Vampiresbane's Art of Diplomacy Guide

[Vlad Dracul]

In Chapter 7 you say ''Voting for the wrong cardinal''.What do you mean?Are the ''right'' and ''wrong'' cardinals?

Yeah, they actually are.
The right cardinal is the winner, while the wrong one is the loser.
But it won't be such a problem voting for the loser, if you are allied and/or have high relations-level with the country that gives the winner.
It's very important that your arch-enemy not to get the pointy hat, you better use ANY means o prevent that (you should usually start training and leveling up assassins asap -from the beginning of the game, so when the moment demands you could use them. Including against enemy's best placed cardinals).
When I play a catholic nation, I usually have the majority of the votes early on (because I train a lot of priests asap) so the Pope is either one of mine or one of my allies'.

[robertlamp]

Wow, guys. You're real gods of diplomacy. That is a great guideline. I'll definitely spend some hours to learn it in details. Thanks.

[Vlad Dracul]

I’m curious about some things regarding the vassals.

First, did you know that is possible for a vassal to have his own vassal? Very rare situation, I encountered it only once in those 60+ campaigns I played so far.

But gettin’ back to my curiosities, did any of you ever have two „real” vassals (I mean kingdoms with at least 4 provinces, not one-province puppet-states. The biggest vassal I ever had was Poland, with 11 settlements) which also had a common frontier?
I’m wondering if they’ll still attack each other if both of them are your vassals...
My bet would be that it won’t matter, and the bugged AI will do what it always does – randomly attacking despite relations-level, reputation, alliances, common religion etc. etc. but I’m actually wondering if you ever experimented such thing.

There is a game called Knights of Honor (I recommend you to try it, despite the fact that the battles are nowhere near these magnificent ones from M2TW, at least the diplomacy is not bugged and works just fine) in which you can achieve victory if you win the elections for the Ultimate Emperor of Europe.
The best way to do it is to make the majority of electors (there are 5 elector-kingdoms, the ones ranked from no. 3 to no. 7, and they’ll have to vote for no. 1 or no. 2 – or just abstain – depending on their preferences) not only your allies, but rather your vassals AND allies (it’s not automatic, like in M2TW).

I’m wondering if this isn’t a better way to play this game (it’d definitely be a more challenging one), basically to fight with those factions you want as allies (except the Pope, ofc) until they’ll accept to be your vassals and after that to raise your relations-level to maximum, start cash-milkin’ them etc. etc.
Maybe this could be the ultimate challenge regarding diplomacy, to be allied only with your vassals (and obviously the Papal States).

What say you?

[FootSoldier]

I’m wondering if this isn’t a better way to play this game (it’d definitely be a more challenging one), basically to fight with those factions you want as allies (except the Pope, ofc) until they’ll accept to be your vassals and after that to raise your relations-level to maximum, start cash-milkin’ them etc. etc.

What say you?

I think you should try it and report back!