Everyone hates me

[malfuriouspete]

hey guys, playing a campaign as the English and I guess my world reputation is Dubious. I'm at war with France, HRE and Milan.. I've been trying to get a ceasefire with the HRE and Milan for years and years because I'm sick of fighting them but they will have none of it and keep sending stacks to my castles/cities which I promptly destroy.

How do I get ceasefires? How do I improve my reputation with everyone? Should I just crush my enemies and become an even larger faction?

[Quinntan]

Things such as declaring war, destroying factions, sacking or exterminating cities and canceling agreements such as alliances will lower your reputation. Having a high reputation will make it much easier to get ceasefires. To get a higher reputation, make alliances in the beginning of the game with countries and keep your relations high.

[Silent Assassin]

Things such as declaring war, destroying factions, sacking or exterminating cities and canceling agreements such as alliances will lower your reputation. Having a high reputation will make it much easier to get ceasefires. To get a higher reputation, make alliances in the beginning of the game with countries and keep your relations high.

The best answer for the reason why you can't get a ceasefire is here. You need to change the way you are playing, stop being a "BAD BOY" and it will be esier for you the get better dealings of any kind

[Alla]

Or just go to the thread in mine and rebels profile and read tips on reputation.

[jahjeremy]

I played through the Grand Campaign initially with England and had similar problems, though I was pretty easily able to beat this without a very good rep.

This time through, I am concentrating on less barbarity, at least initially.

So firstly, don't kick off with an invasion of the mainland. Wait to be attacked. France will almost inevitably attack you at around turn 40 no matter what you do.

Scotland is fine to steamroll whenever you want. They don't tend to make any alliances anyways.

You need to make a lot of diplomats, say a minimum of 4 and more if needed. Send them around to every country you can get to ASAP and have a few go exclusively by ship. From this initial batch, you should get one diplomat with some +diplomacy skill. Use this top diplomat aggressively as your goto guy, because a high diplomacy skill means your deals go through more often with less offered.

The first time you make contact with a faction (provided you don't wish to wipe them off the map on the following turn), offer them all of the following, if available.

-Map Info (usually I do this first as an ice breaker...sometimes requires 100-200 florin to sweeten the deal)
-Trade Rights
-Military Access
-Tribute at 100-200 per 2-5 turns (any more is usually overkill)
-Single Payment (200+ gold...play with this)
-Alliance (finally!)

If you're still having trouble, up the amount of payment.

And if they still won't ally with you, well that's going to be their loss.

Using that approach, you should easily be able to have 6+ alliances, including most of your immediate neighbors, by the time things start to get hairy (which they inevitably will).

In general, always have at least one diplomat (preferably your best one) make an immediate bee-line for Italy.

This is because the Papal States are based around here, and so all the factions send over their armies/priests/diplomats. So if you have 1-2 diplomats in this area, you can get a lot of work done without having to travel all over the map. Usually, you can conduct diplomacy with 5 or so factions by basing a diplomat there.

That said, unless you are some kind of uber diplomat are willing to do an inordinate amount of deals every turn, it has been my experience that you will eventually get into some kind of embroglio when one of your allies attacks another. Here you want to be careful about which side you take. Picking the wrong one can cause nearly all your alliances to be canceled (e.g. all of the new enemy's allies will cancel their alliances with you if they have any)!

Generally, you want to pick the side of the stronger ally or the one with more alliances than the other, that is, unless one of the factions is next on your todo list anyways, in which case have at it.

What I do is try to pick one enemy faction at a time as my primary target, especially in the early game.

You can not only fight them yourself but send in your allies too. (more on that later)

With England, the order is usually...

1) Scotland - should be no challenge at all
2) France - obvious next target but you should let them start the war
3) Milan/Venice/Sicily - pick whichever is annoying you the most but watch out for Papal State allies!
4) Spain/Portugal - hey, they attacked me
5) HRE or some other "central" faction

At that point, you should have a huge chunk of territory and be well on your way to victory, so it should hardly matter how many allies you have (think I have 3 now at turn 80).

Don't put your military units/ships into another faction's territory unless you have military access rights. That really pisses them off.

Get good standing with the Pope by producing lots of priests and church buildings, joining Crusades, and giving the Papal States tribute/payment/territory. Send your priests into Papal State territory especially if that territory is not 100% Catholic (seems to help).

Or just straight-up bribe the Papal States with 1000 florin every once in awhile or give them some crappy city you don't want.

Many agreements that are initially rejected will go through if you add a certain amount of one-time payment or tribute. The amount varies, but 200 one-time or 100 for 5 turns is usually good enough for most things (provided I haven't pissed the faction off too much).

For factions that you want to destroy, you can have your allied factions attack them instead of doing it yourself, which usually lasts for around 15 turns. This is a great way to fight proxy wars, where your allies are the ones who get their reputation burned instead of you. The opponent won't necessarily declare war on you, either.

I can't stress enough that you need to have a bunch of diplomats, and you need to negotiate aggressively. Don't just walk away after something is rejected, even if you have to try over several turns. Ofter more and more until your deal is accepted (within your price range). You will be surprised at what you can get other factions to do. At one point, I had four of my allies beating on the HRE for 15 turns, and I hadn't even bothered attacking them myself yet.

Also, it is much more important to have good standing with the Pope than with other countries, especially if you're sufficiently strong to fight a multi-front war. That way, if anyone attacks you and you have decent rep, their standing will drop immediately.

On turn 80, I'm at war with Spain, Portugal, and some Italian faction (or two). But since my early game diplomacy was pretty good, I have 3 solid allies. And none of my enemies can really touch me militarily. Standing with the pope is better, too.

France has been wiped out. Milan is gone, too. Portugal and Spain are next on my list.

Oh, yeah, you're not supposed to ever sack or use assassins (which increases dread and lowers rep). But both are just way too fun not to use once in awhile, IMHO.

Playing on Hard campaign instead of Very Hard also seems to help. IMHO, Very Hard is just a monumental pain, because your allies will attack you over absolutely nothing, which is just plain stupid. So I prefer Hard, which seems a bit more realistic, and your allies will actually stick with you awhile.

It also helps not to leave "tempting" targets around, like large front-line cities without large garrisons. The AI seems to think that it is okay to start a war with the strongest faction if one city only has a few peasants in it. If you have a massive garrison equaling or exceeding the computer's army, they usually won't start a war to attack your settlement in the first place.

The most amusing thing is to have as many of your allies as possible attack your current target. Sometimes they will wipe them out without you having to commit any troops at all.

And BTW if you have already gotten well into a campaign where you didn't do any of this, it might be best to start over. It is next to impossible to come back from dubious unless you really know what you're doing! For good rep, you generally have to play the entire campaign in a certain style. Even just a couple incidents of "bad boy" behavior can send everything pretty much permanently down the tubes (excommunication, multiple wars, etc.).

Oh, yeah, don't ever attack the Papal States unless you really know what you're doing, because then it is open season on you for all Catholic factions.

[Tricky557]

Try giving them the best of deals. Offer them a tribute of 50 florins for 20 turns or something, to get them on your good side. Or, you could(although I've never tried this myself) give them a settlement of yours thats running low on loyalty but has been yours for a long time. Empty out the garrison. then, offer it to them in a deal for peace(before this destroy unit creating buildings). Without a garrison, and because it was yours for a long time, it will likely rebel. If not, you can always just recapture it quick since it doesn't have a garrison. You could also sell settlements doing the same thing, empty the settlement, demand cash, then just march in and retake it without a scratch and some extra cash to boot.

[Muagan_ra]

Your faction leader's Dread or Chivalry informs your reputation. If your leader is malevolent and cruel (high Dread) you will be ill-thought of, because the buck stops at the King! Likewise, if your leader is a decent bloke who is generally fair (high Chivalry) your reputation will be better.

Try releasing prisoners after battle, with your leader as the General; this is the surest way to increase Chivalry. Have him govern a settlement with low taxes. Or better yet, send him on Crusade. As he gets more virtuous, your reputation will increase.

[Landtuber]

The best advice is don't worry about reputation. Sack/exterminate whenever you want, use assassins as much as you want, attack catholic regions to piss off the pope. Unless you want to play to win diplomatically as your goal, your reputation will plummet eventually anyway as your nation gets bigger and bigger and more wars are fought.

Also, its way more fun to just rampage around doing whatever you can for king and country, imo.

[i liek kake]

dont start wars dont offer peace to genoa (milan)

[damn u obama]

ya never trust the Milans

[Silent Assassin]

The best advice is don't worry about reputation. Sack/exterminate whenever you want, use assassins as much as you want, attack catholic regions to piss off the pope. Unless you want to play to win diplomatically as your goal, your reputation will plummet eventually anyway as your nation gets bigger and bigger and more wars are fought.

Also, its way more fun to just rampage around doing whatever you can for king and country, imo.

Your way ain't maybe another players way. I do not agree with the way you play your game Reputation does play a great role bigger than alot of players like you think as you never tried it. I respect the way you play no worries but IMO I find that the way you play is a game breaker for me.

ya never trust the Milans

dont start wars dont offer peace to genoa (milan)

I agree with you on this

[damn u obama]

milan sucks, but doesnt come close scotland. i mean, they only suck at killing guys in battle becuz they have to rip off everyones head and spit down their necks, i mean it takes forever

[France]

Damn you milan!!

[karabas]

One of the guides on this forum mentioned not offering trade rights to those with whom you can't trade/can't trade much. I'm trying that myself as the Moors - only have trade rights with Portugal, Spain, and France, because that's who I border. So far so good.

Also, making alliances with everyone as mentioned above isn't good practice either, because you then have to break the alliance and kill your rep when you need to take their territory.

[Silent Assassin]

One of the guides on this forum mentioned not offering trade rights to those with whom you can't trade/can't trade much. I'm trying that myself as the Moors - only have trade rights with Portugal, Spain, and France, because that's who I border. So far so good.

Also, making alliances with everyone as mentioned above isn't good practice either, because you then have to break the alliance and kill your rep when you need to take their territory.

You are wrong about breaking alliances if you don't want to have your Rep down just send them a diplomate and cancel your alliance a bit the same way you need to do this when the Pope asks you to break your allaince with a catholic faction that is excommunated.

[Viking Prince]

You are wrong about breaking alliances if you don't want to have your Rep down just send them a diplomate and cancel your alliance a bit the same way you need to do this when the Pope asks you to break your allaince with a catholic faction that is excommunated.

Do this for all diplomatic activity at least one turn prior to taking actions. This includes trade agreements, btw. Another reason to not make agreements that cannot be kept or maintained on the otherside of the known universe from settlements under your control.

[The Noble Lord]

Just make sure that you don't annoy the Pope too much, because everyone else ends up hating you then.

[France]

Having a faction leader with high chivalry raises rep too.

[P.D]

and will now exit
I get this message when starting some battlefield...how can i fix it?....
Many thanks...

[P.D]

Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit
I get this message when starting some battlefield...how can i fix it?....
Many thanks...