Diplomacy Question Any Tips or Tricks?

[Curtis]

How important is diplomacy? I tend to go through my campaigns with only about 2 diplomats just to setup trade rights with other factions. I only have one alliance setup right now and that is with Spain. I'm playing as the Scipii. I've managed to defeat Carthage and Numidia. Because of my alliance with Spain I'm not too worried about my western front, so I'm thinking about taking on Egypt. I've blockaded Alexandria and Egypt has left the city fairly unprotected. I have a large naval fleet and I'm moving my armies to the front lines in the east. I'm sure I can take Alexandria in the next two or three turns.

My worry is Spain. How do I keep Spain happy and maintain that alliance? Should I be throwing money their way every turn? I can afford to give them a province in Spain but not sure if that's worth it. If I lose that alliance and start war with two factions on two fronts, I'll have no chance at taking out Egypt.

Any thoughts? I haven't seen too many posts or articles on diplomacy tips & tricks.

Thanks,

Curtis

This is my first post, I just came back to RTW. I played 4 campaigns about 2 years ago and have been playing WOW ever since. I saw Alexander and TWII coming out and wanted to get back into the game. This is an excellent website and it seems as though you have a good community here.

[Shaun]

Well the AI dosent do diplomacy very well. In 1.2 they will always accept trade rights. There are not really any tips worth mentioning, appart from always try and get money out of them. Even if you are beating an AI faction easily, they still sometimes demand that you become protocterate, which is annoying.

For money, you can sell them map info, that usually fetches around 5000 in the early game, which is quite a boost. you can also try and sell them trade rights as well.

Most of the more exotic diplomacy options the AI dosent know about, so refuses. They never accept territory, never give military access and so on, so the diplomacy in RTW is pretty lame...

Spain will either attack gaul or you. Spain always backstabs me, so better be prepered. They will attack you sooner or later too. But i am presuming that you share a border with them, if not, they wont attack you(the AI dosent do naval invasions)

Try to ally with Egypts enemies as well. Egypt can be a pain to defeat unless you know how to. The most important thing to do now is to take the Nile from them, that is their main source of income. Once its gone, then you can hold the Nile bridges and let them ware them sleves down. Hopefull another faction will attack them as well, and that is sure to finish them off.

[Hannibal Barca]

All i can really add is how diplomacy varies with the difficulty. On VH diplomacy is pointless. Alliances mean nothing. Get trade rights as long as you can before they attack you by all means but its pretty worthless overall. On hard they are less likely to betray alliances and it gets less and less liely the easier the difficulty.

Ignoring difficulty all i will say is beware. I don't know how smart the AI really is but if i saw that my neighbours had shipped all their armies off to a distant land i'd attack tehm in an instant.

Oh and welcome to TWC, if i have kept track correctly, your first post should coincide with my 100th

[NobleNick]

Welcome to the forum, Curtis!

I'm not very good, myself at playing the diplomacy side, but have gotten a few clues from this site's campaign strategies. I haven't read them all; but feel like Vercingetorix did a good job of addressing diplomacy in his treatise on campaign strategy for the Gauls. (He must be good, since I can't do nearly as well on "Hard" as he does on "Very Hard."

Oh, and you do realize that there are separate difficulty settings for diplomacy and battle map, right? So if you like a tough game but want diplomacy to work in a somewhat reasonable fashion, you can set campaign/battle difficulty to M/VH or H/VH.

[Curtis]

Thanks for the replies.

The only city I own in Spain is Scallabis. I'm thinking of destroying the buildings and pulling out to Tingi.

My armies are moving from Carthage by boat and Cyrene by land. I've taken Siwa once and destroyed the buildings and pulled out as a huge Egyptian army was marching toward me.

I'll take Alexandria by boat reinforce and hopefully Egypt will leave siwa again and move north. I'll move in again and take siwa and try to move to thebes. I'm going to take settlements and then probably destroy their buildings and then leave them for the egyptions to take back. I'm hoping I can weaken their army enough that when they try to rebuild they won't have the income or buildings available to strengthen their army.

I'll try and send diplomats to the North of Egypt and hope to find an ally.

My other question though is while I'm doing this I'm probably going to ignore Senate missions. How important is is for me to complete those missions? Also about what year does civil war break out in Rome?

[Shaun]

Thanks for the replies.

The only city I own in Spain is Scallabis. I'm thinking of destroying the buildings and pulling out to Tingi.

Why? You should be getting a lot of trade money from the Spanish.

My other question though is while I'm doing this I'm probably going to ignore Senate missions. How important is is for me to complete those missions? Also about what year does civil war break out in Rome?

The Senate missions are not very important, its your standing among the plebs thats important. The more provs you have the more the plebs like you, the more the plebs like you the more the senate fears you, which then means that the senate outlaws you.

[Curtis]

Why? You should be getting a lot of trade money from the Spanish.

I'll take a look when I get home and check my trade income for that city. If it's good Income I'll keep the city. I just don't want to start a war with Spain.

[Spartan156]

My other question though is while I'm doing this I'm probably going to ignore Senate missions. How important is is for me to complete those missions? Also about what year does civil war break out in Rome?

Well historically Julius Cesar declaired himself emporor about 49bc. After being stabbed more than 11 times Agustus Cesar takes the empire. So i (unknowingly) took rome and started the civil war about 9 years before it happened.

[Hannibal Barca]

I don't know your geographical situation but there is surely a bit of space between you and spain (excluding scallabis of course). So if they start a war and you lose that city is it really the end of the world? At least from my experiences they don't do naval invasions. So i say keep the city and if it is attacked, then demolish all the buildings. Basically, keep the city and its income for as long as possible. You could probably get a peace treaty out of them easily after they take it anyway.

[NobleNick]

Curtis,

Agreed with Shaun and Hannibal. War with Spain is not a big thing: Their army and economy sucks -AND- as was pointed out, the AI does not attack you unless they share a border. And you can always destroy everything in town when (if) a siege rears its ugly head. If you have trade rights with Spain, they probably won't attack anyway (at least not for a long while) since they like the boost you give their econonomy.

You are doing the right thing in Egypt. Economic warfare is the way to crack these guys (and Egypt is a tough nut to crack). Blockade every port they have, attack and hold the cities you can, and raze everything else. It takes a while, but they will fold. Go into the stats screen and monitor their production, to see how successfully your strategy is working.

[Curtis]

Curtis,

Agreed with Shaun and Hannibal. War with Spain is not a big thing: Their army and economy sucks -AND- as was pointed out, the AI does not attack you unless they share a border. And you can always destroy everything in town when (if) a siege rears its ugly head. If you have trade rights with Spain, they probably won't attack anyway (at least not for a long while) since they like the boost you give their econonomy.

You are doing the right thing in Egypt. Economic warfare is the way to crack these guys (and Egypt is a tough nut to crack). Blockade every port they have, attack and hold the cities you can, and raze everything else. It takes a while, but they will fold. Go into the stats screen and monitor their production, to see how successfully your strategy is working.

I just loaded the game to check and it actually looks like Britian is coming down from the north to make war with Spain, so I may not have anything to worry about. My settlement in Spain is only bringing me 400g a turn so not too much, but I'll hold the settlement anyway. I think my problem would actually be if Britian defeated Spain and then I'd have Britian to worry about.

Egypt just split their army west of Alexander. So I have a chance to take out one of their faction leaders then march into Alexander two turns later. My navy is growing strong and I'm bringing in another army by sea from Carthage (my largest city and capital at the moment). We'll see how it all turns out this weekend. Thanks for the tips.

[Dominus]

LOL! Gaius Caesar was never emperor!

[hellheaven1987]

Well, I will suggest you kick the Egyptians' butt as soon as possible, don't move any army to Middle East once you conquer Egypt, leave an army and shift your main force to Spain. It will be better fro you to occupy whole Spain fro the preparation of the civil war. (I entered Gaul from Spain after Senate declared war to me. It would become an easy way to kick Julii's butt and perform a Hannibal style invasion)

[Curtis]

So far it's been a success. I've managed to take over Alexandria and Memphis.

I brought troops in from Carthage by road picking up reinforcements along the way. I also took a fleet army by sea and picked up troops in Syracuse. My land force fortified the city of Cyrene just before the Egyptian armies arrived from Siwa. I had 3 generals and about 2 1/2 full armies to use to defend the city. I built a fort about half a movement turn in front of the city. I used the fort to defend and as each of the 4 Egyptian armies would attack that fort. Each Egyptian army was one turn behind the other. This allowed me after each battle to replace troops at the fort with troops in Cyrene and then take my troops from the fort back to Cyrene for retraining.

My army by boat eventually landed at Alexandria. Egypt left her with only 3 units to defend the city. My spy opened the gates for me so I just marched in and took the city with little casualties.

It wasn't until 3 turns later and another 2 catapults built that I was able to take Memphis and her legendary walls.

At one time I had fleets blockading Salamis, Sidon, Jerusalem and Siwa. Egypt must have ports in the north because their navy weakened my ships enough for me to have to pull back to Alexandria and repair my ships. I'm now only blockading Jerusalem & Siwa.

I have a full army ready to take Siwa on my next turn. There are two full Egyptian armies outside Memphis and I'm waiting for them to attack. I should have no problems holding the city.

Thankfully Spain has had to worry about Britain and the Spanish are now down to just one city, Asturica. I hold Scallibis but I won't move from that city until my war with Egypt is over. The Julli hold the rest of Spain. I took a look at Greece and Northern Spain and the Julli and Brutii are looking quite strong. I imagine civil war will take it's toll on me once it starts.

I've been at war with Egypt for 8 years and have had about 10 major battles. I've managed to not lose one yet.

Thanks for all the advice,

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

i think in RTW diplomacy is weak link of the game. Computer don't act as he said in agreement at all. diplomacy is just a source of getting money and map info from other factions.