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.