MTW diplomacy trouble

In several campaigns I've played as the HRE I get to a point where my empire is stable and I have a good income. I start preping for a crusade and one of my allies (spain, italy, hungary, poland) goes to war with me and none of my allies stay on my side. So instead of going on a crusade my trade routes fall apart and I'm forced to abandon my crusade and defend the empire on at least three fronts :wall: . Any ideas on how to peacefully avoid this?

A couple questions of diplomatic regard:

What are good ways to make peace? I can't ever get the AI to cease-fire.
What are good ways to encourage an alliance?

I've assumed it's a good idea to get princesses from other nations to marry my heirs so that they can get an early start on producing offspring. If so whats a good way to convince nations to marry off their princesses?

thanks,
fredrick

Exactly how big is your empire, fredrick--i.e., how much of the map do you control? I ask because once you reach a certain size (usually around a third of the provinces, give or take), no one will be your friend anymore. The moment you reach that "critical mass", everyone else starts to gang up on the Big Guy--you! Even if you're not *that* big, you're still at a disadvantage, as smaller factions usually have an easier time of getting allies. Unfortunate, but true. ~:(

Also, what is your Emperor's influence at? Because if it's 5 or lower, one often has a hard time securing alliances and/or royal marriages. Generally, you want your influence to be at least 6; and even then it may not be enough. Ideally, an influence rating of 7 or higher is what you want for your faction leader.

I have Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the British Isles. I did not expand eastward but I hold all of western europe. I hold Aragon and recently aquired Valencia (from the moslem faction down there) but thats as far as I am into Spain.

Nobody likes the big guy, and nobody likes agressors (even though they were only aggressive in self-defense), so with your big, expanding empire you will have trouble getting alliances. Compounded to this is that the A.I. has almost no sense of self-preservation: if you are big and threatening they don't like you and won't ally or make peace, even though you armies are sitting on their doorstep.

Or maybe it is because you have big armies sitting on their doorstep, since this seems to make A.I. factions suspicious. I find it harder to get an alliance with a faction that I am having an arms race with. Off course, it is only to be expeted that you have huge armies on the border with a faction you are at war with, but logic is not the A.I.'s strongest side. Also, someone has reported that agents on enemy territory reduce the chance of getting an alliance, but I have never tested this.

You are right about princesses, BTW: they do increase the chance on early offspring. The most certain way of getting a foreign bride for your princes is waiting for an A.I. faction to propose an alliance, refuse, and send an emissary after one of their princesses. I also sometimes get a princess from a long-time ally, but you shouldn't count on this.

Welcome to the .Org, ~:wave: .

Well I wasn't aware of the influence attribute and my king has only 4. I've got a couple messages that I'm the most advance. I've also had a few that I have the largest income so I'm surprised it's only 4.

How do I bolster my influence?

Good question, I always thought winning battles helped. I suppose a sucessful crusade does the same, on a larger scale, and having the biggest army around wouldn´t hurt, either. I´ve never paid much attention to my King´s influence. If he´s newly crowned his influence is a bit weak, but it grows over time.

As for your allies, MTW has a nice and simple rule: the one who wins the first battle keeps his allies. The AI, however knows this rule as well, so often you´ll see what I like to call the "Naval Incident" strategy. As you can´t much influence naval battles, the AI loves to start a war not by sending an army into your territory but to attack one of your ships. There´s not much you can do about it (which makes it a bit frustrating at times), but still, it´s good to know.

Your king gains a point of influence for every two (or three, not exactly sure) provinces you conquer.

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Originally Posted by Vlad The Impala

Your king gains a point of influence for every two (or three, not exactly sure) provinces you conquer.

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Influence goes up for every 2 provinces you conquer/bribe. Aside from that, successful Crusades/Jihads are about the only other way to increase one's influence.

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Originally Posted by Martok

Influence goes up for every 2 provinces you conquer/bribe. Aside from that, successful Crusades/Jihads are about the only other way to increase one's influence.

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fighting battles does increase the loyalty of generals. atleast if they win. and if your king wins battles he also gains influence...i thought so

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Originally Posted by The Stranger

fighting battles does increase the loyalty of generals. atleast if they win. and if your king wins battles he also gains influence...i thought so

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I guess I've never really paid much attention to that, so you could very well be right, Stranger. I wouldn't even know about kings gaining influence that way, as I rarely let them fight battles that often (unless it's still early in the game). I've had too many problems where half my empire rebels simply because my faction leader actually engaged in combat.... ~:rolleyes:

yeah i know. but i usually have him fight the early battles cuz if the king has great skills than his heirs have that 2 and heirs usually command my armies

Same here. Like I said in my previous post, I'll let my faction leader fight battles if it's still fairly early on in the game (for much the same reasons as yourself). After a few decades or so, however, I take him off the front lines and just have him "tour" my lands. By then, my empire is usually large enough that I have to be careful to minmize the risks of civil war/mass rebellion. In my games, very few of my faction leaders ever get to personally fight battles after the first 50 years.

The only exception to this rule is if my king is worthless, and I therefore send him on a suicide attack--in which case I've obviously decided civil war is preferable than letting him continue to sit on the throne anyway. ~D

wheres the risk of mass rebelion come from? the king dieing in battle?

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Originally Posted by fredrick

wheres the risk of mass rebelion come from? the king dieing in battle?

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No one's quite sure if this is a bug or if it's a feature, but the basic problem is this: If your faction leader is in a battle where your side is the *attacker*, the computer treats your king as being away "on campaign" (doesn't matter if he's off Crusading/Jihading, or if he's just right next door to your capital putting down some local bandits). Since your faction leader isn't there "in country" to manage affairs of state, a number of provinces (often times a whole bloody pisspot full!) may decide that now is a good time to throw off the imperial yoke and rebel en masse.

Now generally this isn't much of a problem in the early part of the game. I'm not sure if this is because it's time-coded, or if it's simply because your empire isn't big enough yet early on. Smaller factions can usually let their king/sultan/emperor fight as many battles as they want without any real penalty. Once you reach a certain size, however, it's generally a bad idea to let your king get involved in combat *unless* you're the defender; then it doesn't seem to really matter.

I´d consider it a feature, after all, while campaigning he´s usually not that easily accessible as he were if he sat in one of his palaces. And I don´t think it´s time coded; I´ve played often with the - notoriously rebellious - HRE, and sending the Emperor into a battle is definitely not recommended.

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Originally Posted by Ciaran

I´d consider it a feature, after all, while campaigning he´s usually not that easily accessible as he were if he sat in one of his palaces.

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I lean toward it being a feature as well (as opposed to a bug), but I don't like to assume such things. ~;) It does make sense, though. Your faction leader is going to be harder to get a hold of if he's off campaigning for the summer, than if he's at home holding court.

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And I don´t think it´s time coded; I´ve played often with the - notoriously rebellious - HRE, and sending the Emperor into a battle is definitely not recommended.

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I kind of suspected as much, but it's good to hear that confirmed. Thanks Ciaran!

In my current campaign as HRE my crusade failed and rebellion broke out. I was prompted with a dialog to choose sides. My King was safely at home albeit with a influence of 4. Is this the same type of rebellion that happens when the king goes into battle?

Yes it is, the dreaded civil war.

Choose that side you support wisely, your king might not be worth backing up.

Rather enjoying the more "subtle" arts of diplomacy (assassins), I find it frustrating trying to get the Assassins valour up to a level where they have a chance to cause some carnage (to generals or heirs).

I am not sure if it is my vanilla MTW or what but even assassins created in Syria (granted I was egypt and had conqured Syria) did not have the valour 2 as hinted at in other threads.

Any idea on,

1. How best to use assassins,

2. How gain valour easily,

(do you lose influence when assassins get caught/killed?)

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Originally Posted by El Diablo

I am not sure if it is my vanilla MTW or what but even assassins created in Syria (granted I was egypt and had conqured Syria) did not have the valour 2 as hinted at in other threads.

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The valour bonus in Syria was only introduced with VI, unfortunatly.

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1. How best to use assassins,

2. How gain valour easily,

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You have to valour them up before using them on real targets. There are several ways to do this. For example, put them in a province with a port or a border province, but without a border fort, and he will catch enemy spies and assassins. Off course, it may be useful to station a spy there as well, just to make sure none slip through. Ports usually work like magnets for enemy agent, so I recommend stationing them there. Secondly, you can practice them on your own emissaries. This is rather costly, but emissaries are cheaper than assassins. You can also use your own spies and assassins as a target, but I think this rather a waste. Still, some players claim assassin duels are a very good way of valouring up. Thirdly you can practice them on hostile agents in your own provinces, but be aware that the A.I. knows when you target its pieces and will withdraw them to a province with a border fort when they are not on a mission. Keep your assassins away from border forts until they are at least level 5 (and even then they still can get caught).

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(do you lose influence when assassins get caught/killed?)

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Not influence, but that faction is not going to like you, even though the assassin was not intended for them.

Welcome to the Org, BTW ~:wave: .

MTW's diplomacy system is not very good so I hardly use it. Sure, I'll waste my time with making alliences and stuff, but it's best to concentrate your efforts on steamrolling the map. :2thumbsup:

Thanks for the help Ludens.

That would also probably explain a few of my generals getting "snuffed out" every now and then. I try and get to border fort in my provences ASAP but some still slip through. Will leave a few spies/assassins to mop up trouble.

Oh and thanks ofr the welcome!!!

You can also train a unit of peasants, and then have your assassin "practice" by repeatedly killing off the unit leader until you get the assassin valoured up to level 5-6. I personally don't care for this method, as it is considered to be a pretty cheesy way of valouring up assassins, but it can be quite effective.

Sometimes a certain faction will take a liking to you. I was denmark in the early ages, and me and france shared a common enemy (HRE) and I just continualy married his princesses to mine and mine to his, at least 10 princesses went back and forth within 25 years. And influence has a affect on rebellion, though of all the times iv played, iv NEVER realized that taking the king away from the country will increase the chance of rebellion ( I always play on expert)

Another thing...No matter how many provences you have, or how influencal you are. Its much much more harder to gain princesses later game. Theres 3 danish princesses just sitting there...and nothing. (Spain never gives away princesses)

Somebody marry a princess to your prince (incest) and test and see if the son develops the trait inbred.

(cross eyed babys arent funny)

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Originally Posted by holybandit

Somebody marry a princess to your prince (incest) and test and see if the son develops the trait inbred.

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Someone once tried this for several generations, but without any apparent ill consequences. The inbred vices are probably random.

Some might ask if European royal families have been trying to get the "inbred" vice for the past 1000 years.

Some of them were nothing short of loopy.

Inbreeding vices seem to affect generals that spend too long in one province, which is really annoying when you need to keep a good general guarding a vulnerable border for a few years!

The TW games are screwed up in one section in many. If you dont keep on the move and keep attacking somebody, then your royal line and some of your generals will turn weak. I dont know why, but everyone in your family becomes loony and the stats go way down, and your generals become euntrapinors, or greedy.

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Originally Posted by holybandit

The TW games are screwed up in one section in many. If you dont keep on the move and keep attacking somebody, then your royal line and some of your generals will turn weak. I dont know why, but everyone in your family becomes loony and the stats go way down, and your generals become euntrapinors, or greedy.

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It is true that warfare, especially offensive warfare, is usually good for the quality of your commanders, but the bloat effect you described doesn't really kick in until you have conquered 60% of the map (in M:TW) or own over 100.000 denarii (in R:TW). In S:TW there is no such think: in fact one of the problems of the game is that there is no penalty associated with have conquered most of the map, so it becomes very easy to take out the last opponents.

when you start making alot of money. Bad traits kick in every where. there is barely a way to fight corruption. fired all my corrupt generals and assigned new gouverners for those provinces. next year they were all corrupt

Had a few hours to kill over the weekend so I tried making it harder for the AI to kill off my Generals in Denmark. I had border forts in all provinces and also left assassins in each province. (I only had 5)

Sure enough, every one continually sent assassins up my way and I was losing a General or Governor about every second turn. Sure most were taken out by "Bodyguards" but I thought that I would not lose so may guys.

Plus every emissary I sent out to gather Princesses would last about 5 turns max before they too ended up dead.

Note that I am only playing on Early/Easy and it is Vanilla MTW. I was also allied to pretty much every other faction.

I figured that I would fight fire with fire and send out some of my own assassins (well infact not send out but kill off emissaries and the like in my own provinces). They too also got creamed (especially if the emissary or whatever moved out of my province and the assassin followed.

So I trained up a unit of peasants and sent some assassins to kill them off to get some valour. My peasant killed 3 in one go!!!! (no border fort was in the province at the time). :skull: :skull: :skull:

End of Assassins. What am I doing wrong????

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Originally Posted by El Diablo

Sure enough, every one continually sent assassins up my way and I was losing a General or Governor about every second turn. Sure most were taken out by "Bodyguards" but I thought that I would not lose so may guys.

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The "bodyguards" scroll is just a standard text. It means nothing, other than that an assassin was captured in this province.

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I figured that I would fight fire with fire and send out some of my own assassins (well infact not send out but kill off emissaries and the like in my own provinces). They too also got creamed (especially if the emissary or whatever moved out of my province and the assassin followed.

So I trained up a unit of peasants and sent some assassins to kill them off to get some valour. My peasant killed 3 in one go!!!! (no border fort was in the province at the time). :skull: :skull: :skull:

End of Assassins. What am I doing wrong????

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The A.I. knows when you target its ships or agents and will move them away (provided they are not on a mission), in the latter case often to a province with border forts. Low-level assassins are very clumsy and will often get killed, either by the target itself or by border forts. Also, targetting the same unit leader several times will result in him getting anti-assassin vices. You just have to keep on trying, though it does sound you are singularly unlucky. If you have VI installed, you may try and upgrade your alehouse so you get higher alour assassins.

No I don't have MTW VI installed and I can not find it in any shops. Seems it is too old now and everyone is playing RTW and BI.

It does not seem that assassins are all that good in Vanilla MTW then. (well at least hard to get valour up).

I would normally only use them to take out high level opposition generals and maybe royalty to put factions into civil war.

Just one last question - do assassins help to stop other assassins when they are in your own provinces, but the province already has a watch tower or border fort?

If you want to get VI, look on amazon.com - mine's in the mail as I write this

Thanks for that Clovis. I may have to do that! Seems that Assassins are not much chop till they get some valour.

My Vanilla MTW also explains why I was not getting to the rookery part of the tech tree and was not getting the valour bonus from Syria when playing as the Egyptians...

Not sure what is says about me but the thought of sending squads of assassins to mop up the enemy has high appeal.

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Originally Posted by El Diablo

Just one last question - do assassins help to stop other assassins when they are in your own provinces, but the province already has a watch tower or border fort?

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I don't think anyone has ever done the math, but yes, I suppose so. However, they don't seem to valour up when a border fort is present. A watchtower does nothing to stop spies or assassins, though.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

I don't think anyone has ever done the math, but yes, I suppose so. However, they don't seem to valour up when a border fort is present. A watchtower does nothing to stop spies or assassins, though.

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That's correct. If there's a border fort in a province, it gets first crack at capturing enemy assassins, and none of your agents get any experience for the kill. If there's no border fort, then I believe the counter-agent "ladder" goes: spy--> assassin--> emissary. In other words, if you have a province with no border fort, the spy will get credit for capturing enemy agents. If you don't have a spy there, then the assassin will get credit. If there's neither a spy nor an assassin available, then the emissary will get credit for the "kill".

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Originally Posted by Martok

If there's no border fort, then I believe the counter-agent "ladder" goes: spy--> assassin--> emissary. In other words, if you have a province with no border fort, the spy will get credit for capturing enemy agents. If you don't have a spy there, then the assassin will get credit. If there's neither a spy nor an assassin available, then the emissary will get credit for the "kill".

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Are emissaries able to detect spies :dizzy2: ?

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Originally Posted by Ludens

Are emissaries able to detect spies :dizzy2: ?

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Hmm, now that I'm not sure of. I would theorize that they can, since they can also catch assassins. I've never tested this, however, so your guess is as good as mine. :shrug:

The problem with "testing" these things is that it is only ever a percentage thing. I would like to know if it was cummulative.

Thus if you had a border fort (say 80%) + assassin (additional 15%) + spy (additional 4%) = 99% chance of catching assassin/spy. Then you need minus a certain percentage for the valour of the assassin/spy.

(note the %'s above are just for example are are totally ficticious :laugh4:)

I would be good to know if it is cummulative as some governors (with v. v. high accumen) would be well worth the extra protection particularly in key provinces (like Sweden or Const. etc.)

Is there anyway to tell without trial and error???? :help:

It doesn't work cumulatively, as far as I know. The border fort is the first layer of defense. If that fails then it's down to the Assassins, Spies and Emissaries (though I'm not sure about there being a priority with these, their effect is not cumulative either). Emissaries can catch assassins and spies in a province though I've never seen them gain valour from doing so (except for when they were the target and managed to foil the attempt on their life which is not the same thing as counterspying). I've often had a valour 0 spy in a province with a valour 1 assassin. A rival agent is caught, and the assassin goes up to valour 2, the spy remaining on 0. So it seems that the highest valour spy/assassin has the greatest chance of catching rival agents. To me it seems that, in this capacity, Spies and Assassins are equal. Spies still make better counterspies though due to their happiness boosting effect.

The ideal way to valour up your assassins is to never build border forts. You should keep one or two assassins in a port province with one emissary as bait. This will bring in the rival assassins. Same thing works for spies.

The bodyguards scroll indicates that the agent was caught by his actual target, and not the counterspies in the province. Emissaries and bishops gains valour for failed attempts on their lifes, generals can gain v&vs.

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Originally Posted by Martok

Hmm, now that I'm not sure of. I would theorize that they can, since they can also catch assassins. I've never tested this, however, so your guess is as good as mine. :shrug:

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They only catch assassins when an assassination attempt fails. They never catch spies, so I don't think they can detect either.

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Originally Posted by CheziScrotus XVI

The bodyguards scroll indicates that the agent was caught by his actual target, and not the counterspies in the province. Emissaries and bishops gains valour for failed attempts on their lifes, generals can gain v&vs.

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Then there have been a lot more attempts at my generals' lives than I was aware of. I always thought the scroll just meant someone had been caught, never mind how. (I am really paranoid about spies so I always build border forts or station counterspies quickly).

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Originally Posted by Ludens

They only catch assassins when an assassination attempt fails. They never catch spies, so I don't think they can detect either.

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I'm not sure about emissaries either. If you check their status when they're just sitting in your own provinces they are stated to be "counterspying" just like spies and assassins, so this would indicate that they can detect and catch rival spies and assassins, though I can't say that I've seen it happen.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

Then there have been a lot more attempts at my generals' lives than I was aware of. I always thought the scroll just meant someone had been caught, never mind how. (I am really paranoid about spies so I always build border forts or station counterspies quickly).

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I may be confusing something here, so bear with me. By the "bodyguards scroll" I'm referring to the "your general/emissary/bishop/princess etc reports an attempt on his/her life / managed to evade death at the hands of an assassin" type of thing. I can't remember the exact wording because I always play with non critical messages turned off these days. This message refers to one of your agents/priests/generals escaping being killed and instead turning the tables on their attacker. The generic "spy/assassin caught, believed to be working for the [faction]" messages refer to your counterspies/border forts catching rival assassins spies before they have a chance to execute their mission, or those that are just trying to pass through. (I'm also paranoid about security, but I find that if I start producing spies and assassins early, and get at least a spy in each province, I then don't need border forts, though I may build them in the late period to offset the bloat effect if necessary.)

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Originally Posted by CheziScrotus XVI

I may be confusing something here, so bear with me. By the "bodyguards scroll" I'm referring to the "your general/emissary/bishop/princess etc reports an attempt on his/her life / managed to evade death at the hands of an assassin" type of thing. I can't remember the exact wording because I always play with non critical messages turned off these days. This message refers to one of your agents/priests/generals escaping being killed and instead turning the tables on their attacker.

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I meant the "Your bodyguards have captured and killed an enemy assassin. He is believed to work for faction X."-scroll. Since the scrolls mention quite explicitly when an assasination attempt has been made I supposed that this one just ment that an assassin had been captured, never mind how.

One last Assassin question.

When you set your Assassin(s) onto a target (be it diplomat, pesky alim or whatever) that WAS in your province, is there anyway to make sure that the Assassin does not follow the target into another factions province and get slaughtered by the border fort or whatever??

I find it annoying the way they do that.

Not to my knowledge, agents follow their targets wherever the latter go unless you abort the agent´s mission.

That is correct. Unless you abort their mission, assassins will follow their target wherever he/she goes. Assassins aren't smart enough to avoid border forts on their own. ~;p

I immediately build border forts in every province and don't recall ever having a general killed by an assassin. i've only played 3 campaigns (noob!) so far, but it sounds to me like border forts are effective. Later in the game as I expand a bit I usually end up putting a spy in almost every territory as well, and about half my territories get an assassin. I try to assassinate every 'enemy' or unsavory person that wanders into my territory as well :)