Challenge: Pope-o-matic espionage!

[Whacker]

OK ladies and germs, your good buddy Whacker has a challenge for all you sneaky player types!

First, a short background, this came to me playing my current campaign as Milan. Still playing the sneaky, underhanded, full-chivalry, best-friend type... only going to war when people attack me first, not using assassins at all, and buying all non-rebel land from other factions. The bottom line is I'd really like to snag Rome, and relocate his Popeliness to a small island like Malta or Palma.

So, the bottom line:

There's a few parts to this, partial answers are acceptable, however the grand prize will be given if all conditions can be met. Here it is:

- Relocate the Pope (his capital) to a place of your choosing. (I'm thinking about Malta, if ya'll need an example)

- Convince him to give you Rome, OR
- Somehow get him to make the new place his Capital and get Rome to rebel then capture it for yourself, OR
- Just get Rome to rebel so you can capture it for yourself.*

- At NO point can we go to war with him. Ticking him off is somewhat ok, as long as the relations do not go too low, and we can get them right back up to perfect with cash the next turn after this is done. You get the general idea.

- Keep him to one province at all times, except when making "the trade".

- Would like to avoid using assassins unless it's utterly impossible. If I *must* use them, then we need to keep it absolutely minimal.

I believe it's possible to meet all of these, but I'd like ya'lls advice and counsel here. If anyone knows how to do this, it's you guys.

Cheers!



* I understand the basics of trying to get a town to rebel, but honestly have never succeeded at it. So, instead of answers like "just stick some spies in his city", something more along the lines of "Stick at least 3 level 5 spies in to lower order by x", and/or "the max unrest one can cause with spies is x" is what I'm looking for.

[Laconic]

If you're Muslim or Orthadox, you might can flood his lands with priests/imams to increase religious unrest to add to the unrest that the spies create. Don't give the pope cash, cash supports troops and buildings that create happiness. Make him raise money the old-fashioned way, by taxing the hell out of his peasants. If you are particularly well off, you could try to orchestrate a war between the pope and an enemy (of which he seems to have no shortage). Build up a citadel or two in Italy, gift them to the pope's enemy, and give him plenty of cash and see what carnage you can cause. If and when Rome is captured, sweep in and grab it yourself.

[Agent Smith]

Just out of curiosity, does the religions of surrounding territories affect the religious unrest of other territories? So, if Rome was surrounded by, say, Orthodox regions, would that contribute to the religious unrest in Rome?

[supadodo]

Haha I've done this before in my HRE campaign.
As Pope was my ally, I had to find a way to achieve my victory without getting excommed. So I started planting lots of spies in Rome and then tried to get the stack inside to leave by causing the Pope to go to war with another faction.

Soon enough, Rome rebelled and I quickly claimed it. Well during that time, had gifted lots of land to the Pope so he had plenty of places to dump in. However....I gave Rome back to the Pope because he kept pestering me to return Rome or get the "Your standing with the Pope will not be as high as it once was"

[FactionHeir]

A faction will not give you a settlement via diplomacy unless it has a total of at least 4 settlements. Keeping that in mind, if you were to give the Pope 3 settlements, wait a turn and then buy off Rome, that would work, that is unless Rome is the capital, which it usually is. You could try gifting him 3 faraway clustered provinces to perhaps force a change in capital.

Other method is making the pope to go war with surrounding factions. Sicily and the italians are perfect for that. Just attack any of those factions while a papal stack (ground or fleet) is nearby to initiate war. Then gift the pope's new foes some florins and try to block the way of papal forces, assassinating their commanders if necessary (they might go rebel)
If you want, you can gift said faction all regions surrounding Rome before doing so.

last method is to try to make the region another religion but christian. Best is heretic. Then destroy any church structure using assassins and infiltrate with spies.

[Kobal2fr]

You can't buy Rome as it's the faction's capital, AFAIK.

Here's sneakiness incarnate :

First, give him Rhodes or whatever island you want him to have. The best thing would be to give him a heavily contested/dangerous/riotous province so he has to fight to keep it - the Levant post-Mongols, smack in the middle of Turkey, Constantinople, you name it. Rhodes would work too of course, but anything that will drain his treasury and military is good.

Then secure military rights from the Pope. Build lots of troops, two or three stacks worth, and send them to the Rome region without a general. Let simmer. They'll eventually turn rebel. The Pope will deplete his military to fight them, especially if they're good autocalc troops. Hopefully, by the time he's beaten them he'll be 1)at the head of a severely depleted force and 2) far away from Rome, chasing the last rebel dregs.

While he's out fighting the barbarian horde, send a gazillion spies in Rome, and use assassins to torch the law and happiness buildings (yeah, I know, but you can't make a town go rebel without the assassins). This MUST be done in one single turn, else he'll just build more militia to counter the PO threat.
Hopefully you can then be the Hero of Christendom and save Rome from this ghastly revolt... then keep it and let His Holiness rot in his dominion over Rhodes "for his protection"

Alternatively, you could also get the pope to start a war with another Italian faction, like Sicily, as has been said, and back them up financially. If the pope calls for a Crusade against them, you'll have to kill either the pope or the "rogue faction"'s king though, to make sure they're not wiped out and conquered by your land hungry neighbours.

[alpaca]

I would give somebody Florence and get them to attack the pope. For example the Byzantines who have Rome as their campaign target.

[stabularasa]

- At NO point can we go to war with him. Ticking him off is somewhat ok, as long as the relations do not go too low, and we can get them right back up to perfect with cash the next turn after this is done. You get the general idea.

Take one of your largest settlements without a guild and spam priests and build churches there. You should soon get a theologians' guild, keep going until you get the theologians' guild headquarters. Keep spamming priests.

My approach may not be as friendly as yours, but it works... if you want to get relations back up to perfect in the next turn - and you don't even have to spend money - the pope must die.

You'll need to dominate the college of Cardinals so that your vote is decisive. The theologians' guild hq gives you awesome priests.

Then, either assassinate the pope and attack Rome, or attack Rome with him in it and kill him, and make sure you have some good siege equipment so you can take it in the same turn.

In the next turn you will get to vote for the new pope (yours) who will love you.

[Kobal2fr]

The downside being that he's probably allied with the Papal States, and if he attacks them then his reputation will sink like a mob enforcer who's threatened to testify...

[Whacker]

Thanks guys for the ideas so far. I'm probably going to end up giving something like Kobal's a shot in the very near future.

Take one of your largest settlements without a guild and spam priests and build churches there. You should soon get a theologians' guild, keep going until you get the theologians' guild headquarters. Keep spamming priests.

My approach may not be as friendly as yours, but it works... if you want to get relations back up to perfect in the next turn - and you don't even have to spend money - the pope must die.

You'll need to dominate the college of Cardinals so that your vote is decisive. The theologians' guild hq gives you awesome priests.

Then, either assassinate the pope and attack Rome, or attack Rome with him in it and kill him, and make sure you have some good siege equipment so you can take it in the same turn.

In the next turn you will get to vote for the new pope (yours) who will love you.

I considered this, giving him a province then wiping him out quickly to initiate a re-vote. Only problem is it'll take awhile to build up to this, I haven't built any priests whatsoever in my current game. The reason I said no to this is because IIRC others have stated that negative actions like this will last much longer over time, hence he'll remember I backstabbed him. Also, I'm trying to do this while maintaining a good rep.

[stabularasa]

Ok. This is probably the nastiest and most inhumane strategy ever:

Wait for the Black Plague. Get one of your spies in a city that has the Plague. Send this spy to infiltrate Rome. Every turn, take your spy out, and put him back in, securing the infection. (it's best to have more than 1 spy because... well... it's THE PLAGUE)

In my current campaign, I destroyed every single building in the city that I could using assassins' sabotage. Eventually, the population of Rome, once a huge city, was down to less than 6000 people.

I then bought Rome from the Papal States for 20,000 florins, which was Very Generous, and my relationship with them improved from so-so to perfect.

Note, this method requires the Papal States capital to be elsewhere, and they need at least 3 other settlements.

[PseRamesses]

Some time ago I was able, as the HRE, to swap Jerusalem and two castles in the Outremer for Rome. Talk about a true Holy Roman Empire. Later the Pope successfully defended the Holy Lands against both the Mongols and the Timurids but never grew larger than 5 provinces.