Diplomacy in MTW:VI

[Floplexter]

I am playing the Bohemians in the XL mod (and a mighty fine mod it is too) and have just been getting more and more confused about the whole diplomatic process in MTW.

I've been playing MTW for years now and never really got to grips with the alliances etc, but from what I've gleaned throughout the Org here, there isn't much diplomacy to be done in the game. I didn't realise the "lose first battle of a war" rule and when this first battle is someone randomly sinking one of your ships for no reason (usually the start of most wars!), then it doesn't seem fair, as you don't have a chance.

In my current game, for no reason at all, the Volgar-Bulgarians declared war on me. I wasn't even close to either of their provinces. As a knock-on, I lost a couple of bigger alliances and it has gone downhill from then on. I now have merely the Scots and Armenians on my side. Nice of them to be there, but they aren't exactly big-hitters.

Which brings me to my second point re: diplomacy.

I have come across several "joint" armies on my battlefields in the past, but am still not sure of the etiquette or even how they happen, other than accidentally. This was prompted by two in the last two days- In Algeria, the Genoese and Castile-Leonese appeared together and marched side by side to batter my garrison.

Next door in Tunisia last night, the Fatimid sultan arrived together with the Genoese. Again, they marched side by side on my 5* general, but this time I managed to drive them off.

Only once have I arrived on a battlefield at the same time as an ally. When I was playing the Spanish and fought in Egypt, only to find the French there too. Against a massive Egyptian army, we successfully drove off the first wave, but instead of pushing the advantage, the French turned around and withdrew, leaving me helpless.
So much for allies!

I don't own MTW2 yet, but gather from the forums that although the diplomacy is improved, the game itself leaves a lot to be desired.

But is there any rhyme or reason to the diplomatic process in MTW?

[Caerfanan]

Honestly, the diplomacy is not that good. the reason why one of your allies stays with you or not is not even that clear, and the allies do not behave always in a good manner... the only thiongs I know is that an ally is less likely to attack you, but this is pretty much it.

When I play in the viking campaign, if I'm not the vik, I try to have an alliance with them: they usually never attack you from that moment...

[caravel]

But is there any rhyme or reason to the diplomatic process in MTW?

Sadly not. Two allies appearing at once in a battle is purely chance (except for relieving sieges). There is no mechanism on the game by which you can know when your ally is going to attack.

Alliances are similarly worthless. I play most of my campaigns with a blatant disregard for them, this is not to say that I'm an aggressive player that attacks at will, more so a neutral one that only attacks when attacked and doesn't get much involved in the affairs of other factions until I encounter them. If alliances are offered to me I will accept them, if I lose them all it doesn't worry me.

The MTW diplomatic AI is rather primitive in that it doesn't bear grudges, memorise your past actions or have any concept of loyalty, cultural similarity or religious similarity. There is a good chance that the AI will attack you if a) it has the troops, b) you have left a province open to attack. All in all though it is very unpredictable. For example you, the English may relieve your allies the HRE in Burgundy whom have just been besieged by the French. The HRE will extend their "gratitude", next year your spies will probably catch several HRE assassins going after one of your emissaries for no apparent reason. The following year the HRE will waltz into one of your provinces, bringing the alliance to an end. The year after that they'll allow one of their princesses to marry one of your heirs. The following year they'll attack you again, the next a ceasefire, then another invasion of one of your provinces...

It is very unpredictable. The above seems like an extreme example and maybe it is, but I have seen quite a few scenarios much like that in the past.

Another thing to remember is that the AI seems to remember provinces that it previously owned, which means that if you're the turks and have been getting on really well with the Byzantines for the last hundred years, they may suddenly surprise you and invade e.g. Trebizond.

The AI also seems to go for certain provinces from the word go. I believe that certain factions are either programmed to "want" certain provinces or there is another factor involved, such as the richness of the province perhaps. For example the French will almost always go for Burgundy at some point making conflict with the HRE inevitable.

Alliances don't count for much.

Edit: In some respects Shogun was better in that the clan you were busy destroying would often keep harassing you with emissaries looking for a ceasefire to buy themselves more time.

[Deus ret.]

Cambyses II mentioned the most important aspects, so I won't repeat these. I just wanted to add that there are a few more factors, with the indispensable "in my experience" attached:
If you or an AI faction are by far the largest and most powerful contender, most others will go out of their way to somehow harm/destroy you. This seems illogical historically (who would willingly oppose the only superpower?) but makes sense in terms of the game: winning would be too easy otherwise. For whatever reason, the HRE seems to be in this state permanently, notwithstanding their actual strength. Few will ally with them, almost everyone attacks ASAP, even against ridiculous odds and regardless of the overall situation (I had a case when the Aragones were being devoured by the Spanish during a war for Iberia, but instead of defending themselves properly they kept 3+ stacks in the single province which bordered me, the HRE, and even invaded me the turn they lost Aragon....). The Byzantines have a similar, if not that clear-cut, predisposition of being disliked.

Regarding the spies/assassins issue, I'm not even sure if the AI considers sending these as a hostile action. Of course, this is nothing one would to to his allies, but the frequency of 'enemy' (actually allied) agents being caught suggests to me that they belong to the regular order of business.

So the system is indeed quite primitive but way better than the one in RTW where it is not only nigh impossible to get a simple cease-fire out of a battered foe, but also treaties seem to be even far less worth than in MTW (where it's actually possiblöe to remain allied to a neighbour for more than two turns) and they are broken at the first little opportunity to do so. The nasty thing is that it is the player who is treated thus by the AI factions, who among themselves have a rather vivid diplomatic exchange. Don't know about M2TW, my computer isn't up to it....

[The Unknown Guy]

Edit: In some respects Shogun was better in that the clan you were busy destroying would often keep harassing you with emissaries looking for a ceasefire to buy themselves more time.

Medieval does this too. When a faction starts to gets creamed it tries to sue for peace with at least one of his aggressors.

In fact, in one game, the turks jumped at my throat as they always do when playing Byzantium, then shortly sued for peace when the Golden Horde started pummeling them. Which I did not accept because destroying their weakened remaining forces at Anatolia was just too easy to resist.

[Innocentius]

What Cambyses II said.

Yes, the AI is very unpredictable and not at all trustworthy. One of the worst - and frequent - things that happens is when you play as the English and have just recently defeated a huge French army invading Aquitaine from Tolouse (perhaps it's just my game but the French tend to gather their armies in Tolouse and then strike at Aquitaine) and then the next year the Aragonese invade as your stack(s) are somewhat weakened. Even though the Almoravids are on their way to wipe out the Castille-Leonese and have taken Valencia!

And what is even worse is the way the AI "compensates" for lost provinces. This mainly occur in the XL-mod actually: the Hungarians or Poles lose some ground to the Cumans, but instead of taking it back they backstab their allies and neighbours (mostly the HRE) and invade their lands instead. Now, luckliy I've modded the Cumans out of Wallacia and Moldavia and replaced them with some strong rebels, so now they're always busy fighting the Kievans

[Floplexter]

Many thanks, all.

So it is basically a case of the X-Files: Trust No-one.

It seems like a lost opportunity if it hasn't been addressed somewhere along the line as surely the most aggressive of powers historically used the diplomatic process as far as they could.

In fact, it would be wonderful if the opportunity were presented, on the battlefield, pre-fight, to ride out under the white flag and "parley", wouldn't it?
Offer to leave in peace if outnumbered, or offer the enemy to withdraw intact. An unlikely scenario, but a historically accurate one?


For myself, though you can't trust the AI at all, I like to keep my allegiances and give fair warning when I intend to break them (usually an attempted bribe). I also stick by my allies. The English approached me on lots of occasions for an alliance, but I stuck by the French through it all.

Only for them to break the alliance when I bribed a Hungarian general, causing war with Hungary.

That said, I had some turns before assassinated the French king as a target of opportunity when he was in Ile de France with no border forts... but I don't think they held it against me.

[caravel]

Regarding the spies/assassins issue, I'm not even sure if the AI considers sending these as a hostile action. Of course, this is nothing one would to to his allies, but the frequency of 'enemy' (actually allied) agents being caught suggests to me that they belong to the regular order of business.

Very true, the states of war, neutrality or alliance don't even come into the subterfuge. When it comes to assassination the AI considers every, general, priest, emissary, inquisitor and princess fair game. Irrespective of faction. The AI will send assassins literally anywhere and kill anything, but especially emissaries and generals. There is some evidence however that the AI knows not to try and kill same religion priests. I have made a point of (using -ian mode) observing, who was assassinating my priests in the past and have found that muslim faction assassins were usually responsible for killing my bishops, on the odd occasions, though due to their only being three muslim factions, this isn't all that common. Alims tend to get picked off by the catholic/orthodox AI assassins which is why you don't see that many of them at once. The catholic AI also seems to send in parties of Bishops to a province they're targetting that is not the correct religion (again evidence that the AI targets certain provinces).

I have often wondered if the AI doesn't still always try to play GA even when you're not in GA mode, as it often sends crusades to the GA objectives and tries to hold onto it's homelands. Hard to tell.

So the system is indeed quite primitive but way better than the one in RTW where it is not only nigh impossible to get a simple cease-fire out of a battered foe, but also treaties seem to be even far less worth than in MTW (where it's actually possiblöe to remain allied to a neighbour for more than two turns) and they are broken at the first little opportunity to do so. The nasty thing is that it is the player who is treated thus by the AI factions, who among themselves have a rather vivid diplomatic exchange. Don't know about M2TW, my computer isn't up to it....

The RTW system is just as flawed IMHO. The foundation of a better diplomatic system is there but the AI seems to still use it in the same way as it did with MTW.

Medieval does this too. When a faction starts to gets creamed it tries to sue for peace with at least one of his aggressors.

I'm not sure it does. There could be other factors involved that give the appearance of this occurring. With STW the AI clan would often persistently lobby for a ceasefire if you were giving it a severe beating. In MTW factions don't do this at all in my experience and will often fight down to the last province. With MTW the state of war is very difficult to end.

And what is even worse is the way the AI "compensates" for lost provinces. This mainly occur in the XL-mod actually: the Hungarians or Poles lose some ground to the Cumans, but instead of taking it back they backstab their allies and neighbours (mostly the HRE) and invade their lands instead. Now, luckliy I've modded the Cumans out of Wallacia and Moldavia and replaced them with some strong rebels, so now they're always busy fighting the Kievans

I'm not sure, but I think that once a faction is attacked it changes it's behaviour type. So a a faction that has lost a province may get more aggressive. Also it may attack other provinces in attempt to rescue it's economy which would have been damaged by losing the other province. It may simply look at it's neighbours and attack the weakest.

Ships are treated in a similarly random fashion. In fact, if you subscribe to the theory that ships are much like agents, then you can begin to understand some of the randomness. With fleets isolated single vessels can get picked off by an otherwise neutral faction's fleet - starting a war. There is no strategy in this, it's simply the mindlessness of the AI. Keeping ships in pairs or trios reduces the chances of this happening dramatically.

If you're a large faction alliances will become almost impossible to come by. When the bloat effect kicks in, when you're empire get's too big, other factions will be much more aggressive towards you.

For those that don't know (most if not all of the posters in this thread know this but I'll stick it in here anyway), when choosing allies the AI stay allied with those it's been with longest. So for example you're the HRE and made an alliance in 1090 with the English and then the Danes in 1091. A few years later you go to war with the Danes, the English inform you they're sticking with the Danes and not you. This is because they were allied to them (between 1088-89) before they were allied to you. Seems sensible enough in some instances though in most cases it is a very bad method of deciding alliances. Imagine the following scenario. You are the Byzantine, controlling a sizeable empire (the three points). Your allies, the Hungarians have three provinces bordering you and a few common enemies, the Horde, the Poles and Novgorod. Suddenly the Egyptians invade Lesser Armenia and the Hungarian Monarch ditches his alliance with you, because he was allied to them first!

[Deus ret.]

when choosing allies the AI stay allied with those it's been with longest.

To be honest I had no clue, but thinking about it...are you sure there aren't other factors involved? Sometimes I have the distinct impression that it is the outcome of the very battle that created the conflict which determined the decision of the third party more or less. Most often, the AI would stick to the victor; similarly, I'm almost certain to remember occasions when an enemy's long-time ally to whom I recently allied went over to me the next turn. I may have been deceived, though.

[caravel]

To be honest I had no clue, but thinking about it...are you sure there aren't other factors involved? Sometimes I have the distinct impression that it is the outcome of the very battle that created the conflict which determined the decision of the third party more or less. Most often, the AI would stick to the victor; similarly, I'm almost certain to remember occasions when an enemy's long-time ally to whom I recently allied went over to me the next turn. I may have been deceived, though.

AFAIK it's no more complex than that. I have attacked in the past, taken a province, and lost all of my alliances. This is because, as an inactive diplomat, my alliances tend to be forged much later than the AI's. If it isn't the rule, it's definitely the biggest factor.

[Floplexter]

Thinking of the ships as agents is a good analogy- thanks. I like that- brings a bit of sense to it.

I would have said that I had longer alliances than the ones they stuck with in a few cases, but without checking every year to see who is buddying up, then it's difficult to say.

RTW advises you each turn who has signed treaties, does it not?


One of the beauties of MTW that helps it maintain its longevity is the fact that you can make the game as simple or as complex as you like to match your mood.

Sometimes it's great just to batter folk.

Thanks again.

[Adrian II]

I am going to go out on a limb here, but I think the alliance system in M:TW works up to the point where you become too succesfull as a player. From then on it becomes a free for all.

Just like others, I have seen some bizarre results. The Pope will ally with the heathen Turks against the staunchly Catholic Aragonese. Or the HRE will attack you in one turn, then in the next turn it will both accept to marry your princess (and thus conclude an allaince) and cancel the alliance after 1 second because you are at war with one of its other allies that you don't even know you are at war with yet.

In other respects the diplomacy system also works up to a point. Influence and agent valour do count when you ask for ceasefires or princesses' hands. But at the end of the day it is so inconsistent that I have never bothered to calculate and keep track of my diplomatic moves and their results. About halfway through a Catholic campaign I usually have one or two allies left, the Pope being one of them if I can help it. As a non-Catholic I don't bother.

[Martok]

Diplomacy continues to be one of the major weaknesses in the Total War franchise, from Shogun all the way up to Medieval 2. Regardless of how simplistic (in the case of Shoggy and MTW) or complex it is (as in Rome and Medieval 2), the AI simply does not treat other factions in a manner that is very rational or intelligent.

'Tis the nature of the beast, I'm afraid. I would dearly love to see the diplomatic AI improved, and not just the mechanism for it.

[EatYerGreens]

It might be unfair to say this (and I apologise if this is a re-hash of a debate from yesteryear) but, to a great extent, MTW is really "Shogun set in Europe" - give or take the extras, like crusades/Jihads, ships and so on.

In other words, the factions are all diligent followers of Sun-Tzu and will pounce on any opportunity for military gain, as and when it arises (assuming an Expansionist character-type, or suitably strong motivation, like recapturing homelands, for the others).

I can't say I've tested this myself (too possessive!) but, if you wanted to break an unwanted alliance without 'loss of honour' (the "Breaking Treaty!" warning message in Shogun mentions this) and without being the one to make the first act of aggression, you could simply vacate a province at the shared border (perhaps leaving a minimal castle garrison) and simply wait.

Draw them in with prospect of gain. - Sun Tzu says.

They're almost certain to invade, sooner or later. They get to receive the admonition from the Pope, then you steam in with your recently withdrawn troops, plus some backup, lift the siege, then press on, into their lands, the following year. See who gets excomm'ed for it... }:-)


With regard to the chronological order in which alliances got formed, has anyone noticed whether the left-to-right sequence of alliance shields is *always* arranged alphabetically, or whether the sequence seems to vary from faction to faction?


Incidentally, if you happen to have Shogun installed,
*spoiler alert* click-drag-highlight to read the hidden text...
-----------
take a peek inside the Voices folder and notice the filenames of the emissary messages. You'll notice that for each message (alliance/ceasefire) there is a weak/equal/strong variant. Play each sound in turn and notice the subtle variation in the wording and even the tone of voice (timorous to haughty). When spaced out through a game lasting weeks, you might not have noticed these subtly differences until now and perhaps it's a slight cheat to even know about it.
------------

[The Unknown Guy]

In MTW if you take a peek at the alliance messages you get a debriefing on the type of AI which will say that and if it´s strong/eçual/weaker, too.

[macsen rufus]

I sometimes don't bother too much with diplomacy, but as someone mentioned above, in VI I usually ally to the Vikings asap and they usually honour that throughout the game. It always seems like a lottery though as to who will drop and who will honour an alliance when a war breaks out. Generally though, I will honour alliances, and if an ally's enemy makes an approach I will refuse it.

Some of the things mentioned above there are quite simple explanations for: the whole war/marry a princess/ceasfire/war cycle, usually arises because the emissary tapping your princess has walked halfway across Europe with the ring to catch up with her, and during the journey his faction has had an opportunity to attack you. No-one tells the emissary, so he still pops the question, even though the faction has no "intention" of making a ceasefire as the decision to fight was newer than the decision to marry.

Regarding STW - the one rule I have worked out is that when your enemy proposes a ceasefire, they will attack the next turn! s!

The only real benefits to MTW alliances is the chance to fight battles alongside allies (I was once part of a three-on-one attack, fortunately the largest partner) which was a glorious bloodbath. I have had loads of battles with allies along, but I really wish there was a way to guarantee the allies would come along. The closest you can get is save the game, end the turn, and then reload to join in any attacks your allies make

There have been a few cases where the AI has done really strange things - like the Spanish once joined one of my invasions. I had a well-balanced army suited to take out the defenders, the Spanish sent .... err, their KING. On his own, and we all know what impetuous Royal Knights are like. His attack was so dumb it was almost French (C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre!) His Highness got arbalested to within an inch of his life and fled screaming before I'd got my army formed up and halfway across the map. At least by the time I went to war with the Spanish, they had a "not so bold" king

[caravel]

It might be unfair to say this (and I apologise if this is a re-hash of a debate from yesteryear) but, to a great extent, MTW is really "Shogun set in Europe" - give or take the extras, like crusades/Jihads, ships and so on.

This is very true. MTW works in much the same way with the aggression factor toned down somewhat, though occasionally it shows it's true colours.

I believe the alliances are lined up in the same order, alphabetically I think, so there's no indication of whom was allied with whom first.

The alliance messages differ in MTW in the wording on the alliance parchments. If you're a weak faction they're haughty, if you're strong they're haughty.

@["ceasefire_rejected2_txt_xzy"]
@{"He says that the time is not yet right for such a step, but claims that he neither offers further insult nor plans aggressive action against you. "}
@{"He regrets that he cannot make such a broad commitment at this time."}
@{"He requires further proof of your good intentions. The withdrawal of troops along our borders would provide him with this reassurance. "}
@{"He is not ready to take such a step at this time, but will consider the idea again very soon. "}
@{"He says that if you were to make war against some of his troublesome neighbours he would rethink his position on the proposal. "}
@{"He asks that we prove our sincerity in this matter by making war aggressively against our mutual enemies. Then he would reconsider. "}
@{"He suggests that we attack our mutual enemies to demonstrate our true worth as formal allies. "}
@{"He says that he is not yet ready to choose sides in this conflict, but that that the time may soon come when he does so. "}
@{"I was politely, but firmly, refused an audience. "}
@{"I was unable to obtain an audience with him. "}
@{"He listened to all my arguments, but gave no reason for his final rejection of the offer. "}
@{"He was careful not to imply that we were in any way unworthy of respect. "}
@{"His aides informed me that he was too busy to see me in person, but that his answer was 'no' in every particular. "}
@{"He said that he could see no advantage to him in a ceasefire at this time. "}
@{"He said that a ceasefire was not a decision to be made on a whim, and that long and careful consideration of the matter was required. "}
@{"It was only his good mood that day that allowed me to leave with my body and soul still together. "}

I have wondered how the AI decided which one of these to use. At times it seemed random and may well be to an extent. It is possible that it makes a check on how long it has been since any battle occurred? With alliance rejections it probably has something to do with your empires world ranking.

[Deus ret.]

I have wondered how the AI decided which one of these to use.

As far as I can tell they're pretty random. Say I'm the Polish and attack on the Teutonic Order who has attacked the Lithuanians last turn. Naturally, I want to ally with the Lits against those Germans, but their king tells me something along the lines of "to prove your intentions you should wage war on our common enemies"....what the heck does he think I'm doing at that very moment? It doesn't matter for this kind of response if there was another war involved.
That the content of these refusals/acceptances doesn't count for much is further illustrated by suggestions like a recommendation to reduce the amount of troops along the border. well, maybe it's a dirty trick by the AI to pave the way for the invasion they're actually aiming for, but in any case reducing border garrisons is the way of getting the AI to attack.

I think it's utterly random, but if ones shuts his eyes and takes into account the mechanisms of (real) diplomatic deceit then it's quite possible to imagine living in a world where you can't trust even your ally's word and where your worst enemy may suddenly approach you in terms of friendship for purely tactical reasons - wait, isn't that the REAL world? Nothing is predictable and few is sensible - in this regard at least the designers have done a good implementing realism into MTW IMHO. Hooray!

[gunslinger]

I have wondered how the AI decided which one of these to use. At times it seemed random and may well be to an extent. It is possible that it makes a check on how long it has been since any battle occurred? With alliance rejections it probably has something to do with your empires world ranking.

I have definitely noticed that if I repeatedly pester a faction leader for an alliance (usually Da Pope) his rejections of my offer will go steadily from benign to threatening. He may start off with "These matters must not be taken too lightly," but by the third or fourth try my emmissary will feel lucky to escape with his life.

[Ironside]

Only thing I've noticed with alliances is that attacking an ally will cost 1 influence and that the factions are extremly unlikely to ally with you if you're at war with one of thier allies. Making peace or wiping out that faction you're war with makes you able to ally yourself with that faction's former allies.

[EatYerGreens]

I don't particularly envy anyone who ever had to write AI logic (let alone translate that into program code!) and it feels hypocritical to have a go at the way it behaves in the TW series... but I won't let that stop me from making one or two further observations.

Quite often, I'll see Novgorod, beaten back to two or three territories and offer it an alliance. At times when it has no shared border with me, no agents in my territories, no ships to survey the state of world affairs, it still turns my offer down! That's just an example, the same thing can happen with factions closer-to but there's no indication that the strength of your faction is taken into account.

The subject of border forts/agents came up in the Pocket Mod thread recently and it was mooted that the AI is able to see the state of the whole map, without the need for agents, so I could be wrong about their reactions being 'blind'. Debateable, perhaps.

Anyway, my best guess is that alliance decisions are boiled down to simple mathematics but it has no 'memory' and basis its decision on the 'now'. An ability to plan for the future would require a whole extra layer of coding and, in some ways, I'm still looking for evidence of the existence of any such thing. Perhaps that is one of the major reasons why the AI is at such a disadvantage against the player?


The influence thing is another conundrum. Influence goes up and up, the more territory you take and, if the text descriptions are to be believed, this increases the likelihodd of offers being taken seriously. The paradox is where you become so powerful that everyone begins to attack you whereas, in the real world, you'd expect a whole lot of appeasement to be going on.

Equally puzzling is the way the Byzantines often get used as a punch-bag by their various neighbours, squeezed down to three provinces, or less, yet the emperor still manages to maintain 8-9 influence. What's going on there? Granted, they may be winning provinces on a regular basis but they're losing others just as fast, which should be knocking influence off.

[caravel]

The subject of border forts/agents came up in the Pocket Mod thread recently and it was mooted that the AI is able to see the state of the whole map, without the need for agents, so I could be wrong about their reactions being 'blind'. Debateable, perhaps.

I believe the Ai can see the whole map all of the time, based on some observations I've made. Mainly observations of Emissaries and Assassins. The AI Emissaries I have noticed proposing alliances with other faction leaders on many occasions, where they had no prior knowledge of either where he was located, had no contact with any of his emissaries and had no other agents in his provinces (ian mode is useful for this). The same goes for Assassins. Byzantine Assassins targeting a general in Scotland, for no apparent reason and with no prior intelligence of his position.

Anyway, my best guess is that alliance decisions are boiled down to simple mathematics but it has no 'memory' and basis its decision on the 'now'. An ability to plan for the future would require a whole extra layer of coding and, in some ways, I'm still looking for evidence of the existence of any such thing. Perhaps that is one of the major reasons why the AI is at such a disadvantage against the player?

I also think that the AI reacts on a turn for turn basis. It will make a calculation based solely on the now rather than the then.

The influence thing is another conundrum. Influence goes up and up, the more territory you take and, if the text descriptions are to be believed, this increases the likelihodd of offers being taken seriously. The paradox is where you become so powerful that everyone begins to attack you whereas, in the real world, you'd expect a whole lot of appeasement to be going on.

I've never been sure that influence has an effect on his either. Though the bloat effect is a very strange phenomenon. The major effect is that the loyalty in your provinces take a drop, as though your king is isolated. Then there is the matter of being despised, having your offers of alliances/ceasefires refused and having your princesses and marriage offers rejected. Then there is the small matter of the AI factions suddenly making war upon you, in an attempt to bring you down. This points to many different factors. A hidden drop in influence would also affect your generals, but it doesn't, so i wouldn't say that had anything to do with it. I think it's a piece of code that is triggered by conquering a certain number of provinces - just over 60% of the map. It is probably also related to how MTW AI handles the diplomacy: Small factions are liked, bigger factions are not. Small factions can always marry off their princesses, marry their heirs to foreign princesses and usually get an abundance of allies. As you get bigger you get less allies. So it seems that this part of the MTW diplomacy simply works in the reverse of what you would expect. I'm not sure influence has any effect at all, and is simply a stat that controls the loyalty of your own generals and the quality of your heirs.

Equally puzzling is the way the Byzantines often get used as a punch-bag by their various neighbours, squeezed down to three provinces, or less, yet the emperor still manages to maintain 8-9 influence. What's going on there? Granted, they may be winning provinces on a regular basis but they're losing others just as fast, which should be knocking influence off.

I think that they start off with such high starting influence and superb royalty that it takes a lot to knock them down. I have seen the Byzantine Emperor with 3 influence and split into civil war on occasions after they had taken some heavy losses and lost a lot of battles, but they can take a severe hammering before that occurs. Just after the command stars loop bug kicks in they tend to be much more vulnerable. Also I've noticed reappearing Byzantines to be also much more prone to low influence and civil wars. Thids makes me think that it is mainly down to the starting stats of their royals.

[Caerfanan]

To be honest I had no clue, but thinking about it...are you sure there aren't other factors involved? Sometimes I have the distinct impression that it is the outcome of the very battle that created the conflict which determined the decision of the third party more or less. Most often, the AI would stick to the victor; similarly, I'm almost certain to remember occasions when an enemy's long-time ally to whom I recently allied went over to me the next turn. I may have been deceived, though.

Well, In the viking campaign, if I attack someone and win all the battles, some people decide not to stay with me, which puts out the "winning side" aspect...

[The Unknown Guy]

Only once have I arrived on a battlefield at the same time as an ally. When I was playing the Spanish and fought in Egypt, only to find the French there too. Against a massive Egyptian army, we successfully drove off the first wave, but instead of pushing the advantage, the French turned around and withdrew, leaving me helpless.
So much for allies!

Can I make a stereotypical joke about your French allies?

[Caerfanan]

Edited out. Was off topic and ill tempered

[Digital]

An incident happened to me which is funny to this date. I was playing as the Italians and was allied to the Hungarian. The Hungarian king had 3 crowns as Influence because he has been losing a few battles. Then he decides to invade me and lost. The next turn, his whole empire got into a civil war because he has lost his influence by invading me, his allies. So the AI actually punishes breaking of alliance. I think the crux here lies in the presence of a ringleader, a high command star, high dread, low loyalty general, who may be a prince or of royal blood. Once you lost influence by attacking an ally, the ringleader may attempt an uprising.

[Caerfanan]

An incident happened to me which is funny to this date. I was playing as the Italians and was allied to the Hungarian. The Hungarian king had 3 crowns as Influence because he has been losing a few battles. Then he decides to invade me and lost. The next turn, his whole empire got into a civil war because he has lost his influence by invading me, his allies. So the AI actually punishes breaking of alliance. I think the crux here lies in the presence of a ringleader, a high command star, high dread, low loyalty general, who may be a prince or of royal blood. Once you lost influence by attacking an ally, the ringleader may attempt an uprising.

Indeed. That's what happens. Another sutff. When your king dies having a son, your dead king brothers have an impressive drop on loyalty, which can lead to civil war. A pity they are usually good generals...