The Sims Medieval: Edicts & Foreign Relations

How to Keep Your Alliances with Foreign Territories in the Game

Many players have been confused by The Sims Medieval's Edicts system. In this Guide, I'll teach you about Foreign Relations in the game and how you can keep those annexed countries providing their bonuses until you've completed your Kingdom's Ambition.

Patrol Roads and Seaways
Passing Edicts is great, but I want to touch on this first as I feel it's the better of the two options available to keep countries Loyal to you. The Monarch, Knight, and Spy can all perform the following actions. The loyalty of a friendly nation will drop faster while any of these three heroes is in the game, so you're expected to use them to improve relations:

'Patrol Seaway to..' or Sail to Foreign Land - Ticktop, Advorton, Gastrobury
'Patrol Road to..' by Forest - Tredony, Burdley, Yacothia, Snordwich
'Patrol Road to..' by Village Shoppe - Crafthole, Aarbyville

Select one of those actions, and off the Hero will go on a patrol. Random events occur while doing this, and the Hero will earn some XP. But more importantly, the friends bar will move a little to the right. Note that before this can happen for a particular nation, you must have completed their related Annex Quest. Click that link to have a look at the various foreign nations, their benefits, and the quest you'll need to complete in order to get their bonus and conduct trade.

Passing Edicts as the Monarch

The Sims Medieval has a somewhat complex Edicts system that can confuse new players. I hope to demystify the system and help you to learn to pass your own edicts. First, you'll begin by selecting Propose Edict at the Tactical Map in the Throne Room.

An Edict screen will appear, and you'll have a pair of options to choose from. The nations that appear here are those you have allied with. The selection of Edicts is random. Sometimes it will raise loyalty with one nation while lowering it with another. You can re-roll these when you select Propose Extra Edict after your first one of the day, but the first selection will remain fixed and you'll have to pick one or the other.

Clicking the Tactical Map after selecting one, you'll be presented with several options. This is where it gets murky, so let me explain them all.

Monitor Edict Support: This will show you how the votes are expected to go. If the majority is on your side, you can simply Call for Vote and vote on your own edict, and it'll most likely pass. However, you can manipulate the votes of others. Note that a level 10 Monarch's vote counts twice.

If you only need to pass an edict to satisfy a Monarch's Daily Responsibility, just monitor them and select the Edict that has the most support when it comes time to vote. The goal for the responsibility is not 'Pass your Edict' but Pass an Edict.

View All Proposed Edicts: This will show you a box with the three available edicts. Yours is always the one on the far left. They appear in the same order as the Monitor Edict Support screen displays. Clicking an Edict will allow you to either Add a Benefit to a Territory or Add a Tax to a Territory.

Note that you'll need to pause the game while queueing up the Edict commands. You must close the box for the Monarch to begin making the modifications. There's no sense wasting time. You can usually only get 4 modifications in before the Call for Vote is given.

Add a Benefit to a Territory: This will cost you $50 and allow you to maybe get a leader's support on your edict. If the Build Master is voting for Edict #3, and you want him on the first one, he'll be more likely to vote your way if you give that edict an incentive that benefits the Builder's Guild. It's generally hard to get a leader to sway from an Edict that wholly benefits their territory, or vote on an Edict that harms relations with their territory. Focus on the other leaders who can be swayed. All the countries' leaders are labeled but less ambiguous are the Build Master representing the Builder's Guild while the Advisor represents the Village.

Add a Tax to a Territory: If another Edict has a lot of support, you can add a tax to other nations to sway them from voting for it -- but only if it looks like they'll vote that way. Look at the monitor edict support panel, and if the leader of Tredony is voting for an edict that benefits the Builder's Guild, laying a tax on Tredony to the Builder's Guild Edict will make him change his mind on voting for it. Taxing nations costs Loyalty with the nation being taxed.

So, you'll add benefits to your edict to get other Leaders to sway their vote toward it, and you can guarantee this by placing a Tax on their country if they vote for the Edict they were originally interested in. After the first edict of the day has been passed, you can Propose an Extra Edict, but that will lower the loyalty of all nations by a little bit. It's generally not worth it. That's why I recommend Patrolling as the means of maintaining your Annexed countries' relationships.