Diplomacy: How does it work?

A brief and detailed description of the factors that drive the diplomatic system and how you can take full advantage of it.

What determines how other factions view you?

Factors that dictate how factions view you:

• Historic: the standing historic relations as interpreted by CA.
  
• Leader Traits: the traits of the leader of the target faction.
  
• Buddy System: you share friends with a target faction.
  
• Enemy of my Enemy: you share enemies with a target faction.
  
• Tradable Assets: you control commodities the target faction does not.
  
• Standing Treaties: you have existing treaties with the target faction.
  
• Abstaning: not helping when asked.
  
• Participating: helping when asked.
  
• Gifts: when all else fails.

Historic:

The predefined view that factions have of you based on what your faction did before you started playing.

Leader Traits:

In Attila the leaders of the various factions now have traits that will impact their view of you. These include everything from their religious views to their opinion of your Imperium.
In the picture Attila hates my guts because I have rank 4 Imperium and he "Hates Rival Empires" hence "Great Power" -100.

Buddy System:

This is a reflection of your diplomatic standings with this factions friends and allies. Example: the Alans begin the game allied to the Vandals. Millitary actions against the Vandals would cause the Alans to like you less, even though you may have not made contact with them yet. Conversely, signing a treaty with the Vandals will cause the Alans to like you more.

Enemy of my Enemy:

The opposite of the buddy system, this uses the animosity a faction holds for a third party as the foundation for building strong diplomatic relations. This is easily the strongest factor. Example: the Alamans begin the game at war with the Vandals. Military actions against the Vandals will cause the Alamans to like you more.

Tradable Assets:

Quite simply, you control a commodity they do not and are not already importing. The more commodities you control the more coveted a trade route with you becomes, and the more profitable.

Standing Treaties:

This functions like a self Buddy System, if you have treaties with this faction, they are more likely to further their relations with you. As an example, if you cannot get a trade treaty with a faction, try for a non aggression pact or military access to help build this factor, then try again.

Abstaining:

When a faction asks you to join a war or you have the option to participate in a battle and do not, they will like you a little less. This effect is accumulative, so keep that in mind when they ask for the same thing every turn and you reject. Also abstaining has a direct impact on the Enemy or my Enemy factor, allies need to share enemies. I feel abstaining is the leading cause of diplomatic break down between allies.

Participating:

When you have to option to assist another faction in a battle, and you do.

Gifts:

Giving gifts without getting something in return is generally a bad idea, the favor you may garner begins to decay rapidly and you received nothing in return. You can purchase a treaty however, this is offering a gift in return for a treaty. Purchasing a treaty is very useful for getting the ball rolling when a faction is sitting at moderate but just won't sign.

Mousing over the green, yellow, or red face icon will give you a list of all the factors, here are just a few examples.

Traits in more detail.

Empire Traits:

These traits are a little misleading. Your relative power has no impact on this, it is purely determined by Imperium. Based on your Imperium you will receive a penalty or bonus to your diplomatic relations. If you need a more detail explination on Imperium and how these traits calculate, click here.

• Hates Rival Empires: larger than average penalty.
  
• Indifferent with Empires: smaller than average penalty.
  
• Admires Strong Empires: small bonus.

Religious Traits:

These traits reflect a leaders view of your religion, if it is different from his, giving a penalty or bonus to diplomatic relations.

• Religiously Intolerant: larger than average penalty.
  
• Religiously Tolerant: small bonus.

Cultural Traits:

These traits reflect a leaders view of your culture, if it is different from his, giving a penalty or bonus to diplomatic relations. Culture can be determined by buildings. tech tree, units, and faction leader portait in the diplomacy menu.

• Culturally Intolerant: larger than average penalty.
  
• Culturally Tolerant: small bonus.

Dependability Traits:

These traits determine the probability of a faction honoring an alliance when called to war or joining in a joint battle.

• Dependable: will honor most treaties if attitude toward you is yellow or green.
  
• Undependable: will only honor treaties if their attitude toward you is green and their attitude toward the enemy is red or yellow.
  
• (no distinction given): will honor most agreements if their attitude toward you is yellow or green and their attitude toward the enemy is worse than toward you.

Subjugation Traits:

These traits represent probability of rebellion when a faction is made into a puppet state.

• Loyal: low pobabilty of rebellion.
  
• Rebellious: high probabilty of rebellion.

Diplomatic Decay Traits:

Thes traits represent the speed at which diplomatic penalties and bonus dacay with this faction leader.

• Traditionalist: slower than average decay.
  
• Progressive: faster than average decay.

Attack and Deffense Traits:

These traits represent how a faction handles it's offense and deffense.

• Opportunist: will attack undefended lands and armies/navies in a weakened state if they are on bad terms with you.
  
• Opportunist Expansionist: will declare war on you if your lands are undefended and usually takes a land on the turn he declares.
  
• Aggressive: will leave lands undeffended but attack with multiple stacks.
  
• Defensive: rarely ever attacks.
  
• Expansionist: will have a big empire unless contained.

Personality Traits:

Flavor add a bit more personality to faction leaders.

• Diplomat: the "buddy system" factor effects this guy more.
  
• Tempermental: flavor, I don't see any major distinction.
  
• Hateful: this guy is a jerk.

Treaties for victory conditions.

Which Alliances Count:

If you are playing to achieve victory conditions the Military Alliance and the Puppet State treaties will count towards them. Maintaining treaties for the 30 years it takes to achieve a minor victory is not always easy and maintaining for the divine 55 years is even harder.

Maintaining Alliances:

There are certain things you can do maintain alliances. Some factors you have direct control over, others, not so much.

Babysitting: the act of micro managing allies and puppets.

• To babysit an alliance you must honor every request they have to go to war otherwise the alliance is broken. Half the time you can request peace on the next turn, tho your ally won't like it. There is also a chance the third party faction will never attack you, as they are busy with your ally. Use your best judgement.
  
• When you declare war or have war declared on you, do not call your allies. Unfortunately you cannot pick and choose who to call and, if you have many allies, the blanket call out causes problems. Instead do not call the allies, then on the next turn request certain allies to join. Some may need to be bought to join the war.

Common Enemy: as stated before, the enemy of my enemy factor is strong in Attila.

• You need at least one enemy that all your allies are at war with. Be prepared to buy some into the conflict. I have spent over 10k to draw an ally into a conflict before.
  
• Look for easy targets for the "enemy of my enemy" factor. If you are any sort of barbarian attacking the WRE will unite many fellow barbarians under your banner. Late game, the Huns will unite many against a common enemy as well. Even Romans and barbarians will be friends in the wake a Hunnic rampages.
  
• Use agents against, attack the armies of, and sack the settlements of this common enemy to draw your alliance together. Sack, not occupy. Sacks can be repeated.

The Importance of Military Access.

Being a Gate:

Military Access is a very useful treaty for maintaining good relations with a neighbor. Particularly landlocked factions.In this picture you have the Saxon starting position on the left. While they are technically on the water, they do not have a port and a functionally land locked. On the right you have the Langobards who are straight up landlocked with no direct access to water.

Being landlocked functionally prevents a faction from expanding in a peaceful way. Therefore if you are stuck, who should you attack? The factions making you stuck, of course. Usually, if the AI has a choice between fellow AI faction and the player, you get attacked first. Granting military access to an landlocked faction makes you a gate, rather than a wall, making them less likely to attack you.

Canary in a Coal Mine:

The second important aspect of Military Access is to function as a "canary in the coal mine" in terms of your diplomatic standings. Realistically no one checks the diplomatic change with every faction on every turn, however, military access is a reflection of a factions trust in you. They will cancel Military Access with you long before they declare war, giving you ample time to prepare or fix the relation.

For these reasons I spam Military Access.

Screenshots

In this campaign I cheesed the "Historic" and "Enemy of my Enemy" factors hard by sacking WRE settlements over and over. By turn 50 I had already achieved Minor Victory conditions through military alliances, while holding a single province. Note that I have 10 military alliances. No this was not fun, so shortly after the screenshot I dragged everyone into a wolrd war.


In this example I was babysitting 5 tributary states to achieve minor victory. Note that they all hate me.


This example reflects the value of the Huns and their infinite respawns. I'm sure Pontus wishes they could take this back.

Video

This is actually one of my let's play episodes but at about 26 minutes in I get a diplomatic cascade where I get 8 alliances and 10k gold in one turn from selling diplomacy. I also discuss some of the things that make this possible so you can see it first hand.

The Overall Guide

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=396484612

[raven_179]

Giving gifts is extremely effective. the more gold you give, the less likely they will attack. bribe the Huns= no razed settlements

[Danish Warrior Skald]

Still a brilliant guide! Thanks for your work!

[Xeryx]

Man I don't know what Total war you played but Attila Diplomacy was not working good at all! That is why I rewrote it! Good basic guide for a beginner though!

[Ricoks]

Turk, it really depends on the circumstances. As the Sassanids, it's very wise to have at least 9 tributary states (it's part of the victory conditions), they also get a doubled tribute income to your faction. Don't subjugate states that will always hate you. Focus subjugation on your friends, as weird as it sounds. Always avoid subjugating Rebellious, Expansionist and Opportunist characters, also avoid those that hate Strong Empires. Focus on those that love them or are indifferent.

Also note that the kings can change, I believe personality traits change with it, so you can never be really sure.

[The Turk]

What is the point of a tributary state? My relations with them continue to decrease, and I have to continously bribe them to stay loyal. Isn't razing always the better option, instead of making your enemy a tributary state?

[The Standing Tortoise]

I have discovered that there is an instant diplomacy re-assessment when initiating diplomacy with other factions. This can be an increase or decrease in their immediate score towards you depending mostly on cultural and religious differences it seems. This score change can only be initiated once per turn.
For example, as barbarian faction Saxons initiating diplomacy with WRE, there will be an instant reduction in the diplomacy score towards you despite current friendly score and (improving) status. This also occurs with the Huns - but does not occur with the Rugians or East Germanic Separatists.

[Voth]

If it is not due to the other faction changing leaders, you need to mouse over the breakdown and try to figure out what's happening. Did you attack a faction they are allied to, did they forge a new alliance with an enemy if yours, did you declare peace with someone they don't like? All kinds of possibilities ..

[The Standing Tortoise]

what I mean is, an 'immediate' or 'current' score change by around 80, while still having influencing scores at +100

[Voth]

To be honest 20 points within 10 turns is not sudden in my opinion. That is well within the boundaries of relations decay. Almost every Stat in relations is in a constant state of decay, getting worse over time. Extremely fast changes like 100 points in a single turn is usually attributed to a faction leader dying and the successor have very different traits.

[The Standing Tortoise]

have you encountered a situation where the diplomacy score jumps very suddenly? I have had instances (undocumented) where I have always had a 100+ forecase lead (improving), but less than 10 turns later, still retain that lead but have the score jump down by around 80 against WRE as barbarian faction.