Help, I suck at this horribly

[Echo]

ok hate, pour it on. I'll take the name calling of noob even. I cannot learn this game. I think I've managed to figure out the economy somewhat. But two areas are still kicking the living hell out of my a@@. I can build up relations with nation after nation, but I can't even get a trade agreement, you can forget a defensive pact or alliance. What the hell is the trick to diplomacy? Secondly, war. I get the mechanics, the issue I'm having also falls back to diplo. I can NEVER convince someone to join me, but no matter what nation I'm using, or fighting against, everyone jumps all in to help them out. For instance, why TF does Austria care about what I, as Persia, am trying to do in the middle east?? What am I doing wrong??? Why does every power meddle in every war I try to undertake? I mean I get not turning the blind eye, but ummm, history kinda shows they all did lol so, what gives??

[nanda.ag]

Humme don't declar interests in regions with lots of great powers just focus on your neighborhood. Be mindful of your infamy and only attack isolated minors first? Works for me as Burma now I own all of mainland south east Asia except some British holdings

[Echo]

That makes sense, I didn't look at that. Maybe I was declaring war on a country to conquer them that one of the great powers were interested in. I'm trying my luck at Egypt this time, I will report my luck on that!

[Toblm]

Trade Agreements and Custom Unions can be quite damaging to countries. The AI is understandably cautious about entering them even if they like you.

One way to strong arm the AI into doing what you want is call in an obligation. Small countries you can bankroll for a while and pick up an obligation. Bigger countries can be trickier. Try getting involved in regional conflicts. Tell a great power your willing to help, and see if they offer you swag to join in, often an obligation.

[nanda.ag]

Originally posted by hallzack87:

That makes sense, I didn't look at that. Maybe I was declaring war on a country to conquer them that one of the great powers were interested in. I'm trying my luck at Egypt this time, I will report my luck on that!

I think Egypt, ottomans will eventually attack you sooner or later. Just be ready for that

[Echo]

Originally posted by nanda.ag:

Originally posted by hallzack87:

That makes sense, I didn't look at that. Maybe I was declaring war on a country to conquer them that one of the great powers were interested in. I'm trying my luck at Egypt this time, I will report my luck on that!

I think Egypt, ottomans will eventually attack you sooner or later. Just be ready for that

ottomans did indeed attack, pretty early, and surprisingly the generals for Egypt were OP and I forced them into a defensive battle for a bit. Then I set it all to advance and I rolled them, took a lot of land too, was surprised lol

[nanda.ag]

Originally posted by hallzack87:

Originally posted by nanda.ag:

I think Egypt, ottomans will eventually attack you sooner or later. Just be ready for that

ottomans did indeed attack, pretty early, and surprisingly the generals for Egypt were OP and I forced them into a defensive battle for a bit. Then I set it all to advance and I rolled them, took a lot of land too, was surprised lol

I am glad you find your country, I suggest first few games don't play ironman, no shame in save scumming while you're finding your groove. And in game rules you can also turn down AI aggression I think

[Echo]

Originally posted by nanda.ag:

Originally posted by hallzack87:

ottomans did indeed attack, pretty early, and surprisingly the generals for Egypt were OP and I forced them into a defensive battle for a bit. Then I set it all to advance and I rolled them, took a lot of land too, was surprised lol

I am glad you find your country, I suggest first few games don't play ironman, no shame in save scumming while you're finding your groove. And in game rules you can also turn down AI aggression I think

SO I was trying to play only as Spain but I was doing horribly. But Egypt thus far seems to be going well. I did turn off ironman and have save scummed but only had to reload once when I forgot to mobilize my troops lol. But other than that, seems to be going well, slowly marching towards forming Arabia! I actually didn't even think about turning down those settings because I didn't see a "easy, normal, hard" setting haha

[Joker1321]

So, there's a couple things to keep in mind:

1) You can only take the diplomatic actions you have positive diplo resource for -.i.e. you are sitting at 75 diplo remaining and want to do something that costs 100 diplo (like bank roll some sucker nation to try and get an obligation from them )- the option won't even appear when you rclick a nation if you don't have the positive resource to maintain that action ( improve relations/bank roll etc )

2) If you have high infamy, your relations with virtually everyone will start out at -100, and the options to do things for/against them will slant toward mostly aggressive things, and the reverse is true if your relations are in the positive (+20). So you can't just start out both improving relations and bank rolling. You've got to just do improving relations until you get up to around 0 relations, then you can start bank rolling them.

3) When the bank rolling action ticks, there is no guarantee that you will will receive an obligation. You essentially pump money into the other nations treasury for the chance at an obligation each time the little progress bar reaches the end ( a tick ).

4) It is possible to easily build/rebuild relations with a given country through the following means, provided you have the cash to burn and the diplo to spare:

1. Start improving relations ( make sure you have the positive diplo to even begin this action )

2. Once you are in the positive side of relations you can start bank rolling them ( at 0 I think ) while at the same time keeping improving relations going. So relations will steadily tick upwards provided you don't do anything silly to make them angry, while you wait for an obligation to pop.

3. You can speed up the improving relations by a gain of +30 for absolving their obligations to you. Example: you are improving relations with Prussia, sitting at +5 relations, you start bank rolling them and then get an obligation from one of the bank roll ticks, you then forgive that obligation, now you're sitting at +35 relations, up from +5, all it cost you was the time bank rolling them and the lost obligation. 4. Rinse and repeat up to the +80-100 range, when you can then get trade agreements, defensive pacts, alliances, or even get them to join your customs union ( if they aren't a great power ).

Enjoy.