How to avoid perma-war?

[fallen851]

I hate the force diplomacy mod.

If you want to recreate history, sure it is fine. But to me that is boring. I want the AI to invade me when my borders are weak, I want the challenge. I don't want to decide how they act.

That said, in Hard or Very Hard the diplomacy has been ridiculous. But now I play on Medium, and the AI is much more intelligent diplomatically. They ask for peace when they're beaten or were just not fighting, and they don't go to war with me for the sake of it. I much prefer the randomness of medium campaign difficulty to the force diplomacy mod, but play however you want.

[Fluvius Camillus]

Hi Lemur,

You can also fight your enemies at choke points or create buffers. Depending on your situation, this can differ very much. But good choke points are hard to find as Romani when you face the Lusotannan, Sweboz and Makedones. Nobo's idea is probably best here, a buffer will make the AI a lot less aggressive, so that can buy you some time till they capture it. What difficulty are you playing btw?

~Fluvius

[athanaric]

My advice would be to conquer all of Iberia, so that you get peace on one front at least.
If you don't want to eliminate the Lusotannan faction through this course of action, you can force-migrate them to Ireland.
This is possible without Force Diplomacy, and I removed Baktria to Krete this way in a campaign (Saka) where I needed their land, but not their lives, for Victory Conditions.

If you want to do this, land a diplomat on Ireland first. Bribe a town there (preferably Ivernis), and teleport most, if not all, Lusotannan stacks there (especially those with generals). Now if these don't attack and take your Irish town right away (because they hate you), "gift" it to them. It might be necessary to give them an additional 1 million mnai or more to have them accept.
After they are settled in that town, immediately take their last Iberian holdings.

And don't worry about their not getting factional units on Ireland - the Lusotannan get excellent units there (even without the two campaign-disabled Wunderwaffe units).

[oudysseos]

How to avoid perma-war?

Kill all of your enemies.

[ximxim]

Try to empower the enemies of your enemies. If they feel very threatened on other fronts they might make peace with you. In my current H/M KH campaign I've been able to keep peace with the getai and epiros for 70+ years now, despite having a shared border. This usually takes some planning though, so may not be applicable to your game...

[Apázlinemjó]

Buffer territories between you and the very agressive factions.

[Zradha Pahlavan]

Send out raiding parties to smash your enemies' barracks, burn their cities, and kill or enslave anyone who serves them. That'll get you some alone-time and a nice wad of cash. And the armies they do send at you after that will be utterly pathetic for quite some time.
At least, that's how I shut the Ptolemies up in my Saba campaign.

[Duguntz]

all advices are good... but if the game was to forment peace with every body, it wouldn't be called ''Total War''... it would have been... ''total diplomatic Intrigues''... so for that i must add :

Kill all of your enemies.

SECONDED

[athanaric]

all advices are good... but if the game was to forment peace with every body, it wouldn't be called ''Total War''... it would have been... ''total diplomatic Intrigues''...

The title "Total War" was likely chosen as some sort of catch phrase, a memorable name carrying powerful connotations. However, real life total war tends to be a horrific thing which doesn't very often occur in human history. I can't see how the actions of, say, the Taliban (one of the factions that wages total war in our time) could be entertaining to recreate in a video game.
I'd say the "Total War" thing was taken a little bit too literally by the RTW developers. In fact, the idiotically aggressive behaviour of the AI in TW games is the one big flaw in an otherwise brilliant game concept. It's also impeding and limiting the historical accuracy of EB. There are concepts like cooperation or even mere pragmatic non-violent coexistence in real life.
Campaigns in this game get boring over time simply because you're forced to fight an infinite war against the same infinitely dumb enemy. Who is also cheating.

[Trax]

The "Total War" part was fitting for Shogun because it was set in a sort of "there can be only one" situation.
In other TW games it is the single most frustrating thing about the series.

Also the diplomatic and military AIs do not communicate as far as I know.
The diplo AI may adore you but if the military AI sees a weakly defended settlement or
a port to blockade it will attack.

[Ibrahim]

The title "Total War" was likely chosen as some sort of catch phrase, a memorable name carrying powerful connotations. However, real life total war tends to be a horrific thing which doesn't very often occur in human history. I can't see how the actions of, say, the Taliban (one of the factions that wages total war in our time) could be entertaining to recreate in a video game.
I'd say the "Total War" thing was taken a little bit too literally by the RTW developers. In fact, the idiotically aggressive behaviour of the AI in TW games is the one big flaw in an otherwise brilliant game concept. It's also impeding and limiting the historical accuracy of EB. There are concepts like cooperation or even mere pragmatic non-violent coexistence in real life.
Campaigns in this game get boring over time simply because you're forced to fight an infinite war against the same infinitely dumb enemy. Who is also cheating.

amen to all that.

honestly though, if you're clever, and a sufficiently large jerk to the AI, you can always just play them against each other. IIRC, I mentioned how Spartans and Athenians were efficiently swallowed by me after fighting each other for a protracted period.

the reason was because I payed off the spartans to fight Athenians, then vice versa, all while I developed my economy and remained officially neutral. once they were worn out, I struck out. swallowed them in under 10 turns

[Megas Methuselah]

It might also be a good idea to slow the hell down in your expansion, establish alliances and use protectorates as buffer states. Especially as the Romans, rapid expansion is downright dangerous and, eventually, mentally exhausting.

And remember, once you got allies and/or ceasefires and you happen to share a border, you'll have to pay tribute to keep the peace. Seeing as you're rich, 1k a turn or less wouldn't be a bad idea to keep the peace with those who share borders. EB is wondrous, but the RTW engine itself has limitations.

[Drewski]

As for the Sweboz, try offering them a silly amount of mnai to be your protectorate...750,000+ normally does the trick. If they accept, you will get ALL your money back on the next turn, plus any they have spare (for each and every subsequent year)...

A minor exploit?

Possibly, but much less than forced diplomacy. Also a quite reasonable course of action, if you are much stronger militarily.