Improving Relations

[ToyStorieGirl]

Hi everyone,

I've been struggling to improve my relations with England in my current scenario (A New War?). I'm currently 9 years in, and still waiting for relations to change from neutral. I declared peace with them and prohibited English victims some 8-9 years ago, and about 3-4 years ago, I freed all English captives. I even tried building a Smuggler's Cove and opening port to England only.

However, relations are still merely neutral! This has become extremely frustrating - I didn't have a problem in the past, and I've read some other posts about it here, but perhaps I'm forgetting something.

There's only 3 years left in the scenario, and this is the last thing I've been trying to achieve for ages (the other goals are hoard & fleet of frigates, long since completed). Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Clever duck]

  Based on my experiments with relations,  freeing all english (or any other nation but I'll write english) captives depends on the total ransom value of those captives.  Freeing non-ransomable (standard workers) captives does improve relations a little.  It hasn't taken them more than 1 or 2 months for relations to react.

  Kidnapping skilled captives then releasing then releasing the english ones is a good wheeze.

  Wealthy captives of a nation still get captured from foreign ships,  you can increase their ransoms a little before releasing them...I believe that there must be no captives at all (includes wealthy) on the island before a nation agrees to be a patron even with harmonious relations.

  Betraying all pirates of a nation is my favourite - press-gang captives of that nation then betray them,  repeat until desired relations reached.  Very useful when you have too many pirates,  but make sure captains of that nation are at sea otherwise they get betrayed too.  I don't know what the nation does with them,  but their corpses appear in the graveyard...

  Also,  neutral seems to be a wide band and can quickly move to harmonious with only a few friendly actions.

[s_stabeler]

simple that one- they hang the pirayes and send the bodies to you.