Holy Crises or Papal Problem?

[agvkrioni]

Yeah I started as Italy and my main goal was to unite the peninsula. I took over Rome and the Papal States but the Pop came back about 40 years or so later (I don't really know, I know the year he comes back is anywhere from 1143 to 1146). His army is usually 2800-4500 strong depending on how many states he tries to take.

If he only goes for one state, the army is usually 2800+ units. Now I can do a mad scramble starting at my last save til the time he comes and amass usually around 2900 forces or more. It always seems that no matter how many forces he has in one state, I can do about 200-700 more. Doesn't matter though, no matter how many forces I have, even if I use my highest valor princess and my one general with 5 stars, the pope always defeats me.

I always do autobattle because I haven't really mastered even the most novice parts of manual battle.

Helps me, oh Lord, helps me.

[agvkrioni]

EDIT: When I said that I use my "highest valor princess", I meant to type, "highest valor princes". And those princes are only 3 stars.

[caravel]

Welcome, agvkrioni, to the .org.

The Pope always comes back, there's nothing much you can do about it. you'll have to either keep sufficient armies in the Papal States and Rome or Just avoid him. Wiping him out is actually a bad idea. The Pope as he is at the start of the game is not too dangerous. He trains poor units and is never a threat, which is why it's best to leave him alone. If you are going to attack him, take Rome and let him retreat to the Papal States. Then leave him there till the end of the campaign.

I'm not sure why this thread is here in this forum, it should be in the Main Hall.

[bamff]

There was a really good thread on dealing with His Holiness.....but I can't for the life of me locate it. From memory, Macsen Rufus had an interesting way of keeping a lid on the Papacy...

There is this thread in the MTW library with some similar info to the thread I was thinking of:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=24901

Hope that is of some help, agvkrioni

[macsen rufus]

Hmm, what? My ears are burning... who's talking about me, huh?

Hi Bamff

Here's the "pope on a rope" strategy Bamff mentioned, hope it helps!

In my current game I have a very powerful Pope, but I'm playing as the Crusader States in XL, so to role-play, I've had a rule on "no excommunications" -- hence I've not used the usually strategy against the Pope, or attacked any other catholics unless excommunicated. Papal lands stretch from Lorraine down to Naples, the biggest I've seen that faction get. We're at showdown stage, and the Pope has me to the east, the English to the west, and there are a couple of tiny factions left huddled on islands (Sicilians in Malta - no port!, Byz in Rhodes). The Poles have a couple of provinces left, isolated from each other and both sandwiched between me and the English. I'm REALLY hoping the English will attack the Poles or Sicilians so the Pope can do his excomm magic, but they've just attacked me instead. Down goes my trade (major customer was the English!), and they've just thrown 9000 men at me in Carpathia. I only have 2800, but it is a bridge battle, currently on pause.... just hoping there's no power cuts before I get home from work I've just about beaten them back. But I could really do with them getting excommunicated!

[Adrian II]

This gave me an auto ceasefire, and the Pope was left with a useless army that cost more in upkeep than his territory could supply in income. He can never build ANYTHING else ever again Not even a border fort, which means I can afford to leave a Grand Inquisitor and Assassin (now up to 6*) and spy on permanent duty in the Papal States.

Brilliant!

I already used to keep His Holiness in a reservation in Rome or the Papal States to prevent (1) his sudden re-emergence, and (2) lengthy ex-communication (I would kill him in battle or through an Assassin). But preventing him from even building anything is a nice improvement.

Good thinking.

[naut]

A good strategy, will try it if in need.

[caravel]

The Papacy in Lorraine??? I've never seen them that far. The furthest I've ever seen the papacy is Tuscany, Serbia and Malta, and to be honest that was mostly in Vanilla MTW v1.0. I actually find that wiping him out makes him return either much more challenging, or economically crippled due to the huge support costs of his new army. The very best place I've ever seen the pope was in Malta. The Sicilians had died out leaving only a rebel spearman garisson there. The Pope, having built enough ships invaded, the following year. The next year I was straight into Rome and the Papal States, and sunk all of his ships leaving the Pope Isolated in Malta, with a sizeable force, no border forts, a negative bank balance and no escape. Lucky.

[Deus ret.]

Wow, the Pope in Middle Europe? Now that's also something new to me, albeit I remember the Papal AI to be far more aggressive/expansive in XL than in any other mod. Maybe this has something to do with him being available to play as a faction?

Nevertheless I also got to try this nice method of macsen rufus. the prospect sounds very sensible to me....

[macsen rufus]

Maybe this has something to do with him being available to play as a faction?

You may well be right, Deus ret, I hadn't considered that. Certainly seems as though the faction has acquired a personality the "unplayable" version doesn't adopt.

From the top of my head, I think they currently hold Provence, Savoy, Lorraine, Burgundy, all of Italy bar Rome and Genoa (English), Swabia, Tyrolia, Croatia, Sardinia and Corsica. Earlier they held Serbia and Austria too, but lost them to the Hungarians, who lost them to me They also have quite a navy, too, but the English are the naval superpower, my big worry right now!

The French are holed up in Switzerland, a little blue dot in a sea of gold, quite funny really.

One other thing in this camapign, not sure why but the first five turns or so of the campaign, the Pope gave me the 1000 florin gifts for services to Church etc, never had so many, and certainly not all in a row like that. Needless to say, our alliance has lasted intact from 1206 through to 1330ish. It's probably the only campaign I've played where the Pope hasn't been his usual Holy Pain-in-the-buttness. It makes a nice change

[Don Esteban]

One other thing in this camapign, not sure why but the first five turns or so of the campaign, the Pope gave me the 1000 florin gifts for services to Church etc, never had so many, and certainly not all in a row like that. Needless to say, our alliance has lasted intact from 1206 through to 1330ish. It's probably the only campaign I've played where the Pope hasn't been his usual Holy Pain-in-the-buttness. It makes a nice change

Well as i understand it the Pope gives you money when he has it to spare. If things are going well for his faction he has more to spare which might explain why the two events happened together.

Nice to have a helpful pope for a change, are you sure your ruler isn't his father or something?

[Adrian II]

The Papacy in Lorraine??? I've never seen them that far.

Now if it were the Provence I would understand. Avignon, you see...

[Martok]

I've actually seen the Papacy become a bonafide superpower on occasion, although it's still extremely rare (I could count on one hand the number of times it's happened).

I remember one particular campaign a couple years ago when that happened, in which the Pope owned all of Europe from the Pyrenees and Atlantic Ocean to the eastern borders of the old Holy Roman Empire. Only the British Isles remained outside his control, as they were still held by the English. He and I had a satisfyingly terrific war against each other, as Catholicism and Orthodoxy met in an epic clash over which version of Christianity was to rule the continent. It was one of the most fun campaigns I've ever had.

[Odin]

I've actually seen the Papacy become a bonafide superpower on occasion, although it's still extremely rare (I could count on one hand the number of times it's happened).

I remember one particular campaign a couple years ago when that happened, in which the Pope owned all of Europe from the Pyrenees and Atlantic Ocean to the eastern borders of the old Holy Roman Empire. Only the British Isles remained outside his control, as they were still held by the English. He and I had a satisfyingly terrific war against each other, as Catholicism and Orthodoxy met in an epic clash over which version of Christianity was to rule the continent. It was one of the most fun campaigns I've ever had.

In my recent "My first go with the turks" expirence the Papacy did rather well early but faltered in the end. Genoa went rebel early (lack of heirs i believe) and as I removed the Byzantines from asia minor the Pope removed them from Italy proper.

I had taken Venice and from there moved south east down toward the black sea, he moved north and got as far as switzerland before a reemerging HRE reclaimed some provinces from the boheimans and stopped the pope cold.

Still, the AI pope benefited from some real fortunate events, the Genoese collapse netted him 3-4 provinces if I recall correctly.

[Enigma13]

I often play as Italy so I have never really seen the Papacy excel (mostly due to my smothering them). I always employ the strategy of taking Rome as soon as I have the strength and then letting the Papacy whither in the Papal States. I try to time that assault so that either my Doge or his Holiness is of an advanced age and any excommunication will not last long.

After I have Rome I try to play nice with the Pope the rest of the campaign. He usually is so weakened and has so little income that he will just quietly go along authorizing crusades. I try to do my expansion against fellow Catholics in waves that always coincide with an old Pope or an old Doge. My current Italian campaign is probably my last. I am currently working on a modest mod that will give me plenty of new factions to play with for a while. Included will be a playable pagan Lithuania that should be fun to play with so that I don't have to worry about the Pope (at least when I play an early or high game).

[Sensei Warrior]

I managed to groom a Papal Superpower once.

I saw the Pope become a Superpower in a earlier Campaign I was playing as the English. As the English I had an annoying habit of being excommed so I took care of it the old fashioned way, I conquered the Pope.

Then I got the dubiously smart idea of continuously bashing the remergence. I started teching up Rome and the Papal Estates. I had numeruous stacks of armies there to greet the Pope when he reared his ugly little head. This was great for a long while, I stopped more than a few attempted comebacks and everything was going well until ...

You guessed it, I lost a battle. The Pope gained a foothold, I was excommed, and banished from the 2 Provences. Oh well, I figured I'd leave the Pope alone for a bit as my King was old and due to break a hip. Italy was excommed for something, and the Pope took over the Italian States, and then Sicily, and then parts of the HRE. The Pope turned into a war machine. I pulled the plug on the game frustrated with the Pope's attacks and my continual state of excommunication.

I accidentally created that monster. The next campaign I played was as the Turks, and I did it again. I conquered the Papacy. Waited for a militarily large remergence. Then when I thought it would work abandoned the teched up Provences. The Pope played it cool all the way up to the excomm of a neighboring faction. Once that happened, the Pope attacked and never stopped. I never finished the campaign (comp probs), but he was pretty big when it ended.

I think the mix of lots o tech, units, and a dash of excomm = one warhawk of a Pope. Oh and all of this happened with MTW/VI.

[therussian91]

I've actually seen the Papacy become a bonafide superpower on occasion, although it's still extremely rare (I could count on one hand the number of times it's happened).

I remember one particular campaign a couple years ago when that happened, in which the Pope owned all of Europe from the Pyrenees and Atlantic Ocean to the eastern borders of the old Holy Roman Empire. Only the British Isles remained outside his control, as they were still held by the English. He and I had a satisfyingly terrific war against each other, as Catholicism and Orthodoxy met in an epic clash over which version of Christianity was to rule the continent. It was one of the most fun campaigns I've ever had.

I remember I played a Byzantine campaign when I first got XL mod. There were in essence only two super powers by the end of the game: me and the pope. I had all of the East (Middle East, Russia, Central/eastern Europe), and the pope had most, if not all of Western Europe. Really interesting.

Of course, I got really bored towards the end and just blitzkrieged with my troops to get the 2/3 conquering thing to win

[Don Esteban]

I'm playing the crusaders in XL right now and the Papacy is expanding fast having taken Milan, Venice and Genoa and is now attacking the HRE. Since I'm trying to roleplay I don't know what i'll do if we come into direct contact. For now I have plenty of non-Catholics to bash but the time will come.....

[macsen rufus]

Hi Don Esteban -- I'm doing that campaign right now, so far the Pope has been a loyal ally, and he's stuck between me and the English. I found the role-playing made it tough, having to cut off wars against catholics when they got re-communicated before my strategic goals were met. If he did attack me now, I'd be in a spot of bother, but so long as he remains honourable I have a nicely protected flank on the strat map

I'm really hoping he'll find some reason to excommunicate the English...

[Don Esteban]

Hi Don Esteban -- I'm doing that campaign right now, so far the Pope has been a loyal ally, and he's stuck between me and the English. I found the role-playing made it tough, having to cut off wars against catholics when they got re-communicated before my strategic goals were met. If he did attack me now, I'd be in a spot of bother, but so long as he remains honourable I have a nicely protected flank on the strat map

I'm really hoping he'll find some reason to excommunicate the English...

So what rules are you playing?

Mine are:-

No attacking catholic factions (unless excommunicated)

Always let crusades pass

If forced to choose between allies always choose Catholics over non-catholics

Must always hold holy lands - if lost my first priority should be their recapture

Build churches in every province and try and convert all provinces to Catholicism.

it's one of the most enjoyable campaigns I have played and not easy at the beginning although now I hold most of turkey, Georgia (as a chokepoint) and down to Cyrenicia I can now buils up my forces and concentrate on the recapture of Constantinople.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Don -- pretty much the same rules here. Add in that I NEVER allied to any Muslim faction, and only briefly to pagans for a short term strategic advantage! I did ally to the monophysite heretics of the Eastern Church, but likewise, when it came to choosing, I always stayed with the good Catholic boys

The biggest problem it gave me was when I was trying to take over the Empire of the Excommunicated Swedes, I got halfway through the job and the Pope died... so I had to stop. Instead of controlling the Baltic Rim I ended up with my Muscovy army all poised to invade Novgorod, and I'd taken Sweden, but it was out on a limb and isolated. It was my first iron province, so I stuck with it, hoping to build up enough of a garrison there to defend it. Alas now the English have attacked, they have me holed up in the citadel. I fought off the first 8000 man invasion, but the second one was too much, even with bronze weapon upgrades. My Crusader empire now stretches from Cyrenacea up to Muscovy, I have the English under siege in Novgorod and Lithuania. I hold Hungary, Bohemia and Bavaria as my advanced line into Europe. The English have a massive navy, but I now have the edge in land forces due to a few crushing defensive battles where I slaughtered all prisoners. The Pope is still my ally, but I don't entirely trust him. Pushing back the English is leaving me more exposed to Papal armies than I like (he has about 6000 men in Croatia, and 5000 or so in Lorraine). I really wish the English would attack him, or the Poles or Sicilians. I NEED the English excommunicated. As it is, I've had enough land victories that the Teutonic Order and the Almohads have re-emerged in English territory. But I won't ally to the muslims, and the Teutons won't ally with me, for some reason

Certainly is an interesting campaign with all the trainable crusader units (at last the Palestine valour bonus MEANS something ), but I do miss a good, high morale AP/anti-cav unit. The best I can manage is dismounted RKs for chiv foot knights, but they're only 20-man units (although a v12 prince with weapon/armour upgrades seriously kicks some butt ) I do have some billmen picked up from an earlier crusade through English lands, but they're not teched up, and are getting eroded by battle.

I've not really gone into converting provinces as a 'rule', but as I use a lot of halberdiers I always build churches anyway for morale bonuses, and also like to use bishops for my surveillance of enemy lands (too many border forts on the map to use spies and assassins, and the AI really likes to kill my emissaries....) GL with your Crusading

[Don Esteban]

Hi Don -- pretty much the same rules here. Add in that I NEVER allied to any Muslim faction, and only briefly to pagans for a short term strategic advantage! I did ally to the monophysite heretics of the Eastern Church, but likewise, when it came to choosing, I always stayed with the good Catholic boys

well historically the Crusaders did sometimes ally with one Muslim faction against another so I allow that but since they are a bunch of treacherus b*******s they never last long anyway.

I am currently facing off a 10.000 strong Almohad army in Tunisia which is slowing expansion but i think a quick "reconquista" of Spain might solve that particular issue

[macsen rufus]

historically the Crusaders did sometimes ally with one Muslim faction against another

True, the First Crusade allied with the Fatimids against the Seljuks, good call!

My campaign has reached a stage, now! The English launched yet another attack, 9k against my 3k, 9* King Richard leading the English dogs. He got to taste the sharp end of a Crusader arbalest bolt, and lo his army wasted away before my glorious warriors What I didn't realise was he had no heirs, and half of the map went rebel, and the Danes and Armenians re-emerged. The plus side was that the English fleet vanished, but unfortunately I couldn't get ships back from the Med to the Atlantic and Baltic quick enough, so now the Pope has taken most of the rebel lands that didn't join the Armenians or Danes, and he snatched my Sweden the same year I was bribing the rebel garrison Troubles with the re-emerged Teutonic Order in the Baltic had halted my Baltic shipbuilding effort.

Although I'm close to 60%, I don't think it's possible to make any more headway without attacking Catholics or the Pope himself. There are re-emerged Almohads in southern Spain, with two provinces, Armenians have one in Algeria, Kievans came back in Kiev (I pulled out, as the rebel garrison was of the "direct assault only" type in a citadel, so I thought I'd pull back, and reinvade next year, but I got a re-emergence instead ) And Scotland is in rebel hands. All "takeable" but then I'm stuck with nowhere else to go without breaking the rules, and I don't think those 5 provinces are enough for me to win.

EVERY province outside my empire has border forts, so spies and assassins (even my v4 Syrian blades) are useless, zeal all over Europe has dropped to 0-10% levels, so Inquisitors are useless. The Pope now holds Wessex, most of France, Norway + Sweden, and a couple of Spanish provinces. But he is being a very good ally, dropped his alliance to the Danes when they attacked me

As well as never seeing the papal empire so big, I don't think I've ever had an alliance last over 150 years before, or gone so long as a Catholic without at least one little excommunication along the way

[Don Esteban]

Although I'm close to 60%, I don't think it's possible to make any more headway without attacking Catholics or the Pope himself. There are re-emerged Almohads in southern Spain, with two provinces, Armenians have one in Algeria, Kievans came back in Kiev (I pulled out, as the rebel garrison was of the "direct assault only" type in a citadel, so I thought I'd pull back, and reinvade next year, but I got a re-emergence instead ) And Scotland is in rebel hands. All "takeable" but then I'm stuck with nowhere else to go without breaking the rules, and I don't think those 5 provinces are enough for me to win.

Well you could always convert to Islam (as allegedly many templars did) and attack the Pope - not necessarily good roleplaying but very satisfying no doubt.

Luckily for me the Almohads are the main other superpower so I should reach 60% with little difficulty.

[EatYerGreens]

I did ally to the monophysite heretics of the Eastern Church

I had to look up the entry on 'monophysite' when I encountered it, quite recently.

For anyone who ever prided themself on posessing what they thought to be an above-average vocabulary, encountering any entirely new word for the first time, decades after leaving full-time education, comes as a shock.

After spending little more than an hour, browsing various Wiki articles, I'd clocked up half a dozen similar shocks... ;)


Anyway, this came about as a result of reading the Wiki article on the Byzantines which, in turn was caused by me returning to MTW:VI after a hiatus of 14 months or so (I've similarly been away from the forum without so my as a 'back later' notice, for which I apologize).

Seeing that word again, in your post, raised a wry smile.


I was interested to see your role-playing 'rules'. Currently I'm playing an English campaign, which I'd left dangling since approx. November '05. Whilst I can't vouch for what I did during that phase, since the re-start, I've been applying similar ideas. Churches built regardless of whether troops are going to be built there; bishops by the dozen, everywhere but on home soil...

I don't think I've been excommed at all in this campaign. I never did have the forces required to take on the French but a series of civil wars led to them self-destructing (young, heirless King) and I mopped up the shattered remains. Aragon & Navarre were taken in part one and I forget whether I got XC'd for that (they might have similarly gone extinct first). The Spanish let me be (alliance?) but got totally wiped out by a big Almo re-emergence whilst otherwise preoccupied with grabbing HRE enclaves in North Africa. The Almos rashly knobbled half my trade with a naval attack, yet neglected to blockade the northern seas and have recently paid the ultimate price... The Eggies have reached Morocco and also hold Asia Minor, bar a couple of left overs from a recent civil war. The HRE are all along my eastern borders but still neutral to me.

Three high-quality stacks of Sicilians in Provence were a long-standing thorn in the side - I could only afford 1 to 2 stacks in each of Aquitaine, Anjou and Burgundy. Their share of civil wars slowly eroded those numbers and getting themselves X-C'd eventually led to a HRE crusade winning it. All the while I could only stand by and watch this unfold because the Sicilians had those 'uncatchable' Dromons keeping me honest - in all the right places to interfere with whichever of my trade routes the Almos weren't blocking.

It's odd how the naval AI control will either be effective at making trading routes but fail to blockade thouroughly (Almos) or else be effective at maintaining the threat of blockade whilst failing to make functioning trade routes (Sicilians)...


M

[Martok]

Woah! Welcome back, EatYerGreens; it's good to see you 'round these parts again!

Sorry for the temporary hijack. We now return to your regular thread already in progress.

[macsen rufus]

Hi again EYG, good to see you back.

It's odd how the naval AI control will either be effective at making trading routes but fail to blockade thouroughly (Almos) or else be effective at maintaining the threat of blockade whilst failing to make functioning trade routes (Sicilians)...

I've noticed that too. Then there's also the case where the enemy AI faction has a HUGE fleet, controlling all sea regions except the two or three where you have your own ships, and it decides the best way to deal with the naval war is to send its ships into your regions one by one to be picked off piecemeal by your vastly underwhelming fleet. Never can see the reasoning behind that, but have been thankful for it on occasion

[EatYerGreens]

Thanks for the welcomes.



No-one seems to have addressed this point yet...

I always do autobattle because I haven't really mastered even the most novice parts of manual battle.

I'm going to assume that you meant the user-interface aspects, how to make units do what you want them to?

If so, then all you need to do is go to the Battle Tutorial menu option and the game will take you through a series of basic unit 'drills', where you can concentrate on what the buttons and mouse clicks achieve, without having to worry about enemy forces on the field.

After that, have a few goes at the "Quick Battle" option, until you're happy with the attack/missile controls.




EYG

[Adrian II]

Yep, it's EatYerGreens. The hair proves it...

I can't imagine playing M:TW without commanding my own battles, it's more than half the fun. The other half is GA. Glorious Achievements and manual battles are the heart and soul of M:TW.

Only last month we had a member who complained that he sucked at Expert mode campaigns. We gave him some tips, encouraged him to get started and now he is a fine strategist, a Master of the Turtle.

For your own good, agvkrioni, stop fooling around and mount that horse.

[macsen rufus]

Harking back to the "pope-on-a-rope" strategy, I've just reloaded that Genoese campaign (I was trying to load Hellenic TW but hit the wrong icon, then got sucked into an old game ) and have spotted a potential fly in the ointment. It seems each time a new Pope comes along, one of the existing units gets "elected". Which means, of course, that his support costs are decreasing (and so is the loyalty). The more Popes you burn or assassinate, the more likely he will get back into a positive cashflow and be able to start rebuilding or retraining. In this Genoese campaign, he now has an income of 250 or so, and support costs look to be around 180. Not a huge profit, but he may be able to save up for a watch tower and border fort, in which case my spy and assassin will have to get out PDQ. What I don't know, though, is how much debt he has to pay off from all those turns when the costs outstripped his income. Must be a fair packet... (I could check with -ian, I guess...) The other thing I don't get is why he hasn't assigned the governorship? He has some worthwhile candidates available, and being so cash-strapped you'd expect that to be a priority. But then the AI can do some dumb things with titles and offices (like the one-province factions that give the chancellor title to someone other than the governor, so the acumen boost is wasted).