Very Unstrusworthy

[Guyrak]

I would like to know how I become a Very Unstrusworthy opponent. I mean, I never declare wars, never break alliances. Yet by the end of the game I am a Very Unstrusworthy foe, and diplomacy is damn hard. Could the fact that I always Execute prisoners have anything to do with it?

[Sheogorath]

I know how ya feel. I only declared war once in my Turks game and somehow got 'Very Untrustworthy' at the end of the day, even though the stupid Byzantines had already attacked me twice (once as their vassal, no less.)
Pretty soon that was followed up by a crusade, so I ended up with 'Abysmal' relations with all the Catholics, and Egypt was already attacking me...
So I just said, "Fine, screw the lot of you, I'll kill you all and create foot rests out of your skin."
And thats the story of how I invented the Ottoman.

[Durallan]

yes murdering your defenseless prisoners gives a bad world reptuation, you either gotta be a saint in this game or a devil, if you want to be trustworty, let the enemies troops go, not only do you get chivalrous bonuses but the next time you fight that army they will have less men, if you killed the lot of them the comp would replace them with fresh units.

[HoreTore]

Could the fact that I always Execute prisoners have anything to do with it?

Yes, that would be the entire reason. Think about it for a second, how can people trust you when you randomly execute people?

[Joshwa]

There should be certain circumstances in which its ok to murder prisoners and sack/exterminate settlements. For instance, if the enemy kills some of your prisoners, or betrays an alliance, or sacks/exterminates your settlements, you should be legitimately allowed to get some sweet sweet revenge!

[Milovan]

I had the same problem with Russia, but I executed prisoners very rarely and only when the captives were Muslims against whom the Pope had called a Crusade. This really shouldn't be a problem for the Catholics, so why the Hell do I have bad relations with every Catholic that is not my ally? I don't really have anything against Muslims, but they attacked me and I wanted to make a general with a Hatesmuslims trait so he's better at fighting them, as well as the invading Muslim hordes from Asia.

[HoreTore]

There should be certain circumstances in which its ok to murder prisoners and sack/exterminate settlements. For instance, if the enemy kills some of your prisoners, or betrays an alliance, or sacks/exterminates your settlements, you should be legitimately allowed to get some sweet sweet revenge!

Well, in a game setting fine, but this game tries to simulate history.... and things didn't work that way before. The code of chivalry shuns that kind of behaviour.

[Kobal2fr]

At the risk of repeating myself : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...ght=reputation

Joshwa : Errrm, so it's "turn the other cheek, unless the guy actually HIT you, in which case, headbutt the SOB" ? . Anyway, diplomacy doesn't work like that. You can see it in two ways : either your peer kings don't happen to know the minute details of your situation, and just heard "he's killed prisonners !" and are understandably appaled, or they know very well why you did it, but it gives them a perfect excuse to backstab you (or, in the case of some modern examples, they know you *didn't* do it, but still... you could have. )

[Askthepizzaguy]

I should hope so. Even if you had perfect relations with every other country, mass executions of prisoners makes the rest of the world view you as a genocidal Hitler, and rightly so.

Just because you are honest, that doesnt mean you aren't a ghastly, awful, soulless leader that no sane person should trust.

[Joshwa]

I should hope so. Even if you had perfect relations with every other country, mass executions of prisoners makes the rest of the world view you as a genocidal Hitler, and rightly so.

Just because you are honest, that doesnt mean you aren't a ghastly, awful, soulless leader that no sane person should trust.

Doesn't that describe pretty much every medieval leader though?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Doesn't that describe pretty much every medieval leader though?

That doesn't change people's perceptions of other leaders. Also, in medieval times there was harsh judgment of others and far less self-examination. Thus you could be an awful sinner by christian standards and still cheer the burning of witches and heretics.

And some medieval leaders were worse than others. Some were somewhat benevolent, others were merciless and cruel. By our standards, perhaps they were all pretty bad, but by the standards of the time, getting flogged was better than getting beheaded. Yay King George the Cruel! He who is far less cruel than his father, King John the Butcher!

[Askthepizzaguy]

There should be certain circumstances in which its ok to murder prisoners and sack/exterminate settlements. For instance, if the enemy kills some of your prisoners, or betrays an alliance, or sacks/exterminates your settlements, you should be legitimately allowed to get some sweet sweet revenge!

Right. So, if the leader of another nation betrays you, the men, women and children of that faction deserve to be butchered mercilessly. Let's get revenge on farmer John, his wife and five children who never harmed anyone.

That sure is sweet revenge all right.

[Durallan]

Right. So, if the leader of another nation betrays you, the men, women and children of that faction deserve to be butchered mercilessly. Let's get revenge on farmer John, his wife and five children who never harmed anyone.

That sure is sweet revenge all right.

I completely agree, however I have been a bastard at times when I have been upset at a faction....

[Milovan]

The code of chivalry shuns that kind of behaviour.

Kill them all, God will recognise His own...

Chivalry, yeah right... Anyone who didn't conform 100% with the Church's teachings was deemed worthy of the wrong side of the sword...

[Kobal2fr]

That's a gross oversimplification of history. Now, how did that BlackHawk Down quote go... ? Ah, yes : "Don't make the mistake of thinking that because I grew up without running water I am simple."

Same goes for medieval minds : just because they lived in a world where the tolerance for violence was higher than ours, don't make the mistake to believe they were all cruel and genocidal folks, or dimwits blinded by religion either.

Admitedly, chivalry as we know it is pretty much an invention of the Renaissance, but you don't have to adhere to some kind of Bushido to figure out the Golden Rule, do you ? After all, it's a matter or basic survival :/

[supadodo]

One of the most heinous reputation crashers the game throws at you is when your ally attacks another of your ally. You get demerits for breaking alliance so you are absolutely forced into this awful predicament. I remember once in my HRE campaigh, I allied with all my neighbours and when they started hitting on each other, I found my rep going from reliable to dubious within a few turns.

[Durallan]

I just thought I'd throw this into the mix, this is from the 1.2 descr_diplomacy.xml file

        <item name="declare_nullify_alliance">
            <cost	            modifier="1.0"/>
			<faction_standing   modifier="0.0"/>
			<global_standing    modifier="0.0"/>
        </item>
        <item name="declare_cancel_trade_rights">
            <cost	            modifier="1.0"/>
			<faction_standing   modifier="0.0"/>
			<global_standing    modifier="0.0"/>
        </item>
        <item name="declare_cancel_military_access">
            <cost	            modifier="1.0"/>
			<faction_standing   modifier="0.0"/>
			<global_standing    modifier="0.0"/>
        </item>

which means that cancelling an alliance, trade rights and military access has no effect on your standing whatsoever, which of course only makes it more confusing as to why global standing goes down...

[Kobal2fr]

I just thought I'd throw this into the mix, this is from the 1.2 descr_diplomacy.xml file

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

<item name="declare_nullify_alliance">
<cost modifier="1.0"/>
<faction_standing modifier="0.0"/>
<global_standing modifier="0.0"/>
</item>
<item name="declare_cancel_trade_rights">
<cost modifier="1.0"/>
<faction_standing modifier="0.0"/>
<global_standing modifier="0.0"/>
</item>
<item name="declare_cancel_military_access">
<cost modifier="1.0"/>
<faction_standing modifier="0.0"/>
<global_standing modifier="0.0"/>
</item>

which means that cancelling an alliance, trade rights and military access has no effect on your standing whatsoever, which of course only makes it more confusing as to why global standing goes down...

Wrong file, wrong deduction. This .xml deals with the weight of the different items in diplomatic negociations, and the influence your relationships and reputation have on it.

In essence, every possible diplomatic possibility has a base value, modified by your standing*standing modifier to this in the .xml and reputation*reputation modifier to this in the .xml (and probably a bunch of other, more hard-coded factors). The final florin value is what is checked against the AI side of the nego to acertain wether the terms are Balanced, Demanding, Generous etc...

In this case, the zeros means that your reputation and relationship with the given faction have no bearing on the price of the item "we will cancel alliance", which is pretty much a given since it's usually immediately applied and is not a "real" diplomacy option. It also means that when you use them in a threatening manner ("accept or we're not allied no more"), they won't be less intimidating to people who don't like you so much, nor will they have more weight if you're a generally nice bloke. And vice versa I mean, 0 is 0 both ways . Am I being clear here ?

descr_faction_standing.txt is the file you want to check out to understand how reputation works.


@supadodo : I *think* you only lose rep that way if you side with the attacking faction, in which case it may count as "Betrayal!" instead of merely "alliance in tatters" to the defending faction. It's hard to know for sure, but that's what I'm led to believe through experience. I think that's why AI factions most often leave the aggressor's side, whoever he is.

[Durallan]

Wrong file, wrong deduction. This .xml deals with the weight of the different items in diplomatic negociations, and the influence your relationships and reputation have on it.

In essence, every possible diplomatic possibility has a base value, modified by your standing*standing modifier to this in the .xml and reputation*reputation modifier to this in the .xml (and probably a bunch of other, more hard-coded factors). The final florin value is what is checked against the AI side of the nego to acertain wether the terms are Balanced, Demanding, Generous etc...

In this case, the zeros means that your reputation and relationship with the given faction have no bearing on the price of the item "we will cancel alliance", which is pretty much a given since it's usually immediately applied and is not a "real" diplomacy option. It also means that when you use them in a threatening manner ("accept or we're not allied no more"), they won't be less intimidating to people who don't like you so much, nor will they have more weight if you're a generally nice bloke. And vice versa I mean, 0 is 0 both ways . Am I being clear here ?

descr_faction_standing.txt is the file you want to check out to understand how reputation works.


@supadodo : I *think* you only lose rep that way if you side with the attacking faction, in which case it may count as "Betrayal!" instead of merely "alliance in tatters" to the defending faction. It's hard to know for sure, but that's what I'm led to believe through experience. I think that's why AI factions most often leave the aggressor's side, whoever he is.

thanks Kobal you are indeed correct, I didn't notice that file earlier, its quite interesting, and those actions do indeed have a negative impact on your global standing.

[Milovan]

That's a gross oversimplification of history. Now, how did that BlackHawk Down quote go... ? Ah, yes : "Don't make the mistake of thinking that because I grew up without running water I am simple."

Same goes for medieval minds : just because they lived in a world where the tolerance for violence was higher than ours, don't make the mistake to believe they were all cruel and genocidal folks, or dimwits blinded by religion either.

Admitedly, chivalry as we know it is pretty much an invention of the Renaissance, but you don't have to adhere to some kind of Bushido to figure out the Golden Rule, do you ? After all, it's a matter or basic survival :/

I never said they were all like that, but the guys running the show (monarchs) had to adhere to the word of the Pope, and the Crusaders were even worse... The Franks massacred Muslims and Richard's troops were not any better. If anyone showed chivalry in those days, it was Saladin. I never said that genocide was a daily routine, just that it wasn't a no-no if the targets were deemed heretics. It was a barbaric time and, like you said, chivalry came along in the renaissance when people remembered the ways of the ancient Greeks.

[Ulstan]

Chivalry, yeah right... Anyone who didn't conform 100% with the Church's teachings was deemed worthy of the wrong side of the sword...

I believe you are confusing chivalry and passivity.

Chivalry was not about 'not killing people'. The Renaissance concept of chivalry is very poorly understood today, due to our deplorably inept system of education.