AI Diplomacy

[inbetween]

Ive had this game for some time now and i restarted a campaign and having played through it, something concerned me. The AI diplomacy, is it just me or is it virtually impossible. After about 25 turns i had no real use for diplomats as i had already got as many trade partners as possible and they COULD NOT gain alliances. Eventowards the endgame it was virtually impossible. I had neve ronce made an alliance after 150 turns.
Playing as France, i tried made desperate attempts to ally with Scotland Portugal, Byzantium and even Denmark and England but not one accepted regardless of what i offered with my diplomats who had perhaps a 7 rating. I could offer them 3 settlements and 2000 florins for 25 turns and they would turn it down. Why is this? I know your reputation affects this but naturally over the course of time my reputation degraded to despicable even though i had never once declared war on a christian nation, but rather was declared war on. (The computer AI difficulty was M)
The only alliances i had were those offered to me, with HRE who proceeded to ally with my enemies 15 turns later and jointly attack me, the moors who declared war on me during a Jihad, Venice which backstabbed me after i had given them 2 settlements (but theirbetrayal was predicted after having noticed their spies and assassins in my cities and diplomats attempting to bribe settlements for the last 25 turns). The only ally i had that never did betray me was Spain which oddly became xenophobic from turn 1 and never did move out of its starting territories, so they were useless even after i gave them constantinople they lost it to rebellion almost instantly.
Is it normal to have 80% of nations declare war on you?
Also why is it impossible to make another nation your vassal

With that in mind, why is it that the AI diplomacy is just as retarded. Venice and england who where on the brink of total annhiliation with one settlemnt and 2 officers propose ceasefires under the condition that i pay them the sum of 15 000 florins per turn for 3 turns (in the case of venice). Realistically shouldn they be begging me for mercy and offering me something? AI diplomatic skills are ridiculous. They for some reason REFUSE to ever pay you tribute, evne though your power is SUPREME, and theirs MEAGRE and nonexistent. /end rant

[Askthepizzaguy]

Welcome to the Org, Inbetween.

Indeed it is your despicable reputation, and nothing else it seems, which destroys the ability to ally with the computer controlled factions.

Remember that declaring war against members of the same faith, sacking, pillaging, or exterminating cities, not releasing prisoners, and a whole host of other reasons will destroy your reputation. No one will ally with you, even if they are guilty of the same thing.

It is indeed possible to get vassals, but you have to be on good terms with them and have a sparkling reputation, and they need to be nearly defeated and at war and you probably need to offer them valuable territory to get the vassalhood. Plus it's hard to be on good terms with those you're at war with.

I will defer to others who have more experience getting vassals. All I can tell you is that I was a chivarlous leader at one point, and now... I don't have any use for vassal states.

[Martok]

Welcome to the Org, inbetween!

With that in mind, why is it that the AI diplomacy is just as retarded. Venice and england who where on the brink of total annhiliation with one settlemnt and 2 officers propose ceasefires under the condition that i pay them the sum of 15 000 florins per turn for 3 turns (in the case of venice). Realistically shouldn they be begging me for mercy and offering me something? AI diplomatic skills are ridiculous. They for some reason REFUSE to ever pay you tribute, evne though your power is SUPREME, and theirs MEAGRE and nonexistent. /end rant

Unfortunately, the simple fact is that the diplomatic AI in pretty much every Total War game has been flawed in this way -- for whatever reason, it just doesn't seem to very good at recognizing the reality of its situation(s). Even Shogun and the original Medieval (which have far simpler diplomatic models than either Rome or Medieval 2) suffer from this problem.

[kensai_loki]

i totally agree.

i guess to the ai, how they differentiate is whether the faction is human or ai therefore if ai faction dies, the ai lives in other factions so they dont really die therefore they never understand the reality of the situation.

but i can give you some suggestions.
vassals? just whip them to a few settlements left and siege them. port blockade helps. make sure they dont have any army outside the settlements then contact their emissary with yours. offer ceasefire trade rights and of course vassalage. works for me for my moors campaign on the sicillians.
cant wait to get my camel gunners.....

by the way its a lot more fun being a vassal than a vassal lord. trust me....
anyone u declare war upon , the vassal will follow. unlike allies.
also unlike allies they NEVER backstab you
have been milan's vassal for 32 turns. neva.... not even spies or bribes....


and oh ya.
doesnt matter if your reputation is despicable, just give the other faction small amounts of money for a few turns until your relations become poor. a ceasefire becomes a lot easier to obtain if your relations is just poor. like wat atpg said. dont turn genocidal on their towns and troops. its almost unforgivable to them.

one more thing.
alliance and ceasefire are also easier obtained and maintained if you put offers to attack other warring factions on that particular faction. kind of making them look at you at different perspective.

also watch out for their demeanour when they receive your diplomat. its just above the negotiation script. try making them pleased before you put out your real deal. helps if u give them ur map info for free. there's also another method but kind of tedious. if you want to try, its like selling your settlement insanely cheap to a bankrupt faction. make sure they cant afford it even if its dirt cheap. they will reject the offer because of the hole in their pockets but they still be pleased. works for me when my map information is very expensive.

good luck...



[off-color comment removed -- Martok]

[G^2]

When I play a high chivalry game the diplomatic AI seems to works pretty well. Its allot of work to maintain a good reputation and sometimes it more fun to be the bad guy, but if you want to use diplomacy you have to play by the international rules so to speak.

Generally you can
-release prisoners
-never outnumber the AI when fighting battles
-never set the taxes above high
-never attack anyone first
-don't ally with nations of another religion
-don't wipe out factions
-never sack or exterminate cities
-don't use spies or assassins
-make allies with one or two factions that don't have borders with you or each other and keep them. You can do this by keeping a diplomate in their territory and giving them a gift of cash every few turns. This keeps your relationship at good or better.
-All this needs to be done in the beginning because usually by mid game you are the #1 overall faction which makes it hard to get alliances.

You could also look in the M2TW guide and fact at the top of the Citadel threads page for more pointers. Good luck.

p.s. Also I think there is a thread in the Org. about geting vassels, you have to have a high reputation and gift the AI lots of cash to rise your relations with them. Try searching the forums.
G^2

[inbetween]

Thanks for your replies guys, but unfortunately,l the AI are just plain stubborn, and unfortunately my diplomats are losing traits. Its a shame diplomats dont get trait bonuses for giving gifts.
Also, playing a chivalric games seems somewhat financially difficult, being unable to sack cities, having to release prisoners, which in turn gives enemies more resources, and not being able to use spies and assassins. Its hard enough paying upkeep on your armies from a multifront war.
Ive never been fond of giving gifts to my enemies as all that results is continued attacks.
But i guess i would ultimately prefer a challenge in having everyone as an enemy.

[Jason X]

Also, playing a chivalric games seems somewhat financially difficult, being unable to sack cities, having to release prisoners, which in turn gives enemies more resources, and not being able to use spies and assassins.

give it a go, you'd be surprised. low taxes/high chiv gives a population boost that means you're rolling in cash except in the very early game, and if you're playing in this high rep way, you shouldn't be fighting multi-front wars anyway

[Askthepizzaguy]

Actually you can ching ching cash in on being a good guy in vanilla or lands to conquer, and early versions of most of the modded games. It's downright evil.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=96464 Danish LTC Guide

Assuming the photos still work... witness the firepower of my danish princess who steals half of the entire holy roman empire on turn one, and nabs hundreds of thousands of florins from other nations over several turns, keeping my treasury, even while spending as much as possible, well over 20-30,000 florins every turn. That's on a relatively recent version of Lands to Conquer, the "fixed" version of vanilla for gods sake.

Bucketloads of cash for maps, trade rights, alliances, promises to attack, and occasionally for worthless provinces I don't want.

And then you can betray them all and turn into the MOST EVIL DICTATOR ALIVE, and sack every city and exterminate all prisoners and grow rich... RICH I TELLS YA! Just sacking Cairo nabs 30,000 florins...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

It's not good enough to just be evil. You have to enjoy it like a sick sadistic freak.

[Zenicetus]

Something else that doesn't get mentioned much, is the effect of campaign difficulty settings on diplomacy.

AFAIK, the AI isn't any smarter at higher levels. What happens at higher levels is that your relations constantly degrade a little bit with every turn (worse at VH than H) unless you do something to stop it, like bribery. That's why you eventually get that "everyone is after you" effect, and why it's so hard sometimes to end a war, or get an alliance. It's a quick 'n dirty way to make the game more challenging at harder levels, but it also kills diplomacy.

At Medium difficulty, relations constantly normalize towards neutral, and diplomacy is much more realistic. Wars are easier to avoid, and easier to end if you want to. Just avoid hostile action and wait for relations to improve, with a little cash bribery if necessary to speed up the process. With fewer hot-blooded wars, other factions have more time to build up their armies. When you do finally fight them, the battles are better because you're not fighting hastily-assembled, low-tech stacks. That's why I always play at M difficulty. It's just a more enjoyable game when diplomacy (which isn't that great to begin with, in this game) actually works the way you'd expect it to.

One other point... IIRC, there is also a relations modifier that triggers degraded relations when you become the strongest faction. Not much you can do about that, and it makes sense that everyone else would consider you a threat.