Advice on Diplomacy and Alliances?

[Corvus_Alt1]

I find myself very weary to form military alliances with anyone, so I'm asking advice over some of the diplomacy features.

First, if you form a military alliance with a faction, would they declare war on your other allies that you have either a military or defensive alliance with? If so, what happens?

Second, as the Empire, who would you form military alliances with? Is there any wisdom in having any kind of alliance with the minor dwarf factions?

Third, do alliances with minor factions affect the odds of larger factions confederating with them, i.e. does allying with the minor Bretonnian or Dwarven factions affect whether those factions are confederated by Bretonnia and the Dwarves?

[Chibbity]

You should be wary, alliances with the AI are almost always a bad idea. Trade agreements and non aggression packs being the only exception, take these with whoever you can. (Unless you plan to fight them soon.)

1. Yes they will, for no reason at all seemingly. You'll have to choose between them and betray one or opt out and anger them both. Going back on an alliance will hurt your rep as well and make other factions less likely to make deals with you in the short term future.

2. Yes, you guessed right, the Dwarves make good allies. They are very unlikely to betray you, and are the most "predictable" of the AI. You may have to ignore there repeated demands to help them kill wood elves but other than that they mostly just want to fight Orcs.

(The Kharak Norn subfaction in particular is a great early game ally for the Empire, they will hold the nearby mountain pass for you and keep the Goblins busy as well as being valuable trading partners, and a good start at becoming future allies with the main Dward faction. Helping them wipe out the Crooked Moons is a great little "first war" that is easily won and impresses all the Dwarf factions.)

3. Not that I'm aware of. I was allied with both minor Dwarf factions in my recent game and both were confederated into the Dwarves. (I do think that it improves your relations with the parent faction though, when you are firendly with their subfactions.)

[VhagarTheLastOne]

You should worry if you need to fight on two fronts, so do as many alliances as possible to prevent this. TW is quite easy if you manage to play that you're only at war with one faction, but at war with two or more neighbour things can get very bad fast. Thats how I cope, usually if I need to fight at two fronts, I just keep pushing as long I can make peace with one of them, you want to have Gold in bank, so you do this fast, usually kill one stack and put important City to siege works, after that AI is very likely to make peace, if you can make Peace with Non-attack deal, its even better.

[drazan]

non aggresive pacts with everyone
trade with everyone
military access with the ones you need to (to prevent - relationship when you cross them)
alliances with NO ONE
alliances will drag you into wars you do not want

you as a player should pick your fights/wars yourself. every turn you should check "aha this situation i can bend to my will"

you want to capture ostland? sure ask military access with the border of ostland so that you can pass through

find who ostland is at war with, then ask the enemy of ostland money to join the fight. you will not be allies, you will get money and you fight the same war

the only winner is you, the player

[Corvus_Alt1]

Thanks for the replies! Wish I had asked this sooner. I already formed two Military Alliances, one with the Dwarves, and one with Bretonnia. Lots of defensive alliances with the other Dwarves though, just because I wanted to make sure I still had trade with them. I am beginning to regret my alliance with Bretonnia a bit though. And Estalia, Tilea, and the Border Princes are all willing to pay me thousands for military alliances. I formed defensive alliances with all of them since they're not hostile with anyone (except for the Von Carsteins, who moved to Akendorf while I was purging Sylvania. So, not completely terrible.

And yeah, I totally understand the war on two fronts problem. Case in point, I ended up at war with the Wood Elves because of my alliance with Bretonnia. To make matters worse, Im 20 or so turns or one region away from Archaon emerging to kill me, I have all three of my legendary lords' full armies and Boris Todbringer (with half an army) up near Talabheim and Wolfenburg, my Castellan-Engineer is busy developing Sylvania and decorrupting Essen, and all I've got are my Treasurer and Reiksmarshal in Marienburg and Altfdorf respectively, neither of whom have an army yet. Also, my income is barely 4000 perturn at most, I'm still developing Talabecland, Hochland, Sylvania, and Wolfenburg in Estland, and Bretonnia is losing to the Wood Elves. So, yeah, a little problematic. I'll need to carefully balance investing in more income while also raising up the Reikmarshal's army. Then send the Reiksmarshal and Castellan-Engineer to save Bretonnia's rear end.

[grazr]

Never make alliances with vampires because they intentionally set up conflicting alliances to pit you against your other allies, that is in their nature in the game and done intentionally (as far as i'm aware). One of the reasons i will tend to cull the vampires ASAP, because it makes later diplomatic relations that much easier/smoother. Plus they're the most likely race to abuse stacking their armies which is just plain obnoxious. VC can give some pretty enticing bribes, like 10k gold for a treaty, but you're just better off not taking them in the long run.

Though i have recently discovered, to mine (and what will probably be all of our) convinience, that you can decline going to war along side a military ally with no political ramifications. The dialogue can sometimes by antsy, but there are no physical penalties for doing so. But you can't avoid going to war alongside an ally who gets attacked without a penalty.

Alliances are only really useful under certain circumstances during the Chaos invasion, mid game. Aim to ally with those who have the "shield of civilisation" trait. Since it helps to have an ally chase down beastmen heards or marauding vampires/Norsca in your territory whilst you're off fighting the main threat. As both Bretonnia and Empire, the Dwarves have been useful for this, Especially Karak Ziflin who turtles hard behind the Empire, but will protect the outlying provinces from Beastment herds, vampires and Norsca (Skaeling mostly). The dwarves will ask you to go to war with the Orcs and this is fine because the chances of the Orcs fighting their way through both the Border Princes and Dwarves just to get to you with any meaningful army left is miniscule. Unlike Bretonnia who antagonises Athel Loren most of the time and will then often expand out via Wissenland (which is a strong province for Empire).

Treaties do affect other factions attitudes towards you, IE if one faction hates another, if you have treaties with that hated faction you could get between a -1 to -4, depending on the strength/tier of that treaty, against your diplomatic relations. But in the grander schemes of things, that's not all that significant compared to the mad bonuses for military actions against the Chaos factions (and bribes which can give anywhere around +40). Just make sure you confederate as much as you can during the Chaos invasion, because as soon as they are defeated, the "Shield of civilisation" trait disappears and everyone goes back to war with each other as relations decline without the common enemy.

[VhagarTheLastOne]

Originally posted by Corvus917:

Case in point, I ended up at war with the Wood Elves because of my alliance with Bretonnia.

Its not so big deal, if you dont kill enemy stacks, destroy or capture their Cities, they will most likely forgive you, like in your case Wood Elves. You might have to kill one of their stack, but they will make a peace with you, if you want to be sure the Wood Elves dont turn against you, ask for non-aggressive pact.

I dont bother with Diplomacy, only if Im dragged into two-front war. TW isnt exactly the best game if you want deep Diplomacy.

[Lancaster]

I did a play through not too long ago as Empire, where I kept Reikland, and both of the Vampire homelands.

Everything else in the empire lands from Kislev to Middenland and Even Marienburg was all Military Alliances, I had Brettonia and the Dwarves as well.

As long as your Alliances has an Enemy to fight they will not betray each other, and as long as it's a strong enemy you're alliance only grows stronger.

I had mostly everyone before Chaos spawned and the two big bads I sent the Alliances at were Norsca and the Orcs. Norsca causes wild Attrition damage so it keeps your alliances hurt for a bit and the Orcs can get swept by the dwarves alone.

When Archaon comes just focus everyones wartarget onto him and his stacks.

Check your victory conditions and make sure every land that needs to be owned is under Military Alliance and not defensive alliance and when Archaon dies it's game over and you finished the play through.

Age of peace in this scenerio is an absolute nightmare though. It's harder than the end game all together.


Alliances are not as bad as people make them out to be, they just need to be maintained and have a purpose. Outside of that yes it's almost always easier for the player to have the reigns on every territory they own.

Every time I did a coop and I tell someone I give the AI money, they always gringe at the thought. That I'm boosting my relations with the AI for easy alliances and trade agreements.

[harleyquinrazer]

Age of Peace = Diplomacy goes out the window.

You can probably maintain one ally who will be the sole trading partner in the game. Everyone else will be out to get you. While the common front against Chaos lasts, extort as much money from the AI as possible from non-aggression pacts, trade agreements and military access agreements.

My biggest problem now is triggering the age of peace ironically enough. I did all the hard work 70+ turns ago eliminating the Warriors of Chaos, but the Warherd of Chaos has gone AWOL and I have no idea where the last army is. Until that goes (and it's probably in hidden encampment mode) I will have all the time I like unifying the empire lands, destroying Norsca and possibly getting rid of the border princes who occupy two settlements I need to win.

[Notoko]

Diplomacy is only good for one thing, make peace with the guy on your right, so you can go kick the guy on your left. Dipomacy is very lame in TW WH.