Diplomacy

[Frum]

How I made diplomacy work in RS2.

I've found a few tricks to improving diplomacy in RS2 over my decade playing this blasted game.

Keeping the Peace:
-Any province on the border you don't want attacked, post two full stacks bordering the settlement or at each crossing. The AI won't even enter thr province unless they have a truly large force for you.
-Do this even with allies.
-When you smash an army, don't clean up after it. The AI seems to take this as an invite to recruit a whole new army. Remnant units should be allowed to go free, and be retrained by the AI. This seems to decline the number of stacks and waste attacks the AI send. The AI seems to hate you having agents in its territory.
-The AI will always siege a fort or city with a full stack inside of it rather than attack a city wit a full stack next to it.
-Walls do jack to discourage the AI.

Protectorates and Allies:
-If you can get a protectorate, or force diplo one, they will break it with you if they have an prior ally go to war with you.
-If you attack said ally first, and especially on the same term as the protectorate pact is made, they will break their alliance with their former ally.
-This appliesto allies as well.
-Protectorates with enough provinces and bordering other nations (with direct land access) will continue to build troops, buildings, and even go to war.
-Protectorates that are landlocked by their protectors essentially have their AI turn off. They will not move troops, build them, or enhance their structures.

Making Peace:
-Once all of your bordering provinces are defended enough that the AI won't attack you, they will begin to be more open to the idea of peace with you.
-If they offer you a ceasefire and demand provinces in a war they are losing, they will most likely accept a normal ceasefire immediately, or with a threat.
-If you want to make a protectorate, the AI doesn't care that you have a stack sieging their last settlements. They care that they can't attack any settlements you own.
--Enough troops in your bordering provinces and a double doomstack next to their capital seem to allow protectorates to happen much more readily, evenif they have no troops.

MISC:
-Diplomatic skill matters. And diplomats can have ancillaries.
-The AI doesn't seem to attack ports that have a large navy near to them.
-The AI is extremely unlikely to attack your protectorates even if they would attack you.
-Nations will eventually give up their claims on you.

I just got done playing the first 150 turns in a Rome campaign, and am at peace, with no wars or every-turn-attacks, in Spain, Greece, and Gaul. I only used force diplomacy once--to make Carthage a protectorate, so that they pay their reparations and leave me alone like in real life. I've got the Averni, Gaelleci, Boii, Macedonians, and Greeks all leaving me alone for the past 50 turns, with trade rights, and sustained peace. Here and their I'll take a settlement, and have a peace a few turns later.

My per turn income has suffered heavily, but I benefit from Carthage's reparations. It makes the strategy of balancing where and what I build important again. I have to maintain huge armies, of course.

I am playing on H/H. In 607 I will march into Africa to subdue the Carthaginians and turn them into the Nubians. They have had a long time to build up nearly 30 stacks of elite troops. Wish me luck!

[Frum]

And I forgot one thing, the AI will always attack a port rather than a fleet. You can make lines of ships to blockade whole ports, and they'll never touch them, so long as the fleets themselves are large enough. This stops neutral nations going to war with you.

[ferike_2007]

And I forgot one thing, the AI will always attack a port rather than a fleet.

Thats not true at all. AI is programmed, I suppose, to block human player's ports to lower incomme, but they attack also the fleets, even not so often; especially Free Greeks (britons) 'surprised' me few times in Roman-campaigns.

[ferike_2007]

Regarding the diplomacy I made some 'house rules' and I apply them in my campaigns: no forced diplo, no briebing, diplomats talks only with diplomats or rulers (FL and FH if I can locate them on map) or with central authorities (capitol city). Using full stacks on borders seems too expensive to mee, I made roads instead as quickly as possible and upgrade them allways, and in case of danger, agression, invasion, etcetera, I'm able to send one-two(depending on situation) full armies in 2-3 turns, to say a warmly 'wellcome' to uninvited guests.

I'm not so concerned about the diplomacy part of the game because I can't change the way RTW diplo works and frankly I'm pretty 'tired' to seek useless alliances and so forth... I make trade agrements, maybe an alliance with Pergamon, but this is the maximum I do.

I even crushed the greeks at Syracusae at the very beginning in my current campaign and I played this campaign in 'war' with them with no peace offering or trade agrement, no diplomatic contacts - except the AI ridiculous attempts, of course.

[Frum]

Frankly, I find when the nations I am most going to have to fight have a good chance to turtle--such as Carthage--when I go to take them out they are a *very* fun challenge. As for shuffling armies around, I don't do this precisely because it's less expensive. I'd much rather not have to micromanage my borders, and with the AI designed to strike when you're vulnerable, I am always hoping to see barbarians come rolling into the empire.

On that note, is the AI set to be neutral to the Roman Rebels or something? You never see them going to war with the rebels.

[dvk901]

I 'think' a 'shadowing faction' is regarded differently than others. That's probably why they attacked less often. Also, the shadowing faction tends to be more complacent...except against you.

[Ovidius Empiricus]

-The AI will always siege a fort or city with a full stack inside of it rather than attack a city wit a full stack next to it.

Not sure about this one. (I figure it's obvious that no stacks need to be full, but you mean that's one way that you can get "all else being equal.") Do you really mean "always" or that you've noticed it seems to prefer attacking in one situation over the other?

I could see the benefit of ensuring the enemy will be wiped out if the battle is won and city is taken, instead of having the risk of a (partial) army that is still lingering outside and perhaps ready for an immediate counter-attack. It would be smart for the AI, because they might never get anything done, if it was just a constant back-and-forth of one siege after another. Those armies of course have movement points and are hard to trap compared to garrison forces, so they're free to roam about and cause trouble.

So, I do agree that there does seem to be a strong AI preference for fighting armies that are "in the field" before any sieges are conducted -- maybe if the field army is "close enough" to it or to enemy borders, if it's within their movement range, if it's in the region the AI wants to take, if it's visible and not ambushing, or some combination of conditions like that. But I haven't paid too close attention to it, so I just don't know how consistent the AI is in different situations such that this really holds true all of the time. It would be interesting to hear what it's been like in others' experience.

[Frum]

Not sure about this one. (I figure it's obvious that no stacks need to be full, but you mean that's one way that you can get "all else being equal.") Do you really mean "always" or that you've noticed it seems to prefer attacking in one situation over the other?

I could see the benefit of ensuring the enemy will be wiped out if the battle is won and city is taken, instead of having the risk of a (partial) army that is still lingering outside and perhaps ready for an immediate counter-attack. It would be smart for the AI, because they might never get anything done, if it was just a constant back-and-forth of one siege after another. Those armies of course have movement points and are hard to trap compared to garrison forces, so they're free to roam about and cause trouble.

So, I do agree that there does seem to be a strong AI preference for fighting armies that are "in the field" before any sieges are conducted -- maybe if the field army is "close enough" to it or to enemy borders, if it's within their movement range, if it's in the region the AI wants to take, if it's visible and not ambushing, or some combination of conditions like that. But I haven't paid too close attention to it, so I just don't know how consistent the AI is in different situations such that this really holds true all of the time. It would be interesting to hear what it's been like in others' experience.

What I mean here is exactly what I said, actually. Take Emporiae or Massalia, which are my two border provinces if I'm playing as Rome until I take Gaul(and I do leave Gaul alone until it's historically time.) Typically I can leave a single full stack in each and the AI will leave it alone early game, but I *have* to have the army outside of the city. If I have them inside the city, the AI will quickly attack and siege it--the way I see it, the AI interprets that it has a much better chance of defending against a sally-forth than they do in a pitched battle.


As to dvk, I try and never blocked passes or river crossings myself--not least because I hate fighting battles in such circumstances. I find, that, if I have mobile armies south of the Alps, and the Germans or Boii come down, all I really need to do is pile some armies into the territory they moved their stack into, and they'll be deterred, so long as I outnumber them or have a massive troop quality advantage. Blocking a pass or crossing often limits you to just a single army, and I think that is all the AI will take into account, so they attack far more often.

[Alavaria]

the way I see it, the AI interprets that it has a much better chance of defending against a sally-forth than they do in a pitched battle.

Odd, the battle AI is pretty bad if you are sallying forth.

It's too passive, I'd say.

[dvk901]

In my experience, diplomacy, the will to attack or not attack, make peace, accept various diplomatic proposals, etc. are all based on whether any of these actions are beneficial to the AI in some way. And by beneficial I mean mostly in terms of money. This is a weird 'quirk' of RTW that even a faction with one region left, surrounded and on the brink of destruction, will refuse peace from you because they still have the money to pursue war and recruit units. When they don't, even for a turn or so, they will quickly ask for a ceasefire...and then break it soon after because they got more money.

Another observation of mine is that a faction may well be at peace with you for a long time, with not even a glimmer of hostility or warlike behavior. Then all of a sudden, it will start massing armies around a settlement that borders you...as if in fear that you might attack it, even though you have NO armies that are acting threatening to it. As a player, you get suspicious, block a river crossing or pass on the borders of that region, and then bang...the AI attacks you. My sense is that the AI had 'designs'...and was getting ready to invade the neighboring region that's yours, and you just interrupted its plans by blocking its way into that region.

If anything is 'poor' about the AI's strat map functioning (well, we know there are things), it's that the AI has a poor concept of what a real 'threat' is. Having money and the ability to recruit units seems to override, in many cases, the greater threat of having only one region left and being surrounded by armies! You would think a faction would be begging for peace...but's rarely the case.

Another thing that's important is the fog of war. Now, I play with it off all the time....but that's because I am also always observing what's going on, and looking for things that aren't as they should be. But the FOW is important for a better experience playing because it limits you the player to the same limitations the AI has. It can only 'see' as far as you can (with FOW on)....if you turn it off, it can STILL only see as far as you can if FOW was on. So that gives the player an immense advantage to have it off. Why is this so important? Well, consider a case where you have one army at a river crossing or bridge that is adjacent to an AI faction....and ten armies waiting that are beyond the AI's ability to 'see'. The AI will sense that you are vulnerable, and attack with no idea that you have ten armies waiting for it.
But if you wanted peace or a ceasefire with this faction, putting those armies in its sight will give the AI faction a different picture of the threat it faces....and it might be more inclined to make peace. I say 'more inclined'...but it doesn't always mean it will happen.