How to deal with the Pope

[paleologos]

Say you are playing as Venice.
You have an alliance with the Pope.
After a few turns he ends up with a full stack, featuring two or three generals, plus two or three of morale-locked papal guard companies, plus several pavise spearmen and urban spear militias.
So he ends up stabbing you in the back, in spite of the alliance.
Then you obliterate his army and take Rome.
And he reappears in Italy.
You kill him again and he reappears.
In Italy.
Is there a way to make the pope reappear some place else?
Would giving the pope some region, say Sardinia or Corsica make him reappear there if he gets assassinated?

[Frunk]

I'm not sure if there's any in-game way to influence his reemergence, but I assume it'd at least moddable. It might have to do with which regions have papal_states as creator?

[NorseThing]

The Pope needs a home. At the start of the game Rome is the only settlement the Papal faction controls. Give his Papalness (darn -- no such word) another settlement and maybe he will not reappear at Rome. This is better if done before you take Rome though since being excommunicated makes diplomacy a bit dicey.

[selv]

I am almost sure that like with everything that count with the pope/crusades features, his reappearance is harcoded. I have a blank here since I never tried to 'move him around' to get rid of him but there are others less 'gamey' ways. I improvise in a minute there but his papal_faction ai label in descr_campaign_ai is the problem.

I had a label that were taking care of that once but none of my current labels would do as a exact example, I remember having took great inspiration from the ultimate ai mod regarding the pope label though. I think just that once would do to calm the dreams of conquest from the holiness. Just the papal factions as I can't say how the other ultimate ai labels behave.

Else, others seem to have the habit of moving the papacy around, so he must reappear near a town he own, or near Rome if he has none, I think it's hardcoded.

[paleologos]

The good part of having the pope reappear in Latio every time is that if you can capture him, he will always be ransomed.
That is a lot of coin.
The bad of it all is that you must kill/capture him every turn, or he will declare a crusade on Rome and then it's you against the world.
Still, I am thinking if it is possible to get my own pope elected.
My cardinal is in the optimati in every election.
And I get to have three votes.
I have a lot of priests and three cardinals in total.

[paleologos]

In any case how does one get un-excommunicated?

[paleologos]

An update:

Priests trained in Rome get some higher piety, especially with a theologians guild present.
Eventually I got a fourth cardinal (and his vote).
So the next time the pope "died" I got one of mine elected and the standing of my faction was restored.

Currently in my campaign, the papacy is an one-unit-neutral army, in Lazio, I reckon they don't own any regions.
I did not end a turn after that happened, so I don't know if he will demand Rome back.
If he stays there and minds his business I won't have any more problems until the next election.

On the downside I am paying a fortune in bishop wages.
I'll keep you posted (pan most intended).

[paleologos]

An update:

Turns out there is one character trait for catholic priests who visit Rome and stay in the region for more than one turns.
It affects purity, not piety.
Still, I think purity increases electability.

So I guess all the initial piety rings are from the theologians' guild and now I would like to get to be offered the upgrade to that.
Any advice other than building churches?
They are expensive, take too long to finish and the benefits are not proportional - methinks.

So far the Pope has stayed in Lazio without demanding Rome back.
However, my standing with the Papacy at the moment, is zero.
Immediately after my guy was elected, my standing with them, was one "cross-thingy" short of perfect.

I don't know for 100% sure that holding Rome has nothing to do with it.
I do know that if I get excommunicated again, the Pope will declare a crusade on Rome.
I also know that there are papal missions for the king to return Rome.
So far I did not get one of those.

I did get two of the "seize hostilities" type: there is no reward for those, only the threat of excommunication, in case of failure.
I don't know if I got this mission type because of the hostilities themselves, or because I butchered POWs to increase my generals' dread.
As a test, I will violate the hostilities moratorium with a chivalry-positive general and have him release the prisoners for free.

I'll keep you posted.

[NorseThing]

Your cease hostilities can also be from a low papal rating even when your enemy makes the attack and butchery is more or less mutual within the battles. Of course this is my experience since I am not skilled at reading the mod codes.

In general thought -- I like this thread and your updates as you explore the problem.

[paleologos]

Turns out it is as I imagined.
It's ok to butcher enemy soldiers in combat, even the catholic kind, but it's not ok to kill prisoners, even if the ransom offer has been rejected.
I attacked a Hungarian army that was besieging Belgrade and let the prisoners go, before the expiration of the moratorium and did not get excommunicated.
Still some doubt there, on whether the game engine takes into account that the pope is "my guy".

Another consideration in all of this is the pope's age and the high probability of the need to elect a new one.
I have five cardinals now, and the best of them has more piety than at least one of the preferati, yet is not a preferatus himself.

Ergo, in case of elections I must have my guys vote for some other faction's guy.
In that case I may -or may not- happen to vote for the guy that eventually wins.
Respectively, this may result in improved or utterly destroyed relations with the papacy, not counting the eventuality that the new guy might demand Rome back.
I am not willing to relinquish Rome as it has the theologians' guild, the second highest population and the best barracks of my faction.

The -only half- silver lining in all of this is that my one assassin has a subterfuge rating of 9 but he is currently west of Belgrade, heading on the far east end of that region on an mission from the council.
I have reached the agent limit with just that one, so I won't be able to recruit a new blade fast enough to avoid excommunication and a crusade on my lands, in the worst case of my afore-mentioned predictions.

Also, I still have no idea what triggers the promotion of a bishop to the rank of cardinal, if anyone knows that I am interested in reading their post in this thread.

I'll keep posting updates on the papacy escapade thing.

[Frunk]

I assume bishops with the highest piety (amongst any Catholic faction) become cardinals when other cardinals die. Where two bishops (from different factions, or from the same faction) have an equally high piety, I don't know if other factors would be considered, or if one is just promoted at "random".

[paleologos]

I have five cardinals now and about eleven bishops.
I still need to recruit one more to reach agent limit for priests.
For the last dozen turns I've had 5 cardinals while AI factions had been increasing their count of cardinals.
And some factions don't have cardinals.
Is it possible that the game makes one cardinal out of a given number of bishops?

Another question:
EDB make mention of an "event_counter strictly_religious".
Anyone care to explain that to me?

[Yesugatai Khan]

I always wanted to know about that thing about repeatedly killing the pope every turn after sacking Rome. I don't know, i guess after taking Rome, the Pope is doomed, like, you'd just have to kill him til he's one of your faction's priests and thats about it. No loss scenario. However if it would be possible for the Pope to respawn on another area, and not right next to the just sacked city of Rome with a full stack waiting to kill him over and over again until a "good" Pope is elected, maybe then, the Papal states would stand a chance? and maybe Christendom as well? hehe

[Jurand of Cracow]

I always wanted to know about that thing about repeatedly killing the pope every turn after sacking Rome. I don't know, i guess after taking Rome, the Pope is doomed, like, you'd just have to kill him til he's one of your faction's priests and thats about it. No loss scenario. However if it would be possible for the Pope to respawn on another area, and not right next to the just sacked city of Rome with a full stack waiting to kill him over and over again until a "good" Pope is elected, maybe then, the Papal states would stand a chance? and maybe Christendom as well? hehe

A guy called Alavaria knows very much how do deal with the pope. His insights are buried somewhere in these threads, otherwise ask him (but his message into public for everybody, pls ;-)
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...agressive-pope
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...cussion/page24
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post15039132

[Yesugatai Khan]

A guy called Alavaria knows very much how do deal with the pope. His insights are buried somewhere in these threads, otherwise ask him (but his message into public for everybody, pls ;-)
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...agressive-pope
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...cussion/page24
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post15039132

Thanks!!

[paleologos]

I always wanted to know about that thing about repeatedly killing the pope every turn after sacking Rome.
I don't know, i guess after taking Rome, the Pope is doomed, like, you'd just have to kill him til he's one of your faction's priests and that's about it. No loss scenario.

Not quite that monolithic of a scenario as I have figured out.

If you are excommunicated and/or at war with the papacy then you are correct in that you are going to have to kill him either through combat or through assassination every turn -even multiple times and elections during the same turn might be possible- until one of your own gets to hold that seat in order for reconciliation to happen.

However, if you are not at war/excommunicated there can still be a benefit in assassinating the pope every turn:
If your cardinals vote for the "right" candidate then your standing with the new pope is expected to be better than before.
Before the last time I did it, I had zero "crosses" in papal "standing".
After the new election I had two crosses.
Maybe this is the way to get enough "crosses" to request a crusade of your convenience when your troops are already right outside the walls of the city you want to capture.

However if it would be possible for the Pope to respawn on another area, and not right next to the just sacked city of Rome with a full stack waiting to kill him over and over again until a "good" Pope is elected, maybe then, the Papal states would stand a chance? and maybe Christendom as well? hehe.

The pope does not respawn with a full stack, not in my game.
Just a general's bodyguard.
A neutral pope in your territory is only a moderate problem in that his army exerts a "zone" of control.
That is only a problem if he respawns on or near a road in which case you may need more than one turn to move troops between cities of yours in Italy.

This means that if you can get your own guy elected and/or manage to have a military access deal with the new pope then it's not a problem at all having him anywhere in your territory, because he will never move and with the papacy being just an one-unit-army you can be sure he will be "practicing the virtue of humility".
On the contrary, it can be convenient to have him near you, just in case you need to assassinate him again.

[Abdülmecid I]

Theoretically the determining factor for which bishop is going to join the Conclave is the size of piety. The more pious a bishop is the more chances he has to get promoted to Cardinal. In cases of a draw, diversity is preferred, but still it's weird that your extremely pious bishops can't become cardinals, unless there is no available position, so you'll need to wait for an old member to pass away. The only possible explanation I can imagine is that the less pious bishops got the Cardinal nomination, before your better bishops spawned, thus blocking you from dominating the Conclave.

In regards to where the next Pope will appear, the first criterion is the presence of a Papal town, army or fleet. If nothing exists, then the Pope will emerge in the same place his predecessor died, which is usually Latium, but not necessarily. To give you an example, covering almost every scenario, in my campaign as France, the Holy See was conquered by the Normans who also slaughtered the Pope. The next one emerged in Epirus, where the Papal forces still controlled the caste they had grabbed from the Byzantines. The next Popes kept appearing around Dyrrachium, until Epirus was also lost to the aggressive Normans. However, the deceased Pope was clever enough to construct a tiny fleet, sending him along the Iberian coastline, so the next pope was spawned amidst a cruise in the Western Mediterranean. He eventually disembarked in Marrakesh, controlled by me and when our relations deteriorated, his fleet and his bodyguard were destroyed, which meant that essentially, due to the absence of any other Papal presence in the map, he would continue to indefinitely emerge in Morocco. That was very convenient, as that was a location well behind my frontier, so I murdered him at will, sending a couple of gendarmes against his bodyguards, every time he dared to dislike me.

In conclusion, the best tactic to deal with the Pope is firstly to dominate the Conclave, by spamming bishops in Rome and perhaps order them to convert infidels in Asia. Once the first step is achieved, then the Papal States are effectively a protectorate of yours. Normally, that would be sufficient, but maintaining an amicable relation with the Pope while expanding is basically impossible, even if you raised him with love, since he was a young boy in the slums of Venice. No worries, though, as you can just give him an insignificant province, like Corsica, kill him, let his successor temporarily relax in Ajaccio, then eradicate everything Papal from the map, while leaving Corsica as your last target. Consequently, the new Pope will emerge in the island indefinitely, where a small specialized at defeating heavy cavalry force will be ready to dispose of him, every time he disagrees with your call for Crusade. Save your game, load the save, elect your next puppet and finally demand a crusade, all that in the same turn with negligible casualties. It works like a charm.

[Iosif Stalin]

I assume bishops with the highest piety (amongst any Catholic faction) become cardinals when other cardinals die. Where two bishops (from different factions, or from the same faction) have an equally high piety, I don't know if other factors would be considered, or if one is just promoted at "random".

I don't think it's automatic. It seems to require a certain minimum amount of piety. I'm doing a campaign now and I notice, and I've noticed before, that sometimes when I go to the college of cardinals list it will say there are X empty seats in the college. I think it was five seats last I checked. The seats don't seem to get filled automatically. Rather than the priest/bishop with the highest piety getting promoted by default, they have to reach a certain piety. I kept an eye on it while sending my priests around to execute heretics and convert populations, with particular focus on a priest who had four piety. Once he reached five piety, he became a cardinal. So, five seems to be the minimum.

I'm in the early game. Later in the game, when there are more theologian guilds and bigger religious buildings that give bonuses, I guess there probably won't be any empty seats anymore because more priests will have at least five piety, so at that point I suppose that whenever a position opens it goes automatically to whomever has the highest piety.

[selv]

It is in descr_campaign_db, religion section. Changeable if you are on a mod set up, bare geomod for vanilla.
<min_cardinal_piety uint="5"/>

Though some requirements or decisions process are hardoded it seem. The ai that make the vanilla pope such a warrior is not however.

Note to myself: If I get back on modding medieval eras someday, I will likely got rid of the vanilla system for everything related to the pope and make up something else. Too many hardcoded in the default system

[Roma_Victrix]

Say you are playing as Venice.
You have an alliance with the Pope.
After a few turns he ends up with a full stack, featuring two or three generals, plus two or three of morale-locked papal guard companies, plus several pavise spearmen and urban spear militias.
So he ends up stabbing you in the back, in spite of the alliance.
Then you obliterate his army and take Rome.
And he reappears in Italy.
You kill him again and he reappears.
In Italy.
Is there a way to make the pope reappear some place else?
Would giving the pope some region, say Sardinia or Corsica make him reappear there if he gets assassinated?

In my latest Stainless Steel Venetian campaign my alliance with the papacy held from the early 13th century until the 16th century when I decided to end the game! It helped that I was aided early on by the popes excommunicating enemy factions that I could then easily conquer, especially if the pope in question had a long lifespan. I became so powerful and so well-garrisoned that the papacy, which was bankrupt and fed only by my small periodic gifts, didn't dare to oppose me. I ended up conquering most of Europe, all of North Africa, and much of West Asia, at the very least what the Romans possessed there (securing Judea, Anatolia, Syria, Armenia and Georgia, but not the Upper Euphrates with Edessa).

As for your question about what to do if you find yourself at war with the papacy, I remember an old Stainless Steel campaign I had where I had already gifted the papacy the isle of Corsica, so that they had two settlements. Once I was at war with them, I took the city of Rome. If I recall correctly, the pope then began to spawn in his settlement in Corsica. I then sent an army with a diplomat to persuade and browbeat them into accepting tributary vassal status as my protectorate. With that they were unable to challenge me again and also unable to engage in diplomacy with other factions, due to being marooned in the middle of the Mediterranean where the diplomats of other factions could not reach them.

I pulled a similar move in another campaign, I believe an HRE one, where the pope went on a Crusade into Arabia to take Tayma or one of those cities. When I finally had to go to war against the papacy, I took Rome and then concluded a diplomatic coup by making the papacy my protectorate and tributary vassal. However, this time they weren't even in the Mediterranean! Their only settlement was that aforementioned one in Arabia, north of Mecca and Medina. It gave me a nice buffer state so that the tiny Fatimid faction would finally stop their annoying, suicidal raids against my behemoth empire.