After I had tried a military approach to win in my first game and failed miserably, I tried a diplomatic approach. I would send out diplomats to sit in all of the nations cities which I had relations to. I completely focused on my economy and only built enough military to smash rogues. That means I got a second monarch to help pump out diplomats while building up my capital.
Note that I had the tutorial still on because I failed it the first game. There is a mission which tells me to make a military alliance with one of my neighbours. I noticed that they accept any offer I make. So I went ahead and put resource exchange on max, 18 years of tribute and the military alliance. Not sure if I made a trade agreement at that point too or later. So this might be an exploit because they are scripted to accept any offer for the sake of the tutorial mission. But it goes on.
After a couple seasons, relations to my neighbours started to brighten up, so I sent another diplomat to their nation to make a military alliance. At that point, some accepted without further questions, others had to recieve some resource exchange. Usually some gold and knowledge would suffice. Nobody ever wanted food.
After I had a military alliance set up, the relation either changed to respectful (if I had to pay) or support (if they had to pay). Then for the next step, sending yet another diplomat to their nation (note, the first diplomats are still sitting in their cities, improving relations all the time). This 3rd diplomat would then offer a trade agreement. In almost all cases, this was considered an offer on my part and they would agree to pay tribute in exchange. Some up to the max of 18 years (yes, its years, not seasons).
So while going around doing trade agreements with one nation after the other, I started to give everyone of my chars the governor ability as well as hiring 4 governors. I then started to dish out merchants and made every city around me have a level 3 trade with me. The 8 seasons of -150 gold per trade route didnt matter because I was already counting gold only by the thousands because of the tribute I got every season. And my capital was very well build with furnace and houses because I didnt need to spend much on military (and therefore on food production too).
One after another, those trade routes started to make a profit. And oh boy did they make a profit. By 1365-1370ish I had so much gold I didnt know how to spend it. Also, knowledge was raking in at a very good rate because of all the trade routes. I got tech 2 by about 1375. At that point, my tech rating in the stats was about twice that of the 2nd nation. While my allied power was through the roof. Nobody ever declared war on me or my military alliance partners.
Then there was one mission which told me to aquire certain lands in order to become King of Sweden. I had already military alliances with everybody owning those lands except one. So I focused on that nation and got allied about 2 years before the deadline. Suddenly, all those nations including their armies where squashed from the map and I owned all their land. At that point I felt like I cheated, saved the game and quit. That was 2 days ago, havent played since but I think I might continue just for the heck of it and to see wether half the country will delcare on me when they realise I now own vast lands without any military to protect it.
First of all, thanks for reading this massive post. I would like to hear feedback on this topic. Have you experienced similar things? Or have you found out that a (proper) military approach can be just as powerful (or even better?). I would like to hear your thoughts.
Also, to any dev who might read this, maybe look at the diplomatic AI scripts. I dont think any nation should agree on 18 years tribute to get a trade agreement no matter how good the relation is. Then again, since this is a singleplayer game, I guess whoever considers this an exploit might just not use it.
PS: I found
this old thread about diplomatic relations which portrayed quite a different picture but thought I'd make a new topic since the last post was over a month old.