Diplomacy happens between factions in the campaign mode. Diplomatic actions include declarations of war and peace, trade agreements, alliances and more. Diplomatic actions are received or can be proposed on the diplomacy screen.
Some diplomatic actions are unilateral, such as a declaration of war or cancellation of an alliance, while others must be agreed on by both parties, such as trade agreements or alliances. A diplomatic offer may be accepted or rejected outright, or a counter-offer may be proposed. Breaking a diplomatic agreement can lead to lower attitude and lower reliability - see below.
Diplomacy screen
Information about the player’s faction is shown on the left panel on the Diplomacy screen. If no second faction has been selected, the central panel shows a list of known factions.
The tooltips on the attitude icons shows detailed information about each faction's standing with the player along with the factors influencing one faction’s view towards another are shown on the tooltip of the attitude icons on the Diplomacy screen.
Additionally, just underneath the AI faction leader's portrait and their strength ranking, their diplomatic traits will be displayed.
Double-click a faction to open negotiations. Once negotiations are started the central panel can be used to construct a diplomatic proposal.
Diplomatic options
- Non-aggression pact: A simple promise not to attack each other.
- Trade pact: An option to generate income for both sides.
- Defensive alliance: Promise to defend each other in case of an attack.
- Military alliance: Promise to assist each other in wars to come.
- Confederation: Permanent unification with the target faction.
- Vassals: Target faction is subjugated by yours.
- Declare War: begin open hostilities with a faction.
- Sue for Peace: End a war.
In some cases you may not be ableto engage in diplomacy with a faction. For instance some factions cannot negotiate with the Warriors of Chaos during the Chaos Invasion.
Additionally, Followers of Nagash cannot negotiate with other Tomb Kings factions and vice versa.
Also, Tomb Kings factions cannot confederate.
Reliability rating
Reliability, also called trustworthiness, is a rating given to factions to indicate how likely they are to break agreements.
A high trustworthiness rating means other factions will be more likely to offer and accept deals/agreements with you. It reflects how trustworthy/reliable you are seen by others, and is separate from attitude (see below) which reflects how much a faction likes another faction. Unlike attitude, which is depenent on the faction, reliability is a global rating. This means all factions will see you as steadfast or untrustworthy etc.
If a faction breaks a diplomatic agreement, especially a recently made one, that faction's reliability rating will decrease.
Reliability ratings from highest to lowest:
- Steadfast
- Dependable
- Trustworthy
- Untrustworthy
- Unreliable
Attitude
In general, you want other factions to like you, as this greatly reduces the chance of them declaring war on you and invading, as well as increased their chance of accepting various pacts/agreements/deals. Each faction has an attitude towards your own, determined by a large number of factors. These include:
- Racial bias, according to the table appended at the end of this section.
- Your behavior: Each faction has its own allies and foes. If you make war, commit hero actions, or otherwise attack an ally, their attitude towards you will reflect that. If you make war on a hated foe, they will like you more.
- Great Power: Factions will condemn you slightly for being too powerful. This is mostly a balancing mechanic.
- Treaties: The more treaties you have with the faction, the more will they like you. Furthermore, you receive a snowballing bonus to diplomatic relationships the longer the treaty is in effect, which makes establishing positive diplomatic relations early paramount to creating a strong power bloc.
- Campaign scripting: Campaigns can also force certain modifiers.
- In the Eye of the Vortex campaign, each ritual you accomplish will grant a bonus to your relations with factions of your own race vying for control of the vortex and a malus to opposite races trying to achieve the same. Eventually, the four main factions will explicitly refuse to even enter negotiations with one another, remaining in a state of permanent war.
- The Old World and Mortal Empires campaigns have a Chaos Invasion. This causes some factions to gain stronger aversion towards certain others. Additionally, certain factions gain the Shield of Civilization trait giving them attitude bonuses towards each other.
| Diplomatic racial biases | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Factions | Beastmen | Bretonnian Kingdoms | Warriors of Chaos | Dark Elves | Dwarf Realms | Empire Provinces | Greenskin Tribes | High Elves | Kislev | Lizardmen | Norscan Tribes | Skaven | Southern Realms | Vampire Counts | Wood Elves | Vampire Coast |
| Beastmen | 0 | -60 | 0 | -10 | -60 | -60 | -40 | -40 | -60 | -40 | 0 | -10 | -40 | -30 | -100 | |
| Bretonnia | -60 | +10 | -60 | -40 | 0 | 0 | -40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -40 | -40 | 0 | -15 | -10 | |
| Chaos | 0 | -60 | 0 | 0 | -60 | -60 | -40 | -60 | -60 | -60 | 0 | 0 | -40 | -30 | -60 | |
| Dark Elves | -10 | -40 | 0 | -10 | -40 | -40 | -10 | -60 | -40 | -40 | -30 | 0 | -40 | -30 | -40 | |
| Dwarfs | -60 | 0 | -60 | -40 | 0 | 0 | -60 | -10 | 0 | 0 | -40 | -40 | 0 | -40 | -10 | |
| Empire | -60 | 0 | -60 | -40 | 0 | 0 | -40 | +10 | 0 | 0 | -40 | -40 | 0 | -15 | -10 | |
| Greenskins | -40 | -40 | -40 | -10 | -60 | -40 | 0 | -60 | -40 | -40 | -30 | -30 | -40 | -30 | -40 | |
| High Elves | -40 | 0 | -60 | -60 | -10 | +10 | -60 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -40 | -40 | 0 | -30 | -10 | |
| Kislev | -60 | 0 | -60 | -40 | 0 | 0 | -40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -40 | -40 | 0 | -40 | -10 | |
| Lizardmen | -40 | 0 | -60 | -40 | 0 | 0 | -40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -30 | -60 | 0 | -40 | 0 | |
| Norsca | 0 | -60 | 0 | -30 | -40 | -40 | -30 | -40 | -40 | -30 | 0 | -10 | -40 | -40 | -60 | |
| Skaven | -10 | -40 | 0 | 0 | -40 | -40 | -30 | -40 | -40 | -60 | -10 | 0 | -40 | -30 | -40 | |
| Southern Realms | -40 | 0 | -40 | -40 | 0 | 0 | -40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -40 | -40 | 0 | -30 | -10 | |
| Vampire Counts | -30 | -15 | -30 | -30 | -40 | -15 | -30 | -30 | -40 | -40 | -30 | -30 | -30 | 0 | -30 | |
| Wood Elves | -100 | -10 | -60 | -40 | -10 | -10 | -40 | 0 | -10 | 0 | -60 | -40 | -10 | -30 | 0 | |
| Vampire Coast | -20 | |||||||||||||||
|