I found pretty much everyone with Charismatic trait is worthy of friendship, except Napolen. They won't attack you when "pleased". and have a decent aggressiveness to their enemy.

Worst friends are probably catherine and Kublai. They are hard to please, and backstabbing.

Tokugawa is great to have as a friend. Feed him with free military techs - he won't trade them away - and use him as an attack dog. He'll attack anyone who isn't friendly for a small fee, and the chances of anyone else getting him to freindly is negligable. Sure, he can declare on you at pleased, but chances are, he'll hate someone else more :p

I like kublai and cathy as allies. Both are very easy to get to friendly with typical favorite civics.

I really don't like being near people who like police state as favorite civics. You obviously can't get the civic bonus for most of the game and they care less about religion AND declare at pleased. Sucks.

The zealots are probably my favorite friends.

I like anyone who stands out in either military or teching.

My least favorite neighbors are the ones that force you to have a large army in the early game.

One bonus of having Tokugawa has friend is that you won't need to look out on his border, no one is gonna pass it to attack you.

kublai and cathy both makes a lot of demands, and their refuse stop trading/help panalty is -2. They make very expensive friends.

Zealots can be easy friends, but if they run different religion, bad.

Don't forget that Mao Zedong is another AI who is tough to be friendly with...few religion modifiers and his favorite civic is State Property. He also declares at pleased. I'd avoid trying to be friendly with him in favor for, like you said, some of those charismatic leaders. Possibly Boudica, as long as she doesn't have too much land area so she doesn't take off in tech (which isn't likely anyway considering her aggressive trait).

I like zealots. They always hate heathens with a passion. If you stay in no religion they probably attack a heathen anyway. If you adopt their religion you have an almost-friendly AI from religion alone.

And I like people like Gilga, Hamm, Kubilai. They have good early fav civics wich you are going to run anyway most of the times.

Obviously the worst are GK, Shaka and Montezuma. You simply can't stay out of war. Fav civic comes too late and shared religion bonus isn't enough (quite big with Monte, but not enough).

Yesterday I rolled a random map and found myself isolated on a continent with Montezuma. I really did try to keep him quiet until oversea contact: adopted his religion, open borders, free techs, everything. No way. He declared 4 times until 1000AD, destroyed his stack on a hill/walls city every single time and signed peace every time after a couple turns, always giving me all his gold.

Then OB bonus gone, years of peace bonus gone. There is simply no way to avoid war with these guys. And it sucks, because they force you to build A LOT of units. Retired at 1200AD, still missing stuff like MC, construction, literature and generating less than 100 bpt.

I like zealots. They always hate heathens with a passion. If you stay in no religion they probably attack a heathen anyway. If you adopt their religion you have an almost-friendly AI from religion alone.

And I like people like Gilga, Hamm, Kubilai. They have good early fav civics wich you are going to run anyway most of the times.

Obviously the worst are GK, Shaka and Montezuma. You simply can't stay out of war. Fav civic comes too late and shared religion bonus isn't enough (quite big with Monte, but not enough).

Yesterday I rolled a random map and found myself isolated on a continent with Montezuma. I really did try to keep him quiet until oversea contact: adopted his religion, open borders, free techs, everything. No way. He declared 4 times until 1000AD, destroyed his stack on a hill/walls city every single time and signed peace every time after a couple turns, always giving me all his gold.

Then OB bonus gone, years of peace bonus gone. There is simply no way to avoid war with these guys. And it sucks, because they force you to build A LOT of units. Retired at 1200AD, still missing stuff like MC, construction, literature and generating less than 100 bpt.

Usually a hill border city and archers early, followed up by siege/mounted (or anything really, but high base STR units are best) later will hold off warmongers with a fraction of the units, although it still sucks because you're essentially isolated unless you steal tech. At least you can farm some great generals, although I'd prefer killing 1 v 1 AIs such as monty, shaka, and GK. Sometimes their capitols are far off, others you can do it. Regardless, unless you're immortal+ these idiots can't tech for anything without trades, so you can probably stomp them in medieval times and meet the other AIs whilst huge, but backwards. In such a case the best tech path might actually be the bottom one, so you can use maces/xbows/pikes/trebs (if needed, maces/cats/HA to cover vs xbows are often enough). From there, optics/astro aren't far off and will help you equalize. Huge and backwards isn't bad at all. You are still in the running for the UN with #1 pop (which is reasonably likely) and can probably broker your way back in (WFYABTA has a 0 mark, so tech whore) and possibly take the lead.

Missing from most people's list is napoleon, who has the same unitprob as shaka, a low peace weight, and a favorite civic that's far later than the early game. Not being AGG makes him slightly less annoying should he axe or sword rush you, but it's not like he's a slouch even with the weaker melee, and he techs better. I'd rather spawn next to ragnar! But probably not more than GK or Shaka (IMO shaka is #1 worst neighbor).

Great friends:

Tokugawa for all the reasons Phrox gave.
Catherine because it's easy to set her up as the universally despised number 2 (she'll do anything to anyone...) for an easy diplomatic victory.

Still, if Catherine is next to me I'll pick on her from the get go to avoid being boxed in - this goes for most Creative leaders.

***

I find Sitting Bull a fairly useless friend... needy, bad teching partner, too peaceful to stir up trouble and with an annoying tendency to widdle into my aqueducts even if he supposedly likes me.
One thing he's good for, however, is acting as a lightning rod for prospective warmongers: High basepeaceweight to fuel conflicts, strong defense and tendency to settle on hills to ensure the maniacs won't get far.

Great friends:

Tokugawa for all the reasons Phrox gave.
Catherine because it's easy to set her up as the universally despised number 2 (she'll do anything to anyone...) for an easy diplomatic victory.

Still, if Catherine is next to me I'll pick on her from the get go to avoid being boxed in - this goes for most Creative leaders.

***

I find Sitting Bull a fairly useless friend... needy, bad teching partner, too peaceful to stir up trouble and with an annoying tendency to widdle into my aqueducts even if he supposedly likes me.
One thing he's good for, however, is acting as a lightning rod for prospective warmongers: High basepeaceweight to fuel conflicts, strong defense and tendency to settle on hills to ensure the maniacs won't get far.

Haha. I still remember one game where SB spawned next to ragnar, and the peace weight differences caused wars. I wasn't on that continent. When I met them? Ragnar, vassal of SB with 2 cities (!), and SB had like 30 :sad:. That makes him pretty annoying.

Yesterday I rolled a random map and found myself isolated on a continent with Montezuma. I really did try to keep him quiet until oversea contact: adopted his religion, open borders, free techs, everything. No way. He declared 4 times until 1000AD, destroyed his stack on a hill/walls city every single time and signed peace every time after a couple turns, always giving me all his gold.

The Aztecs had something called a flower war. A battle with as its only purpose
taking captives for sacrifice. :). This must have been something like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_war

Ha, true, didn't think about that. I've read about those wars in Gary Jennings' "Aztec". Anyone interested about Aztec culture or history in general should read it. It's a novel, but still has an amazing historical value. The guy put some 10 years of research behind that book.

Haha. I still remember one game where SB spawned next to ragnar, and the peace weight differences caused wars. I wasn't on that continent. When I met them? Ragnar, vassal of SB with 2 cities (!), and SB had like 30 :sad:. That makes him pretty annoying.

I played that game I think - we just had that - it was the Monty game with Gilgamesh on our island - I rushed Gilgy, settled about 30 cities on the land, then fought mehmed, huayna for awhile, and finally went after sitting bull, who was on the same massive tract of land with willem and ragnar - SB had vassalized Ragnar who had like 3-4 cities, and SB had about 30. It took me about 75 turns of war with SB to finally get him to say uncle.

In response to this - here's my summary:

Great friends:
1. Toku - when I've gotten him pleased or friendly, he's an awesome ally.
2. Charlie - I find in a warmonger game I run vassalage quite a bit, and he and I can become buddies that way. He's usually awfully big and we can war together well.
3. Mansa - very simple - ally with him and he and I will skyrocket ahead in tech. Just have to be prepared to backstab him later.

Worst friends (I guess this is asking who do I hate being pleased with? If it's asking for civs I hate most, it's ones like Shaka, Monty or Gilgy, who I can never seem to be even remotely buddy-buddy with):

1. Mehmed - I can never keep him pleased. I know he doesn't declare at pleased, but the last two games I've tried, he'll found a late religion or switch off of vassalage and drop to cautious and then unload a billion naval units on me. I'm sure this is because of him pissing me off my last two games, but right now, he's #1 on this list.

2. Alex - I hate him more than anything - completely untrustworthy. Even at pleased and sharing a war with Cathy, he still backstabs me to fight two wars at once. Ugh.

3. Cathy - responsible for at least 4-5 of my losses in this game. I vividly remember a pleased backstab from her where she sent about 50 cossacks at me in vanilla - I hadn't really heavily protected my border cities near her. No chance. That was also back before I really started to gain an understanding of civ tendencies, so I don't make that same mistake with her nowadays.

catherine is by far my least favorite, i always try to take her out asap, especially if she has lots of room to expand

Never mind best friends, in my games its the best enemy that's usually the most important. If you find yourself running a different religion to Izzy or annoying Monty, you're probably gonna wind up in trouble, but if you make an enemy of ghandi you could adopt a different religion, demand gold, cancel trades, declare war, refuse demands and he'll still end up at pleased :lol:! I like to think of Ghandi as being my best enemy and often choose the side hes not on for exactly that reason. Plus, no matter how hard he techs, if you hit him with a quick surprise attack, no one caps more readily.

Nobody talks about alex like monty/shaka but he's almost as bad. Favorite civic is slightly sooner but that won't stop a phallic symbol mass rush. In other words, he's just as annoying during the portion of the game where the idiot warmongers are the worst.

3. Mansa - very simple - ally with him and he and I will skyrocket ahead in tech. Just have to be prepared to backstab him later.

The problem with Mansa is that those techs you trade with him will belong to every other AI within three turns...

The problem with Mansa is that those techs you trade with him will belong to every other AI within three turns...

AIs ONLY TRADE TECHS TO AIS THAT CAN GIVE THEM SOMETHING FOR IT.

In other words, very frequently tech whoring with an AI like MM or anyone who will trade WFYABTA 15 (like cathy for instance) can put you both ridiculously far ahead of several AIs, such that there won't be any trades to those AIs, which start looking an awful lot like targets.

Tokugawa is nice, if he's not a close neighbour. I'm playing an offline game as Sury. I roll a great capital (4 riverside fur, corn and sheep) but the rest of the land is crap. I get Toku as only neighbour on my landmass but soon meet Hannibal on a nearby continent. I decide to shoot for a religion to spread to the warmongers via Oracle->Confu. Now Toku is expanding furiously even though the land is crap. He settles a city right next to 3rd ring of my capital. I get a city next to it, it becomes the holy confu city.
So here we are.. -2 from close borders, -1 from deity AI hidden modifier and another -1 as Toku base. Did I miss any demerits or do I only have to overcome a -4 score to play nice with Toku? Sure we've got +1 peace and +1 religion, great -2 then, lol.
This game is going to be so brutal..I might actually run Mercantilism, if I survive.

AIs ONLY TRADE TECHS TO AIS THAT CAN GIVE THEM SOMETHING FOR IT.

In other words, very frequently tech whoring with an AI like MM or anyone who will trade WFYABTA 15 (like cathy for instance) can put you both ridiculously far ahead of several AIs, such that there won't be any trades to those AIs, which start looking an awful lot like targets.

I know, I was exagerating. No need to shout at me. :p

What about bribes and reparations though? My experience is that techs do trickle down to the rabble from the likes of Musa...

With Mansa, a few techs here and there do trickle down, and it does keep the global tech rate a bit faster trading with mansa, but I find later in the game he and I start to seriously pull ahead when we're buddies. Then I typically backstab him and beat him down, because he doesn't build enough units. He also tends to capitulate pretty quickly in my experience and will get back to pleased with a city liberation or two, so you can keep him as a buddy as a vassal and start directing his research.

churchill is a good ally, if you don't plan on invasion.

What about bribes and reparations though? My experience is that techs do trickle down to the rabble from the likes of Musa...

Yes that may happen gradually. However, usually it's nothing compared to the beaker advantage the two of you get by exclusive trade whoring.

I'm curious how this works, actually. As I understand it, an AI will not trade a tech that he's the only one that knows, so how can you and the AI leapfrog ahead of everyone else if he won't trade you the techs that he got ahead of the pack? (I'm assuming that my understanding is flawed here somewhere. :))

I'm curious how this works, actually. As I understand it, an AI will not trade a tech that he's the only one that knows, so how can you and the AI leapfrog ahead of everyone else if he won't trade you the techs that he got ahead of the pack? (I'm assuming that my understanding is flawed here somewhere. :))

I'm not an expert on how each AI is coded, but I think you're right that some AI will often hold onto techs they have monopolies on, or if they're building a wonder associated with the tech (often see this with music on someone building sistine, for example). But Mansa very rarely isn't willing to trade techs to me - he'll continue to trade if it means getting techs for him. I think it's totally dependent on which AI you're talking about.

I'm not an expert on how each AI is coded, but I think you're right that some AI will often hold onto techs they have monopolies on, or if they're building a wonder associated with the tech (often see this with music on someone building sistine, for example). But Mansa very rarely isn't willing to trade techs to me - he'll continue to trade if it means getting techs for him. I think it's totally dependent on which AI you're talking about.

Mansa will tech whore regardless.

HOWEVER, no AI will hold monopoly techs if you have them at friendly (they might still with hold wonder techs until the wonder is built, if they've already started the wonder). 1-2 friendly AIs can therefore be a dramatic runaway tech advantage. I've gone runaway tech whore with the likes of kublai khan, Qin, saladin/izzy, zara, lots of AIs really.

Techs do trickle down a bit but at nowhere near the beaker conversion rate you get by trade whoring with a partner or two.

Mansa will tech whore regardless.

HOWEVER, no AI will hold monopoly techs if you have them at friendly (they might still with hold wonder techs until the wonder is built, if they've already started the wonder). 1-2 friendly AIs can therefore be a dramatic runaway tech advantage. I've gone runaway tech whore with the likes of kublai khan, Qin, saladin/izzy, zara, lots of AIs really.

Techs do trickle down a bit but at nowhere near the beaker conversion rate you get by trade whoring with a partner or two.

That's a point I need to remember and learn playing now at emperor more - friendly really is the key to tech whoring with anybody. I've been starting the last 10-20 games trying to focus more on getting an AI or two to friendly - the tech trading is just another reason to do it.

Wow, I didn't realize that. Always thought I was screwed if I wound up sharing an island with only one or two civs- I thought one meant no tech trading, and two meant I couldn't get anything unless they both had it.

Maybe this is better in a new thread, but this is a thread for AI friends: what're some of your best tricks for getting someone to Friendly? Sharing a religion is always good, and acquiescing to requests; sometimes you can't run a favorite civic until late, but it helps. Deliberately starting a war and getting him on your side for the "we fought together" bonus? What do people do in the early game to get that leg up on tech by making someone friendly?

Wow, I didn't realize that. Always thought I was screwed if I wound up sharing an island with only one or two civs- I thought one meant no tech trading, and two meant I couldn't get anything unless they both had it.

Maybe this is better in a new thread, but this is a thread for AI friends: what're some of your best tricks for getting someone to Friendly? Sharing a religion is always good, and acquiescing to requests; sometimes you can't run a favorite civic until late, but it helps. Deliberately starting a war and getting him on your side for the "we fought together" bonus? What do people do in the early game to get that leg up on tech by making someone friendly?

You've hit on the key ones, civics, religion, accepting requests. Gifting a tech or two sometimes helps, and gifting an extra resource. I'll often do an extra corn or pig resource for free to get a +2 with a civ. Sharing a war with them helps as well.

You've hit on the key ones, civics, religion, accepting requests. Gifting a tech or two sometimes helps, and gifting an extra resource. I'll often do an extra corn or pig resource for free to get a +2 with a civ. Sharing a war with them helps as well.

Yeah, that's pretty much all of them. Open borders helps too.

The trick is picking who you side with when there are many AIs, but that's not usually an issue with 1 on 1 spawns or 3 ways.

I had Mansa on a game where space and culture were turned off. He voluntered to be my vassal after I was preparing to invade him. Hey Mansa, tech this, I'll tech that, and after I build the wonder we can trade.

Brenus was my best bud in one game. We shared the religion, went after a neihbor, traded techs. Got along famously. In other games I didn't get along with him.

In general I like the peacenicks as neihgbors though. Good for trading and conquering. What else could you want? Only more recently have I been using the more aggresive civs as allies and with infrequent sucsess.

Worst - Shaka and Joao. Joao Rexes, techs and plays the diplo game well. Shaka is no big deal if he's your only risky border - just take him out. If he gets big on another continent though he can be trouble.

Monty is always pathetic. Wouldn't want to be on a small continent with just him all the same.

Regarding the OP - why are Charismatic leaders so darn likeable and fair? It's obvious, they're charismatic. (drum roll)

Joao is easy to get along with. He likes Hereditary Rule and doesn't declare at pleased. But in my experience he's one of the most demanding leaders.

Prevent DoW from Shaka? Forget it. Fav civic is super-late and he doesn't care about religion (little bonus from shared religion).
And on the higher levels there's absolutely no way to keep him below the power threshold to prevent a DoW.
Monte is in the same league but he's more of a zealot, so it's probably possible to push him to friendly without fav civic bonus.

I don't know man Joao has done some really skeezy things to me. He seems to pick on me even if I'm not his neighbor and I'm not lowest on the power graph. Somehow he techs, Rexes, has military AND has a lot of Espionage. And everyone else likes him! That's the worst part. I'm not saying what I'm about to say is actually true, but it's almost as if his script reads "take out human opponent or at least cause him trouble, he is enemy #1."

Just one man's experience, game after game after game.

And then he's all aloof, pretending he doesn't see me at first, blowing his ring with that fancy hat of his. I...just don't see...why...he hates me so much (sobing, crying.)

I love Hatshepsut, great friend, very dependable imho.
Washington works well for me too.
I don't really have awesome game-knowledge to back it up though.
They just work out well.

I hate Monty, because, well, you know, he's just, you know, Monty :)
Shitting Bull is very much crap too, as he keeps on asking for stuff always all the time. Usually i just stop looking at the proposals after a while, clicking "go away and leave me alone".
Isabella is the same. She's my sworn enemy from the moment i meet her.
Toku isn't too bad, he's kind of a rogue and will join wars.

Hi
I actually find hattie kinda of annoying.

First if she is close by creative can be a pain just by itself but even when she not that close to you she can still be a pain.

It not that she is hard to get friendly with it just the opposite. She is EVERBODYS friend. I get her to like plus 15 or something she is like plus 20 or higher with someone else so that means no votes for AP or UN. Someone dow's on me and not only WONT she help cuz she cant betray her close friends, but there have been more than a cpl games where armies are marching into my back yard through her borders and she wont EVEN do a stop trading request just to close borders cuz that AI her she letting march through to kill me is her BFF too.

And she ALWAYS seems to be wanting to be gifted this or gifted that. Which of course she is ALWAYS "happy to help" when the other AI's trun around and ask it from her. So while she is not as dangerous as cathy or the psychos like monty she is still annoying in her own way, to me anyways.

Kaytie

As others have said, Montezuma has to be one of the worst. I don't think I've managed to even get 'pleased' with him in a single game. Similarly with Isabella, we almost always end up fighting shortly after meeting.

On the whole though, I think my least favourite neighbour to have is Boudica. I'm not a good early warmonger, and I've been stuffed by the Celts far too many times! :)

Absolutely worst friend under normal circumstances (don't need an attack dog) - think Toku is fairly undebatable here.

If you need an attack dog, then I guess MM would be the most useless :D

Best friend... maybe Hannibal, since he techs well, won't trade techs without a good relationship (unlike MM or Gandhi who you don't need to have as friends to tech-whore), and fights well.

I tend to befriend jerks I can get along with rather than the genuinely nice people. As KaytieKat pointed out, the latter can be annoyances in their own right because they'll have conflicting loyalties.
I far prefer to be someone's only friend.

Catherine might be needy... but she usually does well enough to be a good ally. If she likes you enough, you can get her to do anything to anyone (and to be sure you'll eventually backstab her rather than the other way round, you need to be her only friend).
Tokugawa might be an antisocial git, but get on his good side and you'll have a competent military ally whom you can feed cutting edge military tech without having it end up in anyone else's hands.
Monty might be a vicious little bugger, but he's easy to be friends with via religion... just point him at someone else's throat and get an early shared war bonus for a useful lapdog.



By contrast, the people I don't try to befriend are the ones who will be useful whether they like me or not. Sitting Bull acts as a lightning rod even if he hates me... and engaging in phoney wars with him is likely to make the hardcore warmongers my buddies so he's my favourite whipping boy. Musa will happily trade anything with me even if he doesn't love me while being a somewhat indifferent friend... again, no reason to kiss up to him.
Joao tends to have a big underdefended empire, isn't much of an ally and can turn into a monster if left unmolested for too long. More importantly, his head really would look good on a pole (pimp hat and all).