Emissaries are Good

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sharpshooter	Emissaries are Good		Lead	[-]
Posts: 94 11/22/07 09:34:55	Tags : diplomacy, king, emissary, charm Deter aggression. Show peaceful intentions. Keep alliances. Increase marriages. Screenshots illustrate. Emissaries are good - they are for the friendly side of the action. Everyone uses emissaries to ally, propose marriage, bribe, and ceasefire. They do more. As always, the King's Influence and the emissary's Valour are critical. No Influence means no influence. Simple as that. Here's a list of things to use emissaries for. I'm always interested in more - help me, and everyone out, by posting a new trick. Heh. · show peaceful intentions to neighbours by placing an emissary on their province · deter aggression from that large neutral or enemy army on the border by placing an emissary on it · trigger the acumen boosting Charm virtues (though Oozes Charm sounds horrible) · explain to neighbours why you are moving a large army through a border area - you don't want them to respond with a large army of their own. Put an emissary in the affected province while your army goes by. · keep a key ally when attacking one of his allies - send your top emissary, preferably to his king Best before attack, · trigger the acumen boosting Clever With Words virtues · locate a faction king by dropping an emissary or princess on his emissary · put your emissaries in neutral and easy to find places - be approachable · trigger the acumen boosting Approachable Manner virtues · soften up rebels for bribing by leaving your emissary there for a few turns before the bribe attempt (put a spy in too) · wait a turn on the faction King's province before asking for an alliance · visit allies often and keep them sweet, especially after the death of a king · use an emissary as the bait in a spy trap Remove your emissaries before attacking another faction. Otherwise other factions won't trust your emissaries in future. The Emissary "friendly" effect diminishes over some turns. It won't keep someone sweet forever. When you attack another faction and they want you to stop they will place an emissary on your provinces. Make lots of emissaries, and keep using them. Protect your best - keep them in Ports with Border Forts, or protected by Spies and Assassins. Watch what the other factions are saying to you and each other with their emissaries. Of course, it's not that simple. The diplomatic game is as complex as the military game. You are sending an emissary to sweeten someone up, but behind the scenes someone is using a inquisitor to blackmail them. If you've taken a province they want, say Russia and Lithuania, they will always go against you. Have a look at the screenshot, and see what Italy, the HRE, and Poland want from each other. The HRE and Poland are sweet. Poland has found the Emperor, and placed an emissary with him. The HRE has an emissary on Polish Croatia. Poland can relax - but only for now. Elsewhere HRE bishops are active in Polish Pomerania. Italy wants to be friends with both - an emissary in Polish Croatia and one in HRE Austria. The HRE responds with Princesses in Venice. The Pope harasses the Doge with Inquisitors - could it be he wants Venice? His attitude to Italy is clear. If both are allied to the Pope and war breaks out Poland can rely on the Pope. Both Italy and the HRE are using the King as a strategic piece, using them to hold a single province. The Doge is approachable (he could be in Milan). The Emperor is always difficult to find, hidden in Tyrolia. He is not an approachable man. If he suddenly appears on your border he is saying something to you - you have to figure out what. Keep an emissary nearby. In Hungary the Egyptian Assassin Trap is action. Annoyed by the Alim converting the population the Poles send an Assassin. If the Assassin follows too far he will be killed in Border Forted Sinai or Palestine. He will wait in unprotected Egypt, and catch the Alim on his way out. Not a good idea if Poland wants to ally with Egypt. The next screenshot shows why it is not so simple - but the messages are clear. Aragon has just taken Castile and Cordoba from Spain, storming the castles last turn. The Spanish Emissary in Castile with the Aragonese King seeks to deter further attacks. However, Spain is not happy. Although an emissary in Cordoba seeks also to deter attack the Inquisitor and Princess show Spain's attitude. It is not the Spanish emissaries that deter Aragon. An Aragonese bishop and inquisitor move into what is left of Spain. The Pope has intervened - Aragon will wait. Aragon is allied to England - but English Inquisitors in Aragonese Toulouse show what he thinks. He doesn't like it. His emissaries passing through Valencia and Aragon are spying, not to showing peaceful intentions. This is not a strong alliance. Elsewhere a French Emissary in Toulouse shows France wants peace, despite being at war with Aragon. Everyone spies on Aragon - Valencia is busy. Other factions no longer send spies and assassins - the *3 Spy there gets them all. Aragonese spies are everywhere. *********************************************************************************************************** Emissaries are active, and the diplomatic offensive starts before the military offensive. Use your bishops and emissaries to support your military objectives. "War is an extension of diplomacy" is the famous quote from the Prussian von Clauswitz. (The King is a strategic agent*. I recommend keeping him away from ports, so you can see those alliance proposals coming. Then you have time to think and see what other factions think about it. Put him in a port when you are open to approaches. You can use the King to hold a province - a useful tactic when short of troops - other factions rarely attack the king. You can also use him to deter aggression - a large army appears on your border. You move the king in to face it down. Bring your king in if an enemy king shows up - if he runs you've got the upper hand. If you run you'll probably get Chinless Wonder. You can use a single 7 general the same way. Obviously don't try this with the Mongols.) As always, I'm keen to hear what others think, and am interested in new tricks. One thing to be sure of - other factions are playing against you in this way - keeping a neighbour quiet when attacking you, getting your allies to choose against you, tempting your assassin into their trap with an emissary and so on. Last Edited By: sharpshooter 11/22/07 13:15:16. Edited 3 times.
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highlanddave		#1	[url]	[-]
Posts: 2031 11/23/07 08:48:09 Administrator	Whenever I try to send an emissary to talk with certain nations, I notice the king continually moves. I expect they do not want to even negotiate about peace. Say I send an emissary to Venice to talk with the Doge, he has sat there for 50 years. The minute my emissary shows up he moves to the next province. I have noticed this with princesses too. You have to chase her all over Europe just to get the chance to talk with her.
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Danilonius		#2	[url]	[-]
Posts: 10651 11/23/07 09:00:04	Yes, now that you mention it dave, I have experienced just that too. Perhaps this too is the AI giving you a message - one even clearer (when you've figured it out) than just rejecting the proposal. They simply don't want you to get close.
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sharpshooter	princesses and kings	#3	[url]	[-]
Posts: 94 11/23/07 09:36:42	I've found it's pointless to pursue a princess if she flees from your advances. The answer seems always to be no. Likewise, I've known princesses to do the opposite - come towards the emissary to complete the deal. One turn she's in land-locked Anjou. Your emissary in Constantinople heads off to get her, anticipating a long chase. Next turn there's a marriage, and your emissary is in Toulouse, able to return straight away to his mission. I hadn't noticed that specifically about the king, and I'm going to watch out for it. I'm sure there's something in it though - there's a lot of stuff going on like that. Have you tried talking with kings? I really enjoy that, especially if he turns up with 3 hard retainers, while your king is apparently alone (yes, of course there's an army in the province behind him. You don't want to throw him away if something goes wrong). The rival king seems to flinch, and run.
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highlanddave		#4	[url]	[-]
Posts: 2031 11/23/07 10:12:01 Administrator	I was thinking on some stuff in the OP and I was thinking back on some responses from asking for an alliance. One of their responses sometimes is, we reject the treaty however, if you will lessen the troops on our common border we will reconsider. Maybe using some of the ideas in the OP, you could place a low ranking emissary in the common border provinces before you re-send the most senior emissary to try again. Sometimes, there is just nowhere to move the troops to get away from their borders. The one I was thinking of is if playing Poland and trying to get a treaty with Germany. You often have Greater Poland and Hungary (if you were aggressive at the beginning) with common borders and big numbers of troops. On the ships, I know will pay attention not to have any fleets in contact with the shoreline of my target for an alliance before asking for a treaty. Most likely the ships will only confuse them. I agree with the princess chasing. I have never been successful once cornered to get them to say yes. Do you really accept princesses and change your allies often? I never or almost never do. Maybe that is why I get so few foreign princesses marring my guys. Very interesting, maybe I will have to try a different strategy in my next game. This is really I see the purpose in such threads. To jolt you out of your normal playing patterns to discover unseen beauty and complexity in the game.
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Taedius		#5	[url]	[-]
Posts: 546 11/23/07 11:36:55 Sergeant	First, thanks to Sharpshooter for some very interesting and well-written posts. Now, I've often gotten the message about reducing troops on common borders when I and the other faction share no borders at all. Relating it to ships is well enough, but could this be sparked by a bishops presence as well? Replacing him with a emissary, for example?
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sleepingocelot		#6	[url]	[-]
Posts: 34 11/23/07 12:06:46	I always thought that the troop reduction message was to see if you were a foolish enough to withdraw so they could pounce on you. I need to start an new campaign with the English so I can try some of this stuff out. I could use far fewer armies that I use right now if I could make it work.
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highlanddave		#7	[url]	[-]
Posts: 2031 11/23/07 12:35:15 Administrator	If you send an emissary to a king by selecting the foreign emissary, he begins his journey toward that king. If you pay attention each turn as your emmisary moves, look at which province is his target province. If they change each turn, the foreign king is trying to avoid you. So you can see this is the fact even if you can't visualise the location of foreign kings and their response.
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Duke of Earl	agent effects	#8	[url]	[-]
Posts: 357 11/25/07 09:18:14	Your ideas on agents' effects are interesting, Sharpshooter, some of them directly opposite of how I interpret them. For example, a rivals' emissary parked on my turf I always interpret as a hostile act. This is because whenever I've seen the AI pile a bunch of agents of any sort on a foreign territory its a sure sign they have designs on that place. Invasion almost inevitably follows. If an ally parks an emissary on my turf, I'll usually cut him some slack for a few turns, but if it's from an enemy or neutral faction, said agent will generally have a nasty encounter with a gang of assassins. A rivals' religious agent [edit--excepting Inquisitors] of the same religion in my territory I interpret as a friendly act (helping to bolster the population), while from another religion I interpret as hostile (stirring dissent). Accordingly, if I ally with a faction of another religion, I'll pull my religious agents from their lands and expect them to do the same from my lands. If I'm allied with others of the same religion, I'll use religious agents to see what's going on there, and pull my emissaries. Now you've got me wondering if I've got it all %@*@-barkwards. Last Edited By: Duke of Earl 11/26/07 07:15:44. Edited 1 time.
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Duke of Earl		#9	[url]	[-]
Posts: 357 11/30/07 19:46:09	Okay, a little more detail, then. The reason that I have interpreted clerics of the same faith as "friendly" (aside from Inquies) is that they can do me no harm, only good (unless I happen to be Catholic & employing an Inquie in the same prov). All they can do is propose treaties and boost the faith. Clerics of a different faith are another kettle of fish. Convert my population, will you? I think not. At least, not once I've built a Tavern. I've always assumed that the AI must use clerics in much the same way as I do. That is: to convert the population in new territories and future prospects, to negotiate treaties, to make life difficult in kingdoms of other faiths, to comfort the folks at home, and, like all agents, maybe, to spy. I'll admit that this may be an erroneous assumption, but that's what prompted my previous comments. The reason why I say "maybe" to spy is that a developer once admitted that the AI "peeks" at the players' moves. (I think this rather cryptic comment may still be somewhere in Numerology.) He didn't say to what extent it peeked, or whether having agents on foreign soil contributed at all to AI intelligence. But as I've never used the cheat that reveals the map, and being a curious fellow, I rely a lot on agents to see what's going on on the rest of the map. If I've been sending messages all this time unawares.... my gosh, I wonder what I've said!
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Duke of Earl	D'oh!	#10	[url]	[-]
Posts: 357 11/30/07 20:03:51	Ooops. I thought I was in the bishops are bad topic. My bad. The reason I've interpreted Emissaries as hostile is that they can bribe armies. Granted, the AI seldom seems to attempt it on the player... but I always get edgy when one hangs around on my turf. My assassins begin sharpening their knives. Also, my Emissaries always seem to be the favorite targets of AI assassins, especially on foreign soil. So I've naturally assumed they don't like having them there... although, admittedly, it's not necessarily the nation whose turf I'm in that's doing the assassinating.... Clerics seem to be targets much less often. Except if they re visiting Scotland... I've never had one of my Princesses whacked. (Nor have I whacked anyone else's'.) Has anyone else?
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Comanche	Send your princess to Pictish teritory, and you"l have her killed soon	#11	[url]	[-]
Posts: 31 08/12/09 07:55:54	Duke of Earl wrote: I've never had one of my Princesses whacked. (Nor have I whacked anyone else's'.) Has anyone else? Send your princess to Pictish teritory, and you"l have her killed soon. I had that in Viking Invasion playing Saxons, Mercia etc. Any emissary you send to Pictish teritory gets killed at once. Than I thougt:"Hey, a princess is a harder target to kill. And even those savages would spare the fairer sex." That turned out to be an error. It took the reprobates about 5 attempts, and than she got cowardly assasinated. I like those messages you get when her brave guards killed the assasin. Something like: "Your men earned their food for today." So to spy on the Picts Iconquer some of their best lands and build border forts on them. Regards, Comanche
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Caravellini		#12	[url]	[-]
Posts: 445 08/12/09 13:05:24	This is an old thread! I'm afraid most of the info posted is not exactly accurate... The TW campaign map AI is a very simple animal. Emissaries use does not trigger those V&Vs nor does the movement of emissaries signify any particular strategy by the AI. There is a simple rule about agents in MTW and that is, that any rival faction agents in your lands are up to no good and should be picked off by your assassins at the first opportunity. Rival faction princesses are a slight exception: Ask for hand in marriage and if refused assassinate. All other agents should be killed on sight. Use your low value assassins on the easier targets to valour them up but watch out for rival border forts - don't risk your best assassins on worthless targets such as emissaries, only use them on the enemy generals/royalty and watch out for those border forts. This is fairly obvious but to break it down somewhat: Emissaries - check their orders - if they're offering alliance/ceasefire to your faction then let them in. As soon as they've offered it/finished: kill. If they're hanging about, passing through or bribing: kill. Remember that if you accept the propsals of your rivals high valour emissaries, you're giving them more valour stars. It's better to have your own emissaries out proposing alliances and gaining valour. If in doubt just kill all emissaries as they're probably just using your ports for routing or are on their way to bribe some rebels on your borders. Princesses - as above, but ask for marriage (if required) before proceeding. Priests of all types - Same religion can be left alone as they won't do any any harm. Opposing religions' priests found in your lands should be assassinated with extreme prejudice. Bear in mind that this can upset the Pope. Inquisitors - If you're a catholic faction assassinate these immediately, otherwise they're not worth your trouble - let them carry on spreading mayhem amongst your foes. Inquisitors can only target Catholic generals/heirs/faction leaders and can only raise Catholic zeal anyway so they cannot convert your Muslim/Orthodox/Pagan provinces to Catholicism. Spies and Assassins - train your own spies and assassins to counterspy against them. Avoid constructing border forts as long as possible. This allows your spies to valour up by catching these rival interlopers - which is very important. If you build border forts they will catch the rival spies/assassins instead and your spies/assassins will sit idle. Later in a campaign it's a good thing to have a high valour spy in each province and a veritable guild of high valour assassins at your disposal. Last Edited By: Caravellini 08/12/09 13:13:18. Edited 4 times.
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victorgb02		#13	[url]	[-]
Posts: 89 08/14/09 05:55:24	Hi Caravellini Thanks for this. I was very dubious about the claims being made in the opening post and, until I got to yours, was about to ask for evidence/corroboration. I just have one minor query: I'm under the impression that inquisitors in, say, a Muslim province will preach, i.e., covert the locals to Catholicism. Am I mistaken? Best regards Victor
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Caravellini		#14	[url]	[-]
Posts: 445 08/14/09 07:10:47	Hello victorgb02, I seem to remember you from the old days when I used to post her a lot. How's it going? To confirm, Inquisitors and Grand Inquisitors only raise zeal, they do not increase religious percentage. Muslim Imams are unique in that they increase both zeal and religious percentage. Catholic Cardinals and Orthodox Bishops do not increase zeal. This means that Orthodox factions have no agents/units capable of increasing zeal. This is probably by design as Orthodox factions don't crusad/jihad, thus zeal is useless to them. Regards Caravel
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victorgb02	Yeah that's me	#15	[url]	[-]
Posts: 89 08/17/09 05:28:18	Hi Caravellini Yeah, that's me. Part of the long in the tooth, short on the hair brigade. Still bringing up the rear. These days I am playing XL+Tyb, (Current campaign: Venetians, Early, GA, Expert. Tagline: Those Byzantine heretics will rue the day they they called the Doge a lover of young boys. Fourth crusade, here we come.) although I'm looking forward to Axalon's next version of Redux. One last question if I may, this time back to emissaries, well sort of: do you think the number of alliances a ruler/faction has affects the ruler's influence rating? The reason I ask is that I'm normally pretty apathetic about garnering alliances. And within a couple of generations end up with really low influence rulers. Through experience (which is to say serious micro-managing) I've learnt how to deal with this and virtually never suffer defections or rebellions. And so felt little impetus to change my practice. However, as Venice a whole bunch of emissaries beat a path to my door early on, so I'm allied with more than half the remaining factions, and my new doges are still coming through with four or five influence 'straight out of the box' so to speak. Which is real unusual for me. And this when I only had six provinces up until about 1150 - so hardly a super power. Cheers Victor
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Caravellini		#16	[url]	[-]
Posts: 445 08/17/09 05:46:52	Alliances don't affect influence IIRC. Your generals lose loyalty if you break alliances but your faction leader's influence does not suffer directly.
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