Missions are bad news - consequences of failure?

[FootSoldier]

What are the consequences of not completing missions? As the Danes on turn 32, I'm thinking of ignoring an Explorer's Guild mission to take London from England.

I have the impression that failing a Council of Nobles mission causes a loss of Authority. Papal missions are obvious - the penalty is always stated. Guild missions? Does it just mean they won't offer you more of their Guilds, or offer the Guild HQ?

Does anyone know for sure?

I know that following missions starts wars with neighbours, allies, and anyone else. It ruins relations, damages reputation and diplomacy, and weakens alliances.

Out of my last 3 missions as Denmark I've got 2 wars with neighbours, potentially a 3rd war with an ally (France re Bruges), and potentially a 4th war with another ally (Scotland re London)

In detail, I'm playing Denmark with a plan to turtle in Europe and expand in the Middle East. At turn 24 I have outstanding relations with all my neighbours, and am at war only with the Rebels. The Council of Nobles gives me a mission to take Antwerp. Fair enough - the Danes always take this. The neutral HRE has a couple of units prowling around it so I know it means war with them. I take it, and sure enough the HRE attacks, despite Outstanding relations at the time. This falls rapidly as HRE attacks are repelled. War 1 (HRE).

Next the Council tells me to take Bruges. My ally France has a spy inside it and 2 assassins outside it, and is showing a big interest with troops on the border. So, if I take it my ally France will "backstab" me 120 turns down the track, but I can't say I wasn't warned. Maybe I will gift it to them. Potential war 1 (France).

I take Bruges, and already I'm feeling greedy to keep the extra income. I've also gone off the alliance with France. I want to buy Caen from the English, which has French troops wandering all over it.

At turn 32 my relations with my allies France and Scotland are Perfect. My relations with Poland (neutral, ally to the HRE, but Happily Accepting my gifts of attacking the HRE) are Perfect. My relations with England are Perfect, and I'm ready to propose buying Caen, despite the French troops on it.

Now the Explorer's Guild gives me the mission to take London. Not only will this put me at war with a second European power, with reputation loss, but I strongly suspect my ally Scotland wants London. (Scotland already has York and Caernarvon and is harrassing the English around Nottingham, though not at war). No doubt 150 turns down the track Scotland will "backstab" me as a consequence.

In the short term my reputation will suffer, my alliances are being weakened, and the trade loss with England amounts to a third of Danish income. War 2 (England) and potential war 2 (Scotland).

Now, I could give London to the Scots, but I would still be at war with England. And, if the Scots conquer England too quickly where can they go next but Danish territory?

I've seen this time and again with the missions. They set the player on a course of conflict with neighbours and allies. You're Sicily and you get the mission to take rebel Durazzo. This means war with Venice and the Byzantines, whether they are allies or not (though a big trade boost for Naples). Poland gets a mission to take Prague - war with the HRE whether allied or not. Sometimes it takes 100+ turns for the conflict to emerge, but I usually know what caused it to begin with.

Once as Poland I was allied to both the Pope and Venice. Venice was ex-communicated. The Pope set a mission to break the alliance, under the threat of an inquisition in my lands (a threat I'm not keen to see realized). I waited, and broke the alliance on the final turn before expiration. My reputation fell from Mixed to Dubious. My relations with the Pope did not improve. Of course, the next turn the Doge died, and my former allies the Venetians were reconciled. A loss loss outcome for Poland.

Of course, some missions are easy, and I suspect just prompts for less experienced players. Others are really nasty, full of traps and unforeseen consequences. End of rant.

[Czin]

Maybe that's why the A.I is so backstab happy; they're just obeying their council and guild missions to the letter .

[Ishan]

I have the impression that failing a Council of Nobles mission causes a loss of Authority.

Completing council of nobles mission gives you reward best units, money etc not completing them doesn't causes or gives any penalty whatsoever.

Papal missions are obvious - the penalty is always stated.

Complete the pope missions, he becomes happy & relations improve not completing them means decline in Pope-O-Meter crosses.

Guild missions? Does it just mean they won't offer you more of their Guilds, or offer the Guild HQ?

Failure to guild missions means reduction of guild points of those guilds allover your empire. There are 4 types of guild missions Thief, Assassins, explorer & merchant's guild.
Failing them will result in reduction of relevant guild points.

Yes i know for sure.

[Czin]

Completing council of nobles mission gives you reward best units, money etc not completing them doesn't causes or gives any penalty whatsoever.


Complete the pope missions, he becomes happy & relations improve not completing them means decline in Pope-O-Meter crosses.


Failure to guild missions means reduction of guild points of those guilds allover your empire. There are 4 types of guild missions Thief, Assassins, explorer & merchant's guild.
Failing them will result in reduction of relevant guild points.

Yes i know for sure.

So to sum it up, Pope missions should nearly always be at the top of your to do list, while council missions can be safely ignored if you don't think the reward is worth the risk.

[FootSoldier]

Thanks for the info Ishan.

So, I could have ignored the Council of Nobles request to take Bruges without penalty, but not taking London will set me back with the Explorer's Guild. I'd checked against Authority loss several times, but was never sure. Hmm ... my 4 star generals never seem to get the Intrepid Explorer (+15% movement) no matter how long they stay, while my duds with Skewed View seem to get one the first time they visit. Maybe I'll just ignore them.

@Czin - yes, I've wondered if the other factions are getting Council and Guild missions. They obviously get the Papal missions because they get excommunicated following a warning to my faction, so obviously both had been on the same terms.

[Czin]

Thanks for the info Ishan.

So, I could have ignored the Council of Nobles request to take Bruges without penalty, but not taking London will set me back with the Explorer's Guild. I'd checked against Authority loss several times, but was never sure. Hmm ... my 4 star generals never seem to get the Intrepid Explorer (+15% movement) no matter how long they stay, while my duds with Skewed View seem to get one the first time they visit. Maybe I'll just ignore them.

@Czin - yes, I've wondered if the other factions are getting Council and Guild missions. They obviously get the Papal missions because they get excommunicated following a warning to my faction, so obviously both had been on the same terms.

Milan's council must have near total control over the country in Vanilla, because I don't think the little green Italian bastards know the meaning of the word "peace."

[FlyingRhino]

Milan's council must have near total control over the country in Vanilla, because I don't think the little green Italian bastards know the meaning of the word "peace."

Ahh, the Milanese...it's always fun calling a crusade on Milan!

[Lord Minotaur]

Ahh, the Milanese...it's always fun calling a crusade on Milan!

you bet!

[painter]

Papal missions are obvious - the penalty is always stated.

Most Papal missions seem to revolve around building a church, recruiting a priest or the occasional killing a heretic. These are basically freebies. The potentially more troublesome one is joining a crusade, which can set you against an enemy that you might not want to be at war with. Assuming the consequence of failure is not excommunication, you can ignore him if you are willing to bribe your way back into his good graces.

Personally, I'm not troubled with having less than perfect relations with the papacy. As long as they remain my allies and our relationship is at least so-so, all is fine.

Hmm ... my 4 star generals never seem to get the Intrepid Explorer (+15% movement) no matter how long they stay, while my duds with Skewed View seem to get one the first time they visit. Maybe I'll just ignore them.

That one is just a random number roll. Nothing to do with your reputation to the guild or the general with the Skewed View.

The Council of Nobles and some of the others are usually arrogant idiots once you have progressed far enough and I would usually ignore them if their deluded demands are not in the interest of my kingdom. I would happily defenestrate the whole lot if I could. Surely the kingdom would be better off without all those silly noblemen and hopefully the replacements would be more wiser.

[FootSoldier]

You'd defenestrate them painter? Taking a lead from the Czechs? :d

Assuming the consequence of failure is not excommunication, you can ignore him if you are willing to bribe your way back into his good graces.

The motivator for completing the Papal mission of breaking my alliance with the Venetians was the threat of an inquisition in my lands. I'm not that afraid of Papal disapproval, and have been excomm'd several times (or afraid of inquisitors really - I kill them), but I did it. That the Venetians should immediately be reconciled afterwards, and, from memory, they then allied with my enemies, was the kind of icing that the TW series specialises in placing on their cakes.

That one is just a random number roll. Nothing to do with your reputation to the guild or the general with the Skewed View.

Yes, I'd like to believe that, and no doubt you're right. However, I'm interested in how often events in a campaign go against the odds. I've mentioned level 1 assassins being able to kill my FH on the first try on a number of occasions.

In the current campaign I set my princess, with charm of 6, to seduce an HRE general having a 53% chance of success. She failed on 10 attempts the first turn (I saved and loaded). She failed on 15 attempts the second turn. I concluded that the game was not going to allow this regardless.

In M1TW, where I played 100's of campaigns, I became convinced that not only were many events not controlled by chance (sea battles were notorious for this), but also that the game logged if you saved and loaded, and would produce less favourable outcomes, perhaps elsewhere, as a consequence.

IMHO M2TW also logs many player actions, such as consulting the family tree (increases the chance of children and of marriages), and you've probably noticed that you can reverse "Feels unappreciated", even disgruntled brothers of adoptees, by clicking regularly on the character and bringing up their info - which you can also do through the family tree. Similarly generals can become "unappreciated" if you never look at their info.

But that's just my opinion :d

Back on topic about missions - especially the Explorer's Guild mission to take London. My ally the Scots have now sieged London (broken by the defence) and blockaded the port. I'm certain it means war with them if I take it - what alliance would survive such disregard of an ally's clear intentions?

Following completion of the Bruges mission my ally the French have allied with Poland (neutral, but ally of enemy the HRE). No prizes for guessing which side they will choose if war develops between the Danes and the Poles. To make this situation worse the Danes have bought Caen from the English for 400 florins, and 400 for 10 turns. Ok, that wasn't a mission, but the French alliance is finished, despite Perfect relations.

In short, recent missions for the Danes seem calculated to upend their alliances and reputation. They don't have the "feel" of chance. The Danes look likely to be at war with every faction that borders them in the near future. They can perhaps restore things somewhat by gifting the acquired territories, but the France/Poland alliance can't be undone.

PS. Don't negotiate with painter in a room that has windows.

[painter]

You'd defenestrate them painter? Taking a lead from the Czechs? :d

Actually from another source.

Yes, I'd like to believe that, and no doubt you're right. However, I'm interested in how often events in a campaign go against the odds. I've mentioned level 1 assassins being able to kill my FH on the first try on a number of occasions.

I've created a topic Chance of success and random numbers to discuss this.

PS. Don't negotiate with painter in a room that has windows.

All of my negotiation rooms happen to be in an airy tower, overlooking the highest walls of my citadels. They are great places to have negotiations in as foreign spies will have a difficult time to listen in, the cooling winds and gorgeous views. Please don't mind the occasional screams.

[Incomitatus]

Yes, I'd like to believe that, and no doubt you're right. However, I'm interested in how often events in a campaign go against the odds. I've mentioned level 1 assassins being able to kill my FH on the first try on a number of occasions.

In the current campaign I set my princess, with charm of 6, to seduce an HRE general having a 53% chance of success. She failed on 10 attempts the first turn (I saved and loaded). She failed on 15 attempts the second turn. I concluded that the game was not going to allow this regardless.

You only get two tries. The random number generator resets after ONE reload, but whatever number it has drudged up at that time becomes the number for every subsequent reload. So, if you don't succeed on the second attempt, that's it.

You CAN work around this by keeping spies with 95% of infiltration success sitting unused until the end of your turn, because every time you use a spy it resets the generator (or auto-calc a battle, or conduct diplomacy). So you can:

1. Quicksave.
2. Attempt seduction. (fail)
3. Quickload.
4. Attempt seduction. (fail)
5. Spy, autoresolve, or conduct diplomacy (obviously screwed if the number generator is >95, but with diplomacy... who cares if the offer is refused, really?)
6. Quicksave.
7. Quickload.
8. Attempt seduction (succeed! hopefully... if not, repeat steps 5-8 and so on)

In M1TW, where I played 100's of campaigns, I became convinced that not only were many events not controlled by chance (sea battles were notorious for this), but also that the game logged if you saved and loaded, and would produce less favourable outcomes, perhaps elsewhere, as a consequence.

In M2TW, I am convinced that auto-calc is a more complicated thing that most people theorize. Especially with ships. I've always found that having a mix of heavier and lighter ships improves performance, and that splitting the navy into two stacks and attacking from multiple directions vastly improves outcomes, regardless of the stated odds. I realise you were talking about M1TW, just thought you'd like to know this.

IMHO M2TW also logs many player actions, such as consulting the family tree (increases the chance of children and of marriages), and you've probably noticed that you can reverse "Feels unappreciated", even disgruntled brothers of adoptees, by clicking regularly on the character and bringing up their info - which you can also do through the family tree. Similarly generals can become "unappreciated" if you never look at their info.

Nope, sorry. I'd have to test it to be sure, but there's no such trigger in the data files. Generals become appreciated by being put in charge of big settlements or being directed to attack weaker armies. They become unappreciated by being put in charge of small settlements, being asked to attack stronger armies, being ignored (ie. being given no commands), or by having brothers adopted.

Likewise, the trigger for acquiring the Intrepid Explorer is 5%/turn, iirc. So definitely count on it taking at least 10 turns to get it (50%), and there's no guarantee that 20 will even do it since it's not a cumulative chance.

[PrestigeX]

The missions are very handy in the beginning, when 2500 florins is quite a good amount, and / or receiving some of the better troops is quite good.

I find it kind of useless later on though, because 2500 isn't exactly a lot of money and the units I'd get from completing a mission probably need to be retrained with armor upgrade and come with no experience points.

It can be a challenge when you get the Assasination, or Merchant missions - they're hard to complete.

[Il Medico]

The missions are very handy in the beginning, when 2500 florins is quite a good amount, and / or receiving some of the better troops is quite good.

I find it kind of useless later on though, because 2500 isn't exactly a lot of money and the units I'd get from completing a mission probably need to be retrained with armor upgrade and come with no experience points.

It can be a challenge when you get the Assasination, or Merchant missions - they're hard to complete.

Indeed. Please take over this merchant's business. He is like a capitalist extraordinaire, and we can't pop a merchant with more than three fiance for you, but that's your problem....