Making Peace?

[Ripken]

Ok, this is a pretty basic question, and one that I'm am sure has been asked and answered before, but still....

If there any way to pursuade another faction to make peace with you, aside from the whole no contact-auto ceasefire thing (which isn't very practical when you are fighting your neighbours)?

Playing GA I am finding that I often have no reason to be at war with someone once I've got what I want, but the other party will invariably reject all overtures of peace. As it is GA I would far rather be at peace and gain money through trade than just crush and conquer as I otherwise would do. But if I can't get them to make peace I can't make any money from them, and usually lose patience and crush them anyway.

That rather defeats the point of GA, but as far as I can see there is no way around it - even when they are massively weaker than you AI states seldom seem interested in peace.

Am I missing some trick here, or is it just one of those annoying things?

[I of the Storm]

I had the impression that having a few years of a state of war without actual combat helps. You know, sit it out a bit and then ask again. Training some troops meanwhile may be a good support for your proposal too.

[Agent Miles]

If you assassinate the ruler and all the royal family heirs of this small faction, then their provinces become rebel. If you are not at war with the rebel faction, then they will trade with you, if they have ports. Even if the faction reemerges, they won't be at war with you.

[Martok]

Also, don't forget that using a Bishop to propose a cease-fire is generally going to have a greater chance of success than using a regular Emissary. This is especially true if the Bishop has a few stars under his belt.

That said, in the end, the strategic AI can be rather short-sighted, and you may not be able to secure a peace with an enemy faction despite everything you do. This seems to be especially true when it comes to the AI recognizing the overall strategic situation vis-a-vis yourself.

[Caerfanan]

Ok, this is a pretty basic question, and one that I'm am sure has been asked and answered before, but still....

If there any way to pursuade another faction to make peace with you, aside from the whole no contact-auto ceasefire thing (which isn't very practical when you are fighting your neighbours)?

Playing GA I am finding that I often have no reason to be at war with someone once I've got what I want, but the other party will invariably reject all overtures of peace. As it is GA I would far rather be at peace and gain money through trade than just crush and conquer as I otherwise would do. But if I can't get them to make peace I can't make any money from them, and usually lose patience and crush them anyway.

That rather defeats the point of GA, but as far as I can see there is no way around it - even when they are massively weaker than you AI states seldom seem interested in peace.

Am I missing some trick here, or is it just one of those annoying things?

Well, you can fight your wars defensively (training very high valour troops meanwhile, btw) and send an emissary or a bishop every few years. As far as I have played, making peace is a not-so-rationnal-matter for the AI...

[ULC]

THEORY
To me it seems that the AI actually has a FORM of rational when deciding whether or not to accept a cease-fire. Number one is it's treasury: The lower it's treasury, the less likely it will seek peace. This sounds counter intuitive, but think about it this way. The computer is trying to fund it's war, money's tight, and it has few options, except to capture more territory. It realizes, however dimly, that a two front war could easily lead to a multifront war, which would cause it to stagnant simply trying to defend itself. You'll see this inaction when it's allied to all it's neighbors. So it decides to just stick with you and hope for the best. It also figures in what it can VISIBLY see of your forces, and thus bases its actions on said forces, even if they may be 1/5 of your overall available non-garrison forces. Third, it takes into account your own diplomatic finesse. It does this by the agent you use, the agent's experience, your past history of relations, length of time spent allied or neutral, and your influence. Based on all this information and its own flawed rational, it determines whether or not to accept.
THEORY

[Scurvy]

Often when attempting to gain a ceasfire the opposing ruler asks me to remove troops from border or be aggresive against other rival factions, or somesuch. if this is complied with is the chance of a ceasefire being accepted increased?

[Caerfanan]

THEORY
To me it seems that the AI actually has a FORM of rational when deciding whether or not to accept a cease-fire. Number one is it's treasury: The lower it's treasury, the less likely it will seek peace. This sounds counter intuitive, but think about it this way. The computer is trying to fund it's war, money's tight, and it has few options, except to capture more territory. It realizes, however dimly, that a two front war could easily lead to a multifront war, which would cause it to stagnant simply trying to defend itself. You'll see this inaction when it's allied to all it's neighbors. So it decides to just stick with you and hope for the best. It also figures in what it can VISIBLY see of your forces, and thus bases its actions on said forces, even if they may be 1/5 of your overall available non-garrison forces. Third, it takes into account your own diplomatic finesse. It does this by the agent you use, the agent's experience, your past history of relations, length of time spent allied or neutral, and your influence. Based on all this information and its own flawed rational, it determines whether or not to accept.
THEORY

Well, YourLandAndConqueror, I think that there is effectively a rational behavior behind the curtain, but that it doesn't make sense for mere mortals! For instance, when badly loosing, a faction will not necessarily seek at least a Truce. Your two points, money and visible troops are very interesting and must be important in the AI decision.

[Caerfanan]

Often when attempting to gain a ceasfire the opposing ruler asks me to remove troops from border or be aggresive against other rival factions, or somesuch. if this is complied with is the chance of a ceasefire being accepted increased?

I dont' know. during my VI campaigns I used to ask for an alliance evetry single year to the viks, and the answers given were varying a lot, while the overall situation not much. I'm wouldn't bet on this. I think, a bit as YLAC (tell me if that's OK for you to have your pseudo abreviated, YourLandAndConqueror!) said that there is several factors which have an influence, and that the message given just reminds you "randomly" one of the factors to look after...

[lord illingsworth]

Makes sense to me... obviously, a real opponent would not be happy about your past conquests, and would be holding grudges anyways. And normally, if after some conquest, you are sueing for peace, obviously you have something else to distract you which requires you to try to secure one flank while you are being attacked (or attacking) on another. But they want to see you fail, and so they don't give you a reprieve, hoping that once you are sufficiently distracted they can retake what they lost, or that you won't be able to manage a two-front war, etc.

[Noir]

I did a lot of playtesting of campaigns while making a home mod for MedMod IV - that is i played with factions giving all options to the AI other than moving around troops, and also handling over all factions to the AI and see what happens in the long run with "god mode".

My observations relative to peace acceptance is that the AI (in conquest mode) does not accept ceasefires when he smells a rat (that is you have huge stacks on the borders), when your conduct has been "suspicious" (backstabbings, multiple province invasions and generally being persistant in a war and trying to eradicate a faction and also IMO slaughtering prisoners). It seems that he will remain "suspicious" of an offender for some time - but if you let time pass (that can be 20/30 turns for neighbours) he will eventually accept a peace offering.

Some other times he seems almost cunning in the treaties he offers/makes - for example the Seljuks would immediatelly go for a ceasefire if i conquer Nicaea from them as the Byzantines in MedMod IV; that is only to conquer Georgia and Lesser Armenia, in order to boost their income and come after me at a later time with "sufficient" armies - this happened more than once.

The AI factions generally gather stacks in areas where enemy stacks are also concentrated - naturally - as they are afraid them being picked up as victims IMO instead of the originally intended "victim" IMO. Having huge stacks at the borber hinders chances of the AI accepting peace offerings (and some times he explicitly states so). I am sure that naval invasion potentials also come into this greatly - so sometimes the AI may be fearing something on the other side of the map - something that can't be directly seen. Other such factors are the AI's financies and what he is doing/what is happening in other fronts. For example the AI foes for what many players consider "suicide" attacks, that are easily explained if you see his financies (-30,000 flrns) - and even then he waits as long as its needed to ensure that he has the best success chances possible in that single one attack he's attmpting to get out of stagnation. In other cases he undergarissons the frontier with the player because he is battling another opponent that is draining him of troops.

What the AI can't do is the common for the human player "breakthrough" strategy, that is: concentrate all forces (other than the really just necessary) to a rich province of the neighbour/enemy to make sure you knock him out of the run. The AI is doing something similar, but will put lots of "prudence" into that - that is keep substantial garisson armies while doing the attack - this makes his attacks in such cases feel like "suicidal", when in fact it seems to me they are the very opposite (overconservative). This strategy is all the more easy for the player when the profits allow for plenty of armies in the field (multiple stacks in every province) and the absence of homelands for quick loss recovery (replensish armies/stacks).

It is essentially a form of rushing, that puts the human player on top from the very beginning if pursuited, and turns long term planning meaningless (as we all know there's little that can knock the player out of the game if he has say 12 -15 provinces in firm control in 50 turns). That's why i advocate less troops on the map at any time (ie less profit margin) and homelands and high province rebelliousness and slow to convert religiously povinces and no upgrades and low general starting stars - rushing is more hard then and long term planning strategies/systems of organisation and decisions to pursuit say a technology become meaningful as one depends on them (and so needs to protect them until they give him the egde that he is looking for) to win the game or even survive it.

In vanilla, the game evolves in 50-60 turns in a mega-war between superempires that is as unchallenging as it is tedious IMO. Armies win due to upgrades past 60-80 turns and eventually due to outclassing era-wise the opponents and the gap between "leaders" and "runner-ups" is getting progressively larger and larger as the game unfolds. I really dislike this type of gameplay - there is nothing more boring to have to gulp as many minor factions as i can in order to eventually compete with the 2 other similar super states that are forming somewhere at the same time. When i was getting successive messages of "faction elimination" i usually quit the game - it means that someone will pay me a visit with a bunch of jedi troops and the battle will be over upon touch either for or against me. Basically the challenge is then lost because the gap of the clashing odds is also dramatically made larger and meeting relatively equal strength armies on the field - armies made of humanoid sprites instead of terminator sprites that feel "nor fear nor pain" - is becoming a rarity after 60 turns. The game turns then into a competition of elite-unit-beating-a-lesser-elite-unit; tactics don't come near it as far as i can see, because match ups are unpredictable and distorted (units rout too early or not at all). This is why TW feels very boring past some point and why the opening stages are so nice and exciting. By keeping the game constantly into a late start-early mid game situation, the game can become enjoyable no matter the length. But i digress.

In GA mode contesting provinces (usually by neighbours) actually make for a different reasoning than domination i reckon. If the AI is the English - then there's little point for him to give peace to the player as the French - he's contesting provinces with him throughout the game. However i recall that factions that are not on a conquering streak and do not "care" for your "set" of GA home provinces will accept ceasefires quite quickly, generally speaking.

All in all - in MTW and STW the AI seems calculating more than reasonably his strategic position and also care for actual survival IMO - unlike in RTW (and M2 as well) that his attitude is really suicidal and generally less well tuned with the strategic situation in the game. Peace is definitely an option in MTW as far as i am concerned in the sense that it is possible to meaningfully achieve.

Many Thanks

Noir

[Caerfanan]

Makes sense to me... obviously, a real opponent would not be happy about your past conquests, and would be holding grudges anyways. And normally, if after some conquest, you are sueing for peace, obviously you have something else to distract you which requires you to try to secure one flank while you are being attacked (or attacking) on another. But they want to see you fail, and so they don't give you a reprieve, hoping that once you are sufficiently distracted they can retake what they lost, or that you won't be able to manage a two-front war, etc.

Yes, this makes sense, but in that case, the real opponent would accept the peace, and then would try to strike after having recovered, IMHO. When your troops are far away, on another front!

[lord illingsworth]

Not necessarily.... if you want a peace, obviously you aren't strong enough to keep attacking me, so i'm not going to lose much by staying at war with you. But you lose a lot... you can't neglect that flank at all, knowing that I'm just waiting for weakness to overrun you, which means you will be less effective against who else you are fighting against (you can't concentrate on them), which means you will get worn down, which only helps me. This isn't always true, but sometimes it is.

[Roark]

Another factor, which may seem obvious, is that a faction will almost never accept terms with you if you are holding one of their homelands.

The only exceptions I have ever seen are when the faction becomes embroiled in a two or three pronged war and is losing territory fast. It then seeks to make peace, regroup and attack you again as soon as it's treasury and armies are in a position to do so.

[Zathernon]

Ripken

If there any way to pursuade another faction to make peace with you, aside from the whole no contact-auto ceasefire thing (which isn't very practical when you are fighting your neighbours)?

Try to make alliances with your enemies future potential allies. If your enemy can see an alternative to war with you, he may take it. While most factions won't ally with a faction at war, some will send there own emmisaries to ask for an alliance.
If your enemy shares borders with three factions, you and an ally plus a neutral third, they may see the benefit to a peace with you.

Also if attacked and and you repulse the attack, immediatly send emmisaries to seek a ceasefire. It may have been just a rogue captian or a rogue ship attack. Also putting "Friendly\Good Defender" generals at your borders helps.
Or just wait until your King or their King dies.

Noir
[QUOTEIt is essentially a form of rushing, that puts the human player on top from the very beginning if pursuited, and turns long term planning meaningless (as we all know there's little that can knock the player out of the game if he has say 12 -15 provinces in firm control in 50 turns). That's why i advocate less troops on the map at any time (ie less profit margin) and homelands and high province rebelliousness and slow to convert religiously povinces and no upgrades and low general starting stars - rushing is more hard then and long term planning strategies/systems of organisation and decisions to pursuit say a technology become meaningful as one depends on them (and so needs to protect them until they give him the egde that he is looking for) to win the game or even survive it.
][/QUOTE]

I like the idea of the A.I. having a higher morale in 3D, but not them having more rebellions an Expert. While giving them more money to start with is easy, my other skills are nil. Though IMO some upgrades are absolutely necessary, +1 armour for spearmen and arbs, unless you are saying to start with no upgrades as in valour and command. And also not to get instant four stars MS generals.
It would be nice to make getting Valour more difficult for the human than the A.I.