Ha... I forgot why the Total War series sucks: diplomacy is incredibad

[Meneldil]

After two years without touching a TW game seriously, I've recently decided to complete all the possible achievements on both ETW and NTW.

So here I am, doing the Italy campaign in hard. There are several guides to explain you how to do it. And it's, in theory, pretty easy:
- Protectorate Piemont
- Take the Austrian towns.
- Get Military Access from Venice
- Go get the last Austrian citadel in the north east part of the map.

That's all nice and fancy, except for the fact that the AI is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nut. After 12 turns, every single nation on the map is at war against me. Even ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Lucca. I've never approached you, don't care to, leave me the ♥♥♥♥ alone. Even ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Piemont, my stupid protectorate. I treated you well, even got our relationship up to friendly. Didn't drag you into any war. We were trading like old buddies.

But no. Since CA can't code an AI that will put up a challenge without cheating, well, they went for:
a - letting the AI cheat (Immortality difficulty mode in STW2)
b - stacking the odds against the player, with a retarded diplomatic AI that will gang up on the you as soon as it feels threatened. They even made it legal in STW2, with the stupid "U DONT BE TEH SOHGUN" end game.

I don't even know why I'm surprised, it was already here in MTW (and made every end game boring as ♥♥♥♥, when it was you vs two or three big ass factions). It was there in RTW, in M2TW, and it's in those games too. I can't remember but I wouldn't be surprised if it was already here in STW.

Maybe I could enjoy the battles, but I feel that when you've played ten of them, you've played them all. Heavy infantry in the middle, archers behind, charge flanks with cavalry, hope for the best, rince and repeat. I much prefer the grand strategy side of things, but NTW is, as usual with this series, so disappointing.

[YEOLDEDRAGON]

I agree... most importantly, it's lacking; 1; the ability to form Unions(connecting your capital-region/city to another nation), and 2; the ability to call your allies to help in specific hotzones. :/

[YEOLDEDRAGON]

...but it's got the potential to be the ultimate engine/model for ALL upcoming TW-games... minor tweaks, imho. ;) thnx CA, I really LOVE NTW! ;)

[LSD]

The AI is bad, but remember that once you go over Normal, the game enters crazy land.
You either play at Normal and have things make sense but be way too easy, or you play on the hardest setting and have the game become a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but be marginally more difficult.

Get more experienced in battles and in time you can just ignore the AI's mental breakdowns.

Still, at least the AI isn't as bad as in Shogun 2. Quite literally every AI nation in the game declares war on you as soon as they come into contact with you on VH. In NTW, they're at least a little more reserved in that they'll only declare war if they can actually field an army that can somewhat-match you.

[The Last Monke]

Yeah, diplomancy is a joke in this series.

[Eat3n]

I didn't mind diplomacy in MW2, at least it was far more reasonable. In Empire and Napoleon it's pretty bad. I hate it in STW2, i just hated that game with a passion, so many people said it was great...well ♥♥♥♥ those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The AI cheats in every TW game, i accept it, but in Shogun it was just off the charts. So i break treaties it's bad for my reputation and my leader, but the AI can break treaties left and right and have no ill effect? What the ♥♥♥♥ is that? If i pay you to break an alliance with an enemy and join me, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ STAY! It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ how the AI just abandons treaties.

[Rex Bellator]

Total War's diplomacy AI is just something you have to accept. It's always been quirky and/or unreasonable. Total War is just not a hardcore strategy game like Paradox's series, it's a game designed around real-time battles, not the other way around, therefore the battles and units are going to receive the most attention.

@Eaten - you have a very unique experience with MW2 because there is a well known bug in MW2 where you actually receive a worse diplomacy-hit by sparing a town and occupying it rather than razing it. There's a mod that fixes the bug and it makes the AI really reasonable, but otherwise you will likely be betrayed by most AIs you share a border with.

[Eat3n]

Originally posted by Rex Bellator:

@Eaten - you have a very unique experience with MW2 because there is a well known bug in MW2 where you actually receive a worse diplomacy-hit by sparing a town and occupying it rather than razing it. There's a mod that fixes the bug and it makes the AI really reasonable, but otherwise you will likely be betrayed by most AIs you share a border with.

Really? I've never ever noticed anything like that in MW2. I guess i kinda know what you're talking about, like when people attack you out of the blue for no reason; I always thought it was because i trespassed through their lands. The only thing i've really noticed is like if you play England, Milan will walk through Italy, the HRE, and France just to attack you for literally no reason. That does bug me.