pay us 34$ or we will attack?

[Fat Buddha]

Today I had a large Milan army, 3 actually at my castle all ready to stomp on it. They were neutral but you know how the computer isn't subtle. Then suddenly a diplomat scroll popped up.

"give us 34$ or we will attack."

34!!! seems like an odd number to pick. my city is only worth 34$ to you!!!. on second thought sure, ok here is 34$ now go away... and off they went to stomp on someone else.

[Laconic]

"One MEEELEEEON dollars!" *pinky finger*

[Lord_hazard]

Guess they just wanted some lunch money:)

[Atticus Finch]

yeah, the AI does weird things like that sometimes.

[JCoyote]

Maybe it was all you had in the bank? I thought diplomacy couldn't enter a higher amount of money than you have. Could be wrong though.

[Chosun]

They will probably ask for 50 florins next time...or even 60. Don't cave in.

In all honesty, that has never happened to me yet. No country has tried to extort money from me yet. I haven't tried it on anyone else either.

[Fat Buddha]

I had quite alot in the bank at the time. I was the richest faction. The more I think about it the more im convinced it was a Milanese snub. Somewhere in Milan two nobles are laughing..

"dude... (because we all know they said dude back then) i marched this huge army over to the English and surrounded their castle. Then asked for 34$! I though I was going to die laughing I could hardly keep a straight face when i did it. I almost thought the mayor was going to ask me to make change for a fifty"

Such is Milanese humor I guess

[dopp]

Small French armies were always crossing the mountains into Spain and asking me for handouts early on in my campaigns. I guess they got lost and needed to take a cab back to Paris or something.

[Aaron A Aardvark]

This is why I think you should be allowed to execute diplomats. Sending his head back in a basket would have given them the right signals.

[FrauGloer]

This is why I think you should be allowed to execute diplomats. Sending his head back in a basket would have given them the right signals.

Yeah I liked that feature in Shogun... the good ol' times!
Come to think of it, I really liked the animated Throne Room, too... Some of the poems were really cool:
The water is a mirror,
I can not see its bottom,
and yet,
the bottom can see me clearly.
Just. Plain. Cool.

Anyways, in medieval times, there was a strict code of conduct regarding parley/diplomacy. Executing diplomats was a no-go, as it had no honour. I'm reading the "Saxon Stories" by Bernard Cornwell right now (great books BTW), and though they are settled in the 9th century, I'd like some of the diplomatic "features" described there for MTW3, mainly: sealing alliances/ceasefires by trading hostages. If one side breaks the treaty, the other is free to execute the hostages. It would be kind of hard to implement, though, I guess...

[dopp]

Anyways, in medieval times, there was a strict code of conduct regarding parley/diplomacy. Executing diplomats was a no-go, as it had no honour.

Whoever wrote the script for the meeting between Aragorn and the Mouth of Sauron in Return of the King obviously didn't do his homework, especially since the books got it right in the first place.

[FrauGloer]

Whoever wrote the script for the meeting between Aragorn and the Mouth of Sauron in Return of the King obviously didn't do his homework, especially since the books got it right in the first place.

Yeah, I thought this entire scene sucked badly... Not only the honour-less slaughter of a diplomat, but also the fact that the Mouth of Sauron was a strange monster and his horse was completely normal - it should have been the other way 'round... quite disappointing... Way overextended artistic license in this case, IMO.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Sorry to interrupt the flow of the thread, but I thought that in M2:TW money was measured in florins like in M:TW?

[FrauGloer]

Sorry to interrupt the flow of the thread, but I thought that in M2:TW money was measured in florins like in M:TW?

Yeah, it is, but it is rather tiring to type "florins" all the time when you can just type "$". "$" is a basic symbol for currency understood all over the world.

[JCoyote]

I don't think player actions should be restricted by the usual protocol, because we aren't just dealing with the catholics and their empires, we have the muslims and orthodox, AND the way all of them interacted - not always following civilized rules even in the case of diplomacy when different faiths were involved.

It'd be nice to have the option to build your own Vlad Tepes. Of course, slaying a diplomat directly like that should give you a 2 level hit in reputation and immediately drop your relations with the party to no better than terrible. Plus it should gain you 3 skulls in dread and you probably shouldn't see another diplomat approach you for a nice long time.

Players shouldn't be bound completely to the social protocols of the age, people DID break them. The player just needs to suffer some for doing so.

[Mr Frost]

Yeah, it is, but it is rather tiring to type "florins" all the time when you can just type "$". "$" is a basic symbol for currency understood all over the world.

I miss the Pound symbol :(

[dopp]

Good idea. Gaining 3 dread wouldn't be suffering though, it's actually a reward to get more dread for your characters in general. My entire line of Spainish kings in one game had max 10 dread due to assassin abuse and the enemy wouldn't stick around after the first musket volley, they were that petrified with terror. The Mongol Khan was 'a notorious champion of darkness', but 'even the fearless must be forced to face' old King Rodrigo the Watcher of Spain (formerly el Valiente, formerly the Chivalrous, formerly the Mad, formerly the Scarred, formerly the Cruel). If I could execute diplomats, I would do it just to clean up clutter on the map and speed up the AI turns. If I could gain more dread from doing so, then I would conclude even successful negotiations by chopping off the emissary's head.

[FactionHeir]

I don't think the AI ever asked me for that.
I did have some Polish diplomat coming to me about 3 times (over a period of 10 turns) to offer me some 200-400 single payment for nothing though for some weird reason even though I didn't have a large garrison on the border and they were my allies anyway.
Too bad it didn't increase relations to accept it (it pretty much was a gift) as it would the other way around.

Oh, and the AI always ignores "accept or we will attack" when I use it but they tend to face the consequences for that (I think this diplomatic option should weigh military strengths (i.e. supreme vs pathetic))

[Garnier]

As england once the scottish formed 4 full stacks on the border and then sent a diplomat and asked for 300 florins I think. Needless to say, I gave it to them, and then they sailed away and landed in flanders.

[MilesGregarius]

Fairly regularly, I'll offer to sell map info to a faction only to have them reject my offer and offer a handful of florins for nothing in return. Also got this in RTW.

[Doug-Thompson]

Just a guess, but the AI might have been 34 florins short of what it needed to upgrade a city or something, and your city just happened to be close by.

[R'as al Ghul]

What about this one:
Player owns 20 Provinces, AI owns 1 Province.
AI sends a diplomat and offers:
Ceasefire for 7000 Florins per anno over 3 years.
That is they want money from me and they want me to stop conquering them.

Yeah, right. Nice try.

[dopp]

Sometimes I turn those around and ask them for all territories except for capital and protectorate status in exchange for ceasefire and 50k fl. They often accept for some insane reason.

[FactionHeir]

Are you just making this up dopp? Yout cannot have both ceasefire and protectorate on the table at the same time.

[Goofball]

I haven't seen it yet in M2TW, but I used to love in RTW when an AI diplomat would approach me with the following proposal:

Please do not attack.

Accept or we will attack.

[baron_Leo]

I am amazed. Milan does this quite often to me (record is 13 florins I think), but after I pay they attack anyway. How I hate Milan. I never pay them again. I think the point of playing M2TW is killing Milan. Slow and painfully. VERY painfully. Interesting is the only other faction who made that with me, were the Moors.

[Stlaind]

Perhaps the amount they put up is a reflection of how heavily the AI is going to honor that?

[pat the magnificent]

kinda like the scene from big lebowski when the Nihilists demanded their pocket change when they didn't have million the dollars.

[The Teacher]

they once asked me for 164 and i had over 100k and over 35 provinces - odd

[dopp]

Are you just making this up dopp? Yout cannot have both ceasefire and protectorate on the table at the same time.

Nope, happened three times so far. Maybe not with ceasefire as one of the specific items, but you get the point. The AI always seems to be strapped for cash and values it above life, liberty and land, apparently.

Edit: It was protectorate + all your land in exchange for 50-100k, I could afford it. It even showed up as generous for some reason. You'd get it all back in a few turns anyway, if the system works like it did in RTW.

Edit: You could also get ceasefire + all your land in exchange for money and trade rights, plus some map info to sweeten the deal. The AI really values trade rights for some reason.