Papal Controller
From EU3 Wiki
The Papal Controller is the ruler with the best influence in the Papal Curia. The player can bribe, err... influence the cardinals to ensure their support with the Pope. The Papal Controller gets these bonuses:
- -20% stability cost
- +1 diplomat/year
- -0.25 Badboy points/year
- +1% prestige/year
Each controlled cardinal also contributes 0.2% prestige/year on top of this. If you have a full house, you receive 2.4% total prestige/year from the Papacy.
New cardinals are randomly chosen from Catholic European provinces. The more you own, the better the chances that a new cardinal will come from your nation. Because they must be European, it doesn't help to have a huge colonial empire. But keeping your European provinces Catholic will. The National ideas of Deus Vult and Divine Supremacy can also assist, because they prevent the spread of Protestantism (and Divine Supremacy gives you more missionaries to convert those blasphemous heretics). Getting one of these Ideas early (when reformation occurs) can save quite a bit of headache. Because Protestantism spreads from adjoining provinces, it can sometimes be a mini-game to try to block its advance at key places.
When cardinals die, their replacement enters at the bottom of the Papal Controller list. In other words, the oldest cardinals are at the top, and the youngest at the bottom. Although you never know how long one will live, it's better to influence cardinals near the bottom of the list, all else being equal.
High badboy decreases the chance of bri... er, influencing cardinals to support you.
Changes as of In Nomine
As of In Nomine many changes were done to the way the Papal Controller now works. 2 new abilities and changes to the mechanics of bribing cardinals.
Crusades
The Papal Controller can now launch a Crusade on any non-Christian country. They last 50 years and another cannot be launched until either then or at the targets annexation. Nations that declare war on the target also recieve a Manpower, Tax, Prestige and Land Morale bonus.
Excommunication
The papal controller can now also excommunicate another Catholic ruler. This removes the Religious Penalty stability hit, and the No Causus Belli stability Hit. It's like having a Causus Belli on a Different Religion Group country so you only get the Reputation hit of DoW with a Causus Belli: 1BB.
It lasts as long as the ruler is alive or is repealed by the ruler who used it. If that ruler rules a Union all countries in it are affected, and the union is dissolved at death. You cannot use the ability if the pope has good relations with the target. It will also take a long time for another country to forgive you for excommunicating their ruler.
Influencing Cardinals
With In Nomine controlling the Curia has become a lot more harder. When a Cardinal is bribed it cannot be attempted again for 3 months. This now means control over the Curia is harder to achieve and longer to reach that goal.
