MTW Diplomacy

Each faction has a diplomatic stance with the other factions in the game. This stance not only affects the military behavior between the factions, but can also have repercussions into the religious and economic factors of the campaign.

Diplomacy scroll

The Diplomacy scroll can be opened by clicking the diplomacy (handshaking) icon on the campaign map. The Diplomacy scroll will show the diplomatic stances for all factions remaining in the game. Starting with the player's faction at the top, it has large faction shields for all active factions, with smaller faction shields to the left (those allied with) and right (those at war with). This makes it possible for the player to know how all factions stand with respect to the others.

Faction Diplomacy States

• At War - fighting battle (land/sea), bribing a stack. no trade and sea zones are blocked
• Neutral - can trade, don't block sea zones
• Alliance - can trade, influence hit for backstabbing, influence bonus for siege relief, don't block sea zones

Conflicting Alliances

When two allies of a faction go to war with each other, the faction in the middle will have to make a choice and can only keep an alliance with one of them. The other faction will become neutral with the faction in the middle. This is a handy way of "breaking up" with a faction the player wants to invade without taking the influence hit of being a backstabber.

Diplomatic Proposals

• Emissary - Emissaries can propose both ceasefires and alliances. If dropped on another faction's princess, he can propose marriage to the princess for his leader/heir if both factions are catholic/orthodox. This will also lead to an alliance.
• Princess - Princesses can propose ceasefires and alliances. If the faction is Catholic or Orthodox, and has an unmarried leader or heir, the proposal becomes a marriage and the princess is removed from the game if successful.
• Religious Agents - Religious agents like Bishops and Alims can propose ceasefires or alliances.

Diplomacy and the Player

For the player, it becomes more and more difficult to become allied with other factions as the player's empire grows. Alliances really mean little to the AI factions, if they sense a weakness, they will attack. While marrying off a princess to another faction only secures an alliance for the player, there is a slim possibility of inheriting another faction's lands if the player's leader/heir has married a princess and that faction dies off.

Rebels

Since the rebels don't have a faction leader, diplomatic missions cannot negotiate with the rebel "faction". There is no way to form an alliance with the rebels, and the stance between the rebels and other factions start at neutral. If a faction attacks a rebel province, all the rebels will be at war with that faction. The only way to regain a neutral stance with the rebels is to break all contact (land and sea) with rebel provinces for a turn.