I've never had a problem with DIPLOMACY until now

[Jaytee]

Always found it to be fine. Sometimes there will be an odd decision but I can easily think of a reason which explains it away.

However, in my current campaign as KOJ I had two unprovoked wars started on me by Oman and the central Arab faction beneath the Seljuks. I have a large empire purely because I wiped out the Ayyubids who started the war with me. So I share borders with the Turks, Armenians, Makurians, Oman and the black coloured central Arab faction. These latter two started a war on me as I said. I have only ever defended and never went on the attack into their territory. I have realeased men and ransomed men never slaughtered them.

When entering diplomacy I have a diplomat with half of the experience slots filled, I can see they desire 'peace' so I offer them tonnes of money, map information, trade rights and even out of desperation the city that they have been attacking. This was purely because at the time my armies and cities were riddled with the plague and wherever the armies went they were re-infecting the populations. So in a war where I have to send the units back to re-fit and re-train them you can imagine how badly the plague was affecting my population, income and military capability. Back to the point in hand, no matter how generous I was they would not accept peace, even though they wanted it. Looking at the line charts, my strength is 3 times there military strength, and I have the largest empire in the game, yet they stubbornly resist my offers of peace.

Some factors that may need to be considered;

1. I am in a Christian league of nations (However, none are at war with my enemies)
2. My enemies started the wars against me.
3. I have always ransomed and released my enemy
4. I have never attacked them.
5. They want peace I want peace.
6. They won't accept the city they are attacking, + money, + trade rights.
7. My two enemies are allied.
8. My diplomat is capable and has been around for a long time.
9. My leader has a reputation for being a killer due to use of assassins.
10. The diplomacy for peace started years before the current leader. The last leader was known for his chivalry.

So, my question is, what is up with this diplomacy!?

[vityazb]

I am not an expert on AI in this mod, but I think you are right in your assumptions on the factors that could have influenced hostilities. You are a Christian nation, and you probably have Jerusalem, I would guess these to be the main factors. Arab factions are obviously competing in a fight with an infidel:-)
best regard!
P.S. I am playing for Abbasids, the "central Arab faction in black" and Ayyubids are my allies so there you go:-)

[Jaytee]

As it turns out, I gave up on diplomacy and sent a huge crusade of stacks the long way around the broken crescent kicking the Omani of the peninsula and my army ending up on the other side of the Abbasids (Thank you vityazb) and now I am taking their cities from both sides. Despite losing half of their territories the Omani are still very big as their empire stretches from the persian gulf all the way to just below the Mongols in the North. The Abbasids have what is coming. Loving the randomness of this campaign. Big Roman Empire and Armenian empires helping each other taking on the Seljuks.

[vityazb]

That is just amazing, sounds like your strategy is working and you got them sandwiched!

[Borgoroth]

In my experience, if you play vh/vh, enemies wont ever accept anything unless they have few terrerories, multiple wars with other factions etc. If they're big, your size doesn't matter, they wont accept anything.

[vityazb]

That's right, to much conflict and confrontation never suited the long term diplomatic relationship, need time for trade and the building of armies.

[Jaytee]

A New Problem

I am at war with Kypchaks and destroying them battle after battle. If I check their finance situation they appear to be very rich. However, after winning a battle I will always ransom the captured units for them to reject the proposal and therefore every captured man end up being killed. The ransom requested is either in the hundreds or only a few thousand gold pieces if I have captured a family member yet they reject it, even though they clearly have the money and they need the men to turn the tide of the war.

Can this type of behaviour be edited by the BC team?

[vityazb]

That is interesting. I have noticed the same thing but in my game it does not happen all the time, but randomly. Maybe the Kypchaks are just dumb when it comes to diplomacy, being a nomad nation? And so they do not believe in paying for the prisoners since it is a kind of dishonor to be captured?

[Jaytee]

That is interesting. I have noticed the same thing but in my game it does not happen all the time, but randomly. Maybe the Kypchaks are just dumb when it comes to diplomacy, being a nomad nation? And so they do not believe in paying for the prisoners since it is a kind of dishonor to be captured?

I would love that to be the case but I think that would be being too kind to the diplomacy, I doubt it is that in depth.

Oddly in the last few turns they have actually been accepting ransoms. Strange.

[Praetorian1]

diplomacy sometimes goes to the point of becoming rediculous in bc, as a test, i offered 2000000 florins to the Ayyubids as a gift they replied "keep that up, & u will anger the sultan..." lol

[trollface]

It pays to conquer rebel settlements bordering a potential enemy and then offer it to another faction your potential enemy will not attack in return for an alliance. This is a vital strategy when playing armenia...

If you trade someone a settlement for an alliance do not ask for trade rights as well because they will refuse. Trade rights are more valuable to the ai than alliance

[Totalnoob]

For some reason trade rights can be an extremely touchy subject for some factions. Once I was playing as the Ayyubids and was at war with the KOJ. I was really kicking his butt so they sent a diplomat to me asking for a ceasefire. I decided to grant him the ceasefire and as part of my counter-offer I threw in trade rights as well (BIG mistake!). The offer was considered generous on the diplomacy page - but the diplomat certainly didn't think so! He was greatly offended and firmly rejected my offer. I decided to drop the trade rights and grant his original request of a ceasefire, but he was so pissed off he no longer wanted peace at all and broke off negotiations! He would rather see his kingdom destroyed than have trade rights with me!!