Diplomacy is entirely broken

[Marquis of Roland]

Actually, they'll still declare war on you if you are allies. There are just some regions that certain factions take offense to other people owning. France will always attack anyone who owns Alsace-Lorraine. Spain will always attack whoever owns Gibraltar. And so on.

The AI also does not declare war more on the player than on other AI factions. Just look at the diplomacy window; most major factions are at war with more factions than you I wager.

The American Indians do attack British, Spanish, and Americans, but do not seem to attack the French. That makes sense historically, I guess. I do see a big Cherokee empire every once in awhile.

[FactionHeir]

YOu must be playing a different game then, because in none of my games, save RTI and where I was involved in getting the Natives to go to war with other factions by being an ally on either end, they never declared war on the other Euro nations holding colonies there (or the colonies themselves).

The only time there was some sort of war was Spain deciding to attack the Pueblo and then the Cherokee, but the Indians themselves never declared war. They do against the human player though.

Add to that, CA announced in the most recent patch that emerging factions are only at war with the human, not with AI, which suggests that really, its a human vs AI game rather than a free for all.

[Marquis of Roland]

Sorry, I misread your post Factionheir. I thought you meant if they attack the euro factions, not if they declare war I just know they do fight each other. How do you tell who initiates the DoW?

I agree that the game should give the AI certain advantages, the way things are now, the AI needs as much help as it can get, that doesn't mean the AI factions get together to formulate a master plan against the player though.

[FactionHeir]

Tells you in the war report at the start of turn.

[jsberry]

Actually, they'll still declare war on you if you are allies. There are just some regions that certain factions take offense to other people owning. France will always attack anyone who owns Alsace-Lorraine. Spain will always attack whoever owns Gibraltar. And so on.

.

That is one thing they did right. Do you have a list of such provinces?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

In my game the Native Americans declare war on AI Western factions. In my latest GB campaign they even declared war on each other. But of course they will DoW you when you share a border with them. As will do all the minor factions. But even the major factions declare war like madmen.

Spain started a war against me and lost Spain, Gibraltar and Portugal. Then I was able to sign a peace agreement. Several turns later they DoWed me again only to get rid of Naples and Sardinia. this left them with Lombardi. My standing with them was -934. The Spanish king must eaten English flesh for breakfast every morning. Since their hate was too much they declared war again and marched their army to wards Naples. Somehow they forgot that they were at war with Savoy as well. Bye bye Spain.

And I am at war with Poland for 70 years. We never fought a battle, but they wont sign a peace agreement.

[Fisherking]

I have to admit that it seems like AI vs. player and I think that is the root of the matter.

Since there is now the penalty for not honoring agreements the latest tactic seems to be a trade partner declares war on a protectorate. (the last one I had in a GB campaign was Sweden going to war with the 13 Colonies)

The tribes do go to war with other European factions however. The Cherokee are indiscriminate in their DoWs. The others do seem to concentrate on the player instead of AI factions from what I can see. My war with France was also over the Colonies, but they actually attacked and took some of them. Never mind that the let one rebel to become the US.

There is still the illogical behavior of blockaded ports not being cleared and trading partners seem to be top priorities for AI DoWs. I could have easily made a trade agreement with Denmark but did not just to see what happened. Denmark may be the only country in Europe who has not been at war with its neighbors. On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire has one of the strongest fleets in the game, but all their trade is blocked by a Polish Brig and they won’t clear the port. At least for another 10 or 20 turns. Still though, the DoWs do not seem to be quite as bad as in the past. I have managed to avoid most entanglements in Europe but I have one ally and no protectorates. Trade partners are dwindling and those actively trading is an ever shrinking commodity.

But this is only the first campaign with the new patch. I am not ready to condemn it across the board. But perhaps soon...

[Discoman]

I just started a campaign today as the U.S and I ended it in several hours because of how annoying it was getting. I'm not sure what the difficulty was because you're not allowed to pick it, but everyone, no matter what their allegiance was, declared war on me. Five turns in Britain declared war and invaded, and then the Iroquois, and then two turns later the Cherokee. Eventually I manage to recapture Boston and Maine from Britain and secure a peace settlement. I think things are about to turn until Spain, who was 'friendly' with me, declares war and takes Georgia and the Carolinas in one turn.

I ended it in frustration after Boston was taken by the Iroquois, who I couldn't get any peace settlement with. My economy starts off non-existent and it doesn't help that they revamped the economy system in 1.2 , so I was pretty much fated to lose.

[peacemaker]

after reading many of these posts, I can't help but think that "Total War" IS in the title of the game, so I don't have that big of a problem beign at war with so many natinos. In a Spanish campaign, though, by turn 5 I was allied with France, protector of New Spain, and at war with like 20 nations. Most of these were pirates and Native Americans, but still! It's kind of stupid and I really wish that some nations would go for peace when it's clear they're losing.

I think that one of the best solutions for this is to have nations tell you why they might be mad at you, and why they would potentionally declare war on you.

[Beskar]

peacemaker making a quip about its title in my Empire:Total War thread? Shame on you.

[Prodigal]

Regarding the OP, I've now tried 3 games as Prussia on h/h since the patch.

The first I played as a pre-patch game, spamming trade ships, & attacking poland. I gave that up pretty quick as the trade ships got wiped out & everyone declared war on me.

Second game, I stayed very quiet & simply built up home economy & troops in my two regions, by '21 I was allied with Poland against Austria, had not been attacked by courland on the smaller neighbours, Austria was wiped out, Poland & Prussia having pretty much divided it up. Felt like I'd been steamrollering though so started my current game.

Once again stayed quiet but allied with all the small countries to the west, this led to eventually to allying with Austria. Nobody randomly attacked me, I've got stable trade with the local regions & have just declared war on Poland. Currently I am at war with denmark, sweden, poland & courland. I've far more allies & than in a normal game & they're not acting weird, (sweden's an exception but I guess they want denmark).

So what's the point of all the above, well I'm not paying factions off, they're being reasonable & not going lemming, based on this I'm not sure where the problem is in the diplomacy in fact it seems like a great imrpovement.

[resonantblue]

Gotta add my weight here.

Last patch seemed better overall though one improvement they made that I definitely noticed in 1.3 is that when you make peace with someone it at least holds for more than 1 turn before they DoW you again.

I find if I want to make peace to keep a buffer I usually have to crush the faction I'm at war with and give all the territory I didn't want to take to another faction. Of course I can only do th is so many times before I run out of actions and end with total world domination.

1.2 was much better about the AI accepting peace deals and was far more historical. During the era when your army was thoroughly beaten peace was often made. Didn't need to take half of their territory for them to even consider it.

[Husar]

I'm now playing ping pong with marathas, they declare war on me but don't attack yet, in my turn i propose peace and they accept it, their attitude towards me is always "friendly", then, two or three turns later, they declare war again without starting any battle or raid, in my turn I propose peace and they accept, their attitude towards me is "friendly", then...

Happened three times now I think and so far it looks like I can keep doing that ad absurdum.

[Ordani]

Diplomacy is not "entirely broken" and it's important to make specific, qualified statements rather than blanket complaints. The DoWs are not random, they are in fact quite intentional and planned, but what they aren't is in the interest of the AI faction doing them OR a real threat to the player.

The real problem is that there is an entirely separate evaluation for when the AI declares war versus when it will engage in action against you, unlike the simpler model of say, Shogun, when you could expect any faction at war with you to probe your borders regularly. Because the "declare war" check is motivated by something entirely divorced from any analysis of the faction's interests, capabilities, and long term survival (the screw the player check), and because the AI can not manage itself well enough to have a real army in the field most of the time, the DoW doesn't mean anything.

This is further exacerbated by the AI highly weighting keeping a standing army to defend against any potential nearby threats, so the majority of their forces are confined to cities in indefinite stand-offs regardless of the state of belligerence, particularly along the Germanic frontiers where so many states border each other.

Fixing BOTH of those things would be great, but if they could fix at least one it would go a long way towards making the game more playable. Much like M, R, and M2, I expect however that most diplomatic functions will simply remain disabled.

[A Very Super Market]

Well iny my game as Venice, even though I've been admittedly expansionist, it's only against muslims and pirates, Austria (Who has undergone a revolution, as has Spain and the Ottomans) has declared war on me. We were long-term trading partners, with 3000 in bonuses from that relation, we both had "Very Friendly" relations with each other, and the bottom-line is, I wasn't doing anything remotely that would have been a danger to him.

War.

[Zenicetus]

I'm now playing ping pong with marathas, they declare war on me but don't attack yet, in my turn i propose peace and they accept it, their attitude towards me is always "friendly", then, two or three turns later, they declare war again without starting any battle or raid, in my turn I propose peace and they accept, their attitude towards me is "friendly", then...

Happened three times now I think and so far it looks like I can keep doing that ad absurdum.

What difficulty setting are you playing on?

This sounds like the programmed, constant deterioration of relations on H and VH setting that was in M2TW, absent bribery or something else to stop the slide. At M difficulty relations would stay static, at Easy they'd slowly keep improving. If you're playing at M or Easy, that blows the theory.

This could also be the targeted province effect, if you're sitting on a province the AI needs for a win condition. There are a lot of overlapping "gotta have it" provinces in this game, and the world starts in a more developed state than M2TW or RTW.