Diplomacy is entirely broken

After sleeping on it and calming down a little, i decided to give the new patch another chance. I decided to play a landlocked (ish) faction, Prussia. Wanting to unite west and east Prussia, i saved up some money and offered Poland 30,000 for Gdansk. An insult, they tell me. I save up some more and offer 50,000, plug bayonet, common land enclosures, the other tier 1 farming tech, still an insult. I move a large army to the border with Gdansk, and one to the border with Saxony, and make one last offer/threat to Poland. 50,000 and all the technology. They refuse outright. I cancel my trade agreement with Poland and declare war.

Saxony, Courland and Russia join in on the side of Poland, and i have no allies to invite. I take Gdansk, and after laying siege to and defeating a sally attempt from Saxony, leaving them with mere tatters of an army, i offer them peace and trade. They refuse, and i knock them out of the game. At this point i offer Poland 25,000 for peace and trade, to which they refuse. I offer them 25,000 for just peace on its own, they refuse. I move my army to Lithuania, leaving almost a half stack to defend what land i own. I defeat a small Polish army in Lithuania, and a medium-sized army of Courland that was hanging around in the province too. I lay siege to Lithuania, which has no garrison, and offer peace to Poland. They refuse. I offer peace to Courland, they refuse.

I take Lithuania and offer to give it back to Poland for peace, along with 25,000, they refuse. I offer Lithuania to Courland, with 25,000 for peace, they refuse. I move to Warsaw. I defeat a Polish army. I besiege the city and offer peace, plus Lithuania, plus 25,000, they refuse. I take Warsaw. I offer Poland Warsaw, Lithuania, 25,000, plug bayonets, common land enclosures, the other tier 1 farm technology, and peace. Outright refusal. I offer the same deal to Courland, outright refusal.

I use my smaller army that was left in east Prussia to defeat the army of Courland and lay siege to their only city. I offer them peace, Lithuania, Warsaw, all the technology and 25,000. They refuse. I destroy them.

I take yet another city of Poland, leaving them only 1 remaining province, feeble and destitute. I offer them every single city i have taken, minus Gdansk, all the technology, and all the money i had, around 40,000, for peace and trade. They refused. I besieged their last city and offered them the same deal yet again, every city, all the technology, money, for peace and trade. Refusal. I try one last time, this time using the threat option, rather than a regular diplomatic offer. No joy. I destroy Poland.

All i wanted was Gdansk, for i like to roleplay, not blitz.

CA, i demand you release a program that will allow me to rollback my game to the previous patch. This latest one has fixed nothing, has made the AI on the battlefield no better at all, and has made them 100% incompetent in the diplomatic department. At least in the previous version they were only 50% incompetent.

Good day.

Back in my day we had to walk ten miles, in the snow, to get diplomacy. Uphill both ways. And we didn't have shoes. And the AI was less talkative than a rabid lion on acid.

In any case, yes, there are some 'berserker' factions in every game, it seems. It's been that way since 1.0. Most factions have, for me, responded well to diplomacy.

Originally Posted by Sheogorath

In any case, yes, there are some 'berserker' factions in every game, it seems. It's been that way since 1.0. Most factions have, for me, responded well to diplomacy.

Try it again with the new patch. I was playing UP on H/H last night, and had both Sweden and Prussia go completely bat-guano crazy on me, accepting no peace terms no matter how many provinces i took, no matter how generous the offer. (At one point I was offering Prussia two major cities, one minor city and 50k gold for peace. "No, a thousand times no ...")

The AI can be weird sometimes.

As Russia on Hard I had control of north eastern part of europe while Austria had control of the south eastern part.

We were at peace for at least 40 turns before they declared war on me.

Just keep trying to remember stating what difficulty you are playing on. I know the red mist can get in the way sometimes.

It really helps to determine if YOU are insane to expect VH to play with any sanity, or Medium, in which sanity IS part of what I experience.

@ Sheogorath, maaate, you should talk.

Back in my day we crawled backwards 23 miles in blazing 50 degree heat just to get a trade agreement. Going there was underwater and coming back was over the Alps. All we had was a loin cloth and a banana. The AI rarely even spoke, just grunted and pointed to options we had written on paper before hand.

Now you know how Hitler felt.

Well, at least during 1.2, you could take France and get all of their colonies for peace without offering them anything else. Same for spain.

Not working in 1.3.

All that VH too.

Originally Posted by AussieGiant

Just keep trying to remember stating what difficulty you are playing on. I know the red mist can get in the way sometimes.

It really helps to determine if YOU are insane to expect VH to play with any sanity, or Medium, in which sanity IS part of what I experience.

Seconded.

I'll jump on the "diplomacy is broken" bandwagon too, but there should be differences at the various difficulty settings. Given the limited scope of the game where territorial expansion is the only real goal, we should be expecting more hostility and war declarations at the highest difficulty settings. I'm playing my current Empire campaign at M difficulty and I'm seeing some illogical DOW's, but I don't think I'm seeing as many as some here. The M difficulty is probably the baseline where the devs are trying to make diplomacy work best, and where we can figure out what's broken or not.

If CA is using a similar "constantly degrading relations" system at H and VH settings like they did in M2TW (are they? does anyone know?), then yeah... you'll have the whole world ganged up against you, and constant illogical DOW's. That's just how the CA devs think of "difficulty" in this game, based on prior versions. It can be a trap to think you're an experienced strategy game player, and therefore you should jump in right at VH setting, and anything else is gimped. Some games like this play out more realistically (or at least, more predictably) at the medium settings, where the AI isn't acting quite as crazy (but still crazy).

LOL! Maybe the AI isn't into bribes I guess....In my Prussian campaign, I declared war on Saxony (Poland joins), took both Dresden and Gdansk on the same turn, and immediately after I take those cities, I offer peace ON THE SAME TURN to Poland-Lithuania for a trade agreement and they agree!

About 10 turns later, Polish guys were doing well against Austria so they declare war again....I like to roleplay too so I don't invade their lands. I just ask for peace and a trade agreement every turn. At first they were insulted, so I checked back with them about every other turn or so, and about 6 turns later, they accepted peace and trade again!

About 20 turns later Russia was about to wipe out the Poles and so I was "forced" to take Warsaw, and the Polish are no more....

*Sigh*

I guess I'm going to have to rethink my general optimism on this particular subject and agree with the people who say diplomacy isn't working now.

Ten turns into my Russian campaign, I've had Georgia, Dageistan and the Ottomans on my case since turn 5. Persia jumped in recently as well. None of them will accept peace under any terms.

Can we get a hotfix, CA? I'm all for a nice bit of war every now and then, but it's no fun when everybody gangs up on you.

Yes, make em gang up on each other, why always the human player? That's just utterly ridiculous. THis game should be fun and more or less equal for all parties involved rather than being a "bash the human" fest.

In fact, even with the constant DoWs, the AI is still no challenge for any half way decent player because they are so happily at peace with each other. If they actually fought each other like they fight the human, they could actually expand and turn into superpowers you know.

Originally Posted by FactionHeir

Yes, make em gang up on each other, why always the human player? That's just utterly ridiculous. THis game should be fun and more or less equal for all parties involved rather than being a "bash the human" fest.

In fact, even with the constant DoWs, the AI is still no challenge for any half way decent player because they are so happily at peace with each other. If they actually fought each other like they fight the human, they could actually expand and turn into superpowers you know.

They do fight each other. Hell, they fight each other more than they fight me. People complain about the AI not attacking when they DoW, well this is probably why. I don't see Austria, Poland, Sweden, and Russia just drop their current choking of each other to team up and wipe me out. When I look at the campaign map during their turns, at about 2 or 3 regions change hands every turn in Eastern Europe.

So its not the AI ganging up on you, its more like you walked into a bar for a drink and there just happens to be a bar fight going on. The guy next to you MIGHT swing at you, or he might swing at the next guy. Who knows?

@Cheetah
You are exactly right, it is still up to Human players whether or not to blitz. In my case I blitzed to a bottle-neck and stopped.

I'm not saying they don't fight each other, but rather that if you border them, they WILL always declare war on your if you fall below a certain number of enemies unless you are allied with them and have great relations. If not allied but great relations, they will still declare war on you, regardless of how bogged down they are.

Similarly, the AI declares war on the player a lot more than against other AI factions. Example fact being none of the American Indian factions declare war on the AI. They will however always declare war on you.

Actually, they'll still declare war on you if you are allies. There are just some regions that certain factions take offense to other people owning. France will always attack anyone who owns Alsace-Lorraine. Spain will always attack whoever owns Gibraltar. And so on.

The AI also does not declare war more on the player than on other AI factions. Just look at the diplomacy window; most major factions are at war with more factions than you I wager.

The American Indians do attack British, Spanish, and Americans, but do not seem to attack the French. That makes sense historically, I guess. I do see a big Cherokee empire every once in awhile.