Playing as Spain

[Fyrdracca]

Hi,

This is my first post to twcenter forums, but I'd love it if someone could give me some answers about my current campaign. I've just downloaded the 1.2 patch for the game in the hope that the AI diplomacy would be a little more reasonable, and have started playing as Spain on very hard (battle and campaign) difficulty. Despite my charming princesses and diplomats, I apparently am the spawn of Hitler; literally EVERYONE has attacked within 20 turns! ing SCOTLAND have sent an enormous army down to Iberia and seem to be pretty pally with their English oppressors who are also rampaging around the peninsular. What have I done to deserve this? Has anyone else experienced something similar playing as Spain? I hadn't really made any trade/alliance agreements to piss anyone off, so I'm a bit baffled.

Any help?

Many thanks.

[Nazgûl Killer]

This isn't an individual campaign problem, this is a general problem which we like to call Vanilla AI.

Vanilla (Original M2TW) AI is horribly aggressive, incoherent and never listens to reason. Don't worry, you haven't done anything wrong.

What I would like to suggest is that you upgrade your game to version 1.3 and either get Kingdoms and play Stainless Steel or get Broken Crescent for your 1.3 M2TW game. These mods alter the AI completely (And give you a new map), making it much better and more coherent. You'll find them fun.

[Fyrdracca]

Thanks for replying Naz,

I had a suspicion it was a game design flaw as oppose to some inexplicable hatred of the Spanish race. I've had a poke around the mod forums for the BC download, but its been around so long I couldn't find a working link to it, you couldn't be of any help could you? In the meantime I'll update to 1.3.

Appreciate your time mate.

F

[John Doe]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=274922

You have to scroll down to the third post. I dl it 2 weeks ago so it's still working.

Enjoy

[Viking Prince]

If you are playing the basic unmodded game -- the factions are much more likely to take offense and once at war with one, you might find others willing to pile in as well.

I am guessing that either England of one of the Italian factions took a visitation party to Iberia. You might have taken offense and attacked. Or perhaps you had a settlement with only minimal garrision. At any rate, you are at war.

Perhaps, you also did not play nicey nice with your neighbors and quickly tied in trade and alliance deals.

If the enemy faction started the war by laying seige to a settlement -- maybe you responded with a military force and not first with a diplomatic solution. If you first try diplomacy, you might find the faction just wants a trade agreement, but asks in a bit more aggressive manner than you or I would.

If all of the above, then this does indeed trigger the 'spawn of Hitler' syndrome.

btw -- I like the term. I shall steal it and call it my own.

[Freodin]

If the enemy faction started the war by laying seige to a settlement -- maybe you responded with a military force and not first with a diplomatic solution. If you first try diplomacy, you might find the faction just wants a trade agreement, but asks in a bit more aggressive manner than you or I would.

Excuse me, did I get that right?

An AI factions rolls in and lays siege to one of your cities.... and instead of smashing the impudent invasor, you advise to send in a diplomat and ask if he just wants a trade agreement?

Well, that´s a novel concept, I have to admit. I must try this sometimes.

[Viking Prince]

Excuse me, did I get that right?

An AI factions rolls in and lays siege to one of your cities.... and instead of smashing the impudent invasor, you advise to send in a diplomat and ask if he just wants a trade agreement?

Well, that´s a novel concept, I have to admit. I must try this sometimes.

It works for me.

Also, when the AI faction is bankrupt, they tend to send excess units on a rampage party since I do not think they are capable of voluntary demobalization. If you notice when the Moors are successful in takinig Lisbon, the Portugeese are then bankrupt. A small stack or two then begins to wander looking for a settlement to seige. If they are your ally, a diplomat gifting 100 florins or perhaps just map information may be enough to send them on their way before they break any agreements and start seiging a settlement.

[John Doe]

I always try to send a diplomat to a faction that just attacked me. If the ceasefire and trade right is rated as very generous, then I add more requests (money or settlement). For some weird reason, a exact same deal rated as balanced and refused by the AI the first time, may be rated as very generous the second time (same turn, same diplomat).

It's very common occurence in my HRE campaign, the moors/spain/byzantines always come to siege Florence or bologna, and even though they could totally take the city with their huge army, they always end up paying me for peace (moors are always willing to give Timbuktu). Of course the diplomatic outcome is also linked with the level of global reputation (I'm at least reliable).

EDIT: this works best if you don't share a border with the aggressor.

[Loki_999]

Its amazing how well it works as well. I have a Byzzie army appear on my doorstep (quite a large stack) and lay siege and my (Russian) castle was only lightly defended. I had a diplomat nearby and offered trade rights, and he "Happily Accepted" and sent his stack off to attack the Polish instead. Quite decent of them.

In another bizarre twist of diplomacy in a previous game playing as the English, i offered the Pope a region, 10000 Florins, 1000 Florins per turn for 10 turns, in return for an alliance. He rejected on the grounds that I just would take the region back off him. Talk about strange... the region was far away from my territory and not much use to me and I had no army nearby. So, i offered him just the money in return for the alliance and he accepted. Complete weirdo that Pope.

[IZob]

I think (not sure if this is in the vanilla campagins) but on VH diffucilty factions are scripted to be more aggressive against the human player.