Papal States: Part 03: 1456-1465: Papal Gold

I needed gold of Kosovo, and I was trying to figure out some clever ways to get there, but Albania made it easy as they were willing to just become my vassals, and they already had claims on Kosovo.

Shadow Kingdom incident triggered, and I wanted to stay in the HRE with Austria, but Cleves got the throne. I stayed in the HRE, even though that meant pretty harsh penalties as I wasn't allied with the Emperor. Oh well, hopefully Austria wins the next election, or someone else worth a diplo slot.

So it was time to deal with North Italians. Siena surrendered with little resistance. Florence had backing from Venice, which took mil tech 6 a few years ahead of time, so I couldn't defeat them on land, but thanks to my anti-Ottoman fleet, I defeated them on the sea, dropped siege on their capital, and they decided to peace out and even pay me some money for the trouble. Unfortunately that meant I couldn't break Austria-Venice alliance, but one thing at a time.

I need to conquer the whole North Italy for Kingdom of God decision, but there's no rush with it, and pacing myself a bit will keep AE under control better.

I finally full cored Kosovo, but apparently -5 tolerance for Orthodox means -50% goods produced. I forgot that's a thing, as I never had that kind of intolerance, base is -2, and you usually get +1 for max legitimacy, so it's just -1, or -10% goods produced, hardly a big deal. Instead I got -1 from some decision that was already taken at before game start, and -2 from events, so -5 total. Ouch.

And you'd think Pope of all people would get some missionary bonuses, but Papal Ideas don't have a single missionary related one. I can still convert them, but it will be a slow and painful process.

For the first ideas, I had three obvious choices:

• Divine - new group for theocracies, unfortunately it's just really bad. I guess −10% Culture conversion cost is nice if someone goes for one culture run, and wants to stack culture conversion discounts, but in a normal run it offers nothing.
• Religious - would fit the theme and is actually decent, I might still take it second or third
• Administrative - because if I don't take them, I'll never have enough paper mana, so that's what I did

I think my openers will be Administrative and Religious, even though double admin is harsh. I could still join the colonial race, but liberating the Holy Lands just feels more Papal. Maybe I could take Diplomatic or Influence instead, just to balance the points better.

Only ten provinces in a decade, so a lot slower pace than before.

I was also planning to eat Balkan minors soon, but Austria, Hungary, and Poland took most of them already. Overall I have a lot of directions of possible expansion, and I'm limited mostly by AE, mana, and vassal slots.