Getting a Major Power to like you...or even not to hate you.

[Grand_Armee]

I enjoy playing Prussia, but I can never get France's attitude toward me to improve. I've sent diplomats set at both CHARM and GOODWILL deep into France, and all about her borders. Still, I have that big yelling red face to look at during diplomacy checks.

I've allowed them to cross my country...still no change.

I subsidized them for 5 months in a row with the maximum amount and still no change.

I've never turned them down when they wanted a trade.

I set my Diplomatic policy towards them at non-agressive...just got rid of the aggressive "X".

Why all of this boot licking? Well, my Prussian people need wine...so my advisor says. Though, I believe all good Germans should be happy with domestic beer stocks. I usually seem to drink the continent (except for France) dry after 6 months of game time. The only time I can get French wine is when they are either starving, or broke...or on the rarer occasion when they want horses.

On the plus side...diplomatically, I've pulled off a coup in Saxony (which had the negative affect of removing the Saxon Corps and all of it's units, including the city garrison from the map...WON'T do that again when a useful army is there!)

and got numerous countries as protectorates from far and near....like Finland, Ekaterinoslav, and Algeria. Not that any of them has done me much good since ongoing wars with Turkey and Britain keep the Prussian navy safely inside the harbor.

EVen got declared Empire...until a MFC/Plato error during a detailed battle ended that game.

A question: If you take Bavaria from france, do you still get the Bavarian army?

[marirosa]

That face you telling, is Prussia towards France or France towards Prussia? I have noticed the horizontal bar is what your nation feel about the other (and that to me doesn't matter).

The important one is the vertical one, that measures how they see you. With charm, goodwill and bashing theirs enemies when in war (even not allied with them) i managed to have a yellow smiling face for all countries except France (ok, now France is 4 provinces long, they have no fleet, no colonies and were forced to disolve her empire, so they are mad at everyone else).

About Bavaria. When all the bavarian provinces get the conquered status, the army is destroyed. If you manage to free a part before that, the remaining army will be yours, but onceall the provinces are conquered (by same or diferent nations) the army vanished.

No more army after that, you can recruit troops there, with the bavarian flag, but will be your units, not bavarian units. If you lose the provinces, the units will remain under your control.

If later someone create the Kingdom of Bavaria, such kingdom will create their own units every april but i don't think they will build any corp or army, just inf, cav and with some luck art, so the owner can attach them to any corp/army of their own.

[Hard Sarge]

I subsidized them for 5 months in a row with the maximum amount and still no change.

you know you can go higher then the amount in the box ?

you just keep on clicking on it and a new box will open and you can pay more

HARD_Sarge

[Naomi]

ORIGINAL: Grand_Armee

I enjoy playing Prussia, but I can never get France's attitude toward me to improve. I've sent diplomats set at both CHARM and GOODWILL deep into France, and all about her borders. Still, I have that big yelling red face to look at during diplomacy checks.

I've allowed them to cross my country...still no change.

I subsidized them for 5 months in a row with the maximum amount and still no change.

I've never turned them down when they wanted a trade.

I set my Diplomatic policy towards them at non-agressive...just got rid of the aggressive "X".

Why all of this boot licking? Well, my Prussian people need wine...so my advisor says. Though, I believe all good Germans should be happy with domestic beer stocks. I usually seem to drink the continent (except for France) dry after 6 months of game time. The only time I can get French wine is when they are either starving, or broke...or on the rarer occasion when they want horses.

On the plus side...diplomatically, I've pulled off a coup in Saxony (which had the negative affect of removing the Saxon Corps and all of it's units, including the city garrison from the map...WON'T do that again when a useful army is there!)

and got numerous countries as protectorates from far and near....like Finland, Ekaterinoslav, and Algeria. Not that any of them has done me much good since ongoing wars with Turkey and Britain keep the Prussian navy safely inside the harbor.

EVen got declared Empire...until a MFC/Plato error during a detailed battle ended that game.

A question: If you take Bavaria from france, do you still get the Bavarian army?

I did take Batavia from France, no Dutch land force in being any more. Though the Dutch fleet refused to retire but resided in "my" port.

[Grand_Armee]

I know that the vertical bar is the one I'm looking at...for their attitudes toward me. I have placid blue faces looking at everyone else...even France. Perhaps there is just too much ingrained Franco-German hatred? I won't be giving them any more money...I just wanted to see if it'd work.

I've turned the Brits who didn't care for me into Prussophiles by declaring war on France, and Russian and Austrian attitudes seem never to vary far from not liking Prussia much. I'll eventually give the earlier scenarios a go and see what happens. Still, I'd like to keep my people drunk and happy and it's hard to do when only one province makes wine...and not that much of it to boot.

[Ralegh]

Ways that seem to work for me to improve relations:

a) Make some sort of treaty with them - thats why you often get offered recipricol access agreements by AI countries that dont really have any need to walk through your territory. Agreements with a time span seem to be best. Lend them a little money, or borrow some - over 12 months. I think you get a little relationship boost every month there is an active treaty. (So just a one off sort of thing doesn't do much.) Pay them more than it is really worth just to get the darn treaty. If you need an idea, try selling them you putting an embargo on one of their enemies (who you dont want to trade with anyway) for a couple of years in return for 1 gold to be paid off over 12 months.

b) Establish trade routes - even with something you don't want at too much of a price. Again, I think every month they are trading with you you get a little relationship improvement.

I don't know if more of these (multiple treaties or multiple trade routes) gets you more relationship improvement than 1 - try it and let us know.

c) Stop being at war with their allies probably helps, but I am not sure.

d) Declaring war on their enemies always helps.

e) Don't violate their territory.