I came across an old blog which described a coding issue with M2TW's reputation system, that makes maintaining positive reputations difficult. Intrigued, I reviewed the same file as found in HTW. Surprisingly, the code in question was untouched. A comprehensive explanation of the issue may be found at http://t-a-w.blogspot.com/2009/11/wh...edieval-2.html., but i will summarize below.
Apparently, when reputation triggers, appropriated from "Rome: Total War", were cleaned up for M2TW, the old "Sack" occupation event was meant to be commented out. (I say old, as a separate "Sack" option was incorporated for M2TW, just a few lines above the code in question) The trigger itself was commented, but its effects were not. As such, the global reputation decrease assigned to the antiquated "Sack", triggered when the event above them occurred. This unlucky event just so happened to be the peacefully occupy option. Ultimately, occupation would net players a loss of reputation rather than a gain, leading to the enemy and enemies allies hating the player more.
The code (found in Medieval II Toatal War/data/descr_faction_standing, or for HTW,
Medieval II Toatal War/mods/Hyrule/data/descr_faction_standing ) looks like this:0103_occupy_settlement_increase_global
WhenToTest OccupySettlement
FactionStanding global 0.05
FactionStanding target_faction normalise 1.0 20
FactionStanding target_allies normalise 1.0 40
; FactionStanding target_enemies normalise -1.0 40
;------------------------------------------
;Trigger 0102_city_razed_decrease_global
; WhenToTest CitySacked
FactionStanding global -0.05
FactionStanding target_faction normalise -1.0 10
FactionStanding target_allies normalise -1.0 20
; FactionStanding target_enemies normalise 1.0 20
Here semi colons indicate comments. As can be seen the global standing bonus nets 0 and the normalize divisor (next to the 1 or -1) is smaller for the old "sack" option; leading to a net loss in reputation. Unless there is some other protocol that Neph has established, diplomacy in HTW (and M2TW for that matter) is actually a little harder than it should be.
Its's an easy fix. Simply comment out the problem lines with a semicolon. I just thought i should bring it up.