Abysmal reputation?

[Silver]

What's with every single faction hating your guts in a campaign not even 40 turns in?

Even factions you are not at war with, aka neutral factions?

Even neutral factions so far away you havent even gotten their map info, nevermind sharing borders with?

Even neutral factions you have made a trade agreement with?

Whenever I botch a spying or assassination attempt, I load a previous save, so I doubt that affects how other factions view me.

[Inardesco]

Your thread title says enough

[Tuidjy]

I have not looked into it recently, but I vaguely remember reading the configuration files when the game first came out.

You get penalty to reputation for pretty much everything - every war you're fighting, even if you did not start it, every time you attack someone, even if they are besieging a city of yours, every time you sack a city, every time two of your allies fight, etc.

And a few of the things that are supposed to give you decent reputation are bugged, for example, if you occupy a city, it is supposed to increase your reputation, but it does not.

So if you are a large faction and are fighting wars on multiple fronts, you will be hated, your reputation will be horrible, etc.

It is possible to keep good relations with a few countries, if you really work at it, but only if they have multiple enemies, and you go out of your way to attack those.

In my current campaign, I play as Russia, and France and Egypt are my very good friends. But that's taken me a lot of planning, bribing, and even a few regions that I gifted to them, so that there is less border tension between us... and more border tensions with my enemies.

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

You get penalty to reputation for pretty much everything - every war you're fighting, even if you did not start it, every time you attack someone, even if they are besieging a city of yours, every time you sack a city, every time two of your allies fight, etc.

Thats rubbish.

You can perfectly kill your enemies and still maintain a good reputation as long as you don't exterminate cities, kill prisoners and not being the aggressor of the war.

[BRox]

Stop backstabbing allies

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

You get penalty to reputation for pretty much everything - every war you're fighting, even if you did not start it, every time you attack someone, even if they are besieging a city of yours, every time you sack a city, every time two of your allies fight, etc.

Thats rubbish.

You can perfectly kill your enemies and still maintain a good reputation as long as you don't exterminate cities, kill prisoners and not being the aggressor of the war.

Every single one of those things was true for the unmodded game in 2007.

I never said you could not maintain a good reputation, if you work at it. But if you expand quickly, EVEN if you NEVER start wars, kill prisoners, or sack, let alone exterminate cities, your reputation with most neutrals will hit abysmal.

It is certainly the case for my Russia. On turn 94, I have 8 enemies and 2 allies. I have never, not once done anything that carries a reputation hit but being at war and fighting back. It's enough to sink me to 'abysmal' with Spain and Portugal, with whom I've never had a border or a war.

Very hard difficulty, of course.

[Inardesco]

Then explain how I am capeble of hitting Immaculate reputation in vanilla if according to you its impossible?

[Tuidjy]

What turn are you on, and how many provinces do you have?

I have maintained perfect relations with all Catholics as Venice, sure. I also was never at war with more than one faction, and was taking it slow, donating provinces to the Pope when I knew they would lead to trouble if they remained under my control. So my reputation was great, as well.

But when you are Russia, and have 52 provinces on turn 70 or so, you will be in many wars, and each will be affecting your reputation. Just preaching Orthodoxy in Catholic lands makes two thirds of the map hate you.

So, to answer your question? It is possible to keep high reputation, but not if you obliterate everyone who attacks you. Turtle, keep border garrisons strong, play a Catholic country, keep a perfect relation with the Pope, never border more than one Islamic country at once, and you will be fine.

I have not played on anything but Very Hard, so I do not know whether it is easier on other difficulties. But on Very Hard, it is quite harder to keep an image of unassailable strength, even when you are perfectly capable of defending yourself, and that's what keeps the A.I. from jumping you. And when I get jumped, I wipe the enemy out. Which gets me more neighbors, who think that I am weak and overextended, and who attack me. I know how to avoid that, but why would I? I enjoy battles, and I enjoy taking four castle produced cavalry units to victory against multiples of their number in fortress/citadel troops.

So I end up with Abysmal relations with almost everyone, and Dubious or worse reputation.

[Inardesco]

Reputation is based on your actions and is completely seperate from your standing with a faction. You can take out enemy factions and still keep a good reputation so what is it that you're doing during a war that causes your reputation to tank?

Fairly certain you're exterminating settlements, executing prisoners and denying any treaties the AI comes up with. You're also probably using spies and assasins to do your dirty work which also lowers your reputation.

And if you're enjoying it, why are you bothered by it?

[spaceweezle]

Been a very long time since I played vanilla, but in all the SS campaigns I care to remember, I've never had anything less than immaculate rep, despite warmongering and despite having an army of genocidal assassins. Playing on VH/H.

It's possible that I am taking a hit for assassinations, but it never registers as I'm typically freeing several thousand prisoners per turn, which is more than enough to compensate for my unsavory behavior.


If you're looking to increase rep, I'd start freeing some prisoners.

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

Been a very long time since I played vanilla, but in all the SS campaigns I care to remember, I've never had anything less than immaculate rep, despite warmongering and despite having an army of genocidal assassins. Playing on VH/H.

OK, I just unpacked the files from my current Steam distribution, and the occupation = razing bug is still in. Here:

Trigger 0103_occupy_settlement_increase_global
    WhenToTest OccupySettlement

    FactionStanding global 0.05
    FactionStanding target_faction normalise 1.0 20
    FactionStanding target_allies normalise 1.0 40
;    FactionStanding target_enemies normalise -1.0 40

;------------------------------------------
;Trigger 0102_city_razed_decrease_global
;    WhenToTest CitySacked

    FactionStanding global -0.05
    FactionStanding target_faction normalise -1.0 10
    FactionStanding target_allies normalise -1.0 20
;    FactionStanding target_enemies normalise 1.0 20

So basically, when you occupy a city, you get the penalties you got from from razing cities in Rome. I do not have SS installed, but I would be surprised if the bug has been left in. On the other hand, if the bug is left in the vanilla game, when fixing it is trivial (comment out ALL of the razing code, not just the trigger), I expect all the other bugs that tank your reputation are also there.

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Reputation is based on your actions and is completely seperate from your standing with a faction. You can take out enemy factions and still keep a good reputation so what is it that you're doing during a war that causes your reputation to tank?

It is not completely separate. Low faction relation leads to war, and being at war decreases your reputation.

Fairly certain you're exterminating settlements, executing prisoners and denying any treaties the AI comes up with. You're also probably using spies and assasins to do your dirty work which also lowers your reputation.

I have not used assassins in this campaign, and while I do use spies, it's only as mobile watchtowers. As for the rest, I never do any of these. Dread generals are better than chivalrous ones, but chivalrous governors are way, way, WAY better than dread ones.

And if you're enjoying it, why are you bothered by it?

You're aware that I am not the original poster, right? I told the guy to accept it.

[Inardesco]

You're reading the script wrong. Occupying the settlement gives + 0.05 reputation increase. Razing lowers it by 0.05

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

You're reading the script wrong. Occupying the settlement gives + 0.05 reputation increase. Razing lowers it by 0.05

Did you miss the fact that trigger is commented out, and thus the control flow falls thought?

There is no razing in Medieval 2. They commented out the trigger, but left the consequences. Thus, after the code for occupying is executed, the code for razing is executed.

Pay attention to the semi-colons.

[Inardesco]

Which means that reputation stays the same. It doesnt increase or decrease

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Which means that reputation stays the same. It doesnt increase or decrease

Correct, but relation with the target and their allies goes down even more than if you sack the city, which prevents peace with the target, and causes wars with the allies So there is nothing to counteract the effects of all the multiple wars that a country like Russia will be inevitably thrown into.

To keep global reputation high with anything but a Catholic factions that's in bed with the Pope, you have to turtle, and go out of your way to grind reputation by attacking enemy armies outside of settlements, and releasing the prisoners.

I entered this discussion to tell the original poster that one cannot expect to maintain good relations with most factions, and thus peace, and thus solid global reputation, if one just refrains from obviously dishonorable actions.

Just by existing on catholic countries borders, and preaching Orthodox Christianity in its own provinces, Russia, for example, will end up with abysmal relations with the Pope and its lapdogs, and then in war with all its catholic neighbors, and the multiple wars will destroy its global reputation.

And nothing anyone has said in this thread has done anything to change my mind. There are too many things lowering relations, which causes war, which lowers reputation. You can counteract them ONLY through artificially restrained gameplay.

[the smoking mค็็็็็n]

pay them, marry them into alliance, both work rather well, and the first one is just to easy big bank balances' win more than just wars