Damn Papal Protection.

[W|M]

I'm playing a campaign as England in M2TW, won ages ago and control about half of Europe. I'm trying to attack Scicily and the pope keeps protecting them by theatening to excommunicate me if I attack them!. And in my campaign against Spain, the pope did the same thing until my huge army left on a crusade to Jerusalem. Then they began to take my (Weakly defended) Iberian holdings with an impossible huge army!. (He did this with only one other faction, Venice until I finally managed to conquer there protected arses).

Is there any way to stop the pope protecting other Catholic factions from attack?

 

[sophie]

You buy him out. Keep a diplomat next to Rome, and every couple turns check your standing with the Pope. If it isn't maxed, gift a large sum of money to the state. If your relations are maxed, the Pope won't (or shouldn't, it's been ages since I played M2), excomm. With the Pope wrapped around your little finger, the Christian world is your oyster.

 

[Maniacal]

Also the AI will attack you anyways so I wouldn't really worry about being excommunicated once you have most of Europe.

 

[sophie]

Also the AI will attack you anyways so I wouldn't really worry about being excommunicated once you have most of Europe.

Haha, quite true, quite true! And because they really don't know how to wage war, it really doesn't matter who's at war with whom It just gives you an excuse to wipe out a bunch of nations in one fell swoop haha!

 

[Heretic_Cata]

I usually just killed the pope every time he pissed me off. Kept an army near rome. It's even easier if you kill them over and over till you get one of yours in the office.

EDIT: this is obviously a bad thing to do very early in the game but you said you have 1/2 of europe.

 

[Double A]

Ally with him and keep your relations at perfect and the Pope-o-meter at full crosses with monetary donations.

 

[aronnax]

Assassinating Popes is the favourite past times of my Assassins.

Usually, I would just ignore the Pope and go killing anyway. But If you are worried about revolts, just assassinate the Pope every chance you get.

 

[Dachs]

This is why I play as the Greek schismatics a lot.

 

[Traitorfish]

Does elimating the Papal States still work? Haven't tried it in M2, but in M1 elimating the faction lead to the in-game dissolution of the Papacy, explained as your faction establishing a puppet Pope.

 

[Phrossack]

Thw Papal States cannot ever be destroyed, unfortunately. I once conquered Rome, their only territory, and killed nine Popes in battle. The Papacy survived. However, if you destroy all Catholic factions (if Catholic yourself, don't get high-piety priests, and destroy all other Catholic factions), the College of Cardinals will be permanently empty.

 

[aronnax]

Does elimating the Papal States still work? Haven't tried it in M2, but in M1 elimating the faction lead to the in-game dissolution of the Papacy, explained as your faction establishing a puppet Pope.

Nome.
Once, playing as the Moors, I kicked the Pope out of Rome and he just stood outside of Rome like a weeping dog. The next 20 turns, I kept killing the Pope through military or assassin means. After the 6th death of the Pope, I let one escape and he fled to the Austrian Mountains and stayed there for the next 20 years. I was killing Popes so fast that they keep getting younger and Younger cardinals to be pope.

 

[Dachs]

Was this fixed in any mods? Say, in Stainless Steel, is the Papacy still immortal?

 

[sophie]

One option I heard a lot of people do is to take a worthless territory such as Libya and gift it to the Pope, and then go off and capture Rome. Because he still owns another province, he won't randomly pop up outside of Rome. Instead he'll live impoverished in the Sahara.

But usually I just keep the Pope-o-meter maxed out with a regular flow of cash-gifts. As a Catholic faction, the Pope is really the only one you have to maintain a good standing with.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Theoretically, a very Papal-friendly Catholic faction should give a province to the Papacy if Rome is taken, but I've only seen it mentioned once in a game, and I never actually saw the province; it merely said that the Poles had elected to protect the Pope (since he was a Polish cardinal), which then allowed me to broker peace with him.

Of course a few turns later he called a crusade against me to take back Rome, but that's beside the point.

 

[Magnificent One]

Who cares about the massive pope army? Destroy the Papal States.I once played as the Byzantines.Took over Turkey and the Black Sea,then started moving to Italy.Evaded the Massive Pope Army,and took Rome.While he wandered off,i debated whether to make Rome my capital.

I was also thinking about gifting Rhodes to him.It's worthless and will never grow.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I like this Rhodes idea.

 

[Dodge_272]

Who's the pope anyway? He's just a man in a silly hat, kill him.

 

[kibbles]

Who's the pope anyway? He's just a man in a silly hat, kill him.

Now that's radical reformation talk, I won't have any of it!

Seriously though, forget papal protection. Damn Papal Aggression! In my Portuguese campaign he is my main competing empire (us being 2 of the last 4 factions in the world ) He owns central Europe, part of Eastern Europe, Italy, Half of North Africa, and part of Russia! I am still contemplating own what kind of force to send toward Rome, while considering the following: the Swiss guard are one of the best infantry units in the game, in everyone of his stacks he has about 8 of them! He uses mostly hand gunners and crossbowman to support them and some heavy calvary (though as we know Italian factions general weakness is poor heavy calvary). What do you guys suggest?

 

[Phrossack]

You and the Papacy are four of the last two factions? I didn't know that was possible!

Anyway, use your favorite pike-and-shot combo. Five units of Portuguese Arquebusiers, six to ten Aventuros, two Basilisks, two Jinetes, and your General's Bodyguard should do sterling work.

 

[LightSpectra]

Playing SS 6.2 as Sicily. Genoa declares war on me, and the Papal States are both of our allies but goes with them for some reason (even though I have perfect relations with the Church) and breaks our alliance. Two turns later, the Papal States attacks Sicily-controlled Florence and I'm automatically excommunicated.

I rolled my eyes and quit my game after that. At that point I controlled all of southern Spain, the Canary islands, Milan, Sardinia, Genoa, Florence, Naples and Sicily by round 23, so I was doing pretty good by most peoples' standards.