Senate missions - negotiating a protectorate

[Attalus]

Thanks for the scoop hatcat.

Seems to be a bit of an issue. I have never had a faction 'roll over and let me tickle it's tummy'...not matter how severe I threaten them.I tend to try the nice "but hey...we have ORGIES over here!!", approach first...rather than "assimilate or be butchered like worthless dogs!!" method.

Gauls...non merci merde!
British...no thanks chaps!..Tea?
Germainian...nein danke shwinehunde!
Spanish...erm...OLE!!

In fact, no matter what I ask for I am resoundingly told that they would rather have electrodes atached to their genitals and be flogged senseless with knotted ropes than give me the time of day!

Is this because the other Roman factions have soured my chances for negotiations?

I HAVE managed to bribe a few things though!

I don't mind...it IS supposed to be 'Total War' right?
But I really wanted to see some of that Roman intrigue...Rex Harrison, Richard Burton...'Et tu, Brute?'...great stuff.

I rather hoped that the 'intrigue' factor of the game was going to be more involved...Sulla Vs Marius, Octavian and Antony...you know what I mean.

Being able to force unpleasant Senators to commit suicide, publicly embarrass rival generals...using my natural cunning...(I am Australian after all).

Still, AWESOME game!! You guys rock.

-Attalus-
Fool me once...shame on you.
Fool me twice...prepare to die.

[sapi]

Being able to force unpleasant Senators to commit suicide, publicly embarrass rival generals...using my natural cunning...(I am Australian after all).

lol -so am i - pity you can't do that as the senate :(

[Servius]

Hatcat, I just wanted to say Thanks for coming and posting. This kind of dev interaction and timely response helps restore some hope that other issues will be dealt with as efficiently.

Thanks again, it's very nice to see.

[SigniferOne]

Hatcat, thanks for a very welcome post here.

I think the goal you described, of a very complicated system slowly revealing itself through responsive and interactive game system, *almost* works. In fact there's nothing terribly wrong with it. To fix it is almost nothing at all. Along with the primary step of fixing the bugs, which mess up the interactivity and the learning curve of this intricate system, the next best thing you can do is: improve the diplomacy dialogue. Right now the responses are limited to just a phrase or two, usually cryptic, always static, and almost always generic. Make it more intuitive, dynamic, and the system will work! All serious prerequisites seem to be there, just need to up the feedback and fix the bugs that mess up the feedback that does exist.

For example, if you demand a protectorate, the haughty British will reply, "We still have all our ports to bring us revenue, and your armies are not threatening our borders. Why should we obey your insolent request?" That will tell the player what to do as much as an entire essay on the Diplomacy system.

:)

PS I'm a little worried by your comment that serious improvements are to be left for future products. CA has a very devoted fan base - I hope you guys remember how that was acquired. I don't want to dwell on the fact that threads like these, although dearly welcome to me and others, and very dearly needed, feel like they belong to a Beta forum, befor the final release of the game, where the devs and the players clean up the few glitches left before the final release. I know that all of that is not up to you, but I hope you do realize the effect all this has had on the fan base. A quick glance over the three main RTW forums (.com, .org, and twcenter.net) is all you need to see the state of a pre-1.2 RTW. So I hope sufficient effort goes into making RTW what it was supposed to be, and an equally serious effort into the expansion to make it even more spectacular.

Anyway, back to my ":)".

[Patricius]

Eh, having a faction say why it's refusing but saying why is like, 'I would rather we perish than grovel to you, but if you wish for us to give up, here's how....'

That said, certainly extra phrases and some obvious elements with diplomacy that do not seem to be WAD (working as designed) and should be fixed.

I am wondering if sub-faction cultures mean anything beyond the identity of rebels. For instance will a city with a Libyan sub-faction culture, Alexander, I am thinking of, be more like to rebel or be peacable, even if assimilated, on account of this sub-faction culture?

[Bartman]

Good features will reward the player with a sense of "ooh, that's clever" long into the gameplay cycle. It's hard to tell at this stage how well that's worked. It's under review for future products.

PS I'm a little worried by your comment that serious improvements are to be left for future products.

I believe that hatcat meant they are reviewing how well their design philosophy is doing at providing good replay value.

Lots of things in the history of the Total War series have suggested a certain "organizational immaturity" on the part of the development team. (Using the word immaturity in the sense of the "Capability Maturity Model" for measuring the quality of a software development organization.) A sign that this might be changing is the fact that Rome: Total War is a rewrite. This suggests that CA/Activision may have decided to jettison the baggage of a STW system which wasn't designed to be expandable, and endure some short term pain in order to get a better long term result. This comment by hatcat seems to affirm that belief. If they have a process to perform a serious review of the long term replay value of RTW, then it appears they are more concerned about generating a great product, rather than just making a quick buck. Definitely a positive situation!

(BTW, the actual programmers are almost always interested in generating a great product. But programmers almost never determine the final feature set, and they almost never get to decide when the code is good enough to ship.)

[Herodotus]

Protectorates costing money should not be considered a bug. Protectorates were buffer zones that allowed the Romans to occupy themselves in more profitable parts of the world. They payed the proctectorate to protect them from farther enemies. Knowing CA's record on realism with RTW I would expect they would consider this a bug and will not be surprised when they 'fix' it.

[anti_strunt]

Protectorates costing money should not be considered a bug. Protectorates were buffer zones that allowed the Romans to occupy themselves in more profitable parts of the world. They payed the proctectorate to protect them from farther enemies. Knowing CA's record on realism with RTW I would expect they would consider this a bug and will not be surprised when they 'fix' it.

Since there are already tribute/give money offers available for those you might want to use them, I'd say that Protectorates automatically receiving large sums of cash without the option of not doing giving them anything IS a bug.

[Orvis Tertia]

Protectorates costing money should not be considered a bug. Protectorates were buffer zones that allowed the Romans to occupy themselves in more profitable parts of the world. They payed the proctectorate to protect them from farther enemies. Knowing CA's record on realism with RTW I would expect they would consider this a bug and will not be surprised when they 'fix' it.

Well, a bug is an aspect of the game that is not working as it was intended. It seems clear that the protectorate is not working as CA intended it to work, so...

Regarding realism, I think CA should be commended on the job they have done (with RTW and the previous games). After all, their number-one goal is to make a game that people will enjoy playing, and in doing so they have also created a strategy game that has more realism than most--and more than any other strategy game that covers these time periods.

[master of the puppets]

in my scipii campaign armenia was on the brink of extinction because all the other easter groups had allieds against them. they were down to two cities in the heart of the middle eastern empires when my diplomat aproached them and offered protectorate writes they gave in in a single turn and now it was up to me to save the asses. so then i go up to the spanish with hope of gaining another protectorate in the heart of the barbarians i wanted to destroy naturally i was the one who had driven them to the lowly state thats when i realised that if you are the one who didn't nearly kill them all they give in (who woulda guessed) well i just got tired of the spanish refusing me so i broke off all contact two turns later spain was no more. back to armenia, i marched 3 full stacked armies to there aid one with merc elephants best thing against cataphracts. well by the time i got there the had lost the one city and the other was under seige by parthians i rushed in a whooped persian ass. liberated two more once armenian towns gave one back to armenia kept the other and with the rest of my troops made the whole middle east look like combat innept retards a little later i rebeled i betrayed armenia sacked there towns to get money marched the best of my armies back west and the game went on


Naturally i have once more been completely grippped by the awsiome wrath of A.D.D. and have got side tracked ...oh well back to the forum

[sunsmountain]

Am i the only one who does not have any problems with diplomacy?

Perhaps, but i help the AI a lot. For example, when i offer a ceasefire, i make sure none of my spies or assassins are in their territories, and always add Trade Rights.

If i offer an alliance, i make sure i have a stronger military first. This also applies to protectorates, but then the most important insight into the game's Diplomacy is simply this:

Money.

Everything, from map information through to giving settlements, amounts to a certain amount of money. To help the AI tell you how much it wants, always consider adding: "Give 100 gold" to your proposal. If the AI disagrees it can give you a counter-offer, however if you dont, the AI unfortunately does not take the liberty. So make combined requests!

It seems the AI is stupid and only answers in 1 single way, is because most players only ask in 1 way. You can also go too far though, especially if they come to you: They're usually one interested in 1 thing ( say, map information), and turn down all combined requests.

As for the,

Senate,

yes the missions were enjoyable but some were all-or-nothing: If you have 1 assassin far away from home but within striking distance (up to 3 turns of walking) of an enemy general, you can get a murder-request with for example a 66% chance.
If your assassin fails, you fail, but it can be impossible to then complete the mission in any way, as new assassins are usually not good enough. Meanwhile, the senate persists and asks again, severe penalties for a chance process, especially on higher difficulties.

On a similar note, other players have reported some towns to be way outside striking distance, sometimes behind 2 or 3 others towns, for similar reasons.

But thanks for posting, Guy.

[Kraxis]

To blockade Bostra, Petra or Thebes is a bit hard if you are confined to the western Med.

[Oaty]

Also what was not mentioned is you actually have to protect a protectorate. Don't know the exact peramiters but heres an example.

Carthage became a protectorate with Palma and Carthago Nova, I threw in Corduba. I held off the Spanish miltitarily but they bribed both Carthago Nova and Corduba(bankrupting themselves in the process) well I retook both Corduba and Carthago Nova but unfortanately I could not give them back because I had no diplomat on Palma. So Carthage came and attacked Carthago Nova. I reloaded abandoned and let the city rebel. I finally got them back to Carthage.

So I think it's programmed you cannot own cities that they owned once the protectorate was made, otherwise they can reclaim them(breaking off the protectorate.

Playing as the Julii I only had Caralis and sacked Corduba from the Spanish to sweeten the deal. I was able to make the deal with only Corduba, but after many reloads I found out that you have to say accept or we will attack from the get go and they took the offer right away. Could have also been my record of sacking looting and making there babies little Romans on the Iberian peninsula and then giving back the city.

[Delwack]

just a note, I'm a relatively new TW player, and I was playing a game as parthia on M/M, and was had a few skirmishes with egpytian forces that I lost. the Egyptians offered that I become their protectorate; which I found interesting. Wanting to see the effect, and not knowing about the protectorate bug until just now, I accepted.

The immidate effect was that war the war with egypt was over, and my armies were free now (I didn't have any other wars going on at the time, I had attacked, captured, and still held a seleucid provence earlier, but had a ceasefire with them since my war with egpyt.) As a protectorate it seemed like I served no purpose. Egypt never asked me for anything. I redecalred war on the seleucids, and took most of provences. As my military was marching through egpyt toward the numidians, I noticed something strange, a number of the egyptian provences had rebelled, and the egyptians didn't appear to be growing at all. Finding this weird, I checked the ranking graphs, I saw that they were broke (finanacial ranking 0), their production ranking was down to 0 also, and well as pretty much powerless (military ranking stuck in a flat line). My guess would be the bug that afflicted protectorates was present. However, right after agreeing to become a protectorate, I recieved no "extra" income from egpyt (money was tight when I first became egpyt's protectorate, so I was watching my money management fairly cloesly) so apparently only the protecting nation appears to be losing money.

Seeing egypt so weak at that point, I decided to attack them, and nothing in the game stopped me, although it probably killed my diplomatic relations with foreign nations (even though I made sure to cancel all my treaties prior to attacking).

So in conclusion, being a protecotrate apparently doesn't do much right now. Perhaps it was partially becuase of the financial bug, but allowing a player to become a protectorate is an interesting feature, and I would like to understand a protectorate's role in the game more, especially since it doesn't appear to form an unbreakable alliance between the factions.

[Lord Ovaat]

In reference to the above posts concerning needed manual material, I think it would have been cost efficient to have just included everything (most) on one of the 4 disks that came with the game. One disk has nothing but the music, which I guess is pretty neat, but since I'm deaf, I can't say for sure, lol. The wife says it's OK. While a readme wouldn't appease the "casual player/grumbler", it certainly should satisfy the average game owner who reads the forums. Granted, we are a miniscle minority (which is something we should ALWAYS remember), but the community already spends millions (?) of man-hours hunting the various forums looking for info that is unavailable. Be simplier to put in a disk and read/copy it. Yes, it is too late for RTW, but not the inevitable expansion pack and future games.

[_Aetius_]

I got my first ever protectorate on the game earlier it wasnt a senate mission, I was greece and the thracians had two provinces left Tribus Getae and Scythia i destroyed there army until they literally had only 2 or 3 hundred left then demanded they become a protectorate they agreed if i gave them back Thrace I refused but instead offered them 10000 denarii and they accepted.

[Captain Cook]

I totally agree anbout the Prima Strategy Guide. I still find it a useful reference for unit stats. But the rest is half finished. Where are all the stats for the Greek Temples. Other factions have the same prob. no stats for some of the buildings. Seems to me that maybe the writers had no contact with the developers.

No kidding, that prima guide is a complete joke. At least Brady was able to make a halfway-decent one for Medieval: Total War.

[The Stranger]

just promise them a million denarii cause they shouldn't have the might to attack you
after the deal is done cancel the deal and you have an protectorate and your money
it works

ps: a million is most of the time not required but a large sum would help

[m4rt14n]

No need to cancel. Once they are your protectorates, they will give ANY extra lump of money by the end of the round. So you'll get ur full moneys worth albeit minus any constructions that they do by the start of the next turn as a tribute..

pretty stupid IMHO. If i get a million dinarii, ill make sure i spend and hide every bit of it lol.

[The Stranger]

yes but if you're paying a million you probably be broke so i would cancel and then give them a 1000 denarii as a gift to make it up.

[SwordsMaster]

AArhg!!!

I had my 1st protectorating experience after 1.2, and I cant say it was good.

In general the AI is much more MTW like, as in it will backstab you as soon as you get your army off the border even if you are allied.

The thing is even worse if you are a protectorate. Yestarday in my Carthage campaign (H-H), I was warring with the gauls in spain when they offer me to become their protectorate. I was at war with pretty much everyone within myreach and I didnt mind freeing up an army or 2, and leaving a secured front, so I bargained for money, maps, women, etc and accepted.

That was during their turn. Can you guess what was their very next action the same turn? Blockading Carthage Nova port.

I thought: Ok, maybe the order was already issued a while ago and it didnt change it for whatever reason, so I turned back my retiring troops to reinforce my garrisons and keep the gauls busy....

A few turns later, same offer with same end result. Their next action: besieging Corduba....

At this point my whole diplomatic advisors together with my high military command and my priests of Baal feel like cursing and grabbing our testicles (each his own, that is), but I am able to defeat the gauls at Corduba although it costs me half of the garrison (free tip: dont put too many expectations on Town militias...)

So, to my point? please can someone tell me if this is inherent to the 1.2 version? To me being carthage? to me being so good-looking?

Is the diplomacy just supposed to be like this, maybe?

Thanks for your attention.

[Epistolary Richard]

Using v1.2 huge m/m Egyptians I've had some good success with protectorates.

Usually it's been a matter of beating them back to a single city and then offering them Protectorate, Map info, giving them back their starting provinces and (on sunsmountains' advice) offering 100d (which they would normally counter-offer at c.10,000d).

In this way, I've taken the Seleucids and Pontus in the first decade or so. They've been sending money back, keeping me in the black despite an overpowered army.

It's allowed me to keep my armies in the field rather than on garrison duties and I've not had to worry about the increasing distance to capital modifier.


Problems I've had,
- I wanted to try and rebuild the Seleucids quickly and tried to gift them 1000d. Big mistake, they broke the alliance -> reload.
_But_ all the provinces I returned to the Selecuids were left undefended for a couple of turns and the Armenians nipped into Hatra. I retook it and gifted it back to the Seleucids and this time they accepted.

Now, I'm trying the same thing with the Armenians; however, they are proving a bit thorny. I'm beseiging their last city of Artaxarta but they're still refusing the protectorate.

I'm thinking this could be for a few reasons:

1) Artaxarta has got a full stack - albeit of weak infantry.

2) They still have a half-stack army with a couple of characters in the field and so they're not feeling pummelled enough.

3) Ever since Hatra, the Armenians have been at war with the Seleucids and so this might be one of those "We won't ally with an ally of our enemy" kind of things. But, normally when that happens you don't get the Alliance option, whereas I'm still getting the Protectorate option.

4) I might have a low standing with them as I started the war after demanding the return of Hatra. But, this didn't stop Pontus from accepting the Protectorate, plus I'm not getting a 'dishonesty' rejection from them.

Anyone know which one of these four might be the stumbling block?

Or have any ideas for:
1) reducing a stack inside a town without taking the town?
3) arranging a ceasefire between two other factions?
4) improving my standing with the Armenians whilst still being at war?


I think I might have to take the old Asterix's village approach and build a couple of forts to block their roads, then come back in a few years to see if they've lightened up at bit.

[The Stranger]

never had i have 3 protectorates now and they never attacked me

i did find some bugs

1 they won't conquer countries anymore
2 you can't built forts in their territory
3 the money they give you is too much. i mean 3 PRotectorates are good for 100 million denarii

[Orvis Tertia]

Has there ever been any official word about how protectorate is supposed to work? I would like to see something from the developers saying "this is how protectorate is supposed to work, and this is how we envisioned people using it."

[The Stranger]

yes maybe but my method works fine

[SpencerH]

Without details from CA, its difficult to know if the protectorates are indeed working as envisioned. They are, however, at least working in 1.2 which is a step in the right direction. I now have two established. The first was fairly standard and logical. The most recent, with the Julii, triggered ceasefires with SPQR and the Brutii (Scipii are gone). While it cost me 27000 and the return of Segestae I gained more than 200000 immediately (which was a stunning surprise and seems a bit crazy since I just gave them money) and 30000/turn tribute (so far).

[The Stranger]

it's just unfair that they don't pay with their own money but with money of the box full of gold at the end of the rainbow.

[brutii_warrior]

hey listen to this....

alright, i was the brutti faction and i had that ah... purple army to the east down to one province.
i had three very skilled generals and i had most of the globe taken already(11 provinces to go)
they didn't have any allies and had no port.

i demanded multi times for them to be slaves and they kept giving me that damn freedom speech.

can i adjust this so they surrender their men as slaves?

[RollingWave]

My experience and analysis so far....

It seems odd but i find that the factions on the brink of annihiliation almost never accepts, which brings up the other end of hte problem... the factions that accept are often quiet stronger once o_O or ask for rather ridiculas deals.

In my First game as the Brutties the Egyptian were willing to accept... IF i gave them back 10+ provinces......... they had one city left in the desert between Babylon and Anitoch.... ok.... no thx i'll just kill you.

The next time i got a protectrate to really work was in my Carthage campaign, I had around 23 province and the Brits agreed to become my protectrate .... the thing is the Brits were the big winner in the Barbarian slugfest and since I took all the Roman heat they were free to take most of Gaul Germania and Dacia... they have 20 province when they accepted !!!!! they were in the top 4 in terms of power and probably the 3rd biggest in terms of number of province. and i really had nothing on them, my main army was still sluging away against the Romans on Italy while i had very little naval presence in the Atalantic, they were Seiging Numitia and i didn't even think I could relieft it not to meantion they turn down my offer of lots of goody then accepted a vanilla just become my protectrate deal.

As the Gauls I end up having the Germans and Bruttiis as my protectrate, both notablly happend right after I scored major victories against them. both still had a lot of fight in them but gave in never the less.

Now as the Selucides I got Egypt and Macedon as my protectrate (Macedon broke away after i took Thrace) Egypt had 8 province and Macedon had 7 when they accepted... The Eggies gave in really fast as my army took Sidon and massacered their attempt to retake it, then offer them to give Sidon back... The Macedonians gave in also after a disastorous defeat where they used 2000 men in 3 stacks to hit my 1 full stack of around 1000 but lost horriblly killing less than 50 of my men)

My conclusions so far:
1. They are most likely to accept after you defeat them in a big victory. this was true to me getting Macedon and Egypt, both accepted within 2 turns after a big X battle happend. same with the Germans and Brutties in my Gaul game, the only case where this wasn't true was the Brits when I was Carthage.

2. They are most likely to accept if they have somwhere else to expand to, so if you are surronding them they are less likely to give in, this might explain why the 1 city dieing factions rarely give in ...

3. I am not sure if this matters, but I usually ask first... if they dont agree i threaten, if they still don't agree i attack, then rinse and repeat, it seems to help.

4. As soon as they don't give you lectures and say things like "the gift is not heavy enough" or "we can't make this decision" things like that, they are on the verge of accepting so just change around ur offers a bit . usually i find that vanilla deals work out the best for some odd reason, only the Egyptians were more of an exception to the case.

[demon rob]

Should protectorates count as a cheat since they return ridiculous amounts of money? The amounts that people are receiving just sounds wrong in a competitive game sense.