Point of alliances?

[Martin]

Since they're all now based on trade and international trade is fairly rare until late game by which point most civs hate you for countering some random trait.. it seems to me that the entire idea of alliances is almost utterly pointless.

I only use them now to trap specific ai civs with big armies from joining wars against me. Since they last 60 turns or so, you can't declare war on a declared friend or ally. But when it expires, they flip to red anyway and upto info era never get better than unfriendly.

So pointless ? Seems so.

[Kaihekoa]

Not pointless. You can get international trade routes pretty quickly. You can counter random agendas with other things - open borders, liberating city, returning spy, keeping diplo promise, etc. They only always hate you once you rack up warmonger penalty, but if you're hellbent on conquering the world and everyone in it a la Hitler, don't expect people to trade with or like you.

[Martin]

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

If you think international trade is rare until late game, you're playing very wrong.

I start trading with other civs as soon as possible, and always keep the max number of trade routes active. The way alliances work now works very well for me.

My point is usually you can only reach 1-2 other civs.. there's 5-6 alliance types.. so largely useless. Even if you find someone who likes your government, productions, happyness, size of army, amount of spying and so on and tick all the boxes just to get friendship, then alliance, then actually trade with them. It's alot of work, if you could meet someone, make friends, become allies got a default amount of science and culture, then via trade got a few points more.. it'd work ok, but as it is, almost useless system.

Alliances should be something that help protect you, not just make you more money, wether thats culture money, science money, economy money or religious money.. seems like they've missed the entire point of an alliance. Then dumbed down whatever idea they did have for it.

[Dray Prescot]

There are some (a few, at least one) eurakas or inspirations from having an Alliance, in particular having a high level (level 2) Alliance. Look at the Tech and Civic trees for them.

[Azunai]

pretty sure all alliance types act as defensive pacts - not just non aggression pacts. so if someone attacks you, all your allies will be dragged into that war.

if nothing else, it can lead to a nice big world war 1 scenario.

each alliance type also unlocks some additional perks for both partners when the alliance level increases to level 2 / 3.

played my first R+F game as the cree, so it was kinda natural to sign lots of alliances and use lots of trade routes. with their special trade route bonuses, external routes still yield a decent amount of food & prod. i think there is also a mid/late game diplo policy card that adds food/prod to international routes with allies.

found them quite powerful in a peaceful game. all the major powers in the world were essentially locked in my friendship & alliance system, so i could just build away peacefully for most of the game.

[Tac2i]

I had an economic alliance with the Vikings in my last game for almost the entire duration. Very lucrative and they fought in all my wars as my ally. Had a research alliance with another civ but they eventually back-stabbed me. An 'emergency' was declared against them for that betrayal and I collected a huge amount of gold when I met the victory conditions of that emergency.

[Bangers n Mash]

I've only been playing one rise and shine game so far but I've found alliances really helpful. I've used one to block another nation from stealing my cities through loyalty (so I can build more cities closer to them) and with another I've blocked their religious spread.. and I'm sending missionaries and apostles and slowly but surely wiping their religion off the map. Another I'm waiting for the lev3 alliance to get his suzerain abilities and envoy perks.

So although you're meant to use them with trade.. you can use them for other strategies.

[SamBC]

You're not necessarily going to use every alliance type every game. It will vary on circumstance which one you, and your ally, would prefer.

[Aeekto]

Originally posted by Martin:

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

If you think international trade is rare until late game, you're playing very wrong.

I start trading with other civs as soon as possible, and always keep the max number of trade routes active. The way alliances work now works very well for me.

My point is usually you can only reach 1-2 other civs.. there's 5-6 alliance types.. so largely useless. Even if you find someone who likes your government, productions, happyness, size of army, amount of spying and so on and tick all the boxes just to get friendship, then alliance, then actually trade with them. It's alot of work, if you could meet someone, make friends, become allies got a default amount of science and culture, then via trade got a few points more.. it'd work ok, but as it is, almost useless system.

Alliances should be something that help protect you, not just make you more money, wether thats culture money, science money, economy money or religious money.. seems like they've missed the entire point of an alliance. Then dumbed down whatever idea they did have for it.

They protect you.
Once someone declares war on you, your allies declare war on him.
Same for you... if someone declares war on your allies, you automaticly declare war on him.

[Aleksi]

Originally posted by Aeekto:

Originally posted by Martin:

My point is usually you can only reach 1-2 other civs.. there's 5-6 alliance types.. so largely useless. Even if you find someone who likes your government, productions, happyness, size of army, amount of spying and so on and tick all the boxes just to get friendship, then alliance, then actually trade with them. It's alot of work, if you could meet someone, make friends, become allies got a default amount of science and culture, then via trade got a few points more.. it'd work ok, but as it is, almost useless system.

Alliances should be something that help protect you, not just make you more money, wether thats culture money, science money, economy money or religious money.. seems like they've missed the entire point of an alliance. Then dumbed down whatever idea they did have for it.

They protect you.
Once someone declares war on you, your allies declare war on him.
Same for you... if someone declares war on your allies, you automaticly declare war on him.

Isn't that only with military alliance?

[Despiser]

They are useful to vault into a golden age, provided you have shared vision active. A quick way to explore large sections of the map.

[SamBC]

Originally posted by ADawg:

Originally posted by Aeekto:

They protect you.
Once someone declares war on you, your allies declare war on him.
Same for you... if someone declares war on your allies, you automaticly declare war on him.

Isn't that only with military alliance?

No.

[Martin]

Originally posted by Azunai:

found them quite powerful in a peaceful game. all the major powers in the world were essentially locked in my friendship & alliance system, so i could just build away peacefully for most of the game.

Thats really weird, because I found in the two games I've played so far, that none of the other civs would even go above unfriendly. No matter the trading, gifting of luxuries etc.. they just forver hated the cree, I was getting joint war after joint war repeatedly, even with a moderate army, from civs with no soldiers etc.. and everytime I meet them ingame they're always extremely aggressive. Whilst telling you to be friends with everyone.

As for alliances protecting you.. only from other hated civs.. or unfriendly ones, if the ai is in friendship or even alliance which in midgame seems fairly usual, or they all hate you.. then even in joint wars the don't join in, in my last game as gengis I was allied to russia, america and egypt and was getting joint warred on by china and japan almost continually and my allies never attacked either of them.

[Salma Hayek]

Originally posted by Martin:

Thats really weird, because I found in the two games I've played so far, that none of the other civs would even go above unfriendly. No matter the trading, gifting of luxuries etc.. they just forver hated the cree, I was getting joint war after joint war repeatedly, even with a moderate army, from civs with no soldiers etc.. and everytime I meet them ingame they're always extremely aggressive. Whilst telling you to be friends with everyone.

As for alliances protecting you.. only from other hated civs.. or unfriendly ones, if the ai is in friendship or even alliance which in midgame seems fairly usual, or they all hate you.. then even in joint wars the don't join in, in my last game as gengis I was allied to russia, america and egypt and was getting joint warred on by china and japan almost continually and my allies never attacked either of them.

Send delegations right away, check their agendas, check their relations to other civs, ask to declare friendship when you can, don't be unlucky...

The value in alliance is not only concerning wars, economic and reserach alliances are quite good and a good incentive to actually make friends and not betray them at the first occasion like it was pretty much the case before in my experience.

[Aeekto]

Originally posted by ADawg:

Originally posted by Aeekto:

They protect you.
Once someone declares war on you, your allies declare war on him.
Same for you... if someone declares war on your allies, you automaticly declare war on him.

Isn't that only with military alliance?

no.
if you read the description it clearly states you get a combat bonus if you have a military alliance.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

I do think the alliance system needs a little refining. It is heavily geared to the advantage of civs that have lots of trade routes. I would prefer if the bonuses were not based on trade, or if there were at least more non-trade-related bonuses.

Also, there probably needs to be a restriction that prevents a civilization from attacking a city-state if it is allied to that city-state's suzerain. I have been avoiding alliances in my recent games because the AI likes to ally with me and then knock off all my city-states while I can't do anything about it.