Vassalizing the Pope

[Marcus]

Although I have many hours playing this game and vassalized the Pope before in prevoius games I am a bit confused now!

In short started off 769 as Orthodox Duke of Sicily, gained my independance from the Byzantine's and have since accuired substantial land and 3 Kingdom titles (Sicily, Serbia & Bulgaria).

My previous ruler betrohed one of his daughter's matrilineally to the Queen of Italy's son and hence my current ruler just inherited the Kingdom of Italy which was turned Orthodox by my current ruler's father. I was also since inheriting Italy able to create the Empire of Italia which I have just done.

As Italy had become entirely Orthodox the papacy seems to have been wiped out with the county of Rome and Orvieto belonging to two different vassal counts of my current ruler. I (my current ruler) holds the county of Orbetello.

However I just had the Pope arrive from nowhere, no armies nothing and declared war on me for his claim on Orbetello but none of the holdings in the county (2 bishopric's and a city) can be sieged so not sure what or whom to fight!

The rest of Europe is still Catholic and I know from previous games that if one vassalizes the Pope he can get you claims on titles!

My options are:

1) Surrender to the Pope and let him have Orbetello?
2) White peace with him which also gives me the option to usurp the Dutchy of Latium?

If I go with option 1 the Pope will actually own land again and will I then be able to vassalize him?

Also I have forgotten how to vassalize him again please advise!

Thanks.

[gregoryk64]

I'm not sure if vassalizing the pope would be an option in your case as you are Orthodox and already have a religous head. And even then if you could you would have to be Catholic to gain the bonuses involved with papal vassalization.

Here's the thing. If a non-catholic controls the land that makes up the Papal State, the pope doesn't just go away. He's biding time in some Catholic ruler's court waiting for the opportunity to take Rome back. As an Orthodox (or any other religion for that matter) you can control Rome and severely erode Catholic moral authority but you can never control or vassalize the pope.

What you could do if your goal is papal vassalization is convert to Catholic and set up an anti-pope. Since you already control Rome it would then be easy to then usurp the duchy of Latium and nstall your anti-pope in Rome. Anit-pope becomes pope, and he is now your vassal.

[Marcus]

Thanks Gregory I thought so been reading up on it. Been playing mostly catholic in previous games so not really wanna convert and play Catholic again. (forgotten how to convert to another religion anyway lol)

So I should then just white peace and usurp the duchy title I suppose?

[gregoryk64]

Originally posted by LaBern:

Thanks Gregory I thought so been reading up on it. So I should then just white peace and usurp the duchy title I suppose?

I would do nothing and wait for the fight to come to you. If the pope has no armies and no holdings, the only thing he can do is call in Catholic allies to fight for him. If it doesn't drain the treasury to have your main armies raised and on alert, just do that and wait. If the armies show up, fight them. If they don't warscore should continue to slowly tick in your favor until you get to 100%, then you can enforce demands. Might take a couple years, but there's a good chance you can win the war without a single battle.

[Marcus]

Yeah he has nothing and the Orbetello holdings which he is claiming is under my vassal so nothing to fight him on at this stage.

Only thing is being in a state of civil war limits doing certain things but never tried that will see what happens thanks! Luv this game so unpredictable and full of surprizes!

[al_x_ator2411]

Can't you just murder him by plot? If you're an emperor you can bribe a lot of people. Or would that just transfer the war to the next Pope?

[Merkatz]

Just wait it out. The fraticelli papacy was created in my current game. I since then took over Italy, gave Rome to the 'real Pope' and wiped Fraticelli from the map.

However the Fraticelli papacy still exists and the bastard declares crusades for Italy every 30 years and I just ignore it until enough warscore has accumulated to white peace.

[gregoryk64]

Originally posted by al_x_ator2411:

Can't you just murder him by plot? If you're an emperor you can bribe a lot of people. Or would that just transfer the war to the next Pope?

You can assassinate a hundred popes and there will always be another one to come in and take his place. And since the papal claims to Orbetello is de Jure to Latium the war would continue.

[gregoryk64]

Originally posted by Merkatz:

Just wait it out. The fraticelli papacy was created in my current game. I since then took over Italy, gave Rome to the 'real Pope' and wiped Fraticelli from the map.

However the Fraticelli papacy still exists and the bastard declares crusades for Italy every 30 years and I just ignore it until enough warscore has accumulated to white peace.

I did that from the opposite side in a game. Created Britannia and converted to Fraticelli. Once I had the empire converted to the heresy, I set up a Fraticelli anti-pope and set about taking Rome. Condsidering it was about another 15 years before the pope could call another crusade and Catholicism was crumbling due to low moral authority, it wasn't difficult to take Rome and set up my Fraticelli pope. After that, what was left of Catholicism fell apart like a house of cards in a stiff breeze and became heresy within 10 years and never recovered. Made it through to the end of the game like that. The only drawback to it was that the Iberian penisula stayed muslim, and made large gains into Aquitane and southern France while the Catholics were fighting over heresy. It eventually balanced out to a stalemate, but those territorial losses were never recovered and Islam ended up being the dominant religion on the map.