Broad strategy: Total War vs Happy Pope

[steev]

It seems to me there are two broad strategical apporaches to this game:
1. You pretty much ignore the Pope, get ex-commed early on, and go smash up all the armies everyone sends at you. This keeps a nice organised empire, but you're involved in Total War, with everyone.
2. You keep the Pope happy, so you mostly attack only people that are on his shit list, and end up with provinces all over the shop.
Total War option is the easier to play, but I find Happy Pope gives a more amusing game, with much more of the flavour of the historical period.
Opinions?

[Omisan]

"Happy Pope" is easy with the pope-o-matic.

[SadCat]

I like happy pope. It is why I have problems with the long campaign. He slows down my expansion. I pay for indulgence to keep him happy and now and then let him drop the yellow card to take a city. It works but by mid game I am at war with every one but him. In fact I had to buy him a city in this game. He let my spies dump him out of rome. So Sad. Thanks for all the help in the Spy thread! SadCat

[sableblack]

don't understand. i play both. only fight my immediate neighbours. blitzkreig one at a time and defend against others until it is their turn. always aim to shorten by borders and battlefronts. always allied to pope with 9 or 10 crosses. always do what he tells me apart from idiot crusades that i was too late in choosing a target of my own to the middle east. always ignore him then. i will go on those when i have taken byzantium down. all mt territory must be contiguous. is this a strat called total happy pope war.
ps if he tells me not to attack just attack another of my many enemies (vh/vh so i always have a few)

[supadodo]

Gah the best way is to ally with pope. He will never betray you and will excomm factions who attack you. Pay him 100 florins per turn to keep up relations. Give him regions and he will expand and become something like your own extended empire except AI controlled.

[Didz]

Same here...I slip the Papal States a regular cash incentive to stay friendly. usually between 250-500 florin per turn until my PoM reads 9/10. I also consider crusades to be nothing more than loot fests aimed at turning over a maximum profit. So, any cities captured are milked for as much tax as possible and then trashed and handed over to the Pope as a present, before my army is extracted and shipped home. Unlike Bush, I never leave an army in the middle east.

[sapi]

Option 2: Total War

I mostly ignore the pope, engaging all of my neighbours at once.

I'm in negatives for my economy until around turn 20, but by then i'll have over 25 territories so it won't matter...

[MStumm]

I used to ignore the pope but after he called a crusade against me I'll consider being nice next time.

[_Tristan_]

I generally go on the happy Pope story...I try to make everybody nice and easy then I tempt them to attack me and send Crusades on rampage through their lands, taking and sacking then either gifting to the Pope or letting go rebel (having destroyed any and all buildings in those settlements)...

I call it Burned Earth In Reverse...

[Patricius]

One, usually. It might change now that have been playing 1.2, and I might also get rid of that setting in one of the files that makes the ai combine against the more successful factions, some sort of 'tall poppy' behaviour. Perhaps the most enjoyable is transgressing blatantly and then trying to return to his favour. There do seem to be somewhat less crusades. Being able to join a crusade is obviously a very useful thing early in the game. That might incline me towards one again.

[Razor1952]

MTW2 is the first TW game that I can really role play. I try to be a medieval adherent of Machiavelli , that requires looking for Papal indulgences. Unlike the the cynics above my noble sire fights crusades for the true cause keeping the Saracens at bay, above all being chivalrous.

The game is short enough without blitzkrieg, I just relax and let the plague take me.

[kawligia]

If you just station a diplomat outside Rome to be on permanent "Pope kissing duty" (gift 1000 gold every now and then) you will easily stay at max Papal relations no matter who is Pope.

As a result you will only get warnings that your favor will drop and not the excomm one.

[TevashSzat]

Having a happy Pope could help total war since you could frequently use crusades against your enemies

[BadBreath]

If you just station a diplomat outside Rome to be on permanent "Pope kissing duty" (gift 1000 gold every now and then) you will easily stay at max Papal relations no matter who is Pope.

As a result you will only get warnings that your favor will drop and not the excomm one.

I do the same. I once got a warning saying I would be excommed if I continued a siege. I went ahead anyway and assaulted the city but never got excommed.

I was at top in the pope-o-meter (love that term btw) and the target was about the middle.

BB

[sapi]

Well, if you do want to play nice with the pope, just set up a 100 florin/turn tribute with him in the second or third turn to last the entire game...

[Shahed]

That's exactly what I do with all those factions I want to have relatinships with. What I discovered is:

1. Usually they will reject 100/turn for more than 40 turns even if relationship is already at a perfect level. They do accept it though, just did'nt occur with me that often. I've had to set up 20 turn tributes and then redo them when they expire.
2. The relationship decreases anyway, even if such tributes are set up. Often at the end of 5-6 turns the relationship has gone from Perfect to so-so, even with these tributes and no hostile actions.
3. It seems there is no difference between paying 10K florins directly or paying 2500 over 5 turns, the impact on relationship is immediate and does not hold over time. Relationship will deteriorate anyway.

[Sentinel]

I have never been excommunicated. At the start of a catholic campaign, the first thing I do is send a diplomat to Rome. I gift him about 500 – 600 gold and go up 1 point on the pope-o-meter. Repeat this until the relations are perfect, offer trade rights and an alliance, then exit the diplomatic screen.
If money is short you can gift him an attack or gift him your map (or better still, sell it for 2 or 3 points worth of gold). Now you can attack any other catholic faction without being excommunicated. All that happen is you lose 1 point for each attack. Just leave the agent next to Rome so he can top up your points every 3 or 4 attacks.

This way involves a little more micro-management, but is more cost effective than a regular tribute. If in a given turn you don’t attack any Christian factions, or you complete one of his missions or build a cathedral, your standing might not need topping up.

[Midnight]

I'll have to give Happy-Pope a try when the patch is out - my previous Catholic games have all had something of an 'up yours' attitude to His Holiness, but the territories come in so quickly that way, and ex-comm discontent fortunately isn't that hard to manage.

[wzup]

When i played as england i was on the popes good side untill i no longer needed his services which was about 1/3 through the game. This made the game much more entertaining.

[LegioScythia]

I don't really bother with the pope only when i have a really low rating with him i send him a few thousands to calm him down.

[uanime5]

I tend to attack several cities belonging to a faction in one turn; pay the Pope a few thousand florins I got from looting to increase my reputation back to perfect (10 crosses); then rebuild my armies and plan my next attack, while weaking my enemy with assassins and waiting for the Pope's 'Cease hostility' order to run out. This keeps the Pope happy and lets me crush my enemies.

[Indy1958]

Dear Gang:

Good afternoon from Canada!!! I hope this finds you and yours well. As for me, I could complain...yadda, yadda, yadda.

I'm totally for the Happy Pope idea. I play as Sicily, and he's happier than a pig in mud with me. I follow his every instruction, like build churches, chapels and send priests on conversion missions. I'm also proud to say that my last Crusade was very successful.

I do like the idea of going to war against those factions who are in His Hatness' doghouse. That sounds like a GREAT idea!!!

Live long and prosper, take care and thank you kindly!!!

Sincerely yours always,

Indy.

[phonicsmonkey]

I've been playing Medieval2:HappyPope now for my whole Venetian campaign. seems almost too easy to keep the Pope onside with regular gifts, especially when you have a college full of your own cardinals and the Hat is your best boy from way back when...

I'm considering forbidding myself from crusading against excommed catholic factions, as it seems overpowered. Not only do you get to field as many full stack armies as you like for free, but you can also sack as many cities as you like on the way to reap a huge cash bonus.

In fact in the early game I was close to bankruptcy until I managed to get Milan ex-commed and crusaded to Milan via Genoa....

[_Tristan_]

If you just station a diplomat outside Rome to be on permanent "Pope kissing duty" (gift 1000 gold every now and then) you will easily stay at max Papal relations no matter who is Pope.

As a result you will only get warnings that your favor will drop and not the excomm one.

I haven't given a single penny to the Pope and I'm on Perfect standing..

My recipe :

1/ Park a diplomat outside Rome or any Papal-owned settlement.
2/ Give Map Info for free to the Pope
3/ Give Trade Rights and Allaince for free also... You should get a perfect rating
4/ Give map info everytime the standing falls below perfect.
5/ Request crusade as soon as you can and select target where you're sure to be first...

Saves a lot of money...

Works with almost all factions btw...

[steev]

At the beginning of the game its hard to keep the Pope happy as you have to squish all those nearby factions - but on the other hand ex-comm isnt too much of a pain as the settlements are small and few - you just have to fight everyone, and if you're playing something like France then you'll be fighting everyone anyway. Once you've got a dozen provinces it seems there are lots of options - you can corner the college of cardinals, rotate attacks on factions that are in disfavour, build cathedrals (each one gives one point on the popometer). Late in the game when you've got 40 provinces it would be a nightmare to have to go through all the admin of getting ex-commed, even though there's nothing the AI can do in military terms to take you on.