AI Suggestion: Shorter Wars

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

That sounds lika a sort of solution to this problem.
However, I liked that idea about penalties for oath-breakers too. Then, maybe, your AI allies won't backstab you every time you are occupied fighting on another front. (which is more rule than exeption in both RTW and M2TW)

And also that a faction should know when they've been beaten, and offer money for peace, which they rarely do now. Nor do they agree to become a protectorate, even if you have several full stacks in their last territory, an their only unit is an ageing familymember, cowering in their last, besieged town. And if, by some miracle, they do sign a non-aggression pact, you can bet your shirt they'll be attacking you within the next few turns, no matter how bankrupt and undermanned they are.

Well, enough complaining now. If the M2TW AI as as moddable as has been said, who knows what the EB-team will accomplish?

Over and out.

[seriousbusiness]

The problem is diplomacy. It is completely inept and will rarely agree to a meaningful ceasefire for long, even if it's in their better interests. I don't think this is possible. I'm beginning to wonder how scalable the Empire: Total War engine will be. Doing EB in ETW might be more suitable, I'm beginning to think since this would enable us to fix all of the graphical, AI and balancing issues of the original EB. Of course we will need to wait and see, but that's where I feel this project will inevitably lead.

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

EBII will be for M2TW, and that is, according to the EB-team, final. Perhaps there will be an EBIII for ETW, but that would mean having to do everything from scratch again, and they have gotten way too far on the M2TW-engine to do that now. In that case, we wouldn't see EBII for another decade!

And also, you may have noted that the last post in this thread was posted (by me) in early May, and quite a lot of info has been released since then. For example, in his Eagle Standard interview, Foot stated that they will use the recriutment system of M2TW to work towards the goal of stopping the eternal world-wars that campaigns always seem to end up in.
Also, the AI in M2TW is moddable, so perhaps the Diplomacy-AI won't be quite as stupid as in RTW or vanilla M2TW.