Diplomacy

[Crimson Castle]

Hello,

Is there any way - once your faction becomes rather large - to negotiate with other factions for Princesses or alliances?

I've been killing myself with boredom trying to get alliances or princesses for my faction - I've sent numerous emissaries - and received complete failure.

Afterawhile, I get so bored - that I sent my armies in to conquer my various rivals.

Castle

[discovery1]

Sorry but no. THe diplomatic options in MTW suck, unfortunately. They are said to be improved in RTW.

[Ranges]

You can get to a decent size with Hungaria, or at least, i managed to do that without the infamous 'everybody declares war' problem.

What i did was never make war on a catholic faction (well, untill i got sick of diplomacy and went rampant all across europe).

I took out the Byz, then the Egyptians (who had taken out the turks before). Now i owned Everything to Kiev, to the map edge, and downwards.

Throw in major naval power (more than 3 caravels in every sea square) and they didnt attack me. Instant riches through trade.
Everybody played nice, and france gobbled up most of the rest of the world. So i destabilize them (commando raid on Morocco and Wessex, split their empire.. *grins*).

I believe that it is important to destabilize empires, not conquer them when you decide to stay away from long wars. Afterall, if you cant allow yourself to grow too big, you should make your enemies smaller *grins*

[Qilue]

To extend Ranges post a bit, here's a mini-guide to Medieval black ops. It applies mostly to catholics but can be adapted to islamic and orthodox factions. The following is a long term project, so if your after imediate results, send an army.

Start by training lots of assassins and spies. To make decent assassins, set up some provinces to train emisaries and have an assassins killing them. Occassionally they will fail, but this culls the incompetants. At 4 or 5 stars, set them aside in the province where the following is occurring.

A similiar system for inquisitors can be used. My favourite for this is Ireland. It's not on the crusade trail and impossible to attack due to my shipping. So find/build some peasants (or any other low cost unit) with a zero piety unit leader. Then burn that unit's leader every turn. Keep a few zero star inquisitors around for special duties.

The piety of a unit's leader is tied to the zeal of the province it's trained in. High zeal will produce high piety unit leaders and low zeal will produce low or no piety unit leaders.

Occassionally the AI will send their own inquisitor in for a heretic burning. This is where your 5 star assassins can get further training.

Next, place a bishop in every province. The AI does seem to like killing them off, but their preferred target are cardinals. With these available, the AI will almost totally ignore the lesser clerics.

Identify all possible heirs of the faction you will be targeting. Go after these with grand inquisitors and/or assassins until only one is left. I say the heirs because kings are much harder to kill off (although not impossible) and don't seem to develope new V&Vs.

The objective is to place a loser on that faction's throne so identify among the heirs the worst. This one is your choice for the throne and kill off the rest. When the king dies, that faction will now be ruled by a complete incompetant.

To make a really awful heir, do a few 0 star spy and assassin rushes. That is, send 10 of each against the heir. In this instance, you actually want all of them to fail. The heir will then develop V&Vs like paranoid and assassins which can have a dire effect on loyality which increases the possibility of a civil war.

Coupled with continuous failed inquisitions that can turn a high dread prince into a milk sop by making him gain the born again V&V which will further erode loyality once he becomes the king.

Making a province rebel takes some effort as well and this works best against non-catholics. Train up a special group. This composed of 20 each of spies and cardinals. Send the cardinals in first. Once this province has a majority of catholics, send in the spies. You will probably lose a few spies, but the rest should make it.

On the following turn, that province's loyality will plummit. If on the next turn it doesn't rebel, move all the spies and cardinals to another target or back home. If you don't get a rebellion on the second turn, there's no point staying because the AI will have moved lots of troops and their own spies in to stabilize.

The reason for the cardinals is because a religious rebellion produces much better troops than a peasant rebelion. You can then bribe the rebels or watch the AI get massacred as it tries to re-take the province.

Last, to give the previously mentioned 5 star assassins some excercise, send them against the campers. Campers being the princesses and emisaries the AI likes to camp in any of your provinces that share a border with them.

[katank]

well, now to extend Qilue a bit, use Syria in VI for the +2 assasins. With all the upgrades, that means 5 stars out of the gates These make them very useable from the start and requires no training I establish a crusader kingdom whenever I play a catholic faction of Antioch, Tripoli, Palestine, Edessa, and Syria which is uber rich and easy to defend.

Good tip on religious rebellions. I find that spies are less effective in VI though and rebellions are smaller.

One of my favorite challenges is to remain fairly small and then use subterfuge to dominate. I would try to herd each faction into a few provinces by generating massive rebellions and also train up my heir to be total jedis.

This makes for more fun that rampant conquest. Also, the Egyptians seem particularly vulnerable to agents as they skimp on border forts and watch towers. I was once able to wipe them out by assasinating everyone in their royal family. BTW, my assasin gained quite a few stars doing so.

[son of spam]

Diplomacy? This game is called "Total War" for a reason. I would recommend civ III or civ II if you want to talk(though I like both the civ series and total war)

[RZST]

Quote[/b] (son of spam @ Mar. 13 2004,20:26)]Diplomacy? This game is called "Total War" for a reason. I would recommend civ III or civ II if you want to talk(though I like both the civ series and total war)
lmfao, i was just about to say that.
BUT a little complex diplomacy never hurt anyone :p

[Qilue]

The title "Total War" does not define how one must fight said war. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

After all, the cold war between the US and USSR rarely involved them actually shooting at each other.

[RZST]

but even the intro video said "Total War" meaning the time for words is gone and the time for war has come.

After all, the cold war between the US and USSR rarely involved them actually shooting at each other.
-yes because they have this thing called a "nuke", and it made really big boom booms.

[Mouzafphaerre]

-
Great post Qilue; thanks for taking the time.

A couple minor points:

With two or three Grand Inquisitors with ranks greater than 1, it's pretty possible to fry a king himself after a few tries; and he indeed gains V&V (devote, atheist, bor again; mostly in that order) during those trials.

Make use of your Is and GIs to stir up a province with Catholic population. Send 3-4 Is and 2-3 GIs and you'll get the BBQ in the next turn, whatever the zeal/heresy:

http://www.thelib.com/gallery/albums/userpics/00000009.jpg

Blow a couple successful strikes on the hinterland of your enemy if the war has to break out. It will bring a civil war pretty quickly. Don't annex her provinces but burn them down and retreat. (This, of course, lacks the absolute reference to the gameplay terms.)

Happy provocating

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-toff.gif
_

[KyodaiSteeleye]

Yes, diplomacy in MTW doesn't really exist. Some mulit-option diplomacy with allies would really improve the SP game.

However, having mulitplayer strategy map would improve diplomacy even more

[Crash]

If you really want to play the diplomacy game, you have to use the Easy level. The AI factions are a lot more cooperative and less prone to civil war and rebellion. Of course the battles are going to be a lot easier too, but you can't have everything.

One of these days, I'm going to play an Easy Level game using one of the more difficult factions. To make the game somewhat challenging I will have autoresolve all battles unless I'm heavily outnumbered. I will also have to:

1. Never directly attack another factions province
1. Rely on agents to destabilize/reduce rival factions
2. Conquer only rebel provinces
3. Rely on trade for more income
4. Accept all offers of ceasefire, alliance and marriage
5. If Catholic, attempt to comply with all requests from the Pope
6. If Muslim, make war only against non-Muslims.
7. Autoresolve all battles except for sieges.

To have a purely strategic game autoresolving all battles would be mandatory, but it wouldn't be as much fun, so I will allow myself the option of personally commanding siege battles, castle defenses, and attacks against far larger armies.

[NewJeffCT]

Since i get ticked off at the lack of diplomacy on Hard & Expert, I sometimes play on Easy or Normal and mod all the opposing factions.

1) I then make every other faction have a little bit bigger starting building and a little more teched up. An example would be, if I decided to play the Turks - instead of a fort in Wessex & Aquitine, I may give the English a keep in Wessex & Aquitine with a few more smaller buildings (spearmaker, bowyer, shipyard, maybe) and a Fort in Northumbria; then I'd give the HRE a few upgrades, as well as the French, Spanish, Almos, Byz, Egyptians, etc.

2) From there, I make all unit support costs lower - all infantry is lowered by 1; all cavalry is lowered by 2 for light cavalry & 3 for heavies. Ship build times are now mostly 1 year and half the price & support costs.

3) Still further, I would then take of the faction specific units only and make them a bit more powerful - i.e., the same English faction above would have Billmen that I gave an additional +1 to a few characteristics; while AUMs would be similarly modded for the Almohads, Italian Infantry for the Italians, etc.

4) Finally, I double the size of the Mongol Horse Archer units to 80 and lower their build reqs; then I give the Mongol Heavy Cav 50% more and lower their build reqs and make Mongol Warriors into units of 100.

5) To also help the AI in combat, I also bump up the strength of their titles - +2 stars instead of +1, for example.

[katank]

NewJeffCT, this seems like an awful lot of work.

have you tried simply increasing their treasuries? giving them a 15k or 20k treasury to start makes them far more competitive and is less work than changing all unit stats.

[Nowake]

Well, they tend to spent the money on useless buildings and units, keeping high rable-composed armies.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (Qilue @ Mar. 13 2004,13:44)]To extend Ranges post a bit, here's a mini-guide to Medieval black ops. It applies mostly to catholics but can be adapted to islamic and orthodox factions. The following is a long term project, so if your after imediate results, send an army.

Start by training lots of assassins and spies. To make decent assassins, set up some provinces to train emisaries and have an assassins killing them. Occassionally they will fail, but this culls the incompetants. At 4 or 5 stars, set them aside in the province where the following is occurring.

A similiar system for inquisitors can be used. My favourite for this is Ireland. It's not on the crusade trail and impossible to attack due to my shipping. So find/build some peasants (or any other low cost unit) with a zero piety unit leader. Then burn that unit's leader every turn. Keep a few zero star inquisitors around for special duties.

The piety of a unit's leader is tied to the zeal of the province it's trained in. High zeal will produce high piety unit leaders and low zeal will produce low or no piety unit leaders.

Occassionally the AI will send their own inquisitor in for a heretic burning. This is where your 5 star assassins can get further training.

Next, place a bishop in every province. The AI does seem to like killing them off, but their preferred target are cardinals. With these available, the AI will almost totally ignore the lesser clerics.

Identify all possible heirs of the faction you will be targeting. Go after these with grand inquisitors and/or assassins until only one is left. I say the heirs because kings are much harder to kill off (although not impossible) and don't seem to develope new V&Vs.

The objective is to place a loser on that faction's throne so identify among the heirs the worst. This one is your choice for the throne and kill off the rest. When the king dies, that faction will now be ruled by a complete incompetant.

To make a really awful heir, do a few 0 star spy and assassin rushes. That is, send 10 of each against the heir. In this instance, you actually want all of them to fail. The heir will then develop V&Vs like paranoid and assassins which can have a dire effect on loyality which increases the possibility of a civil war.

Coupled with continuous failed inquisitions that can turn a high dread prince into a milk sop by making him gain the born again V&V which will further erode loyality once he becomes the king.

Making a province rebel takes some effort as well and this works best against non-catholics. Train up a special group. This composed of 20 each of spies and cardinals. Send the cardinals in first. Once this province has a majority of catholics, send in the spies. You will probably lose a few spies, but the rest should make it.

On the following turn, that province's loyality will plummit. If on the next turn it doesn't rebel, move all the spies and cardinals to another target or back home. If you don't get a rebellion on the second turn, there's no point staying because the AI will have moved lots of troops and their own spies in to stabilize.

The reason for the cardinals is because a religious rebellion produces much better troops than a peasant rebelion. You can then bribe the rebels or watch the AI get massacred as it tries to re-take the province.

Last, to give the previously mentioned 5 star assassins some excercise, send them against the campers. Campers being the princesses and emisaries the AI likes to camp in any of your provinces that share a border with them.
Qilue,
Have you checked your ancestor tree for any relations to the Machiavelli´s. Man, you´re bad Defenitely don´t want to go up against you in a MP-game. I´ll call in sick, he he

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (Crimson Castle @ Mar. 12 2004,23:53)]Hello,

Is there any way - once your faction becomes rather large - to negotiate with other factions for Princesses or alliances?

I've been killing myself with boredom trying to get alliances or princesses for my faction - I've sent numerous emissaries - and received complete failure.

Afterawhile, I get so bored - that I sent my armies in to conquer my various rivals.

Castle
I defenitely agree with you on the lack of durable diplomatic options but like "son of spam" said: "it´s total war". If it´s diplomacy you want why don´t you try EUII for a while. One of the best historical games ever Check it out: http://www.paradoxplaza.com/

[Nowake]

Well, I think we're taking this too seriously. I mean, if you have an alliance for 10 turns than it's 10 turns This means 10 years. This is not a short period of time.

[NewJeffCT]

Quote[/b] (katank @ Mar. 16 2004,20:50)]NewJeffCT, this seems like an awful lot of work.

have you tried simply increasing their treasuries? giving them a 15k or 20k treasury to start makes them far more competitive and is less work than changing all unit stats.
I tried and it didn't work. I've been happy with my results - one campaign, the Byz had at least half a dozen fortresses and were cranking out demi-culverins and gold armour Pronoi & Kats, and even the Pope had a few fortresses. I think I was the Danes or Polish.

For some reason, I've tried modding the starting money and it didn't work.

I'm also usually pretty good about developing my economy, so I try to give the bad guys as much of an advantage as possible. Heck, in my first Muslim faction campaign, I played Egypt and nursed the Almos along until we were the two major factions - I would even send my spies into Almo bordered territories to cause rebellions there so the Almos could invade or bribe and the Catholic faction would be weakened.

[Qilue]

There is a simple change that does help the AI with building castles. The AI when building castles, builds the extensions for each castle size thus wasting a lot of time.

So, change all the castle extensions (except the fortress ones) so they cost 100 florins and take 1 turn to build. This cuts down their castle building time, which makes higher level buildings available sooner, so they train better troops.

[lancer63]

Right now I'm taking a breather from the medieval campaings and playing the VI mode. Playing the vikings and loving it. Spies and assasins I use to keep my generals loyal. Noone below 3 loyalty shields will be endured for a new kings first year. And no high star ingrate goon is gonna be safe from the wrath of my viking gestapo. That's as far as my diplomacy goes. For external affairs y send a party of several hundred of my boys to conduct 'hostile negotiations' with whoever disagrees with me. Lots of stars to be won there. Very direct, very clean, very fast, deadly and definitive diplomacy. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-toff.gif

[Crash]

I spent the past few days playing the Turks on Easy, GA, using my previously stated rules for playing in Easy mode for a purely strategic diplomacy type game. It has been challenging.

The only battles I can personally command are castle defences since the AI seems equally stupid at castle sieges in Expert or Hard.

I was not able to expand beyond the original four provinces until Egypt had a civil war, then I was able to grab Antioch from a rebel faction while the Byzantines grabbed Tripoli from the Egyptians.

Then the GH attacked Armenia, then Rum. I had been accumulating an army of Syrian Assassins because there isn't much else to do when there are no rebel provinces available nearby for me to invade. I assassinated several Mongolian generals, which helped Rum repel their attacks. The GH eventually reduced their garrison in Armenia, which allowed me to liberate it with an army that included every mercenary that I could get my hands on, plus two Jihads. The Byzantines retook Georgia, then Khazar, Crimea, and Kiev. Now the GH is squeezed between the Novgorod and the Byz.

I now have my outlet to the sea in Antioch, and I am building Dhows as fast as possible to generate some trade income.

The lack of battles makes the game go much faster, but this type of game is not for those who play MTW primarily for the battles. It has turned out, however, to be a very challenging strategic diplomatic game and victory is still in doubt.

[oblivious maximus]

exactly crash, GA is the way to go.

Throw a few extra bucks in the treasury(yours only). Play GA on High or Expert. One time i even put a few hundred florins in my pot and forced the diplomacy out of them.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-gossip.gif