Attila is missing essential diplomatic options

[Maist]

How comes that a game such as total war missing these essential features?!

1. region trading - I was playing a the ERE and i helped the WRE to defeating some barabrian faction which were causing trouble in their land. So i defeated these faction and now i wanted to give the WRE back it's lost territories but apparently i couldn't do so, so my only choice was to abandon these land and hope for the AI to resettle them. It's also impossible to give client stats and allies lands in order to strengthen them or create buffer zones between yourself and your enemies or to offer lands for peach. THIS FEATURE IS ESSENTIAL!

2. threatening factions - I want to be able to tell a faction that either they do what i want or else i'll attack them/end my treaties with them.

3. military cooperation - Why cant i make a deal with a faction that we go together into a war with a third faction, and once we defeat it we splint their lands between us? I know that it's possible to request allies to attack certain armies or cities but apart from telling you that they accept and prepare to move they never do anything..

4. Get off my lands - Why cant i tell a faction (most of the time it's these migrating factions) that either they get off my lands or else i'll attack them? And by the way, why getting into another states territory without permission and raiding it doesn't count as a declaration of war?

I'm sure that there are many more things that i forgot but you get my point.

[Darios]

How comes that a game such as total war missing these essential features?!

1. There is no region trading - I was playing a the ERE and i helped the WRE to defeating some barabrian faction which were causing trouble in their land. So i defeated these faction and now i wanted to give the WRE back it's lost territories but apparently i couldn't do so, so my only choice was to abandon these land and hope for the AI to resettle them. It's also impossible to give client stats and allies lands in order to strengthen them or create buffer zones between yourself and your enemies or to offer lands for peach. THIS FEATURE IS ESSENTIAL!

I don't really know why the developers felt that trading regions would not be a good feature to add to Rome 2/Attila. It can't be a warscape issue because both ETW and NTW had this diplomatic option. I kinda wish CA would talk to us about why they did not include this in the game. It really does take ALOT away from game play and one of my favorite things to do in NTW was to liberate minor factions and give them territory in order to strengthen them.

[Bramborough]

100% agree on the territory transfer issue...especially in the context of WRE/ERE. Or in the case of ERE vs Sassanids, ceding of territory as part of a peace settlement seems like it ought to be available as well.

Another diplomatic thing which annoys me: why can't I try to persuade someone to make peace with a 3rd party? Nearly every turn I get peace offers from longtime enemies, often offering substantial gold...these guys are far away, I have no intention of trekking over in their direction anytime soon, and would be perfectly happy to take a few thousand gold and not have to worry about their occasional long-distance stack. But I don't accept their offers...because there's no way to even ask them to also make peace with my allies at the same time.

[maexim]

There is some kind of region trading, region could be given but it seems hard and only in peace treaty, the modders have to explore this...

[RedGuard]

why they decided it would be fine to give regions to hordes but not everyone is beyond me. Of course the AI has it weaknesses and region trading was always one of them but now we have garrisons in every town so they shouldn't be expected to move their army over to them.

also in since the game is set in the time of attila now that you mention it it does seem strange that you can't threaten people.

[Humble Warrior]

why they decided it would be fine to give regions to hordes but not everyone is beyond me. Of course the AI has it weaknesses and region trading was always one of them but now we have garrisons in every town so they shouldn't be expected to move their army over to them.

Also in since the game is set in the time of attila now that you mention it it does seem strange that you can't threaten people.

It`s to save them doing the extra work on AI as we all suspect since like you say, it`s never utilised these things well. That said I very rarely threatened in my games as it never seemed to accomplish anything.

Or, I just thought, maybe the `demands` we make ingame are enough of a threat?

As for military cooperation, I have yet to see any game really go the whole mile on this aspect. `Creative` Assembly hasn`t been very creative over the years, in fact they`ve been less so. In the original Total War you could attack your ally mid battle or as in MTW2 you could `direct` where you`d like Allied reinforcements to attack on the field.
It would be nice to see CA really make an effort on military cooperation in wars with details of who takes what, perhaps even breaking down into a war itself if the AI doesn`t agree with the Player. But that`s probably asking too much.

[Maist]

It`s to save them doing the extra work on AI as we all suspect since like you say, it`s never utilised these things well. That said I very rarely threatened in my games as it never seemed to accomplish anything.

Or, I just thought, maybe the `demands` we make ingame are enough of a threat?

As for military cooperation, I have yet to see any game really go the whole mile on this aspect. `Creative` Assembly hasn`t been very creative over the years, in fact they`ve been less so. In the original Total War you could attack your ally mid battle or as in MTW2 you could `direct` where you`d like Allied reinforcements to attack on the field.
It would be nice to see CA really make an effort on military cooperation in wars with details of who takes what, perhaps even breaking down into a war itself if the AI doesn`t agree with the Player. But that`s probably asking too much.

By a threat i mean sending an ultimatum that states that either a faction agrees to the terms i set or else we start a war with them

[M2TWRocks]

GET OFF MY LAWN!

Why can't I tell factions to remove their troops from my land?

[PeonKing]

The need for these diplomatic choices is very evident in playing the WRE. I think as M2TWRocks pointed out, being able to ask hordes to leave would be helpful. It could operate like a threat, where if they don't leave you automatically declare war on them in 5 turns or something. Instead of being able to do that, I eradicated all of them, because I was sick of having armies of hurlers/spearmen wandering through my lands occassionally raiding causing unnecessary unrest. I have no borders with enemies in my WRE campaign because a large portion of Germany/Eastern Europe is desolate, instead of having those hordes flee into Germany and possibly settle, I killed them all when they put themselves in areas where they have a disadvantage, which was the middle of my empire where I had replenishment and reinforcements from nearby settlements.

Another problem is I can't help ERE in it's war against the Sassanids because I will have to either desolate Persia, or start a new empire their. I would like to be able to take those territories that have been conquered by the Sassanids and give them back to the ERE, but that's not an option. I could go over there and just crush armies and sack settlements, but there is no way to get the ERE to actually attack those weakened settlements. I'm honestly considering just going to war with the ERE and conquering all of their land just because they're doing such a poor job against the Sassanids. Not to mention they for some reason desolated parts of Greece after quelled the rebellious, not really sure why they did that, since they didn't get threaten by the Sassanids for another 15 years after the rebellions stopped. It sort of reminds you of that quote "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." The AI has some tactics, but no strategy.

All alliances really seem to be are ways to force factions to go to war, there's no cooperation past that.

[Aeratus]

Region trading isn't in this game because the developers want you to feel the pain of corruption. If you could simply give away regions to an ally, then that would totally bypass the corruption problem entirely. I think this is the intended explanation.

[Pheidippides]

Region trading isn't in this game because the developers want you to feel the pain of corruption. If you could simply give away regions to an ally, then that would totally bypass the corruption problem entirely. I think this is the intended explanation.

But allies have their own issues- if you get enough of them they tend to hate you after awhile because you have treaties with other factions they don't like. For example, as ERE I lost my alliance with the WRE when I invaded Britain and puppeted all the British factions, even though those factions hated me because I'd just invaded them. Then the WRE DOW'd me and all my puppet states refused to join the war, triggering wars against them.

Another feature is that when a puppet declares independence you should be allowed to let them go for a diplo penalty ("Shows Weakness") to other puppets. You should also be able to puppet other factions puppets without conquering that faction. Otherwise it just encourages razing the puppet because there's nothing to do with them.

[crowe15]

You could trade regions/settlements in Rome: Total war.

I don't understand why they took that out.

[Telenil]

Region trading isn't in this game because the developers want you to feel the pain of corruption. If you could simply give away regions to an ally, then that would totally bypass the corruption problem entirely. I think this is the intended explanation.

Agreed. The endgame wouldn't be an empire that dominates the map, it would be a weird situation where the player marches across the land and gives it to its adorating puppet states.
Maybe the ability to give a target to a specific ally would be helpful? Something like the missions you receive from time to time: "dear ERE, I will give you 2k gold if you take this particular city".

[Bob the Insane]

Agreed. The endgame wouldn't be an empire that dominates the map, it would be a weird situation where the player marches across the land and gives it to its adorating puppet states.
Maybe the ability to give a target to a specific ally would be helpful? Something like the missions you receive from time to time: "dear ERE, I will give you 2k gold if you take this particular city".

Enhancing the depth of the Puppet States feature might help with this. Currently I can see what you suggest happening, you have puppets that you keep giving land to so you can get cash from them without the problems of controlling the provinces, and given them the land would make them happy. However if puppets considered their relative size/strength with you as part of the relationship value then that might both encourage tiny puppet states to not revolt so much while making relatively large puppet states a potential threat.

[crowe15]

Meanwhile in EU4.......

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Agreed. The endgame wouldn't be an empire that dominates the map, it would be a weird situation where the player marches across the land and gives it to its adorating puppet states.
Maybe the ability to give a target to a specific ally would be helpful? Something like the missions you receive from time to time: "dear ERE, I will give you 2k gold if you take this particular city".

But... That's the whole point.

You have to decide whether the added corruption is worth the benefits of personally owning a province, as opposed to simply giving it to a client state. The choice between direct ownership or client state status is a far more interesting strategic decision than, "Conquer this province and get more corruption, or don't."

There's not really a strategy with corruption. It's not really a problem to be solved, it's just a penalty you get for being big. Giving away provinces to client states is a good way to reduce corruption, but it has the added, obvious drawback of... Well... Giving away the province to a client state.

[Telenil]

But... That's the whole point.

You have to decide whether the added corruption is worth the benefits of personally owning a province, as opposed to simply giving it to a client state. The choice between direct ownership or client state status is a far more interesting strategic decision than, "Conquer this province and get more corruption, or don't."

There's not really a strategy with corruption. It's not really a problem to be solved, it's just a penalty you get for being big. Giving away provinces to client states is a good way to reduce corruption, but it has the added, obvious drawback of... Well... Giving away the province to a client state.

The main strategy when playing the Western Roman Empire is to dismantle the infrastructure in half your provinces and fall back to Italy, Spain or Africa. Which sounds about right from a design perspective. Add the possibility to give land, and the only question becomes which horde will enter your empire first and receive ten settlements in exchange for an alliance.

This may be an extreme case, but even in "regular" games, there is probably a point where giving border provinces to an ally would increase your income.

[Theramines]

Half baked diplomacy has been, to my mind, the greatest weakness of the Total War series. Like Humble Warrior above, I too suspect it's just plopped in to the too hard basket time and time again.

Anyway, my wish list for diplomacy is to be able to tell other factions to leave my territory and to exchange or give regions.

What would be nice would be to offer regions to hordes/migrators in exchange for, say, 10 recruitable free upkeep units and an automatic state of war with your enemies.

[Vanders]

I think we have found the heart of the issue, laziness.

I really just want to ask CA why they make certain silly decisions and watch them try to defend it, honestly there is no excuse.

[Humble Warrior]

I think we have found the heart of the issue, laziness.

I really just want to ask CA why they make certain silly decisions and watch them try to defend it, honestly there is no excuse.

CA doesn`t bother defending anything any more. They pop up with a Rally point where a red-headed guy acts stupid, then vanish. They`ve never directly responded to criticism or given a reason for what they do a for a long time, when they do it`s usually a `we don`t care attitude`.