A comprehensive guide to Medieval 2 Total War Diplomacy
I am not sure if prior approval is necessary for posting such a guide, I am relatively new to the forum and have been greatly inspired by some of the postings here. I am a proud owner of all Total War games so far and over the years I have found more and more joy from the games. In response to recent topics regarding diplomacy I have decided to write a guide, mainly because I have been fascinated with the politics of Total War games ever since Shogun. Moreover, I know there is an important amount of frustration from experienced players as well as new players over the correct use of diplomacy in your campaign. This thread hopefully builds on some of the great work done by Rebel6666 in his Great Thread. Some of my inspiration came after reading his work. My experiences are recorded here as encountered in the vanilla version of the game on a Very Hard/Very Hard Battle and Campaign difficulty. I am not one of these people that like mods too much but I am not the guy who hates mods either. I understand that different people have different interests in the game and that is what makes it awesome.
DEDICATION
To all of you who consistently get betrayed, blockaded or in other ways destroyed by those you fail to understand.
INTRODUCTION
Unless you are a fierce warlord on the battlefield and prefer to spend your time mostly in the multiplayer lounge, the single player campaign map is probably where you spend most of your time in the wonderful world of Medieval 2 Total War. You build great empires that stretch from Lisbon to Novgorod, gain utmost glory in holy crusades, role-play your family members lives and perform complex subterfuge missions that would make current governments look like lost children. All this is often described by experienced players as "sugar coating" the game and it is perfectly OK. In fact most people do it at levels I couldn't begin to imagine. In this respect I believe my sugar coating of the game has always comes through the diplomatic evolution of the game. (yes, I was that history nerd in high school) I can't help it, I love role-playing history. This has led to a significantly better understanding of why an AI suddenly decides to attack you in most situations, how agreements are made or what motivates a faction to take a certain course of action.
Sure, there will be cases when there is nothing you can do to anticipate a completely cunning AI that seems to want war for no reason. But in most cases, the backstabbing AI has a solid reason for attacking you that has eluded you in the complicated diplomacy scroll. Diplomacy is complicated in the game because there are FEW METRICS for it. The only things you really know is your relation level with another faction. But what does that really mean? Should I stay unarmed because I am loved? "You can do more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word." This thread hopes to shed some light on the various diplomacy features of the game and help you improve or change your game style and overall experience.
1. DIPLOMACY BASICS
Diplomacy is the most complex aspect of the campaign map and is often easily misinterpreted. Hopefully, after reading this guide you will find yourself more in control of what is going on your campaign, more engaged in your decisions and better informed when making them.
The agents needed to perform diplomatic missions are your diplomats or your princesses. Their skill is a scale that measures the chance they have to perform tasks. Naturally, the skill is affected by the traits of the characters and these traits evolve based on their in game experiences. The main difference between princesses and diplomats are that princesses can marry foreign or national generals whereas diplomats have the special ability to bribe enemy armies. Otherwise, they may both be used to propose treaties or negotiate deals with other factions. At the beginning of the campaign you start with either a diplomat or a princess and need to make good use of them until more agents are recruited. Using the agents often in deals also increases their skill and obviously their chance of obtaining even more favorable deals.
While princesses usually appear in the regions their fathers serve as commanders, diplomats can be trained easier in cities than in castles. The castles eventually get the option to build a library later in the game and can then train diplomats there.
When requesting an audience to a foreign faction, you are shown the diplomacy interface. This contains useful additional information to consider before engaging in deals with the other part. Some of the information displayed on the top left and right of the screen are the two nations statistics, direct relations, reputation and what the other faction is believed to want from yours. This last piece of information is often unknown but throughout negotiations MAY CHANGE unexpectedly. When visible it is a great indication of where you may take negotiations further and negotiate a deal or improve your diplomat's skill. Some people have suggested that having a spy in the region you are engaging in negotiations may improve your chances of knowing your opposition's intentions. I do not have enough evidence at this time to verify this claim but feel free to explore.
There are several different treaties you can negotiate with a faction:
-trade treaty (allows settlements to trade with other faction's settlements)
-alliance (allows enemy armies to reinforce you in battle and vice-versa; is also a great indicator of a faction's foreign policy and interventionism level in the game: hawk(more likely to be aggressive) vs. dove(less likely to be aggressive)
-military access (allows one of the sides to march troops through the others lands without a deterioration in relations)
-demand attack on another faction(is a purely formal agreement that one of the sides will attack another faction; the faction is however completely free to not honor their agreement, so depending on the course of action decided, the respective faction will witness an increase or decrease in reputation.)
-demand vassalage (the other faction becomes your vassal and contribute to your national income as well as your territory count; you become allied with them and have military access in their puppet nation)
There are also several deals you can make:
-exchange regions
-exchange money
-exchange map information
-a combination of the above
In the case you are a Catholic faction and are excommunicated when talking to the Pope you can request a reconciliation. This is usually very difficult to accomplish and will require something substantial in exchange. Another request you can make is request Cardinal votes in case one of your cardinals is running in the Papal elections and you need other factions to support you. The Papal relations topic will be covered in more detail in a following chapter.
Throughout the campaign you may diplomatically engage anyone with any offer but just like in real life, people tend to be wary of the ones that either do not honor their promises or cannot correctly evaluate their own capacity to do what they promise. In other words, trust is hard to build and very easy to shatter in one second. Keep that in mind every time you agree to anything. What is significantly more interesting is that you will be responsible with trusting several factions not just one and vice versa. This creates what is usually called a diplomatic context, a specific setting of relations in which anyone can affect the others. If you cannot or will not keep your word, there will be consequences, which I will explain further. And yes this applies to everything, even trade rights.
2. TRADE RELATIONS
Trade is usually the biggest contributor to your national budget so maintaining a solid trade empire without a high defense cost is beneficial and dare I say even necessary for quick expansion. In consequence it is beneficial to sign trade treaties with some of your neighbors early on. Be VERY AWARE however that trade treaties in themselves are a sign of friendship that automatically influence your relations with that faction as well as your relations with that faction's potential enemies or friends. While trade is so beneficial for your yearly income it is also the easiest part of your empire to exploit by hostiles. In this respect, a very frequent mistake is to sign lots of trade treaties and have no navy. This is an invitation to what you may call backstabbers to paralyze your entire nation. So there you are thinking "What did I do to deserve these cunning attacks?" and there is the AI thinking "I am going to try to expand and take this guy over instead of upsetting my other neighbors." which is actually the best thing for him to do in the given circumstances.
Sign trade relations with nations that you are likely not to be in conflict with for as long as you can imagine. Also understand that signing trade relations will mean your relations with that faction will start fluctuating now based on both the diplomatic decisions your countries make with others. If you want to keep the money coming in home, make sure you have a diplomat in your most important trade partners factions for quick negotiations. Your diplomats are literally your diplomatic arms. The more they are the farther and faster you reach. Don't sign trade treaties with your friends enemies. This will negatively influence your reputation, and as we will short see your reputation is the core of your diplomatic abilities. Be careful however, as stated previously reputation increases very hard and decreases very easy. You want to keep doing the right thing if you want to be taken seriously. Avoid trading with warmongers or countries with very low reputation. If you want to get this to work you need to accept the hard facts. The increase in reputation will greatly counter the decrease in money. A good strategy to start with is to become trade partners with future allies and nations you do not intend to attack or intervene militarily in under any circumstances. Keep a navy proportional to your trading capability at least in the beginning, when factions tend to act unpredictable.
3. FORGING LASTING ALLIANCES
This is probably the most important topic pertaining to the interaction between diplomacy and war. Choosing your allies or even choosing to have allies are decisions that should be carefully thought out in consideration with the current territorial situation of the game. Basically ask not whether you want to be allied with someone but rather whether that someone wants to be allied with you. An alliance is an important commitment from a military perspective as factions in search for alliances are not factions bored by the perspective of peace. It is also interpreted by the AI as a "show off" as you are literally agreeing to intervene militarily on a faction's side if needed. This makes you look bold and hawkish so be prepared to stand by your word. If you successfully do so you will be regarded as efficient and respected not only by your people and allies but by your potential enemies and other warmongers out there as well.
A common mistake players make is to go around in the beginning of the game signing alliances with almost everyone. Then as soon as for example two wars break out, in which the player is not necessarily directly involved, his reputation becomes horrible for not being able to help anyone, his trade income is greatly reduced and invasion by a warmonger is imminent as a result of the economic weakness. This is a catastrophe scenario you can avoid by being a little more modest until you are truly capable to blossom. If you are terribly worried about one neighbor AND that neighbor is acting belligerent then you should seek an alliance with another neighbor that is not a threat to you, and shares your concern. You should try to keep the number of allies you have proportional to the size of your armed forces. If you cannot commit to assist someone then just tell him the truth and don't. You can easily do this by counter-offering some gold or something to make him forget the bad news. Beware however in using counter-offers: you cannot get away with it all the time! It is sometimes a lot better to just say NO than weasel your way out of a proposition you don't like.
If your reputation is very good (trustworthy or better), you can easily request military assistance from your allies in a common war. This is the easiest way to put diplomacy to brutal use. A good diplomat and a good offer of gold can get any good ally to help you out. Similarly, an ally may request help against someone, or gold in case of war. It should be your priority to commit to the alliance with either resources or troops whenever this is required. Committing to an alliance is almost never beneficial, but is always a great way to increase your reputation and your ability to obtain amazing deals with other factions.
For Catholic factions the game usually revolves around two main mega alliances. These alliances do not always necessarily form literally (meaning each nation is allied with the other) and may not always contain the same factions, but are overall formed in a similar process. I will call these factions the Hawks and the Doves. The Hawks are factions like Milan, Portugal, Sicily, Holy Roman Empire and England that are eager to expand mainly because of their inherent historical identity. These countries all exhibit fierce expansionism:
-HRE has set as its goal to become the next Roman Empire
-Milan needs territories so it can consolidate its weak starting position
-England is controlled by William the Conqueror (need I say more?)
-Portugal has weakened starting position due to their divided territories
-Sicily... God don't even get me started on Sicily
The other countries are Doves, countries that are more concerned with consolidation and expansion over rebels than invading someone else. The Doves are usually France, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Byzantines, Egypt. What usually happens is that some of the Hawks attack some of the Doves and then all hell breaks loose. The two mega factions, although different in each game, compete fiercely for territories, trade and control of the papacy. Deciding if you are a Hawk, a Dove or neither is a big step in figuring out who your best bet for allies are going to be. The non Catholic factions usually get sucked in one of these alliances or remain isolated from the Catholic world.
Another issue that is very important in dealing with allies is to be careful to request reasonable things. Requesting a war declaration from a Dove on someone neutral is usually a good way to ruin your relation with him and your reputation shortly after. Allies that you are in great relations with are less likely to consider attacking you even in a major international crisis. In several of my campaigns I was able to maintain perfect relations with one neighbor for the entire duration of the game. When you reach a high level of understanding with your allies you may propose a common military access policy. A good way to achieve this is by first showing a clear demilitarization of your common border. You may keep troops in the regions adjacent to your border regions, in order to be able to reinforce the regions in one turn. You will finds forts to be of great help when doing this. A military access treaty is only useful(and is only likely to be accepted) if you actually share a border with your ally and there is a clear need, whether because of road distance or otherwise, for both of you to march troops in each others territory. This is often a sign that an ally trusts you with his life. You can profit from this by assisting him with troops in his struggles and maintaining a top notch reputation.
4. REGION EXCHANGE, EXPANSIONISM AND VASSALAGE
Obviously expansionism is an essential part of the game, how else would you win? Expansionism needn't be unprovoked or unnecessary though. Every time a faction captures another settlement they become stronger and their competitors also become warier. A good way to use diplomacy to deal with military expansion penalties on your reputation is to provoke a future enemy at the negotiations table. Bad deals are also a good way to justify a war, as once your relations with someone decrease you may inform him of trade cancellation. This will anger them considerably and you can expect to be attacked shortly after. The great news now is that you are defending and they will most likely be excommunicated or otherwise in trouble within their own diplomatic relations. This represents a great opportunity to counterattack and capture some provinces at a minimum penalty.
However expansionism comes into play as early as fighting the rebel settlements around you and may have a fatal effect on your future reputation even though you are not at war with anyone yet. We will further develop this topic using an example. Consider the starting position of the Holy Roman Empire for a minute. Expansion to the north taking Hamburg will make the Danes wary and have territorial claims on you. Expansion towards Prague will cause a similar reaction from Poland. Each decision to expand is tempting but taking them all at once is a recipe for war on all fronts. The lesson from this is that you have to realize early on that the more you are pushing into someone the more likely it is they will permanently regard you as hostile.
Region exchange is pretty rare but may occur if you have large amounts of cash (around 15000-20000 for a settlement should do if you are in good relations with the faction you are buying from). Another way to request settlements is when another faction requests you to be their vassal. If you accept your economy will be slightly affected but you will have the chance to make the counter offer of your life and accept vassalage in exchange for 1-2 enemy settlements. Although vassalage means a complete reshuffling of your diplomatic relations it can be beneficial in some extreme circumstances. The reverse works as well: you may offer regions and cash to heavily hurt foes in exchange for vassalage.
Expansionism is tied in very closely with another concept we have already encountered in this guide: militarization and demilitarization of regions. Although apparently not related to diplomacy the movement of your armed forces is of great important to your relations. A great way to deter warmongers and backstabbers is to keep an armed force proportional in size to that of the potential attacker in the respective province. The same goes for ports as discussed in the section describing trade relations. The AI usually attacks positions that he considers weak: weak garrisoned settlements, undefended ports or trading empires and is completely right to do so. Wouldn't you attack an undefended city accross the Mediteranean if you knew it would be ungarissoned when you got to it? Yes you would.
5. PAPAL RELATIONS AND CRUSADES/JIHADS
Regardless of whether you are playing as a Catholic or a non Catholic faction your relation to the Pope will determine the limit of your Hawkishness. Catholic factions usually should seek to ally with the Pope early on. The purpose of this is twofold: it acts as a deterrent against Catholic warmongers and it consolidates your relations with the Papacy regardless of the nation that has the Pope. If you are playing a non Catholic faction you may find it useful to send gifts to the Pope and have him like you in order to avoid Crusades.
An alliance with the pope is not too demanding since few factions will have the audacity to attack the Papacy so you will almost never need to intervene directly or not. Joining Crusades is a great opportunity for legitimate conquest and escaping the Hawkish image of an invader.
As your religious infrastructure is expanding try to train priests and compete for the Papal seat. Manipulation of the Papacy is a great tool to permanently damage the diplomatic relations of your enemies with the Pope. This may require intense negotiations with other factions for their votes. Usually cash, regions and sometimes military assistance can earn you their support. This is another example of diplomacy used purely as a weapon. Beware not to get excommunicated as much as possible as this will have disastrous effects on your reputation and it is very likely that you will never be able to recover from it, fighting multiple fronts for the duration of the game.
P.S. I am awaiting your comments for improvement or editing. There may be typos or minor grammatical mistakes in the text. Please let me know if you spot them.
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Originally Posted by Spartan90
