Noob remarks and questions

[gotrek]

Hey I have played or own pretty much all AGEOD games and I must say I like PON although my favourite still is AACW.

I am playing seriously (as in not stopping after one year) France and I'm in 1857, I so far have colonized all of historical Indochina and the Maghreb(colonies Marocco Protectorate) and Madagascar (protectorate), I'm heavilly present in Western Africa and have been at war with 0 european nations.
The crimean war has been and gone ( think since I saw turkish events) and I didn't take part.
My questions are: Why are my diplomatic relations so bad with almost everyone? I send state visits but they rarely are accepted.
Why is my prestige indicator in the red? I generate7 PP from colonies to the brits'8 but they have double my prestige.
I discovered the Suez Canal but haven't noticed anything happening.

Should all this be happening by 1857? I mean my colonial empire is huge compared to what it should be historically at that time.

I use increased pool for manufactures, farms etc, but left everything else on basic settings.

[loki100]

some ideas

build up relations by (a) trade (ie set out to buy their stuff); (b) set low tariffs; (c) promise local support. All these cannot be 'refused' so form a good basis, once you are over 25 try for commercial agreements and state visits, it comes together but the first 3 are important to build the basis. Remember that around 1858 S-P will offer you a defensive alliance - by script

The UK gets prestige from more than its colonies, it starts out hugely ahead, as long as you are slowing gaining on their total score you're doing ok.

Suez canal, check out the conditions, do you have a card in the decisions screen you can play? There is a Suez tech that anyone can get and a 'build the canal' option that is specifically French (as far as I understand)

extended manufactures may not be a good idea - one advantage of the limits set is it helps stop vast overproduction

[gotrek]

Thanks for the tips, I'm getting on it right away.

[Jim-NC]

My questions are: Why are my diplomatic relations so bad with almost everyone? I send state visits but they rarely are accepted.
Why is my prestige indicator in the red? I generate7 PP from colonies to the brits'8 but they have double my prestige.

Red means you have not reached many of your goals yet. You will see the prestige-meter move to green the longer you play the game.

As Loki100 says, Diplomatic relations improve the more you buy from a nation/sell to it, or you can offer local support. When you buy anything from a nation or sell to it, they have a chance to improve (the more you buy/sell, the better for your relations). But you must buy and sell to increase. Your relations go down from high tariffs (there is a die roll against your current tariff level, and if below, then your relations with everyone suffer). Keep your tariffs below 1/3 of your limit to limit the damage. From what I have noticed, the AI only accepts about 20-33% of state visits (the higher your relations, the higher the % chance for them to accept, but no guarantee).

Work at it, and your relations will improve.

[Albert Herring]

Also as France in the late 1850s, the meter remains resolutely red even though I am neck and neck with GB for prestige (absolute PP, percentage is about 33% against GB's 25%) with colonies declared in West Africa (Senegal, Guinea, Mali), Hanoi and Saigon, New Caledonia, Reunion and Comoros, protectorates in Madagascar, Hue, Gabon and probably some places I've forgotten about, holding all my objectives set so far bar 2 (Tamanrasset, not yet discovered, and Luxembourg, which is kinda trickier). I'd be well ahead of GB if it weren't for their collecting hatfuls of PP from crises (I haven't figured out how to do those yet). So I'm not taking the meter that seriously.