Dipolomacy, Turkish Style

[Don Corleone]

I had a question about playing as the Turks (or, the Elmos or the Eggys for that matter). If you don't have princesses to offer, is it possible to get a princess to marry one of your heirs? I've tried, tried and tried again. Seems the Eurotrash are somewhat predjudiced, and don't want my Turkish boys contaminating their gene pools. Has anyone successfully requested marriages or had a faction offer a princess before.

I've also noticed that the diplomacy seems biased against the Turks. I can always count on Sicily & Italy to sign on with me, but that's it. If Byzantium invades Hungary and has them down to 1 province, they still won't take the hand I'm offering. Ditto for the French, getting crushed by the English & the HRE. They'd rather get overrun than accept my offer of friendship. Anyone else experience this?

By the way, both of the above situations deal with the way I've behaved BEFORE I've gone on the warpath with Byzantium. I tend to employ Katank's 'ransom the Eggy Sultan' strategy, but I wait until I have a good reason to attack the Byz (like Sicily or Italy have gotten into it with them).

Also, has ANYONE, EVER, as ANY muslim faction, but especially the Turks, gotten an alliance from the pope? This would be sweet, as there's no crusades from that moment on. It always happens when I'm the French or the HRE, so "I" don't get to go crusading, but when the tables are turned, damn pope won't accept my gifts. What gives...

[Pericles]

As the Turks, I haven't married any Catholic princesses (which is not to say it is not possible to do so), and I haven't allied with the Pope (it would be weird to do so, since the Pope likes to spank Muslim heretics - heheh).

On the other hand, in my current game (with GA on HARD) I am allied to several factions, including the Byz, Egyptians, France (after they launched an unsuccessful Crusade against me), and several other factions. The key here, I think, is not invade your neighbours, although every game can be different...

Spain has been a real headache: it has almost conquered all of Egypt and has launched several Crusades against me. Huge Spanish stacks have been appearing on my doorstep, so it is only matter of time before we start mixing it up...

[Procrustes]

Hi,

I know that no AI faction will ally with me if I'm warring with anyone they are already allied with. That and it's a lot easier to get alliances when you are small. I think that these are part of the reasons that it's relatively easy to get alliances and princesses early in a campaign, but it gets increasingly difficult.

Best,

[_Aetius_]

Well I usually get an alliance with byzantium, usually at the start of the game when im more interested in conquering the egyptian empire, they use the turks as abit of a buffer to egyptian invasion so dont mind if you go to war with them.

It depends on how powerful you are aswell though, when im strong enough to defeat and conquer the byzantine empire east of constantinople. So i reduce it to europe and kick it out of asia minor, most if not all western powers are more than willing to ally with the turks.

I dont think ive married a turkish prince to a catholic princess, but i may have to an orthodox one i cant remember.

[CherryDanish]

A few points:
1) no one will ally with you if they are allied with your enemy
2) marriages to muslim princes mean jack and squat, I'm not even sure you can marry a christian princess to a muslim prince although I tried it once and forgot the outcome. You certainly get no daughters and you'll NEVER be able to marry off your prince.
3) As the Turks, it's harder to make friends because it's harder to get the diplomats out before everyone else is allied. On slow start campaigns where no one fights for like 50-100 years ... except you ... it's almost impossible to build allies. By the time you're ready to make friends the sanish have a 8-14 faction alliance and attacking any of their friends means you'll soon be at war with them. As the Turks, it doesn't matter, kill em all and let Allah sort them out. No one plays the Turks to make friends.
4) The pope doesn't give a rats ass about religion in domination campaigns. Calls to crusade are rarely heeded, except seemingly by the French who seem to get drunk every weekend and end up looking for Antioch. The pope will call crusades against even his allies. I played a campaign as the Elmos and the pope was my staunchest ally, even going to war against my catholic enemy (sicily) and was the only ally not to try and stab me in the back, but he sent the frigging French after me time and again. The second you have more land, more gains, more money, more troops, or the moon is aligned with Uranus, then the pope will rally the faithfull against you.

[{KotR}Lionheart]

in the campaing most western factiosn will ally with muslims, esoecially if thye are at war with a neighbour, and want to amke sure they dont have to fight on too many fronts. Musilm factiosn seem to get pretty good heirs without marrying the 'christian' way.