The Incredible Flying SuperPope...

**Mordon** · 06-12-2007, 04:14

Anyone else have this happen?
In my Milanese campaign that I have going at the moment, the Pope decided to excommunicate me.(I was at war with the Sicilians, who invaded me...And then a sicilian pope got elected. It didn't go well after that.)

So, I conquered Rome(The only papal province), and decided to just keep killing popes until the College of Cardinals ran dry, with the idea in mind that I would then swarm the middle-east and africa with priests and build an entirely Milanese college.

But then I noticed something weird happening, after I killed the last Papal stack(and pope).

Pope pops up by Rome. This is to be expected. My AP(Anti-Papal) Crossbows and a few spear units move in. The pope does his first retreat. I pursue. I engage. The pope routs and makes it off the map before I can catch him.

I think this is fine, as the Pope already retreated, so he's dead anyway, right? You only get to retreat once!

But then...The view switches back to the strategic map...And far from being my prisoner, the pope starts walking. And walking. And walking.

He keeps walking until he stops in the mountain pass north of Venice that goes to Vienna.

I thought it might be a random thing, but after killing over a dozen popes it happened every time the pope didn't die in battle.

Could it be related to the fact that Vienna is presently a HRE province(allied to the Pope?)

Popeman seems to be stopping as soon as he's one square inside the HRE border, and outside of my territory.

I've adapted by having a smaller army for pope-squashing in the Alps, but still... Why does the Pope get to magically run 3-5 turns away at one go?

I've experimented with releasing, ransoming, and executing any prisoners captured, it makes no difference...

Anyone have any ideas as to why this happens

(Funny aside: The current pope is named Canbius. I thought it said Cannabis at first. One of those "what the?..." moments.)

**WhiskeyGhost** · 06-12-2007, 04:50

Originally Posted by Mordon

Anyone else have this happen?
In my Milanese campaign that I have going at the moment, the Pope decided to excommunicate me.(I was at war with the Sicilians, who invaded me...And then a sicilian pope got elected. It didn't go well after that.)

So, I conquered Rome(The only papal province), and decided to just keep killing popes until the College of Cardinals ran dry, with the idea in mind that I would then swarm the middle-east and africa with priests and build an entirely Milanese college.

But then I noticed something weird happening, after I killed the last Papal stack(and pope).

Pope pops up by Rome. This is to be expected. My AP(Anti-Papal) Crossbows and a few spear units move in. The pope does his first retreat. I pursue. I engage. The pope routs and makes it off the map before I can catch him.

I think this is fine, as the Pope already retreated, so he's dead anyway, right? You only get to retreat once!

But then...The view switches back to the strategic map...And far from being my prisoner, the pope starts walking. And walking. And walking.

He keeps walking until he stops in the mountain pass north of Venice that goes to Vienna.

I thought it might be a random thing, but after killing over a dozen popes it happened every time the pope didn't die in battle.

Could it be related to the fact that Vienna is presently a HRE province(allied to the Pope?)

Popeman seems to be stopping as soon as he's one square inside the HRE border, and outside of my territory.

I've adapted by having a smaller army for pope-squashing in the Alps, but still... Why does the Pope get to magically run 3-5 turns away at one go?

I've experimented with releasing, ransoming, and executing any prisoners captured, it makes no difference...

Anyone have any ideas as to why this happens

(Funny aside: The current pope is named Canbius. I thought it said Cannabis at first. One of those "what the?..." moments.)

If you attack a stack of troops, and you auto-calc/win the battle without decimating the entirely (this includes ones that run away, and ones you release) they will retreat to the nearest safest area after the first retreat. Unlike Rebels, any factions stacks will do this if they have a place to retreat to.

For instance, lets say you attacked a HRE stack in Florence, and they are allied with the Pope. The nearest HRE territory is WAY up towards say Hamburg. If you make them retreat, or defeat them (but not entirely) they will retreat to Rome territory since its the closest safe place. This also applies to some instances, where a sizable distance can be covered (such as say...making someone retreat from Dongola all the way to Baghdad)

of course, this is merely an observational thing on my part, if someone would like to add some hard cold facts i'd be glad to hear it

**Quillan** · 06-12-2007, 14:59

Back in RTW, an army that lost a battle would retreat to the limits of its remaining movement allowance. If they had used up all their movement points, they'd be destroyed. That's not happening in M2TW in my experience. If you beat it, it retreats. If you attack it with another army that was nearby, beat it again, it retreats again. You either need to kill it utterly or decimate it so badly you get the "Enemy army routs" message after the battle.

Generals are frustrating. Playing the ERE in RTW/BI, I had a situation with the Huns. One of their armies, soundly defeated at a crossing of the Danube, retreated forward into my territory! The only survivors in this army were 2 generals, both had lost the entirety of their bodyguards and only the generals themselves survived. Of course, the next turn their bodyguards regenerated. I spent the next 20 or so turns killing them off, because every time I'd fight them the generals would escape and retreat farther than I could pursue, only to regenerate the bodyguard and do it all over again. Eventually I had to bring in 3 different armies loaded with horse archers to chase them down, and attack from different directions so that no matter where they'd retreat, someone would be able to attack again.

**Mordon** · 06-12-2007, 18:38

What about surrounding the pope with 8 units, and then sending in the anti-pope force?

Will being completely surrounded on all sides keep him from leaving?

Or should I just put units on the different paths he can take out of Italy so I can chase him down in the same turn without him taking the Vienna Express?

**FactionHeir** · 06-12-2007, 19:04

That's interesting. For me, the enemy stacks never got to retreat further than 1 province (i.e. if they are defeated at Stockholm, they can only retreat to Oslo or Arhus, but not to Hamburg). If there is no friendly province adjacent, they just die.
Wonder how you got them to retreat that far...

**Mordon** · 06-12-2007, 19:09

Well, the Pope has no dirt left, and Vienna is the nearest allied province...He does stop walking right as soon as he crosses the border.

I think it may be related to the fact that the Pope is landless, and this is messing with the retreat mechanic.

That and the fact that the Papal States can't die.

**HoreTore** · 06-12-2007, 19:20

Originally Posted by FactionHeir

That's interesting. For me, the enemy stacks never got to retreat further than 1 province (i.e. if they are defeated at Stockholm, they can only retreat to Oslo or Arhus, but not to Hamburg). If there is no friendly province adjacent, they just die.
Wonder how you got them to retreat that far...

I've seen it happen at least a dozen times. My guess is that you've simply beaten them to hard