For all love, go away and stay away!

[Monk]

There was a saying from M2 that you'd hear when your diplomat really messed up a deal. It was "Diplomacy has failed us this day..."

The AI needs to learn when Diplomacy fails and when it is time to go to war for what they want. Now clearly I'm not suggesting that they backstab you right after a diplomatic mission fails, but if you continually deny their advances there should ideally be a relations hit. This could then be a contributing factor to an alliance being severed as the player is not respecting the desires of the AI faction, ect. Of course what we have now is still an improvement over M2, but there is always room for refinement.

[Liberator]

The AI needs to learn when Diplomacy fails and when it is time to go to war for what they want. Now clearly I'm not suggesting that they backstab you right after a diplomatic mission fails, but if you continually deny their advances there should ideally be a relations hit. This could then be a contributing factor to an alliance being severed as the player is not respecting the desires of the AI faction, ect. Of course what we have now is still an improvement over M2, but there is always room for refinement.

I don't think so - the player should not be punished for the stupid A.I. by a relations hit.
Simply make that the A.I. can only ask for a region every, say, 10 rounds would be a relief

[Quillan]

I wouldn't put that limit on it even, but if only the AI could learn from failures.

"Trade me Dutch Guyana, I'll give you Improved Grenades and 100 gold."
"Go to hell! It's worth far more than that!"
"Ok, I'll give you Improved Grenades, Flying Shuttle, Fire By Rank, and 10,000 gold, plus I'll toss in the Windward Islands."
"Still not worth it. No."
"How about if I give you all 7 of the techs I currently have but you do not, Windward Islands, Lower Louisiana, and 10,000 gold?"

It keeps coming back with offers not worth any more than the initial one. Perhaps if I'm hard pressed or in dire need of money, but if I'm listed as Terrifying on power and Spectacular on wealth, I'm probably not desperate for help, so I'm not going to trade it away for nothing.

[A Very Super Market]

Quillan, how are those not good deals for a single territory? Yes, it has gold mines, but the population is measly, you get up-to-date on tech, and 10000 ETW-bucks!

I think one of the problems is that the player simply doesn't lose, at least not us hardened veterans of TW. IRL, nations would trade around territories quite often, especially after marginally won war, which we don't really have. As for the frequency of these offers, the AI should have decided a set amount that they wish to escalate the deal with, instead of several very similar offers.

[aimlesswanderer]

A Sweden, I had knocked off Denmark, Poland-Lithuania, and some of the crappy little places in Germany, plus Kiev and Moscow. Every single turn for at least 25 turns the Prussians made a measly offer for one of the German territories, and the Ottomans made a pathetic offer for one bordering them. Every bloody turn!!!

There needs to be a "Piss off I don't want to talk to you, dammit!" button.

[Quillan]

Quillan, how are those not good deals for a single territory? Yes, it has gold mines, but the population is measly, you get up-to-date on tech, and 10000 ETW-bucks!

I think one of the problems is that the player simply doesn't lose, at least not us hardened veterans of TW. IRL, nations would trade around territories quite often, especially after marginally won war, which we don't really have. As for the frequency of these offers, the AI should have decided a set amount that they wish to escalate the deal with, instead of several very similar offers.

The last offer would be a decent deal for a territory, but unfortunately I never get that offer. Let's use this from my current campaign to give you an idea. A while back I wanted to purchase New Andalusia from Spain; it's one of my victory conditions, seems like it could be fairly valuable since it has a gem mine and two ports in it too. I offered 100k plus a couple of techs to Spain for it; they responded with a counter offer wanting those same techs plus 142000 gold. I had, at the time, 142085 gold in my treasury, but I took the counter offer since I was making about 40k profit per turn. At the time I bought it, the region wealth of New Andalusia was about 2500 gold. The gem mine was fully improved but the plantation was not, the town was a school and only one port was developed (and it was a fishery). Since that time, I tore down the school and built a smiths workshop (upgraded now to a steam engine factory), the fishery got replaced by a global trading company, the other port also developed into a global trading company, the plantation up to a coffee warehouse, and all buildings in Caracas have upgraded to max. The region is now worth about 8000 in wealth and still climbing.

About every 3 turns, Spain wants it back. The last few offers have been like this: they want New Andalusia and 10k gold. They'll offer me a military alliance, military access for 10 turns, and Threshing Machine. That's it. No matter if I turn it down or come up with a counter offer that I would accept but they decline, three turns later they come back with the exact same offer. I declined it before, my situation has not suddenly gotten much worse, so guess what? It's still a no!