Diplomacy

Secondary Skills
Air Magic
Archery
Armorer
Artillery
Ballistics
Diplomacy
Eagle Eye
Earth Magic
Estates
Fire Magic
First Aid
Intelligence
Interference
Leadership
Learning
Logistics
Luck
Mysticism
Navigation
Necromancy
Offense
Pathfinding
Resistance
Scholar
Scouting
Sorcery
Tactics
Water Magic
Wisdom

Diplomacy
	Basic Diplomacy: allows you to negotiate with monsters who are weaker than your group, and reduces the cost of surrendering by 20%.
	Advanced Diplomacy: allows you to negotiate with monsters who are weaker than your group, and reduces the cost of surrendering by 40%.
	Expert Diplomacy: allows you to negotiate with monsters who are weaker than your group, and reduces the cost of surrendering by 60%.

In addition to its listed bonuses, Diplomacy allows heroes to visit Libraries of Enlightenment earlier than usual:

• No Diplomacy:  Level 10
•  Basic Diplomacy:  Level 8
•  Advanced Diplomacy:  Level 6
•  Expert Diplomacy:  Level 4

Heroes with Diplomacy as a starting skill:

•   Adela the Cleric
•   Ryland the Ranger
•   Cyra the Wizard

Heroes with Diplomacy as a specialty and a starting skill (5% bonus per level to the skill):

•   Melchior the Mercenary  (specialty only applies to surrendering)

Related factors:

• Diplomat's Cloak : Multiplies your hero army strength by 3 (for neutral armies and Thieves' Guild) (in addition to its other effects)

Basis of joining

Whether or not the wandering creatures will join you for "greater glory" or at price, depends not only on a hero's level of Diplomacy, but also on several other factors (e.g. Relative army strengths, whether the creature is already present in the army). For in-depth breakdown, see wandering creatures and also External links below. A gross oversimplification of the mechanic is wandering creatures are 10% more likely to join per level of diplomacy that the hero has.

When playing at easy difficulty, heroes receive a diplomacy bonus even when they have not learned the skill. No Diplomacy acts as basic Diplomacy, basic Diplomacy acts as advanced Diplomacy, while advanced and expert diplomacy act as expert Diplomacy for the purpose of joining.

Horn of the Abyss

On all standard random map templates, monsters now only join for gold, and only half the group for the price of the entire group; these settings can be altered in the map and template editors. Monsters that appear on a special month can still join as normal.

Chance to get

Out of total 112 for The Shadow of Death, and of (112 + Interference chance) for Horn of the Abyss .
Banned skills change the probability.

Town	Class	Chance to learn
Castle	Knight	4
Castle	Cleric	7 (highest)
Rampart	Ranger	4
Rampart	Druid	4
Tower	Alchemist	3
Tower	Wizard	4
Inferno	Demoniac	4
Inferno	Heretic	3
Necropolis	Death Knight	2
Necropolis	Necromancer	4
Dungeon	Overlord	3
Dungeon	Warlock	4
Stronghold	Barbarian	1 (lowest)
Stronghold	Battle Mage	3
Fortress	Beastmaster	1 (lowest)
Fortress	Witch	2
Conflux	Planeswalker	2
Conflux	Elementalist	4
Cove	Captain	5
Cove	Navigator	2
Factory	Mercenary	7 (highest)
Factory	Artificer	3

User Commentary

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For early development, Diplomacy really rocks. It is a good idea to bring almost all troops to the army of a hero with Diplomacy, so that his/her army is stronger at the moment of potential units' joining, thus increasing the possibility to join. However, keep in mind there should be a free slot, or the hero has same units as those on the map (basic and upgraded units are the different, e.g. you cannot unite Swordsmen with Crusaders outside a Castle with the upgraded 4 level dwelling!) Otherwise, the hero will have to dismiss some of his/her units. Summoning units from the home faction is especially advantageous, as they won't spoil morale and will become an integral part of your army.

Morale negative bonus for 3+ factions and for having undead in the army is "the other side of the medal", however, the "diplomat" can share the newcoming troops with fellow heroes (e.g. if you play for Castle, one of your heroes will use a Rampart stack, the other one gets a Tower stack, etc.). Even more useful will be putting troops summoned via Diplomacy into town garrisons, as Tavern is increasing morale and usually present in towns. Moreover, getting someone strong but without enough speed will slow your hero down when moving on the map, so that unit will be more useful for defending a town. Having a hero with Leadership is a nice thing, as that hero may be the one to use units from various factions.

Some of the units who are decent for getting via Diplomacy are Angels who increase morale by 1 (apart from being powerful units themselves), Minotaurs who have always positive morale, as well as Elementals and Golems, as they are immune to it. Summoning undead will spoil morale of anyone else, but undead creatures themselves aren't affected by that factor, and a good stack of Vampire Lords, Liches, or Black/Dread Knights is a big reinforcement to any army.

Diplomacy together with Visions spell forms a powerful combination that allows a hero to easily see which wandering monsters will join and which will flee. This will greatly enhance the hero's ability to scout areas, giving an early lead in the game and possibly an early victory. As other towns typically cause differently aligned creatures to suffer from bad morale, Necropolis can transform 1st level creatures into Skeletons and avoid this side effect, using Skeleton Transformer.

Diplomacy can also be used well in combination with Demon Farming: new creatures are used as 'meat', to be transformed into Demons, while army's morale doesn't unnecessarily suffer too much, as the player uses only 2 factions in each battle (Inferno and the one neutral units belonged to).

In the endgame, Diplomacy is losing its power, as most wandering monsters are already eliminated from the map, and it's unlikely that someone who could really help your army which is already very big will join (i.e. there is a low opportunity to get 10 Archangels or someone like this) - strong wanderers usually don't join, as they are in map's keypoints and guard something important. Often in tournament and multiplayer games, Diplomacy skill is regarded as an overpowered secondary skill and is frequently banned from competitive play.

Tips

Recommended for: At least one hero, typically a support, on maps with wandering monsters that are not set to 'savage', but preferably to 'aggressive' (i.e., the default setting).

Although a main hero's attack and defense skill help in convincing wandering monsters to join, it typically works well to let a support hero learn this skill instead. This support hero can then borrow troops from your main hero to convince wandering monsters to join and return the troops immediately after. This saves your main hero a skill slot and potentially a lot of movement points.

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External links

• Diplomacy internals - thread on HeroesCommunity
• Tribute to strategists: Heroes of Might and Magic III Manual by Rainalkar, pp. 22-25.

See also:

• Secondary skills