Becoming a Protectorate

Last night I finally got around to installing RTR, and immediately started a game with a faction listed as "Very Hard" (Thrace) on VH/VH settings.

I ended up playing right through the night until well into the next morning. (Damn! I hate doing that). Every time I thought I was on the cusp of establishing a solid foundation for my faction, some new crisis would occur and I'd have to start over again.

For instance, fairly early in the night's proceddings I was just two turns from taking a rebel city which would have given me a solid income, when sneaky Dacia declared war and I had to cancel my invasion to protect my territory. Then I found that my income plummeted substantially whenever the Dacians besieged one of my cities, which was every couple of turns. So I kept running out of money and couldn't build the troops I needed to go on the offensive.

Finally after a series of hard fought battles, I found myself a turn away from taking a second Dacian city and easing the income squeeze, when the blasted Macedonians stabbed me in the back by declaring war as well.

Anyhow, I'm having a great time with RTR so far, much more so than with the vanilla game, the battles seem to last longer and melee appears to have more logical outcomes, although of course, the AI still does some dumb things. In fact this is the first time I've faced defeat in an RTW campaign.

So congratulations to all those guys who worked so hard on RTR. Judging by my experience last night, you've done a terrific job.

But getting back to the point, both Dacia and Macedonia on different occasions offered to make me a protectorate. I declined because I didn't know if it is equivalent to surrender, but if it isn't, just what happens when you become a protectorate? Can you still attack other factions and take their cities? Can you attack rebel held cities? And what happens if you can't pay the tribute that presumably the protector faction expects from you?

I haven't tried RTR but in RTW 1.1 I was playing as the seluclids and getting hammered by egypt when they demanded I became a protectorate. As I had nothing to lose I accepted to see what'd happen and it was not a whole lot. I played trough the whole campaign and didn't notice much difference asides from Egypt stayed an ally right through. Even when they were down to two or three provinces and I was charging on towards the 50.

It's never happened since so not sure these days.

Shock horror! A reply to this thread. I'd given up on it already.

Actually after posting the query here and at the com and getting little response, I decided to just try it to see what happened. So I accepted becoming a protectorate from Macedonia and on the very same turn they attacked me! At first I thought the feature must be bugged but then got a message that the Macedonians had betrayed me. Basically, they took my money and then made war on me anyhow.

Since then I've been turning down their offers to become a protectorate. I can't afford to be giving away my cash for nothing.

Apart from that, it seems clear from the couple of responses I've had that becoming a protectorate does not restrict you in any way, except that you have to pay some money, but I'm told that even then they stop taking your money after a few turns.

Oh, and thanks for your response ~:)

BTW If you haven't played RTR yet I suggest you take a look at it. It's a big 80 meg download but I think it's worth it. I downloaded version 5.4 from boomtown, you have to install the main mod and then two patches to it.

Probably a better idea though would be to wait for RTR version 6.0, which is supposed to be out some time this month. According to their site notes, they've achieved some amazing things with 6.0, including, can you believe it, some sort of supply factor, and a new feature which differentiates which units you can build in which provinces. They've implemented it so you can only build your more advanced units in your home provinces, enemy provinces you conquer can only build auxilia type units (they actually have three different province types, which can build successively fewer unit types). This new feature should help limit the "steamroller effect" that mars vanilla RTW so badly from the midgame on.

Apart from that RTR has heaps of tweaks to unit stats which make battles last longer and play out more logically, a new map, different starting provinces for factions, more historical units, new skins for many different unit types and a whole lot more. Well worth the download IMO.

BTW If you do decide to take a look at it, be sure to back up your entire "Data" subdirectory in the RTW folder first, because RTR has no uninstall. The advantage is that you can then swap between the vanilla game and RTR just by renaming the directories, or else delete RTR any time you like simply by deleting its version of the Data directory.

oke í'll tell you, i never have been a protectorate but i had many. if the AI is a PRT*
they suddenly stop with attacking other factions (this is a bug) but i think you can attack other factions. mind that you're in war with the enemies of your protector and vica versa. you'll have to pay a certain amount of money and probably can't attack them and neither can they. but you can cancel it with diplomacy, ask for money if they ask you to be their protectorate.

NOTE i say this from AI perspective so i don't really know

Ive never been offered to become a protectorate, but I do find Thrace are very willing to become a my protectorate with little encouragement, i'm playing RTR as Macedonia and I offered the Thracian's 5000 denarii if they would become my protectorate, they had Tylis and the city immediately north to it left at the time and they accepted. I thought I could use them to fight the persistant rebel's that kept popping up west of the Black sea.

However upon the almost ceremonial yearly renewal of war with Dacia, Thrace sided with Dacia and I was forced to destroy Thrace.

Which was especially annoying as only 15 years earlier id pushed a Dacian invasion force out of there recently conquered Tylis in Thrace and then offered the city back to the Thracians for free, as there miltary was badly hurt I offered numerous subsidies to them so they could become a useful ally to me. Imagine the irritation when they decided to reward my mercy and kindness by siding with the war mongering Dacian's. Suffice to say Thrace was dealt with permanently and the war with Dacia is STILL going on 20 years later. :duel:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by _Aetius_

Imagine the irritation when they decided to reward my mercy and kindness by siding with the war mongering Dacian's. Suffice to say Thrace was dealt with permanently and the war with Dacia is STILL going on 20 years later.

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I'm afraid the diplomacy still leaves a lot to be desired. There's no point that I can see in creating/becoming a protectorate or forming an alliance with anyone, because they are just as likely to attack you in the next turn.

There are no apparent negative effects from breaking an alliance or cheating someone, and factions don't get either a good or bad reputation (with appropriate rewards or penalties) depending on their history. No-one has a memory in this game.

It's a pitiful implementation of a diplomacy model really, surely it couldn't be that hard to tweak it to make it more interesting and realistic. Goodness knows CA seems to spend enough time thinking up new leadership traits and other chrome, time that would be much better spent developing a better diplomacy model IMO.

You know, I'm getting so frustrated - not only with this game but with PC games in general and their typical lack of finish - that sometimes I find myself considering writing my own blasted game just to show 'em ~:)

Diplomacy can be amusing sometimes.

In my Brutti campaign I took Patavium from the Julli. A few turns later they asked for a ceasefire, which I made them pay 15k for, fully intending to attack them again the next turn.

They beat me to it by immediately besieging Patavium and breaking the ceasefire ! LOL