toweronetwo
Legionary
posted 16 June 2011 13:17 EDT (US)
Hey everyone.
I'm new to MTW2, but played the first one for a long time. I'm having serious issues with politics, and could use some advice on what exactly is setting off other countries against me, and/or how to avoid that. Even if I only attack rebel sites, By turn 60 or so I've got at 6 countries at war with me, and none willing to negotiate. I don't attack unprovoked or anything. Kinda getting frustrated, and getting the same reaction even on Easy status.
Thanks!
toweronetwo
Legionary
posted 17 June 2011 12:49
EDT (US)
2 / 9
Yeah I'll figure something out. By turn 60 I have attacked factions, but always counter attacks, and then once I counter attack all their allies attack. Grrr. I hate how the Pope orders me cease all attacks on Milan but Milan can attack me turn after turn. Gets frustrating. And then HRE always joins their side, and meanwhile Byzantium joins with the Turks and Poles and is waging war from the East.
toweronetwo
Legionary
posted 20 June 2011 10:32
EDT (US)
6 / 9
Yeah I found success in my third campaign by anchoring my defense in Venice, then focusing on quick southeast expansion, then focusing on quickly eliminating Sicily. After that pushing east hard claiming Corinth, Thess, and Constantinople. By now Milan, HRE, Hungary, Turkey, and Papacy were all attacking me, but I anchor in for a while then counter via sea to Smyrna, Rhodes, and Icanium (?), and in the West I hit Tunis and spread along north Africa. At the moment I'm in a good place with 95 turns remaining and have 31 regions. All I need is 14 more, and I'm preparing a push into Hungary territory, and into Spain/Portugal. After this campaign I will try a different faction and try better politics, as again I doubt I'd be able to pull this strategy off on a harder level.
toweronetwo
Legionary
posted 27 June 2011 15:56
EDT (US)
8 / 9
Thanks for all your advice. I did in fact beat the campaign, as Constantinople was actually a pretty early takeover. I continued with the same campaign just to work on some strategies and practice my battle tactics. I'm embarrassed to say I relied more on "auto" for battles than I ever did playing the first MTW. Fixing that though. The Papal double standard still pisses me off though, as I'll get a Venician Pope elected, but he'll still order me to cease hostilities against Milan or Spain while they're both continuously bombarding my castles round after round. Then I counter attack and get excommunicated and my territories' unrest jumps up 20%. Oh well.
Dr Pepperr
Legionary
posted 09 August 2011 07:33
EDT (US)
9 / 9
Several things make that other factions attack you and most are related to your reputation. To keep a good reputation, keep the following things in mind:
- don't execute prisoners
- dong sack or exterminate settlements
- keep your promises such as attacking a certain faction if you promise that as part of a deal
- don't attack a faction without a 2-turn warning ("accept or I'll attack")
- don't ally or get trade rights with an enemy of another ally (your current ally won't like it when you give trade rights to their enemy. Gives you an unreliable reputation)
- don't walk through another faction's land unless they've given you military access.
- help out your allies (so only ally those you really want stay friends with, 1 or 2 mostly, and only ally them when you're able to help them when needed. Otherwise you lose reputation for 'being the one who watches his ally getting killed'.
Other reasons why factions may attack you:
- being an easy target (a weakly defended city close to an army is likely to be attacked, even though you're not at war yet)
- having no ships defending your ports (a faction may 'think' it's easy to destroy your economy by blockading ports. And if you don't defend them, they're probably right about attacking).
- taking certain (rebel) settlements may anger other factions. I don't know all these, but somehow some factions hate you for taking a settlement they wanted to take as well. Taking Stockholm (as Russians) for example angers the Danes, taking Florence angers the other factions around it and taking Ajaccio seems to anger the rest of the Mediterrenean.
So in short, play as if it is the real world. In reality, it wouldn't make sense to have trade rights with every other nation, have allies all over Europe even though you'll never reach them in time when they need your help, etc. It also wouldn't make sense to leave cities and ports undefended near 'neutral' armies/fleets and moving your army through someone else's territory would make them nervous in real, so that's also what happens in the game.
All this doesn't guarantee you not being attacked, especially not on VH, but it helps you controlling politics instead of others controlling you.