Field of Glory: Kingdoms – Diplomacy and Trade Guide

Comprehensive Guide to Diplomacy and Trade

Diplomacy

In addition to the detailed rules on the various diplomatic options note that constantly repeating a request will result in the loss of Authority.

The diplomacy screen can be accessed from the top row as:

This will show any current requests from other factions, wars that are taking place (this will not show vassals as they can only accept peace deals agreed by their liege) and all your existing relations.

To contact another nation, you can click on an entry on this screen or on the map simply select one of their regions and select diplomacy.

Relations between factions will always be some variant of one of three states. At war means there is an active conflict between the two, a peace deal will follow a war (and last for 10 turns) during which the war cannot restart, in any other state normal diplomacy (including declaring a war) can take place.

When you contact another nation the screen will be shown as:

On the left are all the feasible options between you and that nation. You can see nation and ruler statistics from the icons in the centre and their current range of diplomatic relations on the right.

To engage in diplomacy select one of the options on the left. If you opt for a Tranasaction you will see:

A similar screen is used when making a peace deal. In a normal transaction both sides can offer something and the Bargain Points will build up or be reduced. You can see the percentage chance of success as you add or remove options, so a complete deal may look like:

Note that if you send a deal with a low chance of success not only is it likely to be rejected, it is also likely to worsen relations between the factions.

If factions have good relations not only will the terms for a deal be less strict but they will also be more likely to agree to a transaction.

If you do not want to confirm a transaction, then cancel it. If another faction sends you a transaction you can accept, reject or modify it. If you modify the transaction, they will spend some turns considering their response.

You can always cancel a potential deal before the turn is actually submitted, just click on the choice and opt to cancel it. Overall if you open the diplomacy screen the map display will swap to the diplomacy view.

Royal Marriage

A Royal Marriage is a treaty that can be concluded between 2 nations of the same parent faith (so. a Catholic and an Orthodox nation can sign a Royal Marriage).

For a Royal Marriage to occur, you must have a daughter of age to send to the other nation Court. This is the only requirement as there is no named spouse nor do you need to find a suitable noble if another ruler sends one of his daughters to your court. At this stage the Daughter character (9.5) is removed from the game and the marriage concluded. It is assumed she is now married and at the other nation’s court.

The treaty significantly boosts relationships when signed and then adds a little bit more every turn.

It can provide a claim at the nation level if the other ruler dies. There are several conditions that need to be met before such a claim can be made:

• You must have at least 25 Authority,
• The heir to the other nation must be ‘weak’ (9.6.2),
• Your authority must be at least equal to the Authority of the other nation,
• Relationships between the 2 nations must be cordial or better (25+).

One of three possible outcomes can occur, but none are guaranteed: Absorption, Vassalize, Creating a March. These are tested in a specific order though, so if Absorption fails or is not possible, then vassalize is checked and then lastly Creating a March.

To Absorb the other nation, you must have at least half its size, an Authority of 50 or better and roll a percentile dice under your current Authority. If that’s not possible or fails, then to vassalize the other nation you must have at least half its size, an Authority of 25 or better and roll a percentile dice under your current Authority. Note that standard Vassal checks are also done, so you can’t have as a vassal a nation which is already the vassal of someone else.

Lastly, to Create a March, you need an Authority of 25 or better and roll a percentile dice under twice your current Authority (meaning an Authority of 50 is a guaranteed success). A March if created will include all regions of the other nation that are bordering your or are a Claim of yours, with two exceptions: the capital is ignored, and you must leave at least one other region to the other nation.

Royal Marriages are cancelled once a new dynasty ascends to the throne.

If one of your vassals tries to set up a royal marriage outside your realm (i.e. not with another of your vassals) you will be asked to agree or refuse the decision. This allows you to stop a marriage (at a cost in lost relationships) if you fear your vassal could become absorbed.

Passage Rights

This reciprocal treaty allows moving into each other territory. Vassalship and Alliance already include this right so these relations cannot be combined.

A peace provides passage rights but this is temporary and designed to allow armies to return to their own territory. A conventional treaty can be negotiated during this phase but it is likely that your mutual relations are too low.

Claims

A claim can be generated by playing an appropriate Regional Decision or maybe allocated by the game engine. The chance for this to be successful is increased if the owner has a low authority or is of a different, ‘opposed’ religion. In addition, if you have high authority, there is also an improved chance to gain a claim.

You can also gain a claim on a region if you insult them (50% chance). This can only happen if you do not already have a claim to any region held by that faction.

If you have claims on another faction then the cost of declaring war will be reduced.

If you capture a region then you will gain some authority and additional legacy. Losing such a region will have the reverse effect. A Royal Marriage can provide a claim on a whole nation, which is different to region-based claims.

Gifts of Regions or resources

It is possible to offer gifts to diplomatic partners. This is usually in terms of gold but as part of a peace deal you can offer manpower, metal, regions or units.

Some of these options will be restricted. So you cannot request a region from a distant faction or one with relations under 50.

You can however, always return a region to its rightful owner regardless of current relations.

Requesting or Sending Units

It is possible to request or offer units as part of a diplomatic transaction. To gain units will cost some authority (from 0.2 to 0.6 depending on the unit type) and 50 gold per unit.

The value of each unit in the transaction (and the resulting authority cost) will vary according to the unit type with skirmishers or similar being of relatively little value.

Insults

The diplomatic option to insult a target will reduce relationships between the two factions. It is possible that an insult has a chance to create a claim (12.1.3) on one of their regions. If this happens it will cost the insulting faction 2 authority points.

Declaring War

The cost of declaring war in terms of authority will vary substantially. It will be lower if you have more authority than the target, have claims on their regions, are much larger or if you share the same religion.

Key factors are relative size, if you have a valid claim, similar or different religion, the relative piety of your rulers (if both are in the same broad faith group and if they have 1 for piety and your ruler 4 or more then the cost will be much lower) and whether the target ruler has only recently come to power.

In combination this is likely to produce some situations where the cost is zero and others where it is 15 or over. Note that for a Christian faction, attacking the Papacy will always generate a substantial authority cost and you will be excommunicated.

If you declare war on a vassal this is treated as if it was a declaration of war on the liege for all purposes.

The tool-tip will show you the costs and the factors at work.

In addition, if the war is triggered by a revolt (civil war), an invasion, a vassal breaking away or if the Holy Roman Emperor to succeed on death of the previous emperor, then no authority cost will be incurred.

The ‘sneak attack’ decision allows you to move directly from declaring war to an actual invasion. The cost will vary according to the relative military expertise of the two powers. If you are part of the HRE, declaring war on another member will cost additional authority and this will be much higher if the target is the current Emperor.

Note you are always deemed to be at war with world factions and this status is reciprocated.

Peace Deals

A peace deal will take account of the wider situation between the two factions and the current war score.

In some circumstances you cannot agree a peace, this maybe due to the war having just started (it needs to last at least 10 turns) or other factors at play, In that case if you select peace you will be presented with some variant of this screen:

Otherwise mousing over the icons of factions you are at war with will give you some idea of the chance of them agreeing to a peace with no concessions, such as:

If you want to proceed, click on the faction shield and select Peace. The actual offer may be made up of various clauses but only the winning faction can actually demand anything, the losing faction instead must ask for a white peace or offer up items to try and satisfy the winning faction. These include:

• To become a vassal;
• Money
• Loss of Legacy;
• Cede a province or an individual region;
• Disband part of the army;
• Complete Absorption;
• Transfer units, or;
• Abandon an existing claim.

If an option is not valid it will be greyed out and cannot be selected.

As you add clauses, you will see how this interacts with the warscore and also if it affects the chance a peace deal will be accepted.

If you want to cede or gain provinces or regions, click on one on the list and the map will move to its location (which can be helpful if you are not sure where it is). Regions you have occupied or lost are less expensive than ones still held by the other faction.

It costs more to demand either the capital region of a faction or their last region.

Note if you fully conquer a faction (and this includes one of their vassals), all their regions will be automatically allocated to whichever faction current occupies that region.

Allies and Co-operation

These two states reflect different levels of mutual support and trust.

Alliance

An alliance is a close link that means there is a chance of both factions fighting together against a common enemy.

How an ally will respond to a war will depend on both the terms agreed and current relationship between the two factions.

In many cases they will not contribute to an offensive war but will be eligible to support a defensive war.

Allies will have a reduction of 1 Authority Point from the full cost if they join in a war.

Note that when you create an alliance you can choose when you would be willing to help them in case of them being involved in a war. This choice can be amended at any time.

An alliance allows both parties to move across their respective territories.

Co-operation

This can be seen as a less committing version of the above. Each turn mutual relationships will increase by 0.5 (so over time more treaties and deals are possible). On the other hand, relations with nations that are enemies of the nation you cooperate with may worsen.

It is not possible to declare war between nations sharing a cooperation agreement unless mutual relations are already low.

Vassals

General Rules

Vassals are separate factions , so should not be mistaken with your own Domains administered by a Peer of the Realm. However, you will retain a large degree of control over their actions. Vassals provide up to 25% of their monetary income to their liege.

Each vassal gives a +5% Demesne Size allowance to his liege.

Vassals cannot make or break treaties (apart from trying to break from their protector). If they try to break this relationship there is a risk of a war, especially if current relations are low. In any case, breaking a vassalage will remove 15 from the current relations. If these were already negative, then there is a chance the vassal will declare war on their previous liege (1% chance for each negative diplomacy point).

If the liege calls a vassal into a war, they do not pay any authority costs. You can set the circumstances under which you will call them into a war and this choice can be varied each turn.

At times vassals may ask for your help in regard of enriching their demesne or for a particular building. How you respond will have a strong impact on future relations. The more vassals you have, the more often you will receive this request.

Vassals can also have disputes with other vassals sometimes forcing you to choose between them.

A nation cannot accept a vassal request in the first 5 turns of a war.

Declaring war on a vassal

You cannot declare war on any of your own vassals. You must break the vassal agreement first.

You can declare war on another faction’s vassal(s). This will lead to war with the liege and the authority cost may be substantially more than just the cost of the original target. This will be indicated in the relevant tooltip:

Absorbing a vassal

This can happen either by using the diplomacy options or an appropriate Regional Decision. You can only absorb a vassal if relations are amiable (i.e. 50 or better).

If a vassal is absorbed their provinces become part of your personal demesne and around 25% of their army will be transferred to your control (the rest will disband).

Levying the vassal’s army

The vassal armies can be gifted to his liege under certain conditions, the first one being at war with another nation. If the first call fails, it will be repeated unless the policy is set to ‘never’.

On the diplomacy panel, for each vassal, there is an Army Levy policy button, it has 3 states: Never, Safe, Always.

• Never will mean the vassal’s units are never called.
• Always will “always” call them, if there is at least 10% chance of success.
• Safe will call them only if liege makes a success roll (practically success chance is between 51% and 99%).

The success chance depends on liege relationship with the vassal. Without any special modifier, the chance is relative to the relationship score except if relationship is 75 or higher, in which case there is a 100% chance.

If the roll fails by more than 50%, then in this case, if the vassal had 10 or more units to give, a relationship penalty of 10 is applied and the vassal rolls immediately for secession if relationship is 50 or less.

If the vassal has 10 units or less it is likely all will be provided, otherwise they will retain some under their own control.

The troops are under liege’s full control until there is peace, in this case they return to their original owner. These units will have half their maintenance costs charged to the liege while they are levied.

If the vassal breaks away, they will reclaim any troops you had earlier requested.

Conquest

Capturing a region during a war can have different consequences depending on who was the previous owner.

Non-State Factions

This includes various tribal and religious groups. Here you gain permanent ownership of the region once you occupy it. Note that it is very likely you will then face a period of unrest as you pacify region.

State Factions

If you capture a region from another state faction during a direct war you will not gain actual ownership until a peace deal is signed. Note if the opposition loses all its regions then a peace is imposed that will transfer all occupied regions to their current occupier.

Own religion Factions

If you capture a region that is of your own national religion then it will not need pacification even if there will still be a period of relative unrest due to it being under ‘Occupation’.

Occupation

If you occupy a region during a war it is cheaper to demand in a subsequent peace deal.

Normally if you capture a region from an opponent there will be a period of unrest due to the recent conquest and then it will remain with some unrest due to being war occupied.

For various reasons it is possible to capture a region that the original owner has already lost but not agreed to transfer. The occupier can be another faction or one of the world nations. In such a case the war occupied modifier will not apply.

If you take a region that has been occupied by a non-state faction (either a revolt or an invasion) then the consequences will vary according to your relations with the original owner.

If that faction is an enemy, then the region acts as above. You occupy it during the war and may, or may not, gain it permanently during a subsequent peace deal.

Otherwise, then the region will become yours if you hold it for at least 10 turns. In this period, relations with the original owner will worsen and they may issue diplomatic insults. During this period you can transfer it back to the original owner using the diplomatic routines.

Spheres of Interest

Some factions, such as the Papacy have a very specific sphere of interest. They will not seek to own a region outside this and if they gain one for any reason it will be released.

All factions have a range in which they are interested. Outside this they will tend to ignore offers of alliances or to exchange regions.

Trade

There are several key aspects to the trade system. Fundamentally a given good can only be used or traded once. If it is traded then it cannot be used as a ‘needed’ good in the region of production. It will, however, still be counted as a ‘bonus’ good both in the region of origin and in a region that gains it via a trade.

Existence and Creation of Trade Goods

Trade goods can exist in a region due one of three mechanisms:

• They occur naturally in the region.
• They are generated by a building in the region.
• They are imported as part of a trading arrangement that brings needed goods to the region (note this does not cover imports for bonus goods).

Each unit of a trade good can only be traded (or consumed) once.

Depending on the buildings present, or the raw materials, it is possible for a region to have more than one of a particular type of trade good. So, for example, a large grain farm will produce two units of grain for trade or consumption. Equally there are more than one building that can produce the livestock good (and by mid-game you may need them all in a large region).

“Needed” and “Bonus” Trade goods

Note there are different rules for how trading works for a good that is ‘needed’ in production as opposed to one that will give a ‘bonus’ if a particular building has access to it.

In effect, ‘bonus’ goods must already exist in the region (or a neighbouring) one to be used. They are not imported specifically to fulfil a bonus but can be imported if another building in the region ‘needs’ it for production.

However, needed and bonus goods interact very differently with the trade model.

If a ‘needed’ good is instead traded from the region (possible due to another faction with higher trade acumen or that a region has particular buildings that give bonuses then it cannot be used locally. In that case the good will be made available to the building but at three times the basic cost.

Bonus goods are treated differently. If a building could benefit from a bonus good, and it is produced locally, then it still gains this benefit even if the good is traded away. So a bonus good could, if somewhat unlikely, benefit both the producing region and a region to which it is traded.

Trading Acumen and Trading Range

The range over which you can acquire goods is influenced mainly by your national characteristics. Thus a mercantile state will be able to secure goods more readily than one that lacks this characteristic as will having roads and commercial ports.

Goods can only be traded over a certain distance (again amended by your national characteristics and buildings such as harbours or roads). You can see this using the ledger or the regional display:

The trading range used is the lowest of the maximum import range (for the importing region) or the maximum export range (for the source region).

You can build certain buildings (mostly these are roads and some types of port-related buildings) that will extend the trading range of a given region.

In addition, you are more likely to trade successfully if the good is in a region you (or your allies) own. Trading will not happen if you are at war with the owner of a region.

Value of Trading

Trade goods will give the seller the price of that particular good. If it is acquired from one of your own regions then only half the cost will be deducted, if it is acquired from an external source, the full cost will be deducted. In either case, the selling state will also receive the value of the trade good.

If a needed good is not available, you will pay three times the notional price to ensure your building can work. In this case, note the good is not available in the region for any other purpose (so it cannot be used to fulfil a bonus production) but the building will function.

Since it is possible to ‘lose’ local production of needed goods due to trade, it is possible that this penalty will apply even when there is local production. Equally if 2 of a given good are needed and only 1 is available (via production or trade) one will cost the normal price and the other at three times the core price.

This can be seen on the trade good tab for either a particular region or the wider province.

Buildings, Trade Goods and Net Income

Buildings interact with trade goods in one of three ways:

• Some buildings will produce goods that can be traded or used by other buildings in the same region.
• If a good is listed as ‘needed’ then it will be in the region or imported (either from your own state or another) or cash will be deducted from your income to compensate (the cost of this will be three times the basic cost of that trade good).

Note that if the cash is deducted, while the building will be able to function the trade good will not actually be available in the region (this matters as other buildings may have been able to use it to generate a ‘bonus’).

• If a good is listed as needed for a ‘bonus’ it will not be imported purely for that reason. However, the good may already be available in the region (or a neighbouring one) due to local production or if another building has a ‘need’ for it.

In effect, to gain some potential bonuses you may need to plan what other buildings you will construct (either to produce or attract the required item) in order to fully benefit. Remember that goods are available in a region if they are present in any of the immediately linked regions if they are for ‘bonus’ production but must be in the region itself for ‘needed’ production.

When planning a building you can check if a required good is available. If the region it will come from is not one of your own it will be coloured to show the current owner.

In consequence, the ‘estimated income’ for a new build will vary according to how you will acquire any required trade good.

If the good is in the region (or a neighbor) then the value shown will be the full income. As you go down the various trade options (trade with yourself = 50% of cost; trade outside your border = 100% of cost; good brought in = 300%), the potential income will drop.