Reputation mechanics

[andrewt]

I'm playing as the Moors currently. I attacked Portugal and Spain and was still mixed. I attacked Sicily and from what I remember, I was either still mixed or became untrustworthy. Milan attacked me and I counterattack them and I became dubious. It's odd how counterattacking a nation that declared war on me dropped my rep larger than me declaring war.

[Whacker]

It's odd how counterattacking a nation that declared war on me dropped my rep larger than me declaring war.

Exactly. This is what leads me to believe something is very broken.

[Tran]

Here's what I would like to know:

- When you conquer the enemy factions' city, do you sack, exterminate, or simply occupy it?
- When you got prisoners, do you ransom them, execute them, or just release them?
- Who's the ally of the Pope?

[Whacker]

As requested:

- When you conquer the enemy factions' city, do you sack, exterminate, or simply occupy it?

Almost all occupy, 2 sacks.

I have however exterminated all rebel cities, but that has not impacted my reputation, and I've done that with non-general stacks so my generals do not pick up dread traits.

- When you got prisoners, do you ransom them, execute them, or just release them?

Release always, which I've only fought 2 non-siege battles against non-rebel factions. Both times released.

- Who's the ally of the Pope?

Is and has only been me.

[Tran]

Actually your case is rather odd because it's completely different than my experience. In my game as Sicily, I have fought battles (only) against Milan and Moors, and just like you, made alliance with the Pope. I always release prisoners and occupy cities, and at one point, even declare war against Milan (first when they invade my land, and then after a crusade being called against them) then took Genoa (even though the Crusade target was the city of Milan itself). So far, my reputation never dropped and in fact, has increased twice, from mixed to reliable (this happened before the Crusade), and then became "very reliable".

But I agree, it's odd indeed...

[Kobal2fr]

Nothing's broken.

Reputation is based on three things.

1) global standing

Each turn you spend allied with one faction gives you +0.01 rep points, while each turn you spend at war with someone gives you -0.03. Also, reputation is normalized towards Mixed every turn. Since you're at war with the rebels by default, you need to have at least 3 allies at all times just to maintain your reputation, and 4 to slooooowly climb the ladder.
Unsavory thing : the factions you destroy are still technically at war with you, even if they don't exist anymore. The only way to avoid this is to make peace with them when they're down to their last province and let them die to rebels and/or another faction.

2) general behavior

helping an ally in battle gives you good points.
Breaking alliances either through diplomacy or outright betrayal, cancelling trade rights or mil rights, sending armies through allied lands without asking for mil rights first, breaking ceasefires (a ceasefire guarantees 4 turns of peace, after that it's fair game), all of this will give you bad points in huge amounts.
I believe captured assassination attempts and spies also make you untrustworthy, and even more so if you tried to kill a royal.

3) behavior in battle
liberating prisonners makes you trustworthy, ransoming gives you a few bad points, killing them a lot.
Same goes for cities : occupy gives you good points, sacking gives a few bad points, genocide tanks your rep.

BTW, all the things that give "good points" give them in trace amounts, while pretty much everything you do wrong earns you a big fat load of mistrust.

I may have forgotten some stuff, but them's the breaks : don't be an ass, be allied with as many factions as you can at all times, make one war at a time.

EDIT : oh, and getting back to your specific case, well there's your problem : you have two wars in progress (and they still are even if you destroyed the offending factions), and no allies. So your rep goes down overtime.

[Whacker]

Frenchie with the save! Thank you my good friend, that is also what I was looking for.

Those mechanics in my view are 'broken'. My being a war with a faction, esp. one that initiated war with me, should have nothing to do with my trustworthiness. I still think the game needs to great trust and likeability as separate mechanics. /shrug

Oh well, by this logic I'll probably never become trustworthy again, so I'll just have to continue "roleplaying", even though the game doesn't recognize that.

Thanks to everyone else as well for your input.

[Seymour]

Nothing's broken.

Reputation is based on three things.

1) global standing

Each turn you spend allied with one faction gives you +0.01 rep points, while each turn you spend at war with someone gives you -0.03. Also, reputation is normalized towards Mixed every turn. Since you're at war with the rebels by default, you need to have at least 3 allies at all times just to maintain your reputation, and 4 to slooooowly climb the ladder.
Unsavory thing : the factions you destroy are still technically at war with you, even if they don't exist anymore. The only way to avoid this is to make peace with them when they're down to their last province and let them die to rebels and/or another faction.

2) general behavior

helping an ally in battle gives you good points.
Breaking alliances either through diplomacy or outright betrayal, cancelling trade rights or mil rights, sending armies through allied lands without asking for mil rights first, breaking ceasefires (a ceasefire guarantees 4 turns of peace, after that it's fair game), all of this will give you bad points in huge amounts.
I believe captured assassination attempts and spies also make you untrustworthy, and even more so if you tried to kill a royal.

3) behavior in battle
liberating prisonners makes you trustworthy, ransoming gives you a few bad points, killing them a lot.
Same goes for cities : occupy gives you good points, sacking gives a few bad points, genocide tanks your rep.

BTW, all the things that give "good points" give them in trace amounts, while pretty much everything you do wrong earns you a big fat load of mistrust.

I may have forgotten some stuff, but them's the breaks : don't be an ass, be allied with as many factions as you can at all times, make one war at a time.

EDIT : oh, and getting back to your specific case, well there's your problem : you have two wars in progress (and they still are even if you destroyed the offending factions), and no allies. So your rep goes down overtime.

If that's really how reputation is designed, then design itself is broken. It sounds like this is a system rigged to drag down your reputation no matter what.

[hisn00bness]

I rather have the problem with it that if the system truly works this way; it's pretty impossible that in my current game as russia on H/VH ; i'm STILL very reliable....

- I use spies ALOT.
- I 've sacked some cities; especially lately (krakow; thessalonica; constantinople) to avoid running into religious problems.
- My faction leader has 9 dread; and my heir 8 dread.
- I've eradicated the Polish
- I was only allied with the papacy; denmark and HRE; but since HRE and the papacy decided to backstab me; I've now only the Byzantine empire as ally..
- I ransom/ release at a 3/1 ratio

so errm .... If I read that list i've done almost everything wong except for comitting recidivist genocide.

I still get to make peacefires with the HRE for 15000 gold + stettin because my rep is so high though

[crpcarrot]

i think the system is wuite ok. it will not work only if u intend to make war with everyone and still want to be trustworthy which shouldnt happen . so it works. maybe not to your specifications or own preferences but i think it works as the developers intended. if u make war and have no attempt to maintain allies you arnt trustworthy.

[Matty]

and the higher your reputation the more people want to trade / make deals with you presumably, so the more you can extract from them?

[Husar]

Well, there is a certain problem, I currently play a spanish campaign and of course I started to fight the Moors. The French however were allied with them and declared war on me, despite my attemots to keep peace with them.
Now that the Moors are wiped off the map, the French still hate me and there is no way to get them into a peacefire agreement(probably because I'm still at war with the nonexistant Moors). The only way to stop their attacks was to capture Bordeaux and that other castle on the border and give them to the pope and to my ally Sicily(in exchange for military access).
I guess if I keep the war with France going, their other allies will also start hating me etc pp, you get a nice snowball effect of factions attacking you sooner or later, which is why the war status with dead factions should not count anymore at least 10 or 20 rounds after they have been exterminated.
The way it is now, I will never be at peqace with France and even if I can get a ceasefire, relations will go down very fast again until they declare war again. I even gave them a few presents over some rounds, but next round the relations were back to where I started and I couldn't afford much more than 2000 per round, I'm not that rich.

[dopp]

The higher your reputation the more likely your allies will honor their alliance (trusted ally) and the more you will be liked in general.

The diplomacy file also seems to contain reputation settings, but I'm not sure how to read them.

Diplomacy is sometimes really strange. I was at war with the Polish and winning easily. They kept trying to make peace with me (their priority was peace) but kept demanding 60k or more in exchange. They were bankrupt but still had a 'supreme' military rating. I tried initiating peace talks as well but they weren't interested; it kept coming up as 'demanding' and even when I tossed in a few regions and wads of cash to make it 'balanced' they rejected it outright every time.

I then decided to demand vassalage from them. To my surprise the simple vassalage agreement came up as 'balanced' and they accepted right away. I tried the same trick on the Hungarians and turned them into a protectorate as well. Strange.

[Whacker]

i think the system is wuite ok. it will not work only if u intend to make war with everyone and still want to be trustworthy which shouldnt happen . so it works. maybe not to your specifications or own preferences but i think it works as the developers intended. if u make war and have no attempt to maintain allies you arnt trustworthy.

That's my point though. *I* am not the one making war, they are. And MY rep takes a hit when I retaliate in full when they attack me first.

[crpcarrot]

when u say retaliate in full if u mean annihilate them by sacking and destroying the faction i think that should give u a bad reputation and make all other factions vary of you.

unfortunaely(or fortunately depending on your point of view) this is how the game is programmed it cant be changed unitll its remodelled. but for slow players like me it doesn't make much of a difference.

if some one attacks me i just take away his offensive capabilities and sue for peace. any territiories taken are given away to allies or given back to the original owner in return for vassalage.

once i've carved ou my niche i cant be botheres managing all those provinces.. i'm lazy

[Kobal2fr]

That's my point though. *I* am not the one making war, they are. And MY rep takes a hit when I retaliate in full when they attack me first.

Takes two belligerents to make a war :)
I think the rationale behind the mechanism is that if you let a war last for some time it means that you're willing to wage it, whereas a "good guy" will try to get ceasefires ASAP by any mean available, and only fight defensive wars (as far as I know, the Pope will not threaten to castrate you if your battles with christians are on your own soil for example)