dude, your singing to the choir. there are like over 9000 "bad diplomacy" complaint threads. we all know the diplomacy sucks. hopefully CA will fix it, but odds are they won't. just live with it.


an example is when, as the knights of st john, i tried to buy sicily and sardinia off of spain for a handsome amount of money. they refused(even though they had more than enough provinces anyway), and idecided to take them. now, not only am i growing exponentially, but i have created an "Italian League" so to speak. every single italian state(plus the barbaries) are either my allies or my protectorates, and we are all ganging up on spain. this is better than just conquering itly, because now i can devote my entire forces at spain while their trade is cut off by my buddies and raiding parties.

now spain has every port in europe blockaded, half their european provinces gone, and half the mediteranean against them. they are ready to fall pretty quick(plus now i'll get some trade ports and colleges to research and trade).