Elven Diplomacy and Population Growth

[Purple Dragon]

First of all - congrats for a great mod! TATW 3.0 is awesome - fantastic work!

With that out off the way, let me cut to the chase:

I started a campaign with Silvan Elves (in VH/VH ofc) and i am now at turn 60+. In most of my towns / villages population remains really low and i seem unable to raise it, even though i have put in them administrators with 8+ chivalry and anchillaries with squalor reduction (artists etc). At the same time it seems that the AI has no such problems (its cities/castles seem to grow much more rapidly). So my question is what are the parameters for raising population in TATW? And does chivalry factor at all?

Another question concerns diplomacy: my standing with other factions keep deteriorating with good and bad (i.e. i have now Poor relations with Dale, Terrible with Rhun), and my reputation is Dubious though i fight only Orcs and Mordor and i never sack/exterminate settlements. How can i achieve better status (reliable+) and how can i improve relations with neighbors? I tried gifting small amounts of gold (700 - 1000) to no effect so far..

[Bastard King]

Population growth is pretty minimal. You can usually keep it around 2% by lowering taxes and building pop growth buildings. The elves are a bit harder to grow because there population starts off pretty low. A governor's chivalry will only increase pop growth by 0.5%. AI gets bonuses.

Did you break any alliances or get a ceasefire and then attack the faction soon after? Walking on someone else's territory without military alliance? Use lots of spies and assassins? All of these will affect your reputation and relationship with another faction.

[knicolas2]

or have you maybe executed enemy prisoners?

i play with low taxes from the beginning as silvan elves and in i think turn 80 i had the second most population , but on campaign difficulty medium.

[Bastard King]

or have you maybe executed enemy prisoners?

i play with low taxes from the beginning as silvan elves and in i think turn 80 i had the second most population , but on campaign difficulty medium.

More likely to do with expansion than population growth in your core settlements.

[knicolas2]

More likely to do with expansion than population growth in your core settlements.

not really . only these three settlements south of thranduils hall in the mirkwood forest, dol guldur (after a short battle which made me really angry because i lost my general through a catapult which the enemy got by the garrison script ) and one settlement above lorien. maybe it has to do with the fact that i put all settlements at low taxes?

[Purple Dragon]

or have you maybe executed enemy prisoners?

i play with low taxes from the beginning as silvan elves and in i think turn 80 i had the second most population , but on campaign difficulty medium.

Yes, i executed prisoners a couple of times (after the orcs refused to meet ransom). Thats got to be it..

Also, since Rhun captured the fort bellow Dol'Guldur, i made trade agreement with them - maybe thats whats bothering Dale?

Also, i use spies a lot (..elves dont have assasins), but i didn't know that it affects diplomatic standing..

What is the minimun gold to gift to a faction to improve relations? More than 1000? (I have to make sure Dale doesnt attck )

[Oneru]

What worked very well in previous versions (not sure about TATW) was sending a diplomat and offering to sell them one of your major cities for a low price, but one you know they just can't afford If you see their status is "Bankrupt", so far it's been safe for me to try and sell my cities for 9000. They'll say "we can't afford it", but it will still improve relations.
This only works when you're on an ok basis to start with, otherwise they'll say "land sounds good, but we expect you'll take it back in no time". Your dubious relation might be a problem in this case, but it's still a pretty nifty trick in general.

I don't think there's a minimum amount of gold to give in order to improve relations. What also might help is gifting them your Map Information. They're AI, they know the map anyway .

[knicolas2]

Yes, i executed prisoners a couple of times (after the orcs refused to meet ransom). Thats got to be it..

Also, since Rhun captured the fort bellow Dol'Guldur, i made trade agreement with them - maybe thats whats bothering Dale?

Also, i use spies a lot (..elves dont have assasins), but i didn't know that it affects diplomatic standing..

What is the minimun gold to gift to a faction to improve relations? More than 1000? (I have to make sure Dale doesnt attck )

if you everytime tried to ransom prisoners that will not make your relations worse i think because you have tried it.

with dale was my experience that even before i had a trade agreement with rhun ... the also captured that large region... they want no alliance with silvans. only the dwarfes wanted... . mabe you trie it and give dale some coins... i don´t know how much sry.

[k/t]

The use of spies and assassins doesn't Affect reputation.

[Louis XVI]

I don't know if it means anything but when I play the Silvan Elves campaign diplomacy isn't very good either.
Only with the SE campaign I can hardly make alliances with the other good factions, they just dislike the those Silvan threehuggers I guess.

In my dwarven campaign I executed whole armies of goblins and Rhun soldiers and the good factions like me just fine so I don't think that can be it.

[Brewskin]

It's a rare game that I don't see the AI Sylvans at war with other good AI factions, particularly the Dwarves and Dale.

[k/t]

The AI used in Vanilla is weird. In RR/RC, good factions don't fight each other, and neither do evil factions.

[Louis XVI]

The AI used in Vanilla is weird. In RR/RC, good factions don't fight each other, and neither do evil factions.

Is there a thread in which you don't name RR/RC as the solution to all our problems

[Syanur]

I don't think dale will dislike you if you execute the prisoners of rhun. It will affect the relation btw you and Rhun. If your agents get caught by another faction, it will affect the relation with that faction a little bit.

I am Rohan and waiting an attack from gondor, The AI diplomacy is sick

[muller227]

one problem with pop growth for the player is that the sculptor workshop only benefits HE when they are AI, or at least in the EDB I have, human pop growth buildings are not so restricted.

[Mhaedros]

The sculptor workshop allows you to build a the dancers guild or smthng similar. The guild increases pop growth

[Syanur]

It should be "Real Combat" and "Real Recruitment" mods. You can find them in "Submods" threat.

[k/t]

But it happens to be the solution...

You could also edit the faction standings in descr_strat.

[Jmcd08]

Baron samedi's submod has a good versus evil campaign script that you can activate or decline at the start of a new campaign i use it now because i got annoyed when eriador started attacking rohan

[k/t]

That's also in RR/RC, but I think it's different from the AI settings - according to the description, it makes factions start at war.