Point of Alliances

[Odyssey of War]

I was led to think that breaking alliances dropped influence and that it dropped the chance that other nations would alliance with you. If that is not the case, what is the point in keeping alliances?

Are there any bonuses for having alliances, like more trade income? Any penalties for breaking alliances? Or is it just your word that you wont attack each other and then stab each other in the back.

[Yoko Kono]

the forum is down
i have heard it was hacked but of that i cannot be sure
lets hope its back up very soon as it was scheduled to be back online on monday http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif

[Niccolomachiavelli]

You were horribly horribly lied to. Diplomacy? pfah, none here. move along, move along.

[Coucy]

Quote Originally posted by Niccolomachiavelli:
You were horribly horribly lied to. Diplomacy? pfah, none here. move along, move along.[/QUOTE]


Yeah, I experimented a bit with alliance breaking once, to see if it had an negative effect on Influence. My verdict? Such a VERY LOGICAL cause and effect was either non-existant, or at best so miniscule as to be undetectable.

A shame too, because such a simple mechanic would have given the diplomacy/alliance system in the game SOME meaning.

IMO, a king's Influence should take AT LEAST a one point hit for every treacherous DOW on an ally. And if the victim was of the same religion, a Piety hit as well.

Conversly, actually going to war to help an ally within 2 turns of your ally getting attacked, and supporting an ally like your supposed to, should reward a monarch with a point of Influence. And if your ally is the same religion, and the aggressor a heathen, a Piety point as well.

A couple of very simple changes, which could actually give diplomacy some teeth in this game! IMHO, of course.

Coucy

[Thane Talain MacDonald]

Actually if you go to war against your ally and ROYALLY SMASH THEM INTO THE DUST, I see no reason your influence should take a hit. People will want to ally with you even more, if only for the prestige, and because it puts them in a position to backstab you while looking like the pious revenger to the rest of the world.

[Jango Fett]

I HOPE that in the patch they make it so that they tell you when and where your allies are going to be attacked and they ask for help before they are attacked! instead of just guessing, i like allied games but their is no chance of it. we should be told 2 years or something in advance that our ally is going to be attacked then we can go help!

[Boondock Saint]

Sure ... when u attack and ally u get lots of messages from your other allies saying ... we are no longer your ally ...

Once or twice I had an ally actually declare war on me but I think that was only because I attacked his ally ... so ... other than that situation I dont think alliances have any meaning. Still, ya gotta do something with the princesses.

------------------
.com died ... so I am here ...

.com refugee 123321003

I promise not to curse anymore.

[smap1024]

ur ally may help u in an attack. but that's rare coz ur ally needs to be pretty strong.

and if he has more troops commited i think he will take over the province so not much of a help there.

otherwise if he's being sieged, u can drop troops in to help him out of it. (more a burden that)

that's abt all i can see in an alliance.

if only diplomacy in STW can add in 2 more simple effects will be great.

attacking battles : use of emissaries to request for help. something like a pact.

defending battles : allies will send troops to help u if u request for it.

both are simple diplomacy options in RTK games if i recall.

[Ktonos]

Yeap! I agree, and I wish to also add to the above written that it could be easy for the programmers to create a code which does the following.

You drop an emissary on an allied monarch and the a message pop up which is giving you the option to propose the allied king to wage war against another faction (neutral or enemy in comparisson to yours), or not. If you choose yes then the alliances menu pop up among with a bar with the symbols of the rest of factions.Next year the emissary tells you if the king rejected the proposal or if he accepted and if yes how much florins he wants you do give him. Then you select if you accept to pay that amount of florins or not.

Of course it would be equally posible for other factions to forge alliances against you or to give you money to wage war...

[Ticondarova]

I have found that Allies will help attack a terratory of an enemy neigbour but in this instance I attacked with 3 armies of about 2000 men each and he sent in one unit of archers as backup!!!! thats an insult may as well woop his behind :0 http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Whoever shall knock on your door may desire tea so give him Kamul instead
(old chinese saying)

[Papa Bear!]

Quote Originally posted by Thane Talain MacDonald:
Actually if you go to war against your ally and ROYALLY SMASH THEM INTO THE DUST, I see no reason your influence should take a hit. People will want to ally with you even more, if only for the prestige, and because it puts them in a position to backstab you while looking like the pious revenger to the rest of the world.[/QUOTE]


I hope you never make it into a posistion of command, particularly in an area that might in some small way affect me.
that said, uh, ya the whole diplomacy system is poopy, I guess I'm not being constructive but I've gotten tired of "wishful thinking" suggestion posts... Without the ability to publish a patch to even fix bugs, I can't imagine our consumer input will be given any value, at least not any value that leads to change.

Forgive my cynicism but I feel like there is a clear path that "good" game publisher/developer companies take, and a bath for the "bad" ones.

CA did themselves well by quickly releasing info on a patch, (which to most of us implied that the patch wasn't too far behind), that seemed to address some gameplay issues in addition to generic bugs...

but activision is probably trying to decide if that stuff is just better reserved as new features for an expansion, and, ahh, I digress... sorry for complaining.

What was I saying? oh, the idea that being able to break alliances without penalty is an intellegient game feature is hogwash, pure and simple. There is nothing remotely realistic, historically accurate, or even dynamic (if we're only to consider the impact on gameplay), about that. Its all poop! poop poop poop!

POOP! I hope my frustrations have been made evident.