Got to say that I dropped the ball a bit in this campaign. Looking back, it was a serious tactical error to take Metz at the cost of being excommunicated. His Holiness promptly called a crusade against Toulouse, and I've had about 10 exciting but stressed turns trying to keep the kingdom from disintegrating.

The good news is that this makes for quite an interesting campaign. Everything came to a head when an HRE crusading army trespassed on French lands and the King decided to deny it passage (ie in game terms, I attacked it and won). This absolutely ruined my relationship with all the catholic powers, including of course the pope. Was fun though.

Going on a bit of a tangent here, but I can't see that this is too ahistorical. The emergence of strong, independent nation-states (of which I think England was the first with France and Spain following shortly afterwards, and of which France was the strongest for a good century or two) was closely interrelated with the decline in secular power of the papacy. At the start of the campaign it should be tougher to take on the pope (for France and HRE anyway), and later on it should be easier. The game simulates this with the need to build up religious buildings.

Anyway, the French are fun, if exhausting, to play as. Enjoying this campaign immensely.