Best place to experience Papal mechanics?

[Pope Urban II]

I've gotten a lot of time into CK2, but since achievements and SoI came out I haven't played much with catholics. I've spent time with pagans, have restored the High Priesthood, and recently started an Islam game-but haven't done anything with papal mechanics. Where would a good country be to use those? Italy? Castile? England?

[satayagraha]

All those mentioned are good options. Point is you should have a great deal of churches - which means a lot of bishops - which means more cardinal candidates.

To get the best of it, you should also have or get Free Investiture. There isn't much point in getting bishops elected if you can't choose who they are. But don't appoint them too young - age plays a major role for their chances of election.

[ShadoWwolF]

i found the baltic area in 1066 to be good for playing "the good catholic". you can expand a little by holy wars with the pagans and wait for a chance to ask the pope for an invasion against one of the bigger european kingdoms like france or the HRE. if you can hold the new lands together you'll have your baltic empire and your foothold in western europe. you can keep playing as the good catholic and dealing with the politics of western europe or you can expand into italy and then play around with an anti pope and vassalizing the pope. of course if you wanted a more direct and quicker approach then italy in 867 would probably be the best

[ShadoWwolF]

Originalmente postado por satayagraha:

All those mentioned are good options. Point is you should have a great deal of churches - which means a lot of bishops - which means more cardinal candidates.

To get the best of it, you should also have or get Free Investiture. There isn't much point in getting bishops elected if you can't choose who they are. But don't appoint them too young - age plays a major role for their chances of election.

free investure makes it harder to get the pope to approve any of your other requests. to really enjoy the papal mechanics (like invasions, requesting crusades, excommunicating everyone) you'll need papal investiture

[ShadoWwolF]

one of my favorite games was as sweden in 1066 when i waited for the king of france to be excommunicated and then asked for an invasion. with the help of my english allies we conquered france and we sieged over half of france before i made peace (you personally gain whatever holdings you siege) so i had a bunch of rich french counties and a lot of lands to give out to loyal supporters. of course the remaining french dukes opposed me at every turn since i was a foreign conqueror. keeping the french dukes in line while also plotting the fall of the HRE with the popes constant support was pretty fun

[Airforce987]

If you want to get a lot of Popes elected from your family/realm, you should play with an Italian character (doesn't necesarilly have to be in Italy, you can use the character designer to make a ruler with Italian culture). Your bishops will get an extra 200 score towards getting elected just for being Italian. Also, if the person you are trying to get elected as a cardinal is located in Rome (by sending him to improve relations with the Pope) you can get an extra 100 score. I've found that cardinals with a lot of land will be more likely to get elected to the Papacy as a result of their secular influence (i.e. owning a lot of land controlled by the church). So if you make your bishop an arch-bishop (give him a duchy), he'll be very likely to become Pope, you may have to kill the Preferatus once or twice though. Then, you can enjoy the perks of having a Pope that actually likes you and will grant you a claim once or twice in his lifetime. Just make sure to keep an eye on the College of Cardinals every now and then, as you want to make sure you contribute to your bishop's election with gold. If you don't contribute to his campaign, you wont get the "Supported my election" opinion bonus that will make him like you when he becomes Pope.

[Pope Urban II]

Originalmente postado por Magnificent Bastard:

Play in Spain if you want the ideal Catholic experience. Border expansion is easy due to your ability to holy war against the muslims. I have grown rather fond of the Kingdom of Aragon. I like to start in Old Gods as the De Aragon dynasty, break free of Navarra, and create the Kingdom of Aragon from scratch.

I don't really want to start in Iberia again for a while, right before Sons of Abraham came out I had finished forming the Empire of Hispania.