Alliances

[Heinrich von Sachsen]

Does anyone else know what the deal is with alliances? I find it extremly hard to get any beyond the first one or two. For example, playing as England I am allied with Portugal and have as vassal/allies Hannover and Oldenberg. I am currently trying to gear up for a war with those arrogant French and establish England's glory the world over, however to to do this I will need allies. Beyond those countries who are my vassals, any other I attempt to ally myself with, I am greeted with 'Impossible' even on countries that I have 200 relations with and we share religions.
This would be just a simple annoyance if there was a explination for this, however, according to the manual, there are almost no restrictions for this.
(page 71)
There are only two situations where an alliance will be impossible:
- A country that is a vassal to another country may only form an alliance wih its "overlord". It cannot offer an alliance to any other country; nor may another country (other than its overlord) send an offer asking it to become an ally.
- A country that is the "junior" member of a personal union cannot form new alliances or accept offers. Only he senior member can.

None of my prospective allies fall into these categories, they should be able to ally with me, but can't. Ideas?

[Fabolous]

The AI generally only takes 2 allies at most. So if you offer, the chance of them accepting is "impossible" since the AI will not accept another ally. If the AI only has one ally, that is usually by choice, so again, "impossible" because the AI will never accept. (It isn't impossible in the game sense, the allience can be made, its just the AI will never accept.)


This is often annoying. However, you are working under no such restriction. At the beginning game most nations have no allies, try and get 4-5 then. One or two will probably abandon you at the first hint of conflict, but that can't really be helped.

[Kanaric]

Sometimes i've seen the AI with one or more allies that wasn't impossible but its rare. Mostly common with 1 ally though.

[Arakorn]

Gah, in my last game as Castille I got Aragon as an ally but Navarra said impossible. Now in this game it's the other way around. Goddamnit, now I gotta force vassalize Aragon to unify Spain!