I made the pope my vassal ;-)

[derfinsterling]

So I'm playing Portugal on a long campaign. From early on I established good relations with the papacy, giving them buffer regions to save me from my enemies and always followed his orders.

All good and well.

Then, suddenly he excommunicates he (turns out I forgot to call of a siege of a German city...). To add insult to injury - he was frickin' Portuguese! Ungrateful little...

Ok... pretty much immediately I go to war with every catholic faction left (well, except the Scots, but we never had any dealings with one another anyway).

I employ a burn and pillage strategy - taking a few full stacks and go to war into my neighbours lands, burning everything down and moving on (too bad you have to occupy a city once you take it... I'd rather just plunder it and call it a day). That way I rack in enough money to keep my war chest stuffed.

This seems to not go well with the pope as well - he lays siege to Bordeaux. I beat back his troops and re-conquer the regions I so graciously offered as a gift to the papacy over the last 80 or so turns.

A couple of turns later, my king traps the pope in Zagreb. During the battle, the pope is killed.
I spent the rest of that turn and the beginning of the next one to mop up a few pockets of resistance here and there, and sacking both Brugge and Antwerp with the same army.
As the last action before going into the cardinal's college, I send a diplomat to Rome.
I offer them Brugge, Antwerp, and about 20.000 gold pieces in exchange for them becoming my vassal.
And - the papacy accepts!

I know have the newly elected pope (for whom I didn't vote for) as my servant. I think with that, Portugal truly can be considered the ruler of the medieval world... ;-)

[Bijo]

[Shahed]

Cool. Report back and let us know how long the vassalage lasts.

[Anubis King]

Excuse my ignorance but what does a vassal do?

[Quillan]

I don't know if it's exactly the same as a protectorate in RTW. In Rome, a protectorate granted alliance and military access to both factions, was supposedly unbreakable by the client faction, and if the client had over 15,000 in the treasury then the excess went to the patron faction as tribute, every turn.

[Anubis King]

interesting

[Bijo]

Vassal basically means slave.


vas·sal (vās'əl) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. A person who held land from a feudal lord and received protection in return for homage and allegiance.
2. A bondman; a slave.
3. A subordinate or dependent.

[Musashi]

Slave isn't entirely accurate. While it's true that serfs are vassals of their lord, Dukes are vassals of their King as well, and they're hardly slaves.

[Kraxis]

Cool. Report back and let us know how long the vassalage lasts.

I would like to know as well.

Also, did that end the excomm?

[Satyr]

When I played as the Scots I had a great gig going with the French for a while. We were constantly at war and after a couple of years of fighting they would offer to let me be their vassal. Well, I always accepted and demanded a large lump sum payment. A few years later they would attack again and I would get another payment. They financed my development and military so that I could kick their butts. Mighty neighborly of them.

[Snoil The Mighty]

Thanks for the tale! After the patch, it appears in Spanish campaign I have created a monster of the Papcy, as they have all of Italy and are working on The former Milan/HRE settlements which were taken by Sicily. The Pope's my longtime ally but I was going at a leisurely pace to get the New World event and here's my longtime pal-of-pals, right in my way now! Mind, given his strength, it'll be tough to whittle him down far enough but that's the goal now

[Belisarius Invictus]

I'm currently at war with the Papal States, and have taken Rome, destroyed the Pope's army, and killed the Pope -- how do I get vassalage as an option in the diplomacy screen? I can pick Ceasefire, then Reconciliation becomes available, but no Vassalage.

[Whacker]

I would like to know as well.

Also, did that end the excomm?

Methinks when he killed the dumb sod, that ended the excomm. Could be wrong through.

[lars573]

Cool. Report back and let us know how long the vassalage lasts.

I'm going on 20+ turns with Byzantines as my Turkish vassals. After 12 turns I bought half their lands too. They had 5 provinces left I took 3.

[supadodo]

WHen playing as HRE, I made allies with the Pope simply by giving him a piece of nonstrategic land and a few thousand florins. Then he went crazy and started excommunicating any faction that dared lay a finger on me. Every turn or so I give 100 florins to keep relations at perfect and unlike all the other factions he never broke the alliance. Interestingly he was allies with all my enemies before