Yrmayn don't diplome gud is an informed characteristic brought out only when game effects don't seem to make sense, unelaborated, no narrative reason nor mechanism to improve given.
If we look at what has actually happened, what do we see?
- Txolla, Hathytta, Memory of Spirits and the Stallionlands rejoin the Core by negotiation, plus a bloodless surrender by Tinshore.
- We blagged the loan of a navy from the KMT.
- Administrations reestablished with barely any violence.
- Diplomatic relations (re)opened with the powers of the Saffron Sea, North Syffryn, the Monsoon Sea and the Hung.
- Multiple states and their somewhat dubious populations persuaded to Touch the Cow. Likewise our cholera treatments accepted, trusted and put into practice.
- Friendly relations established with our local steppe nomads and arrangements made with enough of the rest that we could drive a sacred herd to the Central Empire overland.
- Trade enclaves set up in the Central Empire.
- A multi-year project upgrading the administration in Pamplona.
- Trade deals, arms sales and loans conducted.
- Other attempts at diplomacy and trade failed but it's still institutional experience.
- A formal foreign office founded.
- Balthazar personally talked his way from gouging the Core* to becoming king and he came damn close to talking the Styrmyr round twice.
- Every deal and every threat meticulously kept.
It sure looks like a people who see the value of diplomacy, who practice it on every scale from superpower to tribal village, whose civil service can interface with those of others, whose traders can make deals and whose priests can persuade - in short who are quite good at it.
Now it's true we have some difficulties that not everyone else has. Our religious setup with Mythladism as state religion but near complete toleration of other faiths gets reactions from 'weird' to 'blasphemy!'. Our lack of private land ownership or inheritable kingship gives us very little presence on the international royal marriage market. We don't conquer, we don't set out to devastate and we don't bluff otherwise - this limits the leverage we can get from our military strength - Balthazar can't do a Namar style prestige grab for instance. These are all problems in specific circumstances but they don't add up to being bad at diplomacy.
Our nobles are
on average an arrogant bunch but so are everyone's - it's a noble thing rather than an Ymaryn thing. Even if our average is worse than others', people vary and we have a large population - we can find competent people without sending the incorrigible arseholes on missions where it matters.
Items in yellow would seem to have directly applicable skills for what we're doing with the Rus.
