Suppose you are a king and your trade routes start being pillaged by bandits...

>The Party must be hired to kill the rival king
If you want peace, you don't remove the opposing government, you force it to your will.
>The resulting succession crisis should result in a civil war
Yeah, there surely won't be any bandits when society falls apart and people can't rely on their home economy for their bread any more.

Get your head cut off and be replaced by someone who doesn't allow his country to be so weak in relation to its neighbors that it can't take unilateral military action against illegal belligerents without fear of military reprisal.

You could lay a honey trap with a border town, hide a bunch of soldiers inside. Might be expensive maintaining that garrison if they don't attack thou.

Then you can remove the bandits without fear of a coordinated reprisal.

The depopulated areas then be settled by your loyal and law abiding citizens.

I will inform the king of the other kingdom that I shall be visiting his castle within the month in order to discuss tightening the security of these trade routes so that both of our peoples will not need to suffer these bandits any longer. Then I will bring as many of my best remaining soldiers along with my personal guard in two caravans made to look like merchant wagons full of goods. When the bandits strike, the presence of my soldiers killing them will be completely justified as they are there as part of my personal retinue.

Or I'll just put bounties on them and have random murderhobo adventurers do it for me.

I was going to say that it would have been easier to conquer the place from the start, but allowing the place to fall to chaos first would have the advantage of giving you legitimacy in your taking the reigns.
Your idea is sound.

>other countries find out you killed a king and absorbed his territory over the fact he wasn't helping you hunt bandits
Do you think they're just going to sit by and do nothing after Ragnar the Brutal starts setting up outposts near their borders? You'd be crushed by them all long before you could even say, "But he started it brah!"

>King and his entire line is assassinated by unknown elements
>Next king over swoops right in and absorbs his land before his corpse is cold
>"No-one will suspect a thing!"

>>Next king over swoops right in and absorbs his land before his corpse is cold
That's not what was implied.
Read the quote chain.

Have your army take off their uniform
March them over and crush the bandits
>Oh no, a suspiciously large and well-organized bandit group crossed over to your country and fled back to mine, we will do everything to find them
Hang some random horse thieves and invite the other country's king to the execution
???
Profit

Do you even diplomacy bro?

Wait, so you genuinely think a land is just going to remain unoccupied for long enough to avoid suspicion? You think other lords or generals in that land are just going to ignore that seat that's open for the taking? You think surrounding countries aren't going to take an interest? You either get it fast or someone else will.

But that would still solve the banditry problem. And if one of your other neighbors acts too quickly, you can even imply that he may have been involved in the assassination plot, thus removing you from suspicion.
It's a win-win.

>faulting a country for being weak
Does this apply to Luxemburg in WW2?

If Luxembourg had been better armed, they could have stopped WW2 before it even happened.

...

Send adventurers to deal with the problem.

That's your answer to everything.

>Turning a land to chaos will solve the banditry problem
>Someone who takes over, after a king and his entire line is assassinated, isn't going to be a paranoid mess who brings a bunch of other problems to your kingdom

This all hinges on the fact that everyone wouldn't already know it was you to begin with (since he might hold otherwise great relations), that the assassins wouldn't get caught and give you up after a few rounds of interrogation with Dorak the Anus Destroyer, the other kingdom you're warring with wouldn't take it up as a foothold against you, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

When the solution works for every problem, what's the issue?

Overleveled adventurers making trouble.

>King and his entire line is assassinated by unknown elements
>Next king over swoops right in and absorbs his land before his corpse is cold
>"No-one will suspect a thing!"

>You think other lords or generals in that land are just going to ignore that seat that's open for the taking?

Make up your mind - is it completely natural to swoop in when the king is dead or is it suspicious?

Send them a diplomat of one sort or another. Preferably someone that you don't really care about or has annoyed you enough times that you're willing to get rid of them if things go badly. But send the diplomat to meet with the bandits in secret.

Offer them two different metal bars. One of gold and one of iron. If they accept the gold, then you will support them in secret with weapons, materials, and alibis. All they have to do is instead of raiding, pilliaging, and plundering their greasy black hearts out on your people, start doing it to the other king. You'll even offer them full pardons for everything if they're willing to be peacable to you. Of course murder, rape, and torture will require some sort of punishment, but we'll work that out later.

However, if they choose the iron bar, then at most you've only lost a bar of gold and a rather unliked diplomat. No biggie. But you will start capturing them if at all possible. Maybe one or two here, a couple there, but you will capture at least a few. Once you've captured any of them, you'll make sure that they're tortured to within an inch of their lives in every sense of the word. Physically, mentally, religiously, and in every other manner. Finally, at the cusp of their agony, when they're begging for death, you send them back to their friends with no eyes, lips, ears, feet, hands, and genitals, leaving only their tongue. That way you can send them a simple, effective, and memorable message.

"Continue, and worse will happen."

>My solution is to bribe them to attack the person who can crush them instantly and who is currently shielding them

>And if they don't go for the bribe, I will capture them with my complete lack of any army because it's hiding in a different country as pr OP which is why I need a solution that doesn't involve my army.

Stellar job, you'll make grand vizier within the week.

Hire a group of adventurers to go and kill the bandits. If any members of the team are caught or killed, disavow any knowledge of their actions.

>It's one or the other and the same rules apply to everyone

No. If the King of Banditzerland (and his whole line) is assassinated and the King of Gungho jumps in and absorbs all his lands then that's obviously suspicious. If a minister or military general of Banditzerland, who is well-known to be loyal to the former royal family and has the support of the people, steps up to take control and avoid anarchy, then that's a whole other matter entirely. And even then people would be suspicious of him, difference is it wouldn't be an invading fucking force led by a foreign king known to be having troubles with Banditzerland at the time of the assassination.

Great job, now you're out a bar of gold and the bandits know all your secrets. What kind of diplomat you dislike and send on a suicide mission isn't going to betray you at the first opportunity? In fact what reason does this guy have to not just fuck off with the gold himself?

>Russia at war with Germans
>csar dies
>German nobleman gets to power
>Russia makes peace with Germans
>Russians angry with csar, no one suspects a German plot

>Russia at war with Germany again
>Germans send in troublemaker
>csar dies
>troublemaker gets to power
>Russia makes peace with Germany
>Russia considers Germany a good ally despite ideological differences until the Germans attack them

It seems to work just fine.

War-time is different to peace-time and a tyrannical installation over an already dictatorial country isn't a big deal (but in that situation you're Germany, so you're fucked either way), and even then nobody dealt with or trusted Russia and in this situation Russian lands are the key to your trade routes.

It's not about if they think shit is suspicious or not. If they aren't suspicious then they aren't kinging properly.

The question is if they are going to do anything about it.

That basically happened to the Western Roman Empire I think.

Here trusted diplomat. Take this here bag of gold coins to the Germanic tribes to buy their loyalty and also for payment in defending that area from people beyond the boarder.

And neither that diplomat or the bag of gold were ever seen again.

hire isis, al-qaeda, or some other """""moderate""""" groups to do the dirty work for me
plausible deniability ftw

Ask Fortinbras

The dude literally walked in on a homicide of the King his Queen and the Prince, and just sat on the throne without firing a shot.

Mobilize your army and crush them. Wipe out a few villages too, just in case the bandits are hiding in villages. Blame the general for being over zealous in national defense. Make sure merchants are aware that your neighboring kingdom is a den of villainy with a weak king that can't secure his lands. Make sure the neighboring kingdoms neighbors become aware of this too. Put your army on patrol and training exercises, led by your 'disgraced' general as 'punishment'. Double that general's salary.

plague the shit out of your supplies, let bandits hit it and drag it back to the other kingdom. BAM plague ridden douchebag kingdom.

Put tariffs on any goods coming from the other kingdom, that only goes to help victims of the bandits of course.

>Mobilize your army and crush them.

Why do so many of you shitheads not read OP before answering OP?

Also, if possible, increase trade with other neighbors and discourage trade with the problem kingdom "until this bandit situation gets sorted out." A government is more than just military force, use economic pressures. The tariffs won't directly hurt the king, but they'll put pressure on the merchant who'll put pressure on the king to actually solve the problem so they can go back to making shekels.

Secretly fund raiders (adventurers, preferably from outside either country) that counter-raid the other king's raiders and claim that they did it of their own volition.

I read it. The go to response was to mobilize your army and crush them, the only thing stopping you was apologetics from the neighboring king. Fuck that guy. Inaction would be a sign of weakness. So I turn it around and make him look like the weak one by killing the bandits and wiping out villages on the border that 'harbor bandits.' I'll set fire to the crops in that region too. Now the rival king looks weak, merchants spread rumors about him not being able to police his lands and his neighbors get the same information.

If he moves his army to respond, my army will be ready, he'll have no local crops to supply his army, merchants might be hesitant to sell to him due to all the banditry and his other neighbors will be paying attention to his shittery, possibly massing forces of their own on his other borders to prevent bandits slipping through.

If he knows whats good for him, he'll thank me for solving his problem and the matter will be resolved. The worst thing would be to bend over like a cuck and let him fuck me. No. Not happening. He's the one getting fucked if he starts something. I'm Vlad the Impaler, not a Disney prince. He's lucky I don't answer his bandit problem with an undead problem and go full scorched earth on our borders.

In fact, use those tariffs to subsidize merchants that trade perform trade in other kingoms that might be a bit more dangerous to travel to. Or use half the funds for that, the other half for your treasury* as taxes might be a little less overall due to the dispute with the neighboring kingdom.

>*The other half actually goes to funding some bandits in another kingdom that neighbors the kingdom giving you trouble(to do essentially what's happening to you, but for some plausible deniability) or rebels within the problem kingdom. Once King Fuckhead stops supporting his bandits, the tariffs stop. It's now more profitable for both sides to enact trade as before and the funding to thorns in King Fuckhead 's stops.

Send a large caravan and attempt to have a rumor started that there is an object or objects of great value being transported by it. Make sure the caravan is decently armed and guarded (as anything else would be suspicious) and then fill a few large enclosed wagons with some of my better soldiers under strict orders to be silent while travelling.

Kings are judged not by their skill at arms or diplomacy but by the amount of ruses they deploy.

>this thread
Never give a crown to murderhobos.

This is were your players come in.

Have more soldiers guard the caravans?

The absolute brinksman

Man, even Trump is a better diplomat than you.
You two are not the only countries in the world, your aggressive invasion proves one thing - that you can't be trusted and that you are irresponsible enough to attack any neighbour at a drop of a hat. You can't seriously expect other parties to stand back and look. Unless you have the strength to back up, but since the fall of Rome no country were in such situation - and considering that the go to setting is something quasimedieval then you're probably petty king of Bumfuckistan, with 15 cities submitting to your rule.

Send in adventurers, bury the bodies at sea, and give a speech saying "We got him."
EZ.

If your neighbor is looking for a war, then he'll start a war sooner or later, only by then he'll have weakened your economy and strengthened his own (since more traders will have sold their wares cheaper in his kingdom since your isn't safe to visit anymore) further. In that case, it won't matter what your wish is, war will come. If your neighbor is only looking to weaken you without starting an all-out conflict, then he won't be anymore forced to declare war on you than you already are to declare war on him.
What I'd do is try to ally with another nation and with rich merchants to punish this nation which plunders their caravans into your kingdom.

>OP asks for non-military solution to some bandits being supported by another king? Fuck you OP only option is blood and fire. Anything less than an invasion justified by unsupported claims of douchieness is simply a sign of weakness and everyone will point and laugh at me if I don't do it.
>All the other kings will side with me since the other guy 'totally had it coming', and no one will side against me for slaughtering a bunch of peasants and desolating the neighbouring countryside when someone doesn't do what I want. They will also want to be my friends in the future since I showed how well I keep things stable and profitable.
>My troops stationed in enemy territory will be well supplied thanks to bandit-free supply lines, while the enemy troops on home soil will have no supplies since the land I burned is the only source of supplies in the world for them.
>I will totally win and the other guy will thank me for my reasonable reaction to a bunch of bandits.
>Bandits will stop attacking my caravans on the border since they are now possibly homeless and penniless, with no food since I destroyed it all, and I am obviously not someone they will feel hatred towards, because I won.
>I will prove I am not weak. I will prove I am not insecure. Everything will go perfectly because I want it to.

Anywho, actual options seem to boil down to:
1) Get rid of the bandits without using your army (the popular choice, using mercs or murderhobos, either by laying a trap with your caravans or hunting them down in the other kingdom)
2) Put pressure on the opposing King directly or indirectly until he stops supporting them. (the counter-bandit solution, the your-merchants-suffert-too solution, as well as the various 'pull strings outside your two kingdoms' solutions)

send some fuckin medieval green beret/CIA types into the other country to train local dissident groups that will definitely never become your mortal enemies in a future conflict into semi-competent guerilla warfare experts.

The standard way; put an official bounty out on bandits but do nothing, then quietly hire a bunch of adventureres through a non-public intermediary and take out the bandits without my official orders and then have them come back to the city for their reward money.
Doing shit like this is the entire cornerstone of the adventuring mercenary economy and since as a King I used to do that myself a bit before I got shacked with this shit job I should fucking know.

Then you're in trouble when the crises is over and you try to raise taxes, though. Like the Spanish Cortas. The Citizens were trained to resist the Caliphate on their borders, they decided they didn't want to pay more taxes, so a deal was struck where they would send representatives every year to approve new taxes. That's good for the citizens, but not necessarily if you're the king

For bonus points fund these dissidents by selling weapons to another unrelated kingdom under an arms embargo that will definitely never become hostile in the future, because you definitely never overthrew their democratically elected government that one time

So change your country into a warrior society, conquer the neighboring places and turn them into the farmers to your Spartan elite.

And when it turns out that the first group becomes too influential make sure to wage a war against it that will destabilise the whole region, make sure to dispose of some random kings who have some strategic resources along the way in a way that will force their administration, old intelligence and military officers to join the first group, just this time more radical.
What could ever go wrong?

Ah, yeah, don't forget to fund the most oppressive and aggressive regime in the region for the whole time; ones, who originally funded the group.

>How does one solve this without war?
I'd like to imagine myself to be the kind of king who would take the wellbeing of his subjects very seriously. The Divine Right to Rule also comes with a Divine Duty to Protect. If the other king doesn't do anything to fight the bandits or at least allow my troops access to his territory to fight them, I'd probably use this as an excuse to fuck him up, fuck the bandits up and maybe get some land while doing it.

But you wanted a solution without war.
1. Hire adventurers. They don't technically fight under any nation's flag, but if I can hire them to fuck the bandits' shit up that solves the problem.
2. Alternatively I can turn the tables on the enemy king. Send over some spies to scout 'em out, then offer them money to not only not attack my subjects, but to start raiding settlements of the enemy king. Hopefully this means the enemy king is forced to solve the problem, which means everybody's happy (except the bandits but fuck 'em).
3. Through various means (some less legal than others) try to find information that reveals a direct link between the enemy king and the bandits. Blackmail the king into solving the problem, on the pain of all this information being leaked to his vassals. They wouldn't want to find out that their king is actually a bandit lord who ursurped the throne in order to allow banditry to run rampant, wouldn't they? Alright, maybe that's not entirely true but nobody can call me a liar if I tell them this. I just... creatively reinterpreted the facts.

Form an alliance with other local powers and invade the country then set up a puppet dictator under my control. Local powers will be compensated with acquisition of natural resources and etc.

Go to The Wizard and ask him to summon a horde of monsters to sic on the bandits and then let them run amok in the other king's land. That'll show him.

poison (that has a delayed effect : say a day) gets dropped in wells all across the other kingdom. Frame a minority in the other country if possible ie use (several layers of ) cut-outs to hire folk from that group to do the poisoning then set them up for capture to provoke a crackdown bythe other kingdom possibly pogroms. Discrete aid to the minority could result in destabilisng the other kingdom.
Do it just before harvest so the crops are partly uncollected: have your dupes torch fieldstoo. Send aid to the areas on your border. Up to you whether or not the medicine given is more poison. Maybe send excess serfs to the border towns (groundwork for secession in a generation or two). Have agents start a whispering campaign about the other king being useless and have bard make fun of him.

Spread rumors about him being a cretin and a weakling who's either unwilling or unable to distribute the kings justice. The nobles will start to see him as weak and use the opportunity to their benefit while the common folk get upset the king isn't doing his duties.
The king will then be forced into action to maintain legitimacy.

>The enemy king legalizes divorces
>+0.25 legitimacy every year
>Focuses on sword mana
>Uses harsh treatment wherever possible

In that case I take the stability hit and cast war of agression.

I send my own troops to attack neighboring neutral kingdoms while claiming to be part of the bandits from the rival kingdom. As our war chest grows from the spoils the kingdoms will gradually turn against our rival. As the raids escalate the neutral kingdoms will eventually declare war on the rival kingdom to get them to stop. Then when all the kingdoms are tired from war my army will swoop in and conquer everyone! I will be the new king of all the realms!

The fool thinks I can't see his game? His life and lands are forfeit! His people will die or serve me as slaves! I will personally lead my army to annihilate his forces and I will strangle him with my own two hands!

It's a stupid question anyway. There would be no rival power close to my empire.

I hear murderhobos are easy to come by, hire a few trough several layers of middlemen so that the trail is so long no one would chase it.

>Trump
You're a soyboy faggot.
Turn that around. The Bandit king is the one making aggressive moves, invading your territory. Taking a pacifist liberal approach to diplomacy is pointless, considering your opponent is already engaged in violent subterfuge.

Raising the stakes to illustrate how severe a war will be is the only real option. I prefer the direct approach, others in this thread suggest violent subterfuge, such as hiring mercs or adventurers.

Brinkmanship is a valid strategy. See how much the bandit king really wants a war. If he really wants a war, no diplomatic action is going to stop him. If he's just shit-testing, call his bluff and make him back down.

Why wouldn’t I want to start a war? If the king is relying on bandits to harass my people his army is weak. I close my borders, nobody gets in or out without my say so, then I mobilize my army; we march to the border, I plan out a siege on the nearest city with walls. Then we march during the night to cover our movements, with scouts ahead of the army so we don’t get ambushed. When we reach the city we crush their underdefended walls and capture the city. I put a minor lord in charge of the city with a sum of three hundred men and we move on to crushing all resistance until we reach the capital enacting total war along the way. We salt their fields and burn their forests, execute anyone older then five that’s not in the cities, so they have no culture; and we sell the children into slavery. When they finally mobilize their army it will be too late, we got them by the balls. I kill the king and marry his children to my men who have proved themselves to my country. All the bandits are executed on the spot and with all these people without a king I put one of my own heirs on their throne. Boom profit

As your pic suggests, more garrisons along the borders and trade routes with the turd king. Raise a tax on imports from his kingdom to pay for them.

Step one: Find out why the fuck the other king is suddenly being a cunt with you. What are his interests or grudges.

So long as you keep them happy and gainfully employed somehow, even if it means paying bar sluts to fangirl over them, you should be good.

I leave my trusted advisers and immediate family in control of the kingdom as I depart with one or two bodyguards on a diplomatic tour of the neighboring country. On my way I just so happen to discover a bandit camp or two and destroy them, presenting the heads of the vanquished criminals as a gift to my generous hosts.

I'd refer you to The Prince on this matter. Refusing to take direct action after you've clearly been slighted undermines your power, so acting swiftly and decisively to crush these bandits is the best diplomatic solution.

Yes, the other lord can raise a fuss afterwards, but it's not going to look good for him to start a war with you over some bandits that he clearly couldn't deal with. As you said, there are more than just your two realms.

Hire a group of murderhobos to take care of the bandits. Meanwhile hire a more operator group of adventurers to take advantage of the chaos caused by loose murderhobos to destabilize the king's power. A third group will simultaneously sow seeds of rebellion in key locations of the kingdom. This should lead to the murderhobos following a path of opportunity straight to the king, and to the forefront of a revolution. The second group will work to remove evidence of my involvement and draw outside threats to keep the king unable to deal with the issues angering the population. Finally the third group will instill a new leader who will be open to cooperation, preferably some distant cousin who will be glad to marry into a more influential family line.