The gameplay in a typical RTW campaign

[GFX707]

1) Start campaign
2) Make some allies
3) Make some armies
4) Some faction declares war on you (by sieging a city)
5) You start slowly beating back the faction you are at war with
6) Some other faction declares war on you (by sieging a city)
7) You start slowly beating back both factions you are at war with
8) Your ally declares war on you (by sieging a city)
9) Your ally declares war on you (by sieging a city)
10) Your ally declares war on you (by sieging a city)
11) Your ally declares war on you (by sieging a city)
12) Some other faction declares war on you (by sieging a city)


Repeat until everyone is either at war with you, you lose, or you win.

Same old crap from MTW even after years of complaints.

If this is what is going to happen then where is the "non-aggression pact" treaty because becoming allies with a faction seems to just make them next to declare war on you!!!!

[Thoros of Myr]

It's not called "Total War" for nothing right? :)

[discovery1]

I have been long time allies with the Dacians in my campaign as the Selucids. They haven't stabbed me in the back despite my weak presence on their borders. Then again, they are under server pressure by the Jullii.

[Bob the Insane]

Personally I have found it to be a little more complex than this...

If you are allied to a faction, but are not allied to any of his other allies then you might end up as a target of his. Also even being an ally if you are trooping soldiers across his lands without agreeing military access you will be pissing him off in the background... And especially things like this can occur..

You ally to faction A, they are allied to faction B and faction C, and both faction B and C are allied to faction D. You get into a fight with faction D, the balance of alliances go in their direction so it is possible your ally will abandon you (in their own best interests)...

Admittedly I have not had a faction start attacking me by calling off our alliance first... Which would be nice....

[Thoros of Myr]

Diplomacy and it's implications have been enhanced...still the AI generally lacks any long-term strategic goals beyond "All your base are belong to us!"

[ShadesPanther]

well at least they don't do the "I have only one province are you are the world's superpower who will crush me in an instant. BUT you have few troops on the border even though you could have about 5 mighty armies about 1 turn away." tactic.

[GFX707]

In my current greek campaign it's happening exactly as the above - each turn a neighbour declares war on me....it's just not fun at all, and it doesn't make sense either....

neither do the IMMENSE AI fleets! How do they make them in such short time? How can they afford them?

it just wears me down to the point where after winning another victory and pushing the last person to declare war on me back from my city another declares war and I go "oh for f***'s sake" and quit the game.

[Bob the Insane]

it just wears me down to the point where after winning another victory and pushing the last person to declare war on me back from my city another declares war and I go "oh for f***'s sake" and quit the game.

What campaign difficulty are you playing on?? I have a game on very hard and I a sure the AI is getting a sneaky helping hand from somewhere... I am playing the Germans and I have conquered alot of Briton and Gaul lands, and the Guals especially have been reduced to just 3 provinces one being the land locked one in Spain the others being in northern Italy and yet they still appear to be able to together full stacks of Spear and Sword Warbands every few turns?!?!? Add to that every one of their settlements that I have captured is well in advance of even my Capital!!!

[GFX707]

Just normal/normal.

I am now at war with SEVEN factions (none of which I declared war on) and not one will accept a ceasefire.

This is not fun. This is hard work. I'd normally expect to be paid for this tedious sluggish crap

[Jeanne d'arc]

yea somehow they all just attack, in my germania campaign i got myself an alliance with the gauls and i ask them to attack the britons and they just cancel there alliance with me for this .Stupid Gauls, dont they know the julii are gonna crush them??

[Akka]

Yup, it's not as bad as in MTW, and I can sometimes have the feeling there is real nations and not just AI-controlled stacks of men against me, but there is still definitely some agressive madness in the field.

I had only one "suicide war" (Carthage, reduced to just a single city in Sicily, that attack a full-garrisoned Syracuse, while I own half of the Mediterranean sea...), but SYSTEMATICALLY, the enemies will reject my offers of ceasefire, even after loosing 80 % of their cities to me. That's absurd. I would be in their place, and would take such a bad beating, I would BEG to stop the war. Here, not only they refuse to pay a tribute to stop it, but they don't even accept a blanck peace...

[GFX707]

Yup. Just like MTW. So much for this improved diplomacy.

[Bob the Insane]

yea somehow they all just attack, in my germania campaign i got myself an alliance with the gauls and i ask them to attack the britons and they just cancel there alliance with me for this .Stupid Gauls, dont they know the julii are gonna crush them??

LOL.. First game I saw the germania was well in debt, even with our small army were losing money every turn straight away, so I put together Trading Rights with Gaul and Briton and started building up the roads and traders, building mines where I could... Four turns later I had lost half my lands of giant stacks of Gaul and Briton armies (they had allied with each other.. ) and essentially had no troops to fight back...

So I restarted, trained up all the warbands I could before the money ran out and then opened a rightous can of whoopass on my barbarian neighbours...

That worked a treat....

[Hannibal_Barkar]

Just normal/normal.

I am now at war with SEVEN factions (none of which I declared war on) and not one will accept a ceasefire.

This is not fun. This is hard work. I'd normally expect to be paid for this tedious sluggish crap

I know its out of whack. Did you try offer money or map info alongside the ceasefire ? That often seems to help.

H.

[Praylak]

Yup, been there.

BUT, it really depends. As the Seleucids I had an alliance with Pontus for 187 years, still in effect where I left off. Never once did they send troops into my provinces. After cleaning out Egg and crippling the greeks and Parthia, I couldn't bring myself to attack Pontus when it was practical to do so. In the early part of the game (first 50 years) I made allot of diplomacy with them. I was rich, so I gave them money frequently, and sent a little raider army to Armenia when they asked for help with them. I would regularly give them 20% of my treasury which was usually 60-100k. So they would get 6-10k every 5-10 years. I suppose regular tribute would be better but if they had declared war half way through tribute, do you still pay it?. A neighbouring city I took from the Greeks I gave them, only made sense as I didn't want to box them in. They were my buddies.

I think it works, you can have permanent friends, but you got to buy it I'm afriad. Not too far off reality is it?

[ChaosLord]

Actually, the one non-roman alliance I made in my Scipii game lasted 100 some odd years until I backstabbed them. It was made with Numidia when we were both fighting off Egypt, even once I beat Egypt back they didn't attack me. Though I did keep a decent garrison in my border cities just to be safe. In the end I blitzed them to take the provinces needed for the victory, and to make it so I ruled all of NA/Middle-East.

I've also had people ask me for ceasefires, though they weren't a enemy on the border. It seems alot of the time that the AI holds grudges and that its willing to risk itself for short-term gains. But its not like history isn't full of would-be conquerers wanting to take a piece out of their neighbors thinking them too weak/spread thing/large/etc.. to notice.

[Krasturak]

Diplomacy and it's implications have been enhanced...still the AI generally lacks any long-term strategic goals beyond "All your base are belong to us!"

Gah!

[Colovion]

I'm Greece.

I've declared war on one faction the whole game (Macedon) - all of the rest have declared war on me through sieging a city or attacking my huge fleets with a puny stack:

- Thrace (now they're Protectorate)
- Dacia (I was allies with them for a long time, no reason for them to attack me especially because of my three full stack armies which were right on their borders attacking Brutii)
- Brutii
- Julii
- Scipii
- Senate
- Egypt (totally unprovoked, they attacked a full stack of Tiremes with 4 Biremes...)
- Armenia (their ships were in the same area as the Egyptian fleet who are their allies so they 'by default' become my enemies....)
- Carthage (though pwned by Scipii they really want to be at war with me no matter what I do)
- Pontus (this was the only one which made sense as they were stronger by numbers to me at the time they declared war)

I'm expecting the Scythians are going to attack me soon by sieging a settlement of mine and losing horribly - they'll be my enemies until the end of the game like everyone else.

I can't imagine what a long game would be like - just a short game is so tedious because of the random declaration of war on all Human players by all CPU players they contact....

[GFX707]

It's really just kind of stupid.

[R'as al Ghul]

In my recent egypt campaign I started to ally with Numidia and Seleucia right away. After a while I send a diplomat on a mediterranean diplomatic tour to make trade agreements. What I didn't do was to check on the factions' diplomatic stance before I made the agreements.
When I signed a trade agreement with the Greeks and Pontus in one turn, it was too much for the Seleucids. They were at war with both of them. Annoyed at my treaties with them they canceled our alliance. In succession, the Numidians canceled their alliance with me and allied with the Seleucids instead. The situation evolved further and the Parthians, who were at war with the Seleucids before, now allied with them against me. It all made sense for them.
You have to keep in mind that the other factions most probably already have agreements with our factions. When you ally with someone it's imperative to know their alliances. If you ignore it you have to deal with the consequences.

R'as

[GFX707]

I only had 1 ally and that was the Seleucids....they had no alliances or anything when I allied with them (it was the first few turns) and after that it was just stupid with everyone declaring war on me, and then rabidly refusing ceasefires (just like good old MTW)

To add even further annoyance there is no kind of "white peace" condition where no hostilities have happened between two nations that have been at war for a long period of time....which is also stupid.