A comprehensive guide to Medieval 2 Total War Diplomacy

[painter]

Here is a timeline of some events on the mainland:

Turn 1:

Laurence Bidell met King Philip at Paris and bought Angers from France, paying 220 florins for 20 turns.

Turn 2:

Took Rennes from rebels.

Turn 4:

Took Bordeaux from rebels.
Laurence Bidell met Princess Constance while en route to Rome and made a marriage alliance with France and bought Toulouse from France, paying 750 florins for 20 turns.
[Discovered via toggle_fow] At the end of the turn, Sicily redirected their fleet with a large army from Palermo.

Turn 5:

[Discovered via toggle_fow] At the end of the turn, Sicily sent some reinforcements from Palermo.

Turn 7:

Took Dijon from rebels.
At the end of the turn, Sicily landed a family member with a force two times larger than my garrison at Toulouse.

Turn 8:

At the end of the turn, Sicily sent some reinforcements and laid siege to Toulouse.

Turn 9:

At the end of the turn, Sicily attacked Toulouse. The balance of power was 1:2, in favour of Sicily. Robert lead the defenders to a heroic victory, slewed 70%, captured 22% and the remainder escaped. The prisoners were released.

Turn 10:

Sent a risky expedition from Toulouse to take Zaragoza.
At the end of the turn, Sicily returned with the remnants of the original army.
[Discovered via toggle_fow] Moors set out a fleet with a four unit army from Marrakesh to Toulouse.

Turn 11:

At the end of the turn, Sicily laid siege to Toulouse again.

Turn 12:

The pope excommunicated Sicily.
Because my garrison was stronger, 3:2, Sicily wasn't going to attack any time soon. Sallied out and routed them. Prisoners were released.

Turn 13:

Took Zaragoza to accomplish a council of nobles mission.
[Moors, Portugal, Spain: No allies, no enemies. Sicily: At war with England.]

Turn 14:

Laid siege to Pamplona, Portugal with units from Zaragoza. Pamplona was weakly garrisoned and Portugal has been playing border games with England at Bordeaux.
[Moors: No allies, no enemies. Portugal: At war with England and Spain. Sicily: At war with England. Spain: At war with Portugal.]
At the end of the turn, Moors landed their army from Marrakesh.

Turn 17:

[Moors: No allies, no enemies. Portugal: At war with Spain. Sicily: At war with England. Spain: At war with Portugal.]
At the end of the turn, Portugal asked for a ceasefire, which was granted. Moors finally lays siege to Toulouse.

Unfortunately I have not been keeping historical notes of events and it takes time to piece the events together again, but I think I've already covered the basics and it is already a large chunk of data.

My point was that Sicily sent not a warning shot but a conquering army the moment I purchased Toulouse from France. And then apparently the Moors decided to show up when I chased the Sicilians off my lawn. And all this while Milan and the HRE were not participants although both our relations were "Very Poor" by turn 18; France had taken Metz and Bern remained in rebel hands.

The actions of Sicily and Moors don't make much sense to me considering the distance and how early they chose to set out their expeditions. Perhaps they were concerned about how quickly I was expanding, but then neighbouring kingdoms like Portugal, Spain and the HRE should be even more concerned.

Also, up until turn 55, nobody chose to blockade my ports, despite being at war with so many nations and my visible lack of ships to chase off any blockades.

[FootSoldier]

First I want to offer some indirect evidence that Claudius2007 is broadly right to divide the factions according to type, e.g. Hawk or Dove. However, the evidence suggests that it's more complicated than that, and that there will probably be a number of modifiers, including economic ones, to faction behaviour in game. I say indirect evidence because the it's from M1TW.

Personality Type

In the units file ("CRUSADERS_UNIT_PROD11.TXT". Opened as an xls it is column M) there was a column called "Unit choices (AI), Personality Label + integer". I'll list them from the file:

Personality Type

CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST
CATHOLIC_NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST
CATHOLIC_TRADER
CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER
CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST_CRUSADER
CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER
POPE
CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE
CATHOLIC_ISOLATIONIST
ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE
ORTHODOX_EXPANSIONIST
ORTHODOX_STAGNANT
MUSLIM_PEACEFUL
MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST
MUSLIM_DEVOUT
BARBARIAN_RAIDER
REBELS
POVERTY_STRICKEN
DESPERATE_DEFENCE
CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT

I don't know how these were carried through to M2TW, but my experience of the game shows me they were. M1TW is obviously a development from STW, where some factions were aggressive and others defensive. Moving forward, in M2TW it's obviously safer to be sitting next to Poland than next to Milan, and we all know who makes the more reliable ally.

Once you saw this list it was easy to see the personality type of the factions. There were complications - M1TW had differences in that you could start a campaign in Early in 1080?, High/(Middle) in 1205, and Late in 1320. The Danes were Isolationist in Early (they never did a single thing, not even if you took Stockholm(Sweden) or Oslo (Norway), and left your provinces empty of garrisons around them). In High/Middle they were Defensive, and in Late they were Expansionist. The Byzantine started Expansionist, were Defensive in the Middle period, and Stagnant in the Late period. This broadly matches history.

Also, now any catholic faction can crusade, while in M1TW those that didn't crusade historically couldn't crusade in the game, e.g. the Danes. So, I guess that modifier has been dropped.

The inclusion of economic condition (Poverty stricken etc.) suggests to me that the personality type can be modified in game, depending on the circumstances of the faction. I can't see a faction beginning as Poverty Stricken - they have their start money, like the player.

This didn't mean that Defensive factions wouldn't attack you. They would. Which brings me to what I believe is the second key factor - the territories that the player takes. Allied to this is the principle of maintaining the balance of power.

I'll save that for another post, it being late, and all ^^

**************************************************************************

painter - thanks for the detailed post. I agree that it doesn't seem that logical that Sicily and the Moors should send large armies such a distance.

Curiously, though, there is historical support for this action. Both the Normans and the Arabs/Saracens/Moors maintained bases in Provence at various points, though earlier than the game period. From Toulouse to Marseilles was a battlefield between the Franks and Moors/Arabs for 200 years. At one point the locals rebelled against Charles Martel, and requested Arab assistance - which was granted.

Later, in the 800's the Normans had a base in the Camargue. Marseilles was captured by Arab pirates and sacked, and Byzantine pirates attacked it too. Later again, in the 900's, the Saracens, as they were then known, established a fortress at Fraxinet, and conquered quite a large area of Provence. Arab/Moorish pirates regularly raided the coast.

To do this they arrived directly by ship, bypassing Spain.

Wikipedia is a wonderful thing :d

[Lennert]

Allright, here's an update. I will try your method to display the diplomatic situation:

I will only mention factions that I'm currently interacting with.

Turn 38

Milan
Rep: Reliable
Allies: Papal states, Spain, England, Hungary
Enemies: Venice, Sicily(yes, they're back!)

Actions since last post:Milan has taken Bern and has besieged Dijon and Tunis (Hell yeah)

Spain
Rep: Mixed
Allies: Milan, England
Enemies: France..
Relations: Good, Trade rights, they have military access
Actions since last post: Spain has gone to war!

England
Rep: Mixed
Allies: Milan, Spain
Enemies: France, Denmark, Schotland
Relations: Very good, trade rights, they have military access
Actions since last post: England has started a war with France

Papal states
Rep: Mixed
Allies: Milan
Enemies: none
Relations: Very good, trade rights, they have military access

Hungary
Rep: Mixed
Allies: Milan
Enemies: Venice
Relations: Very good, trade rights

Venice
Rep: Mixed
Allies: Turks, Poland
Enemies: HRE, Milan, Hungary
Relations: Abysmal

Sicily
Rep: Mixed
Allies: (poor Sicily )
Enemies:Milan
Relations:Abysmal
Actions since last post: Sicily did not take tunis but has besieged Cagliari! they're in for a real treat now..

HRE
Rep: Untrustworthy
Allies: France
Enemies: Venice, Denmark, Poland
Relations: So-so, trade rights
Actions since last post: Pulled their buttocks back out of Bern, bloody right they did!

Moors
Rep: Mixed
Allies: none
Enemies: Portugal
Relations: Terrible, trade rights(yeah i don't know why I did that..)

Byz
Rep: Mixed
Allies: Egypt
Enemies: Turks
Relations: Terrible, trade rights(they made me an offer I couldn't refuse)

Portugal
Rep: Mixed
Allies: none
Enemies: Moors
Relations: So-so, trade rights


That's it! phew I don't know if I can do that everytime, it's a lot of work!

So, HRE didn't take Bern, France didn't take Dijon and Sicily didn't take Tunis.. So, now I did.
I know it must seem like I went all warmongering hawk these last turns but c'mon I've only taken one settlement that actually belonged to another faction and did it through a crusade. And I'm playing MILAN, for crying out loud, I'm entitled to at least a little bit of hawkishness.

So much for turtling, Footsoldier Don't get me wrong, I've made it a personal goal to give Budapest back to my ally, but Venice has it heavily garrisoned and I lack the military strength to make it happen at this instant.

My next moves will be to repell Sicily from Cagliari, hoping they will get excommed so I can take Palermo and Napels aswell which are both nearly undefended. If I do, I will gift Napels to the papal states to boost my relations with them. Then ofcourse, I still have to actually take Dijon and Tunis.

Things on my "to do" list of which I do not yet know the order in which I will perform them:

-Help Hungary defeat Venice
-Help Spain and England fight France
-Taking on the Moors and gifting their lands to Spain.

Other things are to uncertain at this point!

Screens:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[FootSoldier]

Heh, you're right. There's too much work to document it all. Highlights will do - that for painter too

I'm looking forward to more. Glad you're gonna restore the Hungarians :d

Keep posting!

[Lennert]

Allright, a lot has happened in my campaign and if I don't post an update now I'm going to forget stuff

I've taken Dijon and Tunis, there haven't been any direct reactions to these acts so far though. The HRE blockaded my Venetian port a couple of turns after, but that seemed more like a reminder that I should start boasting a fleet in the adriatic. When I proposed a ceasefire they replied with "very generous" So I'm fine there, for now.

After that I repelled sicilian army at Cagliari and started my final campaign against Sicily. I didn't overestimate them, all I took overseas was my faction heir and 3 units of mailed knights. But that was just enough:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So, now I own Palermo and Napels aswell. I had planned to give Napels to the papacy but I decided that if I could get the pope happy enough to enable me to commision a crusade against Budapest without doing so, I wouldn't.. I promised the pope to provide assistance against Venice (dôh), gave him a tribute of 495 flrins for 50 turns, my map info, and my full available budget (495 ;D ). The next turn I managed to get the crusade and joined it, boosting my relations with the pope to perfect, after all.

Portugal asked for an alliance.. This has put me in a dilemma since Spain hasn't been the best ally uptill now, while Portugal is awsome. Portugal started a war against the Moors, Spain has allied with them !? Portugal actually initiated diplomatic relations with me and offered me alliance, trade rights and their map info, Spain has done nothing since we became allies. I don't really know what to do here, the rep penalty for breaking an alliance isn't insignificant but I would really like to switch to Portugal here.. I rejected Portugals first attempt, but this isn't the end of this matter.

Then the crusade against Budapest. I've promised to provide assistance against Venice to both the Papal states and Hungary before I started the campaign. I took Budapest without much trouble, repaired it's walls and gave it back to Hungary in return for military access. This brought my relations with them to outstanding, which is nice. I immediately promised to provide assistance against Venice again and sent my army towards Zagreb, which I also have a mission for from the counsel. I've also blockaded Ragusa's port. Poor Venice, they must really regret attacking Milan now!

England is such an awsome ally in this campaign. They are definitely hawkish, but in a way that I like! They got themselves excommed though, but France is excommed aswell and England has asked me for assistance against them, together with my map info, in return for 1000 florins (lol). Well, what more invitation do I need to finally take Marseille hmm? I'll gift the pope assistance against france and see what he says.. it's probably fine since I have 10 crosses and France nada..

The Byz and Moors are both showing interest in Cagliari again, they haven't attacked yet but the Byz have an army next to it and the Moors have a ship with army near the island too. I'll see if I can increase my garrison there enough to prevent this in the future.

My campaign is actually going very well. No backstabbing yet! (fingers crossed)

I'll keep you posted!

[FootSoldier]

I'm still stunned by painter's diplomatic successes in buying all that territory from France from the start, and that they didn't seem to mind that he took Rennes and Bordeaux. In my experience the Portuguese have an eye on Bordeaux, and both the Portuguese and Spanish have their eyes on Zaragoza. Maybe the AI figures you have to fight someone, and threw the Moors and Sicily into the mix :d

Lennert - the Milanese seem unstoppable at this point, and definitely the ally of choice for other factions.

The game is throwing up dilemmas with Portugal wanting to ally. Can you not ally with them and keep the Spanish alliance? If say you get into war with the Moors then it's up to Spain to break the alliance?

[painter]

I have pretty much mapped out most of my first four turns in things to do as England that will allow me to take Angers, Rennes, Bordeaux and Toulouse without cheating in any manner. The only variable is if the France can take Bordeaux before I can. If they do, I don't know if I can buy Toulouse and I would have to cheat by using the save and reload trick until they fail to take Bordeaux.

Regarding Portugal and Spain, you could ask Spain what they think of breaking the alliance. If I ask the Papal States if they would like to break our alliance, they think it was a "Very Generous" offer. I did suffer a drop in reputation when testing it however.

[Gerard-de-Duivel]

Hello Members,

sorry, I made a mistake, one post after this one you can find my academic work in total...

I am German, so I prefer to play the HRE. In the beginning, I had no idea about diplomacy. It worked this way: make treaties with nearly everyone in hope, they will not attack me. This prooved to be wrong. In general, sooner or later everyone attacks the HRE - so please, dont tell me, that France, Poland, Hungary and the Byzanthines are doves...

Later I used this strategy, "sell" the trade treaty, map informations and alliances (in some cases offer for war supportment against the rebels - for example) to every country for the most possible money. I need this money urgently to build up a powerfull HRE. After this moneyshot the alliances broke with the time, so I forgot about diplomacy as a real working method, useful for anything.

Now I have enhanced the methods of this money making machine:

1) make an alliance with everybody possible and get 500 - 800 Guldes/Florines of every partner for the war supportment against rebels. This is totally between 4000 - 7000 cash/year. If there is a small rebel party in your country, you can push it with a stronger army of you and this attack counts as fullfillmet of the treaty! The next year, you push them again...

2) If you are in war with another fraction, you can get 400 Guldes/Florines additionally from every allied that is not bankrupt. Is this enough money for your game?

3) It is possible to totally avoid war: nearly getting heaven on earth. You just need Zeus´s thunderbolts - the killers. Kill every negotiator or princess of the other fractions, so they can´t make alliances. The alliances are the reason why war breaks out in a way like a forest fire. For example the HRE: Egypt makes a contract with the turks, the turks with the Hungarian and Hungary with Poland and so on up to e.g. England. You are allied with England, Poland and Hungary. You start war with Egypt. Their allies, the turks, will join by time the war and the effect is: now hungary has to choose as an allied of the turks, which country do they like more: HRE or the turks. This is depending on your relations. While I don´t waste a princess for the Hungarians and Polish, I have relations that are not so tight, so they will fight me and later the allies of the them will fight me as well.

4) You will stable relations? The basis is to marry a lot. The relations improve, you have no war with these countries because they prefer to attack other countries where the relations are weaker. Remember: from every country you are allied with, you can draw cash as I demonstrated in 1)
I played games, that are so peacefully that you can call it boring...

5) My status ingeneral varies between reliable to very reliable. Rarely I get trustworthy. The reason is linked with my system of a cash machine. Every few years a ally of me declares war on an other ally from me - so you have to choose sides. So you break one contract that hurts your status. In the past i hated this because I had no answer on this topic, how to save a medium good status... since I recognized that in war times you can free the captured enemies and get a bonus in yor status. So now i vary between the above mentioned statuses. I could get better statuses but then I would have to stop the cash machine...

I only didn´t get to know how to get vassals... everything else goes optimal!

[Gerard-de-Duivel]

Hello Members,

I am German, so I prefer to play the HRE. In the beginning, I had no idea about diplomacy. It worked this way: make treaties with nearly everyone in hope, they will not attack me. This prooved to be wrong. In general, sooner or later everyone attacks the HRE - so please, dont tell me, that France, Poland, Hungary and the Byzanthines are doves...

Later I used this strategy, "sell" the trade treaty, map informations and alliances (in some cases offer for war supportment against the rebels - for example) to every country for the most possible money. I need this money urgently to build up a powerfull HRE. After this moneyshot the alliances broke with the time, so I forgot about diplomacy as a real working method, useful for anything.

Now I have enhanced the methods of this money making machine:

1) make an alliance with everybody possible and get 500 - 800 Guldes/Florines of every partner for the war supportment against rebels. This is totally between 4000 - 7000 cash/year. If there is a small rebel party in your country, you can push it with a stronger army of you and this attack counts as fullfillmet of the treaty! The next year, you push them again...

2) If you are in war with another fraction, you can get 400 Guldes/Florines additionally from every allied that is not bankrupt. Is this enough money for your game? It´s a amazing, with this game, you can get a glimpse of how a super power in the world feels like. Like the USA nowadays you start war with souvereigns countries in the world and then you go to your allies like Germany and ask for money to finance your aggressions.

3) It is possible to totally avoid war: nearly getting heaven on earth. You just need Zeus´s thunderbolts - the killers. Kill every negotiator or princess of the other fractions, so they can´t make alliances. The alliances are the reason why war breaks out in a way like a forest fire. For example the HRE: Egypt makes a contract with the turks, the turks with the Hungarian and Hungary with Poland and so on up to e.g. England. You are allied with England, Poland and Hungary. You start war with Egypt. Their allies, the turks, will join by time the war and the effect is: now hungary has to choose as an allied of the turks, which country do they like more: HRE or the turks. This is depending on your relations. While I don´t waste a princess for the Hungarians and Polish, I have relations that are not so tight, so they will fight me and later the allies of the them will fight me as well.

4) You want to have stable relations? The basis is to marry a lot. The relations improve, you have no war with these countries because they prefer to attack other countries where the relations are weaker. Remember: from every country you are allied with, you can draw cash as I demonstrated in 1)
I played games, that are so peacefully that you can call it boring...

If you want to marry a lot (this is not necessary but optionally) you can run enforced life-manangement of your kings and the actual prince. You decide when life is over for them - just in time for a new hot princess on the scene - e.g. arriving from Sicily. For the ones who don´t know how the best king can die ( I had one who alone with his 35 bodyguard knights battled an army of 900 Hungarians and I won ) just put him on a boat in vicinity of the enmies or the most simpel way: put him in front of archers, the side with the shield to their front - he gets a lot of hits and consequently dies. With their death, you get a new king or prince for the hot beauty waiting!

5) My status ingeneral varies between reliable to very reliable. Rarely I get trustworthy. The reason is linked with my system of a cash machine. Every few years a ally of me declares war on an other ally from me - so you have to choose sides. So you break one contract that hurts your status. In the past i hated this because I had no answer on this topic, how to save a medium good status... since I recognized that in war times you can free the captured enemies and get a bonus in yor status. So now i vary between the above mentioned statuses. I could get better statuses but then I would have to stop the cash machine...

6) If you drive the policy of peace on earth and only want fighting just against one offender of your empire, you have to keep an eye on the alliances of your partners, e.g. when Englands allies with Portugal and Milano you have to try to make this alliances as fast as possible for yourself. In common this is a strategy of the computer to break up your good relation to e.g. England. Portugal gets allied with England, declares war on you, now England has to choose sides... With the above mentioned tactic I block this opportunity. I strenghten the alliances I prefer with marriage-management so nothing will come between me and my partners. This makes even countries that are the born enemies of the HRE like pussies in my hand.

7) When in this constellation HRE/England/Portugal/Milano are allied and Milano starts war with me, Milano looses their alliances with Engalnd and Portugal because my relations are better than theirs. So with this passive technique you can get rid of alliances of your enemies and conquer the offenders.

8) Remember: every marriage with one nation (e.g. England) improves the status with them one point/level from e.g. good up to very good - and this status stays! When you make war with them it is not horrible but referring to the numbers of marriages e.g. only weak (3 or 4 marriages if i´m right). You can put forth later negotiations on a better basis.

9) If you prefer your own princesses hot and regarding the later sons and daughters she will have should not have negative attributes like stupid / looking ugly like a frog or so on... you need a lot of charm - at least 4 hearts. It is easy to get this. Save yor game before a princess gets a real figure in the game (16 years old) and wait for the attributes to come. Only play further when attributes like charming, good heart, attractiv and so on make in total three hearts. In the case of bad attitudes, load the game again. A princess with the attribute "good negotiator" + 2 hearts is a waste because you get the hearts for the negotioation later. Even for giving a country "fighting the rebels" as a present gives your princess one heart plus in the beginning. I easily come up to sixe hearts in 2-3 negotiations, 8 hearts in total after dealing a cease fire with a war party...

For the ones who don´t know how things can be changed if the princess has bad attributes follow this guide: you save the game, end the turn: bad attributes - you load again, perhaps again bad attributes <- This result will stay, so you have to change things. Go back in your save game, put a group of sodiers out of a city next to the city. Save game. End turn and look on the attributes. Do this as long until you have proper results. Maybe it takes 7-10 tries.

I only didn´t get to know how to get vassals... everything else goes optimal!

[divyanthj]

@threadstarter:

I am really sorry you went through all this trouble to write this post. Although some of what you said may be true, I really don't think diplomacy in M2TW is all that complex. For one thing, here are a few things I've noticed:-
-Reputation purely depends on what you do after you conquer a settlement. If you "Occupy Settlement", your reputation increases. If you "Exterminate populace", your reputation decreases drastically. "Sack settlement" decreases your reputation too, but only slightly.
-Alliance with the Pope as a non-catholic DOES NOT ensure avoidance of crusades. I played Egypt once, conquered Jerusalem early on in the game and had prefect relations with the pope. Still , he declared a crusade on Jerusalem.
-The pope is VERY easy to manipulate...at least in the vanilla game. All you need to do is offer him 10,000 gold and you can transform your relationship with him from excommunicated to perfect.

Diplomacy in the game is more dependent on the campaign scripts and less on your decisions and actions. I do wish M2TW diplomacy was as detailed as you explained but its really not that complex. After all, it's just a game.

[the new username]

just great

[jakerslake]

Ive been playing mtw2 since 2009, but the other day while playing as hungary in the main campaign, as the turn was changing a nearby army of my allies the HRE near vienna asked for the direct military assistance specifically from my governor on Zagreb. The strange part is that the request came at the beginning of my turn, and as one of the events that fall down the side of the screen.

Help me, please
What is this?
When/why do allies do it?
How can i ask my allies?

[Posantio of Umbria]

@ Jakerslake:
The "allies request aid" mostly happens to me if I have an army a few steps away from an allied army bound to go into battle, either laying siege or going to attack an enemy. It's been a while since I witnessed this in a game, but I think you need to be just outside the enemy's and/or your allies ZOC and closer to your ally (in "steps") than to the enemy to get the request. To be able to make the request to the ally yourself, your army should be closer the enemy and the ally and the ally must have some movement points remaining. In addition, the army of your ally must be quite close to your own army (unsure if they need to be in your ZOC or can be a few "steps" away).

----------------------------------------------------------------

For the general thread:

I think the OP, and the here told exploits show us that diplomacy is a potent weapon and Footsoldier's signature is well chosen in this topic

The thing that comes to my mind here, is that good intelligence on your AI rival's designs and known intentions are a good tool to shape your strategy for expansion and diplomacy. Especially the aspect of the AI giving warnings by sending small stacks and agents into rebel territories is something you can incorporate in your strategy. It may be clear that a neighbour wants settlement x, do you want them to have it? If you "contest" their claim, what happens? Does he go forth and make good his intent? Does he back off? how will he react then, if you take the rebel province...
I Believe (and am thrilled to try this out), that if you know about this "game within the game", few wars will seem to come out of nowhere and you can take the whole "zone of influence" and "balance of power" thing into proper account when you do expand.

The things mentioned in this thread about diplomatic relations, reputation, zones of interest and balance of power can have a huge effect on the MII:TW game you play as you learn that there is a method to the AI's behaviour that you can influence and affect by diplomatic means and by mere threats (shows of force, demonstrations of intent) rather than full on war, and you can more carefully choose the fronts were you want to fight and where you don't.
On the side of your kingdom where you desire peace (for now), you may be able to maintain a buffer of rebel territories by placing agents or small armies in them and forming alliances. On the side where you want expansion, forego allies and don't be afraid to escalate matters if a rival contests your claims to certain territories.

And when you do go to war with your rival for control of settlement x, how far do you go, how long do you wage this war? What can you afford? In light of your original goal, settlement x, you got what you wanted. Maybe you might go for the historical approach and conquer enough of your enemy's land to give you a good bargaining position for peace negotiations ("Nay, ye can't have settlement X but ye may as well have settlement Y and Z back if you become my vassal/pay 20000 florins).

It being a workday, I can't try anything tonight (it's close to "sensible" bed-time for me), but I will certainly go for it tomorrow evening, curious to see if Diplomacy and Power Politics can become a part of my game (not sure about playing Vanilla, but I expect most mods to go along just as well).

[Da Bomb]

Just a quick question about the beginning turn of a Byzantine campaign: does Hungary attack Thessalonica around turns 5-10 every sine time? This is always the case for me, no matter what you have done or what treaties you forge. They always shoot straight for Thessalonica and right for Constantinople a turn or two later.

[Syanur]

It is a basic question but I couldn't find the answer anywhere.

How can we increase the negotiation number for a diplomat in a turn?? Each diplomat has only 1 change to negotiate. I want to make it unlimited or 100 at least...

[ericatus]

I have started to use your guide in a new campaign and its beginning to yield results. It is a complex subject that I think needs to be studied carefully to help win a campaign. Thanks.

[claudius2007]

Hey everyone,

I have just started playing MW2 again after what seemed like ages, in which I had to focus on work, completing my Master's degree and family issues. WOW, I cannot believe this thread is still alive after so long. I will make sure I write a new entry on diplomacy soon, it looks like there are a lot of people interested. Not all information in the text is 100% correct and I have never claimed to have gone about writing it in a scientific manner (I have noticed some people have brought on the information from the files which allow modding). I am not a modder, however I am a software engineer by trade so although I may not know the insides of modding for this game I do know one or two things about AI in general.

Thank you all for reading and any criticism or praise is welcome as always!

Claudius

[GNU07]

I've read your guide and it seems pretty solid. Although to be honest, as other have already stated, the AI is not that smart . IMO it breaks down to mere thresholds and numbers.

In my current campaign as HRE i have 6 vassals, 1 ally and no enemies. It was the opposite at the beginning (6 allies and 1 vassal) but i vassaled them to keep them quiet because they were constantly fighting each other and i was breaking alliances all the time. Also nobody seems to want to be in war with me. Denmark has 2 fullstacks north of Hamburg and one fullstack parked near Thorn for nearly 50 turns now, but they do not attack, although both settlements are garrisoned with 2-3 units of peasants and no other significant force of my army is near. Instead they constantly play war games with Poland(vassal).
The reason i believe is that i overpower them so much in terms of regions, numbers and pure strength, that the conditions that force the AI to pursue war with me are simply not met. This also happens with the Moors, Scotland, Turks and Egypt. I share borders with them for more than 70 turns and noone ever dared to attack me, not even a single accidental blockade.

I play vanilla AI H/H.

[eloris]

I posted a very long response and the idiot forum ate it.

Basically, I think the best way to manipulate the diplomacy is by strategic giving of provinces. AI will not turn down a gift of a province and once you've picked the provinces you're going to use for victory, you can use the rest to play with their minds. Experimentally, I (HRE) headed off a war with England by giving Bruges to France, eliminating my common border with England. I then gave Zaragoza to England, and within 10 turns or so England and France were at war.

Germany + Italy + Scandinavia + Poland + Hungary + Russia is enough to win, so I just have to keep the west and southeast pacified, and strategically nabbing regions and handing them over to whoever will cause the maximum of squabbling seems like the best way to do that.

[Maq]

Hi, that was a great job mentioning and detaliating all those things. I played some Total War Series game, now i play Medieval II, and i kinda got addictive. I already know or at least i was almost sure i was right about the things you said, since i play those kind of games for some time.
There is a thing i`m not sure of, and that`s the reason i got to your guide. I know that a diplomat gets XP points when he closes a deal, but let`s asume u propose a deal to a faction, and they propose u counter-deal. If u accept it, your diplomat will still get XP points? And since u get XP when your diplomat or princess closes a proposed deal, do u get XP when u are the one who proposes a counter-deal? In the case the other side will accept your counter-offer.
Thx.

Blood and honor!