Era of Conquest — Diplomacy Guide

Opinion, treaties, betrayal, and the coalition that forms against whoever is winning · Operator: Chenyjunny

Diplomacy is not decoration in Era of Conquest — it is the rule that decides who is even allowed to attack you. You cannot attack another nation unless you are at war with it, so every treaty you sign physically removes a border from the map. On the harder scenarios, where you start hemmed in by neighbours your own size, this is the whole early game.

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The four relations

Peace — the default between any two nations. Nobody may attack, but nothing stops a declaration of war either.
Non-aggression pact — neither side attacks, and the AI drops you from its target list. No obligation to fight for each other.
Mutual defence treaty — everything a pact gives, plus your treaty partners are dragged into war on your side when someone declares on you.
War — the only state in which attacks between two nations are legal.

Neutral grey land sits outside all of this. You can take it any time, from anybody, without declaring anything.

Opinion — the number behind every decision

Every pair of nations has an opinion score from −100 to +100, starting at 0. The AI uses it to decide whether to accept your proposals, whether to attack you, and whether to keep the treaties it already signed.

What moves it

−40 you declare war on them
−30 extra, on top of the above, if you were under a treaty when you attacked — this is betrayal
−12 to everyone watching a betrayal: the victim's allies and your own other treaty partners all trust you less
−15 you tear up a pact in peacetime
+12 signing a non-aggression pact
+20 signing a mutual defence treaty
+10 making peace to end a war
+10 per gift sent, at 8 gold each
+3 per turn while you and they are at war with the same nation — the enemy of my enemy
+1 per turn drifting back toward 0

That last line is the important one. Goodwill decays back to neutral at only 1 per turn, so a −70 betrayal takes seventy turns to forget. Diplomacy in this game has a long memory, and the reputation you build in the first twenty turns follows you into the endgame.

The thresholds you need to hit

Opinion 0 or above — they will accept a non-aggression pact.
Opinion 30 or above — they will accept a mutual defence treaty. You have to build to this; there are no free alliances.
Opinion 15 or above — the AI stops considering you a target and starts proposing pacts to you instead.
Opinion −20 or below — trust collapses and they tear up whatever treaty you had.

Gifts cost 8 gold for +10 opinion, which means you can simply buy your way to a pact from a standing start for about 8 gold, or to a defence treaty for roughly 24. When a border is about to open at a bad moment, that is frequently the cheapest military spending in the game.

The world reacts to whoever is winning

The AI does not evaluate you in isolation — it watches the scoreboard.

Fear of the leader. Once the largest power is 1.5 times the size of another nation, that nation starts fearing it and its opinion of the leader falls every turn, faster the wider the gap.
Coalitions. When fear of a leader drives opinion below −25, nations will declare war on it — even alone, even when they will probably lose. If you are the runaway leader, this is coming for you.
Rivalry at the top. The leader in turn sours on whoever is second, dropping their opinion each turn out of fear of being overtaken.

The strategic consequence is that being obviously first is expensive. There is a real argument for staying a comfortable second while the leader absorbs everyone's hostility — which is exactly what the "runner-up" delegation stance is built to do. See the delegation guide.

Instigating a war — 14 gold

You can pay 14 gold to push another nation into declaring war on a third party. The target has to be someone they could plausibly attack, and you can never point them at your own ally.

This is the best gold-for-effect purchase in the game when it works. It does not cost you a single soldier, it does not damage your reputation with the victim, and it ties up an enemy on a front that is not yours. Its best use is on a stalemate: when you and a neighbour are dug in and neither can break through, opening a second front on their far side is how the deadlock ends.

Practical diplomacy

Secure the rear before you commit. A pact on your quiet border is worth more than the troops you would have to leave there.
Do not betray cheaply. Attacking through a treaty costs you 70 opinion with the victim plus 12 with every onlooker, and it takes most of a match to repair. Break the pact first and eat the −15 if you must.
Buy pacts before you need them. Gifts are cheap in the early game when you have nothing to spend gold on, and the opinion is still there twenty turns later.
Watch the size ratio, not the borders. The moment you cross 1.5 times a neighbour's size, they begin turning on you whether or not you have done anything to them.
Make peace when a war stops paying. Ending a war is +10 opinion and frees the whole front, and there is nothing stopping you from declaring again later.

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