Diplomacy Explained

by readercolin

Following on from my explanation of trade and taxes, I thought I could also help out by explaining diplomacy. For once, diplomacy in a Total War game isn’t an exercise in frustration and stupidity. No longer do you have the AI randomly declaring war, blockading a port, then getting slaughtered when you decide to attack for the insult.

The diplomacy screen.

So to start with, the Diplomacy Screen. The Diplomacy Screen has three important parts – on the left is the list of all the factions, on the right is a picture of Europe, India, and the America’s, and finally, at the bottom is the open negotiations button. The negotiations button being self explanatory (thank god for not needing diplomats anymore), that leaves only the first two needing explanation.

The list of factions has a few uses. One of the things that you will notice is that you’re faction is on the list. No, this doesn’t mean you can engage in diplomacy yourself, but it does serve a very important function, which will be described in the second part about the maps. The first, and possibly most important function is by clicking on another faction, you can then open negotiations with that faction. The second though, is that it brings up the campaign maps on the right from the point of view of that faction.

Diplomacy in action.

Now to the campaign map on the right. This map shows every province, and it shades it white if the faction selected owns it, gray if the faction that controls that province is indifferent to the selected faction, red if it dislikes selected faction and green if it likes the selected faction. If you hover over a province, it tells you what the owner of that province feels about the faction that is selected on the left, and why they feel that way. This is given in + and – modifiers, which the next part will now go into talking about.

There are a number of modifiers for like or dislike. Some modifiers are constant and do not change, while others change on a turn by turn basis. Here are some of the constant ones. War, which gives between a -70 and a -200 modifier to diplomacy. Historical Grievances (ex. playing as Great Britain there are Historical Grievances with France), which vary according to the factions you’re playing as. This can be either a negative modifier, or a positive modifier (Like between Great Britain and Poland-Lithuania). Alliance, which is a +60 to +80 modifier. Same or different government type gives between a +30 and a -30, as does same or different religions. And lastly, National Leaders Command Respect. Depending upon what government type you have, this can sometimes vary, but this is affected by your leader (monarch or president), and by the head of your cabinet. It can range between +10 and -10 or so, and varies significantly more under a republic, and can manage to stay very constant under an Absolute Monarchy.

For modifiers that change on a turn by turn basis, the one that everyone immediately stumbles upon as soon as they make their imperial ambitions know is territorial expansion. Territorial Expansion however, isn’t as cut and dried as it first appears. If for example you declare war as Prussia and proceed to rampage across the continent, you will gain a -10 modifier per territory you take over. This isn’t affected by the difficulty level of the game you play either. However, this -10 modifier isn’t applied to everyone. Taking a territory from another faction bumps that modifier up to a -60. Taking a territory in India gives factions that are based in India a -10 modifier, but doesn’t give a modifier for factions that are based in Europe. If you want to test quickly, start up a game as the Maratha Confederacy, and go take over one of the Mughal Cities. The Mughals receive a -60 modifier, Mysore receives a -10, but both Portugal and the United Provinces don’t receive a modifier for Territorial Expansion. Taking a territory in Europe generally pisses of most of the European factions (the Ottoman Empire is an exception… I’m not sure what they take offense to, but they remain unaffected by European or Indian expansion). However, every turn that passes, you lose one point from that modifier. So after taking one territory, you get a -10 modifier. The next turn, that is a -9. The next after that, a -8. All the mobile modifiers change on a turn by turn basis like this as well.

Further mobile modifiers are assassination attempts, trade agreements, declaring war on someone’s friend, breaking an alliance, and state gifts. A failed assassination attempt gives a -5 modifier or a 35 to the party being assassinated. State gifts give a +100 modifier, which is reduced by one every turn. Note, the 2500 gold state gift gives the exact same bonus as the 10,000 gold state gift – this may be changed in a future patch however. Lastly, trade agreements give a base bonus of somewhere between 20 and 40 on the turn they are created. They then proceed to gain a +1 modifier, but I am not certain if this is gained every turn, every other turn, or something else along those lines. It does appear to max out at +60 however.

So, what does this all mean? Is it possible to win a domination victory of taking 40 territories and still be happy with most everyone? Actually, it does. However, it does require that you either take over an entire region, or spread your conquests out over the world. Taking over all of India gives you up to 16 regions, and pisses off no one in Europe with the possible exception of the United Provinces, and then only if you kick them out. Taking over the Americas could give you up to 40 regions, but (aside from the tribes), could end up pissing off France, Spain, the United Provinces, and Great Britain. Taking over Europe… well, aside from around 70 regions total, generally, you’re going to piss off everyone.