JWANT's 2

[Adanedhel]

Maybe the pre-made alliance between Dale and Dwarves is getting in the way.

[themzr]

I can't even ally Harad as Rhun though? Which is very odd since none of us are at war??!?!?!

[JWANT]

I can't even ally Harad as Rhun though? Which is very odd since none of us are at war??!?!?!

This is why I tested. The other tests only confirmed my concerns.

I think it may be related to how the game engine handles faction relations. Has Harad or Rhun betrayed an ally in this hotseat? Perhaps Mordor and/or Dwarves?

Worst case I can manually create alliances using a console command. I've never tried it but a command exists.

[Chieftain Khuzaymah]

Maybe the pre-made alliance between Dale and Dwarves is getting in the way.

Alliance was never part of the deal. The deal only consisted of an exchange of settlements, I believe we didn't even discuss a NAP. I was going to get those settlements there, one way or another. War was imminent, but just in time you initiated negotiations.

This is why I tested. The other tests only confirmed my concerns.

I think it may be related to how the game engine handles faction relations. Has Harad or Rhun betrayed an ally in this hotseat? Perhaps Mordor and/or Dwarves?

Worst case I can manually create alliances using a console command. I've never tried it but a command exists.

I know there exists a 'force accept' command for diplomacy, but I'm afraid that one did not work in TATW..

My thought would be the destruction of Mordor or the 'Dark Lord' as a problem, or a combination of those. What if you try to 'surrender_regions papal_states' and try diplomacy again?

[Adanedhel]

Alliance was never part of the deal. The deal only consisted of an exchange of settlements, I believe we didn't even discuss a NAP. I was going to get those settlements there, one way or another. War was imminent, but just in time you initiated negotiations.

That's why I said "pre-made". I never claimed we were allies not even on friendly terms due to the Dwarven acquisition. But I'm relieved you think the same way.

[Chieftain Khuzaymah]

Oh ok, my interpretation of 'pre-made alliance' was that we made an alliance before the HS began.

[JWANT]

I'm only talking about in-game diplomacy here. From what I have read, diplomatic stance with defeated factions doesn't change once they are defeated. That may be the issue but I don't remember what Mordor's diplomacy was like when they were destroyed. I will test a fix for this later today.

Here is the console command I was thinking of:
diplomatic_stance <faction_a> <faction_b> <allied/neutral/war>: Set the diplomatic stance between the two factions

[Adanedhel]

Rhun probably was still allied with Mordor when the faction was defeated.

[Chieftain Khuzaymah]

That's good thinking. If Rhun was allied with Mordor while Harad was fighting it, the game will not allow Harad and Rhun to form an alliance.

That is the correct command JWANT, but as I mentioned before, I'm afraid it is also one of the commands that do not work for TATW.

[JWANT]

Then I don't believe there is a way to fix this. We will have to move on.

I have VM'd themzr to play his turn

[Chieftain Khuzaymah]

That wouldn't be cool for themzr if he can't ally up his armies, which he is doing to me now

So I wanna try to help him as much as I can, have you tried the command "surrender_regions papal_states" JWANT? It might 'release' all evil factions from Sauron's rule.

Also, is it only with Harad/Rhun or with more factions?

[JWANT]

I agree but I don't know how to fix this so I'm not sure what alternative we have if we continue playing.

I tried destroying Sauron with that command but it didn't make a difference. Is it possible to bring a faction back to life? I could fix it that way but I have never heard of that being possible. Any internet searches I did turned up with a consensus answer is no.

I believe this issue affects former enemies of Mordor and allies of Mordor. No former enemy of Mordor can ally with a former ally of Mordor (as if Mordor was still alive). From memory:

Former Enemies:
Harad
Gondor
SE (I destroyed Khamul to end Mordor's existence)


Former Allies:
Rhun
(OotMM/OoG?) possibly but I haven't checked the save where Mordor was destroyed.

This is a minor disadvantage for Rhun and Harad since they cannot ally and for any combination of former enemy and ally who also cannot ally. Or punishment/karma, since why was Rhun allied to Mordor when Harad was attacking them

[Chieftain Khuzaymah]

Rhun and Mordor are allied by default. It is that way in every HS. One might wonder why themzr has not tried to ally his factions before..

I have one final suggestion, thanks to experience with SP campaign, not sure if this also applies to hotseats though.

Once an evil faction would attack another evil faction, Sauron used to get angry and he commanded you to kiss and make up. If you did not do this, you would be kind of outlawed by Sauron from his evil circus. To regain his favor you had to suicide your FL and you would be part of the gang again.

I have never seen these missions in hotseats, but it could be worth a shot. Suicide Harad's FL and the next turn try to propose an alliance to Rhun.

[themzr]

Rhun and Mordor are allied by default. It is that way in every HS. One might wonder why themzr has not tried to ally his factions before..

I have one final suggestion, thanks to experience with SP campaign, not sure if this also applies to hotseats though.

Once an evil faction would attack another evil faction, Sauron used to get angry and he commanded you to kiss and make up. If you did not do this, you would be kind of outlawed by Sauron from his evil circus. To regain his favor you had to suicide your FL and you would be part of the gang again.

I have never seen these missions in hotseats, but it could be worth a shot. Suicide Harad's FL and the next turn try to propose an alliance to Rhun.

I had them allied at the start of the hotseat. However Rhun starts out as an ally or Mordor. When my faction Harad attacked Mordor it broke the alliance between Rhun and Harad since Rhun was also allied to Mordor. Now when I try to really them I cannot achieve this.

Also it's important to note that Rhun doesn't start with the ability to recruit a diplomat so I had to take time to build a city hall which was only later in the game possible for me...

[JWANT]

Rhun and Mordor are allied by default. It is that way in every HS. One might wonder why themzr has not tried to ally his factions before..

I have one final suggestion, thanks to experience with SP campaign, not sure if this also applies to hotseats though.

Once an evil faction would attack another evil faction, Sauron used to get angry and he commanded you to kiss and make up. If you did not do this, you would be kind of outlawed by Sauron from his evil circus. To regain his favor you had to suicide your FL and you would be part of the gang again.

I have never seen these missions in hotseats, but it could be worth a shot. Suicide Harad's FL and the next turn try to propose an alliance to Rhun.

I tried your suggestion - no luck. Mordor and Harad still stay at war (invisibly). Thanks for the idea though it was worth a shot.

I think we can either
1) continue playing and unfortunately themzr has to deal with this
2) find some way to compensate themzr that all players agree with
3) stop playing (no thanks!)

thmzr can get around this (somewhat) by trading territories between Harad and Rhun in order to make one large faction and one smaller faction. Not being able to ally will be less noticeable but I imagine overall income would suffer from increased corruption in the larger faction. Other than that, I don't know how else to fix this and I am open to suggestions that people think are fair!

[themzr]

Is it only possible to combine factions at the start of a hotseat and not midway through it?

[JWANT]

Combining factions has to be done before the hotseat. But on faction could trade all of its territories except its current capital to another faction for map information.

[Adanedhel]

It would be nice to get this going again. There is a certain wizard out there that has escaped the noose for far too long

[Chieftain Khuzaymah]

It would be nice to get this going again. There is a certain wizard out there that has escaped the noose for far too long

Gandalf?

[Adanedhel]

Gandalf?