EU IV Portugal AAR Part 2

Europa Universalis IV

Portugal AAR.... Part 2

In the first episode, we secured our borders, now we need to cosy up to the Pope. Why? Well, I'm not 100% certain exactly how being friends with the Pope will help, but it's very useful in Crusader Kings II, and as EU IV is the chronological successor to that game, it can't be a bad idea to apply similar logic!

First things first, however. It is about time we used our three explorers wisely, and send them out to explore along the coastline of Africa, and into the Atlantic...

Now, back to His Holiness. Diplomatic relations with Rome are at best cordial. Let's pick a mission that will give us some prestige for improving them...

We have a free diplomat, so off he pops to the Vatican to have lunch with His Popey-ness

We also take the opportunity to hire an advisor and help to improve relations. As an aside, he will add to our diplomatic power, which is nice...

Courtier - "My liege, my liege! A cardinal is no longer loyal to us!"
King - "This is an outrage! Nobody told me that we had a cardinal to lose!"

Let's go and invest some influence in a cardinal or two, so that when they get elected to the College of Cardinals we can start to make Catholic policy

We also get a decision to support struggling artists. Whilst I'm not actually bothered is the artists starve, the problem with ignoring them is we'll lose stability, and I can't afford the administrative cost of boosting stability back up, so we give them our blessing.... and our cash... Oh, well, at least we'll get a pretty picture or two for the Throne Room!

Another churchy decision. this time it involves losing control over some church lands. Once again, the option is to accept or lose stability, so we accept the tax hit... at least the Papal influence will be useful!

With our diplomat in Rome, and the college of cardinals happy for the time being, we can relax and allow our Papal standing to rise until our mission is complete. In the meantime, we will get on with exploring the world....

...in the next part we'll find out where we have found... :)