's "homelands" being converted to Orthodoxy (or Islam, as the case may be) is currenly unknown. It's certainly a possibility, though.

[BrSpiritus]

A number of players have said that after defeating several Papal re-emergences (no exact number has been given), he simply stops reappearing after a while. Whether this has anything to do with the Pope's "homelands" being converted to Orthodoxy (or Islam, as the case may be) is currenly unknown. It's certainly a possibility, though.

One other thing I noticed... Every time the pope had reappeared he had support from the Spanish... so much so that I got tired of the Spanish jumping on me everytime my back was turned that I sent out my teams of 5 star Syrian assassins and took down every member of the royal family. The Spanish empire fractured into rebel units and these provinces were divided between me (Byzantium), Genoa and England. The Spanish reappeared again but the damn fools did it in a province were I had an assassin... (slice) end of the Spanish again. It's now been 70 years since the Pope last sat on the throne... an you know what I don't shed a tear over his absence.

[Ripken]

I'm certainly finding that the Pope and his generals are a pretty spineless bunch. They're not afraid to invade your provinces, but they don't seem to have much appetite for battle. Even if they have a significant advantage in numbers, and have a lot of high quality unit types (as re-emergent Popes usually do), they often seem to quit the field after you fend off their first attack, and don't bother bringing on their reinforcements...

(They did get the better of me once though, when I lined up in what I thought was an impregnable position atop an escarpment, only to have them appear behind me with twice my numbers. I should probably have anticipated that, but it was rather annoying! )

[caravel]

I never attack the pope until the high or late periods, and usually then only as a bit of revenge. It's too much fun fighting off those crusades. I'm currently playing a Turks campaign, just waiting for them to come. My next move will be Constantinople, followed by Egypt, which, with Georgia that I am fortifying at the moment, will secure me the three province choke point region. I expect that sometime soon the Pope's "Crusade against the Saracens" event will occur. I'm not sure what that does, if anything, but it's usually only a matter of time after that when the French, Germans, Italians and Spanish are on there way... and my forces are waiting for them.

[Biggus Diccus]

I never attack the pope until the high or late periods, and usually then only as a bit of revenge. It's too much fun fighting off those crusades. I'm currently playing a Turks campaign, just waiting for them to come. My next move will be Constantinople, followed by Egypt, which, with Georgia that I am fortifying at the moment, will secure me the three province choke point region. I expect that sometime soon the Pope's "Crusade against the Saracens" event will occur. I'm not sure what that does, if anything, but it's usually only a matter of time after that when the French, Germans, Italians and Spanish are on there way... and my forces are waiting for them.

Hehe! It's alway fun to have huge battles with one or two crusader armies, Byzantines and yourself. If I don't take Constantinople (as the Turks) the crusader armies tend to camp there, and I always wait to attack if there are multiple crusades on the way. I think this is the only reliable way to have more than 3 full armies in one battle simultaneously.

[Ripken]

Am now alternating between burning the Pope with my 5-star GI and assassinating him with my 6-star Guy of Gisbourne, trememdous fun!

None of the new Popes ever seem interested in a cease-fire though, which is annoying as I have a Crusade I want to kick off at the Egyptians...

[Brandy Blue]

damn them! ... im playing an expert campaign as the french and im getting attacked by the swiss the germans the english the spanish and the italions .. i can handle that but the damn pope (who happens to be my ally) keeps excommunicating me and launching crusades. what is wrong with them all ! i can only take on so many at a time this is killing me does the pope get on everyone elses nerves as much as mine?

Am I the only one who feels any sympathy for His Holiness? Yes, he is a real pain, but consider his objectives:

1: He must try to keep Catholics from fighting each other. This is best accomplished in the long run by allowing one power to adsorb all the others. However, in the short run, no power can adsorb the others without waging war. This objective is self-contradictory.

2: He must keep the papacy as strong and independent as possible. This means having lots of little Catholic factions, none of which are strong enough to dominate the papacy. This contradicts objective 1.

3: He must try to reunite Christendom, which means pursuing good relations with the Orthodox church. He also needs to Orthodox Christians as a shield against Muslim expansion.

4: He must try to reunite Christendom, which means encouraging Catholic factions to take over Orthodox territory. This contradicts objective 3, and probably objective 2, because anyone strong enough to shatter the Byzantine Empire is a threat.

5: He must encourage crusades to beat off the Muslim threat, and to keep Catholics busy fighting someone other than each other. Also, Catholic expansion is good. However, conquering all of Islam requires a Catholic superpower, which contradicts objective 2.

6: He must pursue all these contradictory objectives using nothing but AI, which is really just a machine without a brain.



None of this stops me from stamping out the Pope whenever it suits me. However, it does make it easier to be patient when he threatens me with excommunication for resisting invasion. After all, he has got to bear in mind objective 2.

[gunslinger]

In my opinion, the best way to deal with the pope (If you are playing as a faction in his neighborhood) is to take Rome away from him very early in the game, but try not to destroy his army there. If you let the bulk of his army (Urban Militia, vanilla spears, etc.) retreat to the Papal Estates, then he'll be stuck there supporting that army on about 200 gold per year, rendering him militarily ineffective very soon (he can't afford new buildings or more advanced troops). You will get excommunicated right off the bat, and if it's early in the game you probably don't have assassins or GIs yet, so it helps to try to time this move so that it occurs when the pope is over 60 years old. Or you can just wait until you have a huge army built up, and take advantage of your excommunication to unify your borders against other Catholic factions.

The next step is to leave some very small and harmless Catholic faction within or close to your borders. When you are about ready to go to war with a Catholic rival, send a couple of small raids against the small faction until you get your agression warning. Then you're free for ten years to attack the real rival.

[Ripken]

Ok, I have a slightly different problem with Papa at the moment. For the last few decades I've been happy to leave him with one small stack in the Papal States, and apart from that and Sicilian Malta I am the only Catholic power left in the game so he is pretty irrelevant. My problem is that I do now need to slap the Eggies down a bit, and I fancy chucking a Crusade in their direction, but obviously I can't without Papal approval.

No matter what I try he won't grant me a ceasefire (which leads to me getting cross and occasionally assassinating him). What can I do, if anything, to get a ceasefire (or an alliance, if that is what I need to Crusade)?

[caravel]

Well there are a few ways, but none of them are ideal. Personally I wouldn't bother with the crusade. I'd just put together a large enough force and send it in. Anyway, if you do need to gain a ceasefire from the pope:

You could try losing control of the provinces around him (Naples, Rome, Tuscany, Venice etc ), and thus losing contact. After one year an automatic ceasefire will occur. The problem with this is that those provinces that you have lost control of could be the source of faction reappearances, in fact this is highly likely. Personally I wouldn't do this.

Another way, would be to wipe the papacy out entirely and then let the papal states immediately rebel. Leave it there in it's rebel state, eventually the papacy will reappear there (fingers crossed they don't also turn up in Rome, watch the loyalty there. The papal reappearance force will be a large one, prepare for it.). This is the time to declare your crusade against the Egyptians, then if you wish you can invade and wipe out the pope again, or at least weaken him until he's no longer a threat.

[Ripken]

I suspected there would be no easy answer...

I'll just clobber the Egyptians the old fashioned way!

[macsen rufus]

I have managed to get an auto ceasefire by invading the Papal States with an overwhelming force so the Pope retreats to the castle, then I withdrew from the province the following year whilst the Papal army was under siege. I didn't expect it to work, but it did

[Da Doom Guy]

I'm always playing as Germany, I am useally a Warmonger, and that seems to irritate the Pope(not that I care ) if I could, I'd demand the Pope recalls the excommunication on me, unfortunetly, for the Pope, I useally have the LARGEST army on the continent, what I find funny is the Pope demands crusades on me(though no one has the guts to invade me cause I'z da biggest and da baddest)


The Pope is as annoying as Hell, but that's why he only lives a few turns.

[gunslinger]

I have managed to get an auto ceasefire by invading the Papal States with an overwhelming force so the Pope retreats to the castle, then I withdrew from the province the following year whilst the Papal army was under siege. I didn't expect it to work, but it did

I just tried this, but I messed it up. The Pope didn't retreat from my overwhelming force, so I faced him in battle. I did everything I could to simply chase his army off the battlefield, but his junk units engaged my technologically advanced troops without regard for their worthless lives. In the end, I couldn't get my Italian Infantry to withdraw once they had His Holiness surrounded, so I accidentally captured him. Of course, the Vatican knew what a worthless scumbag he was, so they didn't pay the ransom. The Papacy degenerated into rebels, so I took the castle, razed everything to the ground, set taxes on very high, and withdrew all my troops. Now all I can get in the Papal States is an occasional "Catholic Bandits" rebellion (One of which consisted of exactly ONE mangonel crew). I really need the Pope back since the Castille-Leonese (XL versioin of Spanish) are a superpower and own much more of the map than I do. I need to get them excommunicated quickly!

[Sensei Warrior]

I found a sure fire method for avoiding the Pope, and it has options . The options are Muslim, Orthodox, possibly more if your playing a mod. Actually, I think some mods must have gotten rid of him altogether.

[nara shikamaru]

Hey all, after a few weeks I remembered I had an account here, and the site is telling me I haven't posted in a while, so I decided to start here as I too feel the sting of a stupid, evilly maniacal(I really hope that is a word) pope. From what I remember playing MTW is that one, the Pope usually has a golden boy, two the Pope will attack technologically, and numerically superior areas, threatens excom everytime i retaliate to an attack from other Catholics, who just the prior year were excomed themselves. So in short, the pope's of MTW piss me off, but then again, after I've taken out the Muslims, and Orthodox Christians, I go for the Pope so as not to deal with Excom when taking out everyone else.

[UltraWar]

I spent today on my new, upgraded computer playing a MTW campaign (Easy) in Early as the HRE. I took over nearly all of Europe and I was excommunicated by the Pope for attacking the Italians. I had around 100,000 Florins at the point and just kept moving stacks through the Papal lands, taking over land. Eventually I took over the Papal States for myself and did random raids on Rome for 2 more times. I then took Rome and the Papacy became a Puppet. I destroyed all buildings in both Papacy provinces and moved all troops out of them. I waited for some time to see if the Pope re-emerged but he didn't. I eventually got 60% map in 1140 or so. In the last year of my turn, my entire empire had re-emergencies, rebellions and more. I've just exited the campaign now.

[Arkatsson]

Burn the enemy family line at the stake then take the rebel lands after the end of the "royal" line.