Very Hard Diplomacy

**Brooksie713** · January 03, 2011, 09:37 PM

Generally I play on Very Hard difficulty, but I find that whenever I do every other faction decides to attack me instead of themselves.
For example, if I play a European faction, the Seleucid Empire keeps most of its alliances, but if I play Seleucid Empire I often get attacked by Bactria, Parthia, Pontus, Armenia and Ptolemaic Empire all at once.

Does anyone know of ways to prevent other factions from attacking you like that? Is it just a consequence of using Very Hard difficulty or are there possible actions to prevent it?

**Wambat** · January 03, 2011, 10:38 PM

Diplomacy is a "hard-wired" aspect of the RTW program. It was rather poorly and unrealistically implemented originally, and cannot be be very much improved upon by subsequent modifications. Basically, the harder the difficulty you play, the more unreasonable your opponent factions will be toward you.

At hardest difficulty, every neighboring faction will declare war upon you at every opportunity. Some mods try to circumvent this by setting up historically accurate alliances at the initiation of the game, but removing all diplomats, and ability to produce diplomats, from the AI controlled factions. This gives games some realism and stability to the game, while reducing its dynamism.

In my experience, even this step will not prevent AI factions from outright attacking you, even without diplomats, and even when you are in a state of alliance with them.

My advice: Restrict your empire to defensible borders and expand intelligently with new defensible borders as your objective.

**Brooksie713** · January 03, 2011, 11:31 PM

Thanks, I thought that may be the case.
Well, defensible borders are a little hard with the Seleucid Empire, but we can only try.

**Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze** · January 04, 2011, 12:02 AM

For the SE this mostly means:
1. Destroy Parthia
2. Destroy the Ptolemies.
3. Take Asia Minor

**Caligula Caesar** · January 06, 2011, 11:23 AM

Diplomacy is better on hard than very hard, where the AI is set to attack you whenever possible.

**SamuelTheConquer** · January 07, 2011, 12:35 PM

I did in my SE campaing like that:part 1 :Re-creating the Alexander empire(from 271 BC-262 BC)(Partly) . Part 2 :Invade Carthage (Alexanders dream)(259BC-241BC) .Part 3

ealing whit the REBELS in Bactria,Parthia,India and some parts of Armenia(They rebeld cause there where lot of unrest)(234BC-211BC). Part 4 : Invading into Macedon(207BC-204BC). Part 5:Going to Numidia whit Libyans(202BC-200BC). Part 6 :Going to Sicily (195BC-194BC).Part 7 :Invading to Iberia,Sardinia and Baleares (190BC-181BC). Part 8 Finishing Iberia(180BC-174BC). Part 9 Figthing I War whit the Romans (169BC-153BC)(I lost only Sardinia and Crosica and Messana). Part 10 Many parts of the Empire starts rebeling(Northen Iberia,Sicily,Macedon,India,Bactria,Parthia a realy long civil war)(147BC-121BC). Part 11 Totaly Invading Southern Gaul(Roman)and Sardinia&Crosica(killing every one)(108BC-100BC). Part 12 Doing a HEAVY WAR against the Romans,Gaul and Illirya (95BC-71BC). Part 13 : Got bored and started playng another game.

**Jaujon** · January 10, 2011, 03:36 PM

Never play on very hard campaign difficulty. The diplomacy AI in unrealistic and brings a somewhat poor campaign gameplay. Plus the AI factions get insane bonus income, with generals spawning everywhere. Just play H/VH with major factions and M/H or H/H with minor factions.