What to do with the Papacy?

[doctrellor]

I am playing the Papacy just to see if the Almos or Eggys dominated the scene... again... I am STILL allied to a strong Byz, and I was allied to the Almos

Guess what....

The Almos...

So The Almos controlled all of Africa, Spain and France and were starting to invade Italy and the UK

When the collapsed, poof, no more heirs, so all those extremely highly trained, very agressive rebel stacks with good generals to now fight..:P

So as the Pope, I took out Sardinia, Corsica, Almost united Italy and now took North Africa and saw the Turks have Eggyland...

so at 1211, I am looking in 10 more years to start launching troops into Spain and reconquering those lands ... for me

I am wary so I am keeping full stacks in each conquered prov and keeping taxes at very low since I don't want a civil war again..:P
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So questions

1) What do you guys do with the Pope

2) The rebels are extremely tough, in fact the Venetians tried to take France/Aragon and the rebels threw them off.. each prov looks like it has 2 stacks each.. and with the ex-almos being the tech guy ALL game, I know those rebels are gonna be tough to beat

so in XL, I guess the AI plays the rebels very tough and capable?

[caravel]

I am wary so I am keeping full stacks in each conquered prov and keeping taxes at very low since I don't want a civil war again..:P

That will have no effect on the likelihood of civil war as that is determined by the number of disloyal generals and not the happiness of provinces.

2) The rebels are extremely tough, in fact the Venetians tried to take France/Aragon and the rebels threw them off.. each prov looks like it has 2 stacks each.. and with the ex-almos being the tech guy ALL game, I know those rebels are gonna be tough to beat

It is likely that the Almohads will reappear and retake most, if not all, of their former provinces. This is always a danger, but more so when a faction is wiped out by not having an heir available and leaves a lot of rebel lands behind. To prevent factions from reappearing it is necessary to keep loyalty above 120%, rebel provinces are always at 100% which means that reappearances can always occur in rebel lands.

[doctrellor]

cool, thx for the tips, especially on the happiness for rebels

update:

I was impaitient and so I basically took a risk and wiped out my garrisons in my "italian" areas and sent them to Spain...

so on 1211, guess who showed up again.. yup.. The Almos

But I was lucky, with my stacks, I took Cordoba, Granada & the other Almo prov

Toulouse was taken by the English and so the Almos have Portugal/Spain and who knows of France. while I have North Africa and Almo spain...

The Pope himself is now a 3 star general..lol. So $ coming in is plentiful and my Pope got the Great Builder virtue.. I have only seen Builder and Magnificent Builder.. so I am seeing different vitures & vices with my various campaigns I play... since I have a habit of executing my prisoners, the Pope has a decent dread too...:P

so it is currently 1218 and things are stable in the Iberian region.. I have yet to see if the Almos want to re-ally with me, or this time I will just conquer them... so time will tell

[cosminus]

Instead to fight the rebels you can buy ("bribe") them with a diplomat, this is cheap, and you receive good stuff. Then use all those new troops to conquer whatever you wish.
Don't let Almos to reappear or others to take rebels lands, bribe them or other will do. A full stack cost ~5k, this worth, especially good generals.

[danfda]

Anyone know why you cannot Crusade as the Pope in XL? I tried a His Highness campaign yesterday for the first time, and His GA goals are to crusade, but I couldn't build a Chapter House anywhere. And yeah, I had all of the prerequisite buildings. It was shaping up to be fun, but alas I couldn't fulfill my goals so I stopped.

Also, does anyone get excommed when you play as the Pope? I was never at war with Catholic countries, so I didn't find out.

[Peasant Phill]

You can't crusade as the papacy because VikingHorde forgot to include the Chapter House as buildable by the pappacy. I've even tried to add it but somehow it didn't work (may be may fault).

Yes, other catholic factions become excommucated when at war with you. You don't have any power over excommunications, other factions crusades, money gifts, ...

The worst part, however, about playing the papacy is that you can't train good generals. Every decent general you get, train, bribe, ... will eventually become pope and die some time later. Once I even bribed two almo ex-princes. One was 5 starts, the other 4. I lost them both in no less then 30 years.