Ambassador Help

[Gloria]

I admit it.  I am a n00b.  Then again, this ambassador thing is new to most of us, isn't it?

What is the difference between having my realm propose a treaty to two other realms, and having two different treaties, one for each realm?
I think I should have drafted two different open border treaties, one with D'Hara and another with Terran, instead of having a "oh, let's the three of us be good neighbours" treaty involving Barca, D'Hara and Terran.  RP-wise, I decided that it would be more interesting to have meetings and discussions and agreement between three realms. 

[vonGenf]

First, a three-way treaty is broken three-way; it forces all parties to renegotiate when it falls down. When you have two treaties, however, it is easy to break one without breaking the other, and it is not automatic (game mechanically, but also in many people's mind) that your ally breaking a treaty with a third party is cause for breaking your own treaties.

Secondly, you need to maintain treaties (see elsewhere for my complaints about this). The smaller the amount of treaties you have, the lesser the maintenance work.

[Peri]

Secondly, you need to maintain treaties (see elsewhere for my complaints about this). The smaller the amount of treaties you have, the lesser the maintenance work.

Not sure whether this is due to other reasons, but in Morek the first treaty to fall will be the alliance signed by three realms. All the other, 2 realms treaties, are lasting longer.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Friction appears to rise according to how much dislike exists among all parties, if the treaty is a cooperative one. Perhaps your allies' peasants are not as sympathetic as expected.

[Chenier]

I absolutely despise treaty maintenance. I find it horrid. Treaties are such a burden to set up as it is, this peasant non-sense is just overkill. BM player population is going down... We already don't have enough diplomats to do all the necessary arrangements, let alone maintain them and even less so in the future when we'll have even less.

[Peri]

I absolutely despise treaty maintenance. I find it horrid. Treaties are such a burden to set up as it is, this peasant non-sense is just overkill. BM player population is going down... We already don't have enough diplomats to do all the necessary arrangements, let alone maintain them and even less so in the future when we'll have even less.

I agree

[fodder]

isn't that the whole point... getting things to be more hostile?

the new treaty isn't in effect in its entirety yet, is it?

[Galvez]

I believe the friction is there to prevent huge alliances, also no fan of it, but that perhaps result in more hostility. But players will find their way around it.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Yeah, the easy fix to that is to keep a diplomat or ambassador in the regions belonging to realms who share the treaty, then when the friction makes the treaty disappear, just redraft and resubmit.

[fodder]

there's isn't any mechanics that make the peasants scream murder at the loophole? assuming you are talking about immediate redraft/etc

[songqu88@gmail.com]

It does not appear so. Then again, I never waited for a treaty to expire, and I never tried to redraft immediately after dissolving. Nothing suggests that it's not possible though.

[Indirik]

Yeah, the easy fix to that is to keep a diplomat or ambassador in the regions belonging to realms who share the treaty, then when the friction makes the treaty disappear, just redraft and resubmit.

That's pretty silly. If you could "...keep a diplomat or ambassador in the regions belonging to realms who share the treaty..." then you would have a diplomat or ambassador available to deal with the treaty friction, thus avoiding the problem with it failing and needing to be redrafted. Not to mention that this would completely occupy an entire noble just to sit there in case a treaty fails, which would certainly occupy *more* time than it would take to just do treaty maintenance.


The proper way to do it would be to double all your treaties. Only sign one of them, so the other is ready to be signed as soon as, or just before, the first one expires. 

Of course that's an exploit, and it will almost certainly be closed before the treaty system actually goes into effect.

Also, there are several treaties you simply don't want to fail. Such as military alliances and defense pacts. Having those fail in the middle of a war could be disastrous.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Not if you pause that noble. He still stays in the same region in which he's been paused. Then when you need him activated again, go unpause him. Still not something you should do for real because that's another type of loophole threading.

[Anaris]

Not if you pause that noble. He still stays in the same region in which he's been paused. Then when you need him activated again, go unpause him. Still not something you should do for real because that's another type of loophole threading.

Good point.  Gotta remove Ambassador status on pause.

[Chenier]

I believe the friction is there to prevent huge alliances, also no fan of it, but that perhaps result in more hostility. But players will find their way around it.

It's like using dynamite to fix a rat problem.

An alliance ending in the middle of a war because there wasn't a diplomat to "maintain it", even if the realms couldn't be any closer and are fighting their umpteenth battle together? That's just plain stupid. Why don't we go about saying "if your realm doesn't have a trader, all food production is capped at 50%" and "if your realm doesn't have a courtier, all region stats are capped at 75%", while we are at it?

Conflict should be encouraged... But not like this. It'll just make people refuse to ever pick up the treaty system for anything other than alliances, every other "treaty" will just continue to be made as they currently are: immortal wiki pages and the like.

It's not that the idea of having people move about to maintain good relations is inherently a bad idea, it's that the number of ambassadors per continent required for it to actually be fun is much higher than what we currently have and can ever hope to have.

And all continents that I know about have plenty of wars going on, without needing the game to tell them that their long-time friendship is now null unless they redo all the pains to get it set up. Because setting up treaties really is a royal pain in the ass.