Alliance Impossible?

[merrick]

As far as I can work out, to auto-ally your vassals you need to be able to trace a route from your capital to theirs. The route can cross the sea, but not other countries (even your other vassals) and detached provinces don't count - it has to be capital to capital.

For example, as Austria I could ally with both vassal-Wuttemberg (border) and vassal-Pommerania (both of us have sea access), but not vassal-Palatinate, even though Pfalz had a border with a detached province of mine in Mainz.

Not sure how the "sea-route" works if the two countries are on different continents, though.

 

[Nerva]

WOW!!! I would NEVER have guessed that... but now that I check the map, you're right. The two vassals I couldn't get to ally with were Mantua and Avignon, and both of them are landlocked with no traceable route to my capital.

I've also noticed that those non-alliable countries also don't tend to go along with some other offers I make them. An "isolated" vassal does not take orders the way a connected one does.

So what this means is, to have good control of your network of vassals (particularly if you're playing as a German country in the patchwork that is the HRE), you need to think through carefully, in advance, how you're going to ensure you have contiguous connections to all your landlocked vassals, as well as having a connection to a coastal province so you can connect with overseas vassals.

The good news is, this means a country like England can easily vassalize coastal countries around the world with little concern about controlling them.

 

[yungkrud]

I'm playing the Papal States and I have 200 relation with a countries and they don't have more than 3 alliances and they still say Impossible to get an allience

 

[Kerham]

For vassals, there's also the problem that the alliance is a route to diplo-annex. You'd better first ally them, only afterwards raise the relation to 200.

 

[brifbates]

I'm playing the Papal States and I have 200 relation with a countries and they don't have more than 3 alliances and they still say Impossible to get an allience

The ai will generally not ally with anyone that has 3 non-vassal allies. (extremely high dip can)-this seems the most likely cause of your difficulty

The ai will generally not ally with anyone else if they (the ai) have 3 non-vassal allies (extremely high dip can)

The ai will generally not ally with a nation that is currently at war or if they are at war (there are some exceptions including extremely high dip)-possible cause for your problem

The ai will generally not ally with a nation that is weaker than it-possible cause for your problem

The ai will generally not ally with a "fierce rival"

The ai will absolutely never ally with a nation they have < 0 relations with

If you have a terrible diplomacy rating, high infamy, low prestige, etc the ai is much less likely to ally with you

I've also noticed that the ai tends to dislike merchant republics in terms of forming alliances. There may be some similar factor going on with theocracies/papacy

(note: allies gained by forcing their release will exceed the normal caps but are counted against you by the ai)

 

[billclintonmask]

What upsets me about this, is when it's impossible to ally someone, so you keep relations high and they then ally you! Like in my Germany game, I had a Rurikovich on my throne and tried to ally Russia several times. To no avail. After all this, they send me an alliance request. But I lost it quickly due to several infamy wars.

 

[brifbates]

What upsets me about this, is when it's impossible to ally someone, so you keep relations high and they then ally you! Like in my Germany game, I had a Rurikovich on my throne and tried to ally Russia several times. To no avail. After all this, they send me an alliance request. But I lost it quickly due to several infamy wars.

They most likely lost an ally for some reason and so came to you due to the RM, high relations, and the fact that you had an available slot (or, if you were the one with too many you lost one). The ai wants to have 3 allies all the time no matter how silly the alliances seem. If they don't have 3 allies they will go looking for more, if you have an open slot and positive relations they may well come calling, particularly if no one close to them is eligible.