The Demise Of The Pope

[Sir Boo]

After reeding varius posts of people trying to kill the pope i decided to give it a go. As I played the holy roman empire i began to think up away to finaly put an end to the pope and finally I had a stroke of genius. I realised that for a new pope to be elected the college of cardinals must vote. So knowing this i systematically wiped out all the cardinals whilst having an army waiting on the rome border. After destroying the cardinals i imedietly seiged rome taking it in 2 turns. The pope was killed, and with no college of cardinals he could not be relected. Testing whether he still might come back i played on for 20 turns, still no pope. Finally he was dead. The pope KILLED!

[Shahed]

BOOOO !! Shame on you, killing the great shepherd.
He was keeping the flock nice and tidy to piecemeal.

Now we'll have to roam about picking them off here and there... such a chore.

[Sir Boo]

The great shepard had it comming :D

[antisocialmunky]

I kinda liked the arcade style reemergence of the Pope in MTW. See how many times you could get rid of him in a row.

[Ice]

Pfft. I love the Pope. He excommunicates anyone who fights against me. Playing as Portugal, I conqured the two castle north of Spain and gifted them to the Pope. I then allied myself with the Papal States. Not only did I create a good buffer zone, he is now my best friend. I can commission any crusades I want and he keeps me safe from other Catholics.

[PaulTa]

The pope is actively conquesting in my campaign...

He's got Florence, Tolouse, Bordeaux, and a full stack landing around tunis that has yet to finish it's siege.

Not to mention that the papal navy is the largest in the world.

[Quillan]

In my game, he took Tunis and Algiers, then made the Moors into a vassal state, then went and took Thessalonica from the Byzantines when they declared war on me for the second time. He hasn't signed on to a crusade yet, though.

[Sir Boo]

All the pope DID in my game was sit there wasting my 2000 tribute per turn...

[EGr]

It's better to have 13/13 of the College of Cardinals be from your faction, like my Holy Roman Empire campaign.

[katank]

All the pope DID in my game was sit there wasting my 2000 tribute per turn...

You don't need to give him nearly as much. 100 florins along with map info every turn is more than enough to keep him perfectly happy with you even on VH. give 500 or so if you do something to irritate him.

[Zenicetus]

I've found that 300 per turn for 5 turns then rinse and repeat, is plenty for Pope bribery. I'd rather do it over time so it frees up the diplomat to talk to other diplo's roaming around near Rome. That's probably overpaying... 100 per turn may be enough, but it builds in a buffer for me to do something nasty and get a quick recovery of relations in Rome.

[dopp]

He keeps launching naval invasions. All the islands are his, plus most of Italy and the Balkans. Can't wait for him to face the Timurid panzers.

[Snoil The Mighty]

Yeah I pulled the old trick of parking my ships next to a fleet owned by His Holiness the Bishop of Rome while at war with Sicily (wanted a bit of goodwill for me a bit of excomm for Sicily doncha know). Well Sicily bit, and I won a crusade to Palermo (of all places to crusade to). I left the Pontifex Maximus to his own devices for a while since my popescale readings were maxxed for a long while afterwards and lo and behold! Sicily had been dominant, owning most of Italy, South-Central Europe and into France-now this is all part of United Papal States of Europe! He's even steamrolling into the Balkans now! LOL

[NightStar]

I am playing as Milan and the whole of Italy was mine...except for Rome of course. I wanted Rome....but knowing that the pope would relocate just about somewhere if I did assult him made me reluctant. He had after all kindly approved of 2 crusades against Venice and 2 crusades against Sicilians.

So I took Valencia, gave it to the pope and took Rome instead. Bribed him 20k and got reconciled. Of course the timing was great as I had just requested a crusade on Tunis (which was held by Sicily) and I had just parked a diplomat outside the city

Next time around I'll take Jerusalem, give it to him and then take Rome...that will probably amuse the old meddler

[sapi]

I must tell you i had the shock of my life when, playing a migration game as venice in teh holy land (and about 20 turns after giving him venice and irkanon) i saw the 'strongest faction' message pop up - the papal states :O

A quick toggle_fow showed that he'd conquered quite a few territories east of venice as well as milan itself, and florence.

In my current game the pope holds all of southern italy (florance, rome and naples) as well as corsica - without any intervention by me :P

[Sir Boo]

The more money to the pope the more the shepard will follow you... I say 2000 a turn is anoth to invade any catholic country even if he tells you not too, by next turn your perfect again...

[elbasto]

Excelent discovery Sir Boo!

[Sir Boo]

Thank You :D

[sapi]

I was trying to avoid doing what the op suggested but in my hre game my cardinal died one turn before he would have become pope (i just wiped out the papacy's armies and killed the pope each turn until he was a prefaritzi, but without any allies he never got elected :( I was two away from having him the last cardinal so he'd get there by default), so in the end i just killed him.

Interestingly, the excommunication penalty seems to have decreased...

[macdaddy]

I did something similiar completely by accident. :)

The pope died and a vote was called. I tried to buy someone elses votes, it didnt work, I clicked the check mark and somehow managed to exit the vote screen. This left the papacy VACANT. I continued to not call a vote until I had more cardinals and could guarantee one of my guys would get in, primarily because I wanted a crusade....

So once the pope dies, you can avoid him coming back so long as you have one cardinal and avoid voting for a faction.

[Vladimir]

I did something similiar completely by accident. :)

The pope died and a vote was called. I tried to buy someone elses votes, it didnt work, I clicked the check mark and somehow managed to exit the vote screen. This left the papacy VACANT. I continued to not call a vote until I had more cardinals and could guarantee one of my guys would get in, primarily because I wanted a crusade....

So once the pope dies, you can avoid him coming back so long as you have one cardinal and avoid voting for a faction.

Liberum veto for the Papacy!

[katank]

Sweet. Abstaining == instant veto? You are going down, popesta

[Zenicetus]

Speaking of the Pope's demise.... my game is going the complete opposite of Sapi's papal rampage, post-patch. Sicily has taken Rome and pushed the Papal States out of Italy. Their last remaining province is the island of Ajaccio (sp?), with a family member (not the Pope) holed up there. I can't find the Pope anywhere on the map, although he's still shown on the papal relations window. Must be hiding under a table somewhere.

[Sir Boo]

I have to say it is interesting how the papal states action / conquest differs for everybody hmm i wonder why...

[mrmarquez]

Speaking of the Pope's demise.... my game is going the complete opposite of Sapi's papal rampage, post-patch. Sicily has taken Rome and pushed the Papal States out of Italy. Their last remaining province is the island of Ajaccio (sp?), with a family member (not the Pope) holed up there. I can't find the Pope anywhere on the map, although he's still shown on the papal relations window. Must be hiding under a table somewhere.

He is near Rome... Sicily took Rome when they got excommunicated..probably 50th turn.

Since then Pope is near Rome..if I get excommed I just attack his bodyguard

[sapi]

The nice side of killing the pope, i find, is that when you win the campaign one of your own popes gets elected

[PureFodder]

In my game the Pope dicided to go on a Rambo style amphibious Papal rampage at me. 1 Pope vs 1 Fortress, place your bets....



In the end the Pope tried to seige the fortress and got slaughtered by some peasants, which I felt was a rather fitting end for him.

[General Zhukov]

Hey Purefodder it looks like Eqypt is doing pretty well in your game. I'm a big fan of Egypt. Did they manage to oust the Turks from Anatolia?

[PureFodder]

Hey Purefodder it looks like Egypt is doing pretty well in your game. I'm a big fan of Egypt. Did they manage to oust the Turks from Anatolia?

They've done a great job of taking the entirety of the holy lands and have expanded all the way through Turkey and were last seen heading into Greece to fight the Hungarians. They left me entirely alone despite sharing a boarder for most of the game, but the Mongols are most likely giving them plenty of hassle now. Funny thing is, in my last game Egypt was the only faction to get destroyed by someone other than me.

[Derfasciti]

Hmph not a bad idea you had there, congrats. I'm probably too lazy to try/do something so immense as that though. Perhaps if my English campaign turns out to tick off the pope, who's an englishman, then perhaps I'll give a try at assassinating him.

Either way, your idea would be another one to try too if I'm ever up to it.