ARG! ATTACK me you worthless gits!!111

[Whacker]

OK Orgahs, time to help out cranky ol' uncle Whacker here.

I'm in the midst of restoring the Byzantine Empire to it's former glory, so far all of Greece is mine, and all but two provinces in the Anatolian peninsula are mine as well. The problem is, those two provinces are all that remains of those blasted Turks. I've been doing everything I possibly can for the past 10 or so turns to get them to attack me and they absolutely won't do it. I've tried just about everything short of a Braveheart-style display of my naughty bits, still nadda. Tried parking a single unit of peasants right outside their capital as a sacrificial bait, they avoid it like the plague. Tried parking multiple huge stacks around their capital and other city, and just in their territory in general.. They won't come near it. Tried sending varying armies of just about everything in between as well, they still avoid them. As of now, I have a single full combined arms stack that I plan on using to crush them both in a single turn as soon as they declare war on me, and it's hidden out of their view a good ways away. Could use some help here guys. The goal and bottom line is I want to induce the Turks to attack me first. Here are some details that can hopefully answer any questions ya'll might have in advance:

- I'm playing a customized version of the BigMap Extended mod. What I've done is essentially stripped it down so that it's just a map, and fiddled a bit with export_descr_units, e_d_buildings, descr_walls and descr_projectiles, and descr_char. Other than that, it's stock, haven't touched any other files like stuff that affects diplomacy, etc.

- My game is v1.02 patched and verified working.

- The Turks have Iconium and Caesarea, Iconium is their capital. I have them completely surrounded, and all of my surrounding cities are cities, not castles. My cities all have bare minimum weak garrisons.

- As of right now, I do not have any significant forces in the vicinity of those provinces. The one I do have prepared is well well well out of their visual range.

- The Turks have roughly 2-3 full stacks roaming around their areas, and they are sticking to the borders towards my cities which I hoped meant they will attack soon. 10 turns and nothing so far. They have not encroached on my territory at all.

- My standing with them is Abysmal (heh) and has been for quite a long time, at least 15+ turns. I have never had trade rights or an alliance with them ever, nor have I shared or bought map information. They will periodically try to get me to agree to trade rights, but I always refuse.

- Both the Turks and I are allied with Hungary, I have been allied longer. My standing with the Hungarians is "good", the Turk's and Hungarian's power is meager and mine is supreme. I think this is the major catch point. I did a save, and then went ahead and attacked the Turks just for giggles to see what would happen. Well, the Hungarians broke their alliance with me and went to neutral, and I proceeded to crush the turks into the fog of history. When I was done, I promptly sent an emissary to them to re-establish the alliance, it wasn't even an available option to offer. I'm not at war with anyone save the rebels (now that I finished the Turks), am allied with about 5 other nations, and none of my other allies are at war with the Hungarians, so I have no idea why it won't let me re-offer an alliance (bug?). For this reason, I do NOT want to attack the Turks first, I really really REALLY want to goad them into attacking me. Plus I'm trying to play a "reliable" game, where I only capture rebel provinces and buy territory from people, until they won't sell me any more, at which point I do whatever I can to undermine them indirectly, or get them to attack me first.

Thanks in advance guys!

[Shahed]

Is Hungary at war with anyone else ?

[Whacker]

Is Hungary at war with anyone else ?

It's about time you showed up!

OK, Hungary is allied with the HRE, Me, Russia, and the Turks. Enemies with Rebels. Vassals none.

I am allied with France, Venince, Sicily, Denmark, Hungary, Papal States. My enemies are Rebels. Vassals none.

[Furious Mental]

Attack them and if the Hungarians whine about it attack them.

[Kobal2fr]

Hmmm. Someone complaining the AI isn't at his throat or suicidal, that's gotta be a first, 'grats

Have you tried calling a crusade ? Since the Hungarians are catholics, they might join it, or at least stay allied with you in that event, especially if they're on the pope's good side. If they don't, some other catholic nation will rise to the task and with any luck, wipe the Turks out, changing the parameters of your equation.
EDIT : Gah, forgot you were playing Byzantium. NO CRUSADE FOR YOU ! Then you could try and bribe another of Hungary's allies into attacking the Turks, thus hopefully breaking their alliance (that is, assuming the "attack faction X" diplomacy option really works of course)

Mass assassination warfare could piss them off : it doesn't cause open war, but a few failures, especially on attempts on the King or his heir will usually tick the AI off, though of course if the Turks are vastly inferior to you militarywise, they might resort to cursing at you under their breath from the safety of their castles :]

You could also give the Turks a Trojan Province : a single region, perhaps in the shape of a huge rabbit, that would lie right in the middle of your empire (meaning it borders ONLY your lands, and has no seacoast). If the only possibility for them to expand from there is through you, they might just do so, plus the added income might jumpstart their economy and boost their confidence.

Another idea would be to give Hungary a MASSIVE boost to turn them into a superpower close to your own levels of power. That way the "underlings unite against bullies" trigger wouldn't kick in when you attack their ally, though of course you might get bitten on the feeding hand later on.

Or you could try and turn either the Turks (or Hungary) into your vassals somehow, using the techniques discussed in this thread, thus elegantly solving your quandary.


If all of that fails... well, there's still the naughty bits thing.

[Didz]

Sounds like you've tried all the obvious incitements to bait them, I'm surprised they haven't responded. I assume that you are playing the 'Long Campaign'.

In the 'Short Campaign' the Turks have the capture of Byzantium as one of their strategy goals and so I would have expected them to be quite easily duped into attacking if they thought it was vulnerable.

According to your opening post, they hate you, they ought to think your weak and vulnerable and you have consistently breached their national borders with your troops.

The only positive thing about your relationship with them is your mutual alliance with Hungary which might be valuable to them, particularly as it includes Russia on their northern border. It would be interesting to see if anything happens should you cancel your alliance with Hungary.

Failing that the only other incitement I can think of is sabotage, assassination and insurrection. Perhaps their sultan is just too dedicated to peace and needs to be replaced with someone more aggressive. likewise, flooding their lands with Orthodox missionaries might wake them up to the threat you pose.

Certainly in STW inciting a neighbour to violence was quite straight forward, but it seems they are getting more 'canny' now.

[Shahed]

I'd go with assassin spam on the King.

[Ciaran]

You´re indeed in a bad spot, the Turks are so weak compared to you, they won´t attack themselves, attacking and anihilating them will still keep them "alive" as far as diplomacy is concerned (i.e. their allies won´t ally with you, since for diplomacy mechanics you´re still at war with the Turks, even if they don´t exist on the map anymore). The only way in such a situation is what I call the "Visiting Comrades Incident": If the Turks are at war with one of your allies you can place a unit next to one of your allies. If the Turks attack your ally, your unit automatically lends aid, but the Turks are considered the attacker.

Another, rather drastic, method would be to reduce your military strength so much that the Turks are superior. That, however, will run the risk of having other factions attack you as well - as a matter of fact, it´s most likey that about everyone but the Turks will attack you, most likely your most trusted allies

[Shahed]

I'd do it, disband all my military, and donate all my cash every turn.

[Moah]

I'd so it, disband all my military, and donate all my cash every turn.

What a great strategy, i must try that

[Shahed]

:D

You'll find in 3 turns you can get everything back. You have'nt heard of my 1,000,000 FL/faction donation strategy ? Well it's obvious enough; you simply add 1M FL to every factions treasury in the first few turns and the game is a lot more interesting for a while. Then you have to add money again, but never for yourself.

Any progress Whacker ? I think they won't attack you unless you are far weaker. This illusion can only be achieved by disbanding everything and giving away all your money, you could give land too, but that's probably not necessary.

[Whacker]

Hmmm. Someone complaining the AI isn't at his throat or suicidal, that's gotta be a first, 'grats

Hey, I thought the mods were making a concerted effort to keep the riffraff out of here!

Mass assassination warfare could piss them off : it doesn't cause open war, but a few failures, especially on attempts on the King or his heir will usually tick the AI off, though of course if the Turks are vastly inferior to you militarywise, they might resort to cursing at you under their breath from the safety of their castles :]

You and a couple other guys suggested this, I'm going to go with it first. I haven't been using assassins because I'm trying to keep my guys as "Chivalrous" as possible, using assassins would definitely put a dent in that. I'd be much much MUCh more willing to take some dread points for my leader than I would to lose an ally that I've kept on good terms so far.

You could also give the Turks a Trojan Province : a single region, perhaps in the shape of a huge rabbit, that would lie right in the middle of your empire (meaning it borders ONLY your lands, and has no seacoast). If the only possibility for them to expand from there is through you, they might just do so, plus the added income might jumpstart their economy and boost their confidence.

Vee haf no hrabbit shape-ed provinces-ah! Honestly while possible I don't want to do this, I've pretty much landlocked and surrounded them completely. The goal at this point isn't go let them expand, it's to finish them off.

Another idea would be to give Hungary a MASSIVE boost to turn them into a superpower close to your own levels of power. That way the "underlings unite against bullies" trigger wouldn't kick in when you attack their ally, though of course you might get bitten on the feeding hand later on.

Hmmm... I don't want to do that, there's a decent balance between Hungary, Poland, and Venice right now, and they all have physical borders with me north of Greece. So far it's been peaceful, so I want to keep it that way. I AM going to try to boost their standing with me all the way up to perfect though first, and try that again. If it works, then problem solved. Good call.

Or you could try and turn either the Turks (or Hungary) into your vassals somehow, using the techniques discussed in this thread, thus elegantly solving your quandary.

I want BLOOD, not pets.

If all of that fails... well, there's still the naughty bits thing.

Now that I think about it', that'd probably backfire. If I did that it'd blind them, then they couldn't attack me even if they wanted to.

"Instead of a big dark blur I see a big purple blur!"

You´re indeed in a bad spot, the Turks are so weak compared to you, they won´t attack themselves, attacking and anihilating them will still keep them "alive" as far as diplomacy is concerned (i.e. their allies won´t ally with you, since for diplomacy mechanics you´re still at war with the Turks, even if they don´t exist on the map anymore). The only way in such a situation is what I call the "Visiting Comrades Incident": If the Turks are at war with one of your allies you can place a unit next to one of your allies. If the Turks attack your ally, your unit automatically lends aid, but the Turks are considered the attacker.

This would be a WONDERFUL idea, but as I said I've got them landlocked and surrounded. I'd have to lure one of my allies into the area, or goad them to attack, and THEN set it up. Not impossible, but definitely hard. Will keep it on my list of ideas.

Another, rather drastic, method would be to reduce your military strength so much that the Turks are superior. That, however, will run the risk of having other factions attack you as well - as a matter of fact, it´s most likey that about everyone but the Turks will attack you, most likely your most trusted allies

As you said it'd probably backfire miserably on me. For this reason, I have to eliminate this option. So far you guys have given me a few good ones to work with. If all else fails, I'll just go ahead and wipe the buzzards out and take the hit. It's really stalling my expansion efforts into the middle east and I need to get some closure here soon. I guess the worst possible outcome that'd happen if I attacked first is I lose the peaceful situation on my northern Greek front and have to stand up a stack or two to regularly patrol that area. Meh.

I'd go with assassin spam on the King.

Yep, gonna try this one first.

I'd do it, disband all my military, and donate all my cash every turn.

You my dear friend are nuts. It's honestly not impractical, but as I said above I can't really afford to do that here...

Thanks guys! Will report back with results.

[dopp]

Assassin spam may move the Turks to declare war, but the effect will be almost as bad as if you just moved up and whacked them (reputation will still plumment, allies desert you etc.). Just kill them off and cackle.

[rebelscum]

Mass assassination warfare could piss them off : it doesn't cause open war, but a few failures, especially on attempts on the King or his heir will usually tick the AI off

So does diplomacy failure. Try doing everything to piss them off, steal their merchants, assasinate their royalty, fill their boots with baked beans, shag their girlfreind/mother/sister/brother whatever takes your fancy. And if that still doesn't work. Then let the pussies get on with it and gop fight someone else. When you elast expect it they will come banging on your gates.

[Husar]

From my experience, the Turks are very peaceful in Medieval 2, they often get wiped out, don't really expand very aggressively and live in the region the Mongols and Timurids attack, so I've never ever seen a big turkish empire in my games.
Trying to assassinate their king will make them declare war, at least the Mongols did when I tried to kill their khan.

[Shahed]

dopp point taken. Assassin spam will probably be worse than attacking them, in the short run at least.

Husar yoiu just made me finally decide to try and script the factions better. I will do that.

Whacker how can disbanding your army backfire on you ? If you are able to produce the V-Tanks then .... the rest is history.

[FactionHeir]

The reason you cannot re-ally with Hungary is because M2TW is still bugged in terms of the FactionDestroyed event. It simply is not working. Thus you cannot ally with someone who was allied to your now dead enemy because the game doesn't trigger the alliance cancellation. The AI faction still thinks its allied to the dead faction and that it is alive.
You notice that when you make the ally of your dead foe your vassal, as you will get a ceasefire message with the dead faction.

Now to your problem.
Put a single general not right outside their walls but close. Then make sure all your surrounding regions have minimal defense. Note REGIONS, that is you cannot have a full stack parked inside one of those regions. Now go send your forces off to attack another foe and the Turks will come to life, because:
1. Your frontline balance is down the drain
2. You are at war with another faction (other than slave)
3. Your free army strength drops due to them fighting another faction.

You could also lower your production rating by not building more than half of what they are building. That also entices the AI to plan invasions. It does seriously hamper you though.

[Moah]

Whacker how can disbanding your army backfire on you ? If you are able to produce the V-Tanks then .... the rest is history.

But he's trying to keep his other allieances and peaceful Balkans isn't he?

Disbanding army will mean everyone attacks him...

[Didz]

Just out of interest what happened to the Mongols?

In my Russian campaign I discovered that Poland had relocated to Antioch, well out of reach of my armies despite the need to eliminate them to win. I waited in vain for for the Mongols and then the Timurids to finish them off on my behalf, but you might be lucky.

In the end what I did in my game was bribe one of their own generals, subsidize his civil war by hiring him as many mercenaries as I could find and then used him to besiege and incite their cities.

The problem is that I think bribing an enemy general is effectively treated as an act of war, so it would breach your conditions I think. The only other alternative would be to pay another faction to fight the Turks for you, but I've never had much luck with that strategy in the past.

In STW it was quite easy just to flood the enemy province with spies and cause a popular revolt. Effectively that turned the province Rebel and you could then attack it without consequences, but I don't think the insurrection approach works in MTW2. Or rather, I've never heard of anyone using it effectively.

[dopp]

Oh it works alright... Pop a few good spies in and whack all the public order buildings with assassins. I've killed several factions off that way, but this was all v1.1 stuff.

[Kobal2fr]

In STW it was quite easy just to flood the enemy province with spies and cause a popular revolt. Effectively that turned the province Rebel and you could then attack it without consequences, but I don't think the insurrection approach works in MTW2. Or rather, I've never heard of anyone using it effectively.

I'm pretty sure it could be achieved through a combination of priests (to cause some religious unrest if possible), spies (to create massive unrest) and assassins (to destroy law/happy buildings and off good governors), but with the present mission percentages being what they are, the toll on agents would be severe. I'm not sure that in the end it would cost less than an invasion, quite the opposite in fact - nevermind the fact that you'd have to invade the rebels later anyway

Then again, I remember my spies died in droves in MTW and STW too, what with border forts killing off at least one per turn... I might experiment with that in my future Venice campaign. Seems fitting

[Didz]

Oh it works alright... Pop a few good spies in and whack all the public order buildings with assassins. I've killed several factions off that way, but this was all v1.1 stuff.

Hmm! It’s strange then that I’ve never heard of anyone doing it in MTW2. It used to be a really popular tactic in STW, even with the auto-killing watch towers to contend with.

In fact, I once played (and won) an entire campaign using this tactic as my sole method of gaining territory. I called it ‘The War of the Shadows’ and the rule was that I was not allowed to declare war on anyone except the rebels.

So, every faction had to be eliminated by a combination of subversion, incitement and assassination.

I'm pretty sure it could be achieved through a combination of priests (to cause some religious unrest if possible), spies (to create massive unrest) and assassins (to destroy law/happy buildings and off good governors), but with the present mission percentages being what they are, the toll on agents would be severe.

I did actually attempt that against the Polish city of Antioch but no matter how many buildings I levelled and spies I sent in they never ever revolted. In the end I had to bribe one of their petty generals in order to form the nucleus of a revolutionary faction

Then again, I remember my spies died in droves in MTW and STW too, what with border forts killing off at least one per turn.

Yes, but they were expendable, and if you sent in groups of five or more at a time they usually completed the task before the losses became untenable.

Unfortunately, in MTW2 numbers don’t seem to make any difference because the biggest mortality risk occurs upon attempted execution of the task. So, whilst in STW you knew you would suffer the loss of one spy per turn, you also knew that the surviving spies stood a good chance of completing the mission. However, in MTW2 sending five agents to complete a mission with a 16% chance of success merely results in 5 dead agents.

And as we all know Geisha were extremely difficult, almost impossible, to kill, a bit like Inquisitors only capable of being targetted.

[dopp]

I find that it's even easier to do it in M2TW since religion builds bucketloads of unrest ('god squad' of 20+ Catholic Bishops = instant revolt). I've taken all the major Holy Land cities this way, including Jerusalem. Then again I take back that bit about destroying factions outright through pure revolt (I was whacking family members as well with spare assassins, since the AI loves to dump them unprotected in settlements).

[Didz]

Well as I say, I've never read of anyone doing it, and yet it was a common feature of discussion on the STW boards.

The impression I get is that the 'shadow wars' have been largely nerfed in MTW2. Certainly, assassins are pretty ineffectual, and I'm not aware of spies doing much other than spot and open city gates.

I would be interested in someone able to prove me wrong and showing that it is possible to beat another faction without using military force, but I won't hold my breath waiting.

[Husar]

The impression I get is that the 'shadow wars' have been largely nerfed in MTW2. Certainly, assassins are pretty ineffectual, and I'm not aware of spies doing much other than spot and open city gates.

I think they do cause some unrest, but only to a certain extent, more than three spies or so doesn't do anything anymore. Maybe a combination of assassination/building destruction, religious unrest and spies is now needed to make cities revolt, something like a combined agents army.

[Shahed]

But he's trying to keep his other allieances and peaceful Balkans isn't he?

Disbanding army will mean everyone attacks him...

doh ! Indeed. In that case it's not going to help. Sorry I mananged to miss that.

[Whacker]

doh ! Indeed. In that case it's not going to help. Sorry I mananged to miss that.

No worries, I did lay out a rather... stringent set of criteria here. I think it's worth noting what happens here for others who are trying to play the honorable-pseudo-passive-aggressive-pacifist kind of game.

I'll use this post to outline what my results were, and edit as needed.

1. Bumping Hungary up to perfect relations and attacking the Turks still results in them breaking the alliance with me. I should note at this point that Hungary's power is listed as "Supreme". Looks like this is bust. Update - I am guessing that they break alliance with me because they REALLY want to move into northern Greece. They've been repeatedly attempting to bribe my north border castles. So far I haven't seen any stacks wandering around my borders or in visual range, but it's obvious they want to expand against me, and the only thing stopping them presumably is the alliance which is holding.

2. Forcing their non-capital province to rebel - working on it, TBD. Looks like I'm not going to get this far. May attempt to determine later.

3. Assassin/spy spamming - Spy spamming doesn't cause them to declare war. Even when they caught/killed 3 of mine in a row. Assassin spamming doesn't work, per Factionhair and my bad memory. So far I HAVE been able to knock off about 3/4 of the remaining family/generals, and looks like I'll be able to eliminate them this way. Taken a TON of dread points doing it though. Meh.

4. Setting up a single general of mine in their territory, trying to lure them to attack it. Not working. They still avoid it. Per Factionhair I have to attack someone else. May try this if I get to it. TBD

5. Another idea I had. I'm going to surround their stacks with 8 units each of something lame, like town militia. TBD

[FactionHeir]

Using assassins and failing an assassination counts as you declaring war, not vice versa.

As I said, the general thing will only work if the other conditions are also met.

[Whacker]

Using assassins and failing an assassination counts as you declaring war, not vice versa.

As I said, the general thing will only work if the other conditions are also met.

Yep, forgot about the assassins and me declaring war bit... Updated my list. As for the general trick, I *might* declare war on Egypt, after I purchase 3 of their 4 provinces.

HAH! Egypt *just* declared war on me. Byzantine Bulldozer Crew mobilizing! Just two Turkish family members left!

[FactionHeir]

lol