Never declare friendship and they will be your friends

[smallfish]

Originally Posted by binhthuy71

It seems to me that signing DoFs is, like so many other aspects of Civ, dependent on your situation. In my recent (And first) OCC game in Civ 5 I was able to lose a cultural victory by less than a dozen turns (Another Civ took Space) because I'd signed an early DoF and maintained it throughout the game.

In brief:
Playing as Siam.
Inca are my nearest neighbor and they start spamming cities. Usual AI shenanigans follow.
Mohawks are next-nearest and they offer DoF. Several turns of trade and "gimme" follow.
Inca DoW on me in the Medieval Era. I have enough units for an effective defense, but not enough for a meaningful counterattack.
I ask the Mohawks to DoW on the Inca. They agree without asking for anything in return.
Mohawks beat the Inca down to one city.

Same thing happened with me, the Ottomans and Persia.

All three of us started on the same continent, but the Ottomans had the least space to expand. So naturally they coveted me. Right from the start when I saw Persia neutral and Friendly Ottomans offering Open Borders I knew there was trouble.

I declined, but that didn't stop Suleiman from DOWing ten or so turns later. Then he also made the mistake of DOWing the Persians.

Throughout our history, its been that way. We would have peace, the Ottomans even gave me everything but the farm, and then after the expiration, they declare war like clockwork. Me and the Persians, who were friends for a long, long time, eventually got sick and tired of his white peace routine that after the third DOW, we simply stopped caring about letting him off the hook.

Eventually the superior Persian army crushed the Ottomans like a twig... which set the stage for my eventual domination of the continent.

[Ritzy Cat]

I've experimented along with DoFs.

Some games I start where I seem to not be near any civilizations and I accept every single DoF given to me, in which I receive one from just about every nation. I accept them all, and they don't seem to mind as I sit back and watch all of my "friends" shoot at each other. But, one can only assume that is a purely situational occurrence because that does not happen to me often...

[pspboy7]

Hehe, my problem is signing DoF without thinking ahead. I agree that signing DoF with everyone is a bad idea, and is probably even worse with one that is right close to your own lands. Probably better to sign when you know what they are up to.