How to break alliance with minimal reputation loss?

[Julianus]

As Saka, I just canceled my alliance with Pahlava when none of my army is in their territory, then I attacked them the next turn.
I deem it rather fair play, but after this nobody would ally with me anymore, nor receive my assistance against their enemies, saying that I'm not to be trusted.
I don't want to be regarded as a faithless traitor and pledge broker, but sometimes I really want to attack my allies...So how can i do this?
Thanks in advance!

[Manoflooks]

Give it more than 1 turn(three months). If possible, goad them into attacking you first-then they will lose reputation, while you will not.

[Julianus]

Give it more than 1 turn(three months). If possible, goad them into attacking you first-then they will lose reputation, while you will not.

How many turns must I wait exactly?
And more interestingly how to goad them into attacking me?
Maybe I can surround one of their armies or settlements with several small armies of mine consisting of only one unit so that they cannot move without attacking one of my armies...

[Boriak]

Is there any way to see what a civilization's reputation is? How can one manipulate it?

[Anubis88]

Does reputation actually exist in RTW? I mean seriously... No matter what you do, the AI won't think twice to attack you (unless your a superpower, i find it that this intimidates them sometimes)

[Julianus]

Does reputation actually exist in RTW? I mean seriously... No matter what you do, the AI won't think twice to attack you (unless your a superpower, i find it that this intimidates them sometimes)

I believe reputation is not used to determine if you will be attacked, no one feels ashamed to attack you even if you're an honorable guy, what only matters here is how powerful you are as you noticed.
However whether or not you ever break your words does make a difference in the altitude of AI to make a deal with you, such as making future alliance.

[Bonapartist]

I know MTW2 had a reputation system, where you would hover your mouse over your faction icon and get something like "trustworthy" or "dodgy." Maybe RTW has the same system, but the genius programmers thought that you wouldn't be interested in that information. The extra political features of MTW2 are really what I miss when I go back and play RTW and its mods - the way you could see how balanced an agreement was on the sheet while you were brokering it, and could thus make far, FAR better deals. I miss that so much - well worth the diplomat limitation of only having one interaction a turn.

As for the AI being aggressive and attacking for no reason, my game of EB (maybe 15 hours out of my goddamn life wasted, ha) has been very peaceful. The only war declared on me was by the Carthaginians, which happened about 10 turns after I moved into Sicily, which the advisor informed me was a violation of a treaty - this is presumably why the Carthaginians attacked me. I attacked the... Norther Italian Gaul guys... because their land was valuable and it was blatantly poorly defended. I attacked Ptolemy for the same reason, and because the other world superpower, Selucia, would soon be taking the valuable cities of Antioch, Alexandria and the other coast cities if I hadn't done it myself. Of like 5 wars, I've started 4. EB AI seems very content to sit at peace, which is a nice change from RTW vanilla or Darthmod.

[A_Dane]

It does? your lucky then.
I don't play on VH campaign simply because i can't be bothered with the suecidal AI, it's bad enough on hard..
In my ongoing hayasdan campaign, i've just been attacked by pahvala, even though we don't even share a bloody border. This ofcourse broke my alliance with sauromaetae & pontos, so i'll probably have to add those to my ongoing wars vs Seleucids and ptoltemais.

I havn't started a single war in this campaign, and it's the same in most of them..

the ptoltemais ofcourse made a ceasefire with the seleucids, the moment we got a common border..

even though EB is a great game, it's really hampered by the idiotic AI, ruins the fun as i can never get to just turtle and build up just a little bit..

guess i played too much europa universalis, as the AI there actually makes some sense, really a great shame :/

[Visarion]

that is why I don't ally with neighbouring factions!

[A_Dane]

well, considering i'm fighting the 2 greatest nation in the game, i think it was justified :p

I believe the seleucids are about done though, they've thrown everything they got at me, and failed, so not too worried, just annoyed about the sucky AI :/

[Lionheart]

Playing with Rome i just exterminated the Aedui and soon i will break the Arverni. However i always prefer to have alliances with minor factions and faction for instance Baktria far far way of my borders. Because since i'm a agressive expander the border peoples never could have peace from my legions. Currently i'm engaged in war against Carthage (they only have the Baliaric Island and Corsica) but they declared me war after i take Messana (to bad for them). One strategy is build up your armies and make all your characters command a army, this take time i know but after that is simply conquest and slaughter (my favorit when cities resist)

[Julianus]

I found that sometimes when I canceled alliance with a faction I got a message named "Transgression" saying that I behave not like civilized people, this is when my reputation suffers, while sometimes I don't get this message.
Anybody knows why?

[Lionheart]

No i believe this happens because your army entered in some allied land without a agreement relating troops movement.
You could have a military alliance with one ally and if you have that the message does not appear.
If you dont have that your allies dont like a army even if is a allied army to walk in their lands.

[CelticPagan]

In my ongoing hayasdan campaign, i've just been attacked by pahvala, even though we don't even share a bloody border. This ofcourse broke my alliance with sauromaetae & Pontos

This is an issue that bothers me. I don't know if it is a R:TW issue or an EB one, but why would my allies break off an alliance with me if I am attacked? Wouldn't they break their alliance with the attacker, seeing as how the attacker can't be trusted to uphold an alliance? That would be the logical thing, yet factions allied with both my faction and the attacking faction drop their alliance with me, when I have done nothing wrong?!?!

[A_Dane]

Pretty sure it's an RTW issue, the AI is appereantly programmed to aim you, so when a new enemy joins the fray, they'll break their alliance too..

this is the main reason i don't play vh, the AI simply destroys the fun for me on that difficulty, i don't want to spend the entire game fighting, i want some peace, for just 2 years every once in a while :/

[Faramir D'Andunie]

After a few tests I am led to believe that the AI keeps the alliance with the faction that attacks. Had a chance to try it out a lot in my latest campaign as AS. A diplomat agreed on an alliance with KH, peace with Ptolemies signed automatically. Next turn Ptolemies attack, KH breaks their alliance with me. Repeat that for 5 turns and then I decide to attack and break the peace myself. KH breaks their Ptolemies alliance. Then a few reloads on a couple of different years just to see if a pattern emerges. Perhaps it is hardcoded in RTW engine or something?

For peace signed, only chance to get one (playing VH lately) is to make sure you don't share a land border with a faction. Something that has me using buffer states if possible on certain regions.