Diplomacy & the Pope | How to please the Papal States | Medieval II Total War | Game Guides

00:00 Intro
01:10 1.Ally Straight Away
01:34 Maths Explained
02:04 1. Ally Straight away (continued)
04:00 2.Bribery
05:58 3.Become the Pope
07:42 4.'Remove' unwanted Popes
08:42 5.Churches
10:00 6.Churches
12:13 7.Papal Missions
13:06 8. Attacking Catholics (next time)

Modding Guides: Medieval II

Unlock Playable Factions: Medieval II

Mongol videos:

Medieval II Campaigns:

[ToNerdistoHumanTNH]

Look out for the next part of the Diplomacy trilogy where I explain how we can attack fellow Catholics now that we have a better handle of the Pope. Hope you enjoyed the video and happy maiming!

[Kevin-oylr]

"The sinews of war are infinite money" - Cicero

[noraandersson]

Love the editing for the opening scene: "how to manage the pope." Cue crossbow.

[daveingram]

one thing you have left out about joining crusades, they are a great way of getting experience points for all your units. Obviously you start by sending either your faction heir or leader of on a crusade that you have selected, when they get to the destination (I usually send them by ship as its quicker than going overland) they first lay siege to the city, in the same turn you get all your other units that have a general to sign up for the crusade = even though they haven't actually gone on the crusade. Then in the same turn you launch your assault on the target city, Result is not only the troops that have gone on the crusade get an experience bonus, but so so all the other units that have signed up - but stayed at home

[Kevin-oylr]

Just a quick note in regards to the part of the video why it would be questionable why anyone would destroy churches. Building churches leads to very good traits for your governors. I take the governor out of the city, light the church on fire for the insurance money, and rebuild.

It gives points in StrategyChivalry, Upright, Religious Activity and GoodBuilder (Not 100% sure on GoodBuilder, only pretty sure)

This is great to do particularly when your building queue is caught up and you're waiting for population to crest the threshold for the next stage of walls when construction would otherwise be idle.

I always have a diplomat parked at Rome, so I just give the Pope some florins to shut him up when I go through a round of this.

[LlywellynOBrien]

I am on a Venitian playthrough that started with the occupy bug. Got excommunicated and had a crusade called on me early. Entire Catholic world joined in. None of then are interested in peace at all. I am at war with everyone other than Scottland and Portugal. I am in the end game now, but it has not been esspecially enjoyable.

[nikolozgilles]

very cool guide! the next part about attacking catholics without being excommunicated is very simple. There are 2 ways, the first one is the sneaky blitzkrieg way and the second one is the buttering up the pope way. They arent mutually exclusive either, for best results it is highly recommended to combine the sneaky blitzkrieg way with buttering up the pope way, and you'll see why.

Sneaky blitzkrieg way:
1. Refrain from declaring war until you are in position to attack as many settlements as possible. This can mean positioning your armies nearby the settlements you want to take.
2. Then, blitzkrieg as many settlements as possible in one turn to catch the pope off guard before he notices your wily antics. This can be achieved through spies (faster moving but unreliable and dependent on luck) or siege weapons (slows down the army but reliable). Winning the settlements in one turn is crucial because of the next step:
3. Once the pope gives you the cease hostilities mission, this mission is also given to your enemy. The way it works is that you can freely attack enemy armies in your territory or besieging your settlements to defend yourself, but you cant attack them on enemy or neutral territory and you have to lift all sieges on enemy settlements. This is what trips up a lot of people and makes them think the pope is unreasonable when in reality he is: they try to retake one of their lost settlements after the cease hostilities mission is given and get excommunicated for technically attacking an enemy faction, because the pope doesn't care who used to own a settlement, only who owns it in the present. This applies to the enemy too, so they cant retake the settlements that you took without risking excommunication. Use the time of the cease hostilities mission to replenish your army and prepare for the next round of sneaky attacks.

Buttering up the pope way:
1. Do everything in your power to befriend the pope up to the point that you have outstanding relations, perfect is better but harder to achieve. Alliances, trade deals, and the majority of the time you'll be gifting the pope tons of gold, in the tens or hundreds of thousands if necessary. Keep several diplomats around Papal settlements so you can easily bribe them whenever you need.
2. When attacking a catholic faction, whether through the sneaky blitzkrieg way or just a general offensive, keep bribing the pope every turn to make sure your relations stay at outstanding or perfect, because he will get pissed really quickly at transgressions against catholic factions like attacking them. This is absolutely neccesary because the penalty for failing the cease hostilities mission depends on how much the pope likes you. In most cases you'll just be straight up excommunicated even if you have moderately high relations, but if you have really good relations, you'll only suffer a little bit of relations loss with the pope which can easily be topped back up with more bribes.
3. You basically have carte blanche to attack catholic factions as long as the money keeps flowing to the pope. Which I daresay is a depressingly accurate depiction of medieval politics. You may want to combine this method with the sneaky blitzkrieg to minimize the amount of cease hostilities missions that you get, and therefore decrease the amount of money you have to spend to keep the pope happy.

[jwb_]

small unit size heresy detected. Engage the inquisitors.

[sylvainprigent]

Recruit a bunch of bishops and level em up as much as you can untill you have a majority in the papal election

[pepethefrog]

Thank you!
Medieval II is one of my favorite games of all time and I love your videos where I learn deep stuff about the game.
Keep up this amazing work!!!

Talking about the Pope, what I try to do always is send 100gold as a gift each turn... doing that in no time you're best friends hahaha

[PatriSjodin]

A feature I especially miss i RTWM II is the ability to assassinate members of your own faction like in rome 2. Would be handy if you quickly needed to remove your leader.

[youseffsalib]

Was cool to have a premier again. Great job!

[richardtaylor]

Great stuff. Looking forward to the next part!

[diego]

You make excellent videos about M2TW and RTW. Subscribed!

[thomasnever]

A hundred florin as a gift once a while, alternating with map plus assistance against rebels as a gift: keeps the man pleased.

[NachoAgios]

There's a knowned bug from rome to medieval 2 that doesn't allow you to be ally of the factions that are allied with a Faction that you destroyed. It seems that the diplomacy remains unchanged. That sucks cause in the end you cant ally with anyone, included the papal states. Can you give a solution to this? 😢

[gustavoargumanis]

Dude, the video about attacking catholics is uploaded?

I really need to not screw up that.

[Бунтующийлеший]

Hi! Love your videos! Could you please make a video tutorial on how to add special abilities from one mod to another (for example, from the Crusades campaign: the ability of Richard the Lionheart “Heart of the Lion”, Saladin’s ability “Righteousness of Faith“ and the others)? Thanks!

[shirtpants]

Hey! You should make a video about the Senatorial positions you can be assigned in the 1st Rome TW. Having trouble figuring out what will get u appointed to these positions

[PatriSjodin]

In regards of losing the papal elections, according to girl math you make a huge loss :P (or win depedent on your intentions)