A comprehensive guide to Medieval 2 Total War Diplomacy

**Kaiser Nonsense** · November 11, 2012, 08:46 PM

It's basically impossible to get your foes to accept vassalage oaths, some of them truly rather be destroyed than accept kneel to you lol. Now I do not understand why my reputation is "Very Untrustworthy" if I did not betray anyone.

**PapaRosario** · November 11, 2012, 08:54 PM

Originally Posted by NemesisFY

It's basically impossible to get your foes to accept vassalage oaths, some of them truly rather be destroyed than accept kneel to you lol. Now I do not understand why my reputation is "Very Untrustworthy" if I did not betray anyone.

Most likely from executing prisoners or sacking/exterminating settlements you capture. There are many things that affect reputation. Not just betrayal.

**Kaiser Nonsense** · November 13, 2012, 01:21 PM

It's wrong, it should be unrelated, if you are ruthless it does not mean you are not a man of word.

**PapaRosario** · November 13, 2012, 01:52 PM

Originally Posted by NemesisFY

It's wrong, it should be unrelated, if you are ruthless it does not mean you are not a man of word.

Well look at it this way. People probably expected you to act a certain way even if you were at war. They probably don't expect you to go into cities and kill all of the women and children. If you do something dishonorable like that, then they wouldn't know what other unwritten "rules of war" that you might break, and would be less likely to trust you. So even if you don't explicitly break your word on anything, people might still see you as untrustworthy.

But if you don't like that, it takes a couple of seconds to change in your descr_faction_standing file, assuming that you have unpacked the game's data files.

**Kaiser Nonsense** · November 13, 2012, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by PapaRosario

But if you don't like that, it takes a couple of seconds to change in your descr_faction_standing file, assuming that you have unpacked the game's data files.

And how do I do that?

**PapaRosario** · November 13, 2012, 08:01 PM

Originally Posted by NemesisFY

And how do I do that?

Find the triggers for execute/sack/exterminate and remove the global faction standing reduction.

**koetj** · October 08, 2015, 10:35 AM

Nice guide but i never use diplomacy except for trade agreements, give me 5 horsearchers and i can defeat any incoming invaders

**Lord_Imrahil** · October 22, 2015, 06:42 AM

Good guide. I red it few month ago and it helped me to understand Diplomacy much better and now I can plan my moves much better, because I can predict how it will effect surrounding kingdoms

**Anonymous Awesomeness** · March 16, 2016, 10:12 PM

When you ally with factions, does it unlock new units? EX, I am allied with the Scottish as France, and it unlocked Scot Guards, or something like that, but I don't get anything from my English alliance...?

**♔atthias♔** · March 17, 2016, 03:02 AM

Originally Posted by Anonymous Awesomeness

When you ally with factions, does it unlock new units? EX, I am allied with the Scottish as France, and it unlocked Scot Guards, or something like that, but I don't get anything from my English alliance...?

this is not possible AFAIK in vanila

**thefarsidenoob** · July 10, 2016, 11:50 AM

Thank you for this, hopefully I can get a hold on diplomacy now.

**Sitalkes** · February 26, 2017, 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by Kaiserlicher Ritter

It's basically impossible to get your foes to accept vassalage oaths, some of them truly rather be destroyed than accept kneel to you lol. Now I do not understand why my reputation is "Very Untrustworthy" if I did not betray anyone.

Most likely you did something like join a crusade against a country with which you had a trade agreement, without ending the trade agreement first. By the way, it's not enough to end the trade agreement by clicking on the option on the left side of the screen, you have to choose that option, then click on the "tell your opponent" option in the bottom -right of the screen. You always have to end agreements before declaring war or you will get more and more untrustworthy.

**Sitalkes** · February 26, 2017, 08:48 PM

It's easy to improve relations with another faction, just offer them a "very generous" offer over and over again, this will make your relations improve all the way to perfect. The offer doesn't have to be accepted, so offer them several provinces for a price they can't pay (8-10,000 florins), then do it again and again. The down side to this is that each offer refused reduces your diplomat's skill level, so you may end up with a diplomat who has no diplomacy skill points. So you need to have diplomats with high skill levels who always succeed at their deal making (save before trying and reload and try another faction if they fail) who make you lots of money plus diplomats with no skill who you send around improving your relations with very generous offers that can't be accepted.