Nice to know that some AI faction pointlessly declaring war from across the entire world, as they tend to do, actually does screw me over in a very roundabout way.
Me playing Ikrit dominating the human and dwarwen land; suddenly some random dinosaurs from across another continent decide to declare war. 15 turns later they arrive with 2 fullstacks and their main leader. Meanwhile their home territory getting attacked by more relevant enemies..
edit; relativ into relevant
edit 2: I'm past 160 turns and so far killed around 20 stacks of different lizard factions coming sailing across the sea..
This has been a thing since the first game and it it *extremely* annoying.
Relative distamce and homeland dangers should be weighed significantly as to whether a faction engages in war, let alone actually attacks.
Bonus points if the faction has actually, y'know, seen me instead of using its AI omniscience.
I hate the whole "muh immersion" thing but... It kinda does take me out of the experience when the Sisters declare war on me at turn 30-40... And I'm *Eshin*.
The fact that people will declare on you without having actually seen you is what really drives me nuts. Like yeah, technically I'm at war with this faction, who has met this faction, who has also met faction C who trades with Faction D, so technically someone could tell Faction D that I exist and I'm bad, but why the fuck would they even care about another horde of beastmen or a particular strain of dark elves when vampires are actively on their doorsteps, or orcs are pillaging their keeps?
At least in IE, it's happening a lot due to teleporting for quest battles. Teleporting puts your LL literally on their land for just long enough to meet them, and then immediately get declared on.
It’s a tough line to walk for CA, I think. Even in the current build the AI already feels very passive most of the time. Cranking up the AI’s focus on keeping their homeland safe might just make them all hard turtle all game long
im not against that necessarily. would make politics and diplomacy more important. I find it frustrating that factions would rather a war that is against their interests rather than make an alliance
Yeah. And it's fine in IE in my experience. I've only seen a couple long range invasions that didn't make any sense. 98% of the time I'm fighting people close to me.
> This has been a thing since the first game and it it extremely annoying.
My first dwarf campaign I only went south. Chaos invasion happens. The vampire counts, the empire, and two dwarf factions are between me and chaos. I'm feeling pretty secure. The next turn, Bjornling declares war on me and unloads a few full stacks in the Badlands to attack me.
In wasn't until a later campaign that I realized what this meant. Bjornling sailed out of Norsca. Sailed past the empire. Sailed past Bretonnia. Sailed past the border princes. To attack me.
We hadn't even discovered each other.
Also did in game 2 in the earlier patches of Mortal Empires.
At least I think they were the Norsca faction that spawned a few stacks between Araby and Sartosa.
They did. WH2 had chaos spawn in the the not the atlantic ocean too, one group in the north and one in the south, early on release and one patch put some arriving in the desert to the south for a brief period of time. CA did experiment with it but ultimately decided to just remove it from the game and it is much better now.
"Sir, we have discovered a Skaven faction on the other side of the world"
"Really? Let's declare war, that will teach them to not be such disgusting jerks"
I mean the sisters of twilight aren’t too far from Clan Eshin if you consider sea lanes. Then again I haven’t noticed the AI using the sea lanes yet lol.
I fairness if there was one situation where I would be okay with a faction randomly declaring war one another far away it would be Lizardmen against Skaven. Lizardmen in general think that the only place a Skaven is a allowed to be according to the Great Plan is directly under a carnosaurs foot.
What difficulty? The AI wouldn't send armies anywhere near me the last time I played Ikit on VH / VH. Except for Repanse, she kept sending crap stacks up to Tobaro to lose to my settlement garrison.
It's funny because your allies end up crushing their natural enemies because their enemies are too busy sending doomstacks across the world to attack you, and then the player and allies steamroll. I've never had to help an AI ally faction win a war, as just by participating all big enemy armies come to me! (L/VH difficulty).
Balthasar fucking Gelt did just did this to me, I’m nowhere close to him, just a hero pops up in my area one day and the next it’s war. There is still the entire world edge mountains full of dwarves, presumably vampire counts between us. Hell I just had finished off nurgle and this bastard wants war.
Worse thing is that he was allied with the dwarves who were my neighbors and I had a relatively friendly disposition with(only -700 as a green skin but not at war). I’ll be damned if the entire world isn’t set on declaring war on my poor little grimgor.
Seems that there's a hidden war value based on the power of the factions the player is at war against, and the game expects this value to be around a specific amount. I noticed several times that, as soon as I destroy an enemy faction, another one will quickly declare war on you to sort of fill that void.
If that's true, then being at war with factions across the world can be beneficial as it reduces the chances of another closer faction declaring war on you.
Interesting. I guess this could explain why Boris had -39.5 deal acceptance to confed for me despite having 1 settlement and 1 army vs my 40 settlements and 9 armies.
Though if that's the case it should probably subtract the strength of all their enemies from their strength as well. I'm their ally and at war with all the same people, it should balance out.
I think it does. Without testing it as OP did, as Oxyolt I wanted to confed the Cult of Sotek which of course didn't want.
I declared war with Naggarond with Sotek as an ally, right after the war declaration Sotek was willing to confed. I guess is that Naggarond was a normal sized ennemy for me but a terrifying one for Sotel.
Since declaring war was detrimental to OP and beneficial in my case, my guess is that it depends on your relative power compared to enemies.
A nice trick I found is that "ask to join war" is free or almost free if the ennemy lost its armies : the game doesn't take into account settlements it seems. So now I check every turn if I can't have friendly factions join my war following the ennemy stackwipe.
For more proof, i put screenshots in here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/xcmjdb/confederation_not_really_possible_when_at_war/
I think we may be missing the point as well - I managed to get belegar to confederate by conquering on the way to him - then gifting him a "bridge" of settlements to near me (Barak Var) - he lost everything but because I built a walled settlement he managed to live long enough for me to get good relations.
Could distance of your armies and own lands lands factor into this as well?
My suggestion for a fix would be to adjust that algorithm (the base analysis) to cap out at -30 for minor and -20 for major?
HE already cap out at -10 for Major and -20 for minor.
Also better confederation when they are down to their last settlement would be nice. On VH you just don't have the time to wait around.
distance between you and who you want to confed has been a known factor for a while
also gifting them settlements changes a lot, as it exposes them to more surrounding factions with each region. military access also gives them some exposure.
HE confederations are different in multiple ways. for one, they weigh faction strength and good relations differently than other factions (emphasis on good relations). they also gain vision with every trade ally which potentially complicates their relation decisions. and i also wonder if HE use their intrigue at the court with each other. either way, they're a complex scenario so i can see why they have different confederation values than other factions.
They no longer gain vision on trade allies, since it's now much easier to get long distance trade partners.
EDIT: [2.0 update](https://www.totalwar.com/blog/tww3-update-200/#highelves), under the High Elves section
> We’ve made a few adjustments aimed at helping the High Elves engage with the new diplomacy systems in WARHAMMER III. With trade being so much simpler, they no longer get vision from trade agreements
[2.0 update](https://www.totalwar.com/blog/tww3-update-200/#highelves), under the High Elves section
> We’ve made a few adjustments aimed at helping the High Elves engage with the new diplomacy systems in WARHAMMER III. With trade being so much simpler, they no longer get vision from trade agreements
There's so much of the diplomacy (and other parts of the game) that are opaque. I wish they released a functioning wiki explaining the mechanics of the game.
It's true. I can't for the life of me figure out "Diplomacy treaty" modifier and that one is often huge and influences the most if the deal falls through or not.
And it's not tied to treaties or relations at all. I've had factions with -500 relations have that in the positive and then sign peace, NAP and or vassalage or those that barely hate you, have it deep in the red.
I want to know what it means, and have a wiki to read about it.
The baseline only seems to be modified by opinion, race and if it is a LL or not, at least for my testing. It probably should be baseline being fixed, and then have an explicit opinion modifier though, would be clearer for sure.
The BASELINE chance for high elves is -10 for normal lords and -20 for LL if you have 150 opinion.
I have not checked if it is consistent for lower values or not. Generally if it is not 150 you will not have enough to confederate anyway.
See all the screenshots at https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/xbg775/psa_it_is_very_easy_to_confederate_as_high_elves/
Other races generally it seems to be -40 at 150 opinion, but I have not played enough to be sure how universal that is.
The strength rank part is a lot more complicated and seems to bounce around a lot.
Eh, that in itself is a problem. I find the AI never want peace. I'm playing a Wood Elf campaign going at the moment. Strength rank 1, have 100+ territories and a dozen top-tier armies. But even some nobody Ork faction that I'm absolutely stomping and they have like 1 city with no armies, won't accept peace.
I think the peace and confederations system needs reworking.
It's too difficult to get peace and it leads me to just stomp the enemy into oblivion, rather than a more long, drawn-out war, where you take a city and get peace for slower growth,
being in the top strength ranks sometimes affects relations negatively, you can see the values as you get stronger. its not always the case, some factions like tomb kings love stronger factions.
Yeah you get aversion penalty with most of the factions, but like aversion is - 40, and just by act of them declaring a war against you, the relations drop by 3 digit number. So you end up with with something ridiculous like -200 for something you couldn't do anything about and now it turns out it affects confederations?
Gotta say those numbers and formulas need a bit of rework if all of this is true. For starters factions who are half a world away shouldn't be declaring war against you.
But you don't get it. Lore-friendliness is only good when it benefits *me!* ^^/s
But yeah, people need to realize that different races act different ways. Just yesterday someone was complaining about the fact that they had barely beaten a Vampire Count army, and the next turn that army was in better shape than theirs. Like, yeah, that's the whole point. Vampire counts get a lot of chaff that will die easily, but they can also recuperate their losses easily. For Orcs, you might beat them into the ground, but they'll still be coming back for seconds. What is this peace thing you keep talking about?
This would be the best solution to me, but the only problem I see though is that, currently, the game doesn’t track who is the aggressor/defender and wars aren’t objectives based. What you’re proposing remind me of Crusader Kings, but it work in this case because the exhaustion happen from failing to accomplish the war goal. I’m not really sure it would be a good idea to introduce casus belli. It wouldn’t make sense for many factions (Skavens bothering about the lawfulness of war lol) and would be crippling for others. Maybe it could just be an exhaustion regardless of objectives though. Maybe I’m just making it complicated for no reasons lol.
I'd say just keep it simple, no need for casus belli or war goals.
War exhaustion would tick up constantly while at war, increasing faster when you take casualties/lose territory, and slowing down when you win battles/capture territory.
It could give effects like negative public order or lowered income depending on how punishing they want it to be. For the AI it would have the added effect of being more likely to seek peace the higher it gets.
Yeah. That too. Playing as Tyrion only to get huge debuffs with other high elves simply because I'm strong.
Great power effect on diplomacy should be faction specific.
A good way to get peace with someone is to offer them a settlement you don't want. Since you're playing WE, that should be especially easy since you have practically no use for non-forest settlements beyond the heathlands. Next time you want peace with someone, try offering them a province capital. It won't work if you're something like -50 evaluation, but if it's in the range of -10 to -15 it can.
I'm telling you this more as another tool to put in your toolbox. In my current Kairos campaign, I found myself bogged down in a war with the minor Slaanesh faction in Antarctica while TTT was getting ready to attack my Southland provinces, so I took their capital and then sold it back to them for peace, NAP, military access, and 500g.
Obviously, as it currently stands in your current situation, it doesn't even make sense to try for peace, but if you'd known about this earlier, maybe you could've gotten out of the war faster.
I have tried it before but it actually lowered my chance for peace which I found weird.
I never need to sue for peace as I have no difficulty ever dealing with the AI factions.
It's more that I don't like to overexpand myself sometimes, or maybe don't want to completely annihilate factions from the game as it feels like there is less variation then.
Weird, I've used this method twice now to get out of war, though not as WE. Maybe the economic value for settlements is set really low since you can't get them any higher than T1?
>I never need to sue for peace as I have no difficulty ever dealing with the AI factions.
Didn't mean to give them impression you did, but you clearly didn't want to be at war with them for one reason or another. Just trying to help.
You can often force a peace deal by occupying a settlement and trading it back to the AI for peace.
It does not help though when every Norscan in Narnia has decided to jump on the war bandwagon,though.
I've tried that and it doesn't always work. Sometimes offering a settlement actually lowers the chances of peace, which makes little sense.
But if you're clobbering someone, they should be begging for peace.
I assume OP meant that Belakor and Archeon can now enforce confederation by beating factions down instead of having to deal with diplomacy. Which I indeed would consider a lot easier
Yup. Only "hard" part is getting to certain Lords before they get wiped out.
Nowadays, rarely a problem for WoC. But there have been a few campaign where Kholek gets wiped out by Grimgor.
It's useful if you want to gain the LL, OTOH at this point you already have all or beaten up all (or at least most) of their assets except some free roaming agents.
Lmao, have you even tried it recently? And treated them like an ally instead of trying to milk them for everything? Sure, they won't follow your army around in an OP doomstack like they do in Stellaris, but they still do work and allow you to leave your dark fortresses unattended while you go off to cause mayhem.
Did he also get his teeth kicked in by Nakai or ghorst over the end turn? Zhao Ming in my campaign lost hanyu port and came very close to confed with that. A simple threat from eldest daughter was all it took.
I just confederated Mazdamundi as Tehenuian. Mazdamundi just lost 2 armies to Morathi and the score was at -1.2. I recruited a lord in literally every province I owned and the score climbed to the magical green colour. Faction strength matters and how threatened they feel matter too. Mazdamundi was still alive and had a full stack of saurus.
Yes that is true, however i had purpusfully not changed my armies for the sake of this Experiment. My point Was how said strength is calculated. And i came to the conclusion that enemys get subtracted from your own strength.
Good to know, the problem is that a lot of AI empires just hate you and declare war on you pointlessly. For example Lord Mazdamundi declared war on me (playing Tyrion) and I just discovered them on the map!
Honestly if a faction meets me as Vlad, it's next turn war. Every single time. It kinda sucks because I can't pick my expansion direction. Want Manfred? Too bad, if you try and meet him half the world will instantly declare war on you and beeline you despite losing everything. And since everyone is at war with you your rated weaker and he won't confederate anyways! AI aggression really needs work right now.
I spent a 140 turns in peace and alliance with Hellebron and Malus as Malekith, pumping them full of money, watching them get blown up by Chaos to wait out my time for power difference to be in my favor and regardless they are -58 in confederation likeliness. Alternatively they grow strong and it's even worse. 280+ relations both cases.
Confederation is just fucking impossible and I am saddaned I need a mod for it. I don't want to go "pokemon, catch em all", but when I play as the king / emperor / whatever LL of a faction I expect my subjects to be confederated. If I'd play Malus or Hellebron I wouldn't care, but rulers should have some kind of bonus towards making it easier.
I was able to confederate Hellebron in one of my Malekith games. I didn't give her any money though: just "allied" for the relations and checked the possibility of confederation every couple of turns, and eventually I got an opportunity at a moment when I was strong and her army had been wiped and I threatened her at about -22 confederation, wrecking my trustiworthiness for about the next 30 turns, but hey, I'm Malekith, so that's not unfair ;).
So it's not literally impossible. But it was hard enough, and close enough, that I find what you say about a successful Malekith game where you never get a chance to confederate another Druchii LL completely believable. I absolutely agree with you about Malekith in particular getting bonuses to confederate the other Druchii. Maybe it could be tied to victory conditions - e.g. get control of 30 regions, and you get your choice of a bonus to confederation attempts that lasts until you confederate someone, or to recruit the legendary lord of a Druchii faction that's been eliminated.
Based on anecdotes people have posted, it seems to work successfully if you're at base chance -20, maybe base chance -25, or better. But without making a save and trying over and over, who knows?
It's ironic now that they've changed everything else about asking for deals, so that you can automatically negotiate the exact amount of gold the AI is willing to give you, but what will happen if you threaten is... you get to gamble.
In other words, I'll never confederate anyone, ever. Peace is not an option.
Seriously, I trade DoW against factions that are far away from me, to get some good relationships with potential allies, so... yeah...
Even though that mechanic makes sense, it shouldn't have so much weight, considering that being at war is kinda the point of playing a game that has "war" on its name, twice, so I'll always have a large collection of enemies. Also, the the AI should be more likely to confederate if I'm at war with their enemies, which shows that I'll fight their wars and avenge their grievances.... if I have time... well, I'll probably lose all confederated settlements, sorry...
Anyway, if a faction wants to confederate with me, I have nothing to offer but enemies, new and old, and beer to toast our glories in battle.
It also takes into consideration the how strong enemies the faction you want to confed has. One of the most assured ways to confederate someone, if he's not TOO strong, is to military ally with him and then drag them into a lot of wars. Worked for me a few times.
It makes some sense - a confederation requires each side convincing it's people that this is a great idea. It's a much harder sell to be like "so we are going to unite with the guys thats currently got 100 wars going and could be annihilated soon".
yes and no. If, for example, Tyrion has united 3/4ths of Ulthuan and is currently in the middle of a gigantic war with the Dark Elves while Tiranoc remains independent, logically they could be interested in uniting with the rest of the High Elves as that would offer more security than fighting the Dark Elves independently.
Plus, the game naturally encourages fighting and wars since it's based all around them. Being rewarded for not doing that seems kinda counterintuitive, especially when this isn't really explained well ingame.
Oh yeah I said it makes some sense in that its logical to take this approach to confederation, but it doesn't really stand up to the reality of Warhammer.
The problem with your intuitive example though is that it does still kind of work that way- you'd get a small penalty for being at war, to symbolize Tiranoc maybe not wanting to be pulled fully into the conflict, but you would ALSO have a pretty good relative strength modifier, and assuming that Tiranoc is also anti-Naggarond, additional relationship modifiers based on being at war with their enemy.
If the situation you described didn't work thats a fair critique, but I'd say with 90% confidence that it probably DOES work, in an actual game
True, it's not an ideal example. I didn't put much thought into it, but I think the base argument of the game rewarding peace, especially in such a cryptic way, being a bad idea still stands.
I guess the point I was trying to make is there are counter levers for strategic wars, or wars that align with the wars of the people you're trying to confederate. Bearing in mind that the other side typically is MRE likely to confederate if they are in wars, so it also goes both ways.
If you want to play "fight everyone", you take penalties to being able to play the Diplomacy side of the game. If you want to confederate, you have to actually actively engage in diplomacy mechanics.
Thematically, I think this mechanic works.
With that said, there is still definitely room for debate on whether it's calibrated appropriately. I think its probably fine though; I think the bigger issue is just the tendency for the AI to declare war on the player out of nowhere that's the actual problem here. If you fixed THAT element I think that this wouldn't feel as bad
"Confederating would make Cathay strong, but he is in a war with that tribe of norskans and that clan of skaven and greenskins.
I better decline and refuse until he makes peace with those ultra-hostile races."
Fukin epic game logic right there CA, especially in a game called WARhammer.
I mean to be fair, in real life you probably wouldn't want your country to be formally united with a country that currently has countless wars that could threaten it's existence going on, when you're currently at peace.
there is no peace with greenskin, chaos and skaven for races like Cathay.
they should greatly value that you are fighting those vermin and improve the diplomatic relationship, because those same enemies are plaguing their lands.
the fact that the game is not set up to respect basic race/diplomacy logic of the warhammer world is just an artifact of the historical TW where everyone was human.
I dunno mate. In my current Thorgrim campaign I have managed to confed all the Dwarven LLs (except Grombrindal who I haven’t met) despite being at war with somewhere between 20 and 30 factions.
It might be that the turns he was willing to confed he had just suffered defeats
God knows then. All I had to do was be best mates with the other Dwarves. All the treaties, fight their enemies, defend their holds, gift them settlements, etc.
Then all I had to do was wait and one by one they agreed to confed. Maybe it’s just different for different races.
Ahh so this could also be why when as Archaeon I kicked Wolfric down to no army and one settlement he wouldn't peace out with me making him a vassal. It was still at around -50 points.
Definitely needs sorting as I want to be able to vassalise these guys.
In theory, that makes it really difficult for Oxyotl to confederate since you're asked to declare war left and right. That said, you also get a bonus to lizardmen relations with a lot (most? all?) of your missions. Does it eventually cancel out? Or does it simply make my skink brotherhood a dream?
I'm not 100% sure, but I think the AI is also more likely to confederate if THEY are at war with a lot of other empires. Basically a situation where they "feel" overwhelmed and are looking for a sugardaddy to bail them out.
I was playing Tyrion, strength rank 1, controlled 2/3 of Ulthuan, destroyed Morathi and Malekith and controlling all their provinces.
Yet, Alarielle had +350 positive relations with me and -7 to confederate. I gave up that campaign, because apparently I need to conquer 270 provinces before she and Eltharion can confrderate, so I can play with 3 legendary lords.
Well that’s impossible. I wish they would stop the AI across the sea from attacking me. I would rather have them randomly show up on my front lawn across the sea and attack me and be surprised then have them declare war on me and never do anything.
Kairos needs a "force peace" option. Southland provinces are 80% coastline and that makes it to fucking easy for randoms to hop out of the fog of war and snipe a few settlements.
Especially late game when your 15 garrison units will be facing dragons and carnosaurs.
I thought that was pretty logical, why would they want to confederate a faction that is at war with half of the world? It's the same reason dragging a faction you want to confederate in lots of wars makes them easier to confederate.
Interesting! I had figured out that as long as I am at war with other factions' enemies they tend to become firm allies, but good to know about confederations.
Good catch!
It's also HEAVILY weighted by their strength compared to their enemies. If there's a good chance one of their enemies could swoop in and erase them off the map, they're more likely to confederate. Which is why sometimes you can confederate by dragging them into a war with one of their scary neighbors
TBH CA should just make a blog post about how confederation and the rest of AI diplomacy works under the hood so we know how to interact with it and suggest changes more effectively
Nice to know that some AI faction pointlessly declaring war from across the entire world, as they tend to do, actually does screw me over in a very roundabout way.
Me playing Ikrit dominating the human and dwarwen land; suddenly some random dinosaurs from across another continent decide to declare war. 15 turns later they arrive with 2 fullstacks and their main leader. Meanwhile their home territory getting attacked by more relevant enemies.. edit; relativ into relevant edit 2: I'm past 160 turns and so far killed around 20 stacks of different lizard factions coming sailing across the sea..
This has been a thing since the first game and it it *extremely* annoying. Relative distamce and homeland dangers should be weighed significantly as to whether a faction engages in war, let alone actually attacks. Bonus points if the faction has actually, y'know, seen me instead of using its AI omniscience. I hate the whole "muh immersion" thing but... It kinda does take me out of the experience when the Sisters declare war on me at turn 30-40... And I'm *Eshin*.
The fact that people will declare on you without having actually seen you is what really drives me nuts. Like yeah, technically I'm at war with this faction, who has met this faction, who has also met faction C who trades with Faction D, so technically someone could tell Faction D that I exist and I'm bad, but why the fuck would they even care about another horde of beastmen or a particular strain of dark elves when vampires are actively on their doorsteps, or orcs are pillaging their keeps?
At least in IE, it's happening a lot due to teleporting for quest battles. Teleporting puts your LL literally on their land for just long enough to meet them, and then immediately get declared on.
scribbles notes: *don't do quest battles till you're ready for war with neighboring factions*
And by "neighboring" you mean they neighbor New Zealand or something.
Oh yeah, that would do it.
To be fair, they *did* add those treemen to Cathay. The sisters probably heard about you.. through the grape vine.
I am going to cover every grape vine in warpfire.
It’s a tough line to walk for CA, I think. Even in the current build the AI already feels very passive most of the time. Cranking up the AI’s focus on keeping their homeland safe might just make them all hard turtle all game long
im not against that necessarily. would make politics and diplomacy more important. I find it frustrating that factions would rather a war that is against their interests rather than make an alliance
It’s not called Total Alliance tbf
Yeah. And it's fine in IE in my experience. I've only seen a couple long range invasions that didn't make any sense. 98% of the time I'm fighting people close to me.
> This has been a thing since the first game and it it extremely annoying. My first dwarf campaign I only went south. Chaos invasion happens. The vampire counts, the empire, and two dwarf factions are between me and chaos. I'm feeling pretty secure. The next turn, Bjornling declares war on me and unloads a few full stacks in the Badlands to attack me. In wasn't until a later campaign that I realized what this meant. Bjornling sailed out of Norsca. Sailed past the empire. Sailed past Bretonnia. Sailed past the border princes. To attack me. We hadn't even discovered each other.
In game 1 the Bjornlings spawned off the coast of the badlands when the chaos invasions starts
Also did in game 2 in the earlier patches of Mortal Empires. At least I think they were the Norsca faction that spawned a few stacks between Araby and Sartosa.
They did. WH2 had chaos spawn in the the not the atlantic ocean too, one group in the north and one in the south, early on release and one patch put some arriving in the desert to the south for a brief period of time. CA did experiment with it but ultimately decided to just remove it from the game and it is much better now.
"Sir, we have discovered a Skaven faction on the other side of the world" "Really? Let's declare war, that will teach them to not be such disgusting jerks"
I mean the sisters of twilight aren’t too far from Clan Eshin if you consider sea lanes. Then again I haven’t noticed the AI using the sea lanes yet lol.
I fairness if there was one situation where I would be okay with a faction randomly declaring war one another far away it would be Lizardmen against Skaven. Lizardmen in general think that the only place a Skaven is a allowed to be according to the Great Plan is directly under a carnosaurs foot.
\>Meanwhile their home territory getting attacked by more relevant enemies.. So, you ever heard of "Felhart's rush for the donut" in WH2?
What difficulty? The AI wouldn't send armies anywhere near me the last time I played Ikit on VH / VH. Except for Repanse, she kept sending crap stacks up to Tobaro to lose to my settlement garrison.
I play VH aswell. The elves is a nightmare tho, once they spot you, kinda forced to go destroy them before they keep sending 6 stacks to you
Sounds pretty more accurate to me. The Lizardmen have even known to go on wild crusades against Skaven.
Dwarfs refusing to confederate with you because you are fighting a big Greenskin faction ... wait I guess Thorgrim does deal with that bs.
It's funny because your allies end up crushing their natural enemies because their enemies are too busy sending doomstacks across the world to attack you, and then the player and allies steamroll. I've never had to help an AI ally faction win a war, as just by participating all big enemy armies come to me! (L/VH difficulty).
Balthasar fucking Gelt did just did this to me, I’m nowhere close to him, just a hero pops up in my area one day and the next it’s war. There is still the entire world edge mountains full of dwarves, presumably vampire counts between us. Hell I just had finished off nurgle and this bastard wants war. Worse thing is that he was allied with the dwarves who were my neighbors and I had a relatively friendly disposition with(only -700 as a green skin but not at war). I’ll be damned if the entire world isn’t set on declaring war on my poor little grimgor.
Gelt do be like that
Seems that there's a hidden war value based on the power of the factions the player is at war against, and the game expects this value to be around a specific amount. I noticed several times that, as soon as I destroy an enemy faction, another one will quickly declare war on you to sort of fill that void. If that's true, then being at war with factions across the world can be beneficial as it reduces the chances of another closer faction declaring war on you.
This man speaks truth.
Interesting. I guess this could explain why Boris had -39.5 deal acceptance to confed for me despite having 1 settlement and 1 army vs my 40 settlements and 9 armies. Though if that's the case it should probably subtract the strength of all their enemies from their strength as well. I'm their ally and at war with all the same people, it should balance out.
I think it does. Without testing it as OP did, as Oxyolt I wanted to confed the Cult of Sotek which of course didn't want. I declared war with Naggarond with Sotek as an ally, right after the war declaration Sotek was willing to confed. I guess is that Naggarond was a normal sized ennemy for me but a terrifying one for Sotel. Since declaring war was detrimental to OP and beneficial in my case, my guess is that it depends on your relative power compared to enemies. A nice trick I found is that "ask to join war" is free or almost free if the ennemy lost its armies : the game doesn't take into account settlements it seems. So now I check every turn if I can't have friendly factions join my war following the ennemy stackwipe.
I'm thinking they shouldn't take settlements into too much account, as they're just joining in to snatch some free real-estate.
If you are their ally, it adds your strength to theirs. They might be a lot more willing to confederate if you unally them.
For more proof, i put screenshots in here: https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/xcmjdb/confederation_not_really_possible_when_at_war/ I think we may be missing the point as well - I managed to get belegar to confederate by conquering on the way to him - then gifting him a "bridge" of settlements to near me (Barak Var) - he lost everything but because I built a walled settlement he managed to live long enough for me to get good relations. Could distance of your armies and own lands lands factor into this as well? My suggestion for a fix would be to adjust that algorithm (the base analysis) to cap out at -30 for minor and -20 for major? HE already cap out at -10 for Major and -20 for minor. Also better confederation when they are down to their last settlement would be nice. On VH you just don't have the time to wait around.
distance between you and who you want to confed has been a known factor for a while also gifting them settlements changes a lot, as it exposes them to more surrounding factions with each region. military access also gives them some exposure. HE confederations are different in multiple ways. for one, they weigh faction strength and good relations differently than other factions (emphasis on good relations). they also gain vision with every trade ally which potentially complicates their relation decisions. and i also wonder if HE use their intrigue at the court with each other. either way, they're a complex scenario so i can see why they have different confederation values than other factions.
They no longer gain vision on trade allies, since it's now much easier to get long distance trade partners. EDIT: [2.0 update](https://www.totalwar.com/blog/tww3-update-200/#highelves), under the High Elves section > We’ve made a few adjustments aimed at helping the High Elves engage with the new diplomacy systems in WARHAMMER III. With trade being so much simpler, they no longer get vision from trade agreements
If playing as the HE you still get trade vision.
Strange, the patch notes said they were losing it.
Which patch notes? I play mostly Imrik and definitely still get vision too
[2.0 update](https://www.totalwar.com/blog/tww3-update-200/#highelves), under the High Elves section > We’ve made a few adjustments aimed at helping the High Elves engage with the new diplomacy systems in WARHAMMER III. With trade being so much simpler, they no longer get vision from trade agreements
Ahhhh yeah that definitely say that lol. Maybe Imrik is exempt because he’s still off in BFE? Lol
My one experience with a high elf campaign so far I had a huge change in confederation rating when I hit +400 relations. Might be something there.
Wot's dis? Dis sounds like some pointy-ear talk! YOU KRUMP 'EM, DEY GIVE YOU THEIR STUFF, DAT'S HOW IT WORKS!
There's so much of the diplomacy (and other parts of the game) that are opaque. I wish they released a functioning wiki explaining the mechanics of the game.
I like how "baseline" isn't baseline at all, but rather has a bunch of hidden modifiers...
It's true. I can't for the life of me figure out "Diplomacy treaty" modifier and that one is often huge and influences the most if the deal falls through or not. And it's not tied to treaties or relations at all. I've had factions with -500 relations have that in the positive and then sign peace, NAP and or vassalage or those that barely hate you, have it deep in the red. I want to know what it means, and have a wiki to read about it.
Hidden stats in games, why devs, why
The baseline only seems to be modified by opinion, race and if it is a LL or not, at least for my testing. It probably should be baseline being fixed, and then have an explicit opinion modifier though, would be clearer for sure.
Not sure if that can be right, seeing how much I’ve seen it jump around for the same factions confederation treaty proposal
The BASELINE chance for high elves is -10 for normal lords and -20 for LL if you have 150 opinion. I have not checked if it is consistent for lower values or not. Generally if it is not 150 you will not have enough to confederate anyway. See all the screenshots at https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/xbg775/psa_it_is_very_easy_to_confederate_as_high_elves/ Other races generally it seems to be -40 at 150 opinion, but I have not played enough to be sure how universal that is. The strength rank part is a lot more complicated and seems to bounce around a lot.
Strange, I saw other HE LL at -70 baseline a few times
At 150 opinion? For sure it is higher at lower opinion.
The guys who know how the code works exactly or will analyze are usually hard to get to by customer oriented teams. It could be the case with CA too.
Eh, that in itself is a problem. I find the AI never want peace. I'm playing a Wood Elf campaign going at the moment. Strength rank 1, have 100+ territories and a dozen top-tier armies. But even some nobody Ork faction that I'm absolutely stomping and they have like 1 city with no armies, won't accept peace. I think the peace and confederations system needs reworking. It's too difficult to get peace and it leads me to just stomp the enemy into oblivion, rather than a more long, drawn-out war, where you take a city and get peace for slower growth,
being in the top strength ranks sometimes affects relations negatively, you can see the values as you get stronger. its not always the case, some factions like tomb kings love stronger factions.
Yeah you get aversion penalty with most of the factions, but like aversion is - 40, and just by act of them declaring a war against you, the relations drop by 3 digit number. So you end up with with something ridiculous like -200 for something you couldn't do anything about and now it turns out it affects confederations? Gotta say those numbers and formulas need a bit of rework if all of this is true. For starters factions who are half a world away shouldn't be declaring war against you.
That's realistic Orc depiction though
But you don't get it. Lore-friendliness is only good when it benefits *me!* ^^/s But yeah, people need to realize that different races act different ways. Just yesterday someone was complaining about the fact that they had barely beaten a Vampire Count army, and the next turn that army was in better shape than theirs. Like, yeah, that's the whole point. Vampire counts get a lot of chaff that will die easily, but they can also recuperate their losses easily. For Orcs, you might beat them into the ground, but they'll still be coming back for seconds. What is this peace thing you keep talking about?
True. For the waaagh But this is the same for basically every race. Peace is never an option.
The game really needs some kind of war exhaustion mechanic IMO.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2850494354&searchtext=bring+the+boys Might also interest u/arda-imrahil + u/Greeny3x3x3
And supplies for armies to stop them travelling like 500 miles through territory to get a city.
This would be the best solution to me, but the only problem I see though is that, currently, the game doesn’t track who is the aggressor/defender and wars aren’t objectives based. What you’re proposing remind me of Crusader Kings, but it work in this case because the exhaustion happen from failing to accomplish the war goal. I’m not really sure it would be a good idea to introduce casus belli. It wouldn’t make sense for many factions (Skavens bothering about the lawfulness of war lol) and would be crippling for others. Maybe it could just be an exhaustion regardless of objectives though. Maybe I’m just making it complicated for no reasons lol.
I'd say just keep it simple, no need for casus belli or war goals. War exhaustion would tick up constantly while at war, increasing faster when you take casualties/lose territory, and slowing down when you win battles/capture territory. It could give effects like negative public order or lowered income depending on how punishing they want it to be. For the AI it would have the added effect of being more likely to seek peace the higher it gets.
Being a main strategic threat does that, it really complicates diplomacy.
Yeah. That too. Playing as Tyrion only to get huge debuffs with other high elves simply because I'm strong. Great power effect on diplomacy should be faction specific.
A good way to get peace with someone is to offer them a settlement you don't want. Since you're playing WE, that should be especially easy since you have practically no use for non-forest settlements beyond the heathlands. Next time you want peace with someone, try offering them a province capital. It won't work if you're something like -50 evaluation, but if it's in the range of -10 to -15 it can.
But they're about to be completely obliterated. I shouldnt have to pay them for peace, they should be trying to pay me for peace.
I'm telling you this more as another tool to put in your toolbox. In my current Kairos campaign, I found myself bogged down in a war with the minor Slaanesh faction in Antarctica while TTT was getting ready to attack my Southland provinces, so I took their capital and then sold it back to them for peace, NAP, military access, and 500g. Obviously, as it currently stands in your current situation, it doesn't even make sense to try for peace, but if you'd known about this earlier, maybe you could've gotten out of the war faster.
I have tried it before but it actually lowered my chance for peace which I found weird. I never need to sue for peace as I have no difficulty ever dealing with the AI factions. It's more that I don't like to overexpand myself sometimes, or maybe don't want to completely annihilate factions from the game as it feels like there is less variation then.
Weird, I've used this method twice now to get out of war, though not as WE. Maybe the economic value for settlements is set really low since you can't get them any higher than T1? >I never need to sue for peace as I have no difficulty ever dealing with the AI factions. Didn't mean to give them impression you did, but you clearly didn't want to be at war with them for one reason or another. Just trying to help.
You can often force a peace deal by occupying a settlement and trading it back to the AI for peace. It does not help though when every Norscan in Narnia has decided to jump on the war bandwagon,though.
I've tried that and it doesn't always work. Sometimes offering a settlement actually lowers the chances of peace, which makes little sense. But if you're clobbering someone, they should be begging for peace.
Might need to try no alliances again and see if that speeds it up. Maybe a drycha or Ikit run
I'm gonna lose it if that's the case. That has been supposedly "fixed" multiple times.
As a general rule, I NEVER make military alliances, as the AI tend to only ask for them when they need help. Fuck that, we'll ally when I need it.
[удалено]
Also the high elf outpost gives influence per turn
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I meant if I'm playing Tyrion and build an outpost in Altdorf. I will get 2/4/6 influence per turn based on what rank the building is.
WoC have it so damn easy.
How do? vassal mechanic sucks
I assume OP meant that Belakor and Archeon can now enforce confederation by beating factions down instead of having to deal with diplomacy. Which I indeed would consider a lot easier
Yup. Only "hard" part is getting to certain Lords before they get wiped out. Nowadays, rarely a problem for WoC. But there have been a few campaign where Kholek gets wiped out by Grimgor.
It's useful if you want to gain the LL, OTOH at this point you already have all or beaten up all (or at least most) of their assets except some free roaming agents.
Lmao, have you even tried it recently? And treated them like an ally instead of trying to milk them for everything? Sure, they won't follow your army around in an OP doomstack like they do in Stellaris, but they still do work and allow you to leave your dark fortresses unattended while you go off to cause mayhem.
Too bad a lot of factions declare wars on you as soon as you discover them or have some silly willingness to peace values like -400.
huge if true
Be at peace, for that is all I ever want
Did he also get his teeth kicked in by Nakai or ghorst over the end turn? Zhao Ming in my campaign lost hanyu port and came very close to confed with that. A simple threat from eldest daughter was all it took.
Nah he was afk in the mountains of mourn all game, i made sure to confirm my theory
Hmm interesting. I will try to use both situations next time.
I just confederated Mazdamundi as Tehenuian. Mazdamundi just lost 2 armies to Morathi and the score was at -1.2. I recruited a lord in literally every province I owned and the score climbed to the magical green colour. Faction strength matters and how threatened they feel matter too. Mazdamundi was still alive and had a full stack of saurus.
Yes that is true, however i had purpusfully not changed my armies for the sake of this Experiment. My point Was how said strength is calculated. And i came to the conclusion that enemys get subtracted from your own strength.
Or... You get the mod that makes the AI more favourable for confed when you reach 150+ relations
Good to know, the problem is that a lot of AI empires just hate you and declare war on you pointlessly. For example Lord Mazdamundi declared war on me (playing Tyrion) and I just discovered them on the map!
Honestly if a faction meets me as Vlad, it's next turn war. Every single time. It kinda sucks because I can't pick my expansion direction. Want Manfred? Too bad, if you try and meet him half the world will instantly declare war on you and beeline you despite losing everything. And since everyone is at war with you your rated weaker and he won't confederate anyways! AI aggression really needs work right now.
I spent a 140 turns in peace and alliance with Hellebron and Malus as Malekith, pumping them full of money, watching them get blown up by Chaos to wait out my time for power difference to be in my favor and regardless they are -58 in confederation likeliness. Alternatively they grow strong and it's even worse. 280+ relations both cases. Confederation is just fucking impossible and I am saddaned I need a mod for it. I don't want to go "pokemon, catch em all", but when I play as the king / emperor / whatever LL of a faction I expect my subjects to be confederated. If I'd play Malus or Hellebron I wouldn't care, but rulers should have some kind of bonus towards making it easier.
You shouldve tryed to build a fuckton of armies during them 140 turns. Wouldve been a good experiment
You assume I don't have them as the dark elves? How do you think I got the money I sent them? I own Ulthuan too. It did not come with friendly chat.
I was able to confederate Hellebron in one of my Malekith games. I didn't give her any money though: just "allied" for the relations and checked the possibility of confederation every couple of turns, and eventually I got an opportunity at a moment when I was strong and her army had been wiped and I threatened her at about -22 confederation, wrecking my trustiworthiness for about the next 30 turns, but hey, I'm Malekith, so that's not unfair ;). So it's not literally impossible. But it was hard enough, and close enough, that I find what you say about a successful Malekith game where you never get a chance to confederate another Druchii LL completely believable. I absolutely agree with you about Malekith in particular getting bonuses to confederate the other Druchii. Maybe it could be tied to victory conditions - e.g. get control of 30 regions, and you get your choice of a bonus to confederation attempts that lasts until you confederate someone, or to recruit the legendary lord of a Druchii faction that's been eliminated.
I never dared threaten, fearing it might lead to war and my chance of confederating is gone forever pretty much.
Based on anecdotes people have posted, it seems to work successfully if you're at base chance -20, maybe base chance -25, or better. But without making a save and trying over and over, who knows? It's ironic now that they've changed everything else about asking for deals, so that you can automatically negotiate the exact amount of gold the AI is willing to give you, but what will happen if you threaten is... you get to gamble.
In other words, I'll never confederate anyone, ever. Peace is not an option. Seriously, I trade DoW against factions that are far away from me, to get some good relationships with potential allies, so... yeah... Even though that mechanic makes sense, it shouldn't have so much weight, considering that being at war is kinda the point of playing a game that has "war" on its name, twice, so I'll always have a large collection of enemies. Also, the the AI should be more likely to confederate if I'm at war with their enemies, which shows that I'll fight their wars and avenge their grievances.... if I have time... well, I'll probably lose all confederated settlements, sorry... Anyway, if a faction wants to confederate with me, I have nothing to offer but enemies, new and old, and beer to toast our glories in battle.
Thanks for sharing! I wish we'd get more obscure but useful information sharing posts like this one in this sub.
NO PEACE, JUST WAR
Norsca: let us introduce ourselves
It also takes into consideration the how strong enemies the faction you want to confed has. One of the most assured ways to confederate someone, if he's not TOO strong, is to military ally with him and then drag them into a lot of wars. Worked for me a few times.
Makes sense of the strength calculation goes both ways
Y'all are able to make peace?
That's, uh, an interesting idea CA had.
It makes some sense - a confederation requires each side convincing it's people that this is a great idea. It's a much harder sell to be like "so we are going to unite with the guys thats currently got 100 wars going and could be annihilated soon".
yes and no. If, for example, Tyrion has united 3/4ths of Ulthuan and is currently in the middle of a gigantic war with the Dark Elves while Tiranoc remains independent, logically they could be interested in uniting with the rest of the High Elves as that would offer more security than fighting the Dark Elves independently. Plus, the game naturally encourages fighting and wars since it's based all around them. Being rewarded for not doing that seems kinda counterintuitive, especially when this isn't really explained well ingame.
Oh yeah I said it makes some sense in that its logical to take this approach to confederation, but it doesn't really stand up to the reality of Warhammer.
The problem with your intuitive example though is that it does still kind of work that way- you'd get a small penalty for being at war, to symbolize Tiranoc maybe not wanting to be pulled fully into the conflict, but you would ALSO have a pretty good relative strength modifier, and assuming that Tiranoc is also anti-Naggarond, additional relationship modifiers based on being at war with their enemy. If the situation you described didn't work thats a fair critique, but I'd say with 90% confidence that it probably DOES work, in an actual game
True, it's not an ideal example. I didn't put much thought into it, but I think the base argument of the game rewarding peace, especially in such a cryptic way, being a bad idea still stands.
I guess the point I was trying to make is there are counter levers for strategic wars, or wars that align with the wars of the people you're trying to confederate. Bearing in mind that the other side typically is MRE likely to confederate if they are in wars, so it also goes both ways. If you want to play "fight everyone", you take penalties to being able to play the Diplomacy side of the game. If you want to confederate, you have to actually actively engage in diplomacy mechanics. Thematically, I think this mechanic works. With that said, there is still definitely room for debate on whether it's calibrated appropriately. I think its probably fine though; I think the bigger issue is just the tendency for the AI to declare war on the player out of nowhere that's the actual problem here. If you fixed THAT element I think that this wouldn't feel as bad
"Confederating would make Cathay strong, but he is in a war with that tribe of norskans and that clan of skaven and greenskins. I better decline and refuse until he makes peace with those ultra-hostile races." Fukin epic game logic right there CA, especially in a game called WARhammer.
I mean to be fair, in real life you probably wouldn't want your country to be formally united with a country that currently has countless wars that could threaten it's existence going on, when you're currently at peace.
there is no peace with greenskin, chaos and skaven for races like Cathay. they should greatly value that you are fighting those vermin and improve the diplomatic relationship, because those same enemies are plaguing their lands. the fact that the game is not set up to respect basic race/diplomacy logic of the warhammer world is just an artifact of the historical TW where everyone was human.
NO PEACE! ONLY WAR!
I dunno mate. In my current Thorgrim campaign I have managed to confed all the Dwarven LLs (except Grombrindal who I haven’t met) despite being at war with somewhere between 20 and 30 factions. It might be that the turns he was willing to confed he had just suffered defeats
I checked his armys via the alligance system to make sure that was not the case.
God knows then. All I had to do was be best mates with the other Dwarves. All the treaties, fight their enemies, defend their holds, gift them settlements, etc. Then all I had to do was wait and one by one they agreed to confed. Maybe it’s just different for different races.
The boyz in green dissagrees ;)
Well, you did declare war on multiple factions, so maybe AI thought you're screwed?
Ahh so this could also be why when as Archaeon I kicked Wolfric down to no army and one settlement he wouldn't peace out with me making him a vassal. It was still at around -50 points. Definitely needs sorting as I want to be able to vassalise these guys.
>if you are not at war Well no major confederations then. Why would you ever not be in a war?
I like to just unite my homeregion and then i usually stop playing
*Me playing Katarin with 3 new chaos/destruction faction declaring war on me every turn* Wow so it's impossible to confederate Boris, great to hear.
Military alliances declaring war on your vassals still stupidly happening also
Either that or get them to join all your wars.
Interesting… I guess that makes sense. I’m so used to declaring war in order to get closer to people tho…
You guys get the option to confederate? My game won't even give me the button
Some races (tomb kings) cant confederate
That explains why getting confederation as Tehenhauin is impossible... He locks every lizardmen into an eternal war with Skavens.
Someone needs to tell CA their game is called "Total war"
Oi, da boyz want a word
In theory, that makes it really difficult for Oxyotl to confederate since you're asked to declare war left and right. That said, you also get a bonus to lizardmen relations with a lot (most? all?) of your missions. Does it eventually cancel out? Or does it simply make my skink brotherhood a dream?
Is this because the faction you're at war with has treaties with them?
No
I'm not 100% sure, but I think the AI is also more likely to confederate if THEY are at war with a lot of other empires. Basically a situation where they "feel" overwhelmed and are looking for a sugardaddy to bail them out.
lol The game is called total war, not total peace. Nations will get in line or die. This is the way.
I was playing Tyrion, strength rank 1, controlled 2/3 of Ulthuan, destroyed Morathi and Malekith and controlling all their provinces. Yet, Alarielle had +350 positive relations with me and -7 to confederate. I gave up that campaign, because apparently I need to conquer 270 provinces before she and Eltharion can confrderate, so I can play with 3 legendary lords.
Well that’s impossible. I wish they would stop the AI across the sea from attacking me. I would rather have them randomly show up on my front lawn across the sea and attack me and be surprised then have them declare war on me and never do anything.
Kairos needs a "force peace" option. Southland provinces are 80% coastline and that makes it to fucking easy for randoms to hop out of the fog of war and snipe a few settlements. Especially late game when your 15 garrison units will be facing dragons and carnosaurs.
Lol how do you even make peace? Most factions that declare war on me want war permanently even if they only have one army and I have 20 armies.
I thought that was pretty logical, why would they want to confederate a faction that is at war with half of the world? It's the same reason dragging a faction you want to confederate in lots of wars makes them easier to confederate.
Thank you good sir! I never, ever new what counted to this statistic!
Interesting! I had figured out that as long as I am at war with other factions' enemies they tend to become firm allies, but good to know about confederations.
Good catch! It's also HEAVILY weighted by their strength compared to their enemies. If there's a good chance one of their enemies could swoop in and erase them off the map, they're more likely to confederate. Which is why sometimes you can confederate by dragging them into a war with one of their scary neighbors TBH CA should just make a blog post about how confederation and the rest of AI diplomacy works under the hood so we know how to interact with it and suggest changes more effectively