Reputation mechanics

OK guys, I need a bit more insight here. Remember reading a few threads and tidbits on this in the past but most escapes me right now.

I don't understand how reputation works exactly. In my current campaign, I've waited for and had two other factions attack me first to initiate war. I am playing as Milan, my only ally is the Popester. I haven't allowed trade rights with ANYONE, and haven't been allied with anyone at all in the past except the Pope.

The two factions that attacked me first were France and the Moors. When each attacked me, I cheerfully annihilated them within a turn or two as I was waiting for it to happen. Problem is, my reputation has gone from Mixed to Untrustworthy. I don't get this. I haven't backstabbed anyone, they attacked me first, and I never had any diplomatic relations with them to begin with. This doesn't make any sense to me at all. :inquisitive: Being trusthworthy in my mind means adhering to alliances and trade rights, and generally being a good neighbor to those whom you've established relations with. People whom you haven't established or won't establish trade/alliances/relations with, and on top of that THEN attack you, shouldn't have any impact on how reliable YOU are as a faction. Am I making sense here? This just seems broken to me.

Thoughts/comments/insight?

Cheers

Your reputation is based on many factors. If you have bad relations with other factions, it goes down (so you may have good standing with your allies, but if the rest of the world sees you as abysmal but not at war, your rep should go down). Also, i recall reading having a dreaded Faction Leader also lowers your reputation, among other actions.


You gotta think on a Global scale. Sure, "A" "B" and "C" love you, but if D-Z hate your guts because you never try to maintain relations with them, then theres way more people out there who definitely don't trust you:sweatdrop:

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Originally Posted by WhiskeyGhost

Your reputation is based on many factors. If you have bad relations with other factions, it goes down (so you may have good standing with your allies, but if the rest of the world sees you as abysmal but not at war, your rep should go down). Also, i recall reading having a dreaded Faction Leader also lowers your reputation, among other actions.


You gotta think on a Global scale. Sure, "A" "B" and "C" love you, but if D-Z hate your guts because you never try to maintain relations with them, then theres way more people out there who definitely don't trust you:sweatdrop:

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A valid post, but you have to differentiate trustworthiness vs. popularity. Just because someone dislikes me, doesn't mean I'm untrustworthy, and vica versa. Being well liked and popular is one thing. Being honorable and willing to honor agreements and bargains to others (even a small few) is another thing entirely.

I'm playing as the Moors currently. I attacked Portugal and Spain and was still mixed. I attacked Sicily and from what I remember, I was either still mixed or became untrustworthy. Milan attacked me and I counterattack them and I became dubious. It's odd how counterattacking a nation that declared war on me dropped my rep larger than me declaring war.

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Originally Posted by andrewt

It's odd how counterattacking a nation that declared war on me dropped my rep larger than me declaring war.

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Exactly. This is what leads me to believe something is very broken.

Here's what I would like to know:

- When you conquer the enemy factions' city, do you sack, exterminate, or simply occupy it?
- When you got prisoners, do you ransom them, execute them, or just release them?
- Who's the ally of the Pope?

As requested:

- When you conquer the enemy factions' city, do you sack, exterminate, or simply occupy it?

Almost all occupy, 2 sacks.

I have however exterminated all rebel cities, but that has not impacted my reputation, and I've done that with non-general stacks so my generals do not pick up dread traits.

- When you got prisoners, do you ransom them, execute them, or just release them?

Release always, which I've only fought 2 non-siege battles against non-rebel factions. Both times released.

- Who's the ally of the Pope?

Is and has only been me.

Actually your case is rather odd because it's completely different than my experience. In my game as Sicily, I have fought battles (only) against Milan and Moors, and just like you, made alliance with the Pope. I always release prisoners and occupy cities, and at one point, even declare war against Milan (first when they invade my land, and then after a crusade being called against them) then took Genoa (even though the Crusade target was the city of Milan itself). So far, my reputation never dropped and in fact, has increased twice, from mixed to reliable (this happened before the Crusade), and then became "very reliable".

But I agree, it's odd indeed...

Nothing's broken.

Reputation is based on three things.

1) global standing

Each turn you spend allied with one faction gives you +0.01 rep points, while each turn you spend at war with someone gives you -0.03. Also, reputation is normalized towards Mixed every turn. Since you're at war with the rebels by default, you need to have at least 3 allies at all times just to maintain your reputation, and 4 to slooooowly climb the ladder.
Unsavory thing : the factions you destroy are still technically at war with you, even if they don't exist anymore. The only way to avoid this is to make peace with them when they're down to their last province and let them die to rebels and/or another faction.

2) general behavior

helping an ally in battle gives you good points.
Breaking alliances either through diplomacy or outright betrayal, cancelling trade rights or mil rights, sending armies through allied lands without asking for mil rights first, breaking ceasefires (a ceasefire guarantees 4 turns of peace, after that it's fair game), all of this will give you bad points in huge amounts.
I believe captured assassination attempts and spies also make you untrustworthy, and even more so if you tried to kill a royal.

3) behavior in battle
liberating prisonners makes you trustworthy, ransoming gives you a few bad points, killing them a lot.
Same goes for cities : occupy gives you good points, sacking gives a few bad points, genocide tanks your rep.

BTW, all the things that give "good points" give them in trace amounts, while pretty much everything you do wrong earns you a big fat load of mistrust.

I may have forgotten some stuff, but them's the breaks : don't be an ass, be allied with as many factions as you can at all times, make one war at a time.

EDIT : oh, and getting back to your specific case, well there's your problem : you have two wars in progress (and they still are even if you destroyed the offending factions), and no allies. So your rep goes down overtime.

Frenchie with the save! Thank you my good friend, that is also what I was looking for.

Those mechanics in my view are 'broken'. My being a war with a faction, esp. one that initiated war with me, should have nothing to do with my trustworthiness. I still think the game needs to great trust and likeability as separate mechanics. /shrug

Oh well, by this logic I'll probably never become trustworthy again, so I'll just have to continue "roleplaying", even though the game doesn't recognize that. :no:

Thanks to everyone else as well for your input.

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Originally Posted by Whacker

A valid post, but you have to differentiate trustworthiness vs. popularity. Just because someone dislikes me, doesn't mean I'm untrustworthy, and vica versa. Being well liked and popular is one thing. Being honorable and willing to honor agreements and bargains to others (even a small few) is another thing entirely.

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Although you have a point, theres still the fact that people that don't like you are bound to speak poorly of you when referring to you. You always say good things about your friends, but if its someone you don't like, your not gonna refer to them in a positive way.

Ever tried that little hearsay experiment where you tell one person something, and have them pass it on through a bunch of people (like say 20) and find the last person says something completely different from what was said at the start? Thats the point i was trying to make. You can gain a reputation as an honorable man, sure. But if people are told for generations that your countrymen all have big orgies with farm animals, then of course the vast majority (ignorant people) will believe it, despite it being nonsense.


Of course, i may be ranting a little bit, ive had a few drinks prior to this response:sweatdrop:

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

Nothing's broken.

Reputation is based on three things.

1) global standing

Each turn you spend allied with one faction gives you +0.01 rep points, while each turn you spend at war with someone gives you -0.03. Also, reputation is normalized towards Mixed every turn. Since you're at war with the rebels by default, you need to have at least 3 allies at all times just to maintain your reputation, and 4 to slooooowly climb the ladder.
Unsavory thing : the factions you destroy are still technically at war with you, even if they don't exist anymore. The only way to avoid this is to make peace with them when they're down to their last province and let them die to rebels and/or another faction.

2) general behavior

helping an ally in battle gives you good points.
Breaking alliances either through diplomacy or outright betrayal, cancelling trade rights or mil rights, sending armies through allied lands without asking for mil rights first, breaking ceasefires (a ceasefire guarantees 4 turns of peace, after that it's fair game), all of this will give you bad points in huge amounts.
I believe captured assassination attempts and spies also make you untrustworthy, and even more so if you tried to kill a royal.

3) behavior in battle
liberating prisonners makes you trustworthy, ransoming gives you a few bad points, killing them a lot.
Same goes for cities : occupy gives you good points, sacking gives a few bad points, genocide tanks your rep.

BTW, all the things that give "good points" give them in trace amounts, while pretty much everything you do wrong earns you a big fat load of mistrust.

I may have forgotten some stuff, but them's the breaks : don't be an ass, be allied with as many factions as you can at all times, make one war at a time.

EDIT : oh, and getting back to your specific case, well there's your problem : you have two wars in progress (and they still are even if you destroyed the offending factions), and no allies. So your rep goes down overtime.

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If that's really how reputation is designed, then design itself is broken. It sounds like this is a system rigged to drag down your reputation no matter what.

I rather have the problem with it that if the system truly works this way; it's pretty impossible that in my current game as russia on H/VH ; i'm STILL very reliable....

- I use spies ALOT.
- I 've sacked some cities; especially lately (krakow; thessalonica; constantinople) to avoid running into religious problems.
- My faction leader has 9 dread; and my heir 8 dread.
- I've eradicated the Polish
- I was only allied with the papacy; denmark and HRE; but since HRE and the papacy decided to backstab me; I've now only the Byzantine empire as ally..
- I ransom/ release at a 3/1 ratio

so errm .... If I read that list i've done almost everything wong except for comitting recidivist genocide.

I still get to make peacefires with the HRE for 15000 gold + stettin because my rep is so high though :dizzy2:

i think the system is wuite ok. it will not work only if u intend to make war with everyone and still want to be trustworthy which shouldnt happen . so it works. maybe not to your specifications or own preferences but i think it works as the developers intended. if u make war and have no attempt to maintain allies you arnt trustworthy.

and the higher your reputation the more people want to trade / make deals with you presumably, so the more you can extract from them?

Well, there is a certain problem, I currently play a spanish campaign and of course I started to fight the Moors. The French however were allied with them and declared war on me, despite my attemots to keep peace with them.
Now that the Moors are wiped off the map, the French still hate me and there is no way to get them into a peacefire agreement(probably because I'm still at war with the nonexistant Moors). The only way to stop their attacks was to capture Bordeaux and that other castle on the border and give them to the pope and to my ally Sicily(in exchange for military access).
I guess if I keep the war with France going, their other allies will also start hating me etc pp, you get a nice snowball effect of factions attacking you sooner or later, which is why the war status with dead factions should not count anymore at least 10 or 20 rounds after they have been exterminated.
The way it is now, I will never be at peqace with France and even if I can get a ceasefire, relations will go down very fast again until they declare war again. I even gave them a few presents over some rounds, but next round the relations were back to where I started and I couldn't afford much more than 2000 per round, I'm not that rich.:wall:

The higher your reputation the more likely your allies will honor their alliance (trusted ally) and the more you will be liked in general.

The diplomacy file also seems to contain reputation settings, but I'm not sure how to read them.

Diplomacy is sometimes really strange. I was at war with the Polish and winning easily. They kept trying to make peace with me (their priority was peace) but kept demanding 60k or more in exchange. They were bankrupt but still had a 'supreme' military rating. I tried initiating peace talks as well but they weren't interested; it kept coming up as 'demanding' and even when I tossed in a few regions and wads of cash to make it 'balanced' they rejected it outright every time.

I then decided to demand vassalage from them. To my surprise the simple vassalage agreement came up as 'balanced' and they accepted right away. I tried the same trick on the Hungarians and turned them into a protectorate as well. Strange.

I finally got peace with France, after I conquered two of their provinces and gave them to the HRE, my peace proposal was suddenly very generous as opposed to very demanding.:dizzy2:
But allying with them is still impossible nd they don't like me all that much so I guess the dead Moors still count as their allies and my enemies.
Oh, and I worked on my reputation and it seems many other countries now offer me alliances, even ones that refused them before. This is very interesting because I never watched my reputation before and now that I do, I'm getting a lot of allies lately.
One thing I'm not sure about though is whether being at war with the rebels does really drag your reputation down, because everyone is at war with them anyway, there is no way to make peace with them and they are special anyway. I think the rebels are not really included in anything diplomatic because nobody likes them anyway and they're not a "real" faction.

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Originally Posted by dopp

The higher your reputation the more likely your allies will honor their alliance (trusted ally) and the more you will be liked in general.

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That's the truth, but not the whole of the truth : not only does your reputation needs to be at least somewhat good, but your allies' rep must be better than average as well.
If you're trusted but they're scumbags, the alliance doesn't become the sought-after Trusted Alliance, but a mere alliance of convenience like every other (ie, they'll help you if they get the chance, but they might just attack you if the odds are on their side and you're not both at war against a common enemy)

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Originally Posted by crpcarrot

i think the system is wuite ok. it will not work only if u intend to make war with everyone and still want to be trustworthy which shouldnt happen . so it works. maybe not to your specifications or own preferences but i think it works as the developers intended. if u make war and have no attempt to maintain allies you arnt trustworthy.

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That's my point though. *I* am not the one making war, they are. And MY rep takes a hit when I retaliate in full when they attack me first.

when u say retaliate in full if u mean annihilate them by sacking and destroying the faction i think that should give u a bad reputation and make all other factions vary of you.

unfortunaely(or fortunately depending on your point of view) this is how the game is programmed it cant be changed unitll its remodelled. but for slow players like me it doesn't make much of a difference.

if some one attacks me i just take away his offensive capabilities and sue for peace. any territiories taken are given away to allies or given back to the original owner in return for vassalage.

once i've carved ou my niche i cant be botheres managing all those provinces.. i'm lazy

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Originally Posted by Whacker

That's my point though. *I* am not the one making war, they are. And MY rep takes a hit when I retaliate in full when they attack me first.

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Takes two belligerents to make a war :)
I think the rationale behind the mechanism is that if you let a war last for some time it means that you're willing to wage it, whereas a "good guy" will try to get ceasefires ASAP by any mean available, and only fight defensive wars (as far as I know, the Pope will not threaten to castrate you if your battles with christians are on your own soil for example)

@ crpcarrot and Cobol2

I hear what you are saying guys, but I still disagree. Gotta remember, this game is about WAR and waging war. *IF* the diplomacy in this game were much, much deeper and more refined, then I'd be somewhat more inclined to see things as you guys do. However, realistically speaking, if someone attacks you first, you are free to 'defend yourself' and 'neutralize the threat'. In the middle ages this basically amounted to open season on whomever it was that started the ruckus, which is how I'm treating it. Expecting someone to just sit there and take it on the chin while another faction bangs away at your doorsteps is not a reasonable expectation whatsoever, even for chivalric types, you have the right to defend yourself and take the fight to an aggressor. The basic message and way to think of it is someone walking up to a huge nest of africanized honeybees and whacking it with a stick. You're going to get stung repeatedly and more than likely killed, but if you'd simply stayed away and left it alone you'd have been fine.

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In the middle ages this basically amounted to open season on whomever it was that started the ruckus, which is how I'm treating it.

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True enough I guess, but then again in the middle ages (and, well, today still :) ) leaders considered alliances as convenient bits of paper and little else, especially when they had a large amount of soldiers and mercs sitting around twiddling their thumbs and ravaging the countryside to pass the time.

Also, "open season" is probably not accurate, as many "wars" and battles consisted in one side muscling in, the other bringing their own lads to show they were willing to fight, then they'd negociate and everyone goes home. Understandable, especially considering the "good" season for war is summer, when the peasants are sorely needed back home to tend to whatever mud puddle they called a field back then.

Whacker, when you say the Moors initiated the war and you defended your self by going after them, this brought your rep down. If you only fought them on your own soil then no it shouldn't hurt your rep. BUT when you become the aggressor (and go after them) this should and does hurt your rep as people will become suspicious of your intentions (defence or conquor(sp)?)

IIRC taking rebel settlements has a slight negitive effect for the same reason, other factions begin to see you as an aggressor, and are therefore less likely to trust you,

I agree that the system isn't very well designed. It's a nice feature in general but they should have put it at least twice the work they did.

What I always do is get as many allies as possible, which will nicely normalise your global standing towards 1 (while it also normalises towards 0 twice as fast, which means you'll reach an equilibrium at 0.33 if you have one ally - being at war with a non-rebel faction normalises towards -1 with half the speed of the ally normalisation).
Releasing more than 80 prisoners gives 1/40 on top of the usual 1/100 as does releasing a character, if you do both you get 1/20. You also get that figure for occupying a settlement - rebel or not. Executing rebels will give you -1/20 even if you may not notice it immediately.

A good global standing will help your faction standing with everyone, not the other way around. This can almost make up for the normalization towards -1 you get on vh so is a powerful thing.
Breaking treaties or alliances can give you a big hit, so be careful who you ally to (make it so you don't ally to a lot of factions who're likely to declare war on each other)

All these are taken from vanilla 1.2

There's a very good way to break alliances without getting a reputation hit : offer to trade maps for maps with your "ally" turn after turn.

They might agree the first few times, but eventually they'll call it quits (either as a hardcoded way to prevent a diplomatic XP exploit, or because the AI sees a prelude to an invasion in you wanting to have their up-to-date maps)

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

There's a very good way to break alliances without getting a reputation hit : offer to trade maps for maps with your "ally" turn after turn.

They might agree the first few times, but eventually they'll call it quits (either as a hardcoded way to prevent a diplomatic XP exploit, or because the AI sees a prelude to an invasion in you wanting to have their up-to-date maps)

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Gosh we're two filthy power-gamers. Replacing an exploit with another exploit :laugh4:

IIRC you get a reputation bonus due to battle if you are the reinforcements to an AI army, but does this apply to only field battles? Specifically, do you get a reputation boost if you initiate the attack on an enemy army that is besieging an allied city? That would certainly be worthy of a big reputation boost, but since you have to initiate the battle I'm not sure if it counts. Does anyone know?

Good thread! Have to say I also use the map-info-thingy sometimes to make them break the alliance first. Especially useful if you're Muslim faction allied with Christian factions, and one of them gets excommunicated and you know the pope will call for a crusade against them. Recently I managed to keep my reputation at "very reliable" for 100+ turns with the Moors. It definitely has benefits in any kind of negotiation.
I also have a somewhat unrelated question though, has anyone ever used the "ask for military assistance" diplomacy option to any kind of benefit, i.e., did you ever experience the faction you asked actually conducting any kind of siege or battle on their own against your enemy within those 15 turns, or joining you in battle other than by coincidentally standing next to your stack?

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

That's the truth, but not the whole of the truth : not only does your reputation needs to be at least somewhat good, but your allies' rep must be better than average as well.
If you're trusted but they're scumbags, the alliance doesn't become the sought-after Trusted Alliance, but a mere alliance of convenience like every other (ie, they'll help you if they get the chance, but they might just attack you if the odds are on their side and you're not both at war against a common enemy)

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Yeah, that's the difference (I think) between leaked and official v1.2.; it didn't matter in leaked what their reputation was.

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Originally Posted by alpaca

Gosh we're two filthy power-gamers. Replacing an exploit with another exploit :laugh4:

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Welp... Managed to hit "deceitful". Still never broke my one and only alliance. Still never attacked anyone first. I must be this huge ripe royal bastard.

:grin:

I performed a little test, and it seems if you give someone a territory, and even if they go to war with you and attempt to take your cities, and you try to retake that territory (within a certain time threshold, like 15 turns or something) you get a massive rep hit for it. I've gotten from trustworthy to very untrustworthy for doing this to Milan, despite the fact they started and sieged 3 of my cities constantly (even after i fended them off at the walls):dizzy2:

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Originally Posted by Stuperman

Whacker, when you say the Moors initiated the war and you defended your self by going after them, this brought your rep down. If you only fought them on your own soil then no it shouldn't hurt your rep. BUT when you become the aggressor (and go after them) this should and does hurt your rep as people will become suspicious of your intentions (defence or conquor(sp)?)

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Again disagree strongly. If I keep to myself, and only mulch those who come after me first, why am I distrustful? Leave me alone, and I leave you alone. I've honored my very few and carefully selected arrangements.

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IIRC taking rebel settlements has a slight negitive effect for the same reason, other factions begin to see you as an aggressor, and are therefore less likely to trust you,

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This just plain won't work. Rebel cities are 'free game', taking them should do nothing to your rep.

As alpaca said, the system was not very well designed at all. Personally, I don't think you should have a 'global' rep at all. It should be a average of all of your individual relationships with other factions. If I keep and hold 5 alliances, ignore the other 9 factions, and backstab one, my rep should stay relatively positive because I am trustworthy for 5 factions and not for only 1. Sure I'll agree that negatives should weigh a bit more heavily against someone than positives, but one single value for you that represents everything is erronious in my view.

I sincerely hope in future patches or in the next title they put some significant effort into this, as it'll be a decision point for me.

Oh, I actually don't think the reputation system goes far enough. In my opinion you should be punished for taking settlements, no matter if you occupy, sack or exterminate them (although the latter options should punish you more strongly).
To maintain a good reputation through a long drawn-out war should be nearly impossible.
And it should heavily influence the AI's decisions in invasions, not mainly in diplomacy.

Edit: However that only holds true if the rest of the game is designed accordingly, so for vanilla I agree that some of the rep mechanics don't fit too well, as the aim still is to conquer half the continent.

I think the model that CA were looking for might have been a country such as Switzerland, whose sheer consistent & unchanging neutrality means that it enjoys a 'very reliable' reputation. However, whilst they are reliable, they will never be able to build an empire without damaging that rep. So, it is true to a certain degree that diplomatic integrity & empire-building are at odds with each other, & I think, rightly or wrongly, the game's reputation system tries to reflect this tension.

My empire is basically all of the 'old world', my borders being with Marrakesh and Algiers in the west and Baghdad, Buraidah, Damascus and Gaza in the East. I also have the new world Rebel lands. Throughout the game my empire has had a reputation varying from untrustworthy to reliable - I've bribed a fair few enemy generals,done a lot of assassination and I always ransom my prisoners. However, I always occupy cities, try to stay allied to as many people as possible, I've never decalred war and it's a good idea to send diplomats out even just to swap map information as successful diplomacy seems to improve your rep.