Atavus' Guide to: Diplomacy

[Atavus]

Hello again everyone,

This is the last step in my list of guides. I'm writing this after playing 1936 scenarios in the past weeks, so it is designed specifically for that period, but most ideas are applicable elsewhere as well.

Important things to remember:
- Treaty integrity is lowered every time you attack a country, the amount is affected by your casus beli towards that country
- Treaty integrity is lowered when you annex a country (on top of the previous drop)
- Whenever treaty integrity is lowered, your standing with all countries falls as well
- Treaty integrity rises when you sign formal alliances
- Treaty integrity rises when you are attacked
- Treaty integrity affects your ability to make deals with other countries

Taking this into account what I like to do in 1936 scenarios:
- I play one of the baddies (Germany, Japan etc)
- I don't attack anyone outside scripted events
- I make deals with as many countries as possible (In my recent Japan game, I have all treaties except formal alliance with almost all countries in the world)
- Disassemble most of your military
- Wait for some unfortunate sob to attack you

The key is of course this last point. Since it's 1936, a war will inevitably start and almost invariably if you play one of the key countries you will be declared war upon. Once so, crank up the war machine and kick the fellows ass. Since you probably sold/srapped most of your military, the attacker (if neighbor) may get a bit of a headway. Don't worry, if you followed the instructions in the other two guides, you should be technologically superior and economically prepared for such a conflict.

After you inevitably annex the intruder, you'll probably see some other enraged sucker declare war. So, one by one, eat them while your treaty integrity easily hovers around 80%.

If you are not getting enough wars, it's easiest to make some formal alliances with warring factions so your CB can rise. If your CB is at 100% the treaty integrity hit is low enough to ignore.

Lastly, if you want, remember that you can fight proxy wars in those countries you have a mutual defense and transit agreement. So you can also indirectly shape the global situation. Although, I personally prefer to let my allies die so I can have more of a challenge.

Thoughts?

[Anthropoid]

Wow, playing SRU 1936 like it was SR2020!? What a revelation!?

Might have to try this!

However, I'm not positive about the need to scrap "most" of your military. One can fight defensively very effectively (esp. in instances where the AI must engage in amphibious operations), so keeping the 'right' number of good defensive units in reserve and positioned at the key locations is perhaps wise. Garrisons with arty and a few fighter bombers can buy a lot of time I think.

I became a little bit 'steeped' in the underlying rules in SR2020, but have honestly put less effort into learning it in SRU. So I don't know if it is the same or not. But one factor that led to the AI disliking you having more basis to war deck you in SR2020 was having more military fabrication facilities.

But apart from that, all of what you suggest makes sense in terms of how I understand the game to work!

You might note what difficulty levels you play at, as it does seem to make quite a big difference. I generally play on Hard Milit but Normal (Medium I think it is labelled, but whichever is the default setting when you launch a new game) for everything else. Also there may be 'some' difference in Campaign versus Sandbox.

[Atavus]

I've played Campaign with default settings (Hard military, default elsewhere). I do however prefer scenario with very hard military, default for other settings, no spheres and no bonds, medium volatility.

The AI's decision to attack you seems to be determined by his CB and his deployed military strength compared to yours. So you don't really need to scrap the military.

I usually scrap most of my military because they represent units I don't use (strategic bombers, carriers etc), because they are outdated (1 star units) or because they are inefficient units (high cost, high manpower).

These sort of units end up eating cash and petrol with little effective influence in the war itself.

[Kristijonas]

Thoughts?

Except you did not mention the correlation between military strength (unit count) and chance of having a war declared on you/treaty integrity rating.

Also, this strategy does not sound like it'd work playing as a small country.

[UrhoK]

Great guide. I noticed that support opposition casus belli and treaty integrity are really powerful tools in my current Axis campaign too. I'm playing Germany, and I only used support opposition against Netherlands at first, and when I got 70% casus belli I DOWed and annexed both Netherlands and East Indies, so I had enough resources to play with. I allied with Italy and Japan, and minor Axis countries like Hungary as soon as I could, and when Allies declared war against them, I got free 100% casus belli.

Well, long story short, Allies were seen as aggressors, and I was able to ally with USSR, which also allied with Japan, and they are kicking as* in Asia. USSR even DOW UK before I did Me and Italy took care of the Europe, and I robbed major colonies like Malay States, Algeria and India, and because I had 100% casus belli, I was seen as a liberator who stopped constant Allies aggression ( at least that's how our German history books will tell it ). Then I was free to help Italy to sweep rest of the Africa. I think some South American countries are scripted to DOW Germany even if you have high treaty integrity, so I got Cuba, Brazil and Mexico as colonies for free too, and rest I liberated to red sphere. That was just free treaty integrity.

Game is not over yet, but blue sphere is about South Africa, Canada, Australia and Finland, USA is neutral of course, and pretty much rest is red. I'm not at war against anybody, but rest of the Axis are still fighting against remaining Allies and USA. I'm waiting to see, if my allies understand to use my colonies in Mexico or Newfoundland intelligently when they attack USA or Canada. I think Australia and Filippines are too hard nuts to crack for AI, so I probably have to figure out a way to make a landing there first, before Axis can roll them. I don't want to go war against USA myself, so this could be tricky.

Funny thing is, that even after I annexed UK, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and strategic colonies like Algeria, East Indies, Malay States, and colonized lots of South America and Africa, I still have 93% treaty integrity. Rest of the world and UN loves Germany, and I'm free to ally pretty much anybody in the world. For some reason Denmark is neutral and Finland is in blue sphere, and both are hostile ( maybe they had coups or something that I missed )...but rest of the Europe, South America, Africa and Asia are one big happy red family.

[Anthropoid]

The Axis as the "good guys" . . . well done!

I did not realize those support/opposition things were THAT powerful.

So you just set it to "Support Opposition" on Netherlands, and eventually you had 70% CB against them?

[Aragos]

As the USA, I got really tired in the 36 scenario seeing the UK and/or France (and Poland, and Finland, and Romania) over-run the USSR.

So...I paid them a pile of cash and ended up with an Alliance.

As your units engage other country units, you also gain Casus Belli--and they do against you as well. So that is also another good way to crank up war justification.

[UrhoK]

The Axis as the "good guys" . . . well done!

I did not realize those support/opposition things were THAT powerful.

So you just set it to "Support Opposition" on Netherlands, and eventually you had 70% CB against them?

Yes, you can get up to 70% casus belli by just using support opposition. It takes some time ( like months to a year or something like that ), but you can see how casus belli starts to increase very shortly. I think 70% is the max, or at least I haven't got it any higher than that. Also support government decreases casus belli from both parties. I've had tons of fun with these new features. I could be wrong, but I think devs said in the patch notes that your treaty integrity affects the speed how fast that casus belli moves. Of course it's very expensive to build or remove casus belli against big countries like USA, but against smaller countries it's a great tool.