Diplomacy is entirely broken

[Cheetah]

I suspect these guys are just blitzing the game anyway, so they're not even trying to use the diplomacy system. Its the only way I can believe a statement that they have never seen a Random DOW. After all if you've already declared war on everyone anyway they can't DOW you. In that respect the Diplomacy system is an irrelevance to them.

This is definitely not the case. I give you examples.

1, First game I play Poland. (it was pre-patch)

Prussia DoWs on me.
Sweden attacks Courland, I join in.
Later on the Chrimean Chanate captures Kiev and after that DoWs on me.
Courland beats back the Swedish attack; I propose peace, they accept.
For some 20 years I got no DoWs (and I have 4 inland provinces).
I build up a decent stack and take out the Chrimena chanate, then take Saxony from the Prussians.
First Austria, then the Ottomans Dows on me (I had bad relations with both).
Russia holds out as an ally through the game (even though I am completely blocking their way to Europe and reject their offers for Vilnius).

Wich one of these Dows are "random"?

2, Second game I play GBR.

It is 1730 and I received only one Dow in the game: form the Hurons who attacked Moose factory. Also, I am very far from "blitzing", I captured only the pirate islands, Mauritius, Florida, and Carolina.

Allies got the following Dows (relatively early on):

Austria from: Prussia, Poland and Russia (I join in)
UP from Maratha (I join in)
Portugal from Spain (I refuse)
13 colonies from all native factiosnexcept Hurons and from France (I join in)

much later:

13 colonies from Sweeden (I reject because Sweeden is my trade partner)

Which one of the above do you think is a random DoW?

So, overall this has turned out to be a very easy campaign, but I have still had four Random DOW's so far even on Easy Difficulty. The idea that Patch 1.3 has cured this problem is not borne out by my experiences at all.

Could you list the Dows you got, perhaps they were not entirely random?

Also, you reload the game whenever you got attacked and conclude that it was very easy (on easy difficulty!).

[resonantblue]

Gotta add my weight here.

Last patch seemed better overall though one improvement they made that I definitely noticed in 1.3 is that when you make peace with someone it at least holds for more than 1 turn before they DoW you again.

I find if I want to make peace to keep a buffer I usually have to crush the faction I'm at war with and give all the territory I didn't want to take to another faction. Of course I can only do th is so many times before I run out of actions and end with total world domination.

1.2 was much better about the AI accepting peace deals and was far more historical. During the era when your army was thoroughly beaten peace was often made. Didn't need to take half of their territory for them to even consider it.

[Husar]

I'm now playing ping pong with marathas, they declare war on me but don't attack yet, in my turn i propose peace and they accept it, their attitude towards me is always "friendly", then, two or three turns later, they declare war again without starting any battle or raid, in my turn I propose peace and they accept, their attitude towards me is "friendly", then...

Happened three times now I think and so far it looks like I can keep doing that ad absurdum.

[Ordani]

Diplomacy is not "entirely broken" and it's important to make specific, qualified statements rather than blanket complaints. The DoWs are not random, they are in fact quite intentional and planned, but what they aren't is in the interest of the AI faction doing them OR a real threat to the player.

The real problem is that there is an entirely separate evaluation for when the AI declares war versus when it will engage in action against you, unlike the simpler model of say, Shogun, when you could expect any faction at war with you to probe your borders regularly. Because the "declare war" check is motivated by something entirely divorced from any analysis of the faction's interests, capabilities, and long term survival (the screw the player check), and because the AI can not manage itself well enough to have a real army in the field most of the time, the DoW doesn't mean anything.

This is further exacerbated by the AI highly weighting keeping a standing army to defend against any potential nearby threats, so the majority of their forces are confined to cities in indefinite stand-offs regardless of the state of belligerence, particularly along the Germanic frontiers where so many states border each other.

Fixing BOTH of those things would be great, but if they could fix at least one it would go a long way towards making the game more playable. Much like M, R, and M2, I expect however that most diplomatic functions will simply remain disabled.

[A Very Super Market]

Well iny my game as Venice, even though I've been admittedly expansionist, it's only against muslims and pirates, Austria (Who has undergone a revolution, as has Spain and the Ottomans) has declared war on me. We were long-term trading partners, with 3000 in bonuses from that relation, we both had "Very Friendly" relations with each other, and the bottom-line is, I wasn't doing anything remotely that would have been a danger to him.

War.

[TB666]

Played a few rounds as Sweden on VH/VH.
Oddly enough, no wars in the first few turns like usual. Not even Courland bothered me.
Instead I could focus on improving my provinces.
And then after 10 turns, Russia decided to declare war however Denmark and Poland thought otherwise and didn't join Russia in the war.
I tried to get peace with them but nothing work. I offered them so much money yet they refused. So I focused all the money on building a better army.
They came with a big army and I meet them head-on and properly destroyed them.
Russia was quick and offered me a white peace treaty right after.

[Owen Glyndwr]

Some of you guys are talking about how you can't expect a human to behave logically, and the fact that the AI attacks out of the blue makes things more realistic. And in this sense, I agree. It is true that a lot of wars are started out of the blue, with no warning, and that the human player on many cases is just as guilty of this as the AI is. But even the most deranged king or ruler has a sense of self preservation. I think it would be very rare to see a King willingly sign his own death warrant.

I think if I could have the opportunity to fix any one aspect of the AI, it would be that, that they would be able to realize that if they do not perform x action, they will cease to exist, and then to do something to prevent that (whether it be signing a peace treaty, or picking off a weaker neighbor)

[Durallan]

Okay still playing as Prussia, Obviously Russia wants Vilinus from me, DoW on me, sent a large stack to attack it and I manage to thwart it with the army that was in a fort bordering their land ( I know I can't trust them anymore) After this I ask for peace, they say no. I take moldavia which they left completely unguarded, I offer peace moldavia and money, still no, I've already given Russia several territories including courland the one above that and moldavia (earlier on ) I'm not giving them anymore land, atm they should be concentrating on their battles with the venetians ottomans persians, swedes, spanish, french, british, I can't remember the rest.

Building an army to take moscow and this time, not giving it back.

Everytime I try to help Russia they stab me in the back (they get ALOT of money when i trade with them) obviously they want to remain poor and destitue and be destroyed and let me win the game.

so I shall do that.

[Cheetah]

Diplomacy is not "entirely broken" and it's important to make specific, qualified statements rather than blanket complaints. The DoWs are not random, they are in fact quite intentional and planned, but what they aren't is in the interest of the AI faction doing them OR a real threat to the player.

The real problem is that there is an entirely separate evaluation for when the AI declares war versus when it will engage in action against you, unlike the simpler model of say, Shogun, when you could expect any faction at war with you to probe your borders regularly. Because the "declare war" check is motivated by something entirely divorced from any analysis of the faction's interests, capabilities, and long term survival (the screw the player check), and because the AI can not manage itself well enough to have a real army in the field most of the time, the DoW doesn't mean anything.

This is further exacerbated by the AI highly weighting keeping a standing army to defend against any potential nearby threats, so the majority of their forces are confined to cities in indefinite stand-offs regardless of the state of belligerence, particularly along the Germanic frontiers where so many states border each other.

Fixing BOTH of those things would be great, but if they could fix at least one it would go a long way towards making the game more playable. Much like M, R, and M2, I expect however that most diplomatic functions will simply remain disabled.

I agree with most of what you say.

The real problem is that that: (1) the AI cannot handle the economy of the game (trade routs, research, developments, etc) thus on most occasions cannot field an army that can match the force of the player; (2) coupled with the fact that it keeps way too much troops in garrisons. Which means a huge upkeep (a full stack is around 5k, so if the AI garrisons 4 region capitals each with a full stack it is 20k per turn down the drain!) and ofc it results a static AI.
I am not sure though that the DoW decisions would be entirely out of the factions interest, they just do not take into account the real capability of the faction to mount an attack. It seems that AI when calculates strenght takes into account the static garrisons too with which ofc it will never move.
This is not to claim that the AI always makes good decisions, it is just that it makes reasonable decisions but cannot implement them due to highly static garrisons and due to failure to cope with the economic part of the game.

[Zenicetus]

I'm now playing ping pong with marathas, they declare war on me but don't attack yet, in my turn i propose peace and they accept it, their attitude towards me is always "friendly", then, two or three turns later, they declare war again without starting any battle or raid, in my turn I propose peace and they accept, their attitude towards me is "friendly", then...

Happened three times now I think and so far it looks like I can keep doing that ad absurdum.

What difficulty setting are you playing on?

This sounds like the programmed, constant deterioration of relations on H and VH setting that was in M2TW, absent bribery or something else to stop the slide. At M difficulty relations would stay static, at Easy they'd slowly keep improving. If you're playing at M or Easy, that blows the theory.

This could also be the targeted province effect, if you're sitting on a province the AI needs for a win condition. There are a lot of overlapping "gotta have it" provinces in this game, and the world starts in a more developed state than M2TW or RTW.

[Didz]

It would be hasty to conclude that the Diplomacy system is broken if it were based upon a single illogical action by the AI. But its not, the stories of the dumb actions (or lack of actions) by the AI are numerous and my own testing has shown that the Random DOW's are just that, and are not influenced by logic, diplomacy, geopolitic's or the even an assessment of likely success.

The inability to get an AI faction to response sensibly to its current situation, its failure to act to try and minimise a threat or maximise an opportunty, and a general failure of the AI to understand the basic elements and factors that contribute to the survival and prosperity of the factions it controls, all indicate that the system is broken.

What we have instead is a 'player hate routine' the sole purpose of which is to ensure that the player faction is kept in a state of pertetual war, regardless of what strategy that player happens to be following or what the diplomacy system indicates the player factions status to be.

[Ordani]

It would be hasty to conclude that the Diplomacy system is broken if it were based upon a single illogical action by the AI. But its not, the stories of the dumb actions (or lack of actions) by the AI are numerous and my own testing has shown that the Random DOW's are just that, and are not influenced by logic, diplomacy, geopolitic's or the even an assessment of likely success.

Does trade work? Can you form alliances? Do your allies join wars with you? Can you send state gifts that do influence behavior, and bribe your way into long term trade agreements? Can you force states to become your protectorates on threat of war?

More importantly, do even factions you declare war on really fight back?

The unexpected, counterproductive DoWs are not random. They are reproducible from saves. The player-hate is a cheap cop out, and I dislike like it as much as the next person, but that's not a bug or an unintentional side effect. They want it to work that way. It may not make any diegetic sense, but there is an evaluation that sends factions to war with you. It just isn't an evaluation based on whether that faction has any hope of a good outcome (which is arguably dumb, but not random). This is the way every other Total War title has worked -- the difference is that the campaign factions in Empire are huffing paint and swilling Wild Irish Rose in between turns and thus aren't a threat to anyone except themselves.

[Didz]

Could you list the Dows you got, perhaps they were not entirely random?

They are all entirely Random, the test and proof of this is perfectly simple.

1) As soon as you get a DOW, reload the game from the Autosave taken just before you ended the last turn.

2) Re-run the end of turn.

If the DOW is based upon logic and the diplomatic/geopolitical situation at the end of that turn then nothing has changed and the same faction will DOW you every turn. If it doesn't, and never bothers you again then clearly it was a completely random event.


@Ordani: No they are NOT reproducible from saves thats the whole point. Nor is the selection of the opponent based on any evaluation of its likely success, or even abilty, to persecute a war against you, it is totally random.

It makes no difference what difficulty level you are on. At the moment I am trying a campaign on Easy Difficulty to test whether the frequency of the Random DOW events is lower at easier settings. The frequency is certainly lower on Easy since the patch, but the DOW's that do occur are still random.

I've also been told that the Random DOW's can be avoided provided as a faction you remain at war with a minimum number of AI controlled factions. I haven't tested this but assuming that the Random DOW's are triggerred by the 'Player Hate Routine' it would make logical sense to assume that if as a player you are already seen by the AI to be at war with several factions it might be programmed not to trigger any further wars.

The test for this will be to start a new campaign using a faction that has no colonial aspirations (e.g. Prussia/Austria) and to immdeiately declare war on all the Native American Factions and possibily the Indian factions that can't possibly interfere with your European goals. If as a result the 'Player Hate Routine' leaves you alone then that would prove the theory, that Random DOW's are only triggered to keep the player faction in a permanent state of conflict.

[Husar]

What difficulty setting are you playing on?

This sounds like the programmed, constant deterioration of relations on H and VH setting that was in M2TW, absent bribery or something else to stop the slide. At M difficulty relations would stay static, at Easy they'd slowly keep improving. If you're playing at M or Easy, that blows the theory.

This could also be the targeted province effect, if you're sitting on a province the AI needs for a win condition. There are a lot of overlapping "gotta have it" provinces in this game, and the world starts in a more developed state than M2TW or RTW.

Well, I conquered baghdad from the Ottoman Empire before they declared war on me, apparently they were after Baghdad as well. The declaration of war is not even the problem, they asked me for baghdad and I refused because they wanted Baghdad and 5900 gold in return for unlimited military access which is useless since they own all of india and I don't want to march around in circles there.

Regardless of that the problem is that they keep accepting white peace the next round and keep being friendly towards me.
My guess is they wouldn't accept white peace if they were hostile towards me but they aren't because we never fight, they declare war and then we make peace again without a fight. If they really wanted Baghdad, they should simply not accept the peace, their army prestige is about twice that of mine and they have three or four full stacks in the are while I have around two and half which is about my complete army. That doesn't mean they could win practically, but theoretically they should assume that and then sue for peace after their incompetent battle AI ruined their plans... something like that. Or maybe they'd win if they actually have some line infantry they won't hide in buildings far away from the actual battle...

Maybe for a start CA should make sure that all stacks the AI sends around, and they actually do send stacks around since monday(last patch) actually contain about 50% units that are designated as line infantry, and then as an interim solution, disable garrisoning completely for the AI so it won't use buildings on the battlefield at all. I think that would make the game quite a bit more challenging, then make declarations of war more dependant on the relative factions strengths, meaning factions attack factions with similar strength so we don't get Georgia declaring war on the Ottomans, GB and Russia at the same time. Or just use the prestige points or something but there are already so many numbers in the game that could be used to make diplomacy a bit more believable at times and it can't be all that hard to tweak the army compositions a bit, maybe change the routine from "what do I recruit?" to "what does that stack there need?" based on some relatively simple formula, like I said, around 50% of units that are designated as line infantry, then maybe 20% cavalry, a general and 30% artillery, or 20% and 10% light infantry if available. We might see clone armies then but I'd rather fight those than single howitzers running around in my territory.

What army composition has to do with diplomacy you ask? It makes declarations of war either scary or laughable...

Btw, got a bit carried away there but I play on Hard campaign and normal battles, haqrd campaign because I'm afraid the armies on normal might be even smaller and normal battles becuase I'm not a fan of the AI winning with stat boosts or get militia which never break, maybe I should choose hard or very hard there though.

[Didz]

Well, I conquered baghdad from the Ottoman Empire before they declared war on me, apparently they were after Baghdad as well. The declaration of war is not even the problem, they asked me for baghdad and I refused because they wanted Baghdad and 5900 gold in return for unlimited military access which is useless since they own all of india and I don't want to march around in circles there.

As I understand it you're playing Spain and you have occupied Baghdad?

Can I ask how many other factions you are currently at war with, and whether the Maratha's have captured Persia (e.g have they have expanded their Empire into Europe, or have you expanded into India?

[ReluctantSamurai]

The real problem is that that: (1) the AI cannot handle the economy of the game (trade routs, research, developments, etc) thus on most occasions cannot field an army that can match the force of the player;

I've been lurking this thread for some time and finally decided to put in my 2cents.........

The above statement about the AI is what is symptomatic (IMHO) of all TW games since MTW.......the game keeps getting more and more complex and the quality of the AI to keep up has not improved or even gotten worse.

With each progressive release starting with STW thru M2TW my playing enjoyment has gotten progressively less and less. STW was a relatively simple beginning (and one I still enjoy after all these years) that grew more complex with MTW. RTW was a quantum leap in game graphics and complexity but a huge step backwards (MHO) in the quality of play. If not for all the mods that have been done for it, my CD discs would have long since become expensive platters for my bartop.

M2TW was such a chore to install and get running.....and patch.....and patch........and patch.....that I'm very glad I purchased the dics used. I would've been very upset to have blown even more money on such a buggy and sub-standard product (again, MHO).

After reading all of the above problems with the diplomacy system (which has never been one of TW's strengths from the start) and problems with Steam, getting the game to run, getting patches.....and more patches......and more patches.......I don't think I'll bother with ETW

For all its simplicity, I'd rather play Shogun where the AI can still kick your a$$ at any difficulty setting, and, as someone has mentioned in another thread, can actually win the game if the player is not skilled enough or is simply unlucky.

Unless some drastic measures are taken to improve the quality of installing & running the game with few or no CTD's, and improving the gaming experience, I've already bought my last game in the TW series

[Didz]

I was interested in Husar's comments as he seemed to be having a persistent and consistent DOW event in his game which is something I'd never experienced. In my campaigns every DOW I'd had was always a one-off random event which could simply be avoided by replaying the end of turn.

However, that was until this afternoon, and it does appear that something has changed. I've just had two quite novel events in my French Campaign.

The first was a persistent if somewhat pointless 'Rabid Lemming' DOW by the Inuit Nations who went from Friendly to Hostile without warning and declared war on me despite being Feeble and Destitute. The big difference was that even after two replays they refused to change their minds, or accept a peace offer, which was a first. So, whether I like it or not I am now at war with a rabid lemming and I suspect I shall have to destroy them before I can get any peace.

The second was a sudden DOW from Great Britain (Moderate/Modest/Unfriendly) allied to Austria (weak/modest/Indifferent). Whilst, not exactly unexpected Britain has been subject to a blockade by Prussia since the start of the game and are far too weak to take on the might of France and Spain (as well as Prussia etc.). Austria obviously agreed and refused to honour their alliance leaving them all alone to face the consequences.

Again I reran the End of Turn after they refused to consider a peace deal, and this time instead of a DOW, Britain came up with a proposal to exchange the Algonquin Territory(French) and the Iroquios Territory (French) for Jamaica(British) and Georgia(British) plus Advanced Naval Tech and 230 gold. I actually considered accepting that deal as although I had spent a lot of money developing the Native American Territories, both Georgia and Jamaica have ports. However, in the end I refused mainly because it would have split Louisana from French Canada.

So, anyway the British were sent away without being given what they wanted and next turn they DOW'd again.

Now this is begining to look promising. At least there is an element of consistency if these events, even if they are still pretty dumb moves by the AI.

[Durallan]

I have to concur.. Having played the game a bit, after awhile you do get the general idea of what the AI wants... but like didz said they still act all like rabid lemmings or vegetables and stand around doing bugger all. I have to say probably the worst thing is that when an AI's port is blockaded or invaded, they will sit there and not do anything about it. Then there were the french and spanish stacks of armies, 2-3 stacks, full of soldiers sitting on the Coast of Normandy, obviously wanting to attack britain but never getting on a ship and going there... and these stacks were there for a good 10 YEARS, not turns, years, just sitting there...

However Quebec (sp?) appeared against the french in the new world and I made them my protectorate and that is going very well, they happily attacked the other french colony next to qubec.

Another problem is the campaign AI in the new world... It doesn't seem to do a whole lot!

When I arrived in around 1740 (good 80 turns?) There were government buildings and the towns were upgraded as the AI could afford I suppose, but there were NO garrisons whatsoever! from Boston to Carolina, there was maybe 2 units in each town with a half stack floating around, same went for New France. the native americans only seem to get active when the player arrives in the new world aswell

last thing that seems broken is that I have seen one other faction owned trade fleet ONLY, in all the trade theatres in my game, they don't seem to use it anymore.

I think if they fixed a few of these things it would make the game 50-100% better than it currently is.

So maybe instead of diplomacy being entirely broken the title of this thread it should have been campaign AI has SERIOUS ISSUES instead, that way there's no need to nitpick

oh and Russia had a half stack in moscow, with my army half a turns walk away to siege, what do they do? they leave moscow to go after 4 prussian dragoons that were at their border.... so I waltz in and claim it

[Cheetah]

They are all entirely Random, the test and proof of this is perfectly simple.

1) As soon as you get a DOW, reload the game from the Autosave taken just before you ended the last turn.

2) Re-run the end of turn.

If the DOW is based upon logic and the diplomatic/geopolitical situation at the end of that turn then nothing has changed and the same faction will DOW you every turn. If it doesn't, and never bothers you again then clearly it was a completely random event.

This is clearly not a sufficient test. You are making up a strawman by assuming that the decision making of the AI is either (i) completely deterministic, or (ii) completely random. This need not be so.

Most likely it is a probabilistic decision making process. Lets say the AI has a certain chance decalring a war on you. Denote it with p (where 0<p<1). Then of course the chance of not declaring a war on you is 1-p. How the program calculates this chance ofc unkown to me, it can depend on many factors. The point is that it is entirely possible that in one turn it throws a dice and gets a number smaller than p, thus declares war on you, yet if you reload the game it throws a number larger than p thus it keeps peace. What you would see is not deterministic but definitely not random either.

The real test would be to run let say 100 of reloads and count the number of DoW. Then compare this sample to a sample generated by random number generator. If you dont get a statistical difference (i.e. the mean of the samples do not differ statistically, i.e roughly speaking the mean probability of getting DoWs is around 0.5) then you could conclude that DoW is random in that given context. Otherwise it is not.

I would bet a large sum of money that it is not.

Also, please take a look at the two lists of DoWs that I posted before and tell me how could you get those list by a purely random process. Thanks.

[Ordani]

@Ordani: No they are NOT reproducible from saves thats the whole point. Nor is the selection of the opponent based on any evaluation of its likely success, or even abilty, to persecute a war against you, it is totally random.

Uh, yes, many of them are. Maybe you aren't using "random" exactly right (arbitrary would seem more appropriate), but "motivated by something you don't understand" isn't strictly it. The AI will send a faction to war with you on several conditional changes, including how many factions are at war with you and your state of success. There have been several games I could build a single structure in a single province, and boom, one of three non-neighboring factions were guaranteed to declare war every reload.

Every time you eliminate a faction you are at war with, you go back into the state of whatever evaluation it does to send another faction against you. The "number of factions at war" hypothesis isn't precise, but it's on the ball.

Certain provinces (Punjab is one for whatever reason) will cause attract non-belligerent factions like flies, this is also not random, but dependent on whether they have a route to it. I presume this is some kind of check to keep certain factions from totally dominating India uncontested, etc, but you can do reload watches to see multiple factions marching past other provinces to attack them on the rare occasion they have armies.

Certain factions have different AI tuning (Prussia and Poland are noticeable this way) that makes them much more belligerent than others with nonsensical results. You can affect this by keeping ridiculously large standing armies.

It may not make any sense, but if it was truly random, you'd see your major-power neighbors periodically prosecuting wars against you instead of arbitrary people from halfway across the planet. Moreover if it was truly random, you should be able to run a game without ever declaring peace and have approximately the same number of factions at war with you by various points in the game as you go along, repeatedly, but in varying orders. If you do so, I'm willing to bet it stops at around 7, with a lot of the usual suspects.

Yes, the DoWs are often silly and arbitrary, but that's how TW has always worked.

[Husar]

Every time you eliminate a faction you are at war with, you go back into the state of whatever evaluation it does to send another faction against you. The "number of factions at war" hypothesis isn't precise, but it's on the ball.

That I also noticed, the system is made to keep you at war at all times, I know it's called total War but it would be nice if you could just build up a trade empire and choose wars yourself instead of having the AI choose them all for you, that's not to say it should never declare war but if it always does 1 or two turns after you eliminated the last faction then that is just a silly way to keep you on your toes, I could think of a few better ways to achieve the same thing without making one province factions declare war on the mightiest faction around.

[Didz]

Most likely it is a probabilistic decision making process. Lets say the AI has a certain chance decalring a war on you. Denote it with p (where 0<p<1). Then of course the chance of not declaring a war on you is 1-p. How the program calculates this chance ofc unkown to me, it can depend on many factors. The point is that it is entirely possible that in one turn it throws a dice and gets a number smaller than p, thus declares war on you, yet if you reload the game it throws a number larger than p thus it keeps peace. What you would see is not deterministic but definitely not random either.

I would agree with that theory, if over the course of the next few turns the same DOW occurred again. The logic being that the criteria remain more or less the same so the only variable is the randon number rolled.

However, prior to Patch 1.3 that certainly wasn't the case, and once avoided most DOW's never materialised again for the rest of the game. It quite literallly only this afternoon that I've noticed a change and it now looks like DOW's are a lot more consistent and persistent. Even if they are still lacking in intellegence.

That I also noticed, the system is made to keep you at war at all times, I know it's called total War but it would be nice if you could just build up a trade empire and choose wars yourself instead of having the AI choose them all for you, that's not to say it should never declare war but if it always does 1 or two turns after you eliminated the last faction then that is just a silly way to keep you on your toes, I could think of a few better ways to achieve the same thing without making one province factions declare war on the mightiest faction around.

Yeah! its quite dissapointing really. I mean its supposed to be a strategy game, but as someone pointed out at the the moment the campaign game requires about as much intellectual input as pub brawl. I suspect the only players getting any sort of challenge out of it are the blitzers.

[Sheogorath]

Alright, I just started an Ottoman campaign to try them out, since I've never played them seriously before.

I started out, as usual, at war with Russia. I spent my first four turns getting as many trade agreements and alliances as possible. I even managed to procectorate Dageistan and make an alliance with Persia and decent relations, including a trade agreement, with Austria.

Turn four hits, and suddenly EVERY SINGLE NEIGHBORING STATE declares war on me. In one turn, Austria, Persia, Georgia, Dageistan and Venice declared war. I don't count the Crimean or Barbary as 'neighboring states' because theyre protectorates and useless, although the Crimean did, rather amusingly, managed to take Kiev because the Russians used the entire Kiev garrison to attack an army, which then retreated to and took Kiev.

Either way, the campaign was a bust. Austria took its DOW seriously and Dageistan and Georgia did their thing, which was to spawn massive armies from their single cities and drive all resistance before them. It's hard to fend off a massive half-stack of line infantry when the best you can do is a couple of units of militia, since your annual budget is about 1000 Baghdad Bucks.

[Husar]

So you had several allies declare war on you? Makes sense, let's advertise the AI as backstabbers, obviously it's very sophisitcated. I'm getting the impression that the most reliable factions are neutral ones.

[Lucius Verenus]

Turn four hits, and suddenly EVERY SINGLE NEIGHBORING STATE declares war on me. In one turn, Austria, Persia, Georgia, Dageistan and Venice declared war.

It would be interesting, if you still have it, to reload the save before this and hit end-turn and see if some/all/none of them do it again

Sig..

[Sheogorath]

So you had several allies declare war on you? Makes sense, let's advertise the AI as backstabbers, obviously it's very sophisitcated. I'm getting the impression that the most reliable factions are neutral ones.

Theoretically protectorates are more reliable, but Dageistan proved me wrong there.

It would be interesting, if you still have it, to reload the save before this and hit end-turn and see if some/all/none of them do it again

Sig..

I went in a few more turns out of curiosity and Poland jumped in a few turns later. I tried reloading a couple times with the same result.

This is the first time I've ever had a protectorate declare war on me. It's completely stupid.

[Zarky]

In my Ottoman game I managed to persuade Dagestan to be my ally (they had taken russian region so no protectocrate) and they didn't backstab me until I did to get last region I needed for winning.
At start they were hostile to me, before I stabbed them at best they were indifferent.

[Didz]

It would be interesting, if you still have it, to reload the save before this and hit end-turn and see if some/all/none of them do it again

Yes, I must admit that would have been my first reaction.

It does sound like the 'Player Hate Routine' kicked in and just decided you were having things too easy.

It would also be interesting to go back and list the 'Friend-o-Meter' ratings of all the factions that DOW'd you just before they did so, just to see if there is any tangible link.

I'm pretty sure that each faction has some scripted DOW's early in the game, certainly when playing Maratha I have never been able to avoid an early war with Mysore no matter what I do to try and placate them and you may have been targetted by one or more of those, but a reload would have confirmed that.

[jsberry]

Right last post on this as I'm coming out of the closet, there's nothing wrong with the diplomacy. That it doesn't work the way people think it should doesn't make it broken or bugged.

You should try playing something besides Britain on Easy.

The AI is programmed to ALWAYS attack when it shares a border.

The century 1700-1800 contained 4 wars of 7-8 years in length. That was 30 years of war and 70 years of diplomacy. Version 1.3 is 100 years of war.

There is a friend-o-meter with lots of factors. And the factors themselves are pretty well worked out. The result is a number that makes the AI of that country "friendly" or "hostile." But then that number is COMPLETELY IGNORED by that country. That means it is BROKEN.

[Didz]

Ahem! broken in my dictionary means not working, or in pieces, both of which are accurate descriptions of the ETW diplomacy system.