How can I break allies with the Pope?

[KyodaiSteeleye]

I'm having a fun game on VH/VH as Venice. I've set up my own objective of creating a mediterranean empire. But that's beside the point.

I didn't get in with the pope fast enough and the pesky French and Hungarians allied with him. Since then, I haven't been able to ally with the pope, even when my rating with him was very high and I was at peace with the two aforementioned. I now have the situation where France and Hungary have aggressed me, and i'm trying to take out their southern coastal provinces and a 'buffer' to give to the papacy so i don't have to worry about them any more. Trouble is, the pope keeps stopping me when I start kicking them - i'm managed to get a couple of provinces off them, but its painfully slow - and what is even more annoying is that they can continue to aggress me with no consequences from the pope, even when we've had a edict to stop fighting.

Is there any way of breaking up this threesome of the godly, or am I stuck having to put up with France and Hungary hiding behind the papal skirts whilst chucking things at me?

I don't want to excommincated.

[icek]

on vh i dont think you can have something from playing as good knight so if you have a skilled assasin and cardinal you can kill pope each turn and use time between elections to kick huns and francs.

[WhiskeyGhost]

I'm having a fun game on VH/VH as Venice. I've set up my own objective of creating a mediterranean empire. But that's beside the point.

I didn't get in with the pope fast enough and the pesky French and Hungarians allied with him. Since then, I haven't been able to ally with the pope, even when my rating with him was very high and I was at peace with the two aforementioned. I now have the situation where France and Hungary have aggressed me, and i'm trying to take out their southern coastal provinces and a 'buffer' to give to the papacy so i don't have to worry about them any more. Trouble is, the pope keeps stopping me when I start kicking them - i'm managed to get a couple of provinces off them, but its painfully slow - and what is even more annoying is that they can continue to aggress me with no consequences from the pope, even when we've had a edict to stop fighting.

Is there any way of breaking up this threesome of the godly, or am I stuck having to put up with France and Hungary hiding behind the papal skirts whilst chucking things at me?

I don't want to excommincated.

Your best bet here, is to focus elsewhere, and set up a good defensive line. Force the French and Hungarians to attack you in your newly conquered lands, and if necessary, ambush them within your borders using tricks to draw them out.

Even if they are on the Pope's "I Love You" list, eventually after a few good battles or so (make take as much as 10 depending on how aggressive they are) the Pope will start harassing them to stop too. Then, its just a matter of either baiting them to attack, or if your really cruel, go siege a town

(but do NOT actually invade. If you siege a town and win it via starvation/them sallying, it seems to not be quite as bad on the Pope-o-Meter. At least thats how my games have shown, whether thats true or not i dont know)

At some point, your enemies will throw themselves at you, your walls, and your lands, (try conquering one deep in their territory, not a border town, to improve their aggressiveness) and eventually even willingly get excommed just because they don't want you raiding them from their own lands

[ReiseReise]

You have to send your diplo or princess to the pope RIGHT AWAY, if you are strong militarily your alliance request will usually be "Very Generous" and will get you even more brownie points. If you got your alliance on turn 3, Hungary and France would have broken their alliance with the pope to attack you and they would be on his list. But since its too late for that...

Bribe the pope until you have 8-10 pope points, while not making any attacks, then go for broke against hungary or france, besieging multiple cities at once. The pope should then tell you to stop, but the penalty will only be "your reputation will be slightly/significantly lower than it was" and you can continue attacking until you get a mission with excomm as the penalty. Note that there is a bug where after you get a cease hostility mission that is NOT an excomm penalty, you will still get a warning that you will be excommed if you attack. Attack anyway, you will only lose pope points if thats what the mission said.

[phonicsmonkey]

if you're dead set on allying with the hat, make sure you don't destroy hungary or france altogether while they're still allied to him

otherwise you'll lose your chance forever

a nice irony of this game is that the AI will backstab its allies at a moment's notice...until they are dead, in which case it becomes undyingly loyal