should CA disable diplomacy altogether in ETW?

**Slaists** · 05-08-2009, 14:47

The way it stands now the player is the only faction that is able to make peace. If an AI factions declares a war on another AI faction: it's a 100-year war. By mid-game, pretty much everyone is at war with everyone else ruining AI economy to the point that in late mid game, the AI is bankrupt to do anything meaningful (read: fun) militarily.

So, should CA disable diplomacy altogether since they seem unable to implement it in a meaningful fashion? OK, maybe they should leave the trade part in, but that is heavily favoring the player now anyway.

Alternatively: the player should make a house rule NOT TO make peace with any AI enemies. That seems to be the only way to keep things reasonably challenging post mid-game (on VH vanilla).

**al Roumi** · 05-08-2009, 14:51

Just posted this in another thread (there are at least 4 discussing the AI at the moment).

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...60#post2232060

Assuming the faction AI is also trying to "win" the game and not just a passenger in the mix to trip the player up, I'd like to add an overarching priority for faction AIs to seek to meet their victory conditions: e.g. focus on prestige points or conquest of particular regions.

I'd rather factions didn't become lap-dogs, willing to do my every bidding and trade key techs or territories just because i had buttered them up. I'd prefer the factions to be as independant and strategically active as the player can be (within the boundaries of possibility of course).

I'd get rid of the overal "game" AI which has the tendency to trigger the suicidal DoW's form factions, only there to keep the player stretched. there should be a quid-pro-quo between inter-faction AI dealings, as much as there is between human and ai factions.

For that matter, I've never seen the factions make any alliances beyond those that they start with -the 1700's were full of incessant changes in the raports and alliance between countries -this should be reflected in the game.

I'd even (pause for effect) be happy with an ammount of scripted behaviour, which would dictate the various factions pursuing their own victory conditions, generating flashpoint regions & resources that would naturally engender conflict between factions.

**joe4iz** · 05-08-2009, 15:01

I wish they could "borrow" the AI diplomacy from the Civilization series. That would make things better.

I would like to see some of the smaller nations attempt to appease everyone or at least their allies. That would allow more blocks of smaller nations develop better relationships and possibly more diverse alliances. It would also make sense that certain nations would attempt to remain neutral to develop more trade and build their own infrastructure. If more nations had more diverse goals , that would help.

Right now, if you share a border with someone, they will declare war on you. So yes, I'd like to see them disable it if it can't be fixed.

**anweRU** · 05-08-2009, 15:08

We should not have DoWs simply because we share a border. We shouldn't have DoWs unless one of the factions is hostile to the other (but being hostile shouldn't automatically cause a war either).

If the AI wants one of our territories (necessary for its victory conditions), it should start with a trade offer. Pre-patch, the trade offers were non-sensensical, and stuck in an endless loop without a penalty for refusing. There should be a penalty for refusing (say -5 at easy, -20 at VH), so that when the relations hit a certain amount of hostility a DoW occurs. And only if the AI can prosecute the war.

I'm sick of wars which the AI can't prosecute, but declares anyway. Courland on UP for e.g. Or in my current GB campaign the Huron's DoW on me a couple of turns after capturing Montreal. Except that nothing has happened the past fifteen-twenty turns. The Huron's have only a few units, which they are using to defend their capital. I haven't even bothered to attack them...

**AussieGiant** · 05-08-2009, 16:29

Well it's being looked at in the next patch.

So, NO, it shouldn't be disabled.

**Fisherking** · 05-08-2009, 16:44

No not disabled!

It was behaving fine prepatch as far as agreements went.

Shear stupid aggression does not make a better game. We see what it has done to the diplomacy.

Some one need to find a way to strike a balance. Turn on the aggression once they are at war. Now friendlys are attacking…

**Veresov** · 05-08-2009, 16:58

I prefer to develop infrastructure and fight limited wars of expansion not this "against all flags" type diplomacy. I was able to do that to some extent as even with the poor diplomacy of RTW/MTW2, there were periods of peace. In Empire I am constantly at war with 2-3 factions even using the IS mod. The AI seem to revel in spamming small stacks that run around and devastate your country side forcing you to fight battles in a never ending cycle. Not much fun.