Attacking Rome?

[Musashi]

Allying with the pope and feeding him enough money to keep relations at or near "perfect" seems to help prevent crusades...

[FactionHeir]

It didn't for me. I was allied to France, Milan, Venice and the Pope.
At war with HRE at the time.
I had perfect relations with my allies due to a diplomat at each city.
Then I bought Toulouse off the French for maps and 10k.
End turn, next turn a crusade is declared on Toulouse and after I attack the crusade, all relations go abysmal and the pope is the only ally I got left.

[Sarmatian]

In my moors campaign, I got attacked by milan. Entire Iberian penninsula was under my control, and french were my allies. My military was not so strong, but I was confident I can take milan. So, when I became bored with their ships blocking my ports, I invaded marseille from the sea with one full stack led by my sultan who had 6 command stars (and only 20 years). After taking marseille, I defeated 1 full stack milan army and took bologna. Then another two, and I took florence. The only thing that saved me was my 10 star young general. And then it really became bad. Papal states besieged florence, and french, venice, sicilia declared war on me.

I managed to hold my own and even conquer a few cities (venice, palermo) but I became bored with papal states besieging florence every turn. So i declared a jihad on rome, and conquered it. Then all hell break loose. Pope called a crusade on rome! In addition to nations I was already at war with, danes, hungary and hre all started sending crusaders to conquer rome.

So expect a heavy reprisal if you conquer rome.
And of course, every time you kill a pope, a new one appears in the rome area, hiring all the mercenaries for attack on the city. While this isn't much of a threat, it is annoying, expecially because you can't retrain mercenaries in your army.
I stoped playing when average time for a turn became half an hour...

So, in my opion, rome is not worth taking...

[Blademun]

I took rome as a Catholic nation and just made sure to kill the pope before he could hire Mercs.

Just so you know, you can send a diplomat to the the pope stack, and if you offer him one of your regions (like..Rhodes..lol) he'll suddenly forgive you and make peace. After he dies, all other popes will appear in whatever region you gave. So be sure to give him a region on the edge of the world. Timbuktu might be nice...

[RZST]

hmm, how about giving the pope the whole italian peninsula? would the pope then be a warmonger spreading the word of god through the use of pointy sticks?
in my milan campaign i am considering giving him the whole southern italy area.

[NightStar]

In my campaign as the Byz, the pope has the whole southern italian peninsula, and I didn't give it to him...and he crusades as well!!!!

[sapi]

In my byz campaign, i've assassanated two popes, killed three or four in battle and taken rome, and yet i'm yet to face a crusade.

The pope's stopped respawning in italy too - maybe i cleaned out the college of cardinals :P