Diplomat not gaining experience

[Werner]

I've had the same two diplomats running around making deals with people and accepting alliances, etc etc. Their routine/skills never seem to increase, they are both still on "0", or as Med 2 says "A turnip has more influence". If I take a city and leave the enemy's army in ruins I try to use my Diplomat to convince them to be vassels or give me money but I can never close the deal because my diplomats skill sucks so bad, so wtf? I just have to end up wiping them out or calling a truce.

Same goes for merchants and priests, whats an easy way to increase their skill?

[Kobal2fr]

Whenever a proposition of yours is not accepted, your diplomat's skills take a plunge. Whenever a deal is concluded but only after negociations or otherwise "reluctantly", your diplomat skills won't increase (or, at least, I've never seen the case).

So if you're repeatedly asking your opponents to be your vassals (and by the way, maybe I didn't understand what you were saying, but when you're offering an army to be your vassal, it's actually a factionwide deal, i.e. you're asking the *whole kingdom* to submit to your will, not just that army. Basically, it's the most unlikely diplomatic proposition of them all) and get turned down, your diplomats will forever remain as eloquent as cabbages, any exp they may have gotten securing trade pacts and alliances made void by those failures.

[Werner]

That makes alot of sence, however I've secured alot more deals than lost. Still not increasing.

[Kobal2fr]

Yes, but the punishment for failure is extra-harsh in this game when agents are concerned. I've had many assassins go from 4-5 to 0 after a single failure for instance, same goes for princesses and diplomats.

There wasn't any loss of exp for failure back in STW/MTW (mainly because agents most often either succeeded or died ), there was a chance to gain a negative trait or ancillary (like "tactless" for diplomats, or "inept poisonner" for assassins) which would substract from total agent skill in Rome, but in M2 not only can you pick-up these bad traits and followers, you actually have your beneficial traits vanish ! Which means you have to be very very careful with agents...

Don't know wether it's intentional of if something's borked and will get fixed eventually, though.

[Fumes]

I have the same problem with my diplomats - playing on VH campaign it seems all my agents end up with 0 skill. I have send priests on converting missions to non-catholic contries, but they die of old age before getting a single increase in Piety. The only way I have found to increase Piety is for priests to make a succesfull denouncement of a heretic - but I just cant find any of these, maybe because I have built lots of churches and priests and have around 95-97% Catholicism everywhere I rule. One would think that in itself would make my priests have high piety...

Same deal with Chivalry: dont see many ways of increasing my generals chivalry. Dread seems a lot easier to get (just make frequent use of assassins and your faction leader will get 10 Dread eventually from sitting inside your capital).

[Werner]

You gain dread from executing enemy soldiers instead of letting them go. Lately I've been nice and have been letting alot of enemy soldiers go, chivalry has increased. Ironically piety on one of my priests went waaaaay up after I posted the last message, and since there were 3 or 4 Cardinal seats empty, my priest got elected. I've also come out the dominating faction in the last few turns, taking over some key cities really boosting the size of my faction. Now I have so many friendly diplomats coming to me to offer alliances I dont know what to do. And diplomat skill has gone through the roof as a result. I'm starting to like this.

Amazing, this game really is different than Rome: TW.

[dainjah]

Aye I have noticed this as well. I have never seen a Diplomat's skill go up, but I have seen it go down. Playing on Medium.

[Fumes]

... Ironically piety on one of my priests went waaaaay up after I posted the last message, and since there were 3 or 4 Cardinal seats empty, my priest got elected.

How exactly did your priests get more piety? I still dont know how to raise it except through denouncement of heretics (if you can find any).

[Wizzie]

Recruit a small legion of priests and send them all off to convert the closest unwashed pagans (by this I mean regions where the catholocism is <2%). It could take a while - as England I sent them all to Russia. It took a while, but now I've got 4 Cardinals in the college, including a Prefarati. I even got my origional Cardinal (Aston) to full piety just by leaving him in a very low Catholicism provinc

[Spendius]

In RTW I could boost a diplomat by repeatedly offering 100 dinar to an enemy (at war). He would refuse, but the skill increased.
Not tried in M2TW, but I don't use diplomats so much anyway and I'm poor.

[Dalrogad]

I have not had any luck with getting the kind of concessions I have seen mentioned in other threads from other factions in diplomacy... Do you guys keep a diplomat with your army? What I saw someone posting about was how they had a large force, had a major victory, and then the nearby factions sent a diplomat to make peace, and the aforementioned player wound up having 1-2 regions GIVEN to them....?

Priests - I have tried the technigue of leaving apriest in a non catholic region - starting anywhere from 0 % to 50%, and working it up anywhere from 20% increase to about 60% increase, and not gotten any additional ranks for that proest or cardinal. ALo, I got excommunicated just for sieginging milan right after they had taken that same city from me - and they were the orignial antagonists just about 5 turns before!!!!! The pope told me "cease hostilities", and I went to take my marseille back and excommunicated!!! Prior to that, I was doing whatever the pope asked. How can I regain favor with pope???

Also, I have my spies up to 6-7th level, but my diplomats, who I use just as much, at 1-3rd level. I get turned down for almost everything other than requesting trade rights. What am I doing wrong?

Tx for help!

[phred]

I have not had any luck with getting the kind of concessions I have seen mentioned in other threads from other factions in diplomacy... Do you guys keep a diplomat with your army? What I saw someone posting about was how they had a large force, had a major victory, and then the nearby factions sent a diplomat to make peace, and the aforementioned player wound up having 1-2 regions GIVEN to them....?

Tx for help!

I had that happen playing as the English. I won a large battle against France, leaving the heart of France open to conquest, and they almost immediately offered peace and gave me the city/province of Metz.
They didn't offer me Metz; I had to make a counter offer to their ceasefire offer.
At the time I was ranked 1 or 2 in military strength and had more than 1 stack threatening France.

[Arifel]

Priests - I have tried the technigue of leaving apriest in a non catholic region - starting anywhere from 0 % to 50%, and working it up anywhere from 20% increase to about 60% increase, and not gotten any additional ranks for that proest or cardinal. ALo, I got excommunicated just for sieginging milan right after they had taken that same city from me - and they were the orignial antagonists just about 5 turns before!!!!! The pope told me "cease hostilities", and I went to take my marseille back and excommunicated!!! Prior to that, I was doing whatever the pope asked. How can I regain favor with pope???


Tx for help!

From personal experience, how the Pope hands out cease-fire warnings depends mostly on your Papal relations. If your Papal favor gauge is full, you can attack as much as you want and you won't be warned, so as long as you keep it full with gifts to the Papal States. On the other hand, if the gauge is empty, any military engagement, even if you're the one being attacked and has always heeded cease-fire warnings, will still result in you being excommunicated.

Factors like who the aggressors is, the relative strengths of the combatants, and the result of the battle only seem to be significant when both parties are in average favor with the Pope. If you let your Papal favor gauge slide, you'll eventually be excommunicated regardless of whether you commit an act of aggression.

To raise the gauge, you can give Papal States money, or land. The land that you know you can't defend - like those you got from a Crusade - give it to the Pope to instantly max out Papal favor. Same thing with getting your Cardinal elected. Having Cardinals and betting their votes on someone else' preferati helps raise it a few points here and there. If you don't have any land to give away and no cardinals, then just give em cash. Money seems to be the universal currency in diplomacy.

[Werner]

Where can the pope be found? I sent a spy to rome but he wasnt there.

[Nestor]

Where can the pope be found? I sent a spy to rome but he wasnt there.

You don't have to speak to him personally, you can speak with anyone from the Papal States.

[Werner]

No I mean to kill him

[Nestor]

No I mean to kill him

LOL, he is probably with his army in the forests around Rome. Send your spy there, he'll find him. I've never seen him wander outside the Papal States appart from one turn excursions fighting rebels.

[Werner]

LOL, he is probably with his army in the forests around Rome. Send your spy there, he'll find him. I've never seen him wander outside the Papal States appart from one turn excursions fighting rebels.

I actually remember seeing a priest walking around in the Papel territories. Never stopped to think it might be the pope Thanks for the advice.