AI gets buff in Realm Divide?

[Cercamon]

Do they do the classic focus the player, here are ten armies outta nowhere?

[BastardSword]

No. Main thing that happens is that literally every clan on the map declares war on you, even your vassals that you made before RD. It's not like other TW games where you get to a point where a bunch of rebel or invader armies spawn out of nowhere. Whatever forces the AI has when realm divide happens is what they will take into realm divide. But once everyone is at war with you, they will start raising new armies to attack you.

[Goodnews]

sometimes if you have good relations with your ally they will not declare war on you straight on but because of the realm divide relations thing that increases every turn your ally will eventually declare war on you

[Schnell_Scheisse]

If your daimyo has max level honor and you've researched the diplomacy bonus technologies, it's possible to keep an ally even after Realm Divide if you send them money as a gift every other turn to counter the realm divide diplomacy malus.

[BastardSword]

Originally posted by Bad News Parliament:

sometimes if you have good relations with your ally they will not declare war on you straight on but because of the realm divide relations thing that increases every turn your ally will eventually declare war on you

This is true, especially if the ally clan has a trait like "dependable." Takeda and Date make good allies. I have had Takeda or Date stay allied to me long after the start of realm divide without having to pay them, to the point where I eventually had to declare war on them to get enough provinces to win the game.

[easytarget]

I've completed campaigns a number of times with an ally who stayed with me to the end.

I've found the Chosokabe are particularly useful for this for a couple reasons.

First they don't wander off their island that much so you don't end up in each others hair causing potential conflicts that can result in a diplomatic break.

And second they tend to actively build navies so through at least the middle part of the campaign you can rely on them to police the sea for you w/o you needing to spend a whole bunch on a navy yourself.

[BastardSword]

Another tip I forgot about if you want to try and keep allies after RD is that the longer you have an alliance with a clan, the more they will like you. So if you allied with Date or Takeda or whoever very early in the game, they will like you a lot longer past RD than if you allied with them just before RD.

[easytarget]

Yep, forgot to mention that myself. Definitely talking about alliances that were formed early. And if possible marriage thrown in to further seal the bargain where possible is always nice.

[markeason]

Trade is the most important factor in building the relationship. It starts at +15 and increases to a cap of +60. Alliance starts at +100 and decreases to a floor of +40.

To maintain an ally through to game end, you want to have hit the trade cap of (+60), ideally renegotiated your alliance just before triggering RD (+100), and arranged a marriage to them just before triggering RD (+100).

It doesn't matter that the marriage to them will upset other clans at this point because they are about to declare war on you anyway.

You want your Daimyo's honour at 6 or better, to gain another (+30) and the two techs that boost relations for another (+30).

You could always throw some koku their way to boost the relationship further but, if you trigger RD with that +300 or so relationship, even though it is ticking down and the RD penalty is ticking up; it will give you a good 30-40 turns of continued alliance.