Everybody refuses Trade Agreements

[Malmsteen]

So, what's up with every single clan hating me and declining my trade agreements? I was making a nice amount of money from trading, but then suddenly started getting all my trade agreements broken, and even Very Friendly clans are refusing to trade with me? Am I doing something wrong?

[Elitewrecker PT]

Did you trigger Realm Divide?

[Captain Fekry]

Yeah diplomacy on this game is the worst I've ever seen; given up due to being unable to get a single "honourable Daiymo" to stick to the most basic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ agreement for one ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ turn.

[Malmsteen]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

Did you trigger Realm Divide?

No, not yet.. only conquered like 4 provinces so far

[ʊ ֆɦǟʟʟ ռօȶ քǟֆֆ]

Some ai clan made a trade embargo against you, so it takes many turns. good luck.

[easytarget]

The AI can sometimes be hard to persuade to trade, that's why I never miss an opportunity to connect trade ships to the European trade nodes.

[Dumblenutz!]

The AI in this game is treacherous.

Many times i forged a stable and good alliance with a neighboring clan only for them to betray me eventually by assassinating my people and then declaring war.

Now i just conquer everyone that's a threat. There is no eteral peace.

[Red Spot]

You need direct access to other factions territory, be it via road or port.

[Dumblenutz!]

Originally posted by Red Spot:

You need direct access to other factions territory, be it via road or port.

pretty sure he meant as in they don't find the offer acceptable

[eyecarrot19]

Originally posted by Duck Hunter:

So, what's up with every single clan hating me and declining my trade agreements? I was making a nice amount of money from trading, but then suddenly started getting all my trade agreements broken, and even Very Friendly clans are refusing to trade with me? Am I doing something wrong?

1. If you're playing Fall of the Samurai and having too much resources, clans might ask for money to get money from you, because of course, you will benefit much more than them.
2. Ports being blockaded on your or their side, wasting money on goods that they could sell on their own market or neighborgs. If it port being blockaded for too long, AI might broke agreement.
3. Trade port being lost by you or other clan.

For some reason there is a script for not allowing AI accept new trade agreement short after last one got broken

[Malmsteen]

Thanks, everyone. Plenty of good answers here. In the meanwhile I also figured out a strategy that has been working out a bit better for me, which I'll post here for future reference:

• I restarted the game as the Tokugawa for their diplomatic relations bonus (they also start with pastures, which from what I've read, the AI likes to get horses as trade resources). I also made it my priority to research the Chi Arts that give you a bonus to diplomacy.
  
  
• I then analysed the diplomacy menu to avail the factions that surround me, and only made trade deals with factions that already had them among themselves or were allied with each other
  
  
• In the meanwhile I was sending ships just to secure the trading nodes while I was waiting for my ports to finish upgrading, to allow me to recruit merchant ships to exploit said nodes (I managed to secure 2 this way)
  
  
• Finally, I went back to the diplomacy menu and started paying money to make Trade Embargos with everyone to cancel their trade deals with all other factions. Around 1k gold does it for most of them, and I'm making sure the AI factions are all cutting ties with each other (except for me, obviously) so I got a monopoly on the game's trade.

The downside to this is that I'm already at around mid game and only managed to conquer 3 provinces, mostly because I'm actively avoiding starting any wars or any rapid territory expansion, to keep everybody happy with me in terms of diplomacy.

[sora's 青かった星]

In Shogun 2 I've found that they will want to trade with you when you get warhorses, which they're desperate for. So desperate for that you can often sort of cheat by demanding a couple of thousand of gold from them in exchange for trade agreements at the beginning of the game.

[Malmsteen]

Originally posted by sora's 青かった星:

In Shogun 2 I've found that they will want to trade with you when you get warhorses, which they're desperate for. So desperate for that you can often sort of cheat by demanding a couple of thousand of gold from them in exchange for trade agreements at the beginning of the game.

Didn't know you could actually rip them off like that, thanks for the tip!

[BastardSword]

Yep warhorses are useful, they don't make much money but they seem to be the trade good most in demand.

Other clans refusing to trade never makes any sense and all you can do is deal with it. Sometimes everyone will want to trade with you, other times nobody does. It's not based on diplomacy, I can have really high diplomacy ratings with everyone and arranged marriages and +30 diplomacy from calligraphy, and everyone still refuses to trade even when I have good resources. All you can do is ignore it, focus on building up your economy, and try making trade agreements again later.