Can't Make Alliances

[Sokar Rostau]

HRE Long Campaign, 0.5 years per turn.

By 1085 I had Milan, Venice, Sicily, Poland, Byzantines, Hungarians, Danish, French and Papacy as my Allies and Trade Rights with England, Egypt and the Moors. Milan, as expected, backstabbed me in 1086(ish), quickly followed by Venice. When the Pope called for a Crusade (which he demanded be led by my heir... the other Factions must have had the same mission because every Crusading army I saw had an heir) against Antioch I used my Crusading army to taunt Milan into attacking them... which got them promptly excommunicated.

By the time my Crusaders arrived in Antioch, the Danes had also attacked me. My Crusaders arrived just ahead of a Danish crusade and took the province, that same turn Byzantium blockaded half my ports (maybe because I was landing my Crusaders in their territory at the end of each turn rather than waiting at sea?), the Danish Crusade, led by their King, sits in Byzantine territory not moving. I was about to strip Antioch and gift it to the Pope when an Inquisitor fried my Diplomat in Rome, so I razed it anyway and attacked Aleppo, which I have now safely held for well over 20 years (it's 1118 now). A few turns later Poland and Sicily attacked. I misclicked in the menues and found that my Papal relations had somehow fallen from near perfect to three crosses.

Now it is 1118 and I have been excommunicated twice. The new Popes all hoped that I would burn in Hell, and have gone so far as to send Inquisitors after my Priests, I even have an Inquisitor lurking around Antioch and Aleppo, trying my Priests as often as the Heretics! I have destroyed Venice and Milan, apparently bankrupted Denmark into inaction, and France has joined in the party against me, my only remaining ally is Hungary and that's probably because they are at war with Poland and Byzantium.

I have managed to get Trade Rights with Turkey, Spain and Portugal (very grudgingly) and have made up with Egypt, getting Trade Rights with them as well. The problem is that I can't get an Alliance with any of them. I don't mean that they are refusing, I mean that the Offer Alliance option never appears during diplomacy, the same thing when England approached me on the last turn. I can understand the option possibly not being available with Catholic Factions as they probably don't want to ally themselves with an excommunicated King (but shouldn't I get the option anyway?), but I can't even ally with Muslims.

[Pyrebound]

What version do you play on? 1.1 has severe diplomacy flaws, making every factions relations with you go below reasonable even though youve never met them.

If you have 1.3/1.2 you might have somehow gotten poor reputation, so thats why most factions quite dislike you. I recommend just turtling and building priests from a single settlement, where you also build churches. Theres a good chance youll get theologians guild which makes your priests have more piety, and so you get better chance to get your own cardinal as pope. When you got good relations with pope, just let your enemies attack you, so they might get excomm'd

[Sokar Rostau]

Do you have to have a certain standing with a Faction before you can offer an alliance? Is that why the option doesn't appear?

I'm playing out-of-the-box, not going to bother downloading the patch because I'll get Kingdoms in the next few days.

[Internazionale]

But Pyrebound, sometimes the pope doesn't care.Even if the faction I am attacking has a low standing with the Pope. However if I attack someone the Pope tells me to cease hostilities after a few turns.

Yes its best to have good relations with the pope.

Some tips Sokar:

1. Start a new campaign.
2. Form a alliance with the Pope and if your reputation with him, give some money to the Papal States.
3. Be loyal to the pope and only attack factions with low standing with the pope, or non-catholics.
4. Avoid breaking alliances, it affects your Reputation, meaning other factions in the future will be less likely to form alliances. I always try to have Thrustworthy or Mixed.

[Internazionale]

Do you have to have a certain standing with a Faction before you can offer an alliance? Is that why the option doesn't appear?

Yes, you should have "Good". Don't let your armies trespass their lands for too long. No-one likes having huge, possibly hostile armies at their backdoor.

[pwijnands]

Alliances are very hard to acquire after mid/late game, regardless of faction and global standing. The only way I can get an alliance at those stages is when a faction offers it. If they offer it I'b better not make a counter offer, even if it's more generous. When I do that, they kindly deny the alliance. Mind that I had this when I had an immaculate global standing and relations with the factions in question were amiable or better. It probably has something to do with your army strength on your borders.
If you want alliances to last, make them at the beginning and keep track of who is allied to who. When two factions go to war, stick with the side that has the most allies and enemies in common with you.

[bobfish]

Alliances are probably a lost cause, but you can resolve your problem with the Pope, and hopefully once you are in good graces with him, he'll stop others from attacking you. Though you will ruin it again if you go after non-excommunicated factions.

First thing to do is move all your priests to the Holy Lands or other Islam rich territory, second is to build priests up to your cap and third is to build up your churches in Islam rich territories you control. Then just wait it out, as your priests convert and deal with heretics/immans (might want to leave one good priest in your territory for heretics), you will find that they will start being promoted to Cardinal over others, once the Pope lets you back in. Obviously this means stopping any current wars with Catholic factions.

If you keep that going, shouldn't be long before the majority of Cardinals are yours and then you can make one of your own a Pope, at this point the Church should love you and things will settle down for a nice easy run in to the end.

[Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh]

As for the alliance options.
I think you are unable to make an alliance if the person you are trying to ally with is allies with an enemy of yours.

[N3rull]

As for the alliance options.
I think you are unable to make an alliance if the person you are trying to ally with is allies with an enemy of yours.

That's the reason.
Just as you have to break one alliance when your mutual allies go to war with each other, it's the same story in that you can't attempt to enter an alliance with your enemy's ally.

[Skyline Pete]

And thus it's harder to form alliances in mid to late stages of the game because it's all open warfare amongst the other factions.

[Sokar Rostau]

Is there a way to control which alliances you break? In MTW you could choose whom to remain allied with when war broke out, but in M2TW it seems to be automatic and random.

[Pyrebound]

I have gotten a message, that let me choose did i stay allied with the aggressor or the other. So its not always random. Might be mod causing the msg appear or making it dissappear. Dunno :p

[pwijnands]

When two allies go to war, you can choose which faction you want to stick with. It's not a feature added by a mod.

[Sokar Rostau]

I've never gotten the option, always just a message saying Alliance in Tatters. Last night I was allied with Byzantium, Hungary, Poland and Denmark. Byzantium and Hungary went to war and I lost my alliances to Denmark, Poland and Hungary.

[Vor]

I've never gotten the option, always just a message saying Alliance in Tatters. Last night I was allied with Byzantium, Hungary, Poland and Denmark. Byzantium and Hungary went to war and I lost my alliances to Denmark, Poland and Hungary.

Strange. Sounds more like you where the one who went to war.

[N3rull]

Or if one of them attack you, say, blockade your port.

I'm always getting a message that pops up right at the start of the next turn that makes me choose the ally. Only thing I can recall that might make you guys think there is no option is that when you press "ESC" (which some people do automatically when something pops up for them) the pc decides you want to stay allied with the attacked faction.

[Double A]

I don't have Medieval yet (still playing Rome), but could you be at war with an ally of the faction you are trying to ally with.

Example: say you are the English, and want to ally with Hungary. But you are at war with Hungary's ally, Venice. So either you can ally with Hungary, and the war will stop, or, most likely, you can't ally at all. Or maybe word spread about you having 3 wives,including your best friend's ex. I'm not really sure.

[Sokar Rostau]

I should have worded things differently. I occasionally get the Alliance in Tatters message, but that's only when, as you said, my port gets suddenly blockaded or something. Alliance in Tatters is the only notice I have ever received. I've never had the option to choose allies.

Just this morning I was playing as England. Allied to Denmark, Poland, HRE, France. France attacked me, but their only Allies were Scotland (who attacked me next turn). Poland and HRE went to war a few turns later. About 10 turns after Poland and HRE started their war I am still allied to both of them.

[N3rull]

About 10 turns after Poland and HRE started their war I am still allied to both of them.

As the wise Sun Tzu would say now:
"What the f...?"

[Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh]

Edit:
Sorry. My bad, if anyone even read that.
It was just me saying "!!!!!"
The reasoning behind that was totally innocent. I was moving my laptop.
Sorry everyone.


But yes, I found that you could not make alliances if you were at war with their ally.
I am not too sure if they are at war with one of your allies, though. I assume so.

What about if their ally is at war with your ally... What then?