Major reputation hit for destroying Baron alliance

[DVX BELLORVM]

Playing as England, I destroyed the Baron alliance (they sallied out from their only settlement, and lost). Next turn, my reputation dropped from mixed to despicable.

I'm sure you'll agree this is a huge drop, far greater than anything I've experienced before.

Throughout my campaign I played as the good guy, never executed prisoners, or sacked any settlement. I'm at war with Ireland and Scotland, and I did destroy the Welsh (without lowering my reputation rating).

Did the CA intentionally introduce this as a punishment for destroying basically your own (although rebelled) people? Or is it a bug

[WhiskeyGhost]

Did you start the war? or did they? What kind of tactics did you use to finish them? I've sometimes seen reputation hits for not besieging a town and instead just using spies/siege engines on a 1 turn attack. Then again, it could also just be one of those reputation hits from being an "aggressor" and taking my enemies towns.

[DVX BELLORVM]

Did you start the war? or did they?

I think that you (as England) are automatically at war with the Baron alliance as soon as they emerge. So I guess they started it

What kind of tactics did you use to finish them?

One of my towns rebelled and change side to Baron alliance. My former garrison besieged it, and after a few turns AI sallied and lost the battle. Since this was their only town, BA was destroyed. It was the only battle between us.

I'm aware that you loose reputation while at war, and for destroying a faction. But going from mixed to despicable in a single turn (that's a five levels down! - despicable is the lowest rank) seems too much for me...

[WhiskeyGhost]

No clue then, but it may have been because of the whole killing them quick thing i suppose. I took a really bad hit once as England in regular Med2, when i took all 4 of Scotland's territories all in the same turn, after declaring war. Just had a few siege engines in each army, and poof, one turn annihilation turned my trustworthy into dubious, even though the Scots had a horrible rep themselves (very untrustworthy) for all the attacks they did on me (they even got excommed like 3 times!)

then again, to be honest the reputation systems a bit wonky to begin with, since you gotta be a pacifist that dishes out tons of cash and stuff just to keep people happy. It's quite odd considering the enemy doesn't have to pay YOU to keep his reputation up

[TheLastPrivate]

When you destroy a faction,by your own hands, your reputation goes down.

[Whacker]

Yep, unless they fixed it in Kingdoms, it's probably still bugged/broken. By bugged, if a faction is eliminated that you are at war with, you'll take a penalty to your rep for being at war every turn until the end of the game, even though they no longer exist. By broken, the game A> penalizes you for being at war, even if you didn't start it, and B> penalizes you for taking out another faction that started a war with you. Sorry, but if someone else starts a war, then you should be free to retaliate and grind them into dust. You didn't start it after all, they did, and all's fair in love and war.

[DVX BELLORVM]

Everything you've said is correct, but still you are missing the point.

Let me give you an example from my previous vanilla campaign. I played the Turks for about 200 turns, I was at war with all my neibourghs and most of the catholic factions, destroying 3-4 factions. I had a death squad of assassins killing everybody who crossed their path. And yet my reputation never dropped below Very untrustworthy.

And now, after 34 turns of England campaign in Kingdoms, I'm Despicable (the lowest rank). See the difference?

Both campaigns are played on medium campaign settings (VH battle)

[TheLastPrivate]

Hmm I'm thinking because with the m2tw grand campaign attacking your religious enemies actually gave you better reputation, and attacking your own religion compromised reputation?

And in your case you just butcherd a whole lot of catholics so that could be it. But it is pretty extreme, the drop rate...even assuming all the worst possible International relations cases.

[Moah]

Guess it's because you butchered your own city and people: Culturally they would all have been English. It's because you are so eeevil you even slaughter your own! What will you do to us? Oh waily waily gnashing of teeth - don't trust the butcher of berkshire!

etc

[alpaca]

It could be that the game treats this as the "stole back settlement" transgression. That's the only thing I know from vanilla that would drop your GS (global standing) down by a huge amount, i.e. -1.0 on a scale from -1 to +1

If that's the case and CA didn't include this intentionally (which I doubt since the Baron's Alliance are supposed to be rebels, aren't they?) I think we can call it a bug.

You might want to try waiting a few turns after they rebelled or using another army for the task and see if it happens again (assuming you have a save-game)

[DVX BELLORVM]

Alpaca, I tried as you suggested. I waited a few turns, and let another city rebell into the Baron alliance. I recaptured it, and my rep went from Mixed to dubious.

Then I recaptured the other city, BA's last, and went from dubious to despicable.

So this time the reputation hits were not as extreme as the first time, but still they are huge.

[Gorm]

Guess it's because you butchered your own city and people: Culturally they would all have been English. It's because you are so eeevil you even slaughter your own! What will you do to us? Oh waily waily gnashing of teeth - don't trust the butcher of berkshire!

etc

This seems like the most likely explanation. So, if you try to win the game by defeating the "foreign" enemies, you won't take a reputation hit. But, killing your own people, especially NOBLES, is heinous. Perhaps there is a way of sending a diplomat to the nobles and resolve things peacefully?

[DVX BELLORVM]

This seems like the most likely explanation. So, if you try to win the game by defeating the "foreign" enemies, you won't take a reputation hit. But, killing your own people, especially NOBLES, is heinous. Perhaps there is a way of sending a diplomat to the nobles and resolve things peacefully?

That was my guess, too.

Anyway, I won't let my low rep bother me, since there's not much room for diplomacy on British Isles. The political situation is rather straithforward: me and my Norwegian ally are at war with the Scots and Irish, who are also allied

[sapi]

It could be that the game treats this as the "stole back settlement" transgression. That's the only thing I know from vanilla that would drop your GS (global standing) down by a huge amount, i.e. -1.0 on a scale from -1 to +1

If that's the case and CA didn't include this intentionally (which I doubt since the Baron's Alliance are supposed to be rebels, aren't they?) I think we can call it a bug.

You might want to try waiting a few turns after they rebelled or using another army for the task and see if it happens again (assuming you have a save-game)

Are there any ways they could have scripted the transfer of the settlment that would not be treated as a diplomatic gift by the AI?

I think you may have hit on it here...

[alpaca]

Are there any ways they could have scripted the transfer of the settlment that would not be treated as a diplomatic gift by the AI?

I think you may have hit on it here...

Well I don't think the command CA used to script the BA was understood yet, but it seems the code that actually changes ownership is in the exe (hardcoded) - therefore I don't know how they did it.
If they just hooked into existing code, there's the two options of a gift or a rebellion - the second would be closer to what happens in my opinion; I don't know what happens when you normally steal back a settlement tbh (i.e. if waiting in fact makes the extra penalty go away after some time)

[Slaists]

well, why would you care about reputation in the English campaign? there not too many factions around and the ones around will be at your throat anyway. just crush them! who cares what they think :)