Diplomacy and keeping relations up

[kublikhan3]

No, you didn't understand. Not one bit. But then it takes a modicum of intelligence to work the M2TW diplomacy.

Put it this way: if you met a guy at a party who you got on with and decided they were a friend then their status with you is friendly. If you then never phone, write, text or talk to them again, that friendly feeling is gonna go away over time, right? Same applies with diplomacy. If you decide this guy and yourself have similar interests or goals and make a pact to work on a project together for the common good of each other then you have some kind of "alliance", but if you then don't ever phone, write, text or talk to them again or share any ideas or anything then that "alliance" is going to faulter.



It's simple people-politics, it ain't rocket science. You don't have to pay some kind of tribute every turn to maintain an alliance - that would be broken diplomacy - yo ucompletely misunderstood my post, or failed to read it properly. it's a case of looking after your allies, not paying for their friendship. if they're broke then give them some money - it's called being friends. If they're struggling with a war, or lose a settlement then help them by attacking their enemies or even retake their settlement then gift it back to your allies. it's called being friends.



If you want a game to have diplomacy whereby you can simply "make an alliance", to which the AI has to keep forever and then go round conquering the world and expect your allies to idly sit back and watch, knowing full well that their time will come then you're playing the wrong game. That would be broken diplomacy.

If you're struggling with the diplomacy then say so - there's plenty of peopple who can, and will help you but coming out with comments like "its just ridiculous... thats a broken diplmacy made for fanboys" makes you sound like a spoilt kid who doesn't want to play any more cause he didn't understand the rules first time. might I remind you that the game does, indeed, have a 16+ certificate.

I agree with eques. Having to send "gifts" or as you prefer to call it "being friends by giving them some money when they are broke" sounds alot more like tribute to me. How come I am the one who must always be the one giving a gift? This "maintaining you friendship" is all one sided effort on the player and is complete BS. I give them gifts while they try to bribe my cities?
I have played many games where the diplomacy is a more give and take affair, castles 2, moo2, etc. Since I refuse to pay tribute to my "allies", this is what I get instead:
1. All relations deteriotate to abysmal, even my allies and factions im not bording.
2. My ally(byzantine) is sieging constantinople. I send an army through his teritory to help him because he is outnumbered. Before I even get there, relations deteriotate to abysmal(they were already there, but hey if helping my ally take a huge city deteriotates relations that is just par for the course in this game)
3. I have a huge armies marauding though enemy territory. He is getting some major pain from me. So he makes a generous offer, I only have to pay him 40,000 gold for peace. Gee, let me think about that. Continue to sack your pathetic cities for 10k a piece, or pay your weakling faction 40k so u can raise an army against me. Decisions, decisions....
4. In another game I am Spain. France declares war on me. I attack the invading armies and pope threatens to excommunicate me. WTF? Am I supposed to just get rolled over by france here?

Just because you learned to manipulate this highly one-sided diplomacy system to your advantage doesn't mean this is a balanced diplomacy system.

[maestro]

You are playing on VH which is a completely different kettle of fish. Do not expect diplomacy on that level.

One thing I have noticed (and I noticed this in RTW as well) is that sometimes your production drops very low - almost to nothing - for a turn or two. I always suspected the AI made some rash decisions based on this production glitch.

They think you incapable of producing anything and go guns blazing, not realising you have about 20 cities able to pump out armies in a second.

I'm playing on VH/VH and I'm "supreme" and nearly always number 1 in all rankings and I have excellent relations with my allies, have never been back-stabbed and am getting a great playing experience from diplomacy.

[Bob the Insane]

The data text files have been released: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73971. The descr_faction_standing.txt file reveals quite a bit about what affects your relations with the Pope, as well as other factions, and your global reputation. Worth a read IMO.

Note the part where the faction standing is normalised downwards each turn for both Hard and Very Hard dificulties (with it just occurring faster on Very Hard).

Also note the "Tall Poppy" functionality where the top scoring factions (if significantly larger) automatically become more unpopular with every turn.

Note also there appear to be many more ways to score negative relationship points than there are positive (true to life as any married man can tell you... )...

So if you want a game where the cards are not unfairly stacked against the player then you need a Medium campaign difficulty.

It will be interesting to go through the other campaign AI files to see what else changes with difficulty...

[Steinfeld]

Since this was mentioned in a post above:
Is there a graph where I can view the quality of my diplomatic contacts? Currently I look these up while hovering my mousepointer over the other factions banner when in the Diplomacy menu.
So is there really a graph or did I misunderstand this??

[Bob the Insane]

I thought I could finish this off with a list of the thing yo can do to improve your relations with other factions:

Your relationship score goes from 1.0 (Perfect) to -1.0 (Abysmal). This should give context to the increase values noted below, additionally where you see normalized in general the large the number to the right, the small the potential change will be:

Trigger: Forgiveness (I am not sure when this is fired)

Trade_Treaty +0.07

Military_Assistance +0.12

Obvious_Bribe - fired for every 100 gold given as gift + 0.14
(this is why a big bribe gets a good improvment, but in theory a 2000 fl bribe should mean perfect relations which is obviously not the case so there must be another factor in play)

Demeanour 0.001
(I think this relates to getting a nice response in negotiations?)

Update_Religion - Make other factions like factions of the same religion a bit more normalise 1.0 100
(Automatic, should slowly improve your relations with factions of the same religion)

Update_Band_Together1 - Make factions try and band up with smaller factions
(No numbers here because there are 3 versions. This is the opposite to the tall poppy thing which automatically improves a faction's relations with the 5 smallest factions in the game)

Update_Easy_Difficulty - Adjust the AI relationships towards each faction normalise 1.0 50
(Playing the game on easy automatically improves relations every turn)

Update_Normal_Difficulty - Adjust the AI relationships towards each faction based on difficulty level (AI factions have normal difficulty) normalise 0.0 50
(Playing the game on Medium auromaticallu imporves realtions each turn up to a max of Neutral)

Increase_Global_Standing_New_Turn normalise 0.0 200
(Automatically moves all factions towards being Neutral).

Increase_Global_Standing_When_Allied,normalise 1.0 400
(Automatically moves Ally's relations towards Perfect)

prisoners_released_increase_global 0.02
(Every time you release more than 80 prisors)

occupy_settlement_increase_global 0.02
(Every time you Occupy a settlement, don't sack or exterminate)

So actual ingame actions:

Get Trade agreements
Get Alliances
Help out your allies militarily
Hand out cash
Do not be demanding in your deplomacy
Release prisoners
Occupy settlements

That is a list al ALL the things that you can do in game to improve relations.

Finally a note for those playing on Very Hard. Your relations automatically degenerate towards Abysmal (-1.0) every turn at the rate "normalise -1.0 40".

I believe this mean if you have Perfect relations with someone that your faction stand with drop by 0.05 the next turn and at a slowly decreasing rate every turn. So you should be able to stabilize this affect with a 100 fl gift every two turns.

[Quillan]

In one of the other threads here (I think it was one referring to difficulty rating differences) someone posted something they found in one of the AI controlling files. Apparently, there is a function in the game files where if the human player is at peace with all AI factions for more than a certain number of turns, one will automatically go to war with him. If I remember correctly, it was 20 turns on easy, 10 turns on medium and 4 turns on hard/very hard. That could explain why alliances get betrayed.

Edit- Yes, it was the battlefield difficulty test results thread. Here's Bob the Insane's post on the subject:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...1&postcount=13

[dopp]

I think it was if the AI faction in question was at peace with everyone, it was forced to declare war on the human player.

If you are at war with someone the Pope will force a truce on both sides. Usually this means the attacking armies will start moving off your territory, but any sieges and blockades already in progress are not broken for some reason (maybe an oversight, since sieges/blockades are broken when you sign a ceasefire). The game is smart enough to recognize defensive actions. You can attack any enemy army besieging your towns or fleet blockading your ports. You can also attack any enemy army you find wandering around on your own territory. You can even wander around enemy lands as long as you don't pick fights with anyone. The Pope is actually quite easy to please.

The game is also smart enough to recognize when you take advantage of (or provoke) an enemy attacking you to defeat his armies and invade his lands. You will get reputation hits for doing anything other than self-defense.

[andrewt]

Again this is based on their alliance power and not individual power. Check their rating, it is probably 'supreme' due to the alliances they were in, or something along those lines.

My power is supreme, more supreme than everybody else. The only faction that's even close is the Timurids. The Mongols have been weakened considerably as well. The English were allied with neither of them. I tested toggle_fow after I beat that game already, and found out the Hungarians have conquered Novgorod and lots of Russian possessions. They have been my allies for many years. I think the Egyptians are my allies as well. Territory-wise, I'm no. 1 by a huge, huge margin and my two allies are probably in the top 5. Hungary is likely second.

The Timurids have 9 stacks and my power is stronger than theirs. There's no way the English in that game have a power rating remotely close to mine.

[Flavius Gonzo]

Diplomacy is definitely much easier early in a campaign and gets tougher late in the campaign.

I think part if this is because you gradually do deeds that screw up your global relationship, but also, it seems to degrade over time, but honestly I like the way that works, for a couple of reasons.

First, it makes the late game more challenging that you can no longer count on having safe borders on some sides. The late game in RTW could get boring, after your economy and production capcities were killing it, it was too easy to just steamroll. Now, you need to worry about being attacked from all sides late in the game, making it much more challenging.

Secondly, it's historically accurate. Think about any military conqueror, weaker nations do tend to line up and attack en mass after extended campaigning. Would Napoleon have been defeated if not for the alliance of English, Prussians, Russians, etc? It's totally logical that once a single faction is close the winning the game, the remaining factions go to war with the winning one, regardless of their relative strenghts.

[Kobal2fr]

There was an excellent post about this, but for the life of me I can't find it again, nor tell you who did the research in the first place

Basically, in VH difficulty, relations default to Abysmal over time if you let them be (ie you don't give money/maps/regions to get them back up all the time). In M they default to neutral, in Easy they default to Good. Of course, Abysmal relations generate completely insane diplomatic demands and suchlike.
Also, being one of the top 3 factions worsens your relations with everyone. Attacking a faction worsens your relations with every other faction sharing the same faith.

Not sure if the relation thing is factored in strategic choices by the AI though, BUT the researcher also stumbled upon a disturbing thing : if the player is not at war with anyone for a number of turns, it automatically triggers an AI attack, presumably to keep the player on his toes all the time.

The "peace length" varies with difficulty as well : in VH, 4 turns of peace with everyone triggers aggression, in Medium it's 10, in Easy 20. So it seems that, if you want to keep your direct neighbours relatively quiet and sane, you need to have a "pet war" going on somewhere (don't know if the war needs to be active or not though, that is to say, I don't know if those turns of peace are "turns without any battle" or "turns in which your faction is not at war with another". But picking a hopeless, non-Christian scapegoat and blockading one of his ports all the time seems to be working for me.)

Knowing that has conforted me in thinking that M/VH is the way to go, not VH/VH.

[Aenlic]

There was an excellent post about this, but for the life of me I can't find it again, nor tell you who did the research in the first place

Kobal2fr, I think it was Sinan's post in the "making florins" thread and came up while discussing the effects of sacking on relations and the various global relations triggers.

Let me go find it real quick and add a link in an edit.

Is this the post?

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...6&postcount=22

[Kobal2fr]

Ah ! Found it again ! Obviously, involved campaign AI discussions were tucked in a post regarding battle mechanics. I should have known

Here it is : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74107

I hadn't read Kraxis' reply. If he is indeed right, then bribing factions into attacking each other would be the key then... which is impossible when they are allied. So, keep borders garrisonned, then wipe out the "diplomat" species, then bribe into attacking each other... Sounds like keeping the peace might require much, much money spent on it .

[Aenlic]

Sounds like keeping the peace might require much, much money spent on it .

That's the way it works in the real world! At least CA nailed the realism on this point. Thanks for finding that link, Kobal2fr, I missed that thread in all the others.

[BeeSting]

I currently have reputation as "trustworthy" and the factions that attacked me have consistently sued for cease fire shortly after the initial attack. I have financed a large part of my faction’s growth by asking for huge sums of indemnities. Playing as hre (h/vh), Milan has once paid me in lump sum amount of 10K. Regular tributes of 1000K per turn for 12 turns have also been common. Cease fire however was difficult to obtain at reputation level lower than reliable. To maintain the level of reputation, you cannot retaliate (as clicking on a faction to attack), but set your self up where they will attack you. And you will have to fight to win and destroy a good portion of their force. Executing their prisoners and having your relationship at abysmal with the opposing faction will not help.

[dopp]

Yes, you cannot attack at all or relations will plummet. Since the game is usually quite smart at other times about determining what is a defensive action, this is a puzzling omission. Surely anyone who sends an army onto another fellow's land without military access is asking for it, so why get angry when I chase them off?

[BeeSting]

Yes, you cannot attack at all or relations will plummet. Since the game is usually quite smart at other times about determining what is a defensive action, this is a puzzling omission. Surely anyone who sends an army onto another fellow's land without military access is asking for it, so why get angry when I chase them off?

Having my emotions override my judgment, wanting to wipe Milan off the map, I actually drew first blood by laying siege to one of their cities. And to my surprise, they sent an emissary that same turn (Dijon) to ask for a cease fire. Their faction goal was "peace". I couldn’t believe it. on my next turn I sent a diplomat to France to check on my reputation and it was still “trustworthy”. Once you reach that level of reputation, it won't drop so easily as with say "reliable", where attacking neutral factions will quickly drop your rep to "mixed".

[kublikhan3]

Sounds like keeping the peace might require much, much money spent on it.

That's the way it works in the real world! At least CA nailed the realism on this point. Thanks for finding that link, Kobal2fr, I missed that thread in all the others.

I am finding it cheaper to be at constant war on all fronts rather than be at peace on any front. With constant war, you don't have to maintain any large garrisons at all, only enough to counter unrest. Put all your muscle in your armies. Then sack any city you conquer.

Where as if you wanted peace on a front, you must make sure all cities on that front have adequate garrisons less you look like a tempting target to your neighbor. Plus you must then send constant tribute to your neighbor less your relations deteriorate to abysmal.

Sacking of cities more than offsets the higher army cost vs. maintaining large garrisons. For those recently conquered huge cities that rebel with small garrisons, just sack em 2-3 times in a row, they soon learn not to rebel anymore.

Doesn't seem very realistic to me, having war cheaper than peace. Nor encouraging empires to wage multifront battles instead of concentrating on 1 or 2 enemies at a time.

[Steinfeld]

Since this was mentioned in a post above:
Is there a graph where I can view the quality of my diplomatic contacts? Currently I look these up while hovering my mousepointer over the other factions banner when in the Diplomacy menu.
So is there really a graph or did I misunderstand this??

bumpity...

Sorry to be a pain, but so far I have not found this...

[dopp]

They probably want to emphasize the TOTAL WAR aspect of it. Notice how there are no GA victories in RTW onwards, only conquest victories. That "attack humie player if there's nobody else to fight" trigger is probably there to a) give human a hard time, and b) prevent AI lockup where everyone suddenly is at peace and remains that way. No Treaty of Paris in 1080, sorry.

[Bob the Insane]

Removed due to Hoax!!