The title ought to be self-explanatory. I remember playing the non-Gold version, and thinking the game really needing a Diplomacy-option. I'm really glad to hear that you have included one in Gold. But how exactly does it work?

It's a fairly simple system which is a little imperfect because I'm certain that the AI factions are not coded to attack one another, so you can't have "proper" alliances and stuff.

Basically you have a couple of diplomatic options with known, which usually cost you money, but if you're a big bully-boy you can sometimes get paid tribute by other factions.

1. Truce - you and the other faction agree not to attack one another.
2. Alliance - all the other faction's cities and armies come under your control. You are responsible for their defence but you get access to their resources.

Over time another faction might demand more gold to maintain a truce/alliance, based on two main factors:

Hostility: Each faction has a preset hostility level with others, depending on historic rivalries/alliances. It cannot be lowered, but it can increase for various reasons, including broken truces and allowing allied cities to be captured. Higher hostility = more gold demanded for diplomatic options. At higher levels some diplomatic options will become unavailable entirely.

Intimidation: More of a complicated statistic that represents how threatened a faction feels by you at a given point in time. Negative values indicate that a faction feels they could get the best of you in any confrontation, positive values indicate that a faction feels you are stronger than them. Higher values = less gold for diplomatic options, and vice versa. Intimidation seems to be calculated partially by adding up the amount of individual threat that enemy cities feel from your armies. Besieging the capital of another faction will massively increase intimidation, for example.

CW - It seems what your describing an alliance is more like a vassal relationship rather than a true mutual alliance. I don't mean to question you or your info, rather just commenting/thinking out loud. Anyone else agree?

I have actually still not worked out how to set up diplomacy, and I've been playing Gold for months (basically without using diplomacy). How is it done? It's not mentioned in the manual (obviously because diplomacy wasn't an option in PoM).

I have actually still not worked out how to set up diplomacy, and I've been playing Gold for months (basically without using diplomacy). How is it done? It's not mentioned in the manual (obviously because diplomacy wasn't an option in PoM).

I don't believe that Gold was released yet, last I heard it was confirmed to release this month. Are you beta testing?

1. Truce - you and the other faction agree not to attack one another.
2. Alliance - all the other faction's cities and armies come under your control. You are responsible for their defense but you get access to their resources.


Aaah. So you don't really become allied to them, you just... buy their units? Aw. That's disappointing. :(


...how is it done? It's not mentioned in the manual (obviously because diplomacy wasn't an option in PoM).

Someone answer this, please?

I don't believe that Gold was released yet, last I heard it was confirmed to release this month. Are you beta testing?

Still beta testing, yes. As far as I know, it is scheduled to release this month.

Sorry for the late reply, but yes it does act like a vassal relationship, due to the limitations of the AI (which was, in my opinion, never designed to attack anyone other than the player, and would require a complete rewrite for true alliances). However, I suppose it does work somewhat like Ancient Greek "Leagues", where groups of city states would align themselves with a hegemon.

If all of thier armies and cities come under your control isn't that annexation? Excuse me if I missed something obvious.

You still have to pay them money to maintain control over their cities, and if you fail to protect them adequately then this amount will go up.

Philip was able to impose a settlement upon Greece, which all states accepted, with the exception of Sparta. The League of Corinth, formed as a result, made all participants allies of Macedon and each other, with Philip as the guarantor of the peace. In turn, Philip was voted as strategos (general) for a pan-Hellenic war against the Persian Empire, which he had long planned.
this is what wikipedia says about what philip did after the battle of Chaeronea. So now I get this sort of alliance.

Now that the game is out, does anyone have any concrete info? Also; I really hope there's some in-game documentation giving you the low-down on all these new features.

CaptainWill's post is concrete. The only thing he doesn't mention is how to open the diplomacy menu, which is assigned by default to the M key, I think. There's also a button on your screen in the upper right, with the rest of the buttons for the manual, skills, etc.

The system is very simple, but allows for some nice results. In the Philip campaign I was keen to focus on the eastern border, so I bought a truce with Epiros and accepted a tribute from the Tyrants in return for a truce (they were terrified of me and holding on by a thread, so they offered 350 Gold, not a bad sum); thus I secured my western and southern flanks and could focus on one area for a couple years.

I hope the designers expand the system, for example some 'fluff' would be nice (i.e. making it seem like you're speaking with diplomats, an improved interface, etc., maybe even a diplomat character on the map?), as would more diplomatic options, such as demanding cities, offering cities for a truce, specifying length for a truce, asking a faction to declare war on another etc. But the current system certainly works.