The Creative Assembly has been releasing a slew of information for the upcoming Total War: Attila, and have now written a lengthy blog post explaining the game's diplomacy system.
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We've seen trailers and an overview of some in-game features (the latest in fact focusing on the game's map and diplomacy), and the new post gives more in-depth explanation of an important element to the series.
The developers are re-introducing a marriage system in Attila to add a layer of complexity to the diplomacy, allowing you to use family members as bargaining chips and pot-sweeteners.
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"Marriage carries a hefty diplomatic modifier on it, so offering one of your daughters as a sweetener, or indeed as the main event in a diplomatic situation, is a strong incentive for the nation you are treating with. Marriage can be a potent tool in arranging peace after years of long, bitter war (assuming that the daughter you offer is lovely enough, of course) or improve ailing relations with a faction you once called friends or neighbors."
"Whatever personal struggles the newlyweds will encounter in the rest of their - admittedly very likely short - lives together is irrelevant in the face of the happiness it will bring both your nation and theirs (I am a romantic man)."
Diplomacy has been a bit lackluster throughout past Total War games--it's usually fairly useless or practically impossible to establish any meaningful long-term alliances, and interactions with other nations are fairly simple. Making weak or nearly-vanquished nations a client state has its uses, but the other factions mostly serve as either trade partners or enemies. Hopefully, these changes make a difference in how the systems work together.
They're all integrated into the family tree system (outlined in the latest trailer, below), and you can also propose to take on another faction's family member through marriage. Agents have also been reworked--not all of them will be able to undertake any task, and some will be more effective than others. Head over to the blog post for full details, and keep an eye out for more info as Attila's February 17 release date approaches.