Hulver's site || Title Error #41226

Diaries
Everything
Who's Online?
FAQ / Help

Pope Suburban III

By Scrymarch (Fri Mar 16, 2007 at 10:50:34 PM EST) (all tags)

Crwm's recent musing in the hole on popes got me thinking about papal names again. Sometimes I speculate on what papal name I would take, in the essentially impossible event of becoming Pope. Urban was a pretty cool papal name. Abstract and attractive without the credibility-stretching pretentiousness of Pius or Innocent.

It's not that I think I have particularly formidable papal skills. Maybe I could have been a minor-league cardinal, if I happened to have the right parent. I do think there's a good computer game yet to be written around the historical Vatican. I can see the copy on the back of the box but I have no idea of the gameplay.

PONTIFEX

"I would have made a good Pope." - Richard Nixon

Challenge your wits against the great schemers of all time in this nerve-wracking new game from Firaxis. Appoint and dismiss bishops, snub kings, sponsor great artists and have brain-stretching theological arguments, all in the stunningly recreated setting of Renaissance Italy! Make your way from a newly appointed member of the College of Cardinals to the throne of the Holy See itself! Match wits with Machiavelli, the Borgias, Da Vinci and Galileo!

Just remember: Excommunication is not a two way street.

< 2007.03.16: cogito ergo sonnet ... | BBC White season: 'Rivers of Blood' >

Login

Related Links

- Scrymarch's Diary

Google

Comment Controls

Pope Suburban III | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

Your underling by cam (4.00 / 1) #1 Fri Mar 16, 2007 at 11:09:08 PM EST

would be Spinafex and act to under-nourish all your sheep/flock?

cam
Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic

: No bishopric for you! by Scrymarch (4.00 / 1) #2 Fri Mar 16, 2007 at 11:26:49 PM EST

Come back, one year.
_{The Political Science Department of the University of Woolloomooloo}
[ Parent ]

I missed my chance by The Fool (4.00 / 3) #3 Sat Mar 17, 2007 at 01:01:33 AM EST

I was all set to take the papal name "George Ringo I".

Too late, now.

Why not something normal, yet biblical by Herring (4.00 / 4) #4 Sat Mar 17, 2007 at 08:09:45 AM EST

Dave.

I'm English, and as such I crave disappointment. - Bill Bailey

: Davo I by Scrymarch (2.00 / 0) #7 Sat Mar 17, 2007 at 10:24:37 PM EST

I like it.
_{The Political Science Department of the University of Woolloomooloo}
[ Parent ]
: Or work the Hispanic appeal: Pope Jesus II by Wise Cracker (4.00 / 1) #11 Sun Mar 18, 2007 at 06:20:33 PM EST

You'd be remembered as the one that didn't get nailed. Hmm ...
--
Caesars come, and Caesars go, but Newton lives forever
[ Parent ]

My papal name. by Christopher Robin was Murdered (4.00 / 4) #5 Sat Mar 17, 2007 at 08:34:11 AM EST

I haven't decided. Either I'll offer it up as ad space, charging a pretty penny for the right to name the pope. I'd end Pope Travel-Sized Arctic Blast Irish Spring Soap.

Or I'd name myself Pope Richard Dawkins. I think it would drive him to fits and that'd be funny.

: The ad campaign writes itself by Scrymarch (4.00 / 1) #8 Sat Mar 17, 2007 at 10:30:31 PM EST

Don't just wash, Indulge Yourself new Travel-Sized Arctic Blast Irish Spring Soap!
_{The Political Science Department of the University of Woolloomooloo}
[ Parent ]

Pontifex: the game by Kellnerin (4.00 / 2) #6 Sat Mar 17, 2007 at 11:39:47 AM EST

I was thinking it sounded more like a board game, but of course the way you've described it, it's a single player game. The board game version would have to be "Conclave" or something, in which the players compete to see who gets to be the next pope.

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn

It might well work better as a board game by Scrymarch (2.00 / 0) #9 Sat Mar 17, 2007 at 10:34:30 PM EST

Even if the AI makes leaps and bounds, the factional opponents would probably get a bit samey. Real opponents could actually be schemed against.

I once saw a German boardgame with a setting of the Roman Senate, where you tried to become Emperor. It could be like that, except you could have a little chimney on the board that gave out black or white smoke on each round of the ballot.
_{The Political Science Department of the University of Woolloomooloo}
[ Parent ]

: absolutely by Kellnerin (4.00 / 1) #10 Sat Mar 17, 2007 at 10:48:48 PM EST

the black/white smoke is a must for whatever version of the game.

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn
[ Parent ]

Pope Suburban III | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback