Alliance with the Pope

[Jedi Bruno]

I'm now playing at H/VH with England. I'm currently at turn 8 and have managed make alliances with HRE, France, Poland, Denmark, Milan, Venice and the Moors.
And guess what, the Papal States diplomat has just offered me a Alliance proposition! I promptly accepted and now I am the Pope's best friend!
Has this same thing ever occured with someone?
I was thought that it was nigh impossible to make a alliance with him! I is a good thing to stay allied with the Papal States??

[ezoons]

I managed this as Russia (H/H), but I proposed the alliance myself. No idea whether I'd need this alliance, but I just wanted to give it a try.

As a Catholic though, I don't think you need to be allied with His Hatness. Keeping good relations should be enough. Having a pocket Pope and the most cardinals in his College wouldn't hurt either.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

It is a priority for most players (when catholic) to be good friends with the pope. If you look in other threads about how to handle the pope you will see the advice to become his ally ASAP. If you are smart you gift him a tribute of 100 per turn. This will improve your papal standing slightly per turn. Being his ally is very convenient at the least because every one that attacks you is automatically excommunicated.

[Horseman]

Thats not strctly true. Being allied to the pope does not mean anyone who attacks you is automatically excommunicated. But it will damage their reputations with the pope quite badly and will probably lead to excommunication if they keep attacking you

[Askthepizzaguy]

I'm now playing at H/VH with England. I'm currently at turn 8 and have managed make alliances with HRE, France, Poland, Denmark, Milan, Venice and the Moors.
And guess what, the Papal States diplomat has just offered me a Alliance proposition! I promptly accepted and now I am the Pope's best friend!
Has this same thing ever occured with someone?
I was thought that it was nigh impossible to make a alliance with him! I is a good thing to stay allied with the Papal States??

The Pope is generally the most useful ally in the game.

The Papal State faction seems programmed not to backstab you militarily. If you wish to gift provinces to an ally, but don't, for fear of being attacked, the Pope is the man to gift them to.

As an ally, he is a great trading partner, and you can get people excomminicated if you travel around with the Papal army or navy and attack things adjacent to the pope's units.

You can restore relations with the pope by gifting his faction things. And since he's your ally, it helps you, too.

Basically, no matter who I am, I try to get an alliance with the Pope. Unless I am a Muslim nation, then I erradicate him quickly.

EDIT: The only exception to the ally/excommunication trick is when the Pope allies with someone else. Then it might not work.

[ataribaby]

I always go for an alliance with the Papal States as early as possible. If you don't get him in your gang then you can bet that another Catholic faction will.

When playing a diplomatic game I'll recruit 4 or 5 diplomats as soon as possible and send them to the four corners of the map and one to Rome. In the first few turns I try to meet as many factions as possible getting trade rights, map information and importantly alliances.

The more alliances you have, the more valuable your allegiance will be to others meaning you can lever high tributes or even provinces out of them because they'll want to be with the gang.

By the time you reach the Pope, you'll probably already have several alliances under your belt so he'll snap your hand off when you offer him an alliance.

When you've got all the Catholic factions and the Papal States in the gang, then you're in a good postion to screw huge penalties out of anyone who attacks your lands. A ceasefire will cost them one, two or even three provinces and or crippling tributes.


That aside, one good trick you can pull with a Papal ally is if one of his armies is next to another Catholic army, attack the other army with your own stack. The Papal stack will automatically join the ruck leading to the other faction entering a state of war with the Pope - instant excommunication for them and that faction's lands are then fair game. Happy days.

It works with ships too, obviously.

[ReiseReise]

Getting an alliance with the Pope is quite easy if you are Catholic. If you keep your Pope-o-meter rating around 4 he should accept rather easily.

This is my theory but I have never tested it nor read about anyone else testing it (maybe I should visit twcenter..... nah, i'll stay here ). Anyway, back to my theory:

Other nations are more willing to accept alliance/'I will attack faction x' offers if you have a certain military strength. Logically it makes sense, why would someone want an ally who could not help them? Obviously in the real world many alliances are made for economic/political purposes but as has been demonstrated innumerable times in this game, war is the only thing on the AI's mind, and therefore strength is all it cares about, even if it ignores its own pathetic military rating when attacking you.

I hate to pick on Askthepizzaguy, but in his HRE blitz campaigns he talks about allying with everyone while offering them attacks on other nations as soon as possible. I wonder if they only accept because HRE is the #1 military/#1 territory on turn 1, and I'm sure he doesn't fall behind in the few turns it takes to march the diplomats

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

On my current Campaign as HRE, i allied him early on but forgot to pay tribute and soon there was massive warfare for my lands, my greatest enemy became pope and im almost out of soldiers in italy

[ataribaby]

Other nations are more willing to accept alliance/'I will attack faction x' offers if you have a certain military strength. Logically it makes sense, why would someone want an ally who could not help them?

I'm not so sure. From my experience what matters is being the lynchpin of a gang of allied nations.

The more alliances you get, the more attractive your allegiance becomes. You can see this in the way you can gain more and more by giving an alliance as you build up a portfolio.

e.g. the first alliance might merely allow you to exchange map info without paying. The second might get you a tribute of 500 for a few turns. The third alliance you offer might net you a province, and so on.

You can have a fairly mediocre military strength, but as long as you're the one in the centre of a network of allied nations you have great diplomatic sway.

Even if one member faction attacks another you can initially choose to break off the alliance with the aggressor and on the same turn broker an alliance with them for an exorbitant amount causing a ceasefire. It's like being some kind of UN chairman.

The main thing is to get the Pope on side. Usually, once you secure an alliance with him then usually you'll be the only one of his allies. The problems start when he has another ally whose lands you want to annex...

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Getting an alliance with the Pope is quite easy if you are Catholic. If you keep your Pope-o-meter rating around 4 he should accept rather easily.

This is my theory but I have never tested it nor read about anyone else testing it (maybe I should visit twcenter..... nah, i'll stay here ). Anyway, back to my theory:

Other nations are more willing to accept alliance/'I will attack faction x' offers if you have a certain military strength. Logically it makes sense, why would someone want an ally who could not help them? Obviously in the real world many alliances are made for economic/political purposes but as has been demonstrated innumerable times in this game, war is the only thing on the AI's mind, and therefore strength is all it cares about, even if it ignores its own pathetic military rating when attacking you.

I hate to pick on Askthepizzaguy, but in his HRE blitz campaigns he talks about allying with everyone while offering them attacks on other nations as soon as possible. I wonder if they only accept because HRE is the #1 military/#1 territory on turn 1, and I'm sure he doesn't fall behind in the few turns it takes to march the diplomats

I do not take offense to your line of thought, ReiseReise.

Actually, what matters most is REPUTATION, not military strength. Who is the weakest starting faction?

One could argue that it is Russia, given their horrible starting position, economy, and lack of same-religion factions to ally with. However, so long as you don't attack Poland right away, release and occupy, and do not tarnish your reputation, it's not only possible, but a good idea to ally with as many catholic nations as possible.

One of the things tiny, underdeveloped nations MUST do is gain a network of alliances, for fear of being browbeaten by some random AI nations.

If Sicily had to defend against Milanese, Byzantine, Venetian, Moorish, and French incursions, I doubt it would survive. However, allying with one or two of them makes survival possible. Allying with most makes attacking Sicily a bad option.

Your chance of gaining an alliance is based on starting relations and reputation alone. If, as Russia, your starting relations with Poland are bad, you can easily increase them with a simple offer to attack Denmark as a gift. Toss in a couple more and maybe a few florins if that doesn't cut it. But the reason you have trouble with Poland is because the AI for Poland in that campaign is rigged to dislike you from turn one. Like the Turks for Byzantium... but I found it easier to ally with the Turks than it is for the Catholics, by a long shot. It just takes a few gestures of goodwill.

Conversely, if one has 12 allies, and backstabs one, good luck getting an alliance or a vassal state in the next 50 turns.

It's got nothing to do with military strength, my friend. It has to do only with relations (easily fixed) and reputation (not so easily fixed).

[The Wandering Scholar]

My focus of my current Scotland Campaign is to keep my repuatation high, hopefully in the long run it will make diplomacy easier.

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

I always do the popes whims, well always apart from crusades, why would i weaken my borders to pay for a load of men who will abandon me the second i make them join the crusade, it happened mainly when i was within reach of the destination, and my army got completely destroyed by an Egyptian Horse archer unit, and those stupid archers

[Askthepizzaguy]

I always do the popes whims, well always apart from crusades, why would i weaken my borders to pay for a load of men who will abandon me the second i make them join the crusade, it happened mainly when i was within reach of the destination, and my army got completely destroyed by an Egyptian Horse archer unit, and those stupid archers

I would very much like to offer my advice on crusading effectively. If you use it properly, the crusade/jihad function can spawn a horde of troops ten or a hundred times larger than what you can currently afford as a standing army.

Why would you need that many troops? Answer: To crush the entire world in a few short turns.