Diplomacy and alliances

Contacting

You always automatically get diplomatic contacts with all empires that border one of your fields. You also get contact if your ship visits their land, their ship visits your land, or your ship meets their ship. Diplomatic contacts remain till the end of the game, even if empires don’t border each other any more by changing the owner. If you form an alliance with another player or enter an pre-existing alliance, all players get the diplomatic contacts of all other members.

Contracts

Contracts are formed between individual players or alliances. An alliance is treated like a single player with respect to diplomacy. Within an alliance, only the liege lord can sign diplomatic contracts.

The basic diplomatic stance to other realms is neutrality. Under "diplomacy" in the left hand menu players may offer a diplomatic contract to their contacts, for example a non-aggression pact. Such contracts are signed when the other player accepts that offer. Exceptions are declarations of war, which can be declared by just one side. All contracts may be cancelled by any contract-partner. If both parties agree to the cancellation of the contract, it takes place immediately. However, wars can only be cancelled by the original aggressor.

The following diplomatic contracts are available:

Peace

Peace is the basic requirement for trade agreements and research co-operations. Espionage is not possible between players who are at peace. The cancellation of a peace treaty takes 96 turns if declared by just one party.

Non-aggression pact

Changing the diplomatic stance to "neutral" or a declaration of war take 48 turns to become effective. Espionage is possible.

Neutral

This is the basic diplomatic stance. Declarations of war take 8 turns.

War

Hostile realms can be attacked after you declared war to the respective player. An attack is possible starting with the first tick when the war becomes active; this means that army orders for attacking in this tick can be placed in advance in the tick before. War can not be declared against players under noob-protection.

Depending on the diplomatic stance at time of the declaration, a declaration of war takes 8, 48 or 96 turns. If a player, who canceled a peace or non-aggression treaty, declares war, the time until the war becomes active is the number of the remaining ticks for ending the previous treaty + 8 ticks. If both parties want the war, the declaration takes just 8 turns.

War Duration and Honor

Before declaring war, players should consider the possible gain or loss of honour. Declarations of war with 8 turns or less left before becoming active can not be retracted.
More about honour can be found here.

• Cancel war: Aggressors can cancel wars; this takes 50 turns. The diplomatic stance is autoamtically set to neutral after cancellation of a war.
  Only the player who has declared first the war can cancel this war. Even if the war opponent has returned the war declaration, he cannot cancel the war by himself. If a player has at the same time aggressor's wars against several members of an alliance, he must cancel all these wars simultaneously! He can not cancel only a single war.
  It is not possible to withdraw "Cancelling war".
• Trade agreement: A trade agreement between two realms gives both parties a bonus on the income of gold, ore, logs, stone, coal and grain. The smaller partner of a trade agreement has a higher profit compared to the larger partner. Players can have as many agreements as they want. However, trade agreements with players not belonging to the own alliance can create a maximum of 13 % bonus. In addition there is a 4 per cent bonus increase for every alliance member (irrespective to their size). That way one can reach a bonus maximum of 25 % having a full alliance and an honour level of 1000.
• Research collaboration: Similar to the trade agreement, both partners of a research collaboration increae their output of research points. Here too, the maximum research bonus is 25 % (at an honour level of 1000): 13 % given by players not belonging to the own alliance and 4 % through each member of your alliance.
• Becoming a vassal: A vassal serves his liege. Vassals automatically have a military collaboration, a trade agreement and a research collaboration with their liege and other vassals of that liege (4 % through each member). The seccession of an vassal from an alliance takes 100 turns; afterwards, the diplomatic stance to all members of the former alliance is neutrality.
• Becoming a liege: A liege can have up to three vassals in his alliance.

Noob protection

To allow beginners and restarted some time for orientation and strengthening their realm, they are given "diplomatic protection" fo some time. These players are marked in green under "diplomacy", can not declare war and can not receive declarations of war. Furthermore they cannot become victims of espionage actions and cannot perform espionage actions. This protection ceases with a score of 60,000 at the beginning of the age. Every 50 turns this limit is increased by 6,000 points for newly starting players.

Alliances

Alliance are formed by players accepting up to three other players as vassals by diplomatic means, effectively becoming their liege. This requires some form of diplomatic contact, either by bordering lands or visiting ships. When an alliance is formed, or a new member joins an alliance, the honor costs of ongoing wars are recalculated. Lieges can demand tribute from every one of their vassals who is of lower titel. The tribute can be at most double as high as the difference in titels. For example, a liege that is 2 titels higher than the vassals may ask for up to 4% tribute. The adjusted height of the tribute is not adapted automatically, if the order of rank between liege and vasall changes. Vassals have no way to reject the demand for tribute, except for seceding from the alliance. A good liege, however, is more interested in helping his vassals with word and deed than to burden them with tribute. With foundation of an alliance an alliance depot is provided, which is located in the stock.

Besides the collaboration in trade and research, allies also have a military collaboration. This means:

• Armies can cross fields from allies similar to owned lands.
• Armies can defend the lands of allies and attack joined with allied forces. However, all attacking forces have to be at war with the attacked player when attacking his land. Joined espionage and ship combats at sea are similarly possible.
• Armies, ships, and spies can facilitate allied buildings (castles, harbours, thieves' guilds) for rest, repairs, embarking, and further training, respectively.
• However, armies can only be loaded on ships of the armies' owner.

If the alliance leader is defeated or deleted from the game due to inactivity, the alliance is not disbanded. Instead, the alliance member with the highest score becomes the new leader of the alliance. This does not change any ongoing diplomatic actions.

Players in alliances should be aware of the following:

• If players of an alliance attack together, the owner of the field from which the attack has taken place gets the field. If the attack from different fields took place, it is decided by chance.
• If a player conquers a field with his armies attacking from an allies' area, he will be the owner of the conquered fiels. This means that a player may have a realm containing islands of area withing another players realm. However, the owner of the field from which the attack is launched must be at war with the owner of the attacked field, independent of the attacking armies' owner. If this is not the case, the attacking army will not move and not attack.
• Allied armies are shattered when they are placed on a field owned by an ally and that ally is defeated. They return to the closest castle within a few rounds. This applies also to allies that are deleted due to inactivity or that leave the alliance. An army assisting in the defence of an allied castle fights until the last unit, and therefore the army, is destroyed. The owner of the ally receives the respective combat reports.
• The situation of allied ships in an harbour is similar. If a harbour is torn down or destroyed due to conquering or deletion of the player because of inaktivity, the ships are placed on a water field next to the former harbour. However, if the harbour itself is conquered, then all ships are destroyed.