So I was playing my third civ game (first on regent level). I was playing the Germans and found myself all alone on a continent, so that made me happy. Oh yeah.. the game was on a tiny map.. pangea. After conolizing my continent and kicking the egyptians out :) I sent settlers to small coastal islands in between my continent and the main continent (bout 2 times bigger) which contained the Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans. They seemed very buddy like. Then a scrimage broke out on the coastal islands for the territory.. there were horses galore.. but i managed to kick the eyptians and greeks out and settle bout 6 cities there. At this time was was impressed with my self.. hehe.. and thought i was pretty superior so i started to settle down and try to advance myself.. i had been in war for too long. But then the Egyptians started attacking my island coloinies with calvary.. the best thing i had was the swordsman.. a turn later i had knights.. i didn't have saltpeter. I lost half the cities on the islands but was able to produce knights in my main continent and sent them to Egyptian's main continent. I found it a good stragedy to scare them.. i wasn't able to take their main cities.. or even raze them :( but i scared them enough for them to offer peace.. my people weren't too happy with the war.

Soon my culture was engulfing the cities i had lost and my power and tech was rising. Then the Egyptians attacked the islands again, but this time with the Greeks with their calvaries. I had recently gotten democracy so i wasn't prepared but i was able to produce some newly gotten infantry. I thought i could hold out.. but then the romans joined in and i was kicked out of the islands. So i had capitulated back to my main continent.. and they were bombarding me and trying to get at my weak points (they had about 20 galleons! compared to my 3 ironclads). I thought to myself.. don't they have anything better to do than attack me!! I was still stronger than any of them individually so i thought they were trying to prevent my power from growing... soon i made peace.. expensively.. with all three. I tried to stop them from joining in an alliance.. but they wouldn't budge.. i thought because they grew up on the same continent.. they would be a little tense on each other. But no! They attacked me again.. still with calvary.. i held them back but they surprised me agiain by taking a small southern city and then establishing a beachhead. Soon it was surrounded by 12 of my infantry, then i realized it was too late.. my ironclads were furiously hunting down the scores of galleons but they landed and took two major northern cities with Calvaries!! Then the game had a program error.. and now i'm here.

Has anyone eles seen this happen so often? I'm always at the wrong end of the diplomatic stick and always getting ganged up on. I have never seen the AI attack each other (cept for one time when i asked for a military alliance against a weak civ). They aren't playing fair I tell'ya! Oh well.. going to try to restart the game again and try to hold on to my continent.

Civs come in diplomatic groups, and unfortunately in your case the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians are all one group. Germany, France, and England are together as well. Basically it means that civs of one group get along better with civs within that group than with civs outside the group. Add to that the fact that if civs start close together they have centuries to create ties to each other that are extremely hard to break...even if they've been at war.

Case in point...one game I was going for the UN victory but I couldn't get the Babylonians to vote for me, they kept voting for the Zulus...and they'd fought before. Hell I gave them 5-6 techs, gold, and luxuries and they still wouldn't vote for me, I had mutual protection packs and rites of passage...no luck. I didn't meet up with them until 1000 AD, but by then they'd had 5000 years of interaction with the Zulu...I even gave them spaceflight...spaceflight! for chissakes!

Diplomatic Alliances, is kinda like milk. You got it or you dont. If you dont, you had better be a super power because you are going to find yourself against many allied nations when you do go to war.

I myself, even as the largest, most powerful nation in the world, have to choose peace over war at times, swallow pride, and sign alliances to survive. In my own experience, the AI is not very good at capturing/holding enemy cities. However, they are good at causing your enemies to split their forces to deal with your allies as well.

As much as I hate to do it, I often find myself creating lop sided trades simply to maintain good relations (especially nations that have powerfull Navies). Its just one of several things that have to be done. :mad:

However, when it boils down to it, sometimes giving up a few resources is worth it, and is often not missed very much.

ironfang