Pariah-mode?

[Sheogorath]

Just some random observations of mine.

It seems like every now and then I start a game and the diplomacy function simply does not work. The AI will refuse any offer of alliance unless you offer it 100,000,000 florins or so, and even then said alliance is of about as much use as, say, a chocolate kettle.
The same seems to go for ceasefires. Once your at war with somebody, you are at war. I've had several occasions where Ive taken an enemies capitol, sieged all his remaining cities and destroyed anything else he sent my way. Any offers for a ceasefire were met with 'Psh, we will cut off your heads and feed them to our dogs!' and similar, Ive even tried offering to return the cities I took from them.

Anyway, this doesnt happen ALL the time. In fact, Ive seen it happen to AI's now and then to. The French got wiped out in one campaign because everybody went to war with them, followed by their excommunication.

So, maybe theres a randomly selected 'pariah' every game? Somebody who nobody likes?

[Shahed]

Yes the pariahs are the Turks and the Egys, Moors later. That's established.

As far as ceasfires with the enemy goes. The problem is taking their territory, sacking and or exterminating cities, ransoming and/or killing prisoners. The more you take from them the more you kill of them, the less likely they are to making a favorable peace.

So if you want a limited war, don't transgress "too much" (ridiculous as it may sound).

[Kraxis]

Well that is pretty hard and not terribly good anyway.

I 'accidentally' got caught trying to assassinate a Polish diplomat. War!
Damn... I'm already at war with all my other neighbours (as HRE), I didn't need a war with the powerful Poles. So I stayed defensive, didn't attack them in the hopes that they would calm down.
They made a single foray against me, and I 'gently' pushed them back. Then they seem to have gotten warned by the Pope.

40 turns later, the Polish have refused all my attempts at peace... And now they have begun their first real invasion of my lands. So we had a 'cold war' for 80 years, yet no chance of getting a peace even when I offered to pay them 1500 florins for 10 turns and give them Stettin. That was a very favourable peace for them, and I hadn't even given them any trouble.

Given that I have managed to kill the Danes and Milan, it is about time to kick the Poles in the nuts.

[Nutranurse]

Well the AI used to get the better of me. Countless nights were spent with me screaming at the computer for the Ai's stupidity. (exageration) But I found a mod on the TWcenter forms that makes the AI MUCH more reasonable. Also it make Alliances worthwhile.

EX:
I was the wonderful Kingdom of Venice and was attack but the HRE some turns into the game. I beat of the attacking army (killing the kaiser in the process). I was also allied with Milan, figuring "HEY! These peoples are across from the HRE, the big retarted baddies in the game! Lets me ally with them to test out this spiffy new mod." When the army marched back to Bolonga(sp?) (I had released the prisioners, I play nice) I sent an army to go attack the city and Florence.

BUT BEHOLD! my allies (Milan) had seen that the HRE had attacked me and I had beaten them off. Maybe this incresed my e-peen enough or something, but they attacked the HRE IMMEDIATELY (well within a turn or three). They went for Florence while I for Bolonga(sp??). It has been many moons after his initial attack and the HRE has been forced out of both their French territories (they raped the french...) and the italian territories. Both Milan and my empire have been expanding and taking out their territories from underneath their German feet. Also I was briefly at war with the Hungarians, but after their force buckled beneath my army they accepted a ceasefire, and I did not even have to invade their territories.

So the moral of this tale is: Mods are awesome. Run over to twcenter.net and there are some AI mods that make the AI smarter with diplomacy.

[Zenicetus]

Yes the pariahs are the Turks and the Egys, Moors later. That's established.

As far as ceasfires with the enemy goes. The problem is taking their territory, sacking and or exterminating cities, ransoming and/or killing prisoners. The more you take from them the more you kill of them, the less likely they are to making a favorable peace.

So if you want a limited war, don't transgress "too much" (ridiculous as it may sound).

I'd agree with that. Playing as Spain in a war against the Moors, they came to me several times, offering a ceasefire (which I refused) in the early phase, when I had only taken three of their cities. Later in the war, that stopped and it was a fight to the death.

It seems that your relations can improve or diminish, even when you're at war with a faction. I think this is different from RTW where being at war was just a single condition. I got a notice saying relations had worsened to abysmal with the Moors in the later stage of that war, after taking their next to last city. I don't think I could have arranged a ceasefire at that point, without giving back territories and massive cash bribes. At that same time I was in a very low-grade war with France, started by one of my generals transgressing on their land (result of a princess marriage). Neither of us had taken any territory from the other, and it was easy to arrange a ceasefire with them.

Apparently this is also related to the campaign difficulty setting. There's a thread here somewhere about how on easy and medium difficulty your relations automatically improve over time, and on harder settings they steadily deteriorate if you don't do something about it, like bribes, or ceding territory as gifts. I'm playing on medium campaign setting at the moment (VH battles).

[Kraxis]

Well the AI used to get the better of me. Countless nights were spent with me screaming at the computer for the Ai's stupidity. (exageration) But I found a mod on the TWcenter forms that makes the AI MUCH more reasonable. Also it make Alliances worthwhile.

EX:
I was the wonderful Kingdom of Venice and was attack but the HRE some turns into the game. I beat of the attacking army (killing the kaiser in the process). I was also allied with Milan, figuring "HEY! These peoples are across from the HRE, the big retarted baddies in the game! Lets me ally with them to test out this spiffy new mod." When the army marched back to Bolonga(sp?) (I had released the prisioners, I play nice) I sent an army to go attack the city and Florence.

BUT BEHOLD! my allies (Milan) had seen that the HRE had attacked me and I had beaten them off. Maybe this incresed my e-peen enough or something, but they attacked the HRE IMMEDIATELY (well within a turn or three). They went for Florence while I for Bolonga(sp??). It has been many moons after his initial attack and the HRE has been forced out of both their French territories (they raped the french...) and the italian territories. Both Milan and my empire have been expanding and taking out their territories from underneath their German feet. Also I was briefly at war with the Hungarians, but after their force buckled beneath my army they accepted a ceasefire, and I did not even have to invade their territories.

So the moral of this tale is: Mods are awesome. Run over to twcenter.net and there are some AI mods that make the AI smarter with diplomacy.

I must say that sounds great... But I will await more comments from a longer game.
I have also experienced superb diplomacy and actions by the AI (such as the Danes getting my friends the English to attack me while their crusade neared my lands and would be there when the crusade ended). Single incidents are great, but they make for little lasting effect (hence the English decided to turn back when they could have trounced all over me with that stack).