I should point out that this was a Deity game as well, and I had absolutely NO intention of getting involved in THAT mess!
Actually, the feeling that the AI civs always gang up on the human is correct to a certain extent, but in reality it depends on what you are doing. When we were discussing this game after it was over, Sirian summed up the philosophy behind Civ3 this way:
"You repeatedly mention surprise at how nice all the civs were to you. This shows lack of experience with Sid Meier games in general, and with earlier incarnations of Civilization in particular.
See, Sid has this philosophy of adjusting difficulty in-game to match player performance, ASIDE from the stated difficulty levels. If you are top dog, the civ with the most lands, most population, most productivity, most tech, you are hated by the AI's. They fear you, loathe you, want to tear you down and will band together to do so. By contrast, if you are the midget or weakling, the AI's are designed to cut you slack.
In Civ1 and Civ2, this factor was the all-encompassing factor of the game. If you were top of the power graph, that was it, it was You vs The World. ALL the other civs would hate you and band together, share tech with one another but not with you, form alliances against you, etc etc. You couldn't BUY a friend! Yet... if you suffered... if you had trouble... if you were middle of the pack, they cut you some slack. If you were trailing, they considered you little threat and would bully and pester you less.
The unrelenting hatred of the AI's for the top dog civ is the biggest single detracting factor in Civ1 and Civ2. It's honestly why I quit playing. I vowed not to return to any more Sid games until he moderated the "Screw You" factor a bit. Well, he finally did so in Civ3. Now you can be top of the power graph and still hold on to SOME friends if you deal with them honorably and generously.
Yet the fact remains that Sid still cuts breaks to the struggling player while saddling the successul player with more adversity. You're NEVER going to find any Sid game at any point without this fundamental game design philosophy. They are part of what sets his games apart from others and add to the addictive quality of them.
Which is precisely why players MUST PLAY THROUGH a Deity game to fully comprehend the nature of Civ III. You come up to Deity expecting the AI's to trample all over pathetic little you and it just isn't so. You fall so far behind the AI's with their massive bonuses that you end up, invariably, in last place or darn close to it, for most of the game. From that position, the AI's consider you no threat and will tend to bully you around a lot, but if you suck up, they rarely move aggressively against you."
I've observed this to be very true in the games I've played. When you are ahead, the other civs tend to be against you but they will still deal with you if you treat them fairly and honestly. When you are behind, you largely get ignored and left alone. Players who find that everyone always hates them are probably the ones that break treaties before they end, exploit ROPs to attack, extort cities and tech from the AI... Essentially, you reap what you sow from the AI civs in Civ3.