Kingdom of God & WC

Form the Kingdom of God by the 1500's and achieve world conquest as The Papal State

Introduction

This guide is going to cover how to achieve the "Kingdom of God" Decision and World Conquest as the Papal State. To be honest I don't even care much for the Kingdom of God decision, but it's a nice goal to go for when playing as the Papal State. We are going to achieve it by the 1500’s and continue to conquer the world. I’ll even try to squeeze in the “Holy Trinity” achievement as well. I have all DLC's active in this campaign.

The Concept

There are many reasons to play as the Papal State if you haven't already. If they could form Italy, this would be your best nation to do it. But they can’t. Here are the reasons I love them.

• They can easily join the HRE in less than 3 years. I’ll show you how.
  
• Everyone wants to be your friend. Building allies and high relations is very easy.
  
• You start as the Curia which gives you many benefits. My favorite being -10% aggressive expansion and the fact you can excommunicate a nation to make it easier to take more provinces.
  
• They get an early decision called “The Vatican Library” which gives -2 national unrest and a choice between -5% tech cost, +1 diplo rep, +5 discipline. Go with the discipline.
  
• The last idea you open gives you another -10% AE. This is my favorite buff by the way.
  
• It’s very easy to prevent the “Shadow Kingdom” event as they only need to take 4 provinces from Venice (the other can be given back to Milan).
  
• They can get an easy early strike on Aragon which rewards you with the amazing Napoli province and can form two powerful vassals. Catalonia and Sicily.
  
• They can form the “Kingdom of God”. Isn’t that why we are choosing them?

We are going to be aggressive from the start because we want to quickly get use of that excommunicate option. It makes taking early provinces much more manageable as Italy is tough to eat into without having a coalition form against you. If you are only seeking to get the kingdom of god decision, you can look past some of the other wars I will declare in this guide as I’ll also be doing a WC run.

Idea Groups

Papal State Ideas





In this campaign I used the following Idea groups in this order.


Influence Ideas are incredible for any campaign you plan to be aggressive. Especially in WC conquest attempts. The Italian land is very rich meaning you will suffer a lot of aggressive expansion. This idea group coupled with the Papal States curia control and final idea will greatly help.

Another reason this idea group is so great is it helps reduce the amount of Diplomacy points you spend when annexing your vassals. As you read this guide you'll see how many vassals I create and understand the importance of preserving diplomacy points. Not only does it reduce the amount of diplo points, but it also reduces the time needed.

+2 diplomatic reputation is also a powerful idea because it will give you that edge you need to ensure other nations won’t join a coalition towards you even when they have more than 50 aggressive expansion towards you.

+1 Diplomatic relations is always a plus considering you’ll be drowning in vassals. This will give you another vassal without going over on your diplo relations which would result in losing more diplo points.

The last two ideas though useful aren’t needed. If you want to preserve as much diplo points as possible, you can ignore purchasing these ideas.




Administrative Ideas greatly reduces the amount of administrative points you need to core land. You will see that in it’s second idea “Adaptability”. Like I mentioned also with the previous group, this will also help reduce the time it takes to core the land as well. This is very useful considering when you doing a WC run, you’ll be able to take provinces quicker.

All the mercenary ideas inside this group are great for preserving your manpower as well. Manpower is a very important detail you must pay close attention to in WC attempts. It’s one of the major 3. The 3 being...

• Manpower
  
• Aggressive Expansion
  
• Admin & Diplo monarch points

These are your bottle neck stats that you need to keep in constant balance. Between the two idea groups I already mentioned, we are covering exactly those.

If you are however running low on Admin points early game, it’s okay to get the first two ideas and wait to push the rest. Though you do want to get to the -10% admin tech cost as this will also reduce the admin points you use when researching new tech.



The third idea group I choose in this campaign was Quantity Ideas. Like I mentioned above, manpower is one of the bottle neck stats that will affect your WC attempt. This idea group greatly helps keep this in check.

It’s important obviously in EU4 to have a strong army to be able to expand your borders. Quantity is better than quality in this game. The Papal State already gets buffed well when it comes to other quality stats like for example the Vatican Library which gives them +5 Discipline. You get this at the start of the game. Completing Papal State Ideas gives you another +5 Discipline and you’ll always be swimming in prestige. Also note because you’re always on the offensive, your power projection is going to beat everyone’s.

Also, this idea has +25% available mercenaries which just adds to your already powerful mercenary army because of the administrative group.

Cheaper troops, reduced attrition, and +50% land force limit are also desirable to keep your army up and going.

You’re going to be in a state of constant war, so having the manpower and mercenaries to fuel your constant wars is very important.

Others...

Another third idea group you could have chosen if you feel your military tech is lacking is Religious or Humanist. I personally like religious because I find the Deus Vult Idea just amazing for expanding into other religions land. It’s such a powerful CB that can’t be replaced until one’s that come much later in the game.

I’m also a fan of converting religions because I look the aesthetic of having all my provinces under the same religion. Humanist makes it so you don’t really need to convert everything and it greatly helps reduce unrest, but it’s just a personal one for me. Both are great groups.

Remember that the Papal State already has +25% religious unity through its first idea and -2 unrest because of the Vatican Library event. That’s another reason I would lean towards religious ideas during a Papal State campaign.

Before Unpausing

First thing you should do with any game if you plan to be aggressive is to destroy your forts. This will help free up ducats to afford larger armies, navies, and advisors. Lower your army maintenance as you need about 2 and a half years to have high enough relations to join the HRE. Check your rivals and setup your alliances. Ally Austria of course. Ally Hungary and make sure they rivaled Venice. Restart if this isn’t possible. Note that it may take some relation building to get them as an ally. Milan can be helpful as well because they will also join your war against Venice and it’s good to have northern allies at the start to help with AE. Other allies are up to you. Castile is good for a later assault on Aragon and France if you want to follow me for WC.

Make sure you rival Florence because it will be our first war. Rival them and excommunicate them. Diplo reputation advisor is a good starter, but you’ll want to switch to Diplo relations soon after for the rest of the game. Morale or discipline for military and your choice for admin. Start a spy network in Florence to claim Firenze and take a mission to claim the other. Note also that during this campaign, you will always want to be improving relations with everyone around you. It’s very important as if you don’t, you’ll see coalition wars. So let’s let some time pass and join the HRE.

You should be able to join the HRE by adding Roma as an HRE territory. This will happen June of 1447. Also make sure you got that Hungary alliance set. Let’s start our war with Florence.

Conquest War Against Florence

Now that you are in the HRE and you have your alliances ready and your army back to full maintence, it’s time to declare war against Florence. This should be a very easy war as they shouldn’t have any allies because you excommunicated them. Wipe their army and siege. Take Florence and Arezo. My war finished April 25th, 1449. I received 150 ducats and war reparations while gaining 28 aggressive expansion. This is already a huge leap forward as Florence is one of the best provinces in the game.



Florence should now drop from your rivals list and Venice should be chosen now. This is where you will call in Hungary and Milan and promise them land that you won’t give them. The claims you should have made were on Verona and Trevoso. I wouldn’t gamble on Venezia yet because you may not be able to siege it due to their powerful navy.

Conquest War Against Venice & Ferrara

So far, I'd say in my campaign I've been lucky. Before I started my war with Venice they went to war with Byzantium. Hungary and Milan both decided to join if promised land.

Hungary in my game allied Ferrara and I’ve noticed them do this a lot in previous games. I decided to claim their capital and go to war with them while Hungary is tied up in my Venetian war. If they aren’t allied to them, I would still claim their capital and hit them as they usually have crap alliances. Remember that it’s very easy to stack wipe them if you get the jump. Even if they are allied to another nation it’s most likely another OPM that’s easy to take out.

Sieging Venetian provinces should be hard with the help of your two allies. Let them do most the fighting if possible. It doesn’t matter because you aren’t giving them any land. They will break alliance, but it’s okay. You can easily find new ones. Again, make sure your ALWAYS improving relations with others.

When you have a high enough war score, take Verona and Trevoso. This will give you quite a lot of aggressive expansion. Not enough to start a coalition yet.

My war ended November 9th, 1454. I received about 200 ducats between Siena and Venice. I humiliated them and took war reparations. I suffered 41 AE for the two territories.



Note that you should make sure you have at least a 25% war score against Ferrara so Hungary doesn’t join their war if they are allied to them.

I ended my war with Ferrara just one year after. January of 1455. I received about 400 ducats between Ferrara, Provence and Pisa. I suffered 26 AE. Mantua and Lucca were on the radar for coalition. However, they didn't have the strength to win it so they never formed it. Keep boosting those relations.

Conquest Against Aragon

Now I’ve had some serious luck so far. France was allied to Aragon, but is dealing with rebels and won’t join a defensive war. This is where you want to ally Castile and have them beat up Aragon with you so you can take a few key provinces. Unfortunately for me they didn't join my war until later as they were occupied in another war.

Note that if you aren’t looking to do WC this war isn’t needed. I’m being aggressive because I plan to complete a WC with this game.

A few provinces you want to take from this war are Napoli for it’s wonderful center of trade bonuses, Malta to later release Sicily and Baleares to immediately release Catalonia. Note that this is important to any WC attempt. Releasing Catalonia and Sicily are incredibly easy ways to greatly expand while taking nearly 0 AE. Some games I’ll make Catalonia a permanent march as they can be very useful in wars. You’ll see me expand this later on in this guide.

Another reason I choose to do this war against Aragon is I want to eventually make moves into North Africa and I need to let some of my AE diminish from the Italian and South German region. Taking Napoli will give you about 28 AE, so prepare for that.

My war with Aragon finished February 20th, 1467. I received 234 ducats, war reparations and suffered 28 AE. If you were unlucky and your pope died and you didn’t get the Curia, you might need to wait some time to peace out this war as you want to avoid a coalition.

Conquest Against Milan

We should be sitting fairly well at this point. I did have to take out a loan during my last war with Aragon, but it was paid after the peace treaty. My manpower is never impressive, but I haven't had to buy into many mercenaries yet.

Now it's time to hit Milan because we need to eventually grab their capital as it's a requirement for the kingdom of god decision. We will not be able to take it this war though because taking Milan will suffer the player massive AE. Remember how I said to be always improving relations? Keep doing it. Keep capping it out with neighbors. If you ever need to wait out the peace treaty, do it.

In my game Milan was a quick and easy war. They had no allies. It was a clean wipe and siege. Again, I was lucky because they were allied to France, but France is just getting slaughtered this game by rebels, England, and Burgundy. That’s rare, so don’t always expect this.

Also, my original ruler is finally dead. He lived to be 82 years old which is just obscene. I think it’s because I had 7 7 7 gains on all my monarch points. Haha. No that’s not a thing. I claimed the Curia again with my next pope and was blessed with incredible leader stats. I hope you are receiving some of the same luck as I am with your game. Also, you should have received your first era bonus. Make sure you take the -10% AE as your first. ALWAYS take this one if you plan to be aggressive in your games.



I grabbed Parma province, 498 ducats and war reparations. After finishing this war, I could start my golden era. That with my new awesome leader helped me catch up a bit with my admin tech.

Conquest Against Venice #2

The second war against Venice should be an easy one. You should have built a navy that beats theirs with all the ducats you been receiving though war.

I finished this war in about 3 years. Short and easy. Between Venice, Pisa and Siena I received another 419 ducats and took Venezia and Friuli. This completes your prevention of the “Shadow Kingdom” event and getting you ever closer to the kingdom of god. Depending on if you have curia control or certain events that give you -AE, you may need to hold off on signing your peace treaty. This will cause a great deal of AE.



You should really be seeing the serious strength of the Papal State now. I leaped to great power status rank 6 after this war.

You're going to have to really start thinking about getting Influence Ideas and getting the -AE modifier as you are probably having some trouble with possible coalitions.

Conquest Against France

Now I really didn’t expect to be going to war against France this early, but a perfect opportunity came. Therefore, it’s hard to do an exact guide to WC because you never know what opportunities lie ahead. This is an obvious one for me. They have no allies and been hit hard by rebels and wars.

Again, if you’re not planning to do a WC run, you can skip this section and let your AE cool down for the next Italian wars we’ll go through.

I’m not going to go into much detail about this war as it was a slaughter. Austria and Castile did all the work. They didn’t even want land.


The reason for me doing this war is to pick up another great releasable vassal. Gascony. Another vassal I love turning into a march. They have cores on 9 provinces. This is a very easy way to gain a lot of land with suffering virtually no AE. That’s the key to WC. Especially when you’re a country like the Papal State and creating personal unions are not possible.

I had to end this war early because the Ottomans decided to intervene with their great power status and I just had to take what I could. No way am I going to fight the Ottomans and France.

My war with France ended quickly and I could take the 2 provinces you see below. I then released Gascony and gave them Narbonne. Since my admin points are suffering, I just can’t afford coring it myself.

Conquest Against Aragon #2

This second war against Aragon was yet another distraction from my push for the decision, but a great way to keep the momentum up with the WC attempt.

As stated earlier, Catalonia is one of my favorite vassals to feed as they have many cores and they are positioned in a great region that has a lot of trade power over the Genoa trade node.
Castile does however hold one of their cores, which I planned to take, but later you’ll see I diplo annexed Catalonia before I was able to.

This war was quite easy as they had no allies and was still exhausted from its previous wars. I also grabbed Sassari to start claiming some of the provinces on the Ligurian sea. I also gained another 390 ducats from Aragon.



During this war, I also took on Provence and Milan which was a quick victory. This really solidifies my power in the Genoa trade zone.

Conquest Against Pisa & France

Shortly after my war with Aragon, I hit Pisa to continue with my goal to get the "Kingdom of God" decision. They were alone and easy and the war costed virtually no resources besides the coring cost and AE after.

France again was very vulnerable. France is really getting slaughtered in this campaign which I love. The purpose of the war was to feed my vassal of Gascony.

My long-term goal for France is for them to be eaten by England and possibly Burgundy if the King of Burgundy Died event doesn’t fire. What this will do is give me an opportunity to restore them as a vassal. I don’t plan to diplo annex Gascony for this reason. I’ll keep them as a march for the meantime until I’m able to restore France. Having Gascony and France as a march early in the game will greatly help my manpower and military strength when later dealing with Castile, England and the HRE.

Easy war that was wrapped up quickly. Stack wiped their armies and went straight for the sieges.

Here's where I'm sitting after this war.

Conquest Against the Mamluks #2

It’s 1490 and while I hope to get the decision for KOG finished by 1500, I saw another opportunity to hit the Mamluks. This war was a crusade. This greatly helped with manpower.

Mamluks is the key to getting into the Arabian Peninsula and east Africa. You want to do this before the Ottomans take it. This really helps keep the Ottomans at bay. It also adds an incredible number of ducats to the Genoa trade region. Anyone looking to complete WC as a European nation should be gaining this territory before the 1500’s. It helps provide some extra cash, the provinces don’t take many admin points to core and it helps balance out your AE.

Morocco ended up joining this war, but soon after they joined they were hit by rebels. They were already quite weak from the previous war I had with them. They wanted out of the war quickly because of the rebels that starting sieging most their country. I did take one of their forts though because I wanted their ducats. One mistake I did make in this war was not blocking off the Ottomans in Syria. I do plan to later release Syria as a vassal.

The war ended August 28th, 1492. I received a total of 352 ducats. I took enough provinces to be able to start eating into the horn of Africa. I also took another western province and released Tripoli. The reason I want to release them is to feed them Tunis's provinces. Nations with Berber ideas are really expensive to core. I would rather have my vassal use it's admin points.

Pushing to Finish KOG

After the Mamluk war I wanted to hit Milan, but was stopped because I joined Austria in one of their offensive wars. I was going to drop out and disband all my alliances to make room for vassals, but I felt I wasn’t quite ready. I joined, but didn’t participate. I instead easily defeated Naples to complete my Sicilian vassal. It was a quick war that lasted about a year and I could pocket another 220 ducats.

I then decided to peace out of the war I was in together with Austria and I hit Milan to take their capital. My AE was wearing off while I was feeding vassals and focusing on Egypt.

This war was fast because Milan was pathetically weak. I finished the war in less than a year and took the province of Milan. Another province I need for KOG.

After my war with Milan I had Savoy in my sights. They were allied to Austria which made the war a little more difficult, but this was also a good opportunity because I wanted to disband my alliances and I also needed Sudtirol for KOG.

The war wasn’t too difficult because Austria was already in a grueling war against Bohemia and its allies. It did take about 3 years to finish, but I gained manpower during this war.

The war ended in December of 1497. I took 851 ducats. Now I only have 2 years left to hit my goal of completing this decision by 1500.

My last target was Genoa to take their capital province of Genoa. Quick easy war as Austria wanted nothing of it, and once it was finished and I finished the core, I realized i made a mistake...

Kingdom of God

When I peaced out Savoy in my earlier war I realized that I took the wrong province. I needed Piedmont, but I accidently took Montferrat. This just destroyed my hopes to have KOG completed by 1500.

While waiting for the peace treaty to expire I decided to hit east Africa hard. I made my snake path down to the tip of the horn of Africa and cashed in 687 ducats.

I also completed my diplo annexation of Catalonia during this time and created Croatia by taking on Venice and releasing its cores to them.

After, the treaty for Savoy was over and I completed a war with them in less than a year to gain the last province I needed for KOG.

I don’t even really want to take on the decision, but I’m going to do it for you guys! WC shouldn’t be too difficult so I’m not to worried about taking away the curia. The funny thing is I was the curia controller so I really just shot myself in the foot. Oh well. Let’s now move onto WC.

WC to 1525

Notable Gains


In 1506 I became the worlds #1 great power.

I started a war with the Ottomans to weaken their position. They were in two separate wars which was really exhausting them. This was a perfect time for me to strike. I took a province to release Byzantium and snaked my way to Persia.

I went to war with Poland as it only had a couple of provinces left. I vassalized them knowing I can gain an incredible amount of territory while suffering nearly zero AE. When vassalizing them, I was pulled into a defensive war against Bohemia which I was able to easily feed Poland a few of the provinces they held.

I then went to war with the Teutonic Order. They had Livonian Order as an ally, but they rejected the war. It was an easy wipe and gained all the provinces that Poland had cores on. During this war I also grabbed the Polish cores that Moldavia had.


I then hit France as I saw them wage war against Brittany. I didn’t want them to expand their territory as I have future plans to vassalize them and feed them their lost cores. Easy war as France only had 8k units and no allies.

I hit Ottomans hard again once the peace treaty was up. This war was a little more draining than I wanted it to be. A smart player probably would avoid this war and hit them during a time they were down. However, knowing my strength and how ahead I am on my WC attempt, I decided I really wanted to strike them down. I feed my vassal of Tripoli a ton of provinces in Tunis. I was able to feed all of Byzantium’s cores as well as 1 Polish core and a few of my own.

Lithuania was down to 1 province and they also have such a wide area of cores. I vassalized them and shortly after waged war on Polotsk to feed them.

A couple other wars I waged in this time were against the Mamluks and Ethiopia. Easy wars as my Military tech has a couple of levels on them with a much more massive army.

WC to 1550

Notable Gains

War with Austria when the Ottomans were hitting them. Quite easy, but drained a bit of manpower. More than I wanted. Feed Hungary provinces to my Croatian Vassal.

Hit the Mamluks to gain more cores for myself. This war was a slaughter.

Waged war and vassalized the Teutonic Order. Cost a heavy amount of AE, but I had nearly zero accumulated in that region.

Took on France to claim them as my vassal. They only had 2 provinces at the time so the AE was light and the war was an easy win.

After vassalizing France, I went to war with Brittany and shortly after England to grab many of their cores. England was more exhausting than I expected, but nothing to terrible. Got somewhere near 3000 ducats when for the peace deal.

Hit Russia as the Ottomans were crushing them. I honestly don’t know how they lost this war considering how much the Ottomans been at war. They were first crushed twice by me and had a long exhausting war against Austria. OP. Feed Lithuania many of their provinces.

Hit the Ottomans again just after they finished their war against Russia. This war hurt a lot. The manpower drain wasn’t too bad as I utilized a lot of mercenaries. It took a big hit on my treasury though. Thank god I was able to take 5000+ ducats from some of the previous wars before this to pay for it.

Finished off by eating Ragusa this section by eating Ragusa.

[Waruiko]

Super out of date

[breedableboy761]

(increased development = more ae)

[breedableboy761]

maybe you're just bad bernie.

[Nerd_365]

I just began a game but when i took the 2 provences from florence i gave me 52 ae am i missing something or has the game changed causing me to take more ae?

[Neeru]

(continued)

And finally: Did you become Defender of the Faith? If so, when? I think I got it too late, in fear of being dragged into pointless wars.

P.S: How the hell did you get entire Ethiopia so early? Have been at war with them for 200 years until I got all their territory :D

[Neeru]

Amazing guide, thank you so much. Been trying to follow your steps, but as you already said, the game can be quite random. Have France as vassal, Gascony as march. Portugal is colonizing for me. Year is 1673.

Was wondering at what point, if at all, you decide to annex vassals? Often I spend too much time feeding subjects, so they start getting liberty desire because they increase in strength. Having Influence and Administrative, do you get the -20% Annexation cost policy? What other policies do you recommend?

Another question: Have been pushing towards Russia / India. How do you figure out which vassals to release and feed from newly conquered terrirory? I figured Catalonia and Gascony were pretty straight forward, but do you have any recommendation for Russia and all that comes east? Any decent resources on this (despite so many hours in the game, this is my first attempt to WC)?

[Aushi]

@Dendoris Cheers mate for the suggestions. I already made a couple of those changes after reading them. I'll try to iron out a couple other things in time.

[Aushi]

@nicholassandrewdavies Sounds good! It's a fun playthrough for sure. The decision itself isn't really worth it, but like Dendoris mentioned, a Holy Trinity goal would be good. This guide can also help you achieve that as it will make you a powerhouse post 1500's

[nicholasandrewdavies]

cool I think when I finish my Sudanese Expedition game I'll start this one. Thanks for taking the time to publish this guide :-)

[Guy Sepiol]

Rated this guide positive.