Whats a guy gotta do to get a ceasefire??

[RussianWinter]

HRE, at war w/ byz, venice, scotland, english. Trying to sort stuff out so I can gank the poles.

Venice is trounced so hard that just putting ceasefire on the plate gets a 'very generous' reception as far as trade balance goes. But they STILL won't take it!! Is the AI hardcoded to keep fighting forever???

[sapi]

On vh, yes :(

The only way you'll get one is if they come to you and propose one in exchange for whatever in cash. Counter offer with a simple ceasefire and they'll usually say yes.

[Quillan]

For the most part, even on medium, if you share a land border it's difficult to impossible to get a ceasefire after the war starts. About the only time it does happen is when you haven't taken a single province from them and you have a reputation above mixed, and even then they generally have to propose it. If you don't share a border, it seems to be pretty easy. Me, I've resigned myself to being permanently at war with most of my neighbors. In my Venetian campaign, after the eventual betrayal of our alliance by the HRE, I didn't go after them seriously. I did take two cities from them, just to open up a seaport on the North Sea, but that was it. About 75 turns later, when they were being pressed hard by the Danes and Hungarians, they asked me for a ceasefire and we made peace. Up until that point, I couldn't get one, even by offering to return the territories I'd seized.

The only advice I can give is to try keeping your reputation up. In the beginning of that game I had my reputation up at Very Reliable, and I got a few provinces in trade for ceasefires from factions who attacked me. However, as the game went on, I was unable to maintain that reputation and war broke out all over. All my allies betrayed me in the course of 3 turns. I was able to quickly make peace again with everyone who didn't have a land border with me, but those who did just wanted to keep fighting. It didn't matter that France had been reduced to holding nothing but Marseille (not by me either, that was all they had when they declared war on me) but they refused peace even when I had enough force to crush them utterly with the auto-calculator standing next to the city. Oh well, they died and I got another good trading port on the Med.

[BigTex]

Reputation reputation reputation. It will save you again and again. Keep it high, on VH, don't let your spie's get cuaght. Don't ever let your assasin get caught. Always let the AI attack first, always let them cancel alliances.

As for your current perdicament, have you tryed forcing vassalship on them? You can also try giving them one or two of the provinces they lost. Not just a random one, but one they lost. Seems the AI gives those a higher value then other provinces, did it in RTW too. That or if they have at least 2 provinces left, sack their capital, then give it and another for vassalship.

[econ21]

Is there a list of what affects your reputation? It's a mystery to me - I don't do obviously disreputable things (like backstab) but have a very poor rep.

[UltraWar]

Is there a list of what affects your reputation? It's a mystery to me - I don't do obviously disreputable things (like backstab) but have a very poor rep.

Being great friends with the Pope should help you out

[Rilder]

Is there a list of what affects your reputation? It's a mystery to me - I don't do obviously disreputable things (like backstab) but have a very poor rep.

Same kinda, in my portugal campaign Ive always had the "Untrustworthy" rep even though Ive always kept alliances, always kept my word on everything and only declared war on Excommunicated or muslim factions, unless all those successful killing of people with my assassains is getting back at me

[Quillan]

There's a list of global diplomacy modifiers. A while back I hypothesized that these modifiers are your reputation and played a game based on that hypothesis; it seems to hold up although I suspect there's more involved than just that. This is from the descr_faction_standing.txt file:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; DISHONEST TRANSGRESSIONS ;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0075_DT_Stole_Back_Settlement
    WhenToTest Transgression

    Condition TransgressionName = TC_STOLE_BACK_SETTLEMENT

    FactionStanding global -1.0

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0076_DT_Bribed_Away_Settlement
    WhenToTest Transgression

    Condition TransgressionName = TC_BRIBED_AWAY_SETTLEMENT

    FactionStanding global -0.15

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0077_DT_Nullified_Alliance
    WhenToTest Transgression

    Condition TransgressionName = TC_NULLIFIED_ALLIANCE

    FactionStanding global -0.1

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0078_DT_BROKE_TREATY_TERMS
    WhenToTest Transgression

    Condition TransgressionName = TC_BROKE_TREATY_TERMS

    FactionStanding global -0.15

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0078b_DT_Break_Alliance_War
    WhenToTest Transgression

    Condition TransgressionName = TC_BROKE_ALLIANCE
        and DiplomaticStanceFactions = AtWar

    FactionStanding global -0.5

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0078c_DT_Break_Alliance_Neutral
    WhenToTest Transgression

    Condition TransgressionName = TC_BROKE_ALLIANCE
        and DiplomaticStanceFactions = Neutral

    FactionStanding global -0.1

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0099_prisoners_released_increase_global
    WhenToTest FactionLeaderPrisonersRansomedCaptor

    Condition RansomType release
          and NumCapturedSoldiers > 80

    FactionStanding global 0.02
;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0100_prisoners_executed_decrease_global
    WhenToTest FactionLeaderPrisonersRansomedCaptor

    Condition RansomType execute
          and NumCapturedSoldiers > 80

    FactionStanding global -0.02

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0101_sack_settlement_decrease_global
    WhenToTest SackSettlement

    FactionStanding global -0.02

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0102_extermination_decrease_global
    WhenToTest ExterminatePopulation

    FactionStanding global -0.05

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0103_occupy_settlement_increase_global
    WhenToTest OccupySettlement

    FactionStanding global 0.02

For the majority of the game I played, just going by this raised my reputation up from mixed to reliable, to very reliable and to trustworthy. About this point was where I installed the patch, and within the next 5 turns the three alliances I had (HRE, Byzantium, and the English) had all been betrayed. It looked like I took reputation hits even though they were the ones who broke the alliance, although they took much bigger hits. My reputation dropped from trustworthy down through very reliable to reliable over the course of the next 50 turns. Admittedly, I did execute a few prisoners and sack one city in the course of that time, but either the hits are bigger the later the date or you get a much bigger modifier for actions you don't normally take. Nothing I could do has been able to bring it back up since, in fact it dropped to mixed before I just gave up on it entirely.

[Rilder]

thanks for the info quilen