Why doesnt dipomacy work?

[Foz]

Agreed, it's out of hand, but playing with a more informed idea of how things work is clearly going to help you with some of your diplomacy problems. You've obviously picked up not to walk in their lands without securing military access... so put it hard to work now.

Btw the reason for this upsetting them (which you called into question) is quite natural if you consider yourself as the ruler of a nation. Primarily, it's that it makes you nervous as hell when a neighboring country brings a friggin army onto your sovereign lands!!! It can easily be the precursor to a full scale invasion, and just isn't polite to boot. If you would allow the computer to do this to you with how little it respects alliances... then you need your head examined, b/c they'd definitely try to gobble up some underguarded central province of yours while they seemingly wander around aimlessly. I can see it already:

French commander, landing at England: Hello there!
English commander: Well hello. What are you doing here?
French commander: Well, we thought it would be a nice day to go sailing.
English commander: ...and land heavy infantry?
French commander: Oui. We find it most comfortable to travel with our heavy armour and weapons on. After such a wonderful voyage, it only seemed appropriate to take a nice peaceful stroll through the woods to see... where was it I said we were supposed to be going today?
French flunky: To Scotland, sir!
French commander: Yes, we're going to see Scotland. Most of the men have never seen it. I hear it's beautiful this time of year.
English commander: Oh yes, quite beautiful. Full of... hills. And goats. Yeah. Very well men, let them pass!
*French army lays siege to London*
English commander: BLAST!!! They said they were going to Scotland, and I believed them! FRIGGIN FROGS!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure you get the point.

In other news, It's wise to avoid making aggressive moves on factions that have high pope-o-meter ratings, as it seems when I've done so it causes substantially worse hits to my pope-o-meter, and is seemingly more likely to draw sanctions as well. It helps to have a very high pope rating yourself as he messes with you less. Sending a diplomat to tribute him dough and building big-ass church buildings are good ways to help this along. Of course it's also nice to have a pope from your country, so actively training up priests to become cardinals and control the college of cardinals that way can be amazingly useful to this end too.

I would also strongly advise against making alliances with any faction you intend to wage war with relatively soon, as breaking those alliances really makes your reputation plummet. If you do find yourself in a situation where you want to start a war with an ally, the least damaging bet is to try to draw them into attacking you. I don't know if actively trying to piss them off hurts pope rating or global reputation, but if not then for instance military trespassing would definitely be a good plan. I don't believe assassins trigger war either, and they do seem quite effective at sinking those relations.

[PseRamesses]

As Doug-T stated many complaints regarding diplomacy is valid but my advice to you Afkazar is to not enter any alliances. When I´m playing as a catholic faction the only alliance I seek is with the Pope, no one else. My games have been more "peaceful" since I adopted this policy. It seems the AI is more cautious when I´m not allied with them.
When if comes to walking through other factions lands you´ll receive a drop-down message on the left hand side telling you that your relations has worsened. On the other hand you can exploit this by constantly walking in and out of another factions land thus eventually making them the agressor when they get pissed enough and attack you.

What I find more frustrating than anything with diplomacy/ reputation is that there are few ways of improving your reputation, that an ally can attack you directly without warning and that relations aren´t improved when you enter an alliance.

[Von Nanega]

When if comes to walking through other factions lands you´ll receive a drop-down message on the left hand side telling you that your relations has worsened. On the other hand you can exploit this by constantly walking in and out of another factions land thus eventually making them the agressor when they get pissed enough and attack you.

Yes, that is my number one favorite way to make the AI be the agressor. I do this even to Muslim factions because the reliability meter is global. The key to way and reliability is to always be the transgressed against one. After all, now you are just defending yourself against other factions evil imperialist moves. Muhahahahaha!!!

[RussianWinter]

Wow, some of these replies just make me scratch my head. The AI could be sitting around having rabbit orgies and some of you would still consider it normal. When you play a single player game one of the ceilings to how much fun you have is the AI, and in this game its just terrible. If it was any one facet (bad at defending, bad at diplomacy etc.) I might be able to squint my eyes and deal, but its so pervasive throughout every aspect.

As diplo is now its just broken, broken, broken, and calling the game "total war" isn't a (good) excuse. Unavoidable war with every bordering nation with no hopes of reconciling doesn't feel like a good strategy game, it feels like Pac-man.

I've abandonded a few great games because after being an an already very challenging situation against 4 factions I've been backstabbed by 2 others in a couple turns. I was never the provoker, I really REALLY tried to get a ceasefire with anyone over the course of 15 turns, and its obvious the game, as coded, just would have none of it.

[Ar7]

I´d have to agree about diplomacy being useless, one will still end up at war with all the factions. The game is biased towards this by a) Setting the victory conditions to conquering 45 regions b) simply having a dumb AI.

To be honest I am surprised at how many things don´t actually work the way they were supposed to, most of them are core aspects of the game and the result is the lack of any strategy in what was supposed to be a strategy game. Look at the list: diplomacy, AI, characters traits, inquisitors, some of the units (cavalry, 2h), it is easier to say what actually works! The game is linear beyond belief, with an early rush the best answer for every faction.

I actually noticed this with many new games, somehow old games had better value and replayability to them, these days too much emphasis is put on graphics.

Having said that, I will still play the game because I enjoy the battles, even though the AI doesn´t really shine.

[zerathule]

French commander, landing at England: Hello there!
English commander: Well hello. What are you doing here?
French commander: Well, we thought it would be a nice day to go sailing.
English commander: ...and land heavy infantry?
French commander: Oui. We find it most comfortable to travel with our heavy armour and weapons on. After such a wonderful voyage, it only seemed appropriate to take a nice peaceful stroll through the woods to see... where was it I said we were supposed to be going today?
French flunky: To Scotland, sir!
French commander: Yes, we're going to see Scotland. Most of the men have never seen it. I hear it's beautiful this time of year.
English commander: Oh yes, quite beautiful. Full of... hills. And goats. Yeah. Very well men, let them pass!
*French army lays siege to London*
English commander: BLAST!!! They said they were going to Scotland, and I believed them! FRIGGIN FROGS!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure you get the point.

While this made me laught, i'ts a bit forgetting how things where in the medieval days.
First, kingdoms are not nations, they dont have the same territorial integrity a country has today.
You have to take into account that most rulers where related by blood to one another (i mean rullers of different countries).
A lord asking to cross some lands with his armies and finaly breaking his word would be up for much troubles : loosing alliances with other powers, loosing trade rights, forming coalition against him etc ...
War had a lot of rules, and two things kept people in line : honour and the pope.
Bye honour i dont mean some kind of ethics, but more of some kind of public face to maintain.
The pope would be more of a referee during conflics.
At least this was true in fightings between catholic nations, except for england that did not care most of the times about those rules (or should i say that it was for them a matter of survival to break the rules).
Anyway, to have some kind of feeling of what "should" be a good diplomacy AI and gameplay, check out Europa Universalis, even if its flawed, it's quite a good exemple of how should the diplomacy be handled : attack an ally with witch you have a royal marriage and exellent relation, and you're good for loosing a LOT of reputation (that affects your relations with the whole world) and more importantly will raise considerably your unrest ...
Add the fact that blitzing in this game means world domination toward the end of the game period (400 years), i guess that this is the kind of improvement some players would like for M2TW's diplomacy.

[Foz]

To be sure. I wasn't trying to comment on historical politics or war, but rather on the situation I find myself in in the game: if AI military units come onto my land, allied with me or not, it invariably means they start a war. Apologies if I blurred those lines.

Glad you had a good laugh btw

[Kraggenmor]

if AI military units come onto my land, allied with me or not, it invariably means they start a war.

Bingo.

[The Stranger]

they some times even attack you while your relation is PERFECT and the turn before you just agreed to give them a 1000x10 turn tribute... i had that more than once... so giving them money wont work but it will get them more troops...

[baron_Leo]

What does annoy me is, when the frogs bring some troops into my territory, and do nothing with it. Really nothing. They do not intend to attck me, they are not allied, they don't do anything. They park there for 40 rounds and then leave. Theres is absolutely no point in doing that. Okay when Milan parks some armies in my terf I know what he is up to. He brings another army. And another. And another, Joins them, and attacks me and gets horriby beaten in Tolouse. (I would be so glad if they would attack Bordeaux one time - less troops and another scenery, maybe it would add a challenge:-).

[gardibolt]

But there is a point. If they're parked on your lands 40 turns, they're causing devastation and reducing your income from farming (and trade, if they're sitting on a road). So it's a very hostile act to go onto another's lands.