The Pope decides (Abe II/Interregnum)

[Incompetent]

In several different areas from alliances in Italy to matters of doctrine, it looks like the Pope will be playing a big role in determining the course of events. Often there'll be many factions supporting either side to a decision. But how do we simulate the Pope's decision-making process?

1. Human-controlled Papal States
This one's the easiest. You're the Pope, you decide.

2. AI-controlled Papal States
Like the human, the AI has all the options on the table. But that doesn't mean the AI's 'default' decision should be the same under all circumstances. Ideally we'd have a way of determining who has most influence over the Pope; but the usual mechanisms like relations are far too easily exploited by the player.

3. No Papal States
Now it gets tricky. We could simply dictate the outcome of the papal decision and go straight onto the consequence events, but this is deterministic. We could give the choice to whoever rules Rome, given the considerable ability an occupying army would have to 'persuade' the Pope to make the right decision, or to replace him if he didn't. This might be overpowered in a few cases, but in MP the fact that all the Catholic players have a CB on you ought to be a significant price to pay, never mind the consequences of making choices other players don't like. If an AI controls Rome, they're obviously not going to benefit if we make just one event for whoever owns the city, so we'd need to switch options round based on who owns it to 'help' the AI make the Pope make the right decision.

 

[unmerged(16159)]

Surely it isn't a problem we haven't had before. Rather than make the events country based, they could be province based. Then - as you point out - the owner of Rome faces gets to determine the papal policy and choose the Pope, (and face down Luther ...?), but everyone gets a CB on you.

Fair deal, in my book. Papal States could become a playable minor with a few hundred juicy events.....

 

[unmerged(31994)]

and what if the owner is a Muslim state?or a Protestant state?shouldnt there be consequences?

 

[Sekenr]

and what if the owner is a Muslim state?or a Protestant state?shouldnt there be consequences?

Yes, in the case of AI controlled Papal States, there is usually no Papal States by the 16th century.

 

[unmerged(33577)]

In the case Rome is owned by a protestant or muslim i propose a serie of events like this

-> Let the pope lives in the city of vatican
-> We must stop his influance here and expell him

In the second case, we can simulate the pope journey with few event (religion and province based)

A catholic state can also create a temporary 1 province Papal State with a cassus belli on Rome and begin a small crusade ? (this one is maybe too difficult)

Just some idea...

 

[MattyG]

There are definitely a few events already that the Pope decides on. Look in the Savoy file.

Non-Catholic controlled Rome does pose a lots of difficult-to-answer questions. I for one am scared by the coding required to properly express the alternatives.

With muslim states its probably the easiest, as they actually seem to me the most likely to permit the Pope to remain in Rome, give the city a special status and be tolerant of the faith there. Although the least likely would be the Almujadid Empire, which is the closest muslim state. Hmmmm.

Perhaps in the short-term we just need to roll with the punches. A player controlled Rome will still be limited by the choices each event presents, and for an AI rome it can simply 'count' as though the event is triggered for whichever province he happens to have escaped to.

Matty