Diplomacy *does* work

[akinkhoo]

I've never had my reputation go down when an ally broke an alliance with me. I think you are mistaken.

maybe it is cause he counterattack? going on an counter offensive seem to earn a hit for me.

not like i give a damn, i will make all who betrays me slaves... continue the seige! not attacking my attacker is just too lame for me. give me mine penalties or not; for i will still deliver them death!

[Musashi]

I find you only get penalized for counterattacking if your enemy has a good or neutral reputation. Fend off a few attacks before counterattacking... Once he's down near despicable in the reputation you can basically slap him around without any penalties.

[FactionHeir]

I find annoying how sacking a settlement ruins your reputation. Even sacking rebel ones.
In my moor campaign, i sacked tumbuktu, tripoli and tunis and was at "untrustworthy". I didn't even fight any faction yet!
Thats just broken in my opinion.

OTOH if you keep occupying, your reputation goes up, but at what cost! (unrest + less cash + huge pops)

[dopp]

My first few VH/VH campaigns I was at war with everyone, permanently excommunicated and completely despicable. I also owned most of the map. I wish there was a way to absorb factions (or parts of factions) peacefully, like through a royal wedding or something. TOTAL WAR gets you further than any diplomacy.

Actually, if you think about it, the feudal system at this time usually meant that the lords of the various provinces were rather more... autonomous than is modelled ingame. Lords could and often did owe allegiance to several different masters. Maybe princesses shouldn't just steal generals from the opposing factions, but also the provinces and armies that their husbands control? I can see it now, a mad scramble to hook up all your generals with wives lest they get enticed away by the oldest form of bribery in the book. Then again, maybe that won't help, because there's always divorce...

[Carl]

Intresting idea Dopp.

I like it.

[PseRamesses]

Diplomacy is non-existant, as in every TW-game - period!

In last nights game as England I had "outstanding" relations with France. I married their princess and they married mine. Earlier I gifted them Rennes, Bruges and Antwerp and they are exstatic and we both have military access.
They are getting hammered by Milan so I wanted to swap maps so I´d know where to aid them when they break our alliance!!!!! One turn later they lay siege to Caen!!!! Our relation drops from "outstanding" to "abysmal" in two turns, WTF!

So, pissed off as I am, I took Rennes, Bruges and Antwerp back in one turn with three separate forces while moving my spies all over France and she doesn´t have any troops???? Why start a two-front war with no armies? CA really needs to adress this, its simply ruins a great game.

[Quillan]

Not relations, reputation. Your relations with France were good, but what was your reputation?

Also, just because both are up doesn't mean your allies can't be treacherous. I've still got a rock solid alliance with the HRE in my Venetian campaign, but they've tried assassinating my generals 4-5 times and constantly try to slip spies into Venice. I just keep the armies and cities stocked with spies of my own and let them die trying. They haven't tried outright military actions against me.

It certainly looks to me as if reputation has a huge effect on your diplomatic standings and deals with everyone. The only nations that have attacked me outright are Milan and Sicily. The islamic factions want peace with me and trade rights. The Holy Roman Empire is thriving; my alliance with them looks like it dissuaded the Danes from going south, so they've been making Poland their plaything for a while now. France isn't in great shape; they lost Toulouse and Bordeaux to the Portuguese, but those both fell to Spain in turn. England still holds Caen, but nobody yet has Bruges. The only people I've had problems making peace with are Milan and Sicily, and I expect that was because our wars were somewhat decisive and I killed a lot of their troops and took cities before asking.