Way to mitigate ridiculous DoW's?

[Konig Prasatko]

I agree about the DOWs. Since the latest patch I have played Austria and Sweden and in both games I made peace with Poland/Lith and gave territory to seal the deal only to have them declare war on me 1 turn later. Also find it harder to get some countries to make peace even when ridiculous amounts of territory offerred as a sweetner!

[loony]

At least we are able to make peace.
I keep exploiting this in my Poland-Lithuania game, where I:
a) capture St Petersburg
b) destroy any building there
c) offer the region to russians for peace and 10 000 and they accept
d) I get a DOW from russian next turn

I just keep them lower on cash and my armies more experienced; i do suffer some raiding, however.

[stufer]

Couldn't agree more with the opening poster.

For the first time ever, I've decided to shelve a total war game until the diplomacy is sorted. I like to role play these games - not really bother with winning or loosing. This is the first time I have found it impossible. I could cope with it before the patch - just. But not now - I'm very dissapointed with the last patch - to my mind it made the problems stand out more.

Hey ho, guess I'll keep checking back once in a while to see if things get fixed. I'm sure they will. It will just take time.

[Ishmael]

Has anybody tried declaring war on Malta (Knights of St John) or somebody? Does this stop the AI declaring war as frequently, as you're already at war?

[al Roumi]

Has anybody tried declaring war on Malta (Knights of St John) or somebody? Does this stop the AI declaring war as frequently, as you're already at war?

I'm certain that this is true, but i think there is some sort of equation deciding when someone DoW's on you. I'm certain it has something to do with un-checked player millitary and economic strength or something.

Pre patch 3, playing as the UP and building level 2 mines in Dutch Guyana would solicit turn by turn requests for the territory from France -which they didn't do untill the province was upgraded.

Also pre-patch 3, I played games where destroying an enemy stack would cause an otherwise neutral faction to DoW too.

Post patch 3, I'm almost certain that the game AI dislikes the player to be at peace with everyone accross all 3 theatres. the closest I came to this was pre patch as the Ottomans, where I was trading every major and minor european faction, having limited expansion to north Africa, the Caucasus and India.

Being at war with an enemy who you can contain is the best way I've found to achieve some sort of stability -rather than pay for peace and trade, only for it to be spurned in a few turns by masochistic AI.

[Servius]

Since the most recent patch, I've played a GB and Prussian campaign. In both, I experienced nations that were Very Friendly to me issue a DoW as soon as they had adjacent territory to me. Perhaps we should start brainstorming some rational rules for AI diplomacy that the AI should be forced to observe. Here are some I propose:

1) Thou shalt not declare war on a nation that you are Friendly or Very Friendly with.
2) Thou shalt always consider peace, by either offering it yourself or accepting such an offer, when
- a) a nation you are at war with is significantly more militarily powerful than you
- b) no territories have been lost/taken in the last 4 turns (2 years)
- c) when you are engaged in a war with another, more powerful nation
3) Thou shalt always accept trade agreement offers from nations that you are Friendly or Very Friendly with. (Keep in mind you can only propose such agreements when both nations have free trade slots).
4) Thou shalt always consider becoming a protectorate when your nation is at war and you only have 3 or less regions left.

[al Roumi]

Assuming the faction AI is also trying to "win" the game and not just a passenger in the mix to trip the player up, I'd like to add an overarching priority for faction AIs to seek to meet their victory conditions: e.g. focus on prestige points or conquest of particular regions.

I'd rather factions didn't become lap-dogs, willing to do my every bidding and trade key techs or territories just because i had buttered them up. I'd prefer the factions to be as independant and strategically active as the player can be (within the boundaries of possibility of course).

I'd get rid of the overal "game" AI which has the tendency to trigger the suicidal DoW's form factions, only there to keep the player stretched. there should be a quid-pro-quo between inter-faction AI dealings, as much as there is between human and ai factions.

For that matter, I've never seen the factions make any alliances beyond those that they start with -the 1700's were full of incessant changes in the raports and alliance between countries -this should be reflected in the game.

I'd even (pause for effect) be happy with an ammount of scripted behaviour, which would dictate the various factions pursuing their own victory conditions, generating flashpoint regions & resources that would naturally engender conflict between factions.

[Ordani]

For the first time ever, I've decided to shelve a total war game until the diplomacy is sorted. I like to role play these games -

In what TW game has diplomacy ever worked? Heck, in most of the titles half the diplomatic options were deliberately turned off. Yes, the behavior is dumb, but let's keep our expectations on earth here :>

[mmk]

In what TW game has diplomacy ever worked? Heck, in most of the titles half the diplomatic options were deliberately turned off. Yes, the behavior is dumb, but let's keep our expectations on earth here :>

You are of course right that diplomacy has always had it´s "pecularities" in previous TW releases. And I certainly do not expect miracles. I do realize though, and I would agree with several other posters in this thread, that diplomacy in ETW (especially after the new patch) leaves a lot to be desired.
DoWs (and other diplomacy features) by the AI are nothing I as a player would be able to influence in any way. I can give gifts, money, technology to influence relations or not. It makes no difference, the AI will DOW. What´s the diplomatic use (not talking economics here) in having protectorates if the protectorates independently declare war on other nations, without me as "protector" being able to influence this? All this results in War as the final outcome of any "diplomacy". Fits the "Total War" trademark 101%, but also in comparison with previous titles of the TW series, is a bit too much total war for me to pay much attention to diplomacy(unfortunately). Given the current state of affairs "diplomacy" is pretty much redundant.

I gave up my last campaign as GB when the US "emerged" in 1702 and promptly declared war on the 13 colonies in 1704. A bit too much nonsense for me.

[mmk]

Sorry for the rant.

On a positive note: Since the patch the number of totally senseless AI diplomatic demands/offers has been reduced (at least that is my impression).

[stufer]

Hi Ordani

Yeah, you are right that it has never been perfect and I'm not expecting it to be. But with the previous games, I could always suspend my disbelief. With Empire I cannot. At least in the other games, peace would occasionally happen (well, not so much in RTW, but in the others it did). I see a lot of people complain about M2TW, but I really like that game and I found diplomacy to work great with it. Ok, not perfect, but pretty good. Wars would break out but peace would follow. Some wars would last for ages, some for just a couple of turns.

In Empire, all inter-AI wars will last until one country is destroyed or the end of the campaign! I do think that this ruins the AI's economy too.

Don't get me wrong, I like Empire and I think it has a great deal of potential. I will give it time for them to fix these things and I'm sure they will. It just seems to me to be the most rushed and incomplete release they have ever done. I've bought all their games on release day since Shogun, and all expansion packs. This is the first time I've felt disappointed.

Oh well - I'm probably getting too old for video games anyway!