A Very Strange Diplomacy ...

[allan_boa]

Well, this is bizarre: I'm playing Piemont-Sardaigna and we are still in 1851 (yes, i know, I'm not that fast ;-0 )

My diplomacy rating with France is quite good: +57 and we do have a valid defense treaty.

I offered a commercial treaty to my good-old-French friends and it was ... refused. This is the first surprise. Why on earth did they refuse ?
Reason they say is that my army is huge and is a menace for the world. Huh ?

And then, surprise surprise ... relationship rating escalate to +60 ! It should have been a regression as they rejected the treaty and I'm upset.

Huh ? Allo ?

If on the top of that I precise that my army is a real pity so their reason is pure BS. Then you understand why the title of the post.

Any other comments apart that AI is severely bugged which I'm keen to believe ?

[loki100]

Its WAD - till you get the relations close to 100 there is a chance of being knocked back .. in a way you are lucky to have arranged the defensive alliance so early, usually you need a commercial agreement first.

Use the 'offer support', make sure you buy from them, and you'll see the indicator rising, and sooner or later they will give you the commercial agreement (if I recall, if you wait, one will be given as part of the Latin Commercial union which fires in the mid 1850s).

I tend not to believe the official reasons to be honest, but S-P is militarily quite strong at the game start (you have a professional standing army). I think the message is made up of random sampling from a range of statements ... you'll see 5 or so different ones as the game goes on. The only one that really matters is if you are told they have refused as you have bad relations with one of their allies ... this is not going to change easily and its best to then stop wasting diplomats.