Reconquista

[Snoil The Mighty]

You'll get plenty of Papal brownie points as Spain just by converting Moslems to Catholics. When you capture previously-Moorish settlements, don't build a church right away. Pope will give you "Build a Church" as a mission within a turn or two. Then you can get a cash reward and Papal Favor!

The penalty for not joining a crusade is trivial. The +Favor effects of all the other stuff you can do to butter him up dwarfs it.

You (and Urban II) are certainly right - the Levant is about the last place Spain or Portugal needs to be sending troops during the 12th century. The biggest impediment to maintaining a Crusader Kingdom is the distance to capital penalties and there's no capital farther from Jerusalem than those in Iberia.

+1. I haven't played Portugal yet, intend to start one this weekend. I have heard they are actually easier than Spain, and as Spain, it is way easy to get the Pontiff in your pocket early on, and essentially forever thereafter. You can easily get the second papal election, and if not, certainly the third just by building priests, getting points for church building, and massive converting (I had at least 8 conversion missions as Spain in a long drawn campaign). The pope was Spanish and paella was the dish of choice at college of cardinal meeting for well over 300 years. So getting popely bonuses really is awfully easy, also, if you get your rating up fast, you can pre-empt that first jerusalem crusade and call one to Corduba! Keep an eye on the 'call a crusade' button on the Pope tab once it goes live if you rate well, you can make the call and get your Reconquista crusade made official.

[Alden]

...you can pre-empt that first jerusalem crusade and call one to Corduba! Keep an eye on the 'call a crusade' button on the Pope tab once it goes live if you rate well, you can make the call and get your Reconquista crusade made official.

Just be ready to move fast and get it over with asap. Otherwise, you'll have big ol' French stacks lumbering around in your territories itching to beseige something. If it can't be Cordoba, Zaragoza will serve just as well.

The French hostility to the Iberian factions is just insane. In my Spain and Portugal games, I've been forced to cross the Pyranees, capture Toulouse and Aquitane, convert them to towns, then abandon them again. That usually takes the vinegar out of the French. And if it doesn't, it makes the armies they relentless send south a lot cheaper and easier to kill. You'd think a faction getting its clock cleaned by Milan would spend more money on fighting Milan and less money on blockading my ports.