How to increase your reputation???

[rhoq]

I beileve the question is answered deeply elsewhere, here's the trick:
Keep your ally count at maximum and enemy count at minimum. Always target the bad boys (those with the bad reputation). As England I ally with all the France's surrounding factions. Sooner or later they attack me. I only defend until they're dubious, then crush them. In the end my rep is immaculate...

[Old Geezer]

Immaculate Reputation! Now there is a goal for my next campaign. I had very trustworthy once but then dropped like a rock when I recaptured a city that I had given away a hundred years ago. It doesn't seem to matter even if you give it back to the faction that you originally gave it to. (They really spent a lot of time developing and testing the diplomacy, didn't they.)

[medieval elephant]

I gave up on trying to get a good reputation about 10 turns into the game. Whenever I conquer settlements, my reputation drops like a fly, so I'm nearly always on despicable.

Oh yeah, and my love of assassination, sabotage and bribery doesn't help either.

[HANDsolo]

If you post something profound or humourous, there is a good chance that someone will +rep you

[Robo1992]

If you don't start wars or participate in wars (except for Jihads/Crusades) and are playing the more economical side of the game then you should always have at least amiable reputation with factions of the same religion.

[Clayton Gold]

Some things I find raise your reputation:

- Long wars with Islamic factions, if you are Catholic
- Releasing prisoners
- Keeping alliances
- Joining crusades

I've also noticed that protracted wars with any faction of the same religion will cause your rep. to go down with almost all (same religion) factions.

[Robo1992]

Some things I find raise your reputation:

- Long wars with Islamic factions, if you are Catholic
- Releasing prisoners
- Keeping alliances
- Joining crusades

I've also noticed that protracted wars with any faction of the same religion will cause your rep. to go down with almost all (same religion) factions.

Yeah and more of what he said...

[medieval elephant]

If you post something profound or humourous, there is a good chance that someone will +rep you

I think he meant reputation in-game.

[501st Legion]

screw being trustworthy.....i love being despicable......i crush all and dominate with no mercy. i don't even sack anymore....just exterminate and execute all.

Same here... especially with an idiotic AI with the likes of M2TW.

[jsktrogdor]

came here trying to clarify how reputation works, thanx all very helpfull posts, that being said....im sorry, i thought this was medieval: total war not medieval: lets all hold hands and hug fluffy kittens. I dont like this reputation system, I cant make alliances or ceasefires or even get map information from my allies because apparently im the medieval hilter? Ive never broken an alliance in fact, france, HRE, and milan all broke their alliance with me and im the bad guy just because i won?! so what if i tried to assasinate the pope, so what if i take pride in rounding up thousands of prisoners and executing them, so what if i like to enslave populations? Its medieval europe thats all pretty run of the mill. I wasnt aware the UN exsisted in 1080.

[Augustus Lucifer]

The reputation system is pretty much eternally flawed, because it tries to crudely represent a system similar to the one you see in Europa Univeralis III, except that the AI doesn't seem to be governed by it in any way, shape, or form. Mind you M2TW is a little better than RTW in terms of people randomly attacking you, it's still a despicably flawed system.

In short, just KILL, KILL, and KILL some more. Kicking ass and taking names is the only way to play.

Cheers,
Augustus

[Bob The Fearless]

Sometimes it can be pretty hard to be the nice guy, currently as England I have France seiging Caen nearly every other turn, Scotland is slowly getting stronger and the Portugese keep sending ships over and I have armies wondering and randomly seiging settlements.

Had enough now, gone on the offense against France and sent a fleet out to sink any Portugese ships heading north.

Sure Rep & Standing with the Pope has nose dived but I feel I do need to protect myself.

[Hazzy101]

I would gift factions small amounts of money and get trade rights alliance etc. If tht doesn't work then march a full stack to Rome and burn it to the ground.

[pwijnands]

Could somebody please give me a hint, how I could increase my reputation to
something positive like: "Trustworthy"????


I know......that one should never attack without declaring war first, stick to alliances.... don't wage war against friends of your allies...... stop the battle once end screen comes up and not continue to chase up the last stragglers..... always sell prisoners and not kill them..... don't use spies or assassins.... etc........

I am doing all of that and still my reputation is rock bottom and disgracefull.
Anybody has a good hint how to get it better???

Chasing after routers after the battle is over does not lower your reputation.
Using spies/assassins does not lower your reputation.

I always chase routers and use spies/assassins often while still maintaining an immaculate or very trustworthy reputation. My relationships with my allies are all good/very good without having to do anything for it.

Everytime this topic comes up these things get mentioned. How reputation works doesn't hold a lot of secrets as everyone can read up on it in it's text file (descr_faction_standing.txt).

It shows that the best way to get your reputation up to a good level is by releasing prisoners and occupying towns. Having alliances gives only marginal benefits to reputation.
Edit: I've seen several replies that gifting money to factions will increase your reputation, it doesn't. It only increases the relationship with the faction you gift the money to.

Bad things to do are sacking/exterminating and executing prisoners. The worst thing you can do is attack an ally. If you want to attack an ally, use a diplomat to break off the alliance first. You'll still get a reputation hit, but it won't be as big (system-wise reputation is a number between -1.0 and 1.0. Attacking an ally lowers it by a full point.)

I wrote an article on the TWC wiki about it a year back, but I can't find it anymore. It explained all the various triggers that deal with global reputation.

[Carl von Döbeln]

If you post something profound or humourous, there is a good chance that someone will +rep you

Haha

[pwijnands]

http://www.twcenter.net/wiki/Reputation-M2TW

I found the WIKI page. It governs all triggers that the original game uses (version 1.2/1.3 of an unmodded game).

[Carl von Döbeln]

yes:
Positive factors:

- Having an alliance with another faction. This will normalise your faction's reputation to 1.0 with a divisor of 400. Example: you start a new game, form an alliance and click end turn. The next turn your reputation will be 0.0025 points higher (the difference between target and current reputation is 1, divided by 400 gives 0.0025).

- Offering military assistance. This will raise your global reputation by 0.1 points. Note that this is not the same as offering to attack a faction through diplomacy (which reads as "military assistance against..." in-game) but means that you actually take part in a battle with an ally or a neutral faction (to which you have given military assistance).

- Releasing prisoners. Releasing any number of prisoners results in a rise in global reputation of 0.01 points. Releasing more then 80 prisoners gives an additional 0.025 points increase. Releasing prisoners is the best way to counter the drop in global reputation a war gives (more on that further down).

- Releasing enemy characters. Releasing a character raises global reputation by 0.025, regardless of the amount of characters released. Note that this has to be an actual general, it doesn't work with captured captains. Capturing an enemy character isn't particularly easy when there is only one character in the enemy army as they have very high morale.

- Occupying a settlement. Occupying raises your reputation by 0.05 points for each settlement you take and is an easy way of raising reputation early on in the game (because of few public order problems).

Negative factors:

- Being at war with another faction. This will normalise your faction's reputation to -1.0 with a divisor of 800. With a similar example to the alliance above: you start a game, declare a war and click end turn. The next turn your reputation will be 0.00125 points lower ( -1.0 / 800 ).

- Stealing back a settlement. This might be the case when you give away a settlement trough diplomacy and taking it back afterwards. It will lower your global reputation by -1.0 points.

- Nullifying an alliance through diplomacy. Cancelling an alliance this way drops your reputation by -0.1 points.

- Breaking a treaty. Breaking a treaty such as "trade rights" and "military access" lowers your reputation by -0.15 points.

- Bribing a settlement. Bribing a settlement (with your diplomat) lowers your reputation by -0.15 points.

- Attacking an ally. Backstabbing will lower your reputation by -0.5 points.

- Breaking an alliance. This seems to be when you have to chose between two allies when you go to war. It will lower your reputation by -0.1 points.

- Executing prisoners. Executing any number of prisoners lowers reputation by -0.01 points. Executing over 80 prisoners causes an additional drop of -0.025 points in reputation.

- Executing an enemy characters. Executing an enemy general that's been taken prisoner causes a drop of -0.025 points in reputation, regardless of the amount of characters.

- Sacking a settlement. Sacking causes a drop of -0.02 points in reputation. Sacking a settlement when a faction is still a horde causes a drop of -0.05 points.

- Exterminating a settlement. Exterminating causes a drop of -0.05 points in reputation.

[drakuli]

Correct. I noticed in my game I actively use spies and assasins to kill my foes, yet my reputation is still "very reliable". I believe it is due to I only have war with only one faction at one time, and at the shortest time as possible (e.g. I conquered Portugal in 4 turns about 10 turns after I finished Spain). And I tried not to have any agreement with the faction I want to attack.

[Double A]

Yeh, the only way methinks would be to get neutral (not neccesarily allied, unless they're a threat) with most factions and donate money to them. Don't use your assasins or spies either.

WTF Shakespeare?

and my answer to rep is join the Crusades. All the Christians will love you and the Muslims will hate you! It's a win-win situation! And don't break any alliances, let them do it. And don't be Hungary. That seems to help.

And you can use spies and assassins as much as you want, as long as they NEVER get caught (ever heard of saving before you use one?)

[pwijnands]

If you are at war with the faction you are spying/assassinating against, it doesn't matter if they get caught or not.
If you try to assassinate an allied character, your reputation will drop greatly (assassinating is an act of war when caught).