Getting factions to accept ceasefire?

[bighemp]

How's everybody, doin first post. Just played this game for the first time other day after buying it two years ago (finally got a new computer that could run it). Playing my first campaign as England on easy and things were going pretty well until Portugal decided to declare war on me. They took Dublin after I negelcted to put a strong garrison there. I took it back but shortly after France and then Milan have declared war on me and my French settlements (Paris, Caen, and the one in Brittany) are constantly under siege and Portugal is constantly sending armies up to Caenovon. Everytime I try to propose a ceasefire none of these nations accepts no matter what I offer them. I was just wondering is this just how it is and I'm just gonna have to destroy these nations, or is there a way I get them to accept a peace deal? Thanks.

[PoleCat]

...I was just wondering is this just how it is and I'm just gonna have to destroy these nations, or is there a way I get them to accept a peace deal? Thanks.

Unfortunately the Cease-fire AI just isn't that good with this game. It seemed to me that it was heavily balanced against maintaining even neutral ties with opposing nations. Your best bet is to muster any armies you can (even Peasant Armies), make some alliance with the Pope, and attack the armies that hold you at siege from behind. This game is directed towards conflict after all - a lasting peace is not something they really encoded. Good luck!

[complete noob:(]

What Polecat said is true, I would recommend that you play defensive on two of the fronts, and muster an army to attack the third faction. Usually when you mount an attack, and win, or at least decisively beat their armies, they will usually come to you offering a ceasefire

[Stath's]

You are very lucky to start with England and having problems like naval invasions. And I say this because you have so many and so interesting things to counter in the future, that they would make medieval ii the best game you have ever played. The road is very, very long and that is the best element of this game.

As far as Portugal is concerned, you have to have a combat with them. Use your general to flank, hit them from behind and have a party with their white flags

[Ferdiad]

The AI is very aggressive and reluctant to accept peace ever. Your best bet is to use your postion as England to build a large navy and sink every invasion force.

[TheDarkKnight]

The AI is very aggressive and reluctant to accept peace ever. Your best bet is to use your postion as England to build a large navy and sink every invasion force.

This^

I once noticed that Spain was sending a large army my way by ship, with its king on board. Figured since I was going to have to go to war anyway, might as well make a preemptive strike. I sunk the fleet, and sent their king and his army to the bottom.

[Parzival2211]

Welcome to TWC bighemp!

I found that the only way to have more or less stable aliances at least for the first half of the game was to marry a princess to another faction's leader or heir. On EASY, relations don't naturally deteriorate like they do on H/VH. So, this should work. Once relations are bad, it's tough to improve them again. Regular donations may help, but only after a cease fire. Try to get the Pope on your side like others suggested, maybe try to get an alliance with the Scot or the Danish, before they attack you as well.

Good luck and have fun!

[Balsm]

Why make peace when you make war I say. Wipe em all out :-)

[Aymer de Valence]

Beat the hell out of them. Usually they will send a diplomat asking for peace, but make a counter offer and demand alot of money, the accept even that most of the time. Of course, I just break the peace next turn and attack

[Silent Assassin]

If I may add to my compadres replies here, They are right is almost impossible to get them to agree unless you cheat by either using the cheat or add yourself enough money to make them do it by giving it all to them. The AI is lacking there for sure so what I would suggest is:

I know that it's not exactly what you are asking but making your enemies your vassals is more conclusive and more rewarding then just doing a cease fire. See below how to make other factions your vassals

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The whole point of having vassals is to show you military might and that you completely pawned another faction. The major benefit of having a vassal isthat they automatically become you allies, will give you the rest of their money after done building and recruiting and will help in battles.

I struggled with making other factions my vassals until recently and once you get the hang of it its easy, cause I played as England and now have France, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, HRE, Milan, and Hungary as vassals and am working on the Mongols and the Byzantine Empire. For anyone that wants to know how I'll explain (results may vary). As stated up top you need to reduce them to one territory but you done need 5 armies, one will do. Capture their territory in such a way as to either completely enclose in territories owned by you or down one coastal region, I've found coastal regions to be easier but its up to you.

The point is that they can’t be just militarily weak but economically as well so if their enclosed they have no one to trade to and if their coastal region all you have to do is blockade their port and cutting off their trade. Ok after that send in a diplomat (this should take multiple turns) and tell them that you want to be their new master. The first proposal will be rejected outright no matter what you offer, try it again, you probably won't get them to except but rather a not interested message and negotiations will stop.

Continue to ask them to be your vassal and DO NOT stop blockading their port and DON'T let the war end but every now and again siege the city and then lift the siege it and have you diplomat come in and ask again. Usually this method takes about 3 of 4 turns but Hungary held out on me for 9 turns until they gave into my demands. Ok, now to keep those as your vassal just give them gifts. Money or even giving them back one of their old territories does wonders and solidifies your relationship and your control over them, also create a fort in each of their territories and keep it garrisoned at all times just to remind them that your always watching and ready to attack when ever you please. And that is how you create and keep vassals.

Now go and make the other factions your vassals

[Mausolos of Caria]

Well, the AI diplomacy in MTW 2 is much better and much more willing to accept your offers than in Rome
But the others on here already said the most important things, but you have to see this from the AI position, if you are under a lot of pressure and the war is going better for the AI than for you, why should they accept peace then? So turn around the war and then you can still make ceasefires whith a part of your enemies or try to make them vassals, as Silent Assasin described above.

[Aymer de Valence]

but you have to see this from the AI position, if you are under a lot of pressure and the war is going better for the AI than for you, why should they accept peace then?

Yes exactly The AI may be weird, but they are not complete fools. I think a lot of people forget that the AI is also trying to win the campaign lol

[Maklodes]

Yes exactly The AI may be weird, but they are not complete fools. I think a lot of people forget that the AI is also trying to win the campaign lol

Are they really? In the long campaign, does the AI as Hungary (say) value Jerusalem more than comparably valuable cities, since they have a "45 regions + Jerusalem" victory condition? In the short campaign, if the AI as Venice destroys manages to grab 15 territories, and you (or they) kill off Byzantium and Milan, do they somehow win?

[Aymer de Valence]

Are they really? In the long campaign, does the AI as Hungary (say) value Jerusalem more than comparably valuable cities, since they have a "45 regions + Jerusalem" victory condition? In the short campaign, if the AI as Venice destroys manages to grab 15 territories, and you (or they) kill off Byzantium and Milan, do they somehow win?

In Rome Total War, I have actually lost a campaign because an AI faction completed their victory conditions before me It is therefore probably the same in MTW2

[jackbush]

My experience with England is that Portugal will always come knocking over on the Caernarvon side. I don't know why they sail so far when they could be working on Spain but they do. So always be ready for that. I don't know that I've ever been able to get a ceasefire; I think the others are right, the AI are bloody-minded and hate to give up. Now when THEY come looking for a ceasefire, I've demanded and gotten two settlements from them on a couple of occasions. Couldn't believe it; the AI are unusual people.

France of course is always bugged by you having Caen on what is really their territory.

The long game I find very difficult and wearing and now usually play the short game.

[Ferdiad]

TW has always had a problem where you "snowball" mid to late game and can't be stopped. Some submods like BGR fix this though.

[Macunaíma]

Since this thread is already here, can someone tell me why the AI never asks me to ceasefire?

Like, there are times they have almost no military force left, 1-2 settlements, lots of enemy armies around, but even if I go to them they won't accept the damn truce, or become my vassals. Is this because generally at this point our relations are in "Abysmal"?

[Silent Assassin]

Since this thread is already here, can someone tell me why the AI never asks me to ceasefire?

Like, there are times they have almost no military force left, 1-2 settlements, lots of enemy armies around, but even if I go to them they won't accept the damn truce, or become my vassals. Is this because generally at this point our relations are in "Abysmal"?

1- Your Global Rep will play a role
2- Try to make them a Vassal with the little giude I've posted
3- Relationship with other factions don't play a role unless you try to friendly them


Edit: Guide on Reputation

Having alliances and maintaining them increases your reputation.
Having good relations with a faction increases your reputation.
Having bad relations decreases it.

Having a high chivalry faction leader increases your reputation.
Having a high dread faction leader decreases it (So best to keep your main bloodline as high chivalry generals, and let some other line of the family be the bastard enforcers).

The best thing to do is to make alliances with specific factions in the game ( the one that you know you don't want to go at war with) at the start, so that you have allies far off who you don't share a border with and who won't be tempted to attack you. Give gifts to any ally who your relations decline with IMMEDIATELY in order to keep your relations at so-so or better (Preferably better, because that increases your reputation faster). Pick a couple of factions to be super allies with, and push your relations with them to perfect, and KEEP them there.

Don't attack an ally ever (Ever). Don't attack a non-ally unless they attack you first. In fact, don't retaliate even, only break their forces in your territory (This is good strategy anyway, fighting them on your home territory gives you the advantage because you should be able to choose your battlefields). If you let them keep entering your territory a few times before retaliating and taking one of their territories, you are much less likely to take a reputation hit. See, if another faction has a BAD reputation, you can attack them freely without losing reputation (In fact you seem to gain reputation for attacking them, as long as you're at war with them and THEY started it). So let them attack you a few times before you retaliate, let their reputation fall and fall and then retaliate.

Additionally, the higher your reputation goes, the bigger hit the enemy will take if they attack you. I've seen factions go from mixed to despicable after attacking me just one time, when I had very high reputations.

High reputation does SO many good things for you in this game, it's worth doing the work to maintain it

Here are the Reputation names that your factions can have from the bad to the good

- Despicable

- Deceitful

- Very Untrustworthy

- Untrustworthy

- Dubious

- Mixed

- Reliable

- Very Reliable

- Trustworthy

- Very trustworthy

- Immaculate

And try my Vassal guide as I posted above

[Hasefrexx]

First of, I always play in VH, but never played in easy, so AI behaviour might differ.

From my own experience, AI likelihood to accept ceasefires (and how much they are willing to pay for it) directly depends on both your and their diplomatic standings. I mean, how many nations they are at war against, and how many you're at war against. As stated above, beating AI badly will increase the likelihood for them to ask fr a ceasefire... However, if you're at war against many countries, and AI is just at war against you, they could actually keep on refusing a ceasefire.
This in mind, it might help to ask for a truce first from factions that are at war against many factions, it will make other AI more likely to accept a truth from you then. They might not accept though. So, sometimes, you'll have to wait and hope for other nations to go at war against them, and then maybe they'll accept. Or just crush them all ^^

I think the best thing to do is try to avoid as much as possible being too much at war early in (indeed, marying princess in first few turns helps a lot in VH), because once several nations gang up against you, you're almost bound to be the big bad guy everyone will want dead. What's more, you get diplomatic penalties whith your ennemies allies whenever you attack them (sometimes even when not attacking I believe), so, really, too much war kills diplomacy. Not that you could actually prevent that though. You'll always come to that point in late campaign, but struggling from the beginning is a good way to loose your campaign. You can get nice amount of gold from truces too, and since some nations just can't help but declare war at you, you could get regular income from it.

AI is hard to deal with at begining, but once you get to know how it works, it will help a bit. As mentionned above, it's not that stupid. Not too clever either, it's sometimes weird. Some things just as getting vassals seems almost impossible to get. Oh, yeah, and I have to disagree with above advices. I never bother with the pope. Faction standing changes too quickly since they are commonly elected at 55+ years. If he doesn't like you already, try not to get on his nerve too much to avoid excommunication and a crusade. Better do diplomacy for a long term relationship with other nations IMO.

Last, but not least: beware of your... I don't know how it's called in the English version, but make sure you're not seen as a tyrant (don't kill prisonners, don't kill any citizen when taking settlements,...). Yeah, I know it's tempting to do these, but that's the price to pay if you want to play a bit with diplomacy. If not, diplomatic options are very limited, and AI will even refuse traities favoring them a lot because "they don't trust you".

That's all I can think of right now, hope it helps!

[Silent Assassin]

I agree with the poster for what he mentions about reputation. Global Reputation plays a big role in how the AI will react to you, your actions,your offers and demands.