Quote Originally Posted by GrandInquisitor
As the HRE in particular, I had alliances and very good relations with everyone for the first twenty or so turns. Then, after I'd taken some rebel settlements and was starting to rake in cash, Milan backstabbed me.....I NEVER got a ceasefire -- offered or taken, even when I tried to give them huge amounts of cash.
Same here. I play my sweet ass time in this game and am only on turn 55 of HRE campaign. It seems that some nations, no matter how hard you try to be nice or forgiving, just don't care and will never ceasefire you. I've had this problem with Venice, Denmark, and Milan. All of which have been backed into a corner on the map, there is no chance of them ever fighting their way out, yet they spit on my diplomat everytime he offers peace. Doesn't seem right. I used to always be the player who beat a nation down, offered a ceasefire for all they had, and then just watched them for awhile. If they got too strong again I'd break ceasefire and beat 'em down again. That seems impossible to do in this game because the diplomacy is so screwy. I will say one thing though, I am currently allied with England, Egypt, Byzantium, and Russia and none of those countries have tried to back stab me yet. We will see how nice they are after I wipe several factions out, which is about to happen in the next few turns.

As for the original poster, I don't know why every turn relations would go down with all of the nations, but I do know that if you walk your troops through enemy territory without their permission you'll piss them off and usually get a "Relations Worsened" message pop-up. Took me forever to figure out why