Possible to change another nation's opinion?

[Pat Splat]

From say hostile to neutral to friendly?

[Pat Splat]

was this question just too stupid? Seriously, I rarely ever see a country's opinion change, usually only from neutral to rival. With enough points, is it possible to sway their opinion to a polar opposite position?

[Thumpster]

It is possible though I don't know exactly how it works. I've seen countries go from rival to friendly (or whatever the max positive is called) in about 10 years or so. Improving relations is part of it though.

[Nats]

Use the diplomacy choice 'relation improvement', you will need to use up a diplomat whilst you are doing it and it can be affected by 100 points at the most using this method. It is a great start to improving someones bad relations of you and preparing them for other options like royal marriages and alliances which require a decent relationship first in order for them to accept them. There are other ways as well I am sure - eg giving them a bundle of cash cant hurt. Just use the tooltips to see what is hurting your relationship with other factions the most and try to address that.

Edit: sorry I have just read your question again and got my answer completely wrong I was was going on about relationship, not opinion. I havent even noticed factions have an opinion like 'friendly' or 'hostile', I will have to look for that next time I play the game. I dont see how you can have good relations with a faction and yet have them hostile though so it must all be wrapped up together somehow. Unless its just an easy simple way of explaining what the relationship numbers mean for newbies, which is possible.

Neither do I know what affects your opinon of them either, there is a lot in this game I dont know about in fact. I assume the same factors that affect their opion of you though for example them breaking an alliance with you, them having royal marriages with you, etc.

[Thyriel]

Originally posted by Nats:

I havent even noticed factions have an opinion like 'friendly' or 'hostile', I will have to look for that next time I play the game. I dont see how you can have good relations

You should look at it next time ;)
The Rival/Enemy system is the whole base of diplomatic relations ;)
You can use it to your advantage by selecting rivals in your own diplo screen to get nice prestige boosts and so during fights.
Or you can boost relations (takes some time) by picking the same rival as a country you want to have better standings with (i only do it to be able to vassalize a country i cannot get some missing standings in another way for example) -> shared rivals
And so on ;)

A negative effect is that it drops your relations a lot if someone picks you rival or you are treated as enemy to them. While it doesnt prevent you from still being in plus standings if you push it, but it completely prevents you to marry them.
So you will never be able to heir them, PU them (except mission popup) or ally them.

I never noticed so far that someone removes the rival flag and you get friendly to them again, but i guess it might work if you keep peaceful for a long time and do anything to be able to join them on their wars.
Like picking same rivals, guaranteeing them, forcing peace and so on... all the nice stuff that lets you join wars ;)