Pick a Pope, Any Pope

[FishFishFish]

How about a Papacy civ led by pope Urban II that can force followers of their religion to fight crusades for them! (obviously it wouldn't really work in multiplayer but whatever)

 

[Patine]

How about a Papacy civ led by pope Urban II that can force followers of their religion to fight crusades for them! (obviously it wouldn't really work in multiplayer but whatever)

Actually, Urban II didn't, "force," any nations to make such military invasions, anymore than Innocent III, "forced," any nation to parcipate in the Albigensian Crusade or than Alexander III forced any nations to participate in the Northern Crusades. The participating nations were already chomping at the bit for venting of frustration of back-and-forth conflicts with each other that were not bearing the fruit they wanted, and each given Pope offered incentives - great honours and blessings under the Church, unrestricted loot and plunder, the Church turning a complete blind eye to very UnChristian treatment and abuses of the locals, and the right to seize feudal fiefs (soverign, allodial ones in the Northern and Middle Eastern Crusades, but not that far in the Albensian Crusade because of the rights of the King of France) with the blessing of the Vatican. There was absolutely no force, coercion, strongarming, or moral shaming. It was all carrot and no stick, for such barbaric times.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Without a doubt that bloody Pope that crowned Charlemagne, and started the Holy Roman Empire thing... LEO III

Pope Leo III - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In second place the first Germanic Pope, which brought Holy war and destruction to the Norsemens heathens... aka Gregory V...

Pope Gregory V - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In third place I would put the Borgia pope, which presided the invasion of the Americas time-period.
For many the period of maximum power of the Papal state