Papal Dominion

[KHPike]

Would like to document here any erratic behaviour of the Papacy...share your stories.

All it takes for the Papacy to explode into an empire is for a Catholic faction to attack it or if it declares a crusade against another faction.

Yep, my Pope destroyed Milan, which he crusaded upon. So he has half of Italy up to Dijon. He's got tons of full stack armies of Papal Guard and Swiss Pikes outside my border, and it seems he's preparing to strike at my Danish allies (whom I had driven into France early in the game).

I know that usually the Pope does not attack anyone if he is left alone in Rome. However, I'm curious as to whether he'll attack me with those stacks near me since his 'expansionist side' has been triggered by Milan...

Frustratingly enough, he took Milan and Genoa, 2 very wealthy cities!

[sapi]

I migrated to the holy land as venice, giving the pope venice and irkirlon.

Around turn 20 i noticed that he was the most powerful and richest nation.

A quick toggle_fow showed that he'd gobbled up territories all the way to the border of byzantium

[Jonathan_Thompson]

I was playing HRE and had just taken rome. Bloody pope gave me hell so I started hunting down the papacy. I search all around to find him, hes not there. I toggle fow and I find hes camped out in the desert of africa Talk about hands on

[Carl]

I doubt he'll attack you TBH, theirs a limiter in the Ai files that prevents him from attacking a faction that is not excommunicated.

[dph948]

I don't usually see a papal empire, though if I'm not an Italian faction, every so often they'll take florence, and in a game as Milan I saw a stack and a half of Papal units marching across Italy into France, and found them fighting rebels and the excommunicated Portugese in Iberia, ignoring the excommed Sicilians below them.

[ASPER THE GREAT]

In the 3 camphines I have played the Pope never really expanded? In this however Sicily has declared war on the Pope and got X-com and sine I'm in the neighborhood I'm starting to attack Sicily to get some cities . Will that trigger the Pope to start being aggressive and snatch up land . let me know plz.

[Khan Krum]

In my current campaign with milan, Pope have excommunicated me on turn 15 and attacked me on the next turn besieging Genoa. I defeated him and took Rome. I killed 5 popes in a row but noone wants to reconcile me even after my faction leader died and my cardinals elected the new pope. My "pope-meter" doesn't go above one cross. I gave up trying to get peace with pope. I've been excommunicated for 80 turns so far, in war with almost all catholic factions except England and Portugal. I defeated one crusade against me but is annoying when nobody wants peace with you. I think that the Pope hates Milan, because playing with other fractions i have been excommunicated but after my faction leader or Pope died I have been reconciled. For me this is weird behavior of the pope.

[dumas]

I played Papal States before, only for a short time because I got bored after conquering all the Italian factions. But here're some things I noticed that give Papal States the edge:

-Papal States have all the nice militias that other Italian factions have. Plus, they can also make papal guards units from the cities, which are statwise equivalent to 3rd or 4th level infantry units from castles. (or Swiss Guards later on)

-If you attack a Catholic faction, THEY automatically get excommunicated and other Catholic factions are likely to turn against them.

-If you want peace, it's much easier. In the negotiations window, there's an additional option to "remove excommunication" which plays a huge factor.

-I'm not sure on this, but it seems that your reputation doesn't take much of a hit after doing something bad. I started a war with 3 factions, wiped them out, and the reputation was still at "mixed". That was within 30 turns with me doing nothing "good" like make alliances, and my Pope was at max dread (I just had way too much fun with assasin/inquisitor combo).

I think that if Milan can explode into an empire, it's no surprise that Papal States can do the same if they want to. As a side note, it's really fun running around with 10 piety inquisitors and whacking everything in sight, though unlike AI inquisitors, they can't whack whatever is in cities. On the plus side, it's ridiculously easy to level them up, there're no penalties to failed mission, and they can easily take out targets that assassins have trouble with like spies.

[Musashi]

I definitely think the Papacy has a hate factor for Milan, because I've never had the Pope act so unreasonably towards me as the first time I played as Milan.