Diplomacy is a joke.

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

I get that Diplomacy in Strategy games is REALLY hard to program. But there are times where clans the i've nearlly CONQURED don't surrender. On my newest play through, I had 12 provinces and my enemys the Hattori had 4, even if I paid them over 3000 gold, a older hostage, and free permeant access to my empire, and yet they STILL don't surrender. It's almost as if the other Clans are beyond suicidal.

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

Originally posted by Legatus Non Violatur:

Its almost as if nobody truly understand what honor is.

By this logic Honour is suicidal commitment to war. They where honour bound, not Sociopaths.

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

Originally posted by Legatus Non Violatur:

Are you sure about this statement?...

Yes. As I said, they still felt fear. They knew that in many cases they would lose more then they would gain in war. Infact, the only reason the Tokugawa came to rule was because they had good diplomatic ties with there Ex-Enemies the Oda.

[{110th}DoomedEagle(LegioDamno)]

If you ever defeated a Great-Clan, you would see the Daimyo's head get chopped off after Seppuku as Samurai would rather take an honourable death than dis-honour the family. You aren't Japanese so you wouldn't understand.

[Eat3n]

Well, considering that this is a GAME, none of that honor ♥♥♥♥ matters.

It's a basic flaw in most Total War games that enemies don't surrender. In Medieval 2 i played as England once and france attacked me. I beat them back then took 4 of their cites and they had 1 left...nope, they didn't want to surrender. That's just stupid game design. Similarly, in Empire Total War i built entire empires around one obstinate little country that didn't want to surrender just to see how big i could get before they were willing to surrender...nope, still didn't surrender. It's been awhile since i played Rome Total war but i remember the Gauls and Germans having a distinct "we don't surrender" attitude even after i obliterated their armies.

[VoiD]

From the PoV of honour it was already explained.

From the PoV of a game the AI is playing directly against the player, the AI also wants to win and the best way to do it is by being a problem for the most dangerous player.

[UMP45]

There is a saying called "Death before dishonor".

[Kalon]

OP please don't apply Anglo/western logic to foreign cultures. You sound like an idiot.
I live in Japan, and while I marvel at how similar American and Japanese cultures really are (did you know we have the same word for sun-day and mon-day? No ♥♥♥♥, Nichiyoubi and Getsuyoubi means sun+day and moon+day...and don't get me started on the explainer particle "no" or the present progressive tense) you CANNOT apply what YOU would do to what is ultimately an alien mindset...which is exactly what the warring states period represents. Can you honestly fathom seppuku? I can't...because I am not a samurai. So thats the "realism" front.
ANYWAYS
On the video game front, it is a game and it is meant to be hard. If you can't handle that, turn down the difficulty settings. If you wan't everyone to surrender to you after you have bloodied their nose, why play? Furthermore, would YOU surrender if you were knocked down to 4 provinces against a foe with 12? I know I wouldn't. I have fought stiffer odds and come out on top. To make someone surrender, you have to BREAK them. 1 or 2 provinces left and no army left with your hand on their throat choking the life out of them.

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

Originally posted by y4uhittaz:

OP please don't apply Anglo/western logic to foreign cultures. You sound like an idiot.
I live in Japan, and while I marvel at how similar American and Japanese cultures really are (did you know we have the same word for sun-day and mon-day? No ♥♥♥♥, Nichiyoubi and Getsuyoubi means sun+day and moon+day...and don't get me started on the explainer particle "no" or the present progressive tense) you CANNOT apply what YOU would do to what is ultimately an alien mindset...which is exactly what the warring states period represents. Can you honestly fathom seppuku? I can't...because I am not a samurai. So thats the "realism" front.
ANYWAYS
On the video game front, it is a game and it is meant to be hard. If you can't handle that, turn down the difficulty settings. If you wan't everyone to surrender to you after you have bloodied their nose, why play? Furthermore, would YOU surrender if you were knocked down to 4 provinces against a foe with 12? I know I wouldn't. I have fought stiffer odds and come out on top. To make someone surrender, you have to BREAK them. 1 or 2 provinces left and no army left with your hand on their throat choking the life out of them.

I do agree, i'm not Japanese so I wouldent understand. But I do understand basic emotion across all walks of life. Seriouslly though, if you where LOSING a war, you knew you where going to lose, all your people would be killed, you'd be killed, and all your hard work would be forgotten, BUT you had the chance to end it right then and there, and recover so you could rule another day. You would negotiate peace. Again, the people who eventually won the war (The Tokugawa) Only won because they had diplomatic ties to the Oda clan.

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

Originally posted by {110th}DoomedEagle(LegioDamno):

If you ever defeated a Great-Clan, you would see the Daimyo's head get chopped off after Seppuku as Samurai would rather take an honourable death than dis-honour the family. You aren't Japanese so you wouldn't understand.

I'm not Japanese, but that dosent matter, you don't see Japanese people walking around in samurai armor chopping them selves up with Katanna's today anyway, so I don't see how my Honour system is any deffrent then the rest of (Todays) Japan. And I know i'm just repeating myself at this point, but the ONLY reason the Tokugawa clan even lasted more then a year or two was the fact that they turned there back on the Imagawa (Somthing dishonourable) And sided with there enemies (Also, Dishonourable) The Oda.

Although, going back to the "I'm not Japanese" Arguement, i'm pretty danm shore the whole "Honour" Schtick was forgotten back when imperialist's took over Japan. You know, when people starting using guns, starting re-worshiping Chrstianity, the art of the Samurai was forgotten, they started letting outsiders use the sacred soil of Japan, when dishourable actions like ambushing your enemy and embracing newer technologys where becoming more and more acceptable and common. I think our definiton of Honour has kind of...Changed over the years.

[Crim]

Honor is completely relative
Hattori use dishonorable means to victory... Yet have endless honor

but regardless, this isn't really isolated to Shogun... Every Total War game has similar problems, once war has started ... Its incredibly difficult to make peace in every Total War game... Honestly the Total War diplomacy system is very weak, Europa 4 is probably the one that has the best diplomacy system. Civ 5 is diplomacy is similar to TW but I feel like they are actively improving Civ5 diplomacy...

I understand betrayal keeps things interesting and all, but it happens way too often in TW that your closest allies, been allies for 500 years, active trade partners, family intermarried like 100x, while both sides have hostage exchanged... etc etc etc... just randomly decides to declare war on you

[rory.b.p]

Originally posted by Squizznar Tomo "The Craven" IV:

Originally posted by Legatus Non Violatur:

Are you sure about this statement?...

Yes. As I said, they still felt fear. They knew that in many cases they would lose more then they would gain in war. Infact, the only reason the Tokugawa came to rule was because they had good diplomatic ties with there Ex-Enemies the Oda.

The tokugawa were never really Oda's enemies, Matsudaira clan which Tokugawa Ieyasu came from split in two one sided with the Imagawa and the other with the Oda and they did war.

But Tokugawa Ieyasu didn't change his name to Ieyasu and his family name to Tokugawa till 1567 at which point he was allied with the Oda.
Also if you read up on his history there are a number of factors that may indicate he seriously disliked the Imagawa clan and his own father because of the incident over his ransom and ofcourse lets not forget the Imagawa had his wife and son hostage when he went on his campaign against the Oda when the clan was still called the Matsudaira.

After Oda Nobunaga's death the Tokugawa aligned themselfs with the Oda clan and not the then shogun Hideyoshi.

The Tokugawa clan and the Oda clan were never technically enemies because the Tokugawa clan didn't come into existance till after Oda Nubunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu were firm allies.

Tokugawa Ieyasu was extremely loyal to Oda Nobunaga I mean he let the man kill his eldest son and his wife for treason and still supported him.

[Monostatos]

Sorry to butt in but the argument that honour prevents you from yielding to you opponent is somewhat faulty, even with the cultural mindset of the japanese people in mind. To some extent honour would actually demand the leaders to surrender against a superior foe rather than fruitlessly fight it to the detriment of the people under your rule. While it might be true that the norm for the common servant (a good loyal servant anyway :P) as well as the samurai was "death before dishonour", this was to protect -and in some cases to provide scapegoats for- the masters they served. even today japanese people regard self sacrifice and loalty to (for example their employers) veri highly, and many people now would similarily, however now metaphorically rather than literally, jump on their swords to protect their superiors as they did long ago. The leaders of old japan was thus protected from much of the responsibility of their actions due to the way the culture entcouraged people to help the leaders to work around embarresing situations, often this was done in obvious secrecy where everybody knew about it but kept quiet to preserve honour. Japanese politichans (i cannot spell, sorry) are to this day struggeling to admit responsibility for many shortcomings of their own as well as past governments leadership due to this mindset; examples range from the admittance of the now almost extinct culture of japanese indigionous populations as a real minority. the Ainu, as they are called were not accepted as a japanese minority untill 2008 (or somewhere around there) after having been prosecuted throughout japanese history, having been forced both to accept the colonizers culture as well as being systematically shoved from their old lands (nothing new there, history is rife with similair treatment of indiginous populations, indians, sami and aborigin people all suffered the same fate. im not trying to make japan look worse than others, just point out that this is something they have yet to come to terms with, hundreds of years after the oppression started) . The government just cannot admit to being wrong due to the cultural stigma. Same with the whitewashing of history post world war 2 where the gov tried their best to avoid apologizing or talking about many of the atrocious actions commited by imperial forces in china, korea and the pacific. (this is one of the reasons neither china or korea -as countries- likes japanese very much to this day, if you didn't know already)

This however has -as you both pointed out :)- a backside, where the leaders of old japan was expected to do their utmost to protect and serve the people they were responsible for. If you could not manage to honourably do your job, then it was expected of you to remove yourself by way of seppuku (if your negligence was bad enough) explicitly to protect both your family and the people you rule and to keep honour intact.
An example would be the latter hojo, or just the hojo, who fell out of favour with the post sengoku shogunate and were brought down and assimilated into other clans. After a series of sieges, shogunate armies had finally obliterated the hojo clans chanses to win the war and the hojo leaders -explicitly to spare their subjects and family members the horrors of war- agreed to commit seppuku and end the war.

As for the games diplomacy system, it could stand some work and i am not paticularly fond of having more than one or two allies per game due to their unreliable nature. come realm divide it all boils down to you against everyone anyway so if you want an easier game, make sure to cover your sides and expect trouble if you are lucky enough to have an ally worth the name by then.
One thing you can do -as unhonourable as it may be- is to milk your allies and neighbors for military access money to boost your economy and slow them down, as well as use monks to incite revolts in your allies' regions. then you can either take them for your own, or just leave them there. in a recent game having to expand westwards i used this tactic to eradicate my good friend and ally date, leaving a third of the game map in rebellion and my flank safe. i do not feel paticularily proud of it (it feels like i outplayed the game rather than outsmarted fellow daiymo) but monks used in this fashion is a good alternative to actual diplomacy since they "disarm" regions in terms of threat towards you better than any amount of hostages do. Just dont do it too much or the others will get wise :P
(trick was learned on totalwar.org)

[Ace42]

I've always thought the Total War series' Diplomacy was diabolical. The computer always made incredibly stupid choices - like suicidally throwing their troops at me, despite me being on great diplomatic terms with them, while someone they're ALREADY AT WAR WITH walks through their territories.

Like they'd rather take me - their solid friend - out in a blaze of glory than try to protect their lands.

It's like the devs included diplomacy because the Civ franchise had it, but thought "hey, this really gets in the way of the battles, let's make the AI constantly throw troops around for no reason..." and thus killed it.

This backwards ass thinking is exemplified in the realm divide - which is just the most lazy stupid half-assed ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game-mechanic in the entire Total War series.

As a previous poster said - Civ 5's diplomacy system ain't great, but at least thought has gone into improving it so that it's at least workable. I've managed to get some really clutch victories in super-hard difficulty matches just by keeping on top of the Diplomacy and machinations.

The Total War franchise do all the ground work (In this game in terms of Shinobi, Metsuke, Ninjas, Monks, etc etc - there's even a faction whose perk is supposedly intrigue...) and then completely botch the implementation.

Grah, makes me so mad. It's one of the main reasons why I can't be arsed with this game... (Another one being the super-long load-times).

I'm just glad I didn't buy Rome 2; because the TW franchise has descended into self-plaigarism, all the while just making their games more bloated and buggy...

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

Originally posted by Ace42:

I've always thought the Total War series' Diplomacy was diabolical. The computer always made incredibly stupid choices - like suicidally throwing their troops at me, despite me being on great diplomatic terms with them, while someone they're ALREADY AT WAR WITH walks through their territories.

Like they'd rather take me - their solid friend - out in a blaze of glory than try to protect their lands.

It's like the devs included diplomacy because the Civ franchise had it, but thought "hey, this really gets in the way of the battles, let's make the AI constantly throw troops around for no reason..." and thus killed it.

This backwards ass thinking is exemplified in the realm divide - which is just the most lazy stupid half-assed ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game-mechanic in the entire Total War series.

As a previous poster said - Civ 5's diplomacy system ain't great, but at least thought has gone into improving it so that it's at least workable. I've managed to get some really clutch victories in super-hard difficulty matches just by keeping on top of the Diplomacy and machinations.

The Total War franchise do all the ground work (In this game in terms of Shinobi, Metsuke, Ninjas, Monks, etc etc - there's even a faction whose perk is supposedly intrigue...) and then completely botch the implementation.

Grah, makes me so mad. It's one of the main reasons why I can't be arsed with this game... (Another one being the super-long load-times).

I'm just glad I didn't buy Rome 2; because the TW franchise has descended into self-plaigarism, all the while just making their games more bloated and buggy...

I've found a way to make Diplomacy tolerable in this game. All you have to do is play Tokugawa (10+ diplomacy) Get the two technologys that raise diplomacy (20+ diplomacy) and then get the retainer for your Daimyo that raises his diplomacy by 10+. So you have 40+ diplomacy at that point. It's still broken and lope sided but atleast it's better.

In other Totalwar games I don't mind it so much. Espically in Naploeon because I find the battles really fun and i'm pretty good at it. In Napoleon I find it's easier to use ranged weaponry and Cavalry to your advantage. Where's in Shogun 2 I find the Cavalry are really nerfed and the melee combat just a bit of a slug fest most of the time. So in that game I usually just play as a warmongering dictator half the time anyway so I don't even bother with Diplomacy.

[Monostatos]

Originally posted by Squizznar Tomo "The Craven" IV:

I've found a way to make Diplomacy tolerable in this game. All you have to do is play Tokugawa (10+ diplomacy) Get the two technologys that raise diplomacy (20+ diplomacy) and then get the retainer for your Daimyo that raises his diplomacy by 10+. So you have 40+ diplomacy at that point. It's still broken and lope sided but atleast it's better.

Diplomacy.

That sounds pretty neat. I will have to try that out :D

Originally posted by Ace42:

This backwards ass thinking is exemplified in the realm divide - which is just the most lazy stupid half-assed ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game-mechanic in the entire Total War series.

The Total War franchise do all the ground work (In this game in terms of Shinobi, Metsuke, Ninjas, Monks, etc etc - there's even a faction whose perk is supposedly intrigue...) and then completely botch the implementation.

I'm just glad I didn't buy Rome 2; because the TW franchise has descended into self-plaigarism, all the while just making their games more bloated and buggy...

Agreed, the realm divide could have been such a deep and exciting event if they had thrown some more love at the diplomacy system instead of turning it into a conflict where no diplomtic choises aside from the very comitted alliances matter much.
Also; the loading times are atrociocus, very much yes :/