diplomacy: acquiring protectorates

[webba84]

Not while they are hording, I think, most diplomatic options are disabled in that state.

[CountMRVHS]

I haven't checked. I know you can't ask for trade rights, but you can ask for an alliance.

[CountMRVHS]

So I pulled this off tonight:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

North Rhun had been Rhun's protectorate for some time before they were forced into a horde. Before I finally forced Rhun to become my protectorate, I was wondering if the fact that Rhun had an overlordship of its own was the reason they were so stubborn. Or maybe, I thought, they'd just never accept because they themselves could horde.

I had Rhun down to just the Eryn Rhun settlement for at least a few dozen turns - besieging them down to 1 turn, lifting the siege, offering, getting rejected, besieging again - before I got them to submit. I offered cash (10k, 20k, 30k, and 40k on various occasions) along with between 4 and 6 settlements back. But they kept giving me the "no way" message.

Then I realized I had a small stack sitting out of town in one of the territories I was offering them back. I remembered that such positioning can foul up attempts to give allies provinces (since apparently they see your armed forces outside the town as an implicit threat that you'll just take it back), so I moved them into the settlement and tried again. This changed the message I was getting from "no way" to "this offer is too generous and can't be matched." Still a refusal, but we're making progress.

So then I offered 47,350 - the largest amount yet, by a few thousand - *no towns*, demanded overlordship, and attached a threat of Accept or we will attack. This time they accepted.

Next turn my treasury went from zero to 143,794. As you can see, I've been gifting some of their towns back (with cash gifts attached, since they seem reluctant to accept otherwise) to create a buffer between me & Dale. In the next couple of turns I gave Rhun Braig Estolad, drawing my borders at Erebost and Raichost.


So, a couple of things we might be able to learn from this:

1. The AI seems rather responsive to the positioning of your troops. We know this from the way you can 'feint' on the campaign map to draw enemy stacks toward an army threatening their cities, and from the way the AI refuses otherwise sensible gifts of settlements when you have a few troops standing near the town. But this seems also to affect such deals when they are part of a protectorate negotiation.

2. The AI may value cities pretty highly - so highly that they're 'suspicious' of you offering a lot of them.

3. The other factor here may the 'Accept or we will attack' threat. I had not used that threat in any of the previous failed negotiations, because I was afraid it wouldn't work. See, I'd been betraying allies left and right in this game (you sort of have to, as Khand), so I assumed my reputation would have taken a huge hit. I backstabbed a couple of allies, and dropped alliances due to other wars. I thought surely if I put the threat in the negotiations, Rhun would just laugh it off & give me the line about how untrustworthy I am. Maybe, despite all this, the 'Accept or we will attack' line is so intimidating that the AI 'values' it during these negotiations. Or....

4. ...maybe 'reputation' in RTW just doesn't matter for much when figuring protectorates.

Regardless, I found it interesting that I had better luck when I *didn't* offer towns. Also, this is, I believe, the least I've paid for an overlordship.

[webba84]

Impressive stuff Count! I wonder, do the state of your alliances have an effect on this diplomacy as well? I notice you have 3 allies to Rhuns one.

[CountMRVHS]

That's a good question. I've been an ally of Far Harad for a long time, well before I started trying to make Rhun my protectorate. Then, during that prolonged period of negotiations with Rhun, I picked up the Dale and RK alliances. So yeah, this *could* be evidence to suggest that the AI views your allies as part of your total strength when making these diplomatic calculations. Or at least, it's not evidence of the opposite!

Some things that could have tipped the scales in my favor:

1. My alliances

2. The amount of money I offered

3. The fact that I wasn't offering them land back (which is strange, since as Dale I had no problem adding provinces to the bargaining table)

4. The fact that I'd starved their army down to almost nonexistence. (I suspect the fact that, as Khand, I had a largely horse-archer army (which the AI seems to undervalue) made my force seem not as intimidating as it should have been. So maybe I just needed to get Rhun down to practically nothing.)

[Wambat]

My Elven campaign seems to favor the idea that existing alliances, and few "at-war" enemies, has a significant influence on acquiring protectorates. Since acquiring Dale as a protectorate I have not been able to acquire a single other protectorate despite besieging the last one or two provinces of several factions with full stack armies for decades and offering 300,000 to 400,000 mirian. I think the fact that my Elven empire has so many "at-war" enemies; basically, anyone I share borders with at this point.

[CountMRVHS]

Interesting. In my Khand campaign, Rhun and Adunabar (and rebels) were my only official enemies at the time I was trying to make Rhun my protectorate.

So maybe reputation does get damaged a lot over time. It sounds like you're playing a long campaign, too.

With Rhun, I betrayed them first, then accepted their ceasefire offer (with a counter-demand that they pay me). Then I attacked them when they wandered on my territory. From there, it was several decades before I got them to submit. But maybe my earlier dealings with them - the ceasefire - somehow countered my aggression in terms of my rep with them.

With Adunabar, I can't remember who started that war. But they didn't have any interest in ceasefire, so that was an ongoing war from rather early in the game.

I had also been at war with Harad (several times) and I think Far Harad (briefly). Got ceasefires and alliances from both of them at various points.

In other games when I've had protectorates, the protectorates were acquired fairly early on - well before 400 or right around that time.

Did you try offering land back?

[Wambat]

Adunabar seems particularity difficult to convince to submit, and I wonder if there is something specific to that faction which makes it so. Perhaps being the only cultist faction? Still, the first example of a protectorate on this thread is between WotW and WoD; that would speak against the different cultures being the problem.

I have never tried offering land back as an incentive. Given that you have to pay other factions to accept settlements from you, I am not sure I see how adding lands to the proposal would help.

[webba84]

Sometimes I haven't had to pay to get factions to accept settlements. Thing is, as far as I could ascertain (needs testing), this only occurs if the faction in question likes and trusts you (example - playing as the elves early on I could get RK and Rhovanion, with whom I was allied, to accept settlements as a gift, with no added cash. The Dwarves only accept if I add in around 8-10k cash.)

So it's probably very unlikely that a faction you are trying to get as protectorate would trust you enough to value your offer of settlements as anything other than a deception or an insult.

[CountMRVHS]

There have been times I haven't had to pay to gift settlements, too - but I can't remember the scenarios in which that occurred.

And sometimes the AI will ask for settlements back. I've seen this as part of a ceasefire negotiation. The AI will approach me and ask for a ceasefire along with its towns back (usually all of the towns I took from them, IIRC). And this is of course while we're at war; despite that, they don't seem to distrust me enough to not ask.
Maybe the issue there is that it is the AI that is making the request.

Somewhat related, during my attempts to make Rhun my protectorate, I was always the initiator of negotiations. Rhun never once sent a diplomat to me begging for a ceasefire, even though they had one.

So ... *sometimes* the AI values towns as part of negotiations ... but sometimes ... not?

[Wambat]

I agree that it is likely the ai values proposals differently based on whether or not they are initiating the proposal. It would be good to figure out some way of reliably testing that hypothesis.

[CountMRVHS]

Maybe one way would be to wait until an AI faction offers a proposal, then go back to an earlier save and offer them that exact proposal. Or, deny their offer and then on a later turn offer it back.

The first method might run into problems given the way the game seems to calculate outcomes, though...

[Wambat]

It is experience with that sort of thing that persuades me this is the case, but the ai can only make proposals during it's turn, and the player during his, so you would be dealing with different random numbers, so I am not sure that would yield useful results. Does Medieval Warfare 2 have a proposal mechanic that would make this question easier to test?

[CountMRVHS]

I think it's the same thing in M2 regarding proposals, but that game may use a different way of generating results - I'm honestly not sure.

[CountMRVHS]

In the interest of making this a central collection point for protectorate data, here's the info from my current campaign:

I'm playing as Rhun and trying to make Khand my protectorate.

Initially, Rhun & Khand are allied, have trade rights, and have military access with each other. I betrayed them within the first dozen or so turns and swiftly took 2 of their towns (Muldin & Acharn), a bit later took another 2 (Lhug & Alag Rochbin), and now have them down to a single settlement (Parchereb), which I am besieging with a large army. Inside Parchereb, Khand has its ruler and 3 other under-strength units. I don't believe they have any military units anywhere else, and I haven't seen any Khandian diplomats around, either.

Khand has 2 allies (Far Harad & Harondor) and 2 enemies (rebels and me). I have one ally (North Rhun) and 3 enemies (rebels, Khand, and Adunabar)

I have tried around 4 times for protectorate, with no luck. Each time I offered some cash (over 10,000; over 20,000 in one case) and some settlements (between 1 and 3 of their old settlements back). I do not have any of my military units standing around in territory that I am attempting to hand back. The reply I get consistently is a variant of the old RTW standard "freedom is a precious thing" speech.

There may be a couple of reasons for the refusal so far. One, I may not be offering enough cash. (Upthread I mention that ~40,000 is the *least* I've paid for a protectorate.)

Two, I could be insulting/offending/making them suspicious by offering back towns. I'll try again with no settlements on the table. (And maybe with an "Accept or we will attack" threat.) (Edit: Tried this last night, offering 30,000 mirian, "Accept or We Will Attack", and demanding protectorate - no luck.)

Three, the diplomatic status of our factions could be an issue. One of Khand's allies, Far Harad, is doing fairly well. While they lost their westernmost town, they took Caranbad from Harad and have several strong-looking armies in the area. Khand's other ally, Harondor, was at least holding its own until just recently, when it lost a town to Harad. My ally, North Rhun, is doing very well, having just taken Belegant from Dorwinion - but it's my only ally, and I have another active war with Adunabar.

To address the diplomatic imbalance, I may try for a ceasefire with Khand, then ally with Harondor and Far Harad, and then attack Khand (hoping that the other factions will remain allied to me as the attacker). If I can isolate them diplomatically, maybe they will be more open to becoming a cheap protectorate.


Edit: After another session, I'm still protectorate-less. I got over 40,000 mirian, but that wasn't enough apparently. Diplomatic situation is still the same. Using toggle_fow, I'm sure there are no Khandian FMs hiding somewhere. If I let the siege complete, Khand hordes, presumably because I didn't kill the ruler in battle.

I've tried several variations of offers - including just cash, cash + a few towns, cash + all of their original towns - but I'm getting flatly denied every time. Maybe it's because I'm just loading the save over again ... can't remember how the game works WRT reloads of the same save - does it always give the same response, regardless of variations in the diplomatic offers?

Anyway, I guess I just need more patience. Make some more money, try to get the diplomacy situation different. In that vein, I've been trying to get a ceasefire from Adunabar - just managed to put 2 rebel provinces between us, so we don't border each other anymore, but they're being strange about the ceasefire offer, saying essentially that it's too generous. I can demand all the money possible and half a dozen towns, and ceasefire is still too generous. Yet if I ask for map information, they're insulted. If I ask for cash, they're insulted. Strange. Again, I'm reloading the save, so maybe that's skewing things. I'll wait another turn and try for peace again. But it's frustrating - even the blank offer of map info is getting a "too generous" reply, rather than a counteroffer.



Edit: Think I'm going to give up on this campaign, sadly. Both Khand and Adunabar are being incredibly stubborn. Adunabar will only ceasefire if I pay out almost 20,000 (despite no longer sharing a border), and Khand won't become a protectorate even if I offer over 60,000.

Also, my large territories are becoming a problem, as Dale has expanded around the Sea of Rhun and will attack me in Fennas-rim; if I don't keep an army near my Khandian territories, Harad will attack me down there. It's too much, I think, to keep up the pressure on Khand, ward off Harad, fight off Dale, and fight off Adunabar.

If I had it to do over again, I think I would take it a bit slower with Khand - accepting ceasefire offers before completely driving them out of their Homelands, and taking a bit longer with the sieges of their settlements. But Adunabar is a real irritant. They are easily the biggest threat to Rhun, and you can't ignore them; they'll keep sending armies toward your towns, and their Dunedanic troops are strong enough that they don't mind fighting when vastly outnumbered. I think that "confidence" may be affecting their reluctance to ceasefire. That, and the fact that Adunabar is conquering into Rohan and Gondor. So what I probably should have done is just beat back Khand a bit, and then poured my resources into winning land around Nurn so I could at least hold off Adunabar. *Then* try for a Khandian protectorate. Or, alternatively, focus my attentions on North Rhun instead. Their early war with Dale may make them more willing to submit.


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

Another campaign, this time as Rohan, and I've just got Dunland as a protectorate (around 60 turns in - year 386 or so).

I moved against Isenmarch quickly, and after taking it, Dunland requested a ceasefire. I obliged, but demanded 5k and the Dol Baran fort, which they conceded. I attacked them later, as they had been taking land from Tharbad (my military access ally), and I sent forces to take Dunchrioch and Dunfada in short order, then besieged Limfalas and Anghal while moving armies north.

I took the settlements Dunland had taken from Tharbad (3 in all: Greyholm, Swanfleet, and Ost-in-edhil), and gifted them back to Tharbad to focus my full attention on Dunland's remaining settlements of Dunhold and the Misty Mountains Hold.

Limfalas and Anghal fell; Dunland offered another ceasefire around this time, which I countered with a protectorate demand plus gold (90k) and lands back, but this was refused. Dunhold sallied, so I took it, and this left Dunland with just the mountain fort.

An attempt or 2 for protectorate status didn't work - I kept getting the flat refusal message "never will we be your thralls". It *could* have had something to do with the presence of my armies on territory I was attempting to give back at one point, but I think the message would be different if that were the case, and also straight-up offers of over 100k - no settlements attached - were refused. For some reason Dunland didn't submit, despite my numerical superiority (they had just 2 units in the fort; I was besieging with close to a full stack and had 2 other almost-full stacks very nearby). This was very frustrating.

Finally, after waiting for the siege to almost time out, I sent in an Emissary and did a blank Map Info offer; Dunland countered with Ceasefire, and a demand for Map Info and 57k. I countered with Protectorate, an offer of 100k, and an offer of Map Info, which they accepted. Next turn I made 198k in tribute alone, so basically doubling my money.


Problem is, Dunland is still allied to Adunabar. I've tried several times over the course of the subsequent 3 or so turns to strip them of this alliance, but every time I attack Adunabar, Dunland drops our alliance (and thus protectorate). This is the opposite of my experience with, say, Harad, detailed above: Establishing a protectorate over Harondor, I was able to attack their ally, Far Harad, and thus force Harondor to drop the alliance with FH. I wonder if the nature of Dunland/Adunabar's alliance is different than that between Harondor/Far Harad? But I think both pairs of factions are already allied at game start, and thus share military access.... so it's probably not that.

I assume that, if Adunabar attacks *me*, Dunland will still side with Adunabar. Until then (or until I can attack Adun and get Dunland to side with me), I may have to stay out of war with Adunabar, maybe using bribes to help the RK in the south. Early bribe tests, though, suggest that this will be prohibitively expensive.

Another option could be to try for an alliance with Adunabar, then attack Dunland and see if the 2 factions can be split up that way. At that point, I could try to get Dunland as a protectorate a second time. Or maybe, by making Adunabar my ally, I could get Dunland to drop their alliance with Adun when I attack the latter...

[CountMRVHS]

More adventures in protectorate attempts:

-A recent campaign as Rhun failed to force Khand into protectorate status. Very similar experience to the post above: Got 'em down to 1 settlement (Alag Rochbin), besieged it almost to capitulation several times, offered in the vicinity of 25k, with and without offers of settlements back, and with and without threats: no luck.

-Current campaign as the Beornings has me in a decent position - perhaps - to force Dale into a protectorate. I've driven them out of all settlements except the Carnen Fort, and have that under siege with a small army. I'll keep feeding troops to that force to make it a more intimidating presence.

The difficulty I foresee is that Dale is allied to the Dwarves (after being at war with them - it was very strange, and I'm not sure how it happened, but they went to war and then patched things up. Even after the Dwarves & Dale go to war, it seems as though their relationship is still binding diplomatically: I sided with the Dwarves when they went to war with Dale, and then as soon as I attacked Dale, the Dwarves declared war on me...). So if I get Dale to submit, I need to get a ceasefire with the Dwarves quickly or I imagine I'll lose Dale as a protectorate.

I'm also working on whittling down Rhovanion, who have been rather troublesome for me. They're my next target.

[Wambat]

You really have to up the ante when aiming for a protectorate. I typically get protectorates with an offer of 200k to 300k, and sometimes a lot more.

That alliance between Dale and the Dwarves seems to be very problematic. I would probably just claim all the Dwarven lands you share a border with and see if they are more amenable to a ceasefire after that.

[CountMRVHS]

Yeah, I ultimately eliminated Dale rather than take the chance of the Dwarf alliance messing up a potential protectorate. With Dale eliminated, I was able to buy a ceasefire from the Dwarves for 20,000, plus trade rights and map info, and get an alliance immediately after.

Next target: Rhovanion. I have my doubts about this one, since they're allied to North Rhun (which has gotten quite large in this campaign, forcing Rhun to horde) and the Elves. At least by now I have more money in the bank, and enough armies to potentially threaten them more seriously.

[CountMRVHS]

I was able to repeat my first protectorate scenario today, playing as Dale, by making North Rhun my protectorate. (I was playing the 3.0 version of the mod, testing some stuff out, but the same principles should apply.) Good to know it was replicable.

Here was the scenario (roughly; some of this may be slightly out of order) :

-Gathered between 2 and 3 armies and sent them east, training more or less continuously for the first several turns.
-Attacked NR's armies around the Carnen Fort, then anywhere in the Gaurgaul province before laying siege to the settlement itself.
-Accepted a ceasefire from NR in exchange for 10,000 mirian, then continued to press the attack
-Took Gaurgaul, pushed armies east into the Garth province and northeast toward Fornhud
-Concentrated forces around Fornhud, NR's capital; besieged it, fought off a reinforcement, and took the city
-Took Gwaithring, an initially rebel settlement NR had taken, and pulled out, letting it rebel
-Concentrated my 2 stacks back on the only remaining NR settlement: Garth
-At this point Garth had almost a full stack inside, so I pulled my armies back a bit to tempt them out. Beat the army that left the city, then besieged the much smaller garrison

Throughout this process I had made a few Protectorate offers via diplomacy, but NR hadn't accepted. They were very eager for ceasefire, though, and demanded upwards of 10,000 mirian along with Gaurgaul and Fornhud as part of the ceasefire offer. I replaced "ceasefire" with "become my toady for life", offered them usually in the neighborhood of 25k (about all I had at the time) and sometimes those 2 towns as part of the deal, but they wouldn't take it.

I remembered then that I had some of my troops standing on territory that I was sometimes offering NR back. Moved all my mobile armies into the Garth province, and kept up the siege. I had 1 full stack besieging Garth and another nearly full stack just hanging around the province, looking menacing.

Shortly thereafter (year 373), NR approached me with the typical offer: ceasefire, if I gave the 11k and their 2 towns. I offered an even 30k (I had around 33k in the bank), the 2 towns, and an Overlord demand: they accepted.

At the time of acceptance, NR was allied with 2 factions (Rhovanion, Rhun) and at war with 3 (me, Dwarves, rebels).


So this was a pretty cheap deal - just 30,000. (The cheapest protectorate I've had yet!) Next turn, I got over 80k in tribute from NR.

This is an excellent opening gambit for a Dale campaign, since you have the funds to train all those units and still make enough money to force Overlordship, *and* you're well protected enough geographically that you don't need to worry about a second front opening up for some time.


------

Irritatingly, my attempts to strip NR of its alliance with Rhun met with failure. Rhun is becoming a major force in the campaign, so I hoped to attack them and get NR to side with me (as the AI seems - allegedly - to prefer to side with the attacker when 2 allies end up at war). But NR dropped my alliance when I attacked Rhun (tried a couple of times). So I wonder what figures into the AI's calculations here? Some possible factors:

-Aggressor (this is what some of us have been assuming for some time; the AI chooses the attacker when forced to choose an ally)
-Culture/alignment (perhaps the AI favors factions of its own culture/alignment when forced to choose...)
-Military strength (Rhun is a much bigger faction than I am at this point)
-Some other measure of faction strength (perhaps the AI simply evaluates the "Overall" graph in-game)
-Irrational hatred of the human player (we can't rule this out)

[Wambat]

Thank you for this report. This is the kind of stuff that will improve the diplomacy guide. The point about not having armies in the territories offered in a proposal was known, but it will be an improvement to add that to the protectorate section to avoid that factor being overlooked.


This is definitely the cheapest protectorate agreement I have seen reported. Then again, one has to wonder how much was spent on upkeep for all the forces you had to plant in their territory all that time.


As for your speculations on why your protectorate refuses to side with you over its ally, I am inclined toward the final option.


I have found it, unfortunately, impossible to secure every faction as a protectorate in a campaign due to this problem of preexisting alliances. I find the best option, where feasible, is to grant your protectorate all the provinces bordering the faction it is allied with. This stops that faction from being a threat to you, and there is always the possibility that, without any other options, the third party will attack your protectorate and thus remove the alliance obstacle.


I am cool with any reporting relating to diplomacy matters to be in the diplomacy guide thread for ease of reference.